Latest Posts

Remembrance for D-Day

November 11th

Published by

November 11th is celebrated as Veterans Day in the U.S., but it used to be called Armistice Day. On this day in 1918, the major fighting of World War I ended. It was when, Kurt Vonnegut has written, “millions upon millions of human beings stopped butchering one another.”

On Veterans Day we honor those who have served and continue to serve in our armed forces. In my immediate family that includes my father, a World War II Navy veteran; my brother Joe, who served in the Navy on a helicopter carrier during the 1980s; as well as a number of aunts and uncles who also served in World War II. I am proud of each of them for their service.

While we did not lose a family member in military service, many families have lost loved ones fighting for our nation. No words can fill the void that’s been left.  As President Obama said to family members in a Veterans Day tribute in 2009, “We knew these men and women as soldiers and caregivers.  You knew them as mothers and fathers; sons and daughters; sisters and brothers.”

But here is what you must also know:  Your loved ones endure through the life of our nation. Their memory will be honored in the places they lived and by the people they touched. Their life’s work is our security, and the freedom that we all too often take for granted. Every evening that the sun sets on a tranquil town; every dawn that a flag is unfurled; every moment that an American enjoys life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness — that is their legacy.

George Lawrence Price

Veterans Day is not a time to glorify war or military might, especially as the world is involved in so much conflict. It is a good time to recall the pointless slaughter of so much war. And it is a good day to reclaim the remembrance that the reason for war is peace. Holy peace. In 1938, Congress made November 11 a legal holiday to be dedicated to world peace.  Armistice Day was sacred, and that should not be forgotten.

On this day in 2021, Heather Cox Richardson remembered George Lawrence Price, a private serving with Company A of the 28th Battalion of the Canadian Expeditionary Force in Belgium during World War I.

As the moment of the armistice approached, a few soldiers continued to skirmish, and Price’s company set out to take control of the small town of Havre. As they crossed a canal to their target, a German gunner hidden in a row of houses tried to stop them. Once safely across, just ten minutes before the armistice, the Canadian patrol began to look for the German soldier who had harassed them. They found no one but civilians in the first two homes they searched. And then, as they stepped back into the street, a single shot hit Price in the chest. He fell into the arms of his comrade, who pulled him back into the house they had just left. As Price died, German soldiers cleared their guns in a last burst of machine-gun fire that greeted the armistice.

Price’s life ended just two minutes before the Great War was over.

Even at the time, Price’s death seemed to symbolize the pointless slaughter of WWI. When an irony of history put Price in the same cemetery as the first Allied soldier to die in the conflict, disgusted observers commented that the war had apparently been fought over a half-mile of land. In the years after the war ended, much was made of George Price, the last soldier to die in the Great War.

But Richardson also wanted us to remember the man who pulled the trigger, who decided — knowing that peace was only two minutes away — to take another life and deny him a future. It was legal. It was also surely, she writes, immoral.

He went back to civilian life and blended into postwar society, although the publicity given to Price’s death meant that he must have known he was the one who had taken that last, famous life in the international conflagration. The shooter never acknowledged what he had done, or why.

Price became for the world a heartbreaking symbol of hatred’s sheer waste. But the shooter? He simply faded into anonymity, becoming the evil that men do.

Political theorist Hannah Arendt coined the phrase “the banality of evil” after watching the 1961 trial of Nazi SS officer Adolf Eichmann. “Good can be radical; evil can never be radical, it can only be extreme, for it possesses neither depth nor any demonic dimension yet — and this is its horror — it can spread like a fungus over the surface of the earth and lay waste the entire world. Evil comes from a failure to think.”

Kurt Vonnegut famously wrote of Armistice Day in the preface to Breakfast of Champions.

I will come to a time in my backwards trip when November eleventh, accidentally my birthday, was a sacred day called Armistice Day. When I was a boy, and when Dwayne Hoover was a boy, all the people of all the nations which had fought in the First World War were silent during the eleventh minute of the eleventh hour of Armistice Day, which was the eleventh day of the eleventh month.

It was during that minute in nineteen hundred and eighteen, that millions upon millions of human beings stopped butchering one another. I have talked to old men who were on battlefields during that minute. They have told me in one way or another that the sudden silence was the Voice of God. So we still have among us some men who can remember when God spoke clearly to mankind.

Rest in peace, George Lawrence Price, and all the men and women who have sacrificed their lives for good over evil. And let’s do all we can to remember the message God gave to mankind, a message that was never clearer than on this day.

More to come . . .

DJB

Image: Remembrances for D-Day 2019 in the British village of Chipping Campden (photo by DJB)

Simple but not easy

Published by

A Book of Questions is a song on the new album A Great Wild Mercy by Carrie Newcomer. It is also the title of a recent posting on her A Gathering of Spirits Substack newsletter.

Carrie Newcomer

It was an early paragraph in that newsletter that really caught my attention:

I’ve often said that I don’t write songs because I have an answer, I write songs because I’m writing myself into my next becoming. I’m writing because I have a question.

I love the idea of using questions to “write myself into my next becoming.” Then I looked at the lyrics as she sang the song and thought of how several of her questions could prompt serious reflection — and perhaps writings that lead to a next becoming — for me.

Do you put honey in your tea? | Do you let it cool gradually? | Do you feel the strange wash of time and memory? | Have you made peace with your worst day, | Ever kissed in a busy café? | Are there things you feel, but you still don’t know how to say?

In fact, Newcomer speaks to the power of questions in her post.

