Eighty-eight years is a good, long life, by any standard. Still, the loss of Toni Morrison is a gut punch and hard to take for many people. I think it is especially so because her life and writing meant so much to all of her readers. For all of her fans, this is a personal loss. It is especially hard to take right now because her voice is balm in troubling times.
I’m very sorry she is gone, but I am so grateful that she lived and shared an incredible body of work with the world. That is such a huge gift.
In the wake of the news of Morrison’s death, some lovely things have been written and shared, or re-shared.
Five Poems by Toni Morrison – by Jericho Brown, Poetry Editor of The Believer, literature, arts and culture magazine.
Writers — journalists, essayists, bloggers, poets, playwrights — can disturb the social oppression that functions like a coma on the population, a coma despots call peace, and they stanch the blood flow of war that hawks and profiteers thrill to.
~ Toni Morrison, The Source of Self-Regard, 2019
These are words we need right now. Thank goodness, and Toni Morrison, we have them.
I have been busy trying to keep up with all of the new music that has been released thus far in 2016. It is not easy to do when you work full time! I have been eagerly adding songs to my 2016 Spotify play list, and my collection of songs for the decade has grown to over 300. And I keep finding tracks that were produced in previous years that I missed. Like I said, it’s really hard to keep up!
Here are some of the many highlights that I have been obsessively listening to so far this year.
Tedeschi Trucks Band – Let Me Get By My favorite album thus far in 2016. In fact, this will likely be one of my favorite all-time desert island albums. It has been in regular rotation at my house since its release. And I usually only choose one or two tracks from one album to add to my favorites lists, but I love each and every one, so they all appear on my 2016 list and my decade list. Susan Tedeschi (vocals and guitar) and spouse Derek Trucks (guitar) have assembled a group of musicians who are talented enough to stand on their own. Together, they are a powerhouse. Watch the whole band here on NPR’s Tiny Desk Concert.
Mavis Staples – Livin on a High Note This is like an industry tribute album for her. It’s a collaboration with some more currently popular and respected names in music right now, each paying homage to a legend, a hero to many. Her voice is more sandy and gritty, and even more soulful than before.
I got to see Mavis Staples and Bonnie Raitt in concert together a few years ago. It was one of those profound moments in life, two legends performing together who you know they absolutely love and respect each other. I get chills thinking about it.
Lucius – Good Grief Fun pop music. I don’t love the single they’ve been playing on the radio so much, Born Again Teen. It’s okay, but I think there are much better tracks on this album, like All Mighty Gosh.
Single Notes
ANOHNI – Drone Bomb Me – The video for this is just devastating. ANOHNI’s voice is haunting. This song has been described as and ” indictment of the drone campaigns carried out by the United States and elsewhere, delivered from the perspective of a young girl whose family has been killed in a drone strike.” She has confirmed that she will release a new album on May 6, Hoplessness. A tangential opinion here: She really should have won the Oscar for best song. She absolutelyshould have been invited to perform on the show. What a missed opportunity.
Kindness – A Retelling – I learned about Kindness (solo project of Adam Bainbridge) last year, and this is his latest track. He recorded it for the The Long Road project, a collaboration between musicians and refugees. Just lovely.
Anticipated Obsessions
case/lang/viers – Atomic Number This trio is nothing but a miracle, something I never would have conceived of, but when I heard about it I knew it would be amazing. Neko Case, k.d. lang, and Laura Veirs (who I admittedly am less familiar with) are releasing an album together, and touring this summer. They’ve released a couple of singles to give us a taste.
Beth Orton – Kidsticks This beautiful single was released on March 2. Looks like she’s getting back to combing her folky style with electronica, and it’s just a lovely combination. This track definitely makes me want to hear more!
Sturgill Simpson – A Sailor’s Guide to EarthSturgill Simpson is a new discovery for me, just this week, as a matter of fact. I heard a cut from this new album on the radio while I was on the way to work one day, and I was blown away. I looked him up first thing when I arrived at my office, and found that NPR was streaming the entire album. The web site says “At the artist’s request, songs from this album cannot be played individually.” After listening all the way through it, I can understand why. It is totally worth listening to from beginning to end. I don’t know what to say except that this album is like nothing I’ve heard. Twang, funk, soul, spiritual….the Dap Kings play on five of the tracks. He plays a mellow country western version of Nirvana’s In Bloom for gosh sakes! I heard a reviewer say “I just want to hug him.” So do I.
