Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Enlightened Ebbing 10/14/09

Only the hand that erases can write the true thing.

Meister Eckhart
*****************
Come sit over here by me.
_____________________
It seems a very odd thing for most people to look at evil squarely in the face with all of its evidence and to deny it, to deny its rights and to deny its very existence. And yet that is what many great thinkers of the past and present have told us to do. The slate must be cleaned before the right words can be written on it. Denial must be matched with affirmation, and affirmation with denial.

The director of a local high school play called and asked if I would come and help him. He was having trouble with the last scene and he didn't know what to do about it. The students performed the scene for me and it was a mess. First I had to get the teacher's permission to take over the redirecting of it, then I undid everything he had done, brought the whole scene to a stand still and started over to do it right.

One day in New York I was stopped by a radio interviewer who wanted to know my opinion about a current homicide trial that was happening and what I thought of capital punishment. I had no opinion about the murder case but I said I was not in favor of capital punishment because I believed that anyone is basically redeemable no matter how tethered they are to crime and violence. If I did not believe that, though my sins may be minor compared to some, it would be hypocritical of me to hope for my own redemption. And it has happened. People have been inspired to turn their lives around, overcome the crimes, malignancies and anti social behavior of their pasts and emerge as good people.

I knew a man who, because of a minor indiscretion when he was young, was required to register with the police as a sex offender wherever he went. And yet he became very effective at straightening out other men who were guilty of even worse such behavior and an advocate for the protection of children.

When the war in Iraq started those who pray were, I'm sure, praying for the safety of our armies, for the right actions of our generals and the right decisions of our president. But I'll bet none of those who prayed were praying for the one man who needed our prayers more than anyone else, Saddam Hussein.

"WHAT??!!" you are screaming. "I should have PRAYED for that son of a bitch???!!!" The answer is "Yes." After all he was the one caught in the spider's web of evil. Hussein was an intelligent man. He could have brought together the disparate elements of that society in a diplomatic attempt to resolve their differences. He could have established an agreement of safety and security with his neighbors. He could have been friends with the free world and been a force for international peace . But somewhere along the way he was convinced to take the wrong road and, as a result, he kept half of the country under suppression, thus feeding the fires of divisiveness, legalized torture to satisfy the sadists and became a world wide threat. So they arrested him, tried him and executed him, which accomplished absolutely nothing. It wasn't Saddam that needed to be destroyed, it was the dark, evil road he was on. The Koran says "Evil shall recoil on those that plot evil."

It has also been written that evil is never a person, it's a thing. And it's a thing that needs to be denied existence, to be cleared away, erased, wiped off the mental slate. And the good must be affirmed with just as much vigor, or more, as one uses to fight against the beliefs of evil.

This two part activity is the diastole and systole of our lives. It is cosmic in its importance, It's ebb tide and high tide, night and day, plowing and harvest, winter and spring. Deny the wrong. Give it no place, validity or reality. It is the absence of good. Affirm the good and claim its rightful truth. Denial and Affirmation. They go together.

DB - Vagabond Journeys
___________________
Delight yourself in joy, please.
*******************

Monday, October 12, 2009

Daring Do 10/13/09

Greatness is a road leading towards the unknown.

Charles deGaulle
**********************
Come along, don't be tardy.
_______________________

Star Trek
The bear went over the mountain to see what he could see.

Those who are given the opportunity and freedom to follow a line of study as far as it can take them are blessed with the possibility of discovering areas of unrevealed knowledge and understanding. It is what no one has ever encountered before, where no one has ever been. Mathematicians, astronomers, physicists, those practicing on the esoteric edges of science, anthropologists, architects, composers of music and, yes, also poets, when engaged to their utmost, may reach the end of the traveled path, step into an unknown territory of discovery, put down a marker for the future and try to describe what they find.

I don't know much about science, but I know something about art. The first and every time I see "The Piano Lesson" by Matisse I am taken gently by the hand and led into a world of painting I know nothing about.

I have heard Beethoven's "Grosse Fugue" for string quartet many times and it is still a mystery. What was it that Beethoven saw in his deafness and what was he trying to tell us about it?

On what obscure mountain top was Shakespeare when he wrote "The mightiest space in fortune nature brings to join like likes and kiss like native things."? And what was he saying when he wrote to lead us there "Impossible be strange attempts to those who weight their pains in sense and do suppose what hath been cannot be." ?

The air is thin and hard to breathe, the way is treacherous and the terrain frustratingly difficult to describe but though we may be standing on the shoulders of the great ones who went before us the experience of our own genius can only be won by moving off of the shoulders and placing a foot carefully but steadily down onto a step we cannot see.