An open-hearted question is a beautiful way to get to know another person. When I’m at a gathering and meeting new people I often like to ask opening questions that go beyond the usual “what do you do”. I often ask questions like “what gave you life this year” or “What were you grateful for this week”. People will sometimes look at me like I have seven heads, but then they will launch into the most wonderful stories. I always feel grateful for the story and feel I got to know the person much better than if I had asked the usual fare.

Some questions are simple but personal . . . But other questions ask for a deeper, even more vulnerable response, “Did you make peace with your worst day” “Did you ever love a place, that you still had to leave”.

Dusk by Marly van Putten on Unsplash

Questions, it seems, prompt a number of artists, including the poet Mary Oliver.

Some Questions You Might Ask

Is the soul solid, like iron?
Or is it tender and breakable, like
the wings of a moth in the beak of an owl?
Who has it, and who doesn’t?
I keep looking around me.
The face of the moose is as sad
as the face of Jesus.
The swan opens her white wings slowly.
In the fall, the black bear carries leaves into the darkness.
One question leads to another.
Does it have a shape? Like an iceberg?
Like the eye of a hummingbird?
Does it have one lung, like the snake and the scallop?
Why should I have it, and not the anteater
who loves her children?
Why should I have it, and not the camel?
Come to think of it, what about maple trees?
What about the blue iris?
What about all the little stones, sitting alone in the moonlight?
What about roses, and lemons, and their shining leaves?
What about the grass?

A Gathering of Spirits arrived in my email inbox around the same time that I received a recent sermon from my friend and mentor Frank Wade.

Frank begins with the passage from Matthew 22 where the Pharisees were trying to trip Jesus up by asking a trick question: Was it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar?

Everybody hated the Roman occupation and resented paying taxes to support it. If you were for it, the people resented you. If you were against it, the Romans saw you as a rebel.  It was a trap.  Jesus held up a coin and said, “Give to the Emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” That was really clever, the kind of response I usually think of an hour after a conversation is over. 

Tax codes and accountants tell us what things are due the government. Frank asks, “But what are God’s things? What does God require of us?”

Scripture practically boils over with responses to that question. They all point in the same direction, but one of my favorites is from the prophet Micah who gave his answer about 700 years before Jesus’ time. Micah scoffed at our pretending not to know what God expects of us.  You know, he says, what the Lord requires of you.  What is it but to do justice and love mercy and walk humbly with your God?

But what exactly does that mean? Frank makes it personal and relatable.

When we read or speak about justice and mercy we are usually talking about societal issues. Social justice on a large scale. Merciful responses to world events and continuous crises. Those things definitely are part of what Micah is talking about.  But justice and mercy have a micro reality, as well.  Justice is about fairness. Mercy is about generosity. The world needs those things and so do our families. Listening to one another without judgment is an act of fairness.  Admitting our own faults and errors is fairness. Doing one’s part to make the household function is fairness. They are justice issues on the family level. Generosity can determine how we spend time with those we love, how we encourage one another, and how we let the people closest to us know they are special to us. Justice and mercy, fairness and generosity, are part of God’s expectation for the world at large and for the world at hand.

. . . we are to give to God the things that are God’s — justice and mercy, fairness and generosity, extended to the far reaches of our world and to our closest companions.  

As Frank says, this is “simple but not easy.”

And the questions Carrie Newcomer asks us to consider are sometimes simple but may not be so easy to face.

Did you say yes, did you say no? | Was it true or just wasn’t so? | Did it land hard or gracefully, | Was it not what you planned, | But right where you needed to be?

Are there questions you need to consider, leading you to your next becoming?

More to come . . .

DJB

Photo by David Wirzba on Unsplash.

From the bookshelf: October 2023

Published by

Each month my goal is to read a minimum of five books on a variety of topics and from different genres. Here are the books I read in October 2023. If you click on the title, you’ll go to the longer post on More to Come. Enjoy.

Why We Love Baseball: A History in 50 Moments (2023) by Joe Posnanski may not be the most important book you’ll read this year, but if you care at all about the game this will be the book you’ll cherish. This is a love letter of the best kind, bringing together the long history of the game with the uniqueness of the moment, all told with Posnanski’s “trademark wit, encyclopedic knowledge, and acute observations.” These forever moments are magical: “beautiful or delightful in such a way as to seem removed from everyday life.” Unlike basketball and football, baseball is a game of perspective. It moves at a leisurely pace. Players, umpires, and fans have time to talk, get to know each other, and tell stories. Nobody tells a better baseball story than Joe Posnanski.

Your City is Sick (2023) by Jeff Siegler is a deep dive into how the various causes of community malaise — poor planning decisions, neglect, disregard for current residents, and more — have led to the dysfunction we see today. Cities are like people, Siegler argues, and when humans forget all we’ve learned about health care, skip the vegetables that sustain us, eat a diet of attractive desserts, and stop exercising we get sick. Cities face the same challenges. But like a blunt yet perceptive doctor, Siegler first helps us understand the disease and then — in straightforward, no-holds-barred language — he prescribes treatments to push his readers to transform their cities through relentless, incremental improvements.

How to Resist Amazon and Why (2022) by Danny Caine makes the case for resisting what at times seems to be the takeover of the world by this corporate behemoth. Caine — who co-owns the Raven Book Store in Lawrence, Kansas — has provided a wealth of strongly sourced information about how “big tech monopolies, especially Amazon, are bad for communities, small businesses, the planet, consumers, and workers.” In seven detailed chapters, Caine gives example after example of Amazon’s devastating impact on the book industry, small business in general, the labor force and workers’ rights, competition, privacy, the environment, and every level of government. He then explores ten things you can do to resist Amazon. The loss of personal connections and community-oriented support is at the heart of Amazon’s destruction of America, but there are ways you can fight back.

