Weird News Day

15 May 2020

My news feed is weird today.  It opened with a movie review of a housewife empowered by prostitution. This film created by an independent filmmaker in Paris.  Sure, prostitution is empowering, not so much. The article and the movie aren’t interesting to me. 

What came next was a piece about the need to shoot Tegu lizards in Georgia.  Georgia the state or country, I don’t know. I didn’t read the article. A need to make lizards dead is not in my Friday wheelhouse. 

These items were followed by a Fox news story about some horrible murder/suicide and a CNN piece on Mitch McConnell having to walk back his claim that the previous administration did not leave the current administration a pandemic plan. When it comes to the “He was such a nice boy until he boiled her alive” genre online, I really don’t know who is worse, People or Fox.  Again, I am not reading this today.  As to the Grim Reaper of legislation, I am not going to waste my time and emotions on that piece.

Not going to read any of this today, at least not this morning. Nope. Nossirree. I might listen to Up First in a bit but I won’t dip my toes into this icky stuff into much later in the day.  I need to steel my nerves to really dig into the news. These headlines remind me of that old Joni Mitchell song where she sings about reading the news from home and all the news is bad.  Might attach that at the end of this piece as today’s song.

[Break in Writing]

Last night it rained like crazy.  Thundered too.  At 5 a.m. there was as loud a blast of thunder as I have heard in years anywhere near my home.  I fully expected to see a neighborhood tree turned to splinters this morning.  A brief reconnaissance of the neighborhood while I was out on my walk did not reveal any such damage. 

The brief survey of the neighborhood was the reason for the [Break in Writing].  In that it was not raining and it was a warm 63 degrees, we decided to walk.  Pushed ourselves a bit today.  Got in about 2 miles and some odd tenths.   Did better that a 3 mile an hour pace.  We took off our rain shells after just a few minutes because it was too humid not to sweat like pigs in them. 

There is one house on Forest here in East Lansing that just does a wonderful job with their flowers.  Given the route we took was mostly westward at first, we did not come upon that particular yard until the walk was almost over. Seeing the vibrant colors was like a very sweet desert at the end of a good meal.  The photo above is just one aspect of the work these people put into their yard. Serendipity in vision rules. 

I had a great deal of fun yesterday with the videos I created.  A comment posted by a friend indicated my backyard would be a great place for a vlog, a video blog.  Maybe I will take her up on that.  Can’t do it too often because it would become boring for me and for anyone who came upon the posts.  But maybe once a week to once every ten days.  

I am attaching the Joni Mitchell song referenced, California.  Looking for the tune led me down the rabbit hole.  California is on Blue.  Blue is probably considered by most to be Ms. Mitchell’s greatest achievement.  It is solid no doubt but in my humble opinion there are two other albums that pass it in quality.  I am referring to The Hissing of Summer Lawns and Hejira. After I found the link for California, I ended up listening to Shades of Scarlett Conquering and the Boho Dance.  Those are just stellar encapsulations of a time and place now gone, but so unique and artistic.

I know that the second I referenced Joni Mitchell the eyes of a number of you rolled and was followed by a dismissive head tilt.  I understand.  I get it. I hated Joni Mitchell until I was stuck in one of my girlfriends’ apartments with just five records for a weekend.  Two of those LPs were Blue and For the Roses. The other records were no slouches either, Mott the Hoople and Roxy Music were two of the other three.  But upon repeated listenings, the artistry of Joni Mitchell just shown through. Give these recordings a listen some time if it has been a while since you have heard them, or if you never heard them. Maybe you will find something there that interests you.