"By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed; and he went out, not knowing wither he went,"

DB - Vagabond Journeys
__________________
May you find the humor in it, whatever it is.
******************

Sunday, October 11, 2009

Challenged Creativity 10/12/09

If you limit you actions in life to things that nobody can possibly find fault with, you will not do much.

Lewis Carroll
**************
You're welcome in here.
_______________________
Are they friends or foes? It's hard to tell sometimes.

I know a woman who is a former theatre colleague of mine. She has a very positive attitude and approach to her life and work. I like to say about her that if she doesn't have a smile on her face, her face hurts. And yet I, and anyone who knows her well, would be quick to comfort her if she was weeping, stand by her and listen if she was raging or defend her if she was under attack. I worked with her for many years. We still keep in touch.

Some wise one once said that an artist isn't ahead of his time, the rest of the world is behind theirs. I worked for a few years at a major radio station in the city. It fell on my shift to do most of the news programs during the morning hours. There was a traditional format for doing the news programs that was wasteful and redundant. So I changed it, streamlined the broadcast, made it more efficient and easier to do. Then the phone calls and angry letters started coming in. People wanted to hear their news done in the old fashioned way, not because it was better but because that's what they were used to. Someone got to the owner of the station and I was told to restore the old way. I left the job and moved on. A few years later I was listening to that station one day and, sure enough, they are now doing the news the way I had designed it. I wonder who's great idea it was to do that? No I don't, I've moved on.

How many so-called friends can you remember who loved you, thought you were great and inspiring as long as you were a happy-go-lucky chap, without a care, but who at the first sign of a wrinkle in your character, a moment of negativity, a dark day of gloom and sorrow, up and disappeared or turned into foes. It has happened and keeps happening. It's one of the tragedies of life. Someone turns his back on you because you're not perfect.

If you are a public person, take it from me, they will damn you if you are not the person they want you to be. I have a large file of fan mail and reviews I've received over the years, I saved the sunshine and threw out the muck.

Sometimes I astonish myself at what I get done during the day. For someone for whom it is painful to stand or walk, whose eyesight is too poor to read for more than 15 minutes, living in a town where nothing is convenient and with an idiosyncratic computer, I manage to make a lot of things happen around here. And yet I always feel as if I haven't done enough.

I don't know much, which is why I keep trying to learn more. But this I know, no matter how much praise, appreciation and love they may profess, if they abandon you at the first sign of trouble, let 'em go. Love 'em and leave 'em.

Thank you for reading this.

DB - The Vagabond
*******************
May you take time to enjoy the October experience.
=============================

Brainless Behavior 10/11/09

There is no original truth, only original error.

Gaston Bachelard
******************
Are you there?
_________________
It puzzles and often frustrates me how many different ways I can get things wrong. I, like many, can be very inventive and imaginative about how I screw things up. "Let me count the ways." No, let me not.

When I was a lad of about 8 years old a kind friend of my mother sent me to summer camp. The camp counselor was a Native American and so we had a lot of activities that were of an Amerindian nature. We all had Indian names. I was "Long Arrow." There was a lake with canoes, a wigwam, a circular pow wow place with a bonfire, horseback riding and archery. I enjoyed the archery and I was good at it, more or less. Mostly less.

The problem was that I would either hit the bulls eye or else I would completely miss the target. There was no in between. That action has become a metaphor for my life. I have occasionally hit the bulls eye but I have done a lot of missing the target.

The people I've chosen as friends or lovers, auditions I've been through, jobs I've taken, places I've gone, turns I've made, roads I've taken, things I've said, letters I've written, advice I've given, theories I've held onto, opinions I've defended, things I did or decided not to do, an endless list of errors that are all stacked up in my archives in the file marked "Arrows in the Grass."

Life doesn't unfold in a nice neat pattern, even though we might wish it to and often willfully try to make it so. I think the easiest thing in life to do is to get things wrong, to make a mistake. Nothing is simpler. Most of the time the mistake is a small and forgivable one. But sometimes it's a big one. Those are the ones we remember because we have to live with the consequences, either in daily life or in regrets.

And that's why it is so important to air out and don the garment of self-forgiveness. When you are facing one of life's targets remember there is a bulls eye, and the rest of the vast, unlimited universe is not it.

DB - Vagabond Journeys
___________________
May this day be an adventure.
***********************
AUTUMN QUESTION

This is not a contest.

