Wednesday, September 28, 2022
Inspired to keep drawing with my non-dominant hand
Friday, September 23, 2022
Meditation on the freedom in living simply
Thursday, September 22, 2022
Fall Equinox Meditation / Fearless and asymmetrical mandala series / You didn't do anything wrong
Thursday, September 15, 2022
Ocean Vuong at 33 with the Øresund Sound in the background
Wednesday, September 14, 2022
Gratitude to Allison Russell and her band
Such was her strength and resilience that she somehow survived the transatlantic crossing in the hold of a slave ship, and was eventually sold to a large sugar cane plantation in Grenada. She survived multiple rapes and sales. She survived backbreaking labor in the cane fields. She survived her children being taken and sold. She survived, and she founded generations. I wept to learn her name. I am honored to be her many-times-removed daughter and am eternally grateful for the gift of her strength and resilience. Though we can never know if Quasheba was actually from Ghana, in this song I imagine that she is.
When I was in Cameroon in 2007 with my other band, Po’ Girl, I was especially struck by three things: not being a visible minority for the first time in my life (though I was called la petite métisse pretty frequently, since I’m “pale” compared to most Cameroonians); how many Cameroonians felt the need either to apologize for or disclaim their forebears’ involvement in the slave trade—“My village, they never sold any slaves!”—and how many people there told me that I looked Cameroonian. Ghana is just a little ways up the west coast of Africa from Cameroon."
Sunday, September 11, 2022
September 11, 2001, revisited (along with 1996)
Time is pilin’ up, we struggle and we scrape
We’re all boxed in, nowhere to escape
City’s just a jungle, more games to play
Trapped in the heart of it, trying to get away
I was raised in the country, I been workin’ in the town
I been in trouble ever since I set my suitcase down
Got nothing for you, I had nothing before
Don’t even have anything for myself anymore
Sky full of fire, pain pourin’ down
Nothing you can sell me, I’ll see you around
All my powers of expression and thoughts so sublime
Could never do you justice in reason or rhyme
Only one thing I did wrong
Stayed in Mississippi a day too long
Well, the devil’s in the alley, mule’s in the stall
Say anything you wanna, I have heard it all
I was thinkin’ about the things that Rosie said
I was dreaming I was sleeping in Rosie’s bed
Walking through the leaves, falling from the trees
Feeling like a stranger nobody sees
So many things that we never will undo
I know you’re sorry, I’m sorry too
Some people will offer you their hand and some won’t
Last night I knew you, tonight I don’t
I need somethin’ strong to distract my mind
I’m gonna look at you ‘til my eyes go blind
Well I got here following the southern star
I crossed that river just to be where you are
Only one thing I did wrong
Stayed in Mississippi a day too long
Well my ship’s been split to splinters and it’s sinking fast
I’m drownin’ in the poison, got no future, got no past
But my heart is not weary, it’s light and it’s free
I’ve got nothin’ but affection for all those who’ve sailed with me
Everybody movin’ if they ain’t already there
Everybody got to move somewhere
Stick with me baby, stick with me anyhow
Things should start to get interesting right about now
My clothes are wet, tight on my skin
Not as tight as the corner that I painted myself in
I know that fortune is waitin’ to be kind
So give me your hand and say you’ll be mine
Well, the emptiness is endless, cold as the clay
You can always come back, but you can’t come back all the way
Only one thing I did wrong
Stayed in Mississippi a day too long
** The song's opening line, "Every step of the way, we walk the line" is an allusion to Johnny Cash's "I Walk the Line", a song Dylan cited as being "one of the most mysterious and revolutionary of all time" in his memoir Chronicles: Volume One.[29]
The song's refrain, "Only one thing I did wrong / Stayed in Mississippi a day too long", is taken from a verse in the traditional folk song "Rosie".[30] Dylan makes this connection explicit by name-checking "Rosie" elsewhere in the lyrics ("I was thinkin’ about the things that Rosie said / I was dreaming I was sleeping in Rosie’s bed").[31]
The line "So give me your hand and say you’ll be mine" is a near-verbatim quote from Act 5, Scene 1 of William Shakespeare's Measure for Measure ("If he be like your brother, for his sake / Is he pardon’d; and, for your lovely sake, Give me your hand and say you will be mine").[32]
(from Wikipedia)