Solitude

Tags

noise pollution, relaxing, silence, traffic

Or as Elmer Fudd said, “Be vewy, vewy kwiet.”

I was going to title this piece ” Sounds of Silence” but then I would probably owe Paul Simon 3 cents for using his already copyrighted song title although I am not using it for personal profit.

I could have titled the piece ” In My Solitude” but I would have to write a check to the Duke Ellington estate.

I live in a neighborhood where traffic varies from bustling to meandering to not at all. That being said the noise level generated by cars, trucks and busses can sometimes seem annoying and overwhelming, intrusive and too much especially when a Harley roars past at midnight on a hot July night.

I was going to write ” Hot August Night” but then I would owe Neil Diamond money.

The point here is neighborhood noise, traffic, lawn mowers, string trimmers, leaf blowers and other gas powered implements of garden maintenance and upkeep is something we’re stuck with as we have heaped these aural indignities upon ourselves. I use an electric mower so I’m half guilty of being a noise merchant.

When I was a kid we pushed the mowers and swept up the leaves. Now everyone needs horsepower. Noisy horsepower at that.

Earlier this week there was marked lack of traffic and since it was raining a marked lack of power lawn mowers. In other words it was very, very quiet – See Elmer Fudd above.

And so the ambient noise that had somehow become reassuring was all but absent as though there were no people around anywhere within earshot. And that was not reassuring.

The din of cars, mowers, occasional helicopters reminds me there are people somewhere nearby.

When it’s quiet, like they say in the old western movies,” It’s too quiet out there, I don’t like it,” part of me tends to agree.

The place was really quiet back in March and April and into May. We all know why. Then the traffic returned along with speeding, driving while texting and running red lights.

I’ve been to places where the lack of sound, the silence is itself a sound. I have camped in the woods and visited friends who live near Nowheresville and it gets really quiet out there.

It takes me a while to get used to hearing nothing. My nervous system is accustomed to being stimulated by the low hum of something making noise somewhere.

At first I really don’t like it but as my brain starts to adapt to the sounds of silence (sorry Paul) I can always feel a sense of relief and I wonder what it was like when it was always this quiet.

Were people less tense? Was peace of mind really achievable?

They say that it you are really at peace with yourself you can hear corn grow on a hot July night. That takes introspection and quiet time and a whole new level of relaxation.

So which is it? The reassuring hum of machines or the reassuring sound of nothing?

I think nothing beats something hands down but it’s been so long since any of us have really heard nothing we don’t know what nothing or silence really sounds like. Our ears seem to need to be constantly filled. In most cases they get assaulted and our stress level goes up and up.

I mentioned to friend today that I found spot to run so far from everything that I only hear my feet hitting the ground and my breath. That’s it.

It’s a brief respite but some day I would like to live where the lack of sound is it’s own sound.

Where the night sky is dark and stars are visible by the thousands.

Maybe the words of the words of the prophets ARE written on the subway walls and tenement halls.

If you see Paul Simon tell him I owe him a buck.

That’s Some Catch

Tags

bullies, Catch 22, humor, irony, Joseph Heller

That Catch would be Catch -22 as in Joseph Heller’s novel of the same name.

I think I read it for the first time when I was in high school and again several times since then. When my daughter had it assigned to her in English class we sort of read it together. My original copy is long gone so I’m turning pages in hers from 2008.

Given the times in which we live, how many different ways can we all say “Uncertain?” the book sadly makes sense of what we’re going through when Heller describes autocratic bullies with a lust for power and we don’t care who gets hurt.

One scene is about briefings where men can ask questions. Only the big shots don’t like the kind of questions being asked.

Those people are no longer invited to briefings. The only ones allowed into the briefings are the ones who don’t ask questions.

So they hold briefings but no one asks questions and the briefings are discontinued because no one asks questions.

I still have a ways to go in the book but another episode strikes me as eerily happening in our present present.

One Colonel says we can’t admit to this terrible mistake so another one says we should boast about it.

Boasting about doing what one would normally be ashamed of doing. As if that makes what you did somehow legit.

It’s the best Catch there is.

Guitars Around the House

Tags

cats, guitar stands, Guitars

I would be inclined to keep my guitars more accessible on stands rather than in cases if I didn’t have two cats.