If you could be remembered for one thing, what would it be and why?


You have all Fall to answer if you wish,

Reply here or at dbdacoba@aol.com

2 responses so far

Thank you

DB

Saturday, October 10, 2009

Alternative Approach 10/10/09

Cheerfulness keeps up a kind of daylight in the mind, and fills it with a steady and perpetual serenity.

Joseph Addison
******************
Read on if you've a mind,
or even if you don't.
______________
Happy talk, keep talking happy talk,
Talk about things you'd like to do,
You gotta have a dream, if you don't have a dream,
How you gonna have a dream come true?

(Oscar Hammerstein)

I have had continual trouble all my life in one form or another. I don't like to write about it in Vagabond Journeys, that's not what this journal is for. But sometimes it's necessary just to clear the air and let people know, if they care, where the person is coming from who writes these words. Unfortunately some people, who seem to enjoy what they call my eloquence and poetry when I write "happy talk," turn sour and call it histrionics and dramatics when I have to address something sad and troublesome. Well, I'm sorry, but if I can't make poetry out of my pain then of what use is pain? Or poetry, for that matter?

One of the things I fear, when the sky turns dark and life grows gloomy, is that I might lose my sense of humor. I don't remember when I first discovered that I had one. Maybe it was the first time I got a good solid laugh from an audience. My boyhood was certainly humorless. It was filled with ridicule and sarcasm, the shadow land of humor. But somewhere along the rocky road I began to see the funny side of things. I learned to laugh, not at people, but with people at life. That is not to say that some people aren't very funny. The more self important they are the funnier they are. And that was another big step around the rocks. I eventually learned to laugh at my own self righteous pomposity.

So why, you ask with an appropriate smirk on your face, aren't you laughing at yourself now? I don't know. Maybe I did lose my humor. If you see it laying around anywhere, send it to me, Express Mail, COD. Thank you.

Another reason for the sadness everybody (okay, many people) suffer is the realization that the dream of one's life is not going to happen. One of the changes that took place in me the other day was the despair of accepting that the life I was holding in my mind as what I wanted for myself was never going to be. That is a deep sense of loss that plummets right down to the bottom of my invisible being. They can take away my family, my home, my money, my health, my work, my career, my books and my journal. But surely they can't take away my dream. Can they?

I stare at the table top like a nut and await an answer even though I know it won't come because I already know what it is.

And another great loss that shakes the ground one depends on is the loss of faith. Why does one's expectancy of good have to be a cheat? We come to have faith in so many things: the law of averages, casting bread on the waters of life, recognition of efforts done well, proper acknowledgement of ownership and rights, the rule of law, adequate compensation for work, friendships. But when the evidence of any of those is lacking in one's experience, and particularly of more than one, faith in the rest is shaken. I had to come to face how much faith I have lost over the years. It's frightening. Then, when all else fails, there faith in some form of deity. I tried that. I guess it works for some people. But when honest, earnest prayers produce the opposite result of what one is praying for, that faith has failed.

If you have followed me this far in today's journal entry and aren't looking for something to criticize me for, I will think of you as a friend and tell you that my sleeves are rolled up, my boots are beside me and I still have a sense of adventure around here someplace. I may have an old man's puny strength and not much else to help me except my wits, but I can't implode and won't. I shook my fist at heaven more than once and I will do it again. I feel I have been tragically let down by promises, people and events of my life and I resent that very much. But my life isn't over yet.

I will post a cheerful entry one of these days. I promise you.

DB
******************************

Friday, October 9, 2009

Zero Zone 10/09/09

I am an artist. I am here to live out loud.

Emile Zola
***************
Stand over here please.
________________
I am angry. I'm in a spike jabbing, venom spitting rage.

Yesterday I was hit with another law suit. The disgusting irony about this one is that I had to make a very painful walk to the post office, which took me an hour because of my hip, to pick up the documents.

Furthermore it isn't even my money they are suing me for. It's sky rocketing interest they have assessed to my debt while I was trying to pay off the balance. We have a law in this land that allows the rich to plunder the poor, to create poverty through excessive charges upon charges and then punish people for their poverty.

I have a large, growing stack of paper on my desk, most of it telling me what kind of trouble I'm in. I'm an expert at making trouble for myself, but this stack is not about self made trouble, it's about the devious means others have devised to make trouble for me and many of my fellow citizens. As Shaw put it "The lack of money is the root of all evil."

