tina tuesday... and there was flan!

Seriously!

I was in Pooler,

with mi amiga, 

Barbara,

for a double header

at the Royal

and our luncheon

at Jalapenos -

of shrimp ceviche

for each of us -

included

this delightful

dessert!

(smile!)

I had carefully selected the movie times to allow for a leisurely dine at Slapfish, but it was gone.

That's okay, we still had seafood!

We had two fabulous sports movies, too!

Both were set in the 1950's, though we hadn't realized they had that in common.

The first was "The Long Game", featuring a a group of teenaged, Mexican-American, golfers, in Texas, called the San Felipe Mustangs.

They won the State Championship in 1957, a year before I was born.

I told Barbara I'm going to recommend that one to my brother, Smitty, as he loves golf.

The second movie, "Maidaan", was an Indian film.

Nope, no Bollywood in this one, just futbol - i.e., "soccer" - and lots of it!

The focus was firmly on the football coach, Syed Abdul Rahim, who was under constant attack for using players from all over India, rather than only choosing those from the state of Bengal.

The film begins in 1952, with the Indian team being soundly defeated, 10 -1, in the Asian Games, leading the council to want a new coach.

Instead, he convinces them to allow him full rein to choose the best players from all over India, with him being solely responsible for their losses.

The movie then followed him on his scouting trips, on the training of the players, and on their trips to the Olympics in the intervening years (a feat no other Indian team has managed in the last 62 years).

The film ends with their successful - Gold!!! - entry at the 1962 Asian Games.

Very exciting... but also a bit sad for me.

The coach had lung cancer for several years, and died in 1962.

1962.

That was the year my brother Ronnie was born...

and he died of lung cancer...

and would have been 62 years old in July this year.

I snapped the photo of the sun setting as we were done, with the palm trees lending a tropical flair and reminding me what a special day this has been.

i thank You, God.

not for another 6 months!

Yes, that was the news from my cardiologist today -

he'll see me in six months!

Not in three, or four - 

nosirreebob!

Six months!

(smile!)

I really did try to tell him that the warm weather was the reason my heart beat on time.

Just look at how steady that line of temperatures is that started yesterday!

In the eighties!!!

Oh, I do so love it...

and so does my warm heart.

That calls for a bit of poetry -

no, even better, a haiku!

Even better than that

is a knock knock joke haiku!

Here's just the thing, 

courtesy of Danny Beam!

"Knock knock!!!"

Who's there?

"Hike"

Hike who?

Unsuspecting son,

Dad waiting with bated breath,

Sets the perfect trap.

 

Hahahaha!!! Hahaha!!!

I do so love a good pun!!!

blonde flowers bloomin'

If I'd gone to Hilton Head, I would have missed them...

and watching their delighted faces as they ran the spiral

around the base of the Japanese magnolia.

If I'd gone to Hilton Head for a movie... 

I would have missed seeing them dancing

in and out of the rows of tiny purple flowers

that run vertically in my front yard.

If I had gone to Hilton Head with the physicist...

that bag of blackberry brambles and sticker vines,

that brown bag with withered lantana of 2023,

that stepping stool would not have been there

for the blonde flowers in Mrs. Ansley's tree.

If...

then...

what tiny words for perspective.

If I had gone to Hilton Head...

I would not have been here...

right place, right time.

i thank You, God.

God is... LOVE, part two

This one was also posted by Bob Bueling on fb.

Amazingly, it runs in the same vein as the other.

Usually his posts are humor-driven, but these philosophical ones are very good.

I do wish Philo Cafe or Grandpa were still around so I could discuss them in depth.

 

-- -- -- -- -- 

 

There is an old tale where the rabbi is asked by one of his students 

"Why did God create atheists?"

 

After a long pause, the rabbi finally responded with a soft but sincere voice.

"God created atheists," he said, 

"to teach us the most important lesson of them all -

the lesson of true compassion.

You see, when an atheist performs an act of charity, 

visits someone who is sick, 

helps someone in need, 

and cares for the world, 

he is not doing so because of some religious teaching.

He does not believe that God commanded him to perform this act.

In fact, he does not believe in God at all, 

so his actions are based on his own sense of morality.

