Roger O Green

2021: ’22? You’d better be better!

J. Eric Smith

clinical_trials — **Clinical trials, courtesy of https://xkcd.com/2530/**

The rest of the annual quiz from Kelly. BTW, ’22? You’d better be better!

Where did most of your money go?

Books, music, medical stuff, takeout food.

What did you get really excited about?

GETTING THE VACCINE. Eating out. Going to the movies, though I didn’t do so often. Being the point person for the Literary Legends, Lydia Davis and Gene Mirabelli. The choir meeting again. Doing research in Binghamton.

Compared to this time last year, are you happier or sadder?

Clearly sadder.

Thinner or fatter?

Back to where I was a couple of years ago, alas. A function, in part, of being sadder.

Richer or poorer?

A little poorer, but not appreciably problematic.

The rain

What do you wish you’d done more of?

Reading, singing, sleeping.

What do you wish you’d done less of?

Going to ZOOM meetings, figuring out my new insurance coverage

How did you spend Christmas?

Opening presents, watching the church service on Facebook, eating dinner with my MIL, playing a lot of Xmas CDs

Did you fall in love in 2021?

Sure

How many one-night stands?

Same as last year. And the year before that. And the year before that…

What was your favorite TV program?

CBS Sunday Morning, 60 Minutes, Finding Your Roots. I have an extremely low capacity for watching TV right now, except for, of all things, Law and Order: Criminal Intent (2001-2011), which I mostly missed when it originally aired. JEOPARDY I still watch but don’t love it as much.

Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?

Nah.

What was the best book you read?

Er…

The park

What did you want and get?

A COVID shot, or three.

What did you want and not get?

Liberation from the limiting effects of COVID.

What were your favorite films of this year?

Summer of Soul (the ONLY one of these I saw in a theater), Promising Young Woman, Another Round, Wolfwalkers, Small Axe: Mangrove (if it’s a movie), One Night in Miami, Sound of Metal, The Bee Gees: How Can You Mend a Broken Heart

What did you do on your birthday?

I went to adult education and church online. Talked with my sisters on ZOOM. Had cake. I don’t much remember beyond that.

And other things

How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2021?

Wearing shoes as infrequently as possible.

Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?

Possibly Isabel Wilkerson whose book Caste I bought but did not read.

What political issue stirred you the most?

The dissipation of truth, not just in government, but online.

Who did you miss?

Other than the deceased, I’ve actually managed to see many people in my neck of the woods (FINALLY!) in recent months, because I missed them all!

Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2021

Writing about it is a pain. Not writing about it is worse.

I was quite touched by what J. Eric Smith kindly wrote about me in his blog, which he’s been writing since before the word blog was created. I am, I’ve read, “a super-long-time daily blogger of refined tastes and interests, many of which closely align with my own. Roger also brings his formidable librarian skills to organizing his information, and that’s a noticeably great thing in the mostly mucky mire of poorly-curated online experience.”

That sort of helps me when I fear that I absolutely have not a single thing more to say before I finally have a Eureka moment again.

Now, why am I thinking of a song by the Cowsills (#2 for two weeks pop in 1967)? I have no idea. As noted: ’22? You’d better be better!

2021: a spaced odyssey

tough questions

Every data table — **Courtesy https://xkcd.com/2502/**

Time to make the donuts! I mean respond to more of these spaced odyssey questions in the quiz promulgated by the illustrious Kelly. I’m not faulting him, BTW.

Did you keep your New Years’ resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

Well, probably not and definitely not. I didn’t REALLY make any for last year. But if I had, I probably would have failed. So I’m DEFINITELY not making any this year because it’s too much of a bummer.

Did anyone close to you get married?

Why yes. my good friend Alexis married her beau with a similar name.

Did anyone close to you give birth?

I don’t think so, though, as of this writing, someone vaguely named for me is very pregnant.

Did anyone close to you die?

Yeah, and I wrote about most of them here and here. Also, I went to the funeral of Jack White, a cousin, online.

And I attended the funeral of my former next-door neighbor Dino Patelos at his Greek Orthodox church. During the service, his priest favorably compared him to Jimmy Buffet in Margarettaville, but with a boilermaker.

