I became insane with long intervals of horrible sanity.
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.
Many people would sooner die than think; In fact, they do so
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 ...
September 27, 2013 - 4:47 p.m.
OK I've been wasting time all day. It's time to write. I couldn't get it done before It was a frustrating day at school. I was teaching graphing. I gave them graph paper. I even drew in the axes on the paper. I told them we'll do the first four on the paper I handed out and the rest should be done on their own. I made a point of saying, This is why I told you to bring graph paper and rulers today. And then I did a problem, and they just watched me and didn't graph it themselves. Do they think they are going to learn it by osmosis?
OK I have a backlog of things to write about. Yesterday I was tired and I've been going out every night and was going to stay home but then couldn't resist seeing Elisa Peimer. I am pretty sure I have never seen her do a solo gig before. I've only seen her at the Blue shows. Maybe once with Carolann and Meg at Vivaldi. But even that is not a solo gig. So how did I spend my trip on the subway? Writing a rant on how she pronounces her name. It's Pay-mer but of course ei should be pronounced eye. It should be Pie-mer (π-mur). Leonard Bernstein would get mad when people said Bern-steen. I mean does anyone say Albert Een-Steen? It is all Elisa's fault that poor Lenny Bop had to deal with people getting his name wrong.
For the record She is one of the nicest people I know and she and her husband Jon, who I sat with, have given me many rides home and I love her. That still does not absolve her guilt. Judaism is about guilt.
The show was at Googie's Lounge above The Living Room. I haven't been there for years but it used to be the place I saw shows the most often. It's a weird intimate space. It feels like an awkwardly lit house convert with an elegant white grand piano from a Fred Astaire movie in it. As I expected I knew people playing with her and in the audience. Aviv Roth, a budgiedome vet played guitar. I am not sure if I had met Irwin the bass and sometimes guitar player before. In the audience was Jon, Carolann, Karyn, and Claude. Claude is the Shadow. I never see him walk into or out of the room. He just appears. Karyn said it's because he's French.
Elisa's music never sounds like it should be coming from Elisa. But somehow I can't say why. It's just my gestalt reaction when I hear her. Carolann thinks one of her songs was actually a Carolann song that Elisa wrote. Elisa covered one of Carolann songs that sounds like more of an Elisa song. But to me an Elisa song doesn�t sound like a song by Elisa so my head is going to explode. Good thing nobody is around.
I think it has to do with her giving songs a dramatic quality, they sound exotic while on a personal level she's familiar.
Googie's is the world's worst venue for photography, the lights are green and the performer looks like the Wicket Witch of the west in the pictures. So I took only one,. This is Elisa at the piano. I corrected the color. That worked pretty well.
Can you find her? She is partially visible through the piano. I told you the place was set up oddly.
But I do have an album of photos of her at the piano at the Blue show last week at Our Times Coffeehouse. As soon she I sat down I knew that was perfect lighting for her. Couldn't post them all in the Blue show album but I can here. Sure they are all pretty similar but they are subtly different.
After the show I walked back to the Delancey station with Aviv and Carolann; Aviv took the 
back with me. Always nice having company and we got to catch up.
And speaking of catching up. I'll catch up with things I wanted to write last time. Now we come to the this is how I think portion of the entry.
I always make an effort to understand people. When someone does something that strikes me as stupid or irrational I try to figure out what is going on in their head, especially when I know the person and know they aren't stupid or irrational. I had two people I wanted to write about but right now I can only think of one. And it's one of those situations that I waited enough time from the incident that nobody would associate it with who I am writing about. Well I'll write about the one that I remember. I did my coin flip to get the gender, it came up tails which is female? Why? I flipped a quarter and George Washington is a man so his head means make it male.
So this person I know categorically can't perceive taxonomy, dividing the world into categories. If you asked her to name her favorite bird she might say "a butterfly." Yes it has something in common but it is not a bird. She does that consistently. If you said name a sport she might say "reading." It's mental colorblindness. Is there a name for this? Is it a recognized condition? Am I creating a category that doesn�t exist? Do you know anyone else like that? She'd be terrible at the last main section of the Drunken Smartass Olympics, saying what three things have in common.
That kind of thing always gets me thinking. What is there out there that I can't intellectually perceive? Are there distinctions out there that no human can see but alien intelligences could? Is there any way of us discovering it other than encountering an alien intelligence?
It also makes me think of Sabatini's Master-at-Arms. In it the protagonists says "To understand all is to forgive all." I wouldn't go that far but It helps with being sympathetic if you do understand. I'm emotionally judgmental so I work at counterbalancing that intellectually. I'd much rather not think of that person as an idiot but as someone with a specific blind spot. I'm still not letting her on my team at the Drunken Smart Ass Olympics.
I'm starving now but I'm eating dinner in 7 and it's 4:45 now. I have to get a snack soon. I didn't really have lunch, just a hot sausage on the run.
OK I better finish this so I can snack.
I signed the Pro-Truth Pledge:
please hold me accountable.
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On The Road Again - May 26, 2018
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Horvendile September 27, 2013
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