Albany Public Library Archives - Page 8 of 9

September rambling #3: taking a knee

I went to two street festivals in Albany

It occurred to me that people not familiar with American football may not understand “taking a knee” or a “quarterback kneel.”

The play occurs after the ball is snapped “when the quarterback immediately kneels to the ground, ending the play on contact… It is primarily used to run the clock down, either at the end of the first half or the game itself, in order to preserve a lead or a win. Although it generally results in a loss of a yard and uses up a down, it minimizes the risk of a fumble, which would give the other team a chance at recovering the ball.

“Especially when the outcome of the game has been well decided, defenses will often give little resistance to the play as a matter of sportsmanship as well as to reduce injury risk on what is a relatively simple play.”

This is what spiritual warfare looks like. “There is not a more perfect gesture of Christian nonviolent resistance than to kneel while the lovers of empire stand. It makes a spectacle of our worldly powers”

The Daily Show: When is the ‘right time’ for black people to protest?

Bob Costas on NFL protests and patriotism

Principled stands taken at great risk are often how movements are born

Is America Headed for a New Kind of Civil War?

Ibram Kendi, leading scholar about racism: education and love are not the answer

Nationalism Reconsidered

The Real Reason White People Say ‘All Lives Matter’ (from a white guy)

“Leave safety behind. Put your body on the line. Stand before the people you fear and speak your mind–even if your voice shakes. When you least expect it, someone may actually listen to what you have to say. Well-aimed slingshots can topple giants.” –Maggie Kuhn

John Green reviews what is known and what is not known about the Russia Scandal

Right-Wing Star Declares He’s Too Healthy For Insurance: Guess What Happened. He has a car accident and now needs a GoFundMe to pay for this hospital bills. The schadenfreude was not strong here; it was more function of irritation, way out of proportion, over his arrogance

Corporate Consolidation: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver

Court Rules Copyright is Not a “Use It or Lose It” Right

Hurricane names are Insufficiently intimidating

Lynn Mabry, Sheila E, Rebecca Jade in W. Springfield, MS Sept 2017

Last weekend, I went to two street festivals in Albany. Larkfest I used to go to all of the time when I was single and lived nearby, but it had been a while. I was helping Albany Public Library staff to get folks to get library cards. The Madison Street Fair is smaller, but closer. At both events, the weather got HOT; sunburn at Larkfest, which is particularly bad for me with the vitiligo, so I used an umbrella at Madison.

Amy Biancolli: turns on the slide

Veteran Voice Actress June Foray Remembered at Packed Event

A Letter of Resignation Walking away, and “the hardest thing I’ve ever written”

Closed Campus? A Case Study of Skipping at Subchunkin, a place three blocks from my house

Now I Know: The Dead Man Who Sued to Make Himself Alive and The Man Who Ate Lots of Potatoes

MUSIC

K-Chuck Radio: Motown like you’ve never heard it before

Coverville 1186: Cover Stories for 10CC, Nick Cave and Oasis

Uranium Fever – Elton Britt (1955)

That was the week that was: late August

The guests gave our host unsolicited advice on romance.

The curse of a daily blog is that life sometimes gets in the way. I STILL haven’t written about the rest of the July vacation, which I will eventually do, not for your sake, but for my own. So as a blog cheat, I’m going to note the week that was, now a couple weeks ago.

Before that: Heck, I haven’t mentioned the TWO plays I saw the FIRST weekend in August. The first was All Shook Up at Proctors Theatre in Schenectady, featuring one of my teenage nieces. It was a mix of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night and Elvis Presley and worked surprisingly well.

The other was Into the Woods at the Mac-Hadyn Theatre. With our front-row seats, sometimes the action was over our left shoulders, and sometimes (Little Red Riding Hood being devoured), it was so close we could almost touch it. But what we decided, after having the movie and this production, is that the story isn’t compelling enough to see again any time soon.

As for this past week, a few months ago, parents-in-law had arranged all of the families of their three surviving children to a timeshare in western Massachusetts. You make plans in May for the end of August, and they don’t always work out. One brother-in-law couldn’t make it for work reasons.