Since I don’t SEE many people, I was afraid I was forgetting someone, but, no they died near the end of 2020.

Almost abroad

What countries did you visit?

Well, I didn’t GO to Canada. But we were on The Maid of the Mist at Niagara Falls, so we were Canada-adjacent.

What would you like to have in 2022 that you lacked in 2021?

The normal I thought I would get in 2021 after living through 2020.

What was your biggest achievement of the year?

I did some research about my family when I went to Binghamton. Didn’t find as much as I had hoped, but the effort was there.

What was your biggest failure?

I’m not sure I finished a single book. I bought more than a dozen of them and started at least half of those. Actually, that’s not quite true. I did finish The Color of Law, but that was in February 2021.

What was the best thing you bought?

Aside from music? Probably the iPhone 8. And the case, because the phone literally kept slipping off the sofa.

Thumbs up, thumbs down

Whose behavior merited celebration?

Those who try to inform: John Oliver, Jon Stewart, Trevor Noah, various websites. The folks who worked in COVID hotspots in the US, even though you KNEW they were ticked off about it because they thought it didn’t need to be. Folks promoting vaccines, addressing hesitancy and fear. People who stood up to racial, economic, and other disparity.

Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?

Tough question. They fall into many categories, only a few of which are noted here. The problem is that some belong in multiple slots. The list is necessarily incomplete.

January 6 facilitators and deniers. This includes, but is hardly limited to, Steve Bannon; Representatives Paul Gosar (R-AZ), Lauren Boebert (R-CO), Mo Brooks (R-AL), Madison Cawthorne (R-NC), Andy Biggs (R-AZ), Louie Gohmert (R-TX), Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA); Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows; Mike Pence

Big Lie promulgators: DJ Trump; MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell; Elise Stefanik (R-NY); various media outlets, including a vulpine one, including the one with Lara Logan

COVID facilitators and deniers. Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI); governors Ron DeSantis (R-FL), Greg Abbott (R-TX)

General blowhards. SCOTUS justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas; Sens. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), John Kennedy (R-LA), Marsha Blackburn (R-TN); Josh Hawley (R-MO); Reps. Glenn Grothman (R-WI), Matt Gaetz (R-FL), Jim Jordan (R-OH), Devin Nunes (R-CA), Thomas Massie (R-KY); Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson (R-NC); former Governor Andrew Cuomo (D-NY); Candace Owens; Eric Clapton

I’ll finish this spaced odyssey tomorrow.

The annual quiz: musical section

Rebecca Jade, Olivia Rodrigo, Jason Isbell, QoS

I usually do that annual quiz that Kelly foisted upon me years ago, on January 1. And I usually do music on Saturday. So I’ve decided to do the musical section today and the rest tomorrow and/or the next day.

What was your greatest musical discovery?

When you have about 2000 albums, it’s entirely possible to rediscover music that you already own. This happens almost every week.

Then there is the music that I did not think that I wouldn’t buy, then purchased in 2021, such as:
Odessey and Oracle – The Zombies. Care of Cell 44
Stop Making Sense (1984 Film) – Talking Heads. Even though I saw the SPAC show of the tour, I never bought the soundtrack. And I STILL haven’t seen the film. Life During Wartime
I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You – Aretha Franklin. Drown In My Own Tears
The Allen Toussaiant Collection. Southern Nights.
The Beatles (The White Album) [6 CD] Ob-La-Di, Ob-la-Da (Esher Demo)
Rough and Rowdy Ways – Bob Dylan. I bought this in part because I missed this reference watching some quiz show. I Contain Multitudes
folklore – Taylor Swift. My first Swifty album. Cardigan
Good Souls Better Angels – Lucinda Williams. Good Souls
Mussorgsky: Pictures at an Exhibition conducted by Ormandy

I also recently bought
Love For Sale – Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga. I was so touched by the 60 Minutes interview. Love For Sale
Georgia Blue – Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit. Recorded because Georgia went blue in 2020. Honeysuckle Blue

Of all of the artists my daughter likes, the only one that has actually stuck in the brain in 2021 was Olivia Rodrigo. Part of that is a function that she was the subject of a CBS Sunday Morning segment. It mentioned her participation in the White House’s push for the COVID vaccine.

