Month: May 2017

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Something Wonderful

Something Wonderful: Bluegrass Saturday Morning

Photo of a bluegrass banjo player

I’m very fortunate to have grown up with parents who took me all sorts of places. We went on vacations to the beach and on picnics in the mountains, we went to museums and historic villages, we went to ballets and folk festivals. I am a woman with many interests because of my parents.

At one folk festival, a banjo player was kind enough to show me a couple of chords, even though I was only 10. That started my love affair with bluegrass.

I did go through a period of time in my teens when I kept my distance from the genre. Bluegrass seemed too much like country, which I completely disliked at the time. (I’m still not a big fan of country, but there are songs I enjoy.) The thing is, while bluegrass is associated with country music, it’s much more than that. When I ran across this quote by Bill Monroe, the “Father of Bluegrass,” I knew why bluegrass is so attractive to me: “[Bluegrass is] Scottish bagpipes and ole-time fiddlin’. It’s Methodist and Holiness and Baptist. It’s blues and jazz, and it has a high lonesome sound.”

In my 20s I stopped pretending bluegrass no longer interested me. When I discovered Bluegrass Saturday Morning on KBEM 88.5 FM, a Minneapolis radio station that usually plays jazz, I embraced the show. It runs on Saturdays (surprise!), 7-11 a.m. Central Time, and it’s immediately followed by a related hour-long show, Bluegrass Review.

Both shows are as wonderful as they are because of their host, Phil Nusbaum, an expert on bluegrass. He has broadened and deepened my understanding of the genre through his weekly selections and his commentary during these programs. When he retires (and I hope that won’t be for a while), the bluegrass world will experience a significant loss.

Until I started listening to Bluegrass Saturday Morning, my very limited knowledge of bluegrass was confined to more traditional tunes, like my favorite cut from the only bluegrass album I owned growing up.

While I still enjoy traditional songs, Nusbaum has introduced me to a wider range of bluegrass, and I’ve become a big fan of more modern covers of jazz and rock tunes, such as this take on “Caravan”:

You can stream Bluegrass Saturday Morning from anywhere with an Internet connection. Listen live at jazz88.fm. The show is archived for one week, so you can also stream it after it has aired. Bluegrass Review is a syndicated show which plays in 13 states and in Lanena, Tasmania, Australia. Like Bluegrass Saturday Morning, it is archived for one week.

If you’re new to bluegrass, I strongly suggest you listen for a while before giving up on it. There’s a pretty big difference between an old traditional tune from the 1940s and more a recent one, so it’s worth giving this genre some time instead of judging it from a couple of songs. Perhaps, like me, you’ll fall in love with it.

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Make a Difference

Make a Difference: “It’s Not About Me”

Life is not about me, it's about love.

Repeat after me: “It’s not about me.”

Most of us know that, but in the stresses of everyday life, it can be easy for us to act as if we really think otherwise. When I’m feeling rushed and like my to-do list is about to overwhelm me, the people around me never move fast enough. I get fed up and can be anything but patient and kind.

The best solution to this is to simplify our lives; when we are calmer, it’s much easier to be the loving people we aspire to be. But as a working mom who juggles side projects, I understand that achieving that simplicity can be a challenge. So we need to make “It’s not about me” our mantra, and we need to make looking out for others a habit.

In a hurry? (When am I not?) Take a deep breath and resist snapping at someone who is slowing you down. Let someone ahead of you in line. Take time to listen, even when you have no time. (Yes, these are all easier said than done. I’m not good at them, but I believe that these practices can make me a better person and that they will not, in the end, significantly affect how much I get done or how quickly I get to the next place I’m going.)

Annoyed by that driver who cut you off or who is tailgating or [fill in your pet peeve here]? Do not — I repeat — do not give them a one-finger salute or let their driving affect your own. Let it go. They’re probably just as stressed as you are. Maybe, just maybe, your considerate driving will catch on… if not with them, then with other drivers around you.

Sort of want to go to that party but not sure if you’ll feel like it on the actual day of the event? As an introvert, I understand… but as someone who has hosted gatherings, I know how frustrating it can be when you can’t get a remotely accurate guest count. Be the person who makes a commitment and — barring an emergency — sticks to it.

