Of perfect games and thanks and trade winds
It’s been a while, faithful reader, as life has pretty much overwhelmed any sense of blogging.
Since my last entry the Dems have retaken the house, which is one for the bonobo side. I have to confess to being a political junkie during election season, obsessively checking pollingreport.com and regularly reading the NY and LA Times, the Post, the Nation, Alternet and the New Yorker for the latest spins and so on. I am well aware that a lot of this is a shell game, and that we are dealing with degrees of corruption and corporate mendacity, and in a lot of ways it is like a grand kabuki-style ritualized dance. It is cubic zircomium, this faux democracy of ours, with millionaires running against millionaires as the corporate whore press comments, oohs and ahhs, usually misguided and off-base, but never contrite about their misprognostications, merely bringing fresh conventional wisdom to the table, all in the service of the power structure.
Nonetheless, to see a vile creature like George Allen lose, to see a socialist senator elected in Vermont, to see a scene where for the first time in living memory one side pitched a perfect game, that is astonishing. The Dems won all the Governorships, House seats and Senate seats that changed hands and took the majority of state houses, the house and the senate. That is a clean sweep for progressives. The spinners can assert all they want that, well it is because they ran more conservative candidates in these swing seats, but virtually all of the Dems were anti-war, pro-environment and economic populists, whatever their stances on the social issues of gay marriage and abortion and guns. That is an astonishing repudiation of what Mike Malloy memorably calls the Bush Crime family, and they all know it.
Look, I am mainly far to the left of the Dem party, but in every way, from civil rights to health care to the environment to labor to women’s rights to imperialist wars to loving jazz, we get to where I want far more easily from them than from the proto-fascist-religiously intolerant-move money to the wealthy few-shred the constituion-despoil the environment GOP, so once in a while, my lefty friends, you have to savor a victory, however imperfect, and this was the Dems' perfect game. Now, I am not a baseball fan, but good is good. Three cheers for counting most of the votes!
On this Thanksgiving in transition, I am thankful for so much. I am thankful for my health. Thankful that I have been given the gift of playing and writing and teaching music and that I have done what I love my whole life, and never falling into the soul-killing corporate grind. Thankful for the utterly delirious gyrations of dogs who have slept in my room all night and still greet me deliriously the next morning. So thankful that my son continues to astonish and grow, now writing insightful pieces of prose worthy of someone twice his age, and capable of cracking me (a tough audience) up on a regular basis. Thankful that my wife, a confirmed vegan, is still willing to make a free range turkey for friends and family today, despite her not partaking in it. I am also thankful to her for leading by example in pursuing her artistic dreams at an age when so many settle for a new car, a vacation home or a mistress as a midlife palliative.
I am thankful for the difficult but enlightening journey I have been on the past 3-4 years. I have learned much about myself and the world, and am glad I am still capable of learning at an age when it is very easy to ossify. I am thankful to Pema Chodron for her wise, nuanced and slogan-free philosophy, so wonderfully expressed. She understands the "beautiful complexity" (as Billy Collins would say) of existence. I am thankful for the support and love of all the friends in my life, old and new. I am thankful that I am still writing and playing and that my favorite tune is the one I currently write, and favorite solo is the one I am playing. I am thankful that my father has recovered from his treacherous waltz with death this summer, and while he does have alzheimer’s and parkinson’s, he is much improved from that bleak time. I am thankful to play jazz, the ultimate meeting of head and heart (or as Daniel Goleman would say in the book Social Intelligence, “male” and “female” brain). I am thankful that jazzers are my kindred souls, and we can have musical conversation like no other conversation I can have with anyone.
I am thankful for everything from tennis in the rain to Labradors chasing driftwood in the ocean to the guy at Peet’s coffee who is unfailingly kind and friendly to the woman sure enough in herself to wear stockings cause she thinks it’s sexy (the hell with what the fashion police say) to Albany’s rejecting the pro-development $ and preserving our beautiful beach. Lastly, I am thankful for change, the only constant in our lives, as the Buddhists say. To say no gets you safety, to say yes gets you adventure, and I guess I am trying to say yes more, nowadays. So happy Thanksgiving, and as Mark Twain said:
"Twenty years from now, you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails.
Explore. Dream. Discover."
