I became insane with long intervals of horrible sanity.
Edgar Allen Poe

The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all.
- H. L. Mencken

Many people would sooner die than think; In fact, they do so
-Bertrand Russell

What I have been telling you, from alpha to omega, what is the one great thing the sigil taught me — that everything in life is miraculous. For the sigil taught me that it rests within the power of each of us to awaken at will from a dragging nightmare of life made up of unimportant tasks and tedious useless little habits, to see life as it really is, and to rejoice in its exquisite wonderfulness. If the sigil were proved to be the top of a tomato-can, it would not alter that big fact, nor my fixed faith. No Harrowby, the common names we call things by do not matter — except to show how very dull we are ...
-James Branch Cabell

November 19, 2015 - 8:22 p.m.

There and Back Again A Folkie's Holiday

Wow. I am writing this on an XP machine using Word 2003. Why? My computer broke. The lid pretty much came off of the base. I bought the accident insurance plan but I am having a huge amount of anxiety calling them to get it fixed. Oh and my phone isn’t working right either. I hope it’s just the battery. I am getting cut off from the world.

So where did I get this dinosaur computer from? Eliot. It’s a dinosaur but it’s a working dinosaur and right now my best link to the outside world. Oh good, my phone I is charging now. I think it needs a new battery. Did you know you can’t just go into a store and buy a battery? I tried and failed. I ordered one on Amazon right before my computer broke. Wait, I meant to thank Eliot more. I told him that I’d link to his blog. Mmm, can I find it? I synched my firefox bookmarks so I should be able to. Yes I did! For some reason it wasn’t on my synched bookmarks or passwords. I think it synched it from my school computer. Now I don’t have all my macros and I’m not going to write them for a borrowed computer so I will be including far fewer links till I get my computer back. OK now what? Oh right linking to Now I've Heard Everything. As you might guess it's a music blog. It is obligatory to point out whenevcr mentioning Eliot that he goes to hear more live music than I do.

OK so for so good. Oh fun thing with this ancient version of Word. Know what they call what is now called "Draft View" and is the one view you can't have as the default? "Normal." I have never adjusted to them making it hard to get to draft view. It is by far the best view to compose in. What I miss from the new versions is having the word count always visible at the bottom of the page. And I can't see how to get rid of the ruler. I hate the ruler.

Ok now to write of happier things. I still have some NERFA business to take care of. I never told how I got there and how I got home and as we all know commuting information is an essential element of Wise Madness. I was given a ride by Allison & Joe aka Villa Palagonia, sorry no links, OK just one more link. Villa Palagonia's Homepage. Happy. Now that's it. Do not expect more links from me. The things I do for My Gentle Readers.

Now I told in my first NERFA post back on Monday, hit the previous a few times and you'll get there, I'm not linking, how I was late getting to their house. But I wasn't too late and was in fact in time to help them load the car. They did a masterful job of getting all their stuff and my stuff in. Good thing I travel right and I lost weight. We had planned on meeting Alison, my sister, not Allison, please pay attention to spelling, that's important as there are multiple Allisoni in this edition of Wise Madness, for lunch. Should I have used parentheses there? This is the problem, I think in multiple nested layers and I would like to be able to write like that. But anyway we were going to meet Alison but we fell behind schedule and could not make it to New Paltz, where she lives, during her window of availability. But we did get to the Hudson Valley Resort where NERFA is held fine though a bit latter than we wanted to. I was hoping to perhaps get a ride home to Brooklyn from somebody else but didn't so I went back with Allison and Joe. That did mean I got to say for David Amram's 85th birthday celebration. Wait, I never wrote about that. OK more NERFA coverage. David is a folk music Icon that I'm betting that the majority of my friends that have never been to NERFA have never heard of. He's one of those guys that has done everything, he did jazz, he was composer in residence for the New York Philharmonic, he was part of Pete Seeger's crowd, and wrote the scores for the movies Splendor in the Grass and the Manchurian Candidate. I've seen him a number of times. He adopted my boys The Tres Amigos who became the Amigos Band, and are now called Silver City Bound. You can't tell the players without a scorecard. David is a NERFA regular. This year for his birthday there was a post NERFA party on Sunday afternoon. I was surprised that not that many people stayed for it. It was a special show. Yes he played some songs on various flutes and whistles, sometimes two at once, but most of the show was other people playing and him backing him. The house band were my friends Cheryl Prashker and Marshal Rosenberg on percussion and Mark Dann on bass. Aren't those the house band everyplace? Marshal and Mark have done it at the Budgiedome. Cheryl has played there multiple times. Now can I remember who else played without my pictures in front of me. I took some great ones but they are trapped on my computer. You won't get to see them for a while. Well here's a partial list, Efrat Shapira, Eric Lee, Anna Dagmar, Joe Ravo, damn, know there are more. Ah, the pics are still on my phone too. Ok here are some more, David Massengill, Heather Pierson, and Spook Handy. David even asked Heather to play melodica! She knows that I love that. David must be a kindred spirit.

