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 17, 2017 - 10:52 a.m.

Choices

Does anyone else feel guilty when they don't go to a concert? Yesterday I missed two, Sasha Papernik at Lincoln Center and Lisa Gutkin at the Lethe Lounge. I might not have been able to go to both because of time overlap but I should have gone to at least one. They are both artists that I have not seen often enough of late. Instead I went food shopping. I just couldn't get myself out early enough any day this week. At least now I'm stocked up. Do me a favor, if you are not familiar with them listen to some music by Sasha and Lisa; they are both virtuosi on their instruments, piano and violin respectively.

I didn't manage to get enough done yesterday. I edited and posted my photos from Friday at NERFA. I have videos to post and most importantly music to listen to. I have to create the next On Your Radar event. I promised John I'd do that today. It will have to come after therapy. I hope others look forward to therapy as much as I do. If not, perhaps you should change therapists. Waiting to edit the photos is related to my anxiety. I always used Picasa to import pictures from my camera's SD card and then to edit the pics. Picasa was lost along with my hard drive. That meant I had to figure out a new way to do it and that created anxiety. I used the Windows Photos App. It worked OK, not as well as Picasa.

I also did some NERFA homework, contacting a NERFA musician and sending her information on the Budgiedome. This led to an idiot story. The musician is Sara Chodak, she's 15. I made a point of contacting her not her mother, I don't want to be an ageist. I of course screwed up, when I entered her email I left off the g in gmail.com, so it bounced. That's not the idiot story. Her mother's name is Lori Marvin, one letter off from Lori Martin. Ms. Martin in one of my closest friends and a partner in Budgiedome. I now look closely at Facebook posts to see which one is posting. I decided to send Ms. Martin a link to the profile of Ms. Marvin and tell her about my confusion. She enjoys me being an idiot. I'm also trying to get Sara to play the Budgiedome this summer and the two Loris will then meet. I went to Facebook and sent the link and you guess it; I sent it to Ms. Marvin. There are no mistakes, only happy accidents. It led to a pleasant conversation with her.

Firefox got a totally new revamping yesterday. It updated shortly before I was going to go shopping. That cost me an hour as I had to play with it. I have to get used to the interface and lost some extensions, but it runs far more smoothly. I was considering dropping it for Chrome. I use Chrome for all my TV streaming as that was one of Firefox's issues. I also use it for Fangraphs.com which always hung up on Firefox and something for reading the New York Times for the same reason. Now both Fangraphs and Times run smoothly.

I'm considering becoming a mentor at NERFA. The problem is that I'm not sure if I am qualified. What is my experience? I do a little bit of this and a little bit of that. Perhaps that's an asset. I interact with artists as a fan, a presenter, a blogger, and a promoter. I know I could help with website design. Not the technical details but how it should be broadly structured. But I can do more than that. I end up having informal mentoring sessions with musicians all the time. They often come to me, so they think I can help. I can even help with things like stage patter which I experience as an audience member. If you are in the music business and know me, I'd like to hear if you think I'd be an effective mentor. Don't be afraid of telling me, "no," I'm asking as I want an honest evaluation.

Oh hell, I'll wade into the Al Franken scandal. I'm just going to wade, not swim. As often happens I find people are over-simplifying. I see people calling for his crucifixion and I see men defending him in ways that make me uncomfortable as they could be used to defend most alleged sexual molesters and harassers. To me the key difference between this and the other scandals is the claim by the photographer that the damning photograph was staged as a joke; the accuser was awake and just faking being asleep for the joke. A joke that crosses the boundary into bad taste is not grounds for expulsion from the senate. If she was awake and is denying it then her claims about the kiss are not credible. On the other hand, why didn't Franken say she was awake? I'm now leaning towards believing Franken. If other accusers come forward that changes things. If the other people on the plane say she was asleep that changes things. So, I'll remain up in the air about it and admit that I don't know enough. I will remain uncomfortable with that as it can blunt the current movement to holding men accountable. As Buffy said, "You always have a choice; they aren't always good choices."

**Correction**
I did not do my due diligence and check the claim about the photographer. He did NOT say that the picture was staged. It looks staged and I trusted the person i heard it from. I apologize.


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



creative commons
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License.
Horvendile November 17, 2017
site search by freefind advanced


Follow on Feedly



about me - read my profile! read other DiaryLand diaries! recommend my diary to a friend! Get your own fun + free diary at DiaryLand.com!