The Young Man (2022) by Annie Ernaux (translated by Alison L. Strayer) is the account of her love affair with A., a man some 30 years younger, when she was in her fifties. This is not a salacious memoir; rather, Ernaux uses the backdrop of this brief romance to explore themes of the movement back and forth between youth and age, of memory and time, of misogyny and class, of life’s pitfalls and pleasures. Though trim and stark, The Young Man — in the hands the 2022 winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature — turns into an unexpected study of life.

Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI (2017) by David Grann is a well-known and highly praised work, a finalist for the 2017 National Book Awards for Nonfiction. In the 1920s, the richest people per capita in the world were members of the Osage Indian nation in Oklahoma, whose land sat above some of the largest oil deposits in the United States. “To obtain that oil, prospectors had to pay the Osage for leases and royalties . . . In 1923 alone, the tribe took in more than $30 million, the equivalent today of more than $400 million.” And in 1921, one of the Osage, Anna Brown, was brutally murdered. Grann’s story begins with that killing and in a tightly woven tale he takes the reader through an evil crime spree arising from white settlers’ attempted dispossession of an Osage family’s Oklahoma lands, exposing once again the dark and odious underbelly of race in America.

What’s on the nightstand for November (subject to change at the whims of the reader):

Keep reading!

More to come…

DJB

NOTE: Click to see the books I read in September of 2023 and to see the books I read in 2022. Also check out Ten tips for reading five books a month.

This special Friday edition of the Weekly Reader links to the works of other writers I’ve enjoyed. I hope you find something that makes you laugh, think, or cry. 

Photograph of the Carnegie Library in Stillwater, MN, from the Carol M. Highsmith Archive, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.

Adding clarity and perspective to our tumultuous news feeds

Published by

One of the major challenges of our time is finding a proper response to politics that aspire to make us fearful, alienated, and isolated. To help, we need historians, writers, and thinkers who “illuminate, rather than obfuscate the chaos of our current world.”

As a first step, Rebecca Solnit suggests a fine initial act of resistance to authoritarians is joy. Heather Cox Richardson takes a deeper dive through her daily newsletter that serves as “an antidote to toxic news feeds.”

We need joy and perspective in this moment. And we need the reminder that the true history of democracy is that it is never finished.

Democracy Awakening: Notes on the State of America (2023) by Heather Cox Richardson is an engaging and accessible work that tells the story of how we got to this moment in time. The writer of the Letters from an American newsletter and professor of history at Boston College, Richardson’s newest volume takes us back through our past to see precedents that led to our most recent authoritarian experiment in the ascendancy of Donald Trump. As she notes on the very first page, democracies die more often “through the ballot box than at gunpoint.” Her work is also a reminder, as one reviewer notes, that “far from being an outlier, Donald Trump was inevitable after 70 years of Republican pandering to big business, racism and Christian nationalism.”

The use of language and false history is the key to the rise of authoritarians. With our false sense of security and optimism, Americans believed it could not happen here. But as Richardson shows us time and again, there has always been a small group of wealthy people who have made war on American ideals.

In both her daily newsletter and Democracy Awakening, Richardson has a talent to “wrangle our giant, meandering, and confusing news feeds into a coherent story.” In easy-to-follow prose, she suggests what is important and helps prioritize our focus. The historical perspective helps make sense of life in 21st century America. And perhaps most importantly, Richardson has an optimism about democracy in our country that points to some unexpected pathways forward.

Richardson breaks her book into three sections. The first considers American conservatism and the fight against the liberal consensus. She discusses the anti-democratic views of elite enslavers and others in 18th and 19th century America, but her focus really zeroes in on those who — after nearly destroying the country in the financial meltdown of the Great Depression — quickly sought to fight the democratic and liberal ideas of the New Deal. The birth of modern conservatism in the 1930s through the 1950s leads directly to the chaos of the Freedom Caucus today.

It was William F. Buckley, Jr, the most famous conservative pundit of his era, who promoted the canard that liberals were basically communists. Among Buckley’s mortal enemies, Richardson writes, were everyone “who believed that the government should regulate business, protect social welfare, promote infrastructure and protect civil rights” — and who “believed in fact-based argument.”

The second section of Democracy Awakening is truly scary, as Richardson brings back memories from Trump’s first authoritarian experiment, from Charlottesville to the first impeachment, from destabilization of the government to the Big Lie.

Based on our foundational story, the third section focuses on a pathway forward.

The fundamental story of America is the constant struggle of all Americans, from all races, ethnicities, genders, and abilities, to make the belief that we are all created equal and have a right to have a say in our democracy come true. We are always in the process of creating “a more perfect union.”

It is often the marginalized, those looking from the outside in, who call us to our better natures. This is the hopeful section, as Richardson recounts progressive successes. The commitment to democracy of the marginalized — women, people of color, immigrants — has moved us forward, and it is their commitment that will once again help see us through our present turmoil.

I recently heard Richardson speak at her sold-out book tour event sponsored by Politics and Prose in Washington. A similar conversation was sponsored by The Booksmith in Haight-Ashbury and posted online. There Richardson was in dialogue with Rebecca Solnit. While Solnit is a better writer than interviewer, this is nonetheless a delightful conversation in so many ways.

Both remind us that we’ve been here before. We’ve faced challenges with bleak prospects. At the 16:50 mark, Richardson shares this example:

In 1853, elite enslavers controlled the presidency, Supreme Court, and the Senate and were making inroads into the House. Those who believed that a few elite white men should rule over others looked to expand their vision. In 1854 they get Congress to pass a law that makes enslavement across the country possible. Abolitionists and those who sought democracy looked defeated. Yet by the mid-1850s, a new political party was formed that called for freedom and the right to rise of the lower and middle classes. By 1859 they had recruited a young lawyer to help articulate their vision. In 1860, that lawyer — Abraham Lincoln — was elected to the presidency. In 1862 he had drafted the Emancipation Proclamation and in November of 1863 he delivered the Gettysburg Address, dedicating the nation to a new birth of freedom based in the Declaration of Independence.