Look at the kindness he bestows on others simply because he feels it to be right.

When someone reaches out to you for help, 

you should never say, 'I'll pray that God will help you.'

Instead, for that moment, you should become an atheist -  

imagine there is no God who could help, 

and say, 'I will help you.' "

- Martin Buber, "Tales of Hasidim" (published in English in 1991)

God is ... LOVE

I reposted this on fb, from Bob Bueling's page.

Here it is again, for those not on that social media.

----------------

When Einstein gave lectures at U.S. universities, the question students asked him most was: Do you believe in God? And he always answered: I believe in the God of Spinoza.

Baruch de Spinoza was a Dutch philosopher considered one of the great rationalists of 17th century philosophy, along with Descartes.
According to Spinoza, God would say: 

“Stop praying. I want you to go out into the world and enjoy your life. I want you to sing, have fun and enjoy everything I've made for you."
“Stop going into those dark, cold temples that you built yourself and saying they are my house. My house is in the mountains, in the woods, rivers, lakes, beaches. That's where I live and there I express my love for you."
“Stop blaming me for your miserable life; I never told you there was anything wrong with you or that you were a sinner, or that your sexuality was a bad thing. Sex is a gift I have given you and with which you can express your love, your ecstasy, your joy. So don't blame me for everything that others made you believe."
“Stop reading alleged sacred scriptures that have nothing to do with me. If you can't read me in a sunrise, in a landscape, in the look of your friends, in your son's eyes — you will find me in no book!"
“Stop asking me, ‘Will you tell me how to do my job?’ Stop being so scared of me. I do not judge you or criticize you, nor get angry or bothered. I am pure love."
“Stop asking for forgiveness, there's nothing to forgive. If I made you, I filled you with passions, limitations, pleasures, feelings, needs, inconsistencies, and best of all, free will. Why would I blame you if you respond to something I put in you? How could I punish you for being the way you are, if I'm the one who made you? Do you think I could create a place to burn all my children who behave badly for the rest of eternity? What kind of god would do that?"
“Respect your peers, and don't give what you don't want for yourself. All I ask is that you pay attention in your life—alertness is your guide."
“My beloved, this life is not a test, not a step on the way, not a rehearsal, not a prelude to paradise. This life is the only thing here and now—and it is all you need."
“I have set you absolutely free, no prizes or punishments, no sins or virtues, no one carries a marker, no one keeps a record."
You are absolutely free to create in your life. It’s you who creates heaven or hell."
“Live as if there is nothing beyond this life, as if this is your only chance to enjoy, to love, to exist. Then you will have enjoyed the opportunity I gave you. And if there is an afterlife, rest assured that I won't ask if you behaved right or wrong, I'll ask, ‘Did you like it? Did you have fun? What did you enjoy the most? What did you learn?’ "
“Stop believing in me; believing is assuming, guessing, imagining. I don't want you to believe in me, I want you to believe in you. I want you to feel me in you when you kiss your beloved, when you tuck in your little girl, when you caress your dog, when you bathe in the sea."
“Stop praising me. What kind of egomaniac God do you think I am? I'm bored with being praised. I'm tired of being thanked. Feeling grateful? Prove it by taking care of yourself, your health, your relationships, the world. Express your joy! That's the way to praise me."
“Stop complicating things and repeating as a parrot what you've been taught about me. Why do you need more miracles? So many explanations?"
“The only thing for sure is that you are here, that you are alive, that this world is full of wonders.”

------------------

To the above I added:

Thank you, Reverend Billy Hester, for making Asbury Memorial Church a place open to all.

a familiar face from SMF26 in 2015

I don't usually research the groups or musicians before my volunteer gigs.

I'd rather form my own opinions by experiencing their music for myself, right?

All I knew going in to the event at the Trustees Theatre was the concert was titled "Island Prayers", so I expected something along the lines of gospel.

That was not correct.

When I saw the name "Turtle Island Quartet", I assumed that these were local fellows who had named themselves for the nearby hammock of land.

As it turned out, they didn't realize that Georgia had a real Turtle Island.

Honestly, I probably wouldn't have known about that place either if not for the Muralcle on Habersham project that I supported on kickstarter years ago.

So, I was incorrect on that score, as well.

