With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.
The good life, as I conceive it, is a happy life. I do not mean that if you are good you will be happy - I mean that if you are happy you will be good.
Too much sanity may be madness and the maddest of all, to see life as it is and not as it should be.
The only way to find the limits of the possible is by going past them into the impossible.
September 12, 2009 - 11:15 a.m.
It's Saturday but I have time pressure writing this. I'm going to the Take Me To The River Festival and I'm leaving at noon. There's a great lineup; some of the highlights are:
- Walkabout Clearwater Chorus
Matt Turk
Milton
Joe Crookston
Hope Machine
Kelly Flint
Special Guest John Gorka
Spuyten Duyvil
If it seems heavy with my friends and The Budgiedome alumni it's because Barbara who books it is also my friend an a musical kindred spirit. Come and join me.
Yesterday's commute started poorly. I am out of practice and didn't stand at the right spot on the platform. That meant I was one of the last people to enter the car and was the first to not be able to get a seat. It picked up at the next stop when the woman in front of me got off. Standing isn't terrible but I get the Times delivered on Fridays and sitting and reading it on my commute is a joy.
When I got to my first class there were 50% more people in the class than the day before. Many people were added. I was looking forward to a class with less than 20 people in it. The other class is even bigger and it also grew.
After school, armed with my spare key, I went to pick up my car. It had been sitting in the Trader Joe's parking lot. Read my last entry for the whys and wherefores.
I used Google Maps to find the best route by public transportation. It involved two trains and a bus. The bus was crowded and unpleasant but I found it with no trouble. The car was just where I left it. I wasn't really worried.
I celebrated with a feast. Barbecue chicken made on my stovetop grill and homemade French fries. For desert I had seedless watermelon.
Last night I went to see Piņataland accompanied by the dynamic Deni Bonet on violin. That's such an odd pairing as Deni is a classically trained violinist whose own music is a blend of rock, pop, and folk. Piņataland is pure Neuromusic. Their charts aren't classical, folk, or blues based, they are science fiction. It works great.
The show was at Banjo Jim's which is in the easternmost East Village. That's not an easy place to get to for me, or anyone for that matter. It's a hike to the nearest subway, when I go on public transportation I take a bus from the station. The show was late, 10 PM, so I decided to drive. I haven't done that in years but I could always find spots there. Things have changed. It took me forever and I just got lucky as I not only caught someone pulling out but the person behind me was considerate enough to back up a bit so I could back up and let the person out and take the spot.
It took me so long to park and then walk to the venue that I didn't get there till 10:23. I was in luck. They were running late. The act before them was still on. I asked Deni if they realized I was having trouble parking and waited for me. She said, "yes."
The performance was great, they had their tuba player with them, last time they had a bass player. The audience was terrible. They were just there to hang out and didn't stop talking. There was a constant din.
After the show I asked Deni if she needed a ride. She's in the West Village but that isn't really that far and it gave me some quality time with her. That's something about living alone. Most days I don't have any quality face time with anyone. I appreciate when I get it. As I discovered when I drove her SMAF she's a great traveling companion. We talked about 9/11. We both got choked up reading the same article in the Times; A Fortress City That Didnt Come to Be.
I got home late, around 1 AM, parking gets difficult then. I found a tiny spot that challenged my mad parking skills. Good thing I have a tiny car.
I better get going now. I have to leave in 45 minutes and I haven't eaten or showered.
Daydream Nonbeliever - September 17, 2009
Primarily I Voted - September 16, 2009
The Joy of Cooking (for those that can't cook) - September 15, 2009
Take me to Take Me To The River - September 14, 2009
At Least I Didn't Trip Over the Ottoman - September 13, 2009
Email me: GordonLew at gmail
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License. Horvendile September 12, 2009