I spent the last two days thinking about my life. I watched the large branch break off from it's mother/father tree and fall to the ground and wondered if it was a metaphor, a sign that it was time for me to follow it. Contemplating that wrought a change in me. It wasn't the tree that fell, it was a major branch. And what do I need to let go of, if anything?

My life has been trouble since I was 4 years old and my father died. My family splintered up to various places and we soon reached the poverty level. The influences on me were poor and improper. There was no intelligent guidance. I relied upon friends and employers for any human relationships that I had. I sought a family wherever I went and whomever I was with. Some of those relationships were good, but others produced disastrous results. I tried to make a family out of whatever theatre company I worked with, to my detriment and sorrow. My inheritance was meager and inappropriate.

Lopping off a branch from the family tree is nothing less than agonizing. I can forgive the wrongs done to me when I am graciously given the chance to do so. The rest I can ignore. Forgiving myself is a harder task. I have ignored my own past wrongs. But I've lived with my regrets so often and for so long that they tend not to bother me now. I have changed. I am not the same man I was a few days ago. Things change, people change. I always hope and foolishly expect things will change for the better. So what is it time to get rid of? I have thought of closing down this journal and continuing my journey in some other way, and I may do that.

I may be a fool, most probably so, but I write because I must. Whatever the changes are they are happening in some invisible bed rock, the same place the invisible fighter comes from that keeps punching me in the head.

I thank those of you who wrote words of encouragement and support yesterday. They have influenced me a lot. I haven't been even free to make any final decision about the future of Vagabond Journeys. But for now I must go out with shield and spear to battle the legions. I don't expect to win the war. The other side is just too powerful. But how many wounds do I have to endure before I win the battle? That's the question.

DB - The Vagabond
***************
Please send me some joy.
======================

Wednesday, October 7, 2009

Yesterday's Yank 10/08/09

It's definitely a struggle to prove yourself just as a good human.

Tina Yothers
****************
Hello.
___________________
Yesterday my life changed. It felt like a sea change or a tectonic movement. In some way and in some degree I'm not the man I was yesterday.

I have been known in the past as a generous person. I was generous with my money whenever I hade any. I was generous with my time and energy. I took a year off from my career to administer a program to help New York City kids improve their arts programs. I took supporting roles in productions that other actors wouldn't bother with in order to offer my talent, enthusiasm and ability to help make it a good show. I always took time to talk with young actors about their careers and give them advice and coaching. Some older actors don't want to do that.

Ten years ago I was doing a play with an actor who was contentious and difficult to be with. I tried to treat him with respect and friendliness. We were the two leading players. Because there was a musical number in the play, we had a choreographer. One day in rehearsal he said to me "I admire the way you handle him. You're a good man." I thnked him and went out behind the theatre and cried. I cried because I was 60 years old and that was the first time in my life anyone had ever said that to me. I had to wait until I was 60 to hear someone tell me I'm a good man.

I can't explain why but sharing has always been one of the foremost motives of my life. To share what I have, what I know, my ideas, my thoughts, my feelings, my stories, my jokes, my love. Sometimes it isn't appreciated. But sharing with others has been from the start the main purpose of Vagabond Journeys and my other blogs.

I've had a lot of trouble lately, financial, physical and legal, and I see more on the horizon. Maybe as a result my writing isn't as sparkly as it used to be and my words don't carry the spirit and enthusiasm they used to. No doubt that's true. For that reason and also because my readership has been severely and saddeningly declining over the past several weeks, I'm rethinking my whole commitment to what I'm doing here. I read more journals than I get readers. There are 86 journalists that I read regularly, some with more than one blog. Like most people I may not always leave a comment but if there's a new entry I read it and look at the pictures. It says at the bottom here that I have 82 followers, plus I have 16 regular email companions. But if almost all of them are not reading me I wonder why I'm writing. It's a big fabulous world full of interesting people and I like to keep in touch with as many of them as possible.

Yesterday was a very windy day here. As I was coming back from the market I stopped to rest by a fence next to a tree filled field. I heard a loud cracking noise and a large branch from high up on one of the tress broke off and crashed on the ground in front of me. The tree was no longer interested in the branch. The wind took it over and handed it on to gravity which threw it on the ground. Nature's epiphany. I am not the man I was yesterday. I feel I might soon have an epiphany of my own.

DB
****************

Xenophilic Xray 10/07/09

The problem with our Congress is that it is filled with people who are forced to act as if they know a lot about things of which they know next to nothing.

DB - The Vagabond
*****************
Welcome aboard
________________
One of my other "wise guy" quotes which I may have posted somewhere is "Most of the authorities in the world aren't." Well, I'm no authority on the workings of the U.S. Congress, nor do I pretend to be. But I have made some observations over the years.

