Author Archives: darkmatter0205

I saw Yoyo Ma’s live broadcast of the Goat Rodeo sessions last night in a local theater. As a string band musician of very modest talent but a huge appreciation for the genuine article, it was a joyous thrill ride through American roots music elevated to high art by great masters, easily on par with Aaron Copeland and others who have mined this rich vein. For an encore they played Bach, including a bowed bass playing an equally challenging melodic line as any other. Incredible. A goat rodeo is a term used by pilots referring a situation where a hundred things have to go right in order to be able to walk away from it. Considering that this felt like a four part, lyrical, aerial ballet by close order jet fighter planes, the title seems appropriate.

Six million people are in prison in the USA today–more than in Stalin’s gulags.

Bright sun and high 30s today. Walking through the outdoor patio entrance to my bank today, I was transported by the winter fragrance of Chinese Witch Hazel (Hamamelis Molis.) I looked around for the gangly yellow misanthrope, but it was hiding. There are bacteria living miles below the earths crust making their living in lithic darkness harvesting energy from the radioactive decay of minerals. The diffuse light and cold of the Portland winter at the earths surface is comparative tropical luxury for the Witch Hazel, leaving it energy enough to perfume the air with its sexual vigor. Why do men go to ground in winter, thinking that nature is so feeble as to only grant us it’s favor seasonally? Are we and our modest concerns it’s only measure?

It was very cold and windy by the Columbia this morning, with flecks of snow. The bird cannons at the airport were booming the whole time, as large flocks gathered in the grass near the runways, seeking heat from the passing jet engines.

Look at all the beauty that is still around you and be happy.

–Anne Frank

4000 Native Americans gathered last night at the convention center in Portland for a traditional powwow celebration. The theme for the event was “party as if it were 1491.”

The rain blows sideways and the ocean tumbles in long rills of white and grey, diffusing into the sand and barely holding its own against the sky. A seagull patrols outside our window, constantly turning his head from side to side, watching our movements for a gesture that might suggest a meal. Swaying curtains of rain are drawn over the tide pools that burst with life in the summertime. Flower beds surrounding the hotel are buried in water, forming tiny moats. Life at the beach in winter is about the next friendly conversation, the next cup of coffee and changing out of wet socks.

If God gives you something you can do, why in God’s name wouldn’t you do it?

—Stephen King