Who knew?

That Elizabeth Bishop wrote a poem about lichens? Well, not really– it's entitled "The Shampoo"– but has there ever been a more lovely, or apt, description?

The still explosions on the rocks,
the lichens, grow
by spreading, gray, concentric shocks.
They have arranged
to meet the rings around the moon, although
within our memories they have not changed.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving has always been my favorite holiday--I suspect many other Americans feel the same way. Sure, it is built on a myth (i.e., lie) of pilgrim-native camaraderie that kind of glosses over that whole genocide thing. Still, it is a holiday with its heart in the right place. As nation-creation myths go, it is an admirable one.

We have developed our own little traditions for Thanksgiving... inviting members of our adopted west coast "family" to join us for the meal is an essential aspect, and I always read a poem, sometimes to the groans of the assembled guests. This Thanksgiving story of Korean immigrants in Hibbing, MN, is heartwarming, and features the roast turkey. But I am here to tell you that turkey is not essential. Last year in my house it was paella, and this year lasagne. Next year, perhaps, in honor of my Korean friend, bibimbap? I'll leave him in charge of the kimchi.

Henry Coe State Park

You seek solitude? California's second largest state park, Henry Coe is only an hour's drive from the heart of Silicon Valley, but on a Monday in November, you might as well be in the Trinity wilderness or the middle of the Mojave. It's not a spectacular landscape, but spectacular is not why you are here. As you tramp up and down the folded ridges, you picture a California before the settlers, before even the internet. The tree-sized manzanitas, with their voluptuous whorls and knots; a mint blossom that has no idea what month it is; a varied thrush alighting in a black oak, its leaves muted gold. Before the settlers, these Eurasian grasses would all have been forbs and native bunch grasses, like the patch of blue-green California fescue that has somehow reclaimed the top of Middle Ridge. You will return.

A little Schubert for y'all

Played by my son's band.
Schubert: Symphony no 9 in C major, D 944 "Great"
NEC Philharmonia, cond. Hugh Wolff, 6 November, 2014

Can Music Be Perfect? Vol. 49

When the composition achieves perfection, does it follow that any performance of it must fall short? I reckon not.

 

First-person headline firsts

When was the first time the venerable NY Times referred to the article's reporter in the first person in a headline? Perhaps in columns it's been happening a while. In this case, a worthwhile development.

David Carr: "Calling Out Bill Cosby’s Media Enablers, Including Myself"

Can Music Be Perfect? Vol. 48

The term singer-songwriter was invented for music like this.

A "favorable development" for the U.S. economy... if not for the planet...

Jim Hamilton: Lower oil prices and the U.S. economy
New York Times: Climate Change Threatens to Strip the Identity of Glacier National Park