good TV

I have been involved in media sales for over 20 years. Most of my career was spent in the regimented world of broadcast TV at local affiliate network stations -- NBC, CBS & FOX. The last two years in cable TV. The thing I especially like about cable TV is there is literally a network or program for every audience segment no matter how small, how niche, how odd. Plus, since Netflix changed the game with the production of original programming, more and more networks are following in their footsteps. I get a great kick out of scanning the weekly "Programming Highlights" to learn about new shows and read the synopses.

Which is how I came to discover The Story of God with Morgan Freeman. I have watched three episodes so far On Demand. Each week is focused on a question, and the show is very careful to consider perspective from all the major religions. Around-the-world experts have also been very balanced male and female. The production quality is stellar, and Morgan does an exemplary job of being the "seeker" in us all. He's not only interested and curious but also open and humble.

The Story of God with Morgan Freeman is "good TV." A good use of the medium. A good use of celebrity. Every week I feel more informed, more enriched and more humanitarian. And, if I'm honest, a little more in agape love with Morgan Freeman.

Link to trailer.

“The story of God is one of the greatest mysteries and most important ideas in the world,” said Freeman. “For me, this is a personal and enduring quest to understand the divine, and I am humbled by the opportunity to take viewers along on this incredible journey.”
— Morgan Freeman, VARIETY

ramble replenish revel - madison

I was in Madison last Friday for a poetry event. Since I was there, and the morning dawned bright and brisk, I thought I would get out and enjoy nature, taking my walk to a new locale. Once I walked I got hungry. While eating I discovered in my email inbox a poet I wanted to spend more time with. These three things combined in my mind as the perfect way to experience a city.

ramble. replenish. revel.

ramble.
My ramble took me to UW-Madison's Arboretum, a diverse eco-system, lush with spring. An hour passed easily as I hiked through forest and wetlands and prairie lands. Birds chirped. Trees creaked. And I was able to learn a little more about the space with descriptive signposts. Armed with a map from the Visitor Center I only got a little lost and was able to orient myself with numbered markers, eventually winding my way back to the car.

“The Arboretum is a unique piece of public land. It is not a park, and it is much more than a traditional arboretum with labeled trees and shrubs. Twelve hundred acres of the Arboretum — containing restored and remnant prairies, savannas, wetlands and woods — are what truly set it apart. These ecological communities are works in progress, representing years of intensive research, thoughtful land management strategies and untold hours of labor by Arboretum staff and volunteers.”
— ABORETUM, Spring 2016 Newsletter

replenish.
Afterwards, since I'm a coffee person, I searched for a coffee shop that served fresh and local food. I found a great one with lots of personality at the Chocolaterian Cafe. I heartily agree with their tagline: Everyday. Chocolate. In fact they were featuring a chocolate bar that paired two of my favorite ingredients -- dark chocolate and figs. Even before I ordered I snagged the last one.

The food was hearty and full of flavor. I enjoyed a cup of their featured soup African Peanut and Curried Chicken Salad. I lingered over a cup of cafe au lait, parsing out to myself one section of chocolate bar. Around me other patrons read in cozy chairs or tapped on laptops or visited with each other. Art was displayed on the long wall that connected the front and back of the restaurant. Truly a pleasure to the senses!

revel.
I had heard of H.D. or Hilda Doolittle before, but on this morning of mornings her poem from Sea Grass struck just the right tone, so I downloaded the whole collection and perused it with my cafe au lait. It's in the public domain so free on Kindle. She was a contemporary of Ezra Pound and William Carlos Williams and a leader in the Imagist Movement.

“Clarity of expression through the use of precise visual images.”
— Imagism

Mid-Day
The light beats upon me.
I am startled—
a split leaf crackles on the paved floor—
I am anguished—defeated.

A slight wind shakes the seed-pods—
my thoughts are spent
as the black seeds.
My thoughts tear me,
I dread their fever.
I am scattered in its whirl.
I am scattered like
the hot shrivelled seeds.

The shrivelled seeds
are spilt on the path—
the grass bends with dust,
the grape slips
under its crackled leaf:
yet far beyond the spent seed-pods,
and the blackened stalks of mint,
the poplar is bright on the hill,
the poplar spreads out,
deep-rooted among trees.

O poplar, you are great
among the hill-stones,
while I perish on the path
among the crevices of the rocks.

-- H.D. 
from Sea Grass

rocket baby bakery

I am very partial to coffee shops. The earthy, peaty smell. The bustle. The unlikely cook stepping out from the kitchen to encourage you to try something new and unpredictable. Just the early morning promise of it all. 

There is a great one around the corner from my son's place in Wauwatosa. Rocket Baby Bakery. (It's a great name, too.)

It's a short walk through an Old World neighborhood in Milwaukee. The people who work there are friendly and quick, with genuine smiles that actually light up their eyes. It's a happy, welcoming place.

I love sitting at one of their cute tables, overlooking the street scene, cupping my mug of hot, steaming coffee, swirling with cream. It's the best way to start the day. And if I'm really feeling indulgent I'll have one of their savory scones. Perfectly crunchy on the outside, soft and melt-in-your-mouth goodness on the inside, rich with goat cheese, walnuts and scallions. Surprisingly sweet. Yum.