May we all try. Happy Thanksgiving and here’s to the occasional perfect game…
Since my last entry the Dems have retaken the house, which is one for the bonobo side. I have to confess to being a political junkie during election season, obsessively checking pollingreport.com and regularly reading the NY and LA Times, the Post, the Nation, Alternet and the New Yorker for the latest spins and so on. I am well aware that a lot of this is a shell game, and that we are dealing with degrees of corruption and corporate mendacity, and in a lot of ways it is like a grand kabuki-style ritualized dance. It is cubic zircomium, this faux democracy of ours, with millionaires running against millionaires as the corporate whore press comments, oohs and ahhs, usually misguided and off-base, but never contrite about their misprognostications, merely bringing fresh conventional wisdom to the table, all in the service of the power structure.
Nonetheless, to see a vile creature like George Allen lose, to see a socialist senator elected in Vermont, to see a scene where for the first time in living memory one side pitched a perfect game, that is astonishing. The Dems won all the Governorships, House seats and Senate seats that changed hands and took the majority of state houses, the house and the senate. That is a clean sweep for progressives. The spinners can assert all they want that, well it is because they ran more conservative candidates in these swing seats, but virtually all of the Dems were anti-war, pro-environment and economic populists, whatever their stances on the social issues of gay marriage and abortion and guns. That is an astonishing repudiation of what Mike Malloy memorably calls the Bush Crime family, and they all know it.
Look, I am mainly far to the left of the Dem party, but in every way, from civil rights to health care to the environment to labor to women’s rights to imperialist wars to loving jazz, we get to where I want far more easily from them than from the proto-fascist-religiously intolerant-move money to the wealthy few-shred the constituion-despoil the environment GOP, so once in a while, my lefty friends, you have to savor a victory, however imperfect, and this was the Dems' perfect game. Now, I am not a baseball fan, but good is good. Three cheers for counting most of the votes!
On this Thanksgiving in transition, I am thankful for so much. I am thankful for my health. Thankful that I have been given the gift of playing and writing and teaching music and that I have done what I love my whole life, and never falling into the soul-killing corporate grind. Thankful for the utterly delirious gyrations of dogs who have slept in my room all night and still greet me deliriously the next morning. So thankful that my son continues to astonish and grow, now writing insightful pieces of prose worthy of someone twice his age, and capable of cracking me (a tough audience) up on a regular basis. Thankful that my wife, a confirmed vegan, is still willing to make a free range turkey for friends and family today, despite her not partaking in it. I am also thankful to her for leading by example in pursuing her artistic dreams at an age when so many settle for a new car, a vacation home or a mistress as a midlife palliative.
I am thankful for the difficult but enlightening journey I have been on the past 3-4 years. I have learned much about myself and the world, and am glad I am still capable of learning at an age when it is very easy to ossify. I am thankful to Pema Chodron for her wise, nuanced and slogan-free philosophy, so wonderfully expressed. She understands the "beautiful complexity" (as Billy Collins would say) of existence. I am thankful for the support and love of all the friends in my life, old and new. I am thankful that I am still writing and playing and that my favorite tune is the one I currently write, and favorite solo is the one I am playing. I am thankful that my father has recovered from his treacherous waltz with death this summer, and while he does have alzheimer’s and parkinson’s, he is much improved from that bleak time. I am thankful to play jazz, the ultimate meeting of head and heart (or as Daniel Goleman would say in the book Social Intelligence, “male” and “female” brain). I am thankful that jazzers are my kindred souls, and we can have musical conversation like no other conversation I can have with anyone.
I am thankful for everything from tennis in the rain to Labradors chasing driftwood in the ocean to the guy at Peet’s coffee who is unfailingly kind and friendly to the woman sure enough in herself to wear stockings cause she thinks it’s sexy (the hell with what the fashion police say) to Albany’s rejecting the pro-development $ and preserving our beautiful beach. Lastly, I am thankful for change, the only constant in our lives, as the Buddhists say. To say no gets you safety, to say yes gets you adventure, and I guess I am trying to say yes more, nowadays. So happy Thanksgiving, and as Mark Twain said:
"Twenty years from now, you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails.
Explore. Dream. Discover."
May we all try. Happy Thanksgiving and here’s to the occasional perfect game…
posted by Michael Zilber at 11:21 AM
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