What kept you sane?

Assuming facts not in evidence, listening to music. Since I wasn’t MAKING music for most of the year – choir finally started rehearsing in October- LISTENING became even more vital. That would include J. Eric Smith’s Favorite Songs By Favorite Artists, which will spread into 2022; of course, Coverville; plus Kelly’s mostly semiweekly pieces.

And the niece. In 2021, I got to see the fabulous Rebecca Jade, remotely.
Homemade: Part 10 and Part 11
Peter Sprague: Wichita Lineman and Are You Going With Me and Spring Ain’t Here and It’s For You and Farmers Trust
Melody League Session with The Sully Band
Music For The Soul
Jas Miller: Toes In The Sand

Quote a song lyric that sums up your year

Frankly, part of it is tied to Congress’s failure to pass an infrastructure bill earlier, which, given the vagaries of politics, threw away whatever advantage Biden had when the troubles – Afghanistan, e.g. inevitably took place. If it’d been up to me, the Democrats would have taken the bipartisan victory in May/June, and then work on the larger bill afterward.

The last verse of Slip Slidin’ Away:

God only knows
God makes his plan
The information’s unavailable
To the mortal man
We work our jobs
Collect our pay
Believe we’re gliding down the highway
When in fact we’re slip-slidin’ away
Slip slidin’ away
Slip slidin’ away
You know the nearer your destination
The more you’re slip-slidin’ away

-Paul Simon

Nobody claim 2022 as “your year”

please don’t suck

2022 as A friend of mine posted this graphic on their Facebook feed. Nobody claim 2022 as “your year”. And I get it.

I got to sing in my church’s Christmas Eve service for the first time in two years, which was great. Now, I felt rusty but that was OK. In 2020, the church had audio and video of the choir’s prior performances shown on the Facebook feed. Listening to the sounds of our voices was OK; I’d been doing so almost every week for months of the regular service. but watching the film of me, and others, singing made me EXTREMELY melancholy.

The Boston Globe readers commented on the past year. The intro: “If 2020 felt like a year like no other, then 2021 felt like more of the same. One step forward and two steps back, or vice versa? It depended on the day. We saw vaccines rolled out, then resisted. Bitter partisanship kept its grip on our politics.”

I love the word hegemony

If I read this article, The Respite Is Coming to an End. “All around us we can see the forces of white nationalist authoritarianism engaged in a second, far more methodical, far better coordinated, and already more successful attempt to do what they failed to do on January 6, 2021. If matters continue on this path, the Biden administration will prove only a brief respite before those forces snuff out the grand American experiment and secure a permanent, counter-majoritarian chokehold on the erstwhile republic.” And it’s a compelling argument.

And Foreign Affairs had a piece, The Real Crisis of Global Order. Illiberalism on the Rise. It addresses, among other things, the collapse of US hegemony, which Trump’s election helped to create and Biden’s election almost certainly can’t fix. For instance, as the Daily Show illustrated, Why China Is in Africa.

Rodgers and Hammerstein

I’m already exhausted from 2022, like Sinatra or Gordon MacRae singing Soliloquy from Carousel, musing what “my boy Bill” will be like. “Say, why am I carrying on like this? My kid ain’t even been born yet.” And neither has 2022. Well, maybe in New Zealand.

Perhaps I need more humour and a stiff upper lip, like Queen Elizabeth who lost her husband, Prince Philip, in 2021, who she’d only been married to since 1947, before I was born.

So I’m going to decide that 2022 will be great! Of course, I will also retreat to the ‘trust but verify” position about the new year, which is a quote Ronald Reagan cleverly pilfered.

December rambling: slowest rate

Nell Stokes, Rebecca Jade, Literary Legends, public domain

Photo taken by Wayne — **Photo was taken by Wayne**

U.S. Population Grew 0.1% in 2021, Slowest Rate Since Founding of the Nation and Net International Migration at Lowest Levels in Decades

What State of Matter is Fire?

Frequency Illusion? What’s the Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon?