However, I'm glad I was there, for what turned out to be upscale bluegrass.

I'm glad that when I saw the volunteer slot open up a few days earlier, that I'd grabbed it.

It had been one of the events I wanted to usher from the beginning of this year's Savannah Music Festival, albeit based on faulty reasoning.

However, the concert had been reserved for the Student Ambassador volunteers.

Fortunately, some of them had to cancel, so... good luck for me!

This was my only bluegrass event this year, and I do like that music, thanks to Pete Derby, one of guys at Okinawa with me.

(smile!)

So, why were they named "Turtle Island"?

It all had to do with a creation myth that David Balakrishnan had taken a fancy to, naming his quartet in 1985 for that life-giving sea creature.

He's a violinist, as well as the only constant in this quartet, by the way.

The others are all fairly new, having joined in 2012 (Benjamin von Gutzeit, on viola), 2018 (Gabe Terracciano, violin), and 2021 (Naseem Alatrash, cello).

 

But, wait a minute... 

what's that middle name?

Gabe Terracciano... sounds familiar.

That's him, violin bow raised.

My goodness, he even looked familiar!

And didn't David just say something about Gabe having been here as part of a workshop, once upon a time?

So I promised myself I'd look him up on my blogsites, on the off chance that I'd written of him...

and I had!

The year was 2015, my first year as an SMF volunteer, and Gabe had been one of the 14 students in the Acoustic Music Seminar headed by bluegrass mandolin guy, Mike Marshall.

The students were all part of the Stringband Spectacular, showing off their original compositions and having one last chance to play with their classmates.

Gabe had been 22 then, and just 25 when he joined the Turtle island Quartet.

How wonderful to have that link with him on my tenth year as volunteer!

Now, I've found a video of him playing a Steely Dan song I love, "Home At Last"...

and he's singing it, too!

I'm going to listen to that again!

(smile!)

o, b a fine girl, kiss me

Believe it or not, a female astronomer - Annie Cannon - is the one who came up with that mnemonic to help people remember the Harvard Scale for stellar energy, which is based on their spectral characteristics.

We even watched as the actors used diffraction gratings to look at the images captured on the photographic plates by the telescope at the Harvard Observatory.

That's where they were working in the first twenty years of the 20th century, as a time when women were fine as computers - i.e., ones who compute values - but could never actually use the telescopes themselves.

Who were "they"?

Well, the aforementioned Annie Cannon, who was the one in charge of the computers; Willamina, the former housekeeper of the man who ran the telescope, made a computer when the men given the task failed abysmally; and Henrietta Leavitt, the one who wanted the job in astronomy so much that she convinced her father, a minister, to give her the money set aside for her dowry, as she planned to devote her life to science.

That's pretty much what happened, too.

That's according to Lauren Gunderson, author of "Silent Sky", the play I watched tonight from my seat, right beside Mama's, in Jenkins Hall at Armstrong.

 

Henrietta left home, and the one sister she had, for life at a desk, doing research.

She only returned home after the father had a stroke and her sister needed help...

but she brought her research home with her.

That was a happy coincidence, as it turned out.

While listening to the religious symphony her sister had composed, Henrietta had an insight into the puzzle she'd been trying to solve and suddenly realized the pattern between the luminosity and the period of variables related to pulsing stars (the Cepheid variables) in the Small and Large Magellanic Clouds.

Right place, right time... for her then, for me tonight.

It took her sitting still for long hours, for years, to compile enough data to see that pattern.

Without her patience, humanity might never have had the proof that out Milky Way was not the only galaxy in space.

Nor would there have been a way to determine distances to those other galaxies.

Science takes much time, and much patience, to produce viable truths.

Amazing.

Here's another coincidence: Henrietta Leavitt died of cancer at the age of 53, just as Dorothy Ashby - the unseen, but still heard, star of the noon30 - had done, years later.

As I said, right place, right time, for me.

i thank You, God.

you're a girl for one man only

That song was written by harpist Dorothy Ashby for a play she and her husband authored and staged in 1967.

Dorothy was 35 years old then.

Today, I listened raptly as Brandee Younger played the song on Harold, a borrowed harp, at the Metal Building at Trustees Garden.

