071810

I have always sensed that I am somehow different. Then about 30, the diagnosis came, and I was like, "Well, that makes sense." It explained a lot of what I'd been through. Ten years later, I still feel that this is what life intended for me. It's hard, but sometimes I can't picture any other way to live. It's secondary progressive in me, so the past ten years have been hell, with me just getting worse from the get-go. I can't write by hand, can't type (left handed works), I can't walk further than about half a block, speech is very difficult, I'm dizzy, etc etc.

--Adam on Facebook

*Engineering*

Having studied engineering in college, I can tell you one important way to generate electricity: install natural-gas collectors on dairy farms. Natural gas is actually 60% methane; all it takes to render it useful is to clean it up. Many villages generate electricity straight from the piles of dung. But the real aspect is _most of the world_ uses natural-gas collectors. We've got this huge source of energy just waiting to be tapped. I know from experience in college that most Americans are hard-pressed to think about generating electricity from a pile of crap. But this is _the only way out of this mess_. We've got untold amounts of electricity to generate, but most Americans couldn't imagine generating power from piles of waste. We've got to get over this hang-up. The hang-up is just that: it's a hang-up, and we've got to move past it.

*Japan*

I learned about bossa-nova in Tokyo. I was staying at this other guest house, different from the one I'd stayed at from the start. This was a huge Japanese-style abode, with tatami mats, sliding wooden doors on the outside, the whole deal. The group of guests was similar but different. As many nationalities were represented as the other, and there was a similar laid-back atmosphere. What the other one lacked in the way of ambiance was more than made up for in the sense of place, of space, of carving your own name out in the Japanese landscape.

Oddly, in the underbelly of the guest house, I met a few like-minded souls. I think in those back rooms we were doing heroin. That's a vague memory. Through some cassette exchanges (this was back before the advent of CDs) I ended up with one tape in particular that I listened to so much I plumb wore it out. I memorized every lick, vocal bit, and solo on the tape. It was a no-brainer when years later, in the middle of an intense jazz-listening decade or so, I came across a CD in a used-CD shop.

On that disc, I recognized a few titles; this was Jazz Samba Encore. I went to give the CD a listen and sure enough this was the same recording I'd heard in Tokyo. How worldly is that: learning about a latin-American art through jazz veins in a guesthouse in Tokyo. I've kept this a secret, except for writing about it in this newsletter. It's always struck me as trenchant, that I should learn about the far-flung corners of the world in the single city of Tokyo. We live in doubly concentrated times.

*Quotations*

The man dies in all who keep silent in the face of tyranny.

--Wole Soyinka

Plenty sits still; hunger is a wanderer.

--Zulu proverb

Hungry bellies have no ears.

--Polish proverb

Hunger is the best sauce.

--Danish proverb

Writing a novel is like making love, but it's also like having a tooth pulled. And sometimes it's like making love while having a tooth pulled.

--Dean Koontz

The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.

--Gandhi

In the end, we will remember ot the words of our enemies but the silence of our friends.

--MLK Jr

The future is always beginning now.

--Mark Strand

The best thing about the future is that it comes only one day at a time.

--Lincoln

I like men who have a future and women who have a past.

--Oscar Wilde

*Music*

1. Who Says, John Mayer

2. Closer (live), Corrine Bailey Rae

3. Saving Grace, Everlast

4. Some Surprise, Paul Noonan & Lisa Hannigan

5. (I Keep on) Rising Up, Mike Doughty

6. Letter from a Flying Machine, Peter Mulvey

7. Thirty One Today, Aimee Mann

8. All That Time You Missed, Erin McKeown

9. The Devil Raises His Own, Freedy Johnston

10. From the Morning, Nick Drake

11. Fugitive (live), David Gray

12. ...Plus the Many Inevitable Fragments, Peter Mulvey

13. Pleasure on Credit, Mike Doughty

14. Unplayed Piano, Damien Rice & Lisa Hannigan

15. Borrowing Time, Aimee Mann

16. New Heights, A Fine Frenzy

17. Crossroads (Johnson), John Mayer

18. Central Station, Freedy Johnston

19. Vlad the Astrophysicist, Peter Mulvey

20. Three is a Magic Number (Dorough), Mike Doughty

21. I Don't Know (live), Lisa Hannigan

_____

Rain on the City, Freedy Johnston. This is fine music from Mr Johnston. There are moments when it feels Johnston is finally sinking into the music he was meant to make. From soaring vocals, to strings, to his basic attitude, the man always hits the mark. Highly recommended.

Peace love and ATOM jazz