One irony really struck me. David kept on going on about how important it is to end on time. They had to finish the show by 5 PM. He said that with a symphony orchestra you can't go a minute over or it costs a fortune so he's good at that. Well that's not quite true. The first time I ever saw David was at Wall to Wall folk, and amazing show at Symphony Space. There was music by great performers all weekend and it was all free. I got there early on Sunday and stayed for something like six hours so I could see the finale, Odetta. David was the penultimate performer Like the party there was a strictcutoff. I imagine that was when the crew had to leave. David went 20 minutes over and that time came out of Odetta's set. It took me a long time to forgive him for that. That show as also the first time I saw Josh White Jr. I got to meet him this NERFA. His father was a legend and he's a folk icon too. When I met him at check-in he was such a great guy not at all taken with himself. He was just like every other NERFAite.

OK so now for the ride home. When I drove myself I was always one of the last ones to leave NERFA. I so suffer from FOMO (Fear of Missing Out). I can't leave as long as there is someone there to talk with. Allison and Joe, especially Joe are the same way. So I didn't miss out!

When we hit the road we decided to have dinner in New Paltz and Allison suggested I call Alison. I did. She wasn't home but was on the way home and said if the timing were right we could see her after dinner. I suggested we eat at Anatolia, which as you might guess is a Turkish restaurant. Alison had taken me there once and it was great. We ate there and it was still great. I had lamb and beef shish kabob on pita. I put on the two sauces not even sure what they were, and I loved it. Yes there is food, commuting, and music so this really is me writing. Oh and there are Oxford commas.

When we finished eating I called Alison and she had just gotten home. Perfect timing! If we had left any earlier we couldn't have met. I love my friends meeting my family. Last year I stopped by with the Lords of Liechtenstein and their family, that's Dan, Noah, Michael, Star, and Autumn. Noah tuned Alison's banjo. Joking I picked up the banjo and gave it to Joe to tune. He did! I loved watching Alison enjoy talking to Allison and Joe. I also enjoy using Allison and Alison in the same sentence. We of course stayed far too long but eventually headed home. They dropped me right at the 3 train. Notice I don't have the cute little 3 train icon they use on the subway maps. Isn't that sad? Did anyone else even notice that I do that?

I guess I'm writing about last night tomorrow. This is already pretty long. Just in case I don't I'll mention that I saw Jennifer Kimball with her new band Cuddle Magic. I love when musicians I love collaborate.

OK I was nice and positive for most of this entry I'll finish with a rundown of mechanical failure. My laptop's lid fell off. My phone's battery won't keep a charge. My watch broke. The chain from my replacement pocket watch broke. My knee doesn't hurt but still has a nasty bump on it. At least it's much smaller than it used to be. I have so much on my computer that I need. I have to prepare the On Your Radar event and don't have the picture files that I always use or Picasa to process what I got or and all the music I ripped and god knows what else I'm missing. But you know what? I'm alive and where there's life there's hope. And no man is a failure that has friends. And I'm not in Philadelphia. See it could be worse.


I signed the Pro-Truth Pledge:
please hold me accountable.





Memories: Not that Horrid Song - May 29, 2018
Wise Madness is Now In Session - May 28, 2018
The NFL and the First Amendment - May 27, 2018
On The Road Again - May 26, 2018
Oliver the Three-Eyed Crow - May 25, 2018



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Horvendile November 19, 2015
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