The cats can’t tip over the piano.

The cats very well can send a guitar flying which, as you know, they (guitars) are not meant to do.

Something about the landing.

Politics, Money and Dead Barbarians

Tags

politics

Kelly Loeffler of Georgia is running for election to the US Senate. Her main qualification being she is very wealthy and has donated money to Donald Trump’s campaign.

She is running a tv ad ostensibly to secure her bona fides as conservative featuring Attila The Hun who wants to kill “All the Liberal Scribes.”

She has voted with Trump 100% of the time which in itself ought to be grounds for disqualification and a thorough psychological examination.

Woman, man, person, camera, TV, whatever.

Aligning herself with a ruthless conquerer she has lowered the bar for political endorsements.

Future ads will feature Caligula, Ivan the Terrible, Snidley Whiplash, Vlad the Impaler, Kaiser Wilhelm and Blackbeard the Pirate.

Attila’s publicist said that the leader of the Huns had not been consulted as to the use of his name nor likeness was not being compensated for either and planned to file suit in Federal Court, assuming we’ll still have them in 60 days or so alleging fraud, theft and perjury along with libel and slander as he in no way ever encouraged the killing of scribes, liberal or otherwise.

FOX News called the suit frivolous and vowed to feature it at least twelve times an hour while the world at large continues to burn and hurtle towards disaster.

On Being in the Right Place at the Right Time

Tags

game shows, groceries, luck, The Price is Right

I caught a repeat or encore as they like to say episode of The Price is Right yesterday.

It must have been a repeat since no one seems to be successfully suing the Governor to get game shows back on the air with live audiences.

There was fellow who had won whatever prize he really didn’t need by correctly guessing ( without going over) the price of a pair of jet skis or a pool table or a full assortment of garden tool including a riding mower.

He was playing something called “The Grocery Game” where he needed to guess correctly whether the price of a certain grocery store item was higher or lower than X. I think that was the premise anyway.

The guy is just demolishing the game, every word out of his mouth is a winner and just before the final question the host, a Mr. D. Carey of Cleveland, Ohio asks the guy what he does for a living.

He says, and I am not making this up…

He says -” I’m in the Grocery business” and proceeds to knock the only thing standing between him and 10 grand out of the park.

Better than being in the wrong place at the right time or the right place at the wrong time or the wrong place at the wrong time.

Can This Marriage Be Saved?

Tags

Connecticut, humor, husbands, Jello, marriage, the 1950's, wives

When I was a kid growing up on the mean streets of Long Island I remember that my Mom often bought what used to be called “Women’s Service Magazines” at the local supermarket.

There was Redbook, Family Circle, Better Homes and Gardens, Good Housekeeping and so on. The mags were chock full of ways to make your life and the lives of your family better often in just a few simple steps.

There were recipes, laundry hints, ideas for dealing with pets and so on and so on.

There were also room set photos of impossibly sunny and airy kitchens, enormous living rooms, sun rooms (who even knew what sun room was?) and gorgeous flower beds.

These places only existed in a far off land where it never rained or snowed, no kid ever got a runny nose and the family car was replaced every two years.

This land was called Connecticut.

Seriously, I remember one of the magazines had a self help recurring monthly feature for women and it was called “CAN THIS MARRIAGE BE SAVED?” I forget where the question mark goes, inside or outside the quote marks.

There would be a case study of a marriage ostensibly on the rocks and a team of experts would analyze the situation regarding the relationship and render a verdict at the end of the article right before the Jell-o and meatloaf recipes on page 78.

I have no way of knowing of these articles were actually written by women or men I guess or if they were plain fiction like much of what comes out of the mouth of the current occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

And I also don’t know if anyone took the advice to heart and left the cad or went to counseling or whipped up a lemon pie with graham cracker crust in 5 easy no bake steps.

Which brings us, you and me dear reader to the point of this piece.

Dear Abby still lives on in syndication and in my local newspaper.

One of today’s letters was from an unhappy wife who had a husband known as a pillar of the community to the outside world but was a cad (see above) at home.

The final sentence from the women went something like this:

” I sleep in my own bedroom with the dog.”

Can this marriage be saved?

I’m going out on a limb and saying – Nah.

Take the dog and the Jell-o with you.

