Thursday, May 31, 2018

twit or tweet

I first thought of titling this blog entry, we will have grace...haha...but in this world of immediacy...we are in twitter hell...I really think that everyone should be forced to write a tweet...pen and paper...let it sit for an hour...then read it and wonder if it's still that little gem you think you've crafted...ah, Roseanne...the woman...the show...but here's a somewhat relevant aside about the need to "reboot" every show that met the dust, yet somehow, we yearn for once more...the world...our world changes faster than our own perceptions grasp...what was daring and dear to us over twenty years ago does not necessarily "fit" moving forward...Roseanne, the show, the writing...in its original incarnation was at times brilliant and revelatory...and at times, lazy...I watched some of the reboot...in terms of writing, it seemed more the latter...Roseanne, the woman...her show ended its first run in 1997...think back...there were no IPhones, no Facebook, Twitter, Instagram...just the chance of winding up in a gossip column with overheard conversation...or a public misstep on a late night show...or for Roseanne, just a horrific clip of a mocking rendition of the National Anthem...ah...how would that play now in our incendiary culture?...but here's the basic truth...the first discussion show be about the tweet in and of itself...not to compare it to rogue and ruthless tweets, or on-air conversations of others...because if we can't agree on the ugliness of the first, we will never get to the table to discuss the second...until that time, I hope for the grace that an open heart can give...and for a serious pause before we all race off that ledge...

Saturday, May 5, 2018

whoa, ah, mercy, mercy me....

oh, things ain't what they used to be...how sad that Marvin Gaye's lyrics still stand so many decades later...but for me, when I hear that song, it is not the sadness and dismay of pollution rotting Mother Earth that I hear...it is the ocean waters of Brooklyn...it is the cry of vendors, "get your knishes here...ice cream here...coca cola"...it is the cry of mothers warning their kids not to wade too deep...it's the songs blasting from transistor radios...and I smell Coppertone, and sand and sea...I cannot tell you why...but it is good...it is more than good to go back to that time and space...where for a few brief hours the world and it's violence were buried in a sand castle...my worries thinking about that first day of middle school a few short weeks away swept out in the waters off Coney Island...and so, last week...turning up the A/C as we slipped from winter to summer in a spring minute...Marvin came on the radio...and I smiled...and turned it loud...and forgot about every news story...twitter feed...and a daunting and boring to do list...I cranked that song up and I was eleven again...burying my brother in the sand...giggling and freckling and not giving a shit about any of it...still tasting that chocolate fudgesicle in the corners of my lips...no worries about what it would do to my hips...there is magic in the music...ah, mercy, mercy me...sometimes memories are just what you used to be...