In ten short years, the entire course of history was changed.

Solnit replies that the beginnings of the anti-slavery movement were actually “puny.” Female abolitionists sold crafts at fairs to make enough money to bring men like Frederick Douglas to speak at events.

Who the hell thinks they are going to sell pin cushions to bring down a powerful institution? Except they did.

Richardson’s excited response is, “I love that.” People think they are only one person. What can they do?

Make a damn pin cushion.

Democracy Awakening, is a galvanizing reminder that we can do this. Others who love democracy have done it before. After reading this important new work, we may find our own pin cushion that we can make to take down the authoritarianism of MAGA and push towards our loftiest ideals.

More to come . . .

DJB

UPDATE: For a shorter interview than the one above, I encourage you to watch the 10-minute report by Judy Woodruff where she interviews Richardson for the PBS News Hour at President Lincoln’s Cottage, a National Trust Historic Site.

UPDATE #2: HCR was on a recent Why Now? podcast of historian Claire Potter. Their conversation included several points that I found of interest about the writing of the book.

The Weekly Reader links to the works of other writers I’ve enjoyed.

Image from Pixabay

Writer's Block

Letter to the world

Published by

Curious friends ask, “Why do you write?” In fact, it is the second most common question about the newsletter following “How do you read five books a month?”

Ten tips for reading five books a month addressed the how, so now let’s tackle the why.

As life moves from certainty to mystery, I write to explore ideas, issues, and questions that change with time. Poet and songwriter Carrie Newcomer writes because she has a question, not because she has an answer. “I’m writing myself into my next becoming.”

I love that thought.

Paul Graham suggests in Writing, Briefly that, “Writing doesn’t just communicate ideas; it generates them.” My best essays serve to work through questions I need to address. In the process I gain new levels of understanding.

MORE TO COME also shares parts of life I love or find fascinating: a photographer’s wonder-filled portraits of America, a musician’s embrace of the intersection of the sacred and the ordinary, meditations on our country’s ideals, baseball’s instantaneous shift from boring to magical, a historian’s analysis that prompts a new way of looking at the world, the awe of watching children grow into adults.

Life is hard because mystery is hard. Life is also joyful and full of wonder. Life, like all truth, is a paradox. With a growing realization that our time here is limited, unpredictable, and sacred, I write to think through the questions and to share the joy I encounter along the way. It’s generally that simple.

Who cares?

In my mind, the MTC audience skews young, attractive, intelligent, and curious. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it!

My friend George Farr is a retired senior director at the National Endowment for the Humanities. George, whose late wife Judith wrote two seminal books on the works of Emily Dickenson, says that MORE TO COME is my “Letter to the World.” I love this description in part because of my affection for George and in part because of what Dickenson’s This is my letter to the World says about poetry’s attempts “to translate the broader mysteries of nature into language and communicate them to other people.”

This is my letter to the World
That never wrote to Me—

An important question for every writer is “does anyone care?” As I continue this writing habit, I need to ask myself the “who cares” question more frequently. I certainly write essays just for myself, but more often I have family, friends, and an ever-shifting definition of community in mind. I generally hear about what resonates, sometimes through online comments but more often in real-life conversations. I like it that way.

Editors

I’m also asked if I have an editor. I would have thought the answer would be obvious.

My wife taught reading and grammar in elementary school and both children had solid training in grammar, English, and creative writing. The three of them have forgotten more rules of grammar than I ever knew.

Yet sometimes I’ll purposely break those rules I do know.

Colum McCann notes, “On occasion we write a sentence that isn’t, in fact, correct, but it sings.  And the question is:  Would you rather be the ornithologist or the bird?”

Mrs. Swafford, my eight-grade English teacher, would shriek with horror at that thought, but I don’t care. On my good days, I’m striving to be the bird.

Topics

I opine about all manner of things on MTC. In some instances, I even know what I’m talking about.

Books, travel, conversations, essays, and lectures are a springboard to consider certain issues while helping me discover new appreciation for the world’s diversity and wonder. Unwrapping and sharing those discoveries brings me joy. Unsurprisingly, I often find myself working in the rich stew of our messy, often misunderstood, increasingly weaponized, yet always fascinating history.

Inspiration also comes in unexpected places. At this stage I find myself at more funerals than weddings. Sad to say I often discover I didn’t know very much about the deceased. That realization has me eager to hear stories from those around me while they are still alive. Agatha Christie wrote that Funerals Are Fatal but I’m finding that funerals push me to open up to others.

Listening, as always, is key. In fact, Natalie Goldberg suggests in Writing Down the Bones that writing is 90% listening.

If you want to become a good writer, you need to do three things. Read a lot, listen well and deeply, and write a lot.

Oh, and she adds, “don’t think too much.” I have the “not thinking” part down pat, but there’s always work to do with the listening.

“Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.” Mary Oliver’s recommendation to writers has become my North Star.

Gratitude

Anyone who writes owes a debt to others. Poet and essayist Mary Oliver, who always seemed to choose just the right word, is near the top of my list. The historian Heather Cox Richardson — who uses her Letters from an American newsletter “to wrangle our giant, meandering, and confusing news feed into a coherent story” that singles out priorities, precedents, and pathways — is also there.