The new album comes out next week, April 15. Meanwhile, thank goodness you can stream it on NPR. I predict this is going to be one of my favorite albums this year, and maybe even make my Desert Island list.
One of my New Year’s resolutions for 2015 was to listen more intentionally to new music. I have done a pretty good job of reaching that goal, if I do say so. I have compiled my list on Spotify of favorite songs that were released in 2015 (you must have a Spotify account to view and listen). I have attempted to make a list of my top ten albums. There was a lot of really great music this year, so picking only ten has been difficult. This has been so enjoyable a task that I will definitely keep it up in 2016.
My primary resources for music discovery are Spotify, KCRW, WXPN, and SOMAFM, as well as music reviews from Sound Opinions, Fresh Air, Dinner Party Download, and NPR Music. Ben Watt of Everything but the Girl fame has a list on Spotify which has helped me discover some new music. This seems to be a random collection, and it is not all new music, but a lot of it was new to me.Also, recommendations from friends have been very welcome.
I chose the albums that I have enjoyed listening to from start to finish. The following (in no particular order) are the albums that I have become obsessed with at some point in the last 12 months, listening over and over, and all have tracks that will make it to my Desert Island List.
Since compiling my list of favorite albums from 2015, two more have come to my attention that I would have chosen to include, extending my list to twelve. These albums are just beautiful and are worthy of obsessive listening.
Winter is hibernation season, during which we, and Chez Conner-Smith, put our jammies on as soon as the sun goes down and we are in for the night.
After which we indulge in prime time TV popular culture.
In my adult life, I have let go of any shame that I ever felt for enjoying popular culture, particularly television, and I just indulge with relish. My recent show are particularly low-brow, and I am almost prideful of how much I enjoy watching these shows:
The Good Wife, Nashville, and the deliciously soapy Revenge and Scandal. Of course there is Mad Men and Son’s of Anarchy, which we need to catch up with since we haven’t had premium cable for over a year now. That is also why we haven’t been able to enjoy Homeland yet, which I look forward to
And now it is award show season, which I guess you could say started with the Kennedy Center Honors, followed by the Golden Globes. Next of course is the Oscars. Honestly, I don’t care that much about the winners, but I do enjoy the self-celebration of the entertainment industry and remind myself of all of the TV shows and movies I want to see. Some of it is entertaining, some of it inspiring. Some of it is annoying and tedious.
Oh, and then of course there is the red carpet. I admit, I do love the fashion show!
My favorite pop culture podcast, Pop Culture Happy Hour, ends each episode with a segment called “What’s Making You Happy,” and each of the panelists takes a turn sharing what in the world of popular culture and the arts is making them happy. With that inspiration, I’m going start doing a regular blog post on Paradoxologies about what’s making me happy. It will be fun to write, the sharing will also make me happy, and it will be an opportunity to spread good vibes (think: Puppies and Rainbows!).
I’m not promising that it will always be related to popular culture, although this first blog post is. And actually, I have two things that are making me happy:
The first: WXPN – I don’t know why it has taken me almost a year to discover this station. I guess I have been listening to Pandora and my podcasts all the time. Happily, a colleague at work told me that this week they are doing a count down of the 885 Greatest Rock Songs. It made the end of the week more fun in the office, and now I (finally) know about this local Philly radio station that has amazing programming! Yay!
The other thing making me happy is Tig Notaro. Notaro is a stand-up comedian who first came to my attention this past spring in the live show that This American Life did, in an act called Groundhog Dayne about Notaro’s encounter with the pop singer Taylor Dayne. I loved Notaro immediately. She’s silly and hilarious. Later in the summer, I saw a clip of Notaro on a blog post that was shared in response to Daniel Tosh’s offensive rape “joke”, a story that was controversial and viral in July. The post was 15 Rape Jokes That Work (debatable, but Notaro’s clip is decidedly funny).
A few weeks later, I heard through social media that she had been diagnosed with breast cancer – in both breasts. And the prognosis didn’t look good.