We delayed our departure on Saturday so we could attend a rededication of the marriage of Rosaline and David in our church. It had elements of a Cameroonian service, and it fun, but unfortunately, we couldn’t stay for the reception, as we went out to Hancock, MA.

We had been there nine years ago, and there wasn’t much to do. The highlight then was watching trucks bring parts of the first of what are now several wind towers. Now, there’s tennis and other amenities. But I never used any of them.

The next morning, the Wife and I went back to Albany. The choir, heavy on sopranos, but light on men, sang at the funeral service of our friend Margaret Hannay. We sang Lord, Make Me an Instrument of Thy Peace by John Rutter. I had difficulty singing:
O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood, as to understand;
to be loved, as to love;
for it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

My spouse then went BACK to Hancock, but I stayed in town, and attended a party our friend Jon threw, where the guests gave our host unsolicited, contradictory, but brilliant advice on romance.

Monday, I took off from work, but I had a professional development project to work on. I had a Friends of the Library meeting at 5 pm, followed by a meeting to give some expert feedback on the operations of the library. That evening, I needed to write a letter to an organization requesting speakers that HAD to be done THAT NIGHT.

Tuesday, work, then slog through professional development project until 9 pm.

Wednesday, work. The Wife and Daughter had just gotten home, but we needed to leave immediately for junior high orientation, which I had totally forgotten about. The school district is now engaging CDTA to provide bus service for the morning, and first afternoon routes, instead of the oft-unreliable bus company used in the past. The greatest challenge was the combination locker, which none of us could open with any regularity.

Thursday, work. I got a desperate request from my old boss to transcribe an interview with a friend of mine. The link didn’t work in Google Chrome, though I discovered by trial and error, it did operate in Firefox and Internet explorer. The interview turned out to be 90 minutes long, and with the time I wasted figuring out how to hear the piece, needed and fortunately found some help.

Friday, work. Transcription, interrupted by the Daughter not feeling well.

Saturday, transcription, edit transcript, tend to daughter still feeling poorly. You can tell she’s off when she pulls out her large unicorn to cuddle and asks Oscar the monkey to talk with her.

The only blogging I did was to write the intro for ABC Wednesday.

That was the week that was.

The penultimate: ABC Wednesday Round 19

You are invited to participate, every week, or as you can, with ABC Wednesday.

At some basic level, I don’t much like being in charge of a lot of things. This month, I’m relinquishing the presidency of the Friends of the Albany Public Library, though I’m staying on the board, even as I join the board of the Albany Public Library Foundation.

I’m also planning to give up being the president of the NY/PA Olin Family Reunion next month. That’s been a four-year term, and I’ll be happy to pass the torch.

So too, I’ll stop being the administrator of ABC Wednesday, the meme where one participates with others, literally from around the world, in sharing a picture, a poem, an essay, SOMETHING with the various letters of the alphabet. But it’s not ending right away. We will have two more trips through the alphabet, ABC Wednesday Round 19 starting the week of July 5.

Usually, our friend Troy has done the badge for the round, but this time, Gattina from the team has created it.

ABC Wednesday was started nine years ago by Denise Nesbitt. I’ve been participating since the letter K in Round 5, and became administrator some point later, though I really don’t remember when anymore. I assign who reads which posts, making sure somebody is writing the introductions (and writing them myself, when necessary) and inserting the link that allows everyone to participate.

Oh, speaking of that link thing, from InLinkz: I only use it once a week. So if someone I know, who has a Blogger/Blogspot blog wanted to get other people to link to THEIR blogs, for some reason – this means you, fillyjonk, SamuraiFrog, Jaquandor, AmeriNZ, and some others – I could be talked into it.

Or it can a WordPress blog. Like this one. I am inviting you, if you have a blog, to link it below. Because I can.

As noted, ABC Wednesday will end with Round 20, with a badge by Troy. But you are invited to participate, every week, or as you can. I do think it’s advantageous to do so weekly, as it generates a lot of comments for me. Personally, I visit practically everyone who posts. I’m especially looking for folks who will visit others each week, especially since I’ve lost one of our more steadfast members.