Practice the little things: holding a door open, putting the divider down after you put your groceries on the conveyor belt, smiling instead of scowling. Say a little prayer of blessing for the people around you, or a prayer of thanks for the good things in your life.

None of this means that your life doesn’t matter. On the contrary, it means that how you act can make a real difference in the lives of those around you, that you have the power to alter the course of someone’s day.

Life is not about me… it’s about love.

Let’s practice that together.

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Something Wonderful

Something Wonderful: Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun

Self-portrait of Madame Vigee-LeBrun with her daughter
Self-Portrait With Her Daughter, Julie, Louise Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Although her story is less dramatic than Artemisia Gentileschi’s, French painter Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun’s history includes both success and exile. She is best known for her portraits of nobility, especially of Marie Antoinette and her family. As a favorite of the queen, she had to flee during the French revolution. Until she was able to return to France in 1804, she traveled from country to country; her work during this period includes a portrait of Catherine the Great’s granddaughters, Alexandra and Elena Pavlovna. She painted for decades and died at the age of 86.

Marie Antoinette
Marie Antoinette in a Muslin Dress, Louise Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Vigée Le Brun’s paintings seem far more conventional than Gentileschi’s, but they’re still beautiful. And while her portraits today do not raise eyebrows like Gentileschi’s Susanna or Judith, I found during my research that she caused a bit of scandal by painting herself smiling with an open mouth, which simply wasn’t done at the time.

My favorite paintings by Vigée Le Brun are her self-portraits. Like Gentileschi, she painted herself at work. I also love her paintings of herself with her daughter; while I’m certain that she was skilled at flattering her subjects, I believe the affection I see between mother and daughter was genuine.

Were you previously aware of this painter? Which of her portraits are your favorites?

Self-portrait by Madame Vigee Lebrun
Self-portrait, Louise Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
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Make a Difference

Make a Difference: Landscape for Pollinators

landscape for pollinators

I have an employer that does many wonderful things. One of the projects my employer has tackled has been a series of pollinator gardens. I’ve been working to support and promote this project, so pollinators have been very much on my mind lately.

You probably know that pollinators are suffering worrisome declines. This isn’t just true for honeybees, but also bumblebees and other native bees, butterflies, and other insects, as well as pollinating birds and mammals.

If you have a yard, you can help fight pollinator declines through your landscaping choices.

You probably know that you can help pollinators through what you choose to plant. Some pollinators have very specific needs, such as monarch butterflies, which require native milkweed to successfully reproduce. While you may choose to research plants that appeal to a particular pollinator, the best thing you can do for pollinators in general is to choose plants that are native to your area. If you do nothing else, consider pollinators when you choose plants for your yard.

Pollinators don’t just need food; they need water. This is easy to provide through features like birdbaths or small ponds.

You also can help pollinators through providing natural and artificial shelters. Don’t keep a pristine yard; leave stumps, brush piles, and bare earth for pollinator nesting sites. You can also create nesting sites that are attractive to native bees.

In addition to providing pollinators with food, water, and shelter, you can support them by avoiding neonicotinoid pesticides. Not only should you check the labels of any pesticides you buy, you should also ask nurseries from which you buy plants if the plants are treated with neonicotinoids — a surprising number are, even if the plants are designated as pollinator-friendly.

Of course, you can choose to do more, such as supporting further research into pollinator declines or working to reduce or even ban the use of neonicotinoids. But if you’re a homeowner who wants to make a difference for pollinators, the best place to start is in your own backyard.

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Something Wonderful

Something Wonderful: The Art of Manliness

The Art of Manliness is a website and a podcast.
Despite the name, The Art of Manliness isn’t just for men.

It’s a website. It’s a podcast. It has “manliness” at the top of the page in big bold letters, so why is a woman recommending this to her mixed-gender audience?

Simple: both the site and the podcast have lots of good stuff that isn’t really just for men.

Sure, there are posts I can’t relate to, like “Five Ways a Beard Will Make Your Winter Better (and Even Save Your Life).” But for every piece like that, there are more that can be useful to anyone, such as “Decluttering Your Digital Life,” “Seven Simple Exercises That Undo the Damage of Sitting,” “The Basics of Finishing Wood,” “The Unexpected Upside of a Lean Season,” and many more.

