I am often tempted to start my blog with “Good Morning Campers!” Do you know why? I’m thinking of Tommy’s Holiday Camp. I’m hearing it in Keith Moon’s voice. That doesn’t explain why I feel the desire to start that way. The answer to that is that I’m a weirdo. Sometimes things are simpler than they seem. I had a good day yesterday, that I’ll write about, but I’m feeling good this morning because I lay in bed for hours enjoying hypnopompic fantasies. I was torn between getting up and just enjoying the state. I decided to go with it. Some of the fantasies involved things that would cause me anxiety or depression in reality but in my half-asleep state were pleasant. I had a nice discussion with a friend with a friend that hurt me. It’s exactly the same thing that made me depressed the other night. Our minds, like our brains, are convoluted. When I got out of bed I had a great breakfast of matzoh brei to make your bubbe cry, perfectly brewed coffee, an apple cider donut, and chocolate chip loaf cake. I indulged myself. I could feel guilty about the double dessert but instead I’ll look forward to having more later.
Yesterday I had a rough therapy session. That’s not a bad thing. It has to be rough at times to help. As my biggest problem is avoidance, I need to be confronted. My rational mind is very rational, too bad it’s not the boss. Is this as obvious others as it is to me? Are some of you confused? How much of this is me being a weirdo and how much a human being?
After therapy I tutored Leah via zoom. I love tutoring and I love Leah more than I love tutoring. We have to force ourselves to prepare for the GRE instead of having ridiculous conversations on musicals and ancient history. Obviously Hadestown works its way into that.
To add to my good mood Don Giovanni is playing on WQXR. If Mozart didn’t exist man would have been forced to create him. Have you considered how fortunate you are to not just live in the same universe as Mozart but after him so you could hear his music? Go down that rabbit hole; it’s worth it. I’ll leave that as an exercise for the reader as I have a story to tell.
After tutoring I raced out of the house to get to the J.P. Morgan Library too meet Allison and she Joe’s jazz trio, BeBimBop, play in the atrium. I was punctual as was Allison, but we did not go right in. We took an espresso break first. The first place we went to was closed but through the magic of Google found another, Matto Espresso, on 40th street. I had a cappuccino. Add that to the good things that happened yesterday. I can’t remember the last time I had a cappuccino. Then we went back to the Library for the music. Everyone was socially distanced, and masked. This was a most a low-medium risk. The only people I was close to were Allison and Joe, who are part of my pod.
I wish I knew more about jazz. I never know what to call the subgenres. This was background music for a library/museum, so it meant to be ambient. What it reminds me the most of is baroque music. Joe on nylon string guitar and Brian on upright base, played complementary melodies, while Danny, played a small drum kit. The three lines do a dance around each other. I’ve been learning how to listen to this for over 40 years and I’m still working at it. I started by closing my eyes, so my focus is totally on the music, no distractions. The trick is got hear the different instruments separately yet still integrate them. It takes an effort for me, but it’s worth it. Eventually I was enough in the groove to be able to open my eyes and add the visuals of what they were playing. It would mean more if I understood guitar. I have no intuitive notion of how chords are made on a guitar. It makes sense to me on a piano. There physical space directly corresponds to tonal space. If a guitar had only one string I’d do better. Even with my limited understanding it’s enough to take me to a different place. It has a lot in common with the hypnopompic state. I wonder if that would show up on brain waves? Whatever it is, it feels good.
After the music I hung out with Allison and Joe for a while before they headed back to Jersey in their car. I took advantage of being in the City to go to Trader Joe’s. I haven’t been there in ages. That’s where I got the apple cider donuts. I almost forgot, I also got spiced apple cider! I can’t wait to drink some of that. I forgot one more treat I had 2 slices $1 pizza for dinner. I bought them from two different places. I was living large. According to International Pizza Standards Association, Mya and me, $1 pizza is not pizza, but it’s a good food in its own right. It was a treat.
I’m going to put in a coda. I often post on Facebook and write here about people not wearing masks. That give a distorted view of the world. The story Is not that I was on the subway and someone didn’t have a mask on, or even a group of people didn’t have a mask on. The story is that everyone else, the vast majority, wear masks. We write and talk about the exceptions, and that can make us forget the rules. Everyone is not being perfect about pandemic behavior but enough are that in the City we have successfully suppressed the pandemic. There were thousands of protests, the few that got violent is what makes the news, the exceptions. That’s what makes them news. The world is always a better than the impression you get when reading about it, because it’s the bad things, the exceptions, which grab our attention. We learn history as a series of crises; wars, famines, pestilence, and death, the four horsemen. Most of history is people going about their lives and doing nothing of note. New York is not an anarchist jurisdiction, it’s a city that I have the great pleasure of living in. Don’t let others tell you otherwise. Don’t let your fears tell you otherwise. Almost all of My Gentle Readers are healthy, adequately fed, and not under attack by anarchists or the government; appreciate that.
Wise Madness 