Note that we’re VERY flexible with the letter X, with eXit or eXcel.

One last thing: if someone wants to take over ABC Wednesday, email me at rogerogreen AT gmail DOT com. I’ll tell you what it entails. Heck, I might even participate if I don’t have to be in charge. Whether or not there’s an ABC Wednesday, I may continue my alphabetic journey twice a year.

Borrowing a cup of sugar, and other November excitement

Was this some sociological experiment, a sorority hazing, or some reality show prank?

It was a REALLY busy month in November. Besides church on Sunday and daughter’s rehearsal on Monday nights for a production at church in March, and choir rehearsal on Thursday nights (except on Thanksgiving):

6th – The church choir sang, for First Friday, VESPERAE DE DOMINICA by Mozart, with a dress rehearsal on the 4th.
Earlier that day, I went to the urgent care place. Four days earlier, I had a standard #2 pencil in a pair of pants poke through my pants pocket, and I managed to jab my left index finger enough that it drew blood. I didn’t know until later that a piece of the point embedded in my fingertip. So the doctor “froze” my finger, and removed the piece of graphite.
7th – Albany Symphony Orchestra concert. Actually, I ended up not going, and The Wife went with a friend because we couldn’t get a ~~babysitter~~ child watcher for The Daughter.

8th – After church, I recorded a piece for possible inclusion on the church’s YouTube channel. It sounded OK, but there was too much light, and I ended up rerecording it the following Sunday.
9th – Saw my doctor for a follow-up visit after hernia surgery. Said I was good to go, but in a more poetic form that I wish I could replicate.
11th – I spent my Veterans Day working on some items for the Friends of the Albany Public Library. That evening, a group of dads from the church got together.
13th – Polina.
14th – In the morning, a meeting of Friends of various Friends of Library groups. Not incidentally, I’ve been asked to write an article about Friends groups for the New York Library Association journal, due at the end of the month; as of this date, I have written precisely nothing, in part because the Wife had this presentation at a conference which involved not only her use of the computer but extra watching of the Daughter.
I got a very necessary, actually overdue haircut, mostly for the beard, which I don’t get shaved clean because of the discoloration from the vitiligo on my lower face. That evening, the Albany Public Library Foundation gala.

15th – One of our choir members, Alex Rosa , is a senior at the College of Saint Rose, and he gave his senior recital, which was quite good. Afterward, his parents, who are lovely people, put out a nice spread of food to eat.
17th – The Laurie Anderson movie at the Spectrum.
18th – At work, I gave a talk to a Chinese delegation from one of the larger provinces. They primarily wanted me to talk about intellectual property – copyright, patent and trademark – but they were most attentive during the brief section about credit scores. Afterward, as is their custom, they gave me a gift, which looks like this:

Yes, it’s a wooden comb.
21st – We saw the Capitol Steps, an American political satire group that “put the MOCK in democracy” at The Egg, a performance venue at the Empire State Plaza. The group, which initially included Congressional staffers from both parties, “has been performing since 1981, and has released over forty albums consisting primarily of song parodies.” The Wife and I saw them several years ago at Proctor’s in Schenectady.

Among other things in their rapid-fire presentation, they addressed the Greek financial crisis with songs from the musical Grease. It ends with one male cast member reciting a talk in which he reverses some consonants regularly; Borge W. Gush, e.g. it’s not only funny, it’s difficult to do.

22nd – We traversed over an hour to some school in an out-of-the-way location in western Massachusetts to see the premiere performance for the season of the Albany Berkshire Ballet presentation of The Nutcracker. The Daughter had done this production thrice, always as an angel, but her friend and former classmate “Elsie” has been, over eight years, a clown, a party child, and finally, Clara. She was really good, always staying in character.

Then Elsie’s family, our family, and some other friends went out to a Friendly’s restaurant in East Greenbush, NY; all the Friendly’s in Albany County closed many months ago.