The podcast is also interesting, often covering gender-neutral advice on things like approaching life from an action-oriented mindset, and fascinating topics like “Everything You Know About Ninjas Is Wrong.”

The site has a slightly conservative view of men and manliness; as a guest writer on using guns for home defense puts it, “A man has always been the king of his castle and protector of his domain.” This conservative bent shows up in the look of the site, too. While part of me likes the vintage look, it signals a return to the past “when men were men” (my words, not the site’s). The illustrations feature almost exclusively white people; I’m guessing this is an oversight on the part of the creators, but I do wish they would make more of an effort to be inclusive.

Readers should note that, despite the old-fashioned look to the site, it’s fairly modern — there’s even an article on being a stay-at-home dad. I encourage my more liberal readers to give the site and podcast a try, because there’s lots of good stuff on both of them. Someday I may write more about this as a “make a difference” post, but as someone who has loved ones who are conservative and loved ones who are liberal, I believe we can coexist and learn from each other, even when we disagree.

There is one danger to the site: Once you start exploring it, you can easily get sucked down a rabbit hole and spend entirely too much time moving from article to article. It might be wise to set strict limits on the amount of time you spend on the site each day!

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Make a Difference

Make a Difference: Speak Up

Protest picture
By Takver from Australia [CC BY-SA 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Last year I wrote about the importance of not being judgmental. Nothing I say here is intended to contradict that.

But as I mentioned in that blog post, there’s a difference between being judgmental and distinguishing between right and wrong. And sometimes, whether our intention is to gently correct someone or to courageously draw attention to injustice, we need to speak up in favor of what’s right and against what’s wrong.

We don’t like hearing that we’re wrong; in fact, we tend to screen out information that contradicts what we believe. But even if we feel convicted, it can be hard for us to admit it. Confessing wrong-doing requires both humility and vulnerability. For that reason, I believe that the most powerful way to speak up is to do so lovingly within a trusting relationship. In healthy families, parents will correct their children without making the children feel that they are in danger of losing their parents’ love.

To my shame, I can show this in action through a personal story. I attended a college that did not have cheerleaders. We did have a student-led pep band, and I was an active member of the band during basketball season. When I was dating my husband, I told him a story about how we once played “The Stripper” when the opposing team’s cheerleaders came out onto the basketball court. When I told him about how the cheerleaders ran off the court once we started playing, he asked me, “Did you look in their eyes?”

I felt horrible. Suddenly an incident that I’d found amusing made me realize that, at my worst, I could be a pretty unfeeling person. But while I would hope I could have heard that message no matter who had delivered it or how they had done so, it helped that it came from someone who loved me and who was not threatening to withdraw his love because of my participation in something so hurtful. When we can gently correct others as my husband corrected me, we probably will find that people are more receptive to our message.

That doesn’t mean we never speak up under other circumstances. It does mean we try to use good judgment about when and how to speak up. There are no hard and fast rules; it comes down to weighing the severity of the offense. If I point out relatively minor offenses to others, I’m probably slipping into judgmentalism rather than standing up for what’s right.

But there are things you don’t let go. Anyone who had been present at that basketball game would have been right to tell us to knock it off. Whether we’re calling someone on the racist joke they just told or speaking out at a town hall meeting about an issue that concerns us, we need to be courageous enough to stand up for what’s right.

In a polarized world, it can be easy either to remain silent, telling ourselves that we won’t convince anyone anyway, or to jump into the fray with gusto, verbally tearing other people down. We’re fallible, and we’re going to mess up as we decide when and how to speak out. But if we are silent, we are giving our implicit approval to wrongdoing, and possibly even collaborating with wrongdoers. If we want to make a difference, we must be people who stand up for what is right and speak out against what is wrong.

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Something Wonderful

Something Wonderful: Ahmad Jamal

Ahmad Jamal

I became interested in jazz when I was in my teens, and of all the jazz musicians I admired, I was most in love with pianist Ahmad Jamal. One of my earliest jazz purchases was his album Digital Works. I’ve been fortunate enough to hear him live more than once at New Year’s Eve gigs in Washington, D.C.’s Blues Alley, as well as a performance at the Dakota in Minneapolis.