Congress people, especially if they've been there a long time, are primarily authorities on getting elected. Then they have to learn about Congressional politics, what the party that supported them expects of them, followed by bipartisanism and so forth. Then they are placed on committees through which legislation has to pass before reaching a final vote. Hopefully those committee assignments are logical, but not always. When Shirley Chisholm (D,NY) was first elected to Congress she was assigned to the House Agriculture Committee. She complained. She said that she represented an inner city district, didn't know anything about agriculture and the appointment was irrelevant to her constituency. She was reassigned.

So they sit on committees responsible for making decisions that affect major issues of out country. In order to do that they must learn as much as they can about those issues so they hold meetings and take testimony from "experts." If you have ever had the chance to observe some of those meetings you have seen the errant silliness that takes place on both sides of the desk. Not that much of the testimony isn't pertinent and authoritative, but some witnesses show up just to hear themselves talk, or to express a pointless opinion, or to throw spit balls or stumbling blocks in the way of progress. And some of the questioners on the committee are not seeking real facts but are merely indicating how much they think the other party is deluded or corrupt.

Then the Congresspeople on the committee have to sift through the net of fishes to find the valuable information and render a decision.

If the bill comes out of the committee and reaches the floor of whichever branch of Congress is to vote on it, the whole finger pointing, disputing and politicking starts all over again on a grand scale.

Pity the poor Congresspeople, it's not their fault. The are thrust by the voters into a job in which they are mainly and continuously ill prepared. Some of them are fools. Some are ordinary people who are bewildered by the morass of details and influences upon them. A few are honest, intelligent politicians who can grasp the realities and throw out the trash. Thank heaven for those.

DB
_________________
Breathe deep the Autumn air.
****************

Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Wisdom's Watching 10/06/09

Tomorrow hopes that we have learned something from yesterday.

John Wayne
*************
Let's go.
__________________
Here I am on the cusp of my 8th decade and it seems to me that life is still about learning the rules. As I was working on one of my paintings yesterday I was wondering if I will ever learn how to paint. I was an actor for 50 years and one thing I learned during that time was that I didn't know as much about acting as I thought I did. That's not so surprising, I suppose. One can say that about any of life's ventures.

In my youth I gleefully and proudly acknowledged that I was an actor. Then, a few times, and an unfortunately few times, I worked with older actors who really knew their business. Those few times opened my eyes to what the potential was for really excellent work and set me to learning more. No longer content with what I was capable of I set out to gain more knowledge of my craft and my art.

Leigh, in her journal http://leigh-mythoughtshonestly.blogspot.com/, writes "Living a life of possibilities and new experiences. My life's journey has been, and still is a learning experience."

I applaud that. I think this is the truth of things. The journey is all about the journey. The question "When will I learn to live?" is matched by "What will I learn today?" What will I learn today about life? And when my today becomes yesterday what will it mean to tomorrow? What new experience will I have, what new horizon of possibilities will come into view for me? What experiences of yesterday can I leave in the ground as seeds for tomorrow's harvest? Not just what rocky roads might I find tomorrow and how will I deal with them, but what challenges did I successfully meet yesterday and what did I learn from them?

We are all capable of more than we do. That's true. But it is also true that we are all more capable than we think we are.

"Will I ever learn and, if so, when?" I like to think that Lawrence Olivier, Leonardo Da Vinci and Albert Einstein were asking themselves those question right to the end.

DB - Vagabond Journeys
__________________
May you be swift to love.
***********************
P. S. My leg has much improved.

Monday, October 5, 2009

Visionary Virtue 10/05/09

May all the beings on all the worlds be happy.

Rig Veda
**************
Step across the welcome mat.
________________________
I'm relieved that the situation with my leg has improved. It still hurts some, but the joint has loosened up and I don't have to hold on to the back of my chairs and table to walk. No crutches this time around.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
One of the advantages of being human is the ability to accept the possibility of things about which we have no evidence. Imagine where science would be if the only things accepted as true were things that could only be observed by a human eye ball. When we see a flower or a tree we know there are roots because some inquiring individuals dug them up and discovered roots. When we see a waterfall we know there is a major source of water somewhere and we can follow the river up stream to its source. But then there are things we can't so easily prove by simple observation, things that scientists tell us must be there because of calculations based on observable phenomena: wind, magnetism, molecules.

