one thing today

My latest Youtube rabbit hole are kids/babies hearing or seeing for the first time and their breathtaking moment of understanding that something beautiful and big has happened. They hear their mother, they see their father. The parents are as overjoyed by the change as their children.  In a home movie, my sister Jessie is five or six with fair skin and long black pigtails. We sit on the rug in front of our fireplace, I lift her braids high and she widens her eyes as much as possible and makes a big O out of her mouth. She's very happy to make our family laugh.   

Blue Songs are like tattoos You know I've been to sea before Crown and anchor me Or let me sail away Hey Blue there is a song for you Ink on a pin Underneath the skin An empty space to fill in Well there're so many sinking Now you've got to keep thinking You can make it thru these waves Acid, booze, and ass Needles, guns, and grass Lots of laughs Lots of laughs Everybody's saying that hell's the hippest way to go well I don't think so, but I'm Gonna take a look around it though  Blue I love you Blue Here is a shell for you Inside you'll hear a sigh A foggy lullaby There is your song from me

can we read books can we listen to music can we walk down a street can we kiss can we learn can we swim in the ocean can we dance can we eat can we sleep can we take photographs can we paint can we go to the movies can we smoke can we run can we laugh can we be surprised can we remember 

  7 girls I knew when we were 13 my good friend Kit just died. she is top row second from right. glorious girl.  next to her ... on the end is Kim Merton. She had eight kids and died very early.  Blonde Carol Malone is on Kit's left. She died too, after getting divorced and spending too many summers getting way too much sun at Point Lookout.   Next to Carol is Eileen Mc Cormick who I think still lives in our hometown. Her older sister Barbara was my sister Reginas bridesmaid. She won a car and I remember telling my mother "too bad she has to pay taxes on it."  Bottom row ... Nancy Mc Garrity ... she taught me guitar and always liked to say "capo, capasta, capastan."  Barbara in the middle is a friend still ... salt of da earth ... masterminds our class reunions, married to Jay, the smartest person in our round 180 student class.  Nancy on the end, a friend still, too - was married two or three times and still lives in her childhood pre war house -that...

I just watched Barak take the Colbert Questionaire ...  what number am I thinking of ?  It's 7 I thought.  7 says our cool cat coolest prez ... and he's correct. ******************** 46%. 46% !!! ... of Americans have tattoos ******************** Last night Britney was in a restaurant and got up from the table and walked around the place brandishing a knife.  She digs sharp cutlery.   ******************** LBJ on the phone with his tailor ... LBJ : Now the pockets, when you sit down, everything falls out, your money, your knife, everything, so I need at least another inch in the pockets. And another thing - the crotch, down where your nuts hang - is always a little too tight, so when you make them up, give me an inch that I can let out there, uh because they cut me, it's just like riding a wire fence.  JH : Fine LBJ : But, uh when I gain a little weight they cut me under there. So, leave me , you never do have much of margin there. See if you can't leave me ...

                  I can't clean this up ... but I hope you get the                                                                                                                               idea  

The spiritual meaning of 800 represents a powerful message of abundance, prosperity and the manifestation of goals.   It is frequently interpreted as an angel number (  numbers that are repeating or sequential digits - such as  11,444,1234 -  that frequently catch our attention in everyday life, like on clocks, receipts, or license plates). In numerology and spiritual practices, they are believed to be gentle, meaningful messages or signs of guidance from the universe or spiritual guides signaling that your hard work is paying off and that you are entering a phase of financial stability and positive life changes.   The number 8 is strongly tied to material and spiritual abundance. The presence of two zeros intensifies this energy, suggesting a massive inflow of prosperity and success. Angel number 800 is a reminder that your thoughts and intentions are rapidly becoming reality. It encourages keeping a positive mindset and focused intent to achieve your desires ....

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John Savage is 20 days younger than me. Just watched him in Inside Moves . Early 80s. Masterful acting. He is a fab artist. He acted high on LSD in HAIR and was totally Wiseman doc convincing. He is always sweet and sexy and  understated with feeling and surprise and deep sincerity and I thought he didn't do that much work and I wiki d him and discovered he's been in yikes ! ... more than 200 movies. Amazing.  He should have had a Paul Newman klieg light careening kareer. 

