As orange-toned as the 70’s

Mid-October brings the all-about-orange season. Orange-toned leaves on trees, dark orange-toned (brown accented) leaves along the ground, pumpkins and sweet potatoes, and the candy corn and Halloween decorations already cluttering up stores and yards create a pallet straight out of the 70’s, ready made for dark green shag carpet, rust colored furniture, and avocado trimmed appliances. Is it just me that always forms a link between this time orange-themed of year and the deep 70’s?


Heavy rain last night brought normalcy back to our season. Driving in this morning I felt comforted by the rain. This is what I know so well, this is the fall weather of "home." By February, if not earlier, that cozy home-coming feeling will have been replaced by an impatient claustrophobia of wet and grey, but for now the rain is comforting.

Comforting as in the snug-nested mouse in William Johnson's Explaining It, "...a mouse lies snug in a crib of roots, its fur sleek as babyskin, Lord the body warm," as it/we, "...orphan the dim of a cold October sun."

There is a lot of poetry written about this beautifully melancholy time of year, and about October in particular. I particularly love the imagery of Jacob Polley's beautiful poem, October:

Although a tide turns in the trees
the moon doesn't turn the leaves,
though chimneys smoke and blue concedes
to bluer home-time dark.

Though restless leaves submerge the park
in yellow shallows, ankle-deep,
and through each tree the moon shows, halved
or quartered or complete,

the moon's no fruit and has no seed,
and turns no tide of leaves on paths
that still persist but do not lead
where they did before dark.

Although the moonstruck pond stares hard
the moon looks elsewhere. Manholes breathe.
Each mind's a different, distant world
this same moon will not leave.

As for music, what radio station (Remember those? They were also big in the 70’s) would dare follow Weezer with Billy Joe Walker or Tingstad & Rumbel with Medeski, Martin And Wood? Brilliant, though.

Today's full playlist:
- Weezer: Falling For You
- Billy Joe Walker, Jr.: The Enchanted Forest
- Tingstad & Rumbel: Elysian Fields
- Medeski, Martin And Wood: Off The Table
- Big Head Todd & The Monsters: City On Fire
- Bruce Cockburn: See You Tomorrow


- Posted via Hermes.

Until it bleeds daylight

Cold, I know, is a relative notion. To describe a morning as cold in Khabarovsk, Russia means something quite different than to say the same thing in Tucson, Arizona. Here in the PNW, chilly or brisk is probably a more accurate word for this morning, but cold is the word that comes to mind as I first step outside. A quick check shows 36° (2° C) with a projected high of a digitally-inverse 63° (17° C).

The sky is clear and fades from a pinkish-orange horizon to a very pale blue dome, boldly dotted by a bright, clear, and mostly-round moon. The top on the Miata is still down from yesterday afternoon, so I step back in to grab my wool cap, then head out with the top still down, but the side windows up and heat on. It makes for a beautiful commute, with the moon shining above me, cool air on my face, and the rest of me comfortably warm. Like sitting in an outdoor hot tub on a cold morning.

Cockburn pops up again on the drive in, this time singing:

When you're lovers in a dangerous time
Sometimes you're made to feel as if your love's a crime --
But nothing worth having comes without some kind of fight --
Got to kick at the darkness 'til it bleeds daylight

- Lovers In A Dangerous Time

Puts me in mind of a wonderful song/video a colleague of mine posted to Facebook last night. The video is in support of Washington's Referendum 74, which would finally allow same-gender marriage equality. The song is beautiful and beautifully explains what is really important. That we are still having to debate the basic human rights afforded to love is sometimes hard to fathom. Kicking at the darkness until it bleeds daylight pretty well sums it up. Do take time to watch the video (linked above) if you can spare 7 minutes.

As the parent of two beautiful children, one daughter and one son, and two wonderful son-in-laws, I would very much like to see both of my children afforded the same full suite of human rights in our society.

Speaking of bleeding daylight, we have been blessed by some stunning sunsets recently. I snapped this one two nights ago:



Doesn't get much better than that, does it!

Today's full playlist:
- The Guggenheim Grotto: Sunshine Makes Me High
- Bruce Cockburn: Lovers in a Dangerous Time
- Bob Dylan: Forever Young
- Cake: Cool Blue Reason
- Sigur Rós: Gobbledigook


- Posted via Hermes.

Wearing my shadow where it's harder to see

Monday early morning under a large bright moon, a 98% full waning gibbous moon, to be precise. The autumnal crispness, all 41° (5° C) of it, combined with my own porridge-brained-morning-tiredness, made me just lazy enough not to push the top of the Miata down. Consequently, I drove in peering up at the moon out from underneath the low roofline of my little car, wishing the top was down but not being energetic enough to make it so. Looks like it will be a beautiful sunny day.

It is officially October today, and the world around us is starting to take on naturally produced Halloween/harvest festival trappings. The view out of my office window is one of sun-limned parking lot trees, liberally sponged with orange and gold highlights and the long shadows created by early morning's low-hung sun.



The iPod was in a Bruce Cockburn mood this morning, granting him a full three quarters of the short commute playlist. Birmingham Shadows is a wonderfully poetic song with a long instrumental section of guitar-rich jazz. I love one line in particular:

I wear my shadows where they're harder to see
But they follow me everywhere
I guess that should tell me that I'm travelling toward light

Cockburn goes on to sing:

I guess something you sang made me remember that
I guess I'm saying thanks for that

Indeed, thanks for that, Bruce. Mondays sometimes need to come with gentle reminders as well as alarm clocks.

Today's full playlist:
- Bruce Cockburn: The Blues Got the World...
- Bruce Cockburn: Birmingham Shadows
- Fountains Of Wayne: Valley Winter Song
- Bruce Cockburn: Dust and Diesel


- Posted via Hermes.