Jamal has been recording since the early 1950s and has continued to record into his 80s, fulfilling the stereotype of the long-lived jazz musician. He’s incredibly prolific, but of all the pieces he’s recorded over the decades, he is best known for his take on “Poinciana.”

What I love best about Jamal’s music is his lush style. I’ve never experienced synesthesia, but I do associate his music with the color green. There is a density to his sound that is unmistakably his own.

You can sample his music on his YouTube channel, on his website, or in this NPR post. Any of the working links on the NPR post are worth your while, but I especially recommend the last one, “Autumn Rain.” I first heard that song on his album Rossiter Road, which was released in 1986. I enjoyed the Rossiter Road version, but I think this more recent recording is better.

If you decide to purchase one of his (many) albums, I recommend you start with Digital Works. It opens with the beloved “Poinciana” and includes marvelous interpretations of “Midnight Sun” (possibly my favorite song on the album), “Footprints,” “Theme From M*A*S*H,” and “Wave.” His only composition on the album, “Biencavo,” is excellent.

Of course, despite the fact that Jamal is considered to be one of the most influential jazz pianists in the history of the genre, if jazz isn’t your thing, you may come away from listening to him in much the same frame of mind as a certain person in my life who accompanied me to the concert at the Dakota. When we left, I asked them what they thought. Their diplomatic reply? “It was jazz.”

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Make a Difference

Make a Difference: Reach Out on Mother’s Day

reach out to hurting people on Mother's Day

My husband does many wonderful things. If the basement floods or something breaks down, he tackles the problem. He helps my mom by carrying heavy things for her or fixing her computer. For one of our anniversaries, he cooked up a fabulous surprise that included breakfast and Star Blazers, a show we’d both loved when we were kids.

He’s not very good at Mother’s Day. Whether it’s because holidays don’t mean as much to him as they do to me or because he can sometimes be forgetful (even when I remind him), more than one Mother’s Day came and went with him forgetting to take our child shopping for some sort of gift or card. That didn’t happen every single Mother’s Day, but it did happen a lot. And it hurt.

What would have made my Mother’s Day would have been if someone had offered to shop with my child sometime before the holiday. That never happened, but one of my friends who lived far away and who knew about the situation did once send me a Mother’s Day card signed by her children, and that meant a lot to me.

I’m not the saintly person I aspire to be. There are plenty of times I’ve wallowed in my pain. But I have learned over the years that I can use that pain for good; it can teach me to look out for others in the same or similar situations. The fact is, there are plenty of other people for whom Mother’s Day is a difficult day. Some feel forgotten, like I did. Some are single mothers of young children. Some are mourning the loss of their mother or a child. Some are in a difficult relationship with their mother or with one or more children. Some women wonder if they’ll ever have the child they want so badly.

For the past few years, I’ve put out a call on Facebook: “If this Mother’s Day will be hard for you, let me know.” Not many people speak up, and so far the most I’ve been able to do is send a card to someone who lost their mother. But I try to keep an eye out for people could use a little extra love and support on Mother’s Day. I do the same for Father’s Day.

Whether Mother’s Day is painful or wonderful or just another day for you, I’d like to ask you to join me this year in looking for people who might be hurting. Do you know a mom who would be thrilled if you took her kids shopping for gifts ahead of time? Is there someone who would enjoy a card or a phone call or some flowers? Is there someone you could invite to brunch? Do you know a single mom who might appreciate some time to herself?

There are lots of articles out there telling women who are feeling hurt on Mother’s Day to remember it’s just one day and to count their blessings. While there is a certain truth to that, let’s also acknowledge that their pain is real. Let’s stop telling people that they shouldn’t feel hurt and, instead, let’s actively seek ways we can be kind to them. What hurting people need isn’t a lecture. It’s love.

 

 

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Something Wonderful

Something Wonderful: Zone One

Zone One by Colson Whitehead

I’m not really into horror or zombies. Blood, guts, jump scares, and excessive suspense just aren’t my thing.

