Musements

We communicate through words and picture-
different senses engaged to sustain friendship
Search for closeness in distance
while attempting to shed distance in closeness
Heal old and new and all the in-betweens
(because it is always the in-betweens)
Look for similar souls,
missing ones already found
Remain open-hearted and honest
Strive for peace

All that Jazz

Some musicians are dancers, and Chick [Webb] was. You can dance with a lot of things besides your feet. Billy Strayhorn was another dancer-in his mind. He was a dance-writer. Chick Webb was a dance-drummer who painted pictures of dances with his drums. Way back, at the Cotton Club, we were always tailoring orchestrations to fit the dances. If you listen to the figures in some of Strayhorn's pieces, like "U.M.M.G.", those are dances-tap dances maybe-and you can't mistake what they essentially are. The reason why Chick Webb had such control, such command of his audiences at the Savoy Ballroom, was because he was always in communication with the dancers and felt it the way they did.

-Duke Ellington-
*as quoted in Dixon Gottschild's Waltzing in the Dark: African American Vaudeville and Race Politics in the Swing Era*

I was never convinced that the melting pot was an appropriate metaphor for the way in which people ought to come together....Even talk these days about a mosaic, to me, is still a little bit too static. My ideal of a democratic community is a jazz band. The reason being, of course, because it observes individuality; it allows the interplay between the individual and the community without that community gobbling up the individual or the individual somehow seizing center-stage. And one must be always open, listening to the unpredictable-especially given the moods of the musicians at a particular moment-but you always have your eye on something larger than you: the artistic achievement...that empowers other ordinary people...to enact, not simply allude to, a certain democratic sensibility.

-Cornel West-
*as quoted in Dixon Gottschild's Waltzing in the Dark: African American Vaudeville and Race Politics in the Swing Era*

Reminder of an Evolution

[ image care of artist Claire Vohman ]

Diamond rings...
...children...
...career...
How can one be sure of what to choose
or what to lose?
Friend
or foe?
Love
or lust?
Trust in the heart-
follow it's path!
Lessons to learn
along the way
Unsure
uncertain

but not ready to roll over
Self-absorbed
yet selfless
Insecure
but looking good
To compare to the past
will only delay the future
How long til I let go?
What do I really want to know?
Looking there when I should be looking HERE!
Just breathe
and relish in these blessings,
grow from these challenges
Do not give up!
Remember to appreciate who I am and what I have
and to share life's wonders with my fellow beings
Take time to reflect
Relax my mind a bit
from its constant buzzing about.
Release it all to the universe,
make room for new thoughts, emotions, experiences
as this ink serves as a reminder of an evolution.
*6.28.08*

...the beginning of a real education...

"Must we always teach with books? Let them look at the mountains and the stars above. Let them look at the beauty of the waters and the trees and the flowers on earth. They will then begin to think and to think is the beginning of a real education" -Daniel Polls-