Brandee was born in 1983, like my first niece, and will be 41 in July.

I liked her sense of style and femininity, as marked by that flowery dress and silver ankle boots.

However, that stylishness made it feel odd that Brandee believed that she had to apologize for the song's title as something "from another time when sensibilities were different."

Why did she think that apology was needed?

The Younger harpist - get the pun? - then proceeded to play several songs composed by Ashby, as well as a tune from Stevie Wonder, called "If It's Magic", on which Ashby was the harp player (as well as sole instrumentalist besides Wonder!).

Very nice!

Brandee Younger also played several songs written by Alice Coltrane, the harpist married to jazz legend John Coltrane for the last two years of his life.

Alice Coltrane was a contemporary of Mama's, born in 1937 just a few months before her, but wrote much of her music in her 20's and 30's.

How's that for coincidences?

Links to two of my people, in one place.

Right place, right time.

i thank You, God.

My favorite of this jazz-scented SMF noon30, though, was an original piece by Younger.

She composed it in two parts, one for just the harp, the other for harp, bass, and drums.

Nothing against Rashaan Carter or Allan Maynard, but "Unrest I', with just the flowing, urgent, pandemic-inspired notes from the harp, was sensational.

I was even swaying along with it...

not quite dancing, but in motion.

Yes, I think I'll take a listen to it again now.

and then there were five...

At first, the Lucas Theatre stage held only two bluesmen.

This concert of SMF35 was titled "Muddy And Wolf Revisited: A Tribute To Muddy Waters And Howlin' Wolf" and was one I'd wanted from before the very first day.

Fortunately, someone who'd snagged one of the volunteer positions had bailed, so I had snapped up the gig!

Never lose faith!

The North Mississippi Allstars were the two starters.

That's Luther Dickinson on the guitar and doing most of the singing.

His brother, Cody, is the man on the drums, keeping that bluesy beat bangin'.

Take a listen here, as they jam away on Rollin' and Tumblin', a Muddy Waters tune.

They were up there solo for awhile, getting the crowd moving.

 

Then two more blues players came up, off to either side of the two brothers.

Over on the left is Joey Williams, the bassist for the Blind Boys of Alabama.

I always credit them with introducing me to "Amazing Grace" sung to the music of "The House Of The Rising Sun", back at a past Savannah Music Festival - oh, yeah!

[Here's a more recent video of that, with Joey on the bass and singing, too.]

On the right is Danielle Nicole, also on bass, and singing with that rasp in the voice that all good blues singers possess.

She put it to fine use on "Spoonful", a song made famous by Howlin' Wolf.

Then she belted out "I'd Rather Go Blind", which can be heard here.

 

So, we had two, then added two more... time for the fifth!

Once Bobby Rush took the stage, he was all over it!!!

It was immediately obvious why the others had their time first, because all eyes were on the 90-year-old blues veteran as he grabbed the spotlight and held it tight!

Not that he was greedy about it, as he kept interacting with the younger ones on stage.

It's just that he was constantly, constantly, constantly in motion!

He didn't stay up on the stage, either - oh, no!

Like Renee Fleming had done, he called for the houselights to come up so he could see us.

Unlike her, he then came down into the house, joking around with the folks up in the Gold Circle seats, then heading up the aisle with his harmonica for a closer look at the crowd.

And the crowd went wild!!! Wow!!! 

Kermit the Frog would have been beside himself with glee, as I was!

Surprisingly, I did have the presence of mind take advantage of a rare opportunity.

I managed to snap a couple of shots of the photographer - outlined against that decorative wall - trying to catch frames of the nonagenarian - standing up left of center stage - as he literally bounced from fan to fan, like a large, graceful, dark butterfly trying to grace as many flowers as possible.

Recognize that man behind that long lens of the camera?

That's none other than Frank Stewart, the fellow with the exhibit at the Jepson!

He really hadn't recognized me at the museum, but he's made sure to talk to me at every one of these concerts that he's worked!

(smile!)

And Bobby Rush?

The man played almost thirty minutes longer than scheduled!

He especially had fun with his Grammy winner, "Porcupine Meat", even getting the crowd involved with the refrain!

My many thanks to whoever it was that gave up their slot so I could be here!

(smile!)