Colson Whitehead’s book Zone One is one of the exceptions to this rule… though part of why I like it is because Whitehead limits the blood, guts, and jump scares and delivers just the right amount of suspense. It’s more literary fiction than a horror story about zombies, but the sense of menace is there.

You may have heard of the author, since he just won a Pulitzer this year for his novel The Underground Railroad. It’s not his first award. In 2002, he received a MacArthur Fellowship (a.k.a., “the Genius Grant”), and he’s also received a Guggenheim Fellowship, a PEN award, and the National Book Award (also for The Underground Railroad), among other prizes.

When I first read Zone One, The Underground Railroad had not yet exploded onto the scene, and I was woefully ignorant of Whitehead and his work. I picked it up because it was on a list of science fiction and fantasy by women and people of color, nestled alongside names like Octavia Butler and Ursula Le Guin. Because it was recommended, I decided to read it, although I felt a bit wary of the topic. By the end of the book, I wanted more.

The story takes place during reconstruction efforts after the worst part of a zombie apocalypse, although Whitehead never uses the term “zombie.” Instead, he writes of a plague — transmitted by bite from “skels” — shambling undead creatures who seek out human flesh. Most humans affected by the plague become skels, but a handful become “stragglers,” harmless individuals frozen in time as they stare into copy machines or sit in their places of work, seemingly waiting for the next client. “Mark Spitz” (we never learn his real name) is part of a team that is cleaning up stragglers in “Zone One,” a walled off section of Manhattan that has been cleared of most skels by the Marines and is now being prepared to once more hold human inhabitants. Although the core of the story takes place over three days, Whitehead includes plenty of flashbacks, allowing the reader to gradually piece together the story of the apocalypse and how Mark Spitz has survived to date.

Whitehead balances the mood of the book perfectly from start to finish. He introduces us to the horror of the skels early on, letting us know that, although Zone One is largely free of the creatures, there are still a few the Marines did not get — and outside the wall there are plenty more, constantly being shot down by patrolling soldiers. This horror is mixed with the optimism that people feel as the United States begins to rebuild itself bit by bit and re-establish some contact with other parts of the world, with sadness over the losses that have occurred in the lives of the survivors, and with a good dose of humor to keep the book from getting too dark.

Many writers can tell a good story, but Whitehead is one of those who goes beyond that. He’s a master of the written word. It’s hard for me to pick one passage from the book to introduce you to his style, but this part of his description of Mark Spitz can give you an idea:

He staked out the B or the B chose him: it was his native land, and in high school and college he did not stray over the county line. At any rate his lot was irrevocable. He was not made team captain, nor was he the last one picked. He side-stepped detention and honor rolls with equal aplomb. Mark Spitz’s high school had abolished the yearbook practice of nominating students the Most Likely to Do This or That, in the spirit of universal self-esteem following a host of acrimonious parent summits, but his most appropriate designation would have been Most Likely Not to Be Named Most Likely Anything, and this was not a category. His aptitude lay in the well-executed middle, never shining, never flunking, but gathering himself for what it took to progress past life’s next random obstacle. It was his solemn expertise.

Also, not surprising for a recipient of a genius grant, Whitehead is smart enough to tell a story that is realistic. He spots the clichés that make no sense and corrects them.

In the cinema of end-times, the roads feeding the evacuated city are often clear, and the routes out of town clotted with paralyzed vehicles. … It makes for a stark visual image, the crazy hero returning to the doomed metropolis to save his kid or gal or to hunt down the encrypted computer file that might — just might — reverse disaster, driving a hundred miles an hour into the hexed zip codes when all the other citizens are vamoosing, wide-eyed in terror, mouths decorated with flecks of white foam.

In Mark Spitz’s particular apocalypse, the human beings were messy and did not obey rules, and every lane in and out, every artery and vein, was filled with outbound traffic.

I said that when I finished this book, I wanted more. Unfortunately, this seems to have been Whitehead’s only foray into this particular territory. No matter. He has other books that sound intriguing — not just The Underground Railroad but four other novels and two nonfiction books. I have a feeling that any of them could be worth your while, but my recommendation today is that — even if you don’t like horror — you pick up a copy of Zone One and immerse yourself in Whitehead’s writing.