Anne Winter

Anne
You made a huge impact with your convictions
and you humor and your taste.
We who knew you but were not close saw your humor
and your intelligence and you reserve and your humility.
You were who you were.
Pretense was not your companion.
Though I had not seen you for years,
I found a hole opening in my Spirit
when I learned of your end flight from this Earthly plane.
I will seek to leave that hole as your memorial.
Your impact on me,
though seemingly small to others,
was as permanent as the memories of skinning a knee
or earning an award
or seeing the Challenger explode into space.
There is a place and you are there.
Peace to you on the next journey.

Enjoy this music from Imogen Heap.

The Office of the President

I do not envy the children of the families in which the President is not given respect due the office. Those children are not the first ones to ever be indoctrinated with an abiding disrespect for the person or for the Office. They are standing in a long line stretching back to our earliest days as a Nation. Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, John Kennedy, FDR, Hoover. Dare I go on? The Office is due respect. The person may be human and fallible. I'm sorry. The person is human and fallible. Personal assaults do come into the camp of racism when the President is noted for his racial identity as much as for his political ideology.

Pray for this group of children and for their guides in this world- their parents. As a Nation, we are no different than any other group of humans. We seldom learn from our mistakes. We truly do not learn from our mistakes if we do not admit that they are mistakes.

The Artist Blogs on a Monday

Monday.
It's just another day in the week. In my world, it's my "Friday".
My work week ends on Monday and starts up again on Thursday. So, I feel
thoughtful on this Friday and wish to drop a few thoughts.

As an artist, I create something from nothing. At this juncture, there is no physical or practical place in my world to create much of anything. That will have to become a liberating condition and not a stricture. No one needs my product. They do often like it and want it. That heartens me both as a person and as a working artist. So I persevere.

My artist profile on Facebook is growing. The fan base has doubled in the last week. That also heartens me. Without shows in the pipeline, any publicity may be good publicity. I look for another small bubble this week.

A corollary topic is the music creation and performance. This aspect of my creative life sits quietly in the shadows and hums to itself. Is it time to expand this area to fill the foreshortened visual side? The composer needs very little space in which to compose. And the performer has the same condition. Emotional requirements and conditions differ. But the two streams feed the same hunger. New or altered creation is satisfying to the Artist. The Artist must create. As a friend of mine says, "No, duh".

The Artist is anxious to Create.

Exercising Religion- not Exorcising Religion

(Written in response to a ministerial musing by Rev. J. T.)

We seem far from the days of the Church as State. Or do we? I appreciate your thoughts and emphasis.

I always feel a sense of "lacking", for want of a better term, when I think of the WWJD bubble of recent times. He would do what he did. And most of us would not have liked what he did. Or would do. Or will do. That's why we need Him.

Anyway, I digress a little. But, it makes me smile and cringe to think of the things that Jesus would do and to imagine the faces of We the People listening and watching.

Back to your article/musing. The State- our State- was created in the throes of spiritual and political subjugation. We know that. It was admitted by most and touted on the walls of humble taverns and city meeting places. The problem was fairly obvious but the answer to that problem was not. Fair-minded people disagreed about the course of action. But it was the Country-in-the-making which empowered the ultimate response.

At this point in our communal existence, we have no revolution at hand to overthrow a foreign power. We've suffered an interior injury to the body. We are hurting even if the left leg doesn't want to admit that the right eye is bruised and the left arm is in a sling. Oh, and the pancreas is inflamed. It is so much easier to band together when there is a common enemy attacking us from without. There is an enemy attacking. And to plagiarize Pogo,(yes, I'm going there) we have seen the enemy and he is us. When our eyelids droop and our heads nod, things happen. And dear old Sgt. Schultz always had the last laugh, didn't he:"I see Nothing!"

Exercising religion- not exorcising religion. And to throw in one final cliche, we all need to practice, practice, practice. Me especially.

Getting it early and getting it late

I received Sgt Pepper as a gift from my older cousin in 1966. I was 11 and was blown away. I somehow missed the album Pet Sounds when it first appeared. I finally bought it and at the time wondered why my favorite band had put out an album of animal noises. I was very literal, I guess. And once again I was blown away. Both were monsters albums.

A combination of the two albums would have been fun to hear. Think of the Grey Album by Danger Mouse but with a very different twist.