WHACK-A-MOLE

We now live in a world where nothing stays still long enough to be examined, perused, considered and dealt with. Websites seem to increasingly employ constant jumping, never pausing long enough for us to adequately make any of the myriad choices they are demanding of us. It is exhausting to seek information only be led around by ads and other kinds of pop-ups which seem to be saying "move along, forget your own intentions and look instead at what we are trying to sell you."

Our personal choices have been coopted in favor of algorithmically pre-determined ones. The devices we must use to remain part of the modern world seem to want to make our choices for us, beat us to solutions, suggest possibilities ad infinitum until we are worn down and give in just to get something moving or surrender our autonomy entirely by diving  irretrievably into distractive rabbit holes. It is especially vexing when you call some company needing a solution to something that doesn't work or was wrongly chosen. The number of bot voices you have to navigate in order to speak to a human person with your concerns is maddening!

As I struggle through these strange days, I often find myself singing a snippet of one of my performance songs. For instance, this recently popped into mind - from a long spoken/sung piece called ScareCity, written in about 1989:

Dragon Fire.

Chasin' the tail.

Dragon Fire.

Scales for sale.

Dragon Fire, breathe on me.

Let me see  your green beady little eyes.

How can we explain the crest of a wave breaking on the brain

It's breaking my heart, I can't help it.

It's tearing my pieces away.

To see you squirm, another poor worm,

Alive on the hook of today.

All of which makes me think about our creative histories and whether or not they will remain part of the world as we face our own demise.

Does the cream always rise, or does it often get set aside to spoil and sour without the luck of the desired champion to tout inherent value?

These questions come at a time when I don't know how much energy to put towards service to the past in preparation for an undetermined, though clearly limited future. Gathering, sorting and gleaning available artifacts is the only job, leaving it to the archivists to determine future validity. I am fortunate to have a repository in The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts and the special work of Emma Rose Brown to help me make end of career/end of life choices.

Consistency, variety and overall meaning combined with patience, acceptance and gratitude, seems to paint a reasonable code of how to find life once again post-surgery, but this time at 82.

In exercise it is to regularly repeat series that have worked, but also to  strengthen by asking more of the body, this body that always tells us what it needs if we take the time to listen.

In food it is to recognize nutrition and what keeps things moving, but also to eat a variety of foods to insure the optimum intake of nutrients. Comfort food is important, eating what gives us a sense of well-being, because the wellness of our being is the whole idea. Avoiding foods that bloat or aggravate and limiting sugars seems to always be a wise path to take. More vegetables, enough protein, fruit instead of dessert, eating for maximum result and digestive well-being, employing  a variety of choices that hold deeper, more relevant meaning - both intellectually and emotionally as well as digestively.

Found my way through this unexpected recent spate of injury/hospital/recovery with the help of Turner Classic Movies. The channel was available at the hospital. They were showing a few I had never seen and the combination gave me an unusual movie-side view of how this country came to its current dreadful era.  Cultural America’s past shows us some of the causes for the current insanity. This country has nurtured its neuroses for decades.

Theadora Goes Wild 1936 – Irene Dunne and Melvyn Douglas

The author of a controversially racy best-selling book tries to hide her celebrity status from her provincial small-town neighbors, who would be scandalized if they knew.

That Funny Feeling 1965 – Sandra Dee and Bobby Darin

A maid-for-hire begins dating wealthy New York City businessman. Embarrassed about bringing him back to her tiny apartment, she brings him over to a fancy apartment she cleans on a daily basis not knowing that it's his place.

The Rounders 1965 – Glenn Ford and Henry Fonda

Two modern aging cowboys bust broncos, barely eke out a living, then meet a spirited horse with a peculiar ability to make their lives more miserable.

The Night of the Generals 1967 – Peter O’Toole and Omar Sharif

1942-1965 mystery taking decades to solve incorporating the end of WWII, highlighing the attempted assassination of Hitler.

A Guy Named Joe 1943 – Spencer Tracy, Irene Dunne and Van Johnson

A dead World War II bomber pilot, becomes the guardian angel of another pilot, guiding him through battle and helping him to romance his old girlfriend, despite her excessive devotion to the dead flyer’s memory.

Confidential Agent 1945 - Lauren Bacall, Charles Boyer

An agent from the Spanish Civil War travels to London to secure a guarantee of coal shipments for the rebels meeting with betrayal, brutality and failure.

In the early 1980's when I was still living in New Haven I created and performed a dance solo called "Finding It At The Movies" to a score of audio film clips from well known Warner Brothers films. I continue to rely on a constant stream of movies in order to find solutions to living and to feel less alone in an aging body with limited mobility. Our American cultural film history tells much of what has been at issue in this country for decades - the proliferation of out-dated moral codes, characters rife with all the available isms, a weighing of good vs evil, a demonstration of human weakness and failure as well as some daring heroism. In the movies we have found models for  our lives as we identify with this one or that one and follow the career choices of certain actors.

In the newer form of long running series, we also find revealed what we have been, can be and are. I recently completed 6 seasons of The Handmaid's Tale - a marathon watch. Like Yellowstone it was one I knew I would savor, so waited the several years of production until it finally came to an end. Yellowstone was kind of great, Handmaid’s Tale is harrowing.

Ant Nebula