Happy New Year!
(Or, more accurately, Happy Old Year!)
As you will discover in my upcoming 2022 year-in-review, it has been one thing after another this year, with several major -- and exquisitely painful -- afflictions of back and hip, plus polycythemia vera, a slow-growing blood cancer which seems under control with a combination of oral chemotherapy and New Age "leeching."
As a result of these misadventures, only now do I have the presence of mind and the energy to resume my 2021 year-in-review which I suspended in January after writing the next five paragraphs.
Due to concerns over COVID, Maria remained in Salt Lake City the whole year, working on her Masters program at University of Utah, while Danny remained in Colorado Springs working on his senior project - a theatre piece he wrote, directed, and “stage-crafted”, including the the creation of marvelous papier-mâché masks and garments.
Danny invited me to give voice to his script, a thoroughly delightful process which we recorded remotely on Zoom with high-tech audio interfaces.
You can see the videotape of Danny’s project, “The Vultures and The Sycamore" -- and more -- at the following links.
"The Vultures And The Sycamore," A Colorado College Theater Piece, Written, Directed And Performed By Daniel Archibald
"The Vulture," A Colorado College "Storytelling Through Sound" Production, Written, Directed By Danny Archibald
"Winnemucca: The Search For Caribou," Son Danny's "Oregon Desert Trail" Trek Video
At the end of his last school year at Colorado College, Caribou won the campus-wide fiction contest for his script - an award that included a lot of loot.
Also at the end of his final school year, Danny -- who started sending daily guitar “loops” (with overlaid solo riffs), a practice which became a thoroughly enjoyable pastime - texted me saying that if I "tuned in" to NPR's Morning Edition that day, I could hear him play his guitar composition which comprised the soundtrack of friend Anya's podcast which had just won NPR’s annual prize for Best College Podcast in America.
"He's Just 23 Chromosomes": Update On Anya Steinberg And Son Danny's Submission To NPR's "Student Podcast Challenge"
Although "my" North Carolina band, "19 Miles From Davis" did not play in 2021 except for IxtapaFest 1, Caribou and I played an hour-long set on Ixtapa's lawn -- Danny's first "live" performance as a guitarist.
"Caribou": Audio Files From The Hour-Long Concert Danny And I Gave Last Night On The Lawn At El Restaurante Ixtapa, Hillsborough, North Carolina
"19 Miles from Davis" play "Jumping Jack Flash"
The eve of The First Annual Ixtapa Music Festival (August 20th, my 74th birthday)
This concert was rained out. In fact, in the recording below, Jumping Jack ends abruptly with a rain-induced power outage
In early June of last year, Danny graduated with honors from Colorado College -- Liz Cheney's alma mater - with a major in theater and a minor in Environmental Science.
Denise, Maria and I all attended Danny's "big day" - along with Hillsborough friend, Megh Freeland - and it was a most memorable event!
It was also a great pleasure to spend time and break bread with Caribou's wonderful friend Abi and her kick-ass Methodist minister Mom.
Another momentous occasion in 2021 was the renaissance of my 56 year old romance with Cynthia Q, a University of Toronto student - also from Rochester, although born in Chicago where she has lived since her 10-year interlude teaching dance and English as a Second Language in Montreal throughout the 1970s.
Mutual friend Fred Owens put Cynthia and me in touch back in 2019, a couple years after Cynthia's husband Dennis died.
Fred thought Cynthia, who was coming out of mourning, might enjoy a "tour" of Oaxaca where I make my second home.
I remember my shock seeing Cynthia's incoming email while working in "my" office in the hills above Oaxaca, high above the city, el valle oriental sprawling beyond - out toward Tule, Teotitlán, Mitla and Hierve el Agua.
But I was trepidatious of ending up a mere "tour guide," and it wasn't until the middle of 2021 that Cynthia and I settled into regular correspondence.
By mid-December -- while lodged over Christmas-time in friend Fran Vito's Chili, New York basement (jokingly referred to as "The Needle and The Spoon" in honor of the Rolling Stones' "Dead Flowers") -- Cynthia and I were hurtling toward reunion in early 2022. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Avrv8t_nEI0
Thank you, Fred, for making this resurrection possible!
I will mention that Maria continues to live in Salt Lake City, where she owns an artist/activist semi-commune home which the previous owners -- about to retire to their native New England -- offered to her on very favorable terms, convinced that no one was better suited to keeping the home's communitarian spirit alive. If you don't know already, Maria is "all about" community - both living in close community, and fostering creative community.
Although I'm getting a bit ahead of myself, Danny has just moved to Saco, Maine where he's teaching (after working at The Ecology School this past summer session) the same school where Maria set down roots around 9 years ago. https://theecologyschool.
Since Maria does not welcome the spotlight -- much less any "fanfare" -- I will not delve into her uplifting academic and activist career at the University of Utah.
However, since the following information is public record, I'll risk including it:
Maria Archibald Biography, Grand Canyon Trust
No annual review would be complete without mentioning my beloved friends Norma, Willard and Byron who join me every Monday and Thursday night for our Zoom "tertulia" - which is the current manifestation of "Monday Night Class" that friend Alonzo "Lonnie" Coleman asked me to begin over 25 years ago. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tertulia
I must also express my love and gratitude for "the other two musketeers," my regular correspondents and confidantes, Ed Myer M.D