We have deniers in our world. There are people who, for some strange and unknown explained reason, deny that certain things ever happened. There are those who deny the Holocaust. They will site very flimsy evidence while overlooking the real facts. There are those who deny that the Apollo moon missions ever took place, ignoring the thousands of people who were involved in them.

I love the conspiratorial thinkers. They make for very interesting reading. They are convinced that one or the other form of a vast fiction has been fed to the world through some international means of intrigue and cover up. It's fun to imagine that we've been fooled into believing something of world wide importance that actually never happened. I like to joke that the American Revolution never happened. That it was just a conspiracy between the founding fathers and the British government and that hence we are all still part of the British Empire. That our elections are all rigged and Well Street is just a game.

Now how about those UFOs? A UFO is nothing more than an unidentified flying object. It could be a weather balloon, or some unusual piece of Air Force equipment, or a reflection on the lens of a camera. It could be. It could also be an interplanetary visitor to our atmosphere. But the UFO deniers are determined to prove there is no such thing.

Why are there such deniers? I think the answer is fear. Fear of the unknown and inexplicable secretly motivates people to deny things they can't comprehend. They will look past the accounts of holocaust survivors, the testimony of concentration camp guards, the newsreel footage and the buildings which are now museums in Germany, because they cannot comprehend or believe that the Nazis could have killed so many people.

They will look past the accounts of the astronauts who went to the moon, the pictures, both photographs and videos taken from there and the remarkable geological pieces returned to earth, because in their fearful minds setting foot on another planer defies any explanation or possibility of safety or survival. It just simply couldn't be, according to the deniers. Note: not that it didn't happen, but that it couldn't happen.

They will look past those photographs and videos of UFOs that are not explained by any technical or scientific means, past the accounts of respected and respectable people who have witnessed such things, past the testimonies of air line pilots and claim that there are no intergalactic visitors to our planet, not because there aren't, but because there couldn't be. So, I wonder, what sort of an intrigue is going on that makes a case for UFOs? If the Holocaust and the moon walks were all conspiracies, what kind of a conspiracy is trying to convince us of UFOs? Here the deniers are caught in a paradox.

If there is a conspiracy it is more likely a cover up. It has been said by people who ought to know that there is more evidence of UFO activity than we have the information about. But then here's another paradox. If we are being visited by beings from other worlds why aren't we told about it? Why hide the facts?

If that is so the answer once again is fear. Fear of the unknown, inexplicable and "impossible." It is assumed, ipso facto, that all creatures from another planet are hostile, dangerous in their technical superiority and out to destroy our civilization.
If and when a world Air Force develops a flying machine that can go as fast and maneuver as well as some UFOs are reported to do, it will probably trail one and shoot it down.

We have been convinced that any visitor from outer space is by nature an evil creature intent on destroying the earth or taking it captive. But why is that necessarily so? We are all trying to improve the earth and make it a better place for all of us, and we're exploring outer space ourselves not to destroy but to discover. As far as anyone knows, we mean no harm to the planets we may travel to. We are merely claiming our rights as curious and exploratory creatures. If we have visitors from another planet why can't we allow them the same rights?

DB - Vagabond Journeys
****************
Have lots of happy thoughts, friend.
__________________
AUTUMN QUESTION



This is not a contest.



If you could be remembered for one thing, what would it be and why?





You have all Fall to answer if you wish,

Reply here or at dbdacoba@aol.com



1 response so far



Thank you



DB

Sunday, October 4, 2009

Unexpected Undertaking 10/04/09

Love is good. Love with noodles is better.

Unknown
(I think it's an Amish saying. It sounds like it.)
*********************
Come walk with me.
__________________
After posting "Temporary Tacking" just after midnight, I retired to bed. When I awoke I could not stand on my left leg. Trying to get around my apartment has been severely painful. I have to grab a hold of everything if I want to move from one place to another. If it doesn't improve by Monday I will have to hobble to the RiteAid and buy some crutches. That's normally a 15 minute walk.

I am one of those that the crack pots are trying to deprive of health insurance.

So if you happen to see an old geezer looking like Sasquatch with a NY Yankees cap on, limping down the street, that's me. Wave
"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
Years ago, when I was living in New York, I drove to Allenberry, Pennsylvania, to see my friend Lowell performing in an Offenbach operetta. On the way I passed through the Amish territory. At one spot there was a yard sale, so I stopped to look. Among the items on display were some beautiful cedar chests. While I was fussing with one, trying to get it open, a young Amish man with his straw hat came over and showed me how to open it. I was very impressed. I told him I was on my way to Allenberry but wanted to stop by on my way back. He gave me his card which read "Eli Lapp" with a small drawing of a map to his shop.