Amy-Jill Levine considers life’s mysteries and makes me laugh and think simultaneously. Michael Eric Dyson brings passion and urgency to all his work. Others help me think about the craft of writing. Anne Lamott is great, as is John McPhee.

Joe Posnanski is the antithesis of the terse Paul Graham. Joe writes about sports, his hometown of Cleveland, and Taylor Swift because he can’t help it. His old subtitle of Curiously Long Posts was perfect, as Joe can go on forever like a favorite uncle who knows more stories than anyone.

Finally, I’ve often praised the writing of Rebecca Solnit, who understands the long view.

Joy doesn’t betray but sustains activism.  And when you face a politics that aspires to make you fearful, alienated, and isolated, joy is a fine initial act of insurrection.

I hope others find some joy in what I write. If joy is an act of insurrection in these days of outrage and hatred, count me among those scaling the castle walls.

Thanks for reading.

More to come . . .

DJB

Photos: Writer’s Block (Center for Documentary Studies); others from Pixabay and Unsplash.

Watchhouse Duo goes back to the basics

Published by

A post that continues to capture the interest of visitors to this site is my 2020 review of the warm, intimate, and compelling music of Watchhouse. I first heard the North Carolina folk duo — then known as Mandolin Orange — at the 2014 Red Wing Roots Music Festival and was instantly smitten. Singer-songwriter Andrew Marlin and multi-instrumentalist Emily Frantz crafted songs that were simple yet compelling. Over the years the band expanded to include other musicians and continued to produce warm, intimate music even as they became more widely known, explored new sonic palettes, and played larger venues.

But with the release of the Watchhouse Duo project, Andrew and Emily — now married and with children — are back on the road as they began: two individuals “with profound chemistry, performing earnest yet masterfully crafted songs that encompass the unknowable mysteries, existential heartbreak, and communal joys of modern life.” This new album is a self-produced project that reduces the songs from their 2021 introductory album as Watchhouse down to its basic acoustic elements.

Andrew Marlin and Emily Frantz (credit: Charlie Boss)

The Duo album opens with Wondrous Love — not the familiar folk hymn but one of Andrew’s compositions which stands in amazement of a universe “abound with wondrous love.”

I think of all the traveling that I’ve done
I think of all the traveling I could do
I could travel on and on and only
Travel ’round in circles ’til I’m blue
This sort of thought leaves me no despair
It pours me out then fully fills me up
It leads my heart infinitely onward
Across a universe abound with wondrous love

New Star celebrates an addition to the family.

We settled in for the winter
The cast in our lives, found a new star
And all of our remaining hours
Were bundled up tight and placed in our arms

Someday we’ll be older
Our eyes may cry
Look what’s become of me and my former
Steal away, steal away, remember
At least we’re all here together

Finding our way as a teacher
Stumbling along a little unrested
If only one lesson could reach her
She’ll know our love could never be tested

The sentimental video to the tune as originally released on the Watchhouse album “explores how the ritual of fire — across birthday candles, sky lanterns, sparklers and more — unites people.”

Coming Down from Green Mountain is a simple, yet beautiful instrumental with guitar (Emily) and mandolin (Andrew).

Watchhouse has also been playing dates with Emmylou Harris in recent months. Although the quality of this video isn’t great, I cannot pass up a chance to share Emily and Andrew singing harmony on Emmylou’s iconic Boulder to Birmingham, written after the death of Gram Parsons.

I would rock my soul in the bosom of Abraham
I would hold my life in his saving grace
I would walk all the way from Boulder to Birmingham
If I thought I could see, I could see your face

The Watchhouse Duo is touring this fall, with shows on the West Coast, in the Southeast, and ending with a few in the Northeast. The closest shows to the Washington area will be in Roanoke (December 6th) and Wilmington (December 7th).

It is a joy to see this band continue to grow in its work. Enjoy!

More to come . . .

DJB

Photo Credit: Shervin Lainez

End of the season

Published by

The 2023 baseball season is history after MLB crowned the Texas Rangers as World Series champions. Thinking back a few years, I know how much fun those fans will have celebrating their first championship. Enjoy the parade!

Here are a few of my immediate, off-the-cuff World Series observations.

The games

As World Series go, this wasn’t the best or the worst. Game 1 was, however, an instant classic. Here’s Joe Posnanski with the recap of the finish:

The game had been thrilling, the Diamondbacks ran the bases like Whitey Herzog was in charge, the Rangers tied it in the ninth because Corey Seager is a Marvel Superhero, and in the 11th inning, Adolis García stepped to the plate.

Joe then notes that three weeks ago, “the majority of people who would call themselves light-to-moderate baseball fans had never heard of Adolis García.” Then the Houston Astros hit him with a pitch in the ALCS and he simply went off for the rest of that series and subsequently carried it over to the World Series.

That was three weeks ago. And what strikes me now is not only that baseball fans of all dimensions have come to appreciate the awesomeness of Adolis García, it is that when he stepped to the plate in the 11th inning to face Diamondbacks reliever Miguel Castro with the bases empty and the score tied, every part of the baseball brain thought: “Home run.” My wife, Margo, one of those light-to-moderate baseball fans, said out loud: “Home run.” When the count got to 3-1, I said aloud: “The home run happens now.”

Of course he hit the game-winning home run. Go read Joe’s full post on that game . . . it is so much fun. The rest of the series? Not boring (except for Game 4) but not terribly exciting either.

The Rangers

Texas is certainly a deserving champion. In the regular season they fell into a tie for their division with Houston, thanks to a disastrous final weekend. The tiebreaker put them in the wild card slot. However, they have a strong team that came together at the right time. They have absolutely the best postseason manager of all time in Bruce Bochy. As 2019 reminds us, you can go all the way with the right chemistry and timely streaks. And as Joe Posnanski wrote, for the Rangers to win 11 road games in a row under these playoff circumstances, “well, it’s an all-timer.”

