Power is a game. A game with predetermined losers. While survival and sustenance require some exercise of it, in the wake of overextended power are the injuries of dominance, invasive commerce, control, manipulation and violence. Such wanton, chaotic conflicts and struggles obscure, impede and thwart access to that state of being that precedes power: the…
BRING IT ON! My home team, the Seattle Mariners, avoided relegation and made their best effort in years at making the postseason. They hold the record for the longest postseason drought of ANY North American professional sports team. Go M’s! They exited at the right time as the Angels played spoilers, leaving with their dignity…
It’s Not Too Late and We’re Not Done Yet. Don’t. Stop. Thinking about Tomorrow. I’ve been listening to various chamber groups play the late Beethoven quartets—Quartets numbered 12, 13, 14, 15, and 16—the last pieces of music he wrote, in 1825 and 1826. He died the following year, at the age of 57, probably from…
Not funny. Yet in the late 1970s, a trickster comedian, Richard Pryor (the Trickster Force was strong with him) made us laugh while describing this very crime against humanity, against unarmed Black Americans. Pryor’s seemingly amoral humor made an impact on the American psyche, such that forty years later, our perspective and our behavior, our…
Commercial and artistic triumph Workingman’s Dead established Garcia as the defining voice of the Dead. Don’t take that for granted, as Pigpen’s rave-ups and the more ambiguously authored jams make leadership and the Dead a slippery proposition. But Jerry Garcia/Robert Hunter songs WERE Workingman’s Dead, save for Easy Wind. He continued the proliferation of mournful…
No matter the Election Day results, the broader cultural malaise, a divided America, will persist. Elections have consequences. But resolving the culture wars is what will bring about a rebirth of American ideals and unity. Let’s play the long game, if just for a moment. One way to grasp our cultural zeitgeist is to look…