Our family told the story about how, shortly after the Wife had come home after dropping off the child sitter the previous night, some young woman rang our doorbell, after 10 pm. We’ve had such a rotation of students as neighbors that we didn’t recognize this one. She had some yellow makeup, or something, caked on her face. She wanted to borrow a cup of sugar for baking, which we gave her, after putting our watchcat in the basement.

The discussion at Friendly’s centered on whether this was some sociological experiment, a sorority hazing, or some reality show prank. Collectively, we thought the idea of “borrowing” a cup of sugar, from a stranger, a couple of hours before midnight, was bizarre, with the 24-hour Price Chopper only three blocks away.

Elsie’s older sister allowed that, when she was living in an apartment in New York City, she went to neighbors’ apartments, including ones she didn’t know, looking for a ladle for a punch bowl, because, as I said, pouring punch from a mere cup would have been SO declasse. If you had been there, this would have been a hilarious exchange.

26th – Movie (reviewed eventually)
27th – Travel to Oneonta, about 75 minutes away, for Thanksgiving, returning the next day.
28th – Movie (reviewed soon)
30th – Take off day to work on many items, including agenda for Friends of the APL meeting that night. That paper that hung over my head like Damocles’ sword was finished; whether it is any good remains to be seen.

Uncharacteristically, December should be less busy, after this week, with only a wedding and the usual Christmas church events on the agenda. I might even participate in Trouble with Comics again.

Imagination of compassion, or something like that

I’m told that group referred to as ISIS, or ISIL, HATE to be referred to as “DEASH”.

The night after the shootings and bombing in Paris that killed over 125 people on Friday the 13th of November, the Albany Public Library Foundation held its second annual Literary Legends gala to honor two writers. One, Gregory Maguire, author of Wicked, who was born in Albany, ended his brief remark with a quote, which I failed to write down. I thought it contained the phrase “the imagination of compassion.”

Instead of finding what’s wrong with someone’s response to a situation, try to imagine the scenario with some compassion. The idea of imagination compassion is far more uplifting and far less destructive. “You remake the world when you imagine it compassionate.”

So while I didn’t change my status on Facebook to the French tricolor – in part because it feels, to me, that it gives the bombings in Beirut the day before the short shrift. And indeed, there are tragedies every day around the world that warrant our response, so one could argue Eurocentrism. Yet I’m opposed to criticizing those who did post the blue, white, and red because they are expressing their own compassion.

I note Arthur’s lovely tale, which I suppose would be characterized as an imagination of compassion, though I can see it taking place in Lebanon as well as France.

Hey, I understand the bias towards Paris. France is the US’s oldest ally. More to the point, there were three households I knew personally that night in Paris. One was a woman from Albany passing through. Dartmouth professor and writer Jeff Sharlet, who I knew when he was a child, was interviewed by MSNBC that night.

That Literary Gala’s other awardee was Barbara Smith, who has written a bunch of black feminist literature. I asked her if she knew my mother’s first cousin Fran, a noted writer in those circles, and she had indeed met her. Fran’s two daughters were born in Paris, and daughter Anne and her family are living there currently.
***
And then I get the real quote from Maguire: “The consolation of imaginary things is not imaginary consolation.” – Roger Scruton. Memory can be so faulty.

“Compassion: a source of comfort to somebody who is upset or disappointed.” So the above still holds.

Still, I’m told that group referred to as ISIS, or ISIL, HATE to be referred to as “DEASH”. Daesh (or Da’esh pronounced dɑʃ). It’s a term used to describe the terrorist organization, introduced by French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius. (Is this why they’ve been so focused on France?)

Fabius argued that since the IS is not Islamic and absolutely not recognized as a state, he said “…the Arabs call it Daesh…” (from Arabic “to tread upon”, “to trample or crush underfoot”). I’ve decided to refer to them only as Daesh going forward. My compassion can go only so far.

My pal Amy Biancolli, who has dealt with suicides in her life, is uncomfortable with the term suicide bomber. A reader suggested kamikaze, and I’m thinking that it’s more correct, perhaps with a qualifier of some sort.