The Diamondbacks

Arizona was a good team that over-achieved in the playoffs. They have definitely turned a corner, and their fans were great in the few games they got to play at home. Their big achievement in 2023: beating the hated Phillies in the NLCS.

The Dodgers, Braves, Astros, and Phillies

All of these teams thought they were going to the World Series this year but didn’t make it. This is a pattern for the Dodgers. I think manager Dave Roberts knows how to handle 162 games but he’s somewhat clueless in the postseason. The Braves? They have to get over the hump of having the Phillies in their head, just as the Red Sox finally did with the Yankees. The Astros got what they deserved, although I’ve become a big Yordan Alvarez fan. He’s a monster! And the Phillies? Well, I’m pleased with how it turned out. Those stars better start winning championships soon because those long-term contracts on aging players are going to drag them down not too far in the future (hello Ryan Howard). And no amount of giving Trea Turner standing ovations will ever make up for Philadelphia fans booing Santa Claus.

The announcers

Joe Davis has become a pretty good play-by-play announcer on Fox, although he’s still no Vin Scully (who is?) or Jon Miller. However, John Smoltz won’t shut up. I liked Smoltz as a player, but as an announcer he talks as if he wants to say all the words he used to get into the 3 1/2-to-4-hour games before the pitch clock into the 2 1/2-to-3 hours of this year’s games with the pitch clock. His mom or best friend or boss needs to tell him to stop talking so much!

I listened to parts of the games on ESPN radio. The crew of Jon Sciambi, Jessica Mendoza, Eduardo Perez, and Buster Olney was much more enjoyable, and I really appreciate having a woman’s voice in the conversation. Some of the most knowledgeable baseball fans I know are women. It only makes sense to add their perspective to the broadcast.

The commercials

When you watch five baseball games in a row, you see a lot of the same commercials. Endlessly. Every half-inning is a feast for our capitalistic, consumer society. I’ve probably seen Melissa Griffey thrown out of the Geico commercial by Umpire Jim Joyce about 50 times for arguing over Ken Griffey, Jr.’s cute Hawaiian shirt. The Kid also makes a cameo in Geico’s concession ad, which is pretty funny. I wish that piano in the Liberty Mutual ad would fall on the ad agency that makes these stupid commercials. I must have tuned them out, because I don’t recall seeing as many gambling ads in the World Series as I saw on TBS during the earlier games. And I wonder why Geico didn’t run more of their classic horror movie ads about how to make decisions. I still love it!

Rules changes

The changes to the rules are great! The pitch clock makes the games move much faster, the ban on shifts has returned the game “to its original aesthetics,” and the limitations to throwovers plus the larger size of the bases have led to more base stealing. The Diamondbacks really excelled at this phase of the game, even reverting to some “small ball.”

There is a problem with the lack of quality starting pitchers which needs to be addressed. I don’t have an answer, but Barry Svrluga wrote a good column for the Washington Post where he outlined the issue and offers up his thoughts.

Spring training

And yes, only 100 days until spring training.

Spring Training
Credit: SpringTrainingCountdown.com

More to come . . .

DJB

Photo by Nicole Wilson on Unsplash

Confronting complicit silence

Published by

One of the key reasons authoritarians can get away with horrific acts and even murder is because of the complicit silence of “good people” in the community. None is more damning than the silence of the church. In his famous Letter from a Birmingham Jail, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote of his surprise that the white churches did not support the famous bus boycott against racial segregation on public transit. Some showed outright hostility, he wrote, but “all too many others have been more cautious than courageous and have remained silent behind the anesthetizing security of stained-glass windows.”

Of course, sometime the church is itself the authoritarian power. Ireland’s infamous Magdalene laundries certainly existed — and even thrived — because of complicit silence both inside and outside the church. *

Thankfully, confrontations against complicit silence come in all sizes. And even the small challenges can have tremendous impact.

Small Things Like These (2021) by Claire Keegan is a short yet deeply moving novel set in small-town Ireland during the Christmas season of 1985. Bill Furlong is a coal and timber merchant who works hard supporting his family while running a small business that employs several other men in the community. Well-liked and well respected, Furlong “had come from nothing. Less than nothing, some might say.”

His mother became pregnant at the age of sixteen while working as a domestic for Mrs. Wilson, a Protestant widow who lived “in the big house a few miles outside of town.” With no father in sight, Furlong’s mother is disowned by her family; yet her employer takes her in and helps raise young Bill. He goes to school and eventually becomes a local merchant, meets his wife Eileen, and they have four girls who, when we meet them, are doing well at the local Catholic school for young women.

As Christmas approaches, Furlong takes a load of coal to the local convent and makes a discovery that forces him to consider his past and the choices he must make in the face of complicit silence.

The silence hits very close to home when Eileen reminds him that the discovery “Tis not one of ours.” He responds, “Isn’t it a good job Mrs. Wilson didn’t share your ideas?” When he takes his yardmen to the local pub for a Christmas dinner, the owner, Mrs. Kehoe, lets him know that she had heard that Bill “had a run-in with herself above at the convent.”

Her advice? “You want to watch over what you’d say about what’s there. Keep the enemy close, the bad dog with you and the good dog will not bite.” Surely you must know, she adds, “these nuns have a finger in every pie.”

Magdalena cemetery in Donnybrook (credit: Justice for Magdelena’s Research)

Shortlisted for the 2022 Booker Prize and winner of the Orwell Prize, Small Things Like These brings us face-to-face, in a simple yet memorable story, with how we confront our past and with the evils of a community’s complicit, self-interested silence. It is also a deeply moving story of “hope, quiet heroism, and empathy.”