On the way back home I tried very hard to find his shop using the map but I wasn't able to do it. Disappointed,I went back to New York.

The following summer Lowell was again back at the Allenberry Playhouse, this time doing Gilbert and Sullivan. So I drove back out to see him. I had saved the map in my wallet, so on the way I tried again to find Mr. Lapp and his cedar chests. Following the map I turned down a side road and saw a humble sign that told me I had found it.

There was a house with a driveway next to it. I went down the driveway to the back where there was a barn with a horse and buggy. There were two little Amish kids sitting on the back porch. When they saw me they jumped up and ran inside. A few moments later here came Eli. I told him about stopping off at the yard sale the year before and about unsuccessfully trying to find his shop. I explained that I was on my way to Allenberry but would like to look at his chests. He opened the door to the barn and we went in to his workshop. The one chest that caught my eye had a sign on it that said "sold." I said it was the one I wanted. He said he had just made another one like it and went into the back to bring it out. I asked him the price. It was very reasonable. Remarkably so. I paid him and the two of us huffed and puffed to get it into the back seat of the Toyota I was driving. It almost didn't fit, but we got it in. He told me had taken doors off of cars to get them in. I said "Yes. I'll bet you have." One wouldn't want to leave one of those chests behind because it didn't fit in a car.

I had many years of pleasure owning that chest. That was decades ago. I don't know if he's still working. I hope so I don't remember the name of the town but if you find yourself in the Pennsylvania Amish area, (Paradise, Bird In Hand, Fertility, Gap), seek out Eli Lapp. You'll be glad you did.

DB
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Lots of sunshine to you.
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Weekend Head Scratcher

Two of the items below do not belong on the list.

Which one's are they and why?

ALAND

ANDORRA

ESTONIA

FAROE ISLANDS

LIECHTENSTEIN

LUXEMBOURG

MONACO

REDONDA

SAN MARINO

SEALAND

SIKKIM

VATICAN

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
3 good answers so far.

Good luck.
DB

Saturday, October 3, 2009

Temporary Tacking 10/03/09

We rise, we fall, we rise.

John Tardell
(Native American poet)
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"Lift tab to open."
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I have risen and fallen many times in my vagabond career. As one who is currently in the state of the fallen, I look forward to the future. From the bottom, the area of loss and tethers, there is no way to look but up, if I don't want to stare at my walls and wonder. When the wind was at my back I made a lot of decisions. Some of them turned out to be the wrong ones. That means recovering the ground I lost. But others were not so bad, and that means being able to recognize the advantages that I still have.

I look at a pile of seemingly insurmountable difficulties, so much that I have to do, or has to be done for me, and can't even begin to think about rising again. And there are dangers down in this pit with me, daemons that take the forms of fear, depression and despair. One of the things I've managed to learn is that when I bark at them they will go back and hide in their corners. I know they will come out of hiding again, but I will bark at them again and keep barking until I get out of their way.

Nothing is repaired in an instant. Everything takes its own version of time. How long recovery takes is not usually a known quantity. But the stitching and mending goes on How long and how much effort will it take to get back to where the wind is favorable? It often seems like the ocean I live on is nothing but contrary winds, or, what's worse, no wind at all.

There is a lesson I've learned from being older. In the morning and for most of the day if I want to accomplish something in my apartment, such as wash the dishes, vacuum the floor, read my mail or anything that requires my attention and physical activity, I must do it slowly, bit by bit and not try to rush through it. Walking through my apartment has to be carefully done or I will trip on something and take a tumble. Even standing up and sitting down require delicate maneuvering. About climbing my stairs? Don't ask. I putter and mutter, but I get myself fed, showered and dressed and it doesn't matter how long it takes me. So I look at my life and the loss of the parts of it that were so valuable and important to me and realize they are all attainable once again, in other forms, perhaps, but the harmonizing elements that brought them growing up from my being are still there.

Whenever I lift the tab and open the box the contents are all still in there, and, though I can't shake them all out and use them at once, I often gently amaze myself at what I have accomplished during the day. There is more to be done today than I can do. But, instead of depressing me, that excites me and gives me hope. It means I may amaze myself again tomorrow.

DB
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Kick a few leaves around.
___________________
Weekend Head Scratcher

Two of the items below do not belong on the list.

Which one's are they and why?

