A park, a walk, and a museum

Today was a pleasant day, not too hot, not bad air quality, although we are supposed to start getting smoke soon from wildfires burning around us.  Sweet Hubby was on errands most of the day, so I decided to get out of the house and go exploring.

I decided to go to a park I'd seen on a map in a part of the city I seldom go to.  The park itself didn't offer much; a lot of dry grass, a kids playground, an art installation dedicated to Jimi Hendrix.  But as I wandered, I found a paved trail, part of a long walking/biking trail, so I followed it.  

Along part of it were large stones set upright in cement footings.  On the footings were engraved wise words from people like Lao Tzu, Nietzsche, Rita May Brown, Horace.  The trail went through a long tunnel, the walls and floors of which were decorated with graffiti.  It wasn't just tagging, though, but all kinds of messages ("It's never too late to get sober", for example), words ("Tooth"), images (Bender, the robot from Futurama), etc.  Someone had repeatedly stenciled on the floor of the tunnel "I'm not okay", and on top of or under or near that, the stencil "But I will be".  It was almost like walking through a folk museum, quite entertaining and sometimes moving.

Coming out of the tunnel, I found a lovely view of Lake Washington and one of the bridges - clogged with traffic - that crosses it to the Eastside.  I hadn't realized I was that close to the lake, and took a moment to enjoy the sight, and the air.  Then back through the tunnel to the park.

I discovered that this park is the site of the Northwest African American Museum.  I couldn't be that close and not go in, so I did, and was greeted most amiably at the ticket counter  There was hardly anyone else there, so I took my time looking at the exhibits, which largely highlighted the many historic moments and accomplishments of African Americans in the Pacific Northwest and in the country.  One of my favorites was a slideshow that gave a timeline of firsts, such Norman Rice, the first Black mayor of Seattle; Arthur Ashe, the first Black player selected to the US David Cup team and the only Black man to win the singles titles at Wimbledon, the US Open. and the Australian Open; Barak Obama and Kamala Harris, for reasons I assume you know.

I have this to say about my experience at the museum: Ron DeSantis, you are a small, cowardly, ignorant man, and so are the others like you who don't want true Black history taught because you claim it will make white children uncomfortable.  It's your own discomfort you can't abide.  You really need to grow up or go away.  

More music

I have listened to the second CD I picked up recently at a Little Free Library (see blog post from Aug. 2).  This one was 2 tracks each by 6 Seattle punk groups.

I really put some effort into listening to the music, listening for the lyrics, trying to hear the emotion under and inside each song.  I don't want to be an old granny who dismisses current music styles, who says "It's too loud and I can't understand the words", as so many people did in the early years of rock 'n' roll.

A couple of the numbers on this disc were more fully instrumented than I expected, meaning they used horns; most of the songs used amped guitars and pounding drums only.  I could make out the lyrics on a few of the cuts; the others sounded garbled to my ears.  Which is a long way to say "It was too loud and I couldn't understand the words."

I think it's safe to admit that I don't care for punk rock.  It's harsh.  I believe it's meant to be harsh.  I believe it is meant to be hard to listen to, or at least hard for people like me to listen to.  After all, the composters, musicians, and singers call themselves punks.  To them, I'm probably a dismissible old lady who doesn't count, who has little to offer, who doesn't understand them.  To me, they are young folk working very hard to express themselves, express their anger at people like me, who have left them a poisoned world filled with a few uber-Haves and a preponderance of Have Nots, like themselves. 

I gave it a try, and I heard more than expected, but it's just not for me.  On we go.

Listening (really) to music (really)

Yesterday evening Sweet Hubby and I joined friends for a concert in the park.  The terrific music was provided by an Earth, Wind, & Fire cover band.  (I wonder what happened to Water.)  Our friends have a house in Los Angeles, but several years ago bought a condo here in Seattle and come up here during the summers to escape that dreadful SoCal heat.  Maybe because they only live here part time, they are really good about sniffing out fun, and usually free, things to do.  The concert yesterday was their idea.

It was glorious to be sitting in beach chairs on the grass in the shade of a big tree, eating cherries and homemade hummus, listening to great music, and, when I wasn't eating, dancing my ass off.  I was reminded of a long ago playwrighting mentor who started her sessions by saying "There's nothing that can't be solved by Earth, Wind, & Fire".  She'd put on music and have us all up and dancing to get our blood pumping and our brains oxygenated.  I was also reminded of an all-day blues festival I attended in the late 80's.  It was a killer line-up (Etta James, BB King, Stevie Ray Vaughn, to name just a few of the acts), and I don't think I sat down once that whole time - maybe to go to the bathroom - but was up dancing all day and into the night.  When I hear music of almost any kind, I can't help but move.

I've been noticing lately that summer is my least favorite season, which is so different from when I was a kid and summer meant, of course, freedom from school.  I do enjoy the long days, and there is always so much to do.  But I just don't do well in the heat any more.  Even though this area is a great deal more temperate than a lot of the rest of the country, and the world, (triple digit water temp off the coast of Florida!?!?), and there is plenty of shade from the many, many trees, I just don't care for being hot.  Maybe it's the 17 years of hot flashes that have me more sensitive to heat.  I just don't feel like doing much during these long warm days, so it's a good thing I have friends who invite me to join them for one adventure or another.  Speaking of which, gotta run.  I'm joining a friend to see an evening of cat videos.  Sounds like heaven. 

Listening (mostly) to music (sort of), plus other stuff

I recently noticed two DVDs in a Little Free Library, and since both are of kinds of music I don't usually listen to, I brought them home.  I listened to one of them today.

The musicians are a local quartet.  I'm not enough of an aficionado of current music to know if they played rock, hard rock, alt rock, emo, or what.  I really did listen with as much concentration as I could muster, but I didn't much care for what I heard.  The singing was mushy so I couldn't make out a lot of the lyrics.  The instrumentation landed on my ears for the most part like an undifferentiated wall of sound.  Not really to my liking.

I did find myself musing, though, about what must have gone into the making of this DVD.  Someone or someones had to write the songs.  The group had to practice practice rehearse rehearse.  There was the expense of studio rental, the designing of the cover, and goodness only knows what kind of marketing the group or it rep has been doing since 2016 to get this collection into the public ear.  How many thousands of musicians manage to make one DVD?  How many fewer make a second?  How many fewer actually become known and successful?  It boggles the mind.

I guess I shouldn't be curious about any of this, since the path of a musician or group is probably not too different from that of a playwright.  I've been writing plays and having them produced around the world for 35 years, and can only claim a minimal - nay, miniscule - level of success.  I've done better than people who have written fewer plays or had fewer productions, but I am leagues and miles and light years away from what anyone would actually call real success, the kind that makes a title widely known and brings financial rewards.  And yet I keep writing, keep sending my plays out into the world, keep getting my little productions here and there.  I wonder if this group is still making music, writing their songs, rehearsing, maybe considering a second DVD.

Other stuff: Today I want to the art museum with a friend and saw an exhibit of work by an artist I was not previously familiar with, Amoako Boafo.  I liked his work a lot, so much so that I found I hadn't any taste for nor interest in any of the other works in the museum.  I just wanted to be absorbed for a while by the feelings his paintings evoked.  After the museum, we had lunch in a place I've known about for a long time but patronized for the first time today.  And I got off the light rail at a station I've never visited before.  So, despite the fact that I haven't completely lived up to the promise of this blog's title, I'm still looking all the time for how I can stretch and experiment and grow.