Small Things Like These is a little gem of a novel.

More to come . . .

DJB

*What were the Magdalene laundries?

From the foundation of the Irish Free State in 1922 until 1996, at least 10,000 girls and women were imprisoned, forced to carry out unpaid labour and subjected to severe psychological and physical maltreatment in Ireland’s Magdalene Institutions. These were carceral, punitive institutions that ran, commercial and for-profit businesses primarily laundries and needlework. After 1922, the Magdalene Laundries were operated by four religious orders (The Sisters of Mercy, The Sisters of Our Lady of Charity, the Sisters of Charity, and the Good Shepherd Sisters) in ten different locations around Ireland (click here for a map). The last Magdalene Laundry ceased operating on 25th October, 1996. The women and girls who suffered in the Magdalene Laundries included those who were perceived to be ‘promiscuous’, unmarried mothers, the daughters of unmarried mothers, those who were considered a burden on their families or the State, those who had been sexually abused, or had grown up in the care of the Church and State. Confined for decades on end — and isolated from their families and society at large — many of these women became institutionalised over time and therefore became utterly dependent on the relevant convents and unfit to re-enter society unaided.

Justice for Magdalenes Research

The Weekly Reader links to the works of other writers I’ve enjoyed. I hope you find something that makes you laugh, think, or cry. 

Observations from . . . October 2023

Published by

A summary of posts included in the MORE TO COME newsletter in October 2023.

October finally feels like fall. The leaves have displayed an array of stunning colors, reminding us again of nature’s wonder. Many of our days have brought cooler temperatures, open windows, and nights under the quilt. We can see the restoration of a more natural daily cycle with the end of daylight savings time just around the corner.

And . . . I’m writing about the baseball playoffs in MORE TO COME.

It just so happens that wonder and baseball were among the subjects of the three different October posts that outpaced the rest of the field in terms of reader views.

TOP READER VIEWS

The first celebrated the work of Carol Highsmith. 

Mona Lake by Carol M. Highsmith

Carol is an artist and photographer who has taken the time to see the wonder in America and take in the good.

  • Through an extraordinary 43-year project of visiting all 50 states and donating her images from those travels, copyright free, to the Library of Congress, Carol has “engaged in the important work of growing a robust commons built on gratitude and usability.” Her singular archive “is a testament to one woman’s passion and generosity.” In A gift to America, I highlight some of Carol’s evocative and timeless photographs, salute her generosity, and recognize her wisdom in seeing the good, the wonder, the joy in life. Because that post received so much great feedback, I followed it two days later with another group of her photographs: More gifts of joy and wonder.  Take the time today to see the wonder in America through Carol’s eyes.

Then there were those baseball posts.

After three weeks of blah baseball, the script flips. We’re treated to “sudden and startling lead changes and late-inning heroics and key mistakes and controversy and titanic performances, and there’s ecstasy and heartbreak and anger and joy and all the things that make this game so durably wonderful . . . I never argue with people who say baseball is boring. Baseball is boring. And then it isn’t. And that’s the magic.”

  • Those lines come from Joe Posnanski, written after a magical day in the League Championship Series (both of which went the full seven games). Joe also wrote the book that I reviewed in A brilliant love letter to baseball. That post ― in which I provide my slightly biased take on Posnanski’s Why We Love Baseball: A History in 50 Moments ― was also right at the top of the MTC reader views list for October. Even Statcast™ couldn’t measure how fast this post rose to the top! Check it out and be sure to click on the link to see the video of Jose Canseco’s head giving an assist to a home run! Priceless! And for a related take on the playoffs, read my piece If I were commissioner of baseball.

And then there was my most recent author Q&A.

The sixth of this year’s MTC author interviews was also near the top of this month’s reader views.

  • A prescription for sick cities captures my conversation with Jeff Siegler, author of Your City is Sick. Like a blunt yet perceptive doctor, Jeff first helps us understand the disease. Then in straightforward, no-holds-barred language he prescribes treatments to push his readers to transform their cities through relentless, incremental improvements. Jeff, a long-time friend and colleague, recently chatted with me about his hard-hitting yet essential new work.

MORE READING

October found me reading a typically eclectic list of books and newsletters. Besides baseball and city revitalization, I also pass along my takes on:

  • Many of you may have already seen the new blockbuster movie Killers of the Flower Moon. The blood cries out from the ground is my take on David Gann’s heart-shattering book upon which the movie is based.

SATURDAY SOUNDTRACKS

Each weekend in October also featured something musical.

Carrie Newcomer
  • A Great Wild Mercy highlights the just-released album of singer, songwriter, and storyteller Carrie Newcomer. As one would expect, it is simply beautiful.
  • The Irish pianist and composer Joan Trimble was a new name for me. But when a work friend recommended her music, I checked it out and was hooked. You can see my response in Free to be myself, regardless of fashion.
  • October has seen a great deal of bullying behavior both at home and abroad, so I naturally thought of the old fiddle tune Bully of the Town.

CONCLUSION

Thanks, as always, for reading. Your support and feedback mean more than I can ever express.

As you travel life’s highways be open to love, thirst for wonder, undertake some mindful walking every day, recognize the incredible privilege that most of us have, and think about how to put that privilege to use for good. Women, people of color, LGBTQ+ individuals, immigrants, and others can feel especially vulnerable . . . because they are. Work hard for justice and democracy as the fight never ends.

Bash into some joy along the way.

And finally, try to be nice. Always be kind.

More to come . . .

