Stacey Youdin's Open Salon Blog

After Monstrous Nature - Meditation

Tue, 21 May 2013 19:05:35 -0400

BREAKING NEWS: Chicago Guy (a story)

Mon, 20 May 2013 18:05:40 -0400

Referring to the "author night" at a local bookstore and the humility gained from the size of the turnout, Roger Wright wrote: "Even after a barrage of publicity that included every kind of media except for skywriting." One thing led to another and then to a musical accompaniment.

Tell it, Sister Rosetta

That Pesky Constitution

Sat, 18 May 2013 18:05:04 -0400

"Gov.: Skandera now 'Secretary of Education'" read the headline in Saturday's Albuquerque Journal. I don't know how to bring this closer to your sensibilities, but that's like Montanans reading "Baucus now endorses single-payer," Texans reading "Goehmert to celebrate Ramadan with Ellison," or Kansans reading "State legislature willing to respect primacy of federal government."

It would have been really, really big news, the legislature having been up until now unwilling to rubber stamp this feel-good veteran of the public policy think (used loosely) tanks in Washington and Florida, but then a more accurate read of the application of punctuation by the headline editor at the Journal stepped in to quash impressions of a Scooby nature.

And which, after an earlier than usual first martini, produced the following...

ARTICLE IV - SECTION 42

she neither got an up or down
the senate made susana frown
the rules committee could not vet
her secretary designate

experience in such a lack
for all we know she's just a hack
like much of jebbie's florida
she rose through ranks by saying yeah

oh susana cry for me
i'm begging you on bended knee
in section 42 it's clear
she'll have to wait another year

don't put yourself above the law
just let skandera hem and haw
it's hardly insignificant
imposing toxic precedent

it's not official, that we get
it's not a cause for fie! or fret
so politics is just a game?
and any action's all the same

an educator should replace
that woman with the smiling face
who talks a game of policy
without credentials there to see

jeb's katherine harris has found worse
ms. spellings redirects our purse
to institutes of enterprise
not known for being sound or wise

if slogans made a teacher great
martinez wouldn't have to wait
the rules committee could pack up
and send a phoned-in aye or yup

but some among their ranks have shown
a call to duty all their own
the educator's eyes and ears
the governor no longer fears

it's just the legislature's games
without the naming of the names
so from now on in power abused
the "designate" will not be used

the web site shows fait accompli
wait not for session number three
an end around the yea or nay
the pending part made go away

skandera's gain has been our loss
she's made a game of slogan toss
the rules committee meets and weighs
the dedicated count the days

martinez aide enrique knell

has passed along the go to hell

she'll not abide the etiquette

and add the rightful "designate"

the secretary needn't wait
her résumé can now inflate
if once the senate's task were clear
the governor has ceased to hear

"As the Secretary of Education, I call on every educator, student, parent, community member and public servant to share in the responsibility for the success of our children and, ultimately, the future of the great state of New Mexico."

Because, you know, civics schmivics.

Mmmm - olives.

Trill, Whistle, and Cackle

Sat, 11 May 2013 18:05:37 -0400

I learned they never come 'round here

We're too far south unless they veer

The chefs in Santa Fe must cry

They canna serve no magpie pie

For "locavores" would surely swoon

If Martin Rios used his spoon

To serve them up this unknown treat

Whose call is mute, whose wings can't beat

Unlike their cousins in Modesto

Who frequent tables slopped in pesto

A turnabout in karmic fashion

Feasting oft on valley carrion

This bird was found along the track

I wrote about a short while back

Its mind was fixed on something else

Perhaps an instinct strong as self

I shot it in the nicest sense

Not Cricket_^® nor in "self-defense"

I dreamt my cats had this to say:

"We're tired of mariners' choice pâté"

I've failed them then it's plain to see

I should have had a net with me

The black & white one's plaintive cry

Has all along been: "magpie pie"

I hadn't known their gourmet tastes

From Friskies_^® laden with such wastes

But I'll return and find those tracks

And give some magpie forty whacks

With clever's bludgeon I'll approach

And smite it like a kitchen roach

I'll bring it home to Jeanne and Mo

Conspiracists I hope you know

They'll feast upon its diamond tail

To readers' frowns and PETA's rail

I'll take what solace that I can

At least it wasn't from a jolly little tin

Kind of Blue (accompaniment to Tom Cordle's essay)

Fri, 10 May 2013 20:05:32 -0400

This is the 3rd time I'm writing this. (Storms, in this case, good in our drought-stricken area. Boom had gone the dynamite and yank had gone the cord.) I used "old embed code" at the YouTube site for this. It's a check box.

Anyhoo - Tom wrote a fabulous essay which you should read here. It's about Miles Davis and his album "Kind of Blue" It's also about his tune "Kind of Blue" which he hasn't been able to insert from YouTube. (Select "old embed code - maybe?)

Perhaps a person might want to jam along with Miles on "So What?" Toward that end I'm offering up this feeble attempt at understanding. (Jazzers may feel free to correct this student in the comments.)

The form is simple. 32 bars 'til the repeat.

Where ... letter "A" begins on the last note the bass plays. (Dm) The chords come on the 3rd beat of the first measure and the bass starts playing its pickup notes again on the "and" after the second "1." So a "pattern" takes 2 bars and you play it 4 times. That letter "A" (4 "patterns") is played twice until the bass starts its pickup notes for letter"B' in Ebm. Again 8 bars until the pickup notes suggest a return to Dm and 8 more bars. (Totalling 32.)

There's the A-A-B-A of which I spoke.

As Miles and everyone else jams to the 32, the hard part is to consider the last 8 as leading to the first 16, though it all sounds like 24 of the same when run together. (If you're a bass player, the riff starts on the low "G" in the Dorian mode of "D.") This is modal playing in its quintessence. It's all a half step higher in Eb.

So, after you know what's going on, you may be tempted to say "that's cheap." It's just counting so many bars in this and then so many bars in that. I thought this was "jazz."

To which Miles perhaps had an answer in the title of the tune.

"So What."