“His luminous tone filled the Brick, a recently converted gallery space with fine acoustics. Heightening the atmosphere was the presence of Kara Walker’s sculpture ‘Unmanned Drone,’ a creative deconstruction of a statue of Stonewall Jackson that once stood in Charlottesville.”
I don’t know who needs to hear Jesse Jackson leading the kids on Sesame Street in this beautiful call-and-response reminding them that every child is somebody, but here it is
Clippings from the Leader-Telegram (Eau Claire, Wisconsin), February 17, 1970, including three quotes from his speech and a photo of Rev. Jesse Jackson surrounded by female students.
Jesse Jackson spoke at my college when I was a sophomore, exactly 56 years ago today. Everybody’s talking about the black man’s problem, he said. He flashed that beautiful, charismatic smile and said no, it’s the white man’s problem.
He opened my eyes and changed my life.
“At the time, Mays had not fully realized how impactful her aunt was in the Civil Rights Movement; the 9-year-old knew her as an excellent cook and loving aunt. . . . ‘And then I grew up and I learned more . . .’”
“Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine”
Elderly orange tomcat staring off into space as he lies on a bed with his head resting on a pillowy white blanket.
Mood. #Caturday
Wow. I’d love to see that paragraph performed by a Shakespearean actor and a jazz quintet. Hoping you will say more about things that can’t be undone.
Happy Birthday—enjoy!
I was just completely undone by her beautiful passion when she sang “I have always wanted to have a neighbor just like you.”
Perfection.
Screen shot of the last lines of "A Hermit Thrush," a poem by Amy Clampitt: we drop everything to listen as a hermit thrush distills its fragmentary, hesitant, in the end unbroken music. From what source (beyond us, or the wells within?) such links perceived arrive-- diminished sequences so uninsistingly not even human--there's hardly a vocabulary left to wonder, uncertain as we are of so much in this existence, this botched, cumbersome, much-mended, not unsatisfactory thing.
Thank you! You have made my day by sharing this beautiful photograph of one of my favorite birds and by reminding me of a favorite poem . . . poets.org/poem/hermit-...
Lol, thanks for sharing this. It reminds me of one of my favorite standing jokes by Gilda Radner on SNL:
youtu.be/OjYoNL4g5Vg?...
😂
Me too. 🕯️
TONIGHT: Organizers in Minnesota are asking you to shine a light for their state.
“They will tell their lyin' stories . . . All their lies soon be forgotten”
— Gil Turner, “Carry It On”
A great cloud of witnesses.
A newly released photo of Renee and Becca Good.
Oops! 😂
Feeling torn between hope and fear as I watched this inauguration, and knowing something of Hampton’s vital role in the history of our state, I was moved to tears by this glorious performance.
“Members of the Oglala Sioux Tribe are United States citizens,” Star Comes Out said. “We are the first Americans. We are not undocumented immigrants, and we are not subject to unlawful immigration enforcement actions by ICE or Homeland Security.”
wapo.st/49Wv1Pt
Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.
Hold fast to dreams
For when dreams go
Life is a barren field
Frozen with snow.
— Langston Hughes
www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/150995...
Joni: And I dreamed I saw the bombers
Riding shotgun in the sky
And they were turning into butterflies
Above our nation
Captain Jean-Luc Picard: Make it so.
Prospero: We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.
Ella:
Steven, thank you for sharing these tender feelings, so familiar to those of who’ve lost loved ones. You’ve described them so beautifully.
Rest in peace, Renee Nicole Good. You will not be forgotten.
“now i can’t believe—
that the bible and qur’an and bhagavad gita are sliding long hairs behind my ear like mom used to & exhaling from their mouths ‘make room for wonder’—”
poets.org/2020-on-lear...
Members of Congress, a word:
@housedemocrats.bsky.social
@senatedemocrats.bsky.social
Screen shot of 2026 word: brain rot.
Oh dear, you think you’ve got trouble . . . 😳
A picture of a party hat and streamers, with this poem: The Music Crept By Us I would like to remind the management that the drinks are watered and the hat-check girl has syphilis and the band is composed of former SS monsters However since it is New Year’s Eve and I have lip cancer I will place my paper hat on my concussion and dance —Leonard Cohen
2025 has been a nightmare. May the new year wake us up.
