Earlier this year, I shared with you some photos of street lamps in a neighboring cluster. That post included one kind of sad image of a shadow of the very Art Nouveau lights. This past weekend I got a better shot, so here it is.
You’ll forgive me if I say it reminds me of the Witch-king of Angmar.
©2024 Bas Bleu
On my Thursday morning walk I caught two foxes playing in a sand trap on the golf course. They were on hind legs, batting each other with their front paws. Sadly, they quit when they saw me, and I only got these pitiful shots of them.
Then, Saturday morning I met up with possibly
one of them, in the green space* between my cluster and the ex-corporate HQ
behind us. And then someone showed up later that day to snarfle up some bird
seed.
I also listened to the resident hawk up in the
trees—not yet driven out of its habitat by the massive “luxury” townhouse
construction project on the ex-corporate HQ campus. And I realized how grateful
I am to have these creatures for neighbors (along with the birds and the
chipmunks), for their visits and serenades. That's big gratitude.
*I’m sure developers will buy that space, which
is about 20 x 40 meters, to construct a high rise of “luxury” condos with a
Starbucks on the ground floor, in about five years.
©2024 Bas Bleu
Yom Kippur begins at sundown tonight and continues until dusk tomorrow. It’s the culmination of the Days of Awe in the Jewish calendar, and the time for a sort of moral Spring cleaning—the Day of Atonement, when you’re meant to rummage through your behavior over the previous year, acknowledge your shortcomings with respect to your fellow humans, apologize (to those they’ve trespassed against and to God) and resolve to do better.
Then—having cleared the slate, so to
speak—you’re good to go for another year.
Well, the deal is that God opens the Book of
Life on Rosh Hashanah and inscribes your name in it, but doesn’t close-and-seal
it until the end of Yom Kippur. You have those ten Days of Awe to get your
ducks in a row.
In recent times, people have taken to issuing
blanket apologies for transgressions, presumably in
the hope that anyone who’s actually suffered at their hands will happen by at
the time the apology emerged, and will catch it in passing. And, of course, SoMe
has amplified this impersonalization of what should be
a very personal act of contrition.
I have never subscribed to the
one-size-fits-all approach to giving or receiving apologies, but that’s just
me. I mean—in the Roman Catholic Sacrament of Reconciliation, we’re meant to
hawk up actual things we’ve done, say
them out loud to the confessor and accept the penance we’re given. (Toughest
priest I ever knew wouldn’t give you any generic Hail Marys or Our Fathers; no,
no. If I’d been pissed off at my family, he’d tell me to go back and be
specially nice to them. Killed me, he did.)
Protestants generally have no truck with
confession and atonement. That may be because, being based on the teachings of John
Calvin, they’re guided by the tenets of Predestination: God decided long before
your birth whether you’re saved or damned, and nothing you can do here will
change that. Therefore there’s not much point in calling out your
transgressions, or promising to make amends—you’re headed where God sends you.
(Okay—there’s a lot of talk in some
fundamentalist circles about repentance and forgiveness. But that seems largely
to apply to Republican elected officials and some preachers who’ve been caught
doing something that they can’t wriggle out of on account of the video and the
forensic evidence. I take no notice of this.)
But I digress. This post is about Yom Kippur
and the mindful inventory of one’s transgressions with a view to amending one’s
trajectory in the New Year.
In synagogues and communities around the world
just before sundown tonight, someone will be singing “Kol Nidre”, a call from
the Ashkenazi tradition of Judaism. It’s a mixture of Aramaic and Hebrew,
declaring null any oaths or commitments made to God from one Yom Kippur to the
next, and asking for pardon for shortcomings in fulfilling those vows. The
idea, as I understand it, is to mitigate the sin of failing to fulfill a vow
that might have been made rashly. (It also annulled any vows associated with
forced conversion to Christianity, which was a thing for a long time.)
Both Al Jolson and Neil Diamond sang “Kol
Nidre” in their appearances in The Jazz Singer (1927 and 1980,
respectively). Johnny Mathis and Perry Como have also recorded it, which seems
passing odd to me. But I’m giving you Cantor Julia Kadrain of the Central
Synagogue (a Reform shul in Midtown Manhattan) leading it for Yom Kippur 5776
(nine years ago).
May your name be sealed in the Book of Life.
©2024 Bas Bleu
These may be the last of the mushrooms for the season. They’re beside the W&OD Trail, a location where I’ve seen their ilk in the past.
Dunno why, but I’m thinking about risotto.
Mushroom risotto.
©2024 Bas Bleu
So, there’s this chain of specialty bakeries called Crumbl Cookies. They have a store near me in the People’s Republic, in a nothing-but-eateries section of a local shopping center. I noticed it because it’s next to the place I patronize for kabob.
Last year I had a conversation about it with my
physical therapist—I just don’t get how making one single thing can be the
basis of a successful business model. (I also don’t get the lasting power of Nothing
Bundt Cake, except they may have an advantage in corporate catering.) She
said she’d tried them, and they were acceptable. But I’ve still never got round
to going in to check them out.
A couple of weeks ago I got a fancy for the
lamb and chicken kabob platter, so I trotted over to the shopping center and
noticed this:
I wondered if they were going out of business,
or maybe had a super big sale going on. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a place that
is entirely takeout this full, outside of maybe a Massachusetts ice cream
parlor in July. And as I waited for my combo platter, I watched people
streaming by with pink boxes—some quite wide and maybe an inch tall, and some
the size of a box that would hold a couple of cupcakes.
Well, The Washington Post got wind of
the raging phenomenon and decided to review the product. Turns out they didn’t much like it—too sweet and tending to
be underbaked. Evidently that’s because of their size; by the time the edges
are done and headed toward burning, the centers are still near-raw.
But here’s the kicker: the cookies cost $6.
Each.
Nope.
©2024 Bas Bleu
Well, I saw my first one in the wild.
Not even impressed enough to veer 20 meters off
the W&OD Trail to get a closer look.
Also—it was at a cheap-ass 7-ELEVEN wannabe.
Whatever class it has is all low.
Hope he's not insured with GEICO.
©2024 Bas Bleu
In these crazy times, we none of us are assured of anything. Aside from human-induced climate-related natural disasters, we’re surrounded by two major kinetic wars; worldwide cyber crime aimed at crippling infrastructure, healthcare and communications; the global rise of right-wing authoritarianism; and a presidential election here that pits a proven upholder of the Constitution against a convicted felon whose campaign relies on unprecedented lying and incitement to violence to support winning at all costs.
The costs to be paid by everyone but him.
Plus—I’m still being chewed to shreds by bloody
mosquitos. In October.
My point is—no matter how battened down we
think our lives are, we’re all one layoff, one aneurysm, one rogue Waymo or one
batshit crazy True Believer away from everything turning upside down. So I’ve
taken to trying to focus on the things around me—in whatever format they might
appear—that remind me of the grace and blessings that do exist, even if they’re
ephemeral.
Today it’s the hibiscus that my neighbor
planted. (Y’all know how I love hibiscus.)
She gets actual sun (unlike my yard), and she
recently set out a bunch of plants and shrubs, including these stunners. I don’t
know where hibiscus originated, but these guys remind me of the colors or
Mexico, or the Little India neighborhood of Singapore. Just in-your-face
look-at-me vibrant hues. You just have to smile when you see them.
Today I’m grateful for my neighbor, her garden
and these beauties. How could I not be?
©2024 Bas Bleu
Today’s earworm has to be from Kris Kristofferson, who died Saturday at age 88.
Son of a career Air Force officer,
Kristofferson earned a degree in English at Pomona College, where he also
played football and boxed. (I have to frame this by telling you that Pomona
plays in the same athletic league as Cal Tech. But still…) He won a Rhodes
Scholarship to Merton College, Oxford, where he studied (among other
literature) the poetry of William Blake.
You may or may not know this, but while a
Rhodes Scholarship is an academic honor, you also have to be an athlete; it was
founded by that Muscular Christian White Nationalist Cecil Rhodes, who
definitely believed in mens sana in corpore sano.
He left Oxford to take a commission in the U.S.
Army, where he flew helicopters in Germany. That made his parents happy, but
when the Army proposed his next assignment as teaching English literature at
West Point, he resigned his commission and moved to Nashville.
It was time for him to live his life as a poet.
His family disowned him.
Kristofferson came on the country music scene
in the 60s. Though that’s not really my jam, his songs resonate deeply. They’re
largely about fleeting relationships that nevertheless provide a bright, if
short, light. They are also deeply sensual. Like the opening verse from “Help
Me Make It Through the Night”:
“Take the ribbon
from your hair
“Shake it loose and let it fall
“Layin’ soft upon my skin
“Like the shadows on the wall.”
Whoo-ee, that is some hot stuff right there.
Kristofferson’s biggest hit was probably “Me
and Bobby McGee”, written in 1970. I first heard it sung by Gordon Lightfoot,
and Janis Joplin went No. 1 on the chart with her posthumously released cover
that same year. I confess that for the past week I’ve been stuck on “With those
windshield wipers slappin’ time and Bobby clappin’ hands, We finally sung up
every song that driver knew.”
“Bobby McGee” gave us the catchphrase “Freedom’s
just another word for nothin’ left to lose; nothin’ ain’t worth nothin’, but it’s
free.” If you look, you can find the threads of Blake in Kristofferson’s work.
As with JD Souther last week, there’s so much to choose from with Kristofferson. But I’m going with “Loving Her Was Easier”. He was an amazing balladeer, and there's a whole lot of Blake in the imagery.
©2024 Bas Bleu
Welp, folks—here we are:
But I guess if you were stocking up on Christmas
décor in Costco early last month, you’ll want to book your light hangers
now.
©2024 Bas Bleu
Jews around the world will gather with families and friends at sundown tonight to welcome in the year 5785. Rosh Hashanah begins with the call of the shofar at a synagogue service, and continues with a meal that traditionally includes a round challah (symbolizing the circle of life) and apples dipped in honey (for a sweet year).
It also marks the ten Days of Awe, when Jews reflect upon the past year and consider what they might have done better. The Days end with Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, when Jews acknowledge the wrongs of the previous year and ask forgiveness—from both the person(s) they’ve wronged and from God.
As I’ve
written before, I think it’s a custom that pretty much everyone could
benefit from. Most Christians pay lip service (literally) to the notion of
atonement when they recite that passage of the Lord’s Prayer that goes,
“forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” But
there are a shedload of Christians who run through that whole prayer without
giving it much thought. They also run through their lives the same way.
That may be true of Jews at the High Holy Days,
too. But I think that taking entire days out of your life and devoting them to
thoughts of enumerating your transgressions and asking forgiveness (as well as
accepting others’ apologies) tends to focus the mind.
A lot has happened in this world since the start of year 5784. Much of it appalling. At time of writing, that includes Iran launching ballistic missiles on Israel. Let’s all of us—Jew and gentile alike—see if we can’t do better this time around. I wish all my Jewish friends (whether in Herndon, New York or on a cruise somewhere in the world) L'Shanah Tovah.
©2024 Bas Bleu