More about how her story came to light, about about how she was faring came out this week. The best part of the story is that she has been successfully treated, and there is only a 7% chance that the cancer will come back. I was very happy to learn this.
The other part of the story that is making me happy is that Notaro is making a name for herself professionally, with the help of a very sweet and significant endorsement from Louis CK. After her cancer diagnosis in the summer, she did a live set at a comedy club in LA, and with raw emotion told the audience about her current bumps in the road. As if the cancer diagnosis weren’t enough, she had just suffered from several other major blows in her personal life, compounding everything. Louis CK was in the audience that night in August (and had performed at the club that evening as well). The next day, Louis CK tweeted:
in 27 years doing this, I’ve seen a handful of truly great, masterful standup sets. One was Tig Notaro last night at Largo.
That right there made Tig Notaro go viral. So, her comedy and the very happy conclusion of this rough patch in her life, and Louis CK’s endorsement (really – what a great guy) of her work are making me happy this week. I can’t wait to see more of Tig Notaro’s work and comedy.
Terry Gross interviewed both Notaro and Louis CK about this story this week. You can hear part of her set in the story. Plus they are just great interviews.
Perry v Schwarzenegger put Proposition 8 on trial. More precisely, as attorney David Boies put it, the case put fear and prejudice on trial.
In case you missed it last night, the recording of the reading of 8: A Play About The Fight For Marriage Equality will be available for one week. The new play about Perry v Schwarzenegger, the Proposition 8 trial has been produced and promoted by the American Foundation for Equal Rights as a strategic move in the marriage equality movement. The defendants in this case, the proponents of Prop 8, have argued successfully so far to keep the videos of the actual trial sealed. They want to keep them sealed because they know those tapes will damage their overall cause. They performed so badly and their arguments were so ridiculous that it was laughable. And the families that were there to tell their stories were so touching and compelling, public perception can’t help but land in favor of marriage equality.
You can certainly read about it, as the media covered it. When the trial was going on, I was following the news very closely as an interested party. When I read the news, I remember laughing out loud at some of the testimony. The burden of the defense, the Prop 8 proponents, was to show how “traditional” couples and families would be harmed by gay and lesbian couples getting married. They came with nothing. They could not demonstrate how this would be so, and they looked foolish and mean-spirited in the process.
So, in lieu of being able to see the tapes of the trial, we have “8”. It’s an all-star cast, including Brad Pitt, George Clooney, Jaimie Lee Curtis, Jane Lynch, John C. Reily, and others, all HUGE names behind this! And with Rob Reiner producing, there is an amazing amount of clout and power behind this. I can’t say enough how much I appreciate their commitment to the project and the fight for marriage equality.
I keep a page on this blog for Inspiring Lives where I post links to obituaries for people whom I admire. In a past professional life, one of my assignments was to read obituaries, and it was a task I began to enjoy. I find them to be beautiful tributes written with care and love. Over the years I have read many that truly are inspiring, so much so that from time to time I would cut one out of the paper and tack it too the cork board above my desk. Friends have observed that they feel sad when the read the obits, but I also find joy and celebration in the words.
I am no longer required to read the obits, but I have kept the habit. I subscribe to a few obituary blogs, and I will share my favorites on Facebook and Twitter, and of course track them here.
2009 has marked many passings, and honestly I haven’t been able to keep up. Today, as I begin a New Years resolution to write and blog more, I am updating my page and remembering all of the wonderful people who we lost in 2009 who made life on this earth a little sweeter. Even in their passing we can be happy that they lived, and honor them with acknowledgement and celebration.
This year, these death hit close to home. I shed tears as I watched the telecasts of the memorials for Ted Kennedy and Michael Jackson, sharing in the popular grief of the rest of the Nation as we witnessed the end of an era. My family lost our beloved uncle, Ted Larson, in February, and on Little Christmas Eve Lula Maria Walker Smith, my wife’s mother, passed away after a long illness.
The nine-year anniversary of my mother’s death is coming up on January 10th. The profundity of her passing, continues to teach me that death is a gift, if you are open to to receiving it as such.
For every life that I cite here, I am grateful. Namaste.
