Friday, July 1, 2011

Food, Money, Diabetes, Mahler, Shostakovich and Tilton Thomas /Poems: Morning and Crows

Three-bean chili - navy beans, black-eyed peas, kidney beans - featuring brown rice.

Well, if you must know, I spent an hour on YouTube last nite celebrating The Last Day of June.

I needed to hear some strong driving rhythms so I went straight to Guns n Roses, followed some threads to Axl Rose, and then to my beloved Freddie Mercury. His real name was Farrokh Bulsara. When he moved from his native Zanzibar to England, his school chums called him Freddie.

Here are some 'stills' I laboriously captured:









Freddie Mercury, born 1946, died 1991, age 45.

He had an incredibly b'ful voice, strong and sure. His musical gifts were recognized as a child and he underwent intensive training in piano, voice, and other things. Read the Wiki entry.

Hooked on television these hot summer nites w/the fireflies putting on a great show in the backyard - hmmm, I wonder how Bill Hess would photograph them - I watched the PBS show Keeping Score about great classical music composers.

Last nite, Gustav Mahler was featured. Sad, but very few people I know appreciate classical. Sarah and I had went to hear (just kidding about the grammar) a Mahler Symphony at Carnegie Hall a few years ago.

I can always talk classical to her, when she's not out donating her kidney.

Conductor of the San Francisco Symphony, Michael Tilson Thomas, was the narrator of the Mahler show.

That man is fantastic! So emotional. Where he is, you wanna be. Here's a clip on the making of the program.

Equally as good, which I watched online, was the story of the Russian composer Shostakovich and how he was terrorized by Stalin and his committee to determine Art favorable to the Regime and Art to be banned.



The Shostakovich Fifth Symphony was profiled by Tilson Thomas. Shostakovitch wears these darling black glasses.

Remember when I had manic-depression? I don't, fortunately.

Well, there was a drug called Depakote, a mood stabilizer. I tried it once but my platelet level kept falling. I met a Depakote salesman, Bob Miley, when I was a therapist at Bristol-Bensalem. He got Abbott Labs, makers of Depakote, to write us a check. I believe it was for $500.

Well, sir, today I called Depakote labs, about my new problem: Diabetes.

Abbott Labs makes the meter and test strips that I test my blood sugar with.

The test strips often malfunction.

It's actually me, that malfunctions. I haven't been doing it right.

Spoke to a very helpful woman named Janet. They're very well-trained.



As we speak I'm making My kind of Chili, which features lotsa veggies and brown rice.

I probly won't use chili powder cuz of the strong flavor. We'll see.



The three types of beans are navy beans, black-eyed peas and kidney beans.

Already the chili has stuck to the bottom of the pot.

Talked to Max, from India, a very genial man who helped me w/my credit card bill.

I rarely screw up, but I did make a late payment. My bank is sposed to send me an email reminder which they didn't do. Still, it was my fault. But I got Max to expunge the late fee AND the exorbitant interest fee.

What you do when you talk to these folks, is dissociate yourself from the fact that they work for one of the richest companies in the world who, by hook or crook, think of every way to part you from your hard-earned money.

Speak pleasantly and if they begin to make the first move, which Max did, when he said, Are you having a good day, know then, that you can work with this person.

Max lives w/his huge family but is not yet married. He wants to come to America. I told him to start saving his money and to never pay interest on a credit card. I told him about the Jersey shore which he'd never heard of.

In explaining to me his dreams, he said something extraordinary: If you dream for the moon, he said, then at least you have a hand-full of stars.

Max, I said, where did you hear that?

I made it up, he said.

May I quote it on my blog?

That would be wonderful, he said.

It was 7 am his time, 7 pm mine.

Sure enough he was happy to expunge the debt and interest on my credit card.

Whew! I need every ruble I have, which includes my never having overdue library materials.

Oh, no! Good thing I reminded myself. Wonder if they charge interest?

Two old poems:

MORNING

I want to look

for a few moments

at that shadow pattern

on the floor

knowing I will never see

such a spreading of light and

leaf again

made by the sun's silent explosion

through the dining room window:

a golden bullet shot through miles and miles of time

then spent,

arranges itself in islands on the floor.


CROWS

There is a mad gathering of crows

outside on the high wire

what is it with crows?

raggedly... flapping... ill-mannered... raucous

not like the proud bluejay

politely stopping to show off his well-pressed suit

or the tiny busy sparrows who live beneath

Sarah's windowbox

but crows are like folks

nice enough when quiet

irksome when they get a bug up their ass.

1 comment:

  1. I don't know. Never had a chance to photograph fire flies.

    ReplyDelete