  This is i nterior designer Alexander Doherty. He works in New York and Paris. His apartment is way too full sparkle plenty done up too much thus wrong but he is so dreamy Superman handsome he looks A.I. I am reading a book and it illustrates how hard it is to establish characters. The author is setting up the story with at least ten, maybe as many as fifteen characters he wants the reader - me - to remember/recall/recognize.  It is quite a task. Hard.  In one scene, he describes a beautiful woman listening to live music at night in an Italian courtyard and it reminded me of one of my most memorable lifetime memories.  A lovely friend one summer night at an outside Joan Armatrading concert along the Hudson. She gets all flushed after she drinks wine - Leslie, not Joan - and while Joan sings her majestic anthemic one for the ages song Love and Affection ... when she elongates ... why can't I feel  l-o-o-o-v-v-v-v-v-ve-e, my friend raises both her arms and ...

  the Magnificent Paragraph of the Month In the bowling alley, the stale cool air seemed hardly to exist, except as a smell and a chill from no particular source. Outside, without a breeze, only the summer heat, the lingering odor of sun-warmed parking lot, of cars and litter, he might have felt this sudden silence had stopped whatever it was that turned and refreshed the earth.                                                                                                             - Alice McDermott, That Night

My parents gave me boxing gloves one christrmas. I'm sure it was my mothers idea. I didn't know that it was more than a cliche - your stomach can drop. I knew I had to like them. I knew I had to use them. They must have bought a pair for my brother. When my father tried to teach me how to make a fist, I buried my thumb inside my other four fingers and told him I didn't want to hurt him.

                                 Ali Siddiq            start with his My Two Sons or  Mondays                                ... on Youtube

Arthur Brooks is a social scientist, writer, speaker. He teaches MBA ers at Harvard Business School and explains to them why they aren't happy even though they are 1% ers destined for fame, glory, $$$.  He believes women want to be adored while men want to be admired. I'm not sure I agree with his binary distinctions but I do think that adoration isn't earned, necessarily, while admiration is based on actions and achievements.  I think its been proven that women judge men on how well they will provide for loved ones, especially children. Kindness is a major factor, too. Men, being the less deep creatures, judge women based on surface appeal. Broadly speaking, lesbians are idealists. Gay men have to figure out if they want to love their man or if they want to be him.  It's all a puzzlement. 

Herbie Hancock was playing with Miles Davis once in concert. He said the music was "tight, powerful and fun."  And then he, Herbie, played a horribly wrong chord that was a big mistake. Miles paused for a second and played something that made the wrong chord right. He didn't hear it as a mistake. He heard it as something that happened and found something to follow that fit.  

  I watched Laurie Anderson's 1985 Home of the Brave concert tonight on Youtube. I saw it at the Beacon theater 41 years ago. It remains the best entertainment I have ever seen. I spent a work day with her. She is a genius. 

  ... is a very Southern Gothic little girls name. Very To Kill a Mockingbird.  She was an only child in our neighborhood growing up - which was like being a rainbow colored, three legged, joke telling  unicorn. All the kids knew she always only drank ginger ale because she was deathly allergic to milk and had a mouthful of tiny, rotten teeth to prove it. If even the tiniest drop of milk ever touched her thin, pale lips she'd collapse right there on the spot, never to breathe another breath. All the mothers worried because she was always "as white as a sheet" and as thin as Popeyes girlfriend. Her always worried, overly  protective mother walked her to the school bus and picked her up for lunch and returned her to school and picked her up again at the end of the day.  My close friend Kit lived right across the street from her and whenever she hung out at Pattys house, she'd always have to untie her blond pigtails because otherwise Pattys older-than-the-other- da...

...  is  the Roman Catholic doctrine that the bread and wine used in the Eucharist (Holy Communion) miraculously change into the actual body and blood of Jesus Christ, while retaining their external appearance, taste and smell .   I knew what the word meant in the third grade and even though from the get go I thought it was a crock, I went on to my shortly thereafter career as a cathedral parish altar boy who mastered Latin and getting out of class to serve at funerals.  et plebs tua laetabitur in te   tran sub stan ti a tion noun tran·​sub·​stan·​ti·​a·​tion   ˌtran(t)-səb-ˌstan(t)-shē-ˈā-shən  the miraculous change by which according to Roman Catholic dogma the eucharistic elements at their consecration become the body and blood of Christ while keeping only the appearances of bread and wine.      I knew this word and understood  what it meant in the third grade. and instead of introducing me to the be...