DJB

For the September 2023 summary, click here.

You can follow MORE TO COME by going to the small “Follow” box that is on the right-hand column of the site (on the desktop version) or at the bottom right on your mobile device. It is great to hear from readers, and if you like them feel free to share these posts on your own social media platforms.

Photo by Phil Henry on Unsplash

Ghosts, goblins . . . and roots music

Published by

Happy Hallowe’en!

Over the last three years, the Saturday Soundtrack before Halloween has featured roots music and pictures of homes decorated to celebrate the season. For this fourth installment I’m bringing some of the best of those together as we prepare for another evening of ghosts and goblins.

Spooky farewells

The legs of the Wicked Witch of the East — which is all we see after Dorothy’s house falls on her in the classic film The Wizard of Oz — have become a Halloween staple. Here’s a great display in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington.

Rhiannon Giddens sings a version of O Death (popularized by Ralph Stanley in the film O Brother, Where Art Thou?) from her album, They’re Calling Me Home. Giddens, with partner Francesco Turrisi, bases this version on a different source — Bessie Jones of the Georgia Sea Island Singers. As the Bluegrass Situation (BGS) site notes, it is a good reminder of “just how much of American music and culture are entirely thanks to the contributions of Black folks.”

And here’s the Ralph Stanley version.

Hanging around in Alameda, CA

Murder and suicide ballads

Here’s a classic on a DC house from a few years ago: Four pandemic tombstones, for those who trusted Tucker Carlson, didn’t trust the science, thought it was all a hoax, or self-treated with animal medicine. Each a spooky suicide story (in its own way).

The family bluegrass band Cherryholmes caused a stir with the modern murder ballad Red Satin Dress. I note the comment by the writer on the BGS website who pondered, “…with so many songs about murderous, deceitful women in bluegrass — the overwhelmingly male songwriters across the genre’s history couldn’t be bitter and misogynist, could they? Could they?”

Of course they could. If you have to ask you haven’t been paying attention.

Only in California (Alameda) could you have a skeleton doing a cannonball dive into a pool in late October!

As I wrote in 2021, leave it to national treasure Dolly Parton to recast murder and suicide ballads from the point of view of the abused, forgotten, and often murdered woman. The Bridge is a brilliant “sad-ass” Parton song**, focused on the last words of a pregnant woman about to jump to her death, on the spot she first kissed the lover who deserted her.

BGS also had a take on Jake Blount’s Where Did You Sleep Last Night.

“In the Pines” is one of the most haunting lyrics in the bluegrass lexicon, but ethnomusicologist, researcher, and musician Jake Blount didn’t source his version from bluegrass at all — but from Nirvana. That’s just one facet of Blount’s rendition, which effortlessly queers the original stanzas and adds a degree of disquieting patina that’s often absent from more tired or well-traveled covers of the song. A reworking of a traditional track that leans into the moroseness underpinning it.

Blount’s version, as another commentator notes, goes back to a more authentic version of the song, removing the aspects of a love story and revealing the harsher truth about the lynching mobs and sudden disappearances in the woods. Chilling but brilliant.

Why won’t they stay in the grave?

Everybody seems to be coming up from the grave at this Alameda house

The Folklore Center at the Library of Congress had a blog post a few years ago entitled Ghost Stories in Song for Halloween. The first tune recommended was Jean Ritchie singing The Unquiet Grave, “which is both a tender love song and a frank conversation with a ghost.” Writing about Ritchie’s version, the liner notes suggest that the song…

“…is notable for its exhibition of several universal popular beliefs, including a talking ghost, the idea that excessive grief on the part of mourners disturbs the peace of the dead, the troth plight that binds lovers even after death (with the death-kiss perhaps indicating a return of the troth), and the belief that the kiss of a dead person may result in death.“

One of the most haunting versions of this tune was recorded by my favorite Irish band, Solas. And this snippet from the lyrics give a hint of what’s to come.

One kiss, one kiss of your lily white lips, one kiss is all I crave
One kiss, one kiss of your lily white lips and return back to your grave…”

Well, you get the idea. Give it a listen.

Bringing Mary Home is a classic “ghost” hit by the Country Gentlemen, in part because the ending sneaks up on you. This version from a 1992 reunion show at Woodstock — featuring Eddie Adcock (banjo and backing vocals), the late John Duffy (mandolin and high tenor), the late Charlie Waller (guitar and lead vocal) and Tom Gray (bass) — is priceless. Yep, John Duffy’s pants are pretty scary on their own!

Hellhounds on my tail

An Alameda resident takes movie titles and gives them a Halloween twist!

The blues and jazz cats also have a great number of songs for the season. Nina Simone does her usual masterful job with the Screamin’ Jay Hawkins hit I Put a Spell on You. Of course, no Halloween-influenced roots music list would be complete without at least one song from bluesman Robert Johnson. “Legendarily making a Faustian deal at a mythological crossroads,” Johnson recorded “Hellhound on My Trail” during his second Texas sessions, a year before his mysterious, and untimely death. 

Climb under the sheets if you need to, but don’t get spooked.

Halloween self-portrait of the “unofficial official photographer” of MORE TO COME, Claire Holsey Brown, with a less-than-enthusiastic Chai from 2022.

More to come . . .

DJB

*To read the earlier posts, check out 2020, then 2021, and again last year in 2022.

**Parton self-described some of her work from the early years as “sad ass songs.” In those works, she was often taking traditional murder ballads like Knoxville Girl and recasting them from the woman’s (i.e., the victim’s) point of view.

Image of werewolf from Pixabay. Image of ghost from Stefan Keller on Pixabay. Image of house decorations from Claire Holsey Brown and DJB.