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 ...
August 20, 2017 - 10:22 a.m.
I went to bed after two and woke up before eight this morning. On the bright side, I am once again trekking into Brooklyn so this will make it easier to get an early start. This is why god invented coffee. I could use some now before I write but that's not happening unless one of My Gentle Readers, reads this before I posts it, travels to City Island, and brings me a cup. Anyone? No? I knew nobody loved me.
Yesterday I only trekked to Rockwood Music Hall to see No Fuss And Feathers. They used to bill themselves as "No Fuss and Feathers Roadshow." The name of their album is Traveling Circus; I always want to call them, "The No Fuss and Feathers Traveling All-Stars and Motor Kings." I don't care that nobody gets that reference, it's what I think.
I knew this would be a gathering of the tribe, very much my social circle. I got there before doors; there is rarely a line to get in to the 7 PM show. There was yesterday. I got there 25 minutes early and there was a crowd waiting to go downstairs; 15 people, I knew them all. I was doing merch so I went down before doors. The only reason I do merch is so that I can do that and not have to wait with the peasants. I was so busy checking in on the merch and saying hi to people I hadn't even grabbed the tables for my friends before doors opened. No matter they were at the front of the line, OK, they were all friend but these were the people I was planning on sitting with, Fred at our usual table, there should be a bronze plate with our names on it, and Erika and Arthur next to us in what I think of as John's table. It's where John Platt sits for John Platt's On Your Radar. I am not going to list all my friends there as there were at least 20. I think the only ones I didn't know were some friends of Claude.
The Feathers, their full name is too long to use, are Karyn Oliver, Carolann Solebello, Catherine Miles, and Jay Mafale, the lone male. He lost his hair from the stress. That's the true story and don't let them tell you otherwise. Jay and Catherine are the band formerly known as the YaYas, now they are Miles and Mafale. Funny, I will always say Jay and Catherine but when using their full names or just the last, I reverse the order. This grew out of their time doing the Chicks with Dip celebration of Joni Mitchell's Blue. That project is how this became my social circle. I'm not married to any of them and I am not a musician, but I still consider myself part of the Chicks male auxiliary, the Roosters. I can get away with that as I coined the term.
This isn't fair, Jane and Bernie must be making bacon, I smell it cooking. I am going to continue writing and not run downstairs and eat because I love My Gentle Readers. Remember to put my name op for sainthood when I die.
There is nothing quite like a Feathers show. So much of the fun is sharing the fun they have with each other. I just realized there is a Trainwreck with Clowns element to it. That's the name of the busking act that Carey and I did which consisted of her singing and playing her guitar and me the two of us being silly. It's tragic, but funny, like a train wreck with clowns. The difference is that all the Feathers are all gifted musicians and all sing and/or play instruments. There is no equivalent of me in the band. I guess Karyn is Carey, they are both lapsed Catholic girls from Maryland that are prisoners of their hairdo.
The one thing I will guarantee you is that if you see No Fuss and Feathers you will walk out feeling better than when you walked in. They are the perfect anodyne for troubled times. They don't ignore the outside world, sometimes they directly address it, sometimes as they discovered they inadvertently address it; they just do it in a way that promotes inner peace, not outer turmoil. The songs have meaning, the voices are beautiful, the harmonies are exquisite, and the performers have fun doing it. That's all I can ask for.
After the show and doing merch we went out for dinner. We, being the crowd that goes out to dinner after shows featuring Chicks. Let me see how many I can remember. Claude, Karyn, Katherine, Carolann, Aimee, Sharon, Elisa, Fred, and Aviv. There were also the aforementioned friends of Claude. Everyone knows that I remember things like this geographically? I started with Claude and moved around the table. Even if I hadn't seen a great show I'd have had a fun night hanging with my friends. We ate a place new to me whose name didn't seem to be anywhere in sight. It's on the SW corner of 2nd Street and 1st Ave.
What made it extra nice is that they run the bus to City Island an hour later than they used to and it was Saturday, when they run them an hour later than the rest of the week, so I didn't have to keep checking my watch to see if I had to leave. I stayed till we left as a group.
I did double duty at the show, not only did I sell the merch but I gave everyone that came close a card with the info about the Hudson West Folk Festival. Look at the bottom of this page, you'll see an ad for it. Click on it and you'll find the web page. Go buy your ticket now. I'll wait for you to get back before I continue.
I told you I'd wait, no need to worry. I did make one screw up. I left the cards on the merch table at Rockwood. Katherine picked them up on the way home but there weren't many left. I hope that means that people took them and are going to show up at the festival.
The ride home went well till I got to Pelham Bay. I had to wait 38 minutes for a bus.
They were totally off schedule. I made the best of it. I didn't have to pay for a cab so it just cost me sleep.
Now to eat and have coffee then head down to Brooklyn for Katherine's birthday party. I'll have another day playing with fun people.
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 August 20, 2017
| site search by freefind | advanced |
Follow on Feedly