 Rocket Baby Bakery
6822 West North Avenue, Wauwatosa, WI 53213

amy

I watched Amy one lazy Saturday, the documentary by Asif Kapadia. I remembered how heartbroken I was when she died. I had just discovered her voice, its bluesy, jazzy power. And then she was gone. Self-destructed.

I read online that the movie was an unexpected hit in the U.K. I read that Adele wished she hadn't seen it. Amy had been an influence, but the last shots of her funeral stayed with her, hauntingly sad.

I wasn't sorry I'd watched it, but it did fill me with all kinds of primeval regret. A talent lost. A woman lost. Her idea of love so fatal it was like a snake eating its own tale. She believed in the consumption of it. She believed her boundaries must blur. She believed she needed to destroy herself with love.

Drugs were the vehicle, the symptom. Until they became an addiction, the desire for mindlessness. It was all so unfortunate, fated. Her parents were no kind of rudder neither, so concerned with the bubble she inhabited rather than the vulnerable person she was inside. The father in particular. What was he thinking?

I didn't know about the bulimia. A party trick to fool the culture creature? Maybe. I did know about the music, the achingly original and personal music. Not in a way I could justify in, say, an informed music review. But in how it made me feel.

The most heartrending moment in the film for me came backstage at the Grammys. Amy had just won her first. Her friend Juliette was proud and crying and full of emotion. Amy invited her up on stage and gave her a big hug, whispering in her ear in a blase voice: "It's all just so boring without drugs."

Verdict: Not easy to watch but a worthwhile movie. Amy was an artist first and foremost. She leaves that legacy at least.

reading trailing you

Trailing You by Kimberly M. Blaeser contains a Preface, which is not always common in a collection of poetry.

"I think the best poems might be nothing more than a list of names of people, animals, places, plants sounds, seasons, because poetry is connections and these are the connections -- the poetry -- we all carry in our soul, the poetry that writers try to bring to the surface."

Blaeser has an unusual heritage, of Anishinaabe and German ancestry, and there is a nascent quality to the poems, born of a wisp of memory and nebulous dream. Blaeser is immigrant and “Indian,” woman and tracker, lover and beloved. The poems assimilate her memories, stories and experiences. The poems also veer to the very opposite of assimilation – confusion, exclusion, misunderstanding. From "On the Way to the Chicago Pow-Wow":

On the way to the Chicago pow-wow,
Weaving through four lanes of traffic.
   going into the heart of Carl Sandburg's hog-butcher to the world,
   ironic, I think, landing at Navy Pier for a pow-wow.
I think of what Roberta said: "Indiana people across the country
   are working on a puzzle, trying to figure out what I call
   -- the abyss."
Driving into the abyss. Going to a pow-wow.

The collection is divided into five sections with a namesake poem in each section: Living History, Where I was That Day, Trailing You, Road Show and Sewing Memories. Taken together the poems are quilt-like, patches of color and feeling abutting each other, fretting, contributing to a design which covers a range of topics – identity, love, loss, family – all united by the thread of memory and a woman emboldened enough to recount it true.

From “Sewing Memories: This Poem I’ve Wanted to Write”:

Into all those things we made
   we sewed bits of our bodies
   and bits of our dreams
   we sewed in errors more bold
   than those required in sand paintings
And what we created seemed truly to be ours
   because we did them that way
   filled with make-believe and mistakes
   instead of the usual way
   and maybe this poem about sewing
   refused to come out for such a long time
   because I was trying to follow someone else’s perfect pattern
So I thought I’d just make it our way
   lay the memories and stories out
   zig-zag through time
   and stitch them together the way I see them

reading cranberry red

Jerry Apps is a Wisconsin native, writing heartwarming books about rural life in the state. Cranberry Red was a book club pick, which fact reveals the greatest reason to participate in a book club -- to expand your reading choices. 

Cranberry Red harks back to Apps' time as an agricultural agent attached to the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Agriculture is a serious and important enterprise in Wisconsin, and the essential premise of the book made me remember the tagline from the 1970s Chiffon commercial: "It's not nice to fool Mother Nature." Somewhat ironically since the commercial was advertising yellow-dyed margarine against butter. We are the Dairy State. (Tellingly I have a tendency to orient my perspective with the prevailing commercial culture. I am a child of my generation.)

The structure of the book was engaging and effective. Apps started with a wide angle view of a disparate group of characters and gradually narrowed focus to the main ag agent character and his necessary and penultimate action. Along the way we meet an interesting cast of supporting characters, some villainous, some misunderstood, and learn more about farming, education and what lines not to cross in the interest of profit.

Cranberry Red was a quick and enjoyable read, especially fun because I was familiar with many of the places and locales.

bring back broadsides

Occasionally at poetry readings, I run into that rare poet who has had a broadside printed of his or her poetry, usually in collaboration with a printer.

I am a big fan of broadsides.

I reviewed one for Her Circle Zine, Girrl written by Niki Herd, and it still has pride of place in my home office.

download (2).png

Wikipedia defines "broadside" as:

A broadside is a large sheet of paper printed on one side only. Historically, broadsides were posters, announcing events or proclamations, or simply advertisements.

Today, broadside printing is done by many smaller printers and publishers as a fine art variant, with poems often being available as broadsides, intended to be framed and hung on the wall.

To help spread the popularity of broadsides, I created one for both my mother and father to celebrate Mother's Day and Father's Day respectively. I share both below.

 

Let's bring on more "fine art variants."