Words is my Business

Tags

emojis, language, word

I have to admit that although I might not readily accept it running all summer has finally jogged (no pun untended) the creative side of my brain, namely the side where I think of words, assemble them into sentences and put them on paper or whatever this page is called in the E world.

Today’s thoughts come to you courtesy of a 5 miler last week where I came up with the following while trying to escape the current hell cesspool we find ourselves inhabiting.

It seems to me these emoji things are taking over our written language as people instead of assembling cogent thoughts merely poke a little yellow smiling or crying face and send it as a reply or a reaction to whatever it is to which I’m currently complaining or commenting.

Cave people drew pictures of antelopes because they didn’t have words and once they got language they stopped communicating with pictures.

Hieroglyphics were fine in their time but their time and the Pharaohs passed.

I don’t think I need to overstate my point with an illustration and I am resisting the urge to add a little picture that might make sense these days but I couldn’t find a picture of hell and a cesspool that would fit.

A Perfect XC Day

Tags

Memories, Running, September, xc

Off on the roads this afternoon.

Out in the sun.

Partly cloudy.

Cool breezes.

Warm sweat on my forehead.

Cool sweat on my arms.

Just like I remember it all those Septembers ago.

Defense

Tags

Covid 19, masks

No, not as in a football fan’s homemade sign – A large letter D and a picket fence made out of cardboard.

Years ago and there still may be something out there called ” Defensive Driving” in which you not only drove your car but were extra vigilant in looking out for dangerous drivers on the roads all around you.

Maybe it still is a thing. I don’t know. I think I have taken it one step further now with “Defensive Living.” And it concerns Covid 19 and people not wearing masks.

I was in my local supermarket yesterday and as I approached the milk refrigerator there was a customer, a woman who was not masked and so seeing this I stayed off her port bow by about thirty feet until she left the area.

Fully expecting a dust up at some point with her I decided my reply to any argument or accusation would be this:

” I’m wearing a mask because I care about me. Not you.”

Not very charitable I know but in the early days of this hell when we started wearing masks it was all about my mask protects you and yours protects me.

Clearly, appealing people’s better angels and altruistic tendencies didn’t work so now I’m only in it for me. It’s a fact that wearing mask protects me to some extent certainly more than if I did not wear one.

If masks are so ineffective in prevent the spread of anything airborne I suggest that at your next surgery just tell the docs and OR techs they can go maskless. Might as well dispense with scrubbing up and gloves and even the sterile OR.

Just have your appendix out in the parking lot.

Laughing

Tags

Covid 19, laughing, Midnight Cowboy, Seinfeld, Thanksgiving Day Parade

And no, not as The Guess Who tune from way back when.

This morning as I was between keep busy and make work projects I found myself in front of the teevee. I thought, what heck, let’s see what’s on.

All the morning happy/sad/ tragic/stupid news shows were over and I fell upon an episode of Seinfeld from 199something.

First of all, it’s amazing me that a show that went off the air 25 years ago is still making money.

This particular episode was the one where George thinks he buys Jon Voight’s Chrysler LeBaron, Mom and Pop abscond with all Jerry’s sneakers and Jerry knocks a model replica of the Empire State Building out a window and it lands on the Woody Woodpecker balloon deflating it right before the Macy’s Thanksgiving parade.

There are bunch of other subplots as there always are on Seinfeld.

I’m sure I had maybe seen this episode when it originally aired and most likely in reruns or “encore” episodes as they like to say.

For the first time in a long time I laughed.

Out Loud for Pete’s sakes.

And I heard myself laugh and it stunned me since I haven’t let myself go and laugh in months. Nothing seems or seemed funny. No kidding.

So there you have it. I laughed out loud and I think it felt good, certainly strange since I hadn’t heard that sound come of my mouth in months.

The laugh just hung there in the air like a comic thought balloon, like I could see it.

And then the more I reflected on it I felt a little sad seeing and knowing what I and probably all of us have missed.

The kicker or the button on the show , as we like to say in show business, is a shot of Jerry and Kramer on a bus on their way to Parsippany, NJ.

The music underneath is ” Everybody’s Talkin’.”

Of course it’s the closer from ” Midnight Cowboy” which I did see in the real movies back when we all went to real movies.

I gotta check. Maybe that laugh is still somewhere in the tv room.