Black mothers turning to doulas in light of the nation’s horrifying maternal death rates

Two Texas teens dressed as Klansmen tased their Black classmate

Solomon Northup’s “A Slave’s Christmas”

Wreck of last US slave ship mostly intact on the coast

NEA Guide for Racial Justice in Education

Missouri Cop Pulls Over School Bus Driver For Wearing A Mask

147 New York dams are ‘unsound’ and potentially dangerous Thousands of dams have not been inspected in more than 20 years

The departed

Hidden Pentagon records reveal patterns of failure in deadly airstrikes

Desmond Tutu, a cleric who campaigned against apartheid in South Africa, dies at 90. “A moral beacon in a deeply troubled land, Tutu managed to irritate the African National Congress government that took power after South Africa’s first all-race elections, as much as he had riled the apartheid regime that had previously oppressed the country’s Black majority.”

Joan Didion, Literary Titan, Dies at 87; Jon Avnet on Making ‘Up Close and Personal’ With Her

TCM Remembrance of performers past

This Year, Hollywood’s China Relationship Finally Unraveled

After his performance in The Music Man, Hugh Jackman touts Broadway understudies, standbys, and swings. The role of Marion Paroo, the female lead, was supposed to be played by Sutton Foster, who tested positive for COVID. The role was covered by a swing named Kathy Voytko, who also covered seven other smaller roles in the production.

Flying from Honolulu to Buffalo just before Christmas

I Stopped Caring About My Kids’ School Grades. You Should, Too.

“She could never love me!” Comic books and disability cliches

Chuck’s best blog moments of 2021, which includes me!

The Awakening – Albany’s first movie (1914)

See the movie short: Seasoned Greetings (1933 Vitaphone). Lita Grey Chaplin w/ 7 Yr Old Sammy Davis Jr

Now I Know: A Brick That Broke The Glass Ceiling and The Amazing Spider-Man Coincidence and When It Feels Good to Pay More

Inspiring Quotes: If you can’t see anything beautiful about yourself, get a better mirror. – Shane Koyczan

Nominate the next Literary Legend!

Each year, the Friends and Foundation of Albany Public Library select a new outstanding person of letters to be honored as our Literary Legend. The FFAPL invites the public to nominate writers for the selection committee to consider.

Nominations must be received by January 9, 2022, for consideration by this year’s Selection Committee. The Literary Legends Selection Committee includes members of the FFAPL board, past Gala Chairpersons, and APL librarians.

Sound Treasures Enter the Public Domain

On January 1, 2022, 400,000 pre-1923 sound recordings will enter the public domain, thanks to a new U.S. law, the Music Modernization Act. To celebrate, you may attend a virtual event on January 20, “A Celebration of Sound.”

And it’s not just music! On January 1st, children’s classic Winnie the Pooh, Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises, Rudolph Valentino in The Son of the Sheik, in addition to musical recordings such as Scott Joplin’s Maple Leaf Rag, and thousands more will all be free for creative reuse and sharing.

MUSIC

Am I Enough. Words: Nell Stokes. Vocals: CJay Philip, Nell’s daughter. Musical arrangement: Gail Sparlin. Piano: Larry Finke.

You Should Be Dancing – Dee Gees, who look a little like the Foo Fighters

Coverville 1382: Cover Stories for Patti Smith, Dido, and Britney Spears

New York State of Mind – NYCNext

Losing My Mind -Imelda Staunton, in a 2017 production of Follies by the National Theater

Tainted Love – Broken Peach

Songbird -MonaLisa Twins

Dream On – Ann Wilson, live

Stand By Me – Playing For Change

Mary, Mary, written by Michael Nesmith (30 Dec 1942-10 Dec 2021): Butterfield Blues Band Band, The Monkees

It’s still Christmastide

Dave Koz and Friends // The Greatest Hits of Christmas – LIVESTREAM VIRTUAL CONCERT Recorded 12/12/20. With Jonathan Butler, Peter White, Kenny Lattimore, Michael Lington, Brian Simpson, and REBECCA JADE!

Have a sultry, soulful Christmas!

River – Joni Mitchell, Her first official video

J. Eric Smith – Ten Songs You Need to Hear: Crimbo Version