ALAND

ANDORRA

ESTONIA

FAROE ISLANDS

LIECHTENSTEIN

LUXEMBOURG

MONACO

REDONDA

SAN MARINO

SEALAND

SIKKIM

VATICAN

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
3 good answers so far.

Good luck.
DB

Friday, October 2, 2009

Simplistic Settlements 10/02/09

A system of morality which is based on relative emotional values is a mere illusion, a thoroughly vulgar conception which has nothing sound in it and nothing true.

Socrates
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Come in, join the party.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Why is reason better than emotion?

There are charismatic preachers of all religions who can inspire their congregations into extreme states of emotion, bringing them to a point of shouting and weeping and generally believing that the holy spirit is upon them. Those are the false prophets we've been warned against. It may be good drama, but it's bad spirituality.

Similarly, there are those who can generate among, perhaps the same, congregations of people a sense of self-righteous moral outrage to the point of violence over some issue by simply sticking to the emotional side of it, with pounding of fists and shouting out invectives against it, while totally ignoring any other side of the question.

I don't need to cite example. You can turn on the TV almost any day and see one of these ethical criminals at work. They can evolve an otherwise intelligent group of people into a fanatical religious or social mob.

And so we have women being whipped for wearing trousers, innocent children being allowed to die, political prisoners being tortured ("renovated"), doctors being shot to death, homes and nations being invaded, families destroyed, the innocent in jail and the guilty roaming free, the shouting down of honest discussion, the plundering of the poor by the rich, buildings being blown up, rage, cruelty, violence, rape, murder, war, mayhem, all under the umbrella of entitlement, defending our freedoms, claiming our rights, gaining closure, maintaining the status quo, protecting ourselves, doing the right thing, keeping up a good appearance, social order, sanctification, gut reaction, the Word of God.

We live in a vulgar, world wide. sordid, ethical snake pit. It's a grand day for the false prophets. It makes them feel important and powerful. "Mischief thou art afoot, take whatever course thou wilt." Shakespeare

So why is there still civilization? Because there are still some civilized people in it, people who are willing to think things through and who are sensitive, concerned and patient enough to see the results of any action or thought. There are still people who reason instead of react. There are people who will not give in to the crowding and stuffing of their minds and will walk out on the false prophet when the emotions start heating up and go listen to the wise instead.

I claim my rights. I claim the right to think for myself, to reason things through to the best of my ability, to listen to intelligent points of view, to agree or disagree in a civilized manner, to support the ideas I believe in and have patience with the others. And, whenever I am given the opportunity in my vagabond journey, to stop the criminal, lift up the broken, soothe the hurt, praise the compassionate and applaud the ethical.

DB - Vagabond Journeys
____________________
May angels splash around in your apple cider.
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AUTUMN QUESTION



This is not a contest.



If you could be remembered for one thing, what would it be and why?





You have all Fall to answer if you wish,

Reply here or at dbdacoba@aol.com



1 response so far



Thank you



DB

Thursday, October 1, 2009

Right Regimen 10/01/09

Artistry is possible only for those who acknowledge necessity as a condition of, rather than a limit upon, their freedom to act.

Aaron Ridley
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A good October day to you.
________________________
Many people start talking before they know what they are going to say. I often begin writing this journal before I'm sure what is going to eventually be in it. Painters will begin a painting with a firm idea in mind and the result, when it's finished, may not be what they started out to do.

There is usually always a germinating idea somewhere, but it may lead the speaker or the artist in an unexpected direction. Furthermore, some ideas that seem like very good ones end up providing a mediocre result and thus land on the trash heap, while some other ideas that seem flimsy and of no substance may produce a masterpiece.

I have heard two seemingly conflicting remarks made by actors in the past. One of them is "I don't want any limitations placed on me." And the other is "I've learned what my limitations are." As with the speaker, the writer, the painter, the actor there are inherent limitations in whatever work one does. And as for personal limitations, those are the things that should be exceeded.

In the artists eternal search for beauty and truth, when working on something one learns in which direction one can go and in which one can not go in order to maintain the integrity of expression and meaning. It is alright not to know specifically what result one is going to achieve by working things out. Even the smallest details can alter the work in a positive and more communicative manner if attention is paid to them. There are times when an actor will say that in one performance the role played itself. Writers sometimes have the same feeling about their writings.

Trouble comes when an artist tries to impose the inappropriate on the work or deny it its necessities. A work of art is a living, growing thing and needs it's proper nourishment. The artist is the steward, keeper, parent, providing the care and labor that allows nature to take its course.

DB - The Vagabond
______________________
May you see a joyful thing today.
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