God's gonna trouble

After several days of shenanigans at the RNC—sanitary pad on the ear and a vulture capitalist VP pick among them—I’m feeling the need for something cleansing. Something pure. Something Eva.

So I’ve chosen her acoustic take on “Wade in the Water”.

“Wade in the Water” is a jubilee song, an African American spiritual originating in slavery and collected and sung by the Fisk University Jubilee Singers in the early years of the 20^th Century. A lot of those songs were about getting through terrible times by holding out hope for deliverance and salvation.

Not sure, but the first time I heard it might have been Bernice Johnson Reagon, founder of Sweet Honey in the Rock, singing it in a class she taught at American University. And here’s that amazing group singing it, if you’re interested.

At times like these, I turn to music and art to help me through, because it’s frankly overwhelming. Eva Cassidy’s warm, powerful and steady voice is what I need today.

 

©2024 Bas Bleu

 

 

Passing plagues

This is meant to be an apocalyptic year for cicadas—two separate broods are emerging from years of subterranean hibernation and singing the song of their people to large swathes of the United States. (I reported on Brood X three years ago, as they passed through the People’s Republic.)

But those swathes are largely in the Midwest, so I think we won’t have many here.

So far, one of my friends shared a photo of a cicada shell in her yard, and this guy flopped in my path one morning a couple of weeks ago and gave up the ghost.

I have to say that I’m not really sorry—we have enough to contend with this summer, what with the election and the monster heat dome.

Enjoy the music, Ohio. You owe us for Vance.

 

 

©2024 Bas Bleu

 

 

Definitely brass

Saw this splendid parking job in the lot outside my physical therapy clinic.

I mean—it takes brass ones to do this, even if you have a new Volvo SUV.

So I went around to see what I could learn from the license plate. And lo—not only is it Texas, but expired over a month.

 

 

©2024 Bas Bleu

 

 

Cool, cool

Okay, ordinarily I’d include this vanity plate in a post with several others, because that’s my style. But the entire rear end of this car is plastered with so many, uh, interesting stickers that I thought it merits its own post.

The plate itself is probably an elision of “qué chulo”, meaning “how cool”.

Sometimes I really wish I could see the owners of these cars.

 

 

©2024 Bas Bleu

 

Gratitude Monday: Beejoy

I do not know what these purple flowers are, but the bees are absolutely crazy about them.

B

Every time I go to a physical therapy appointment I’m filled with joy by them. So that’s my gratitude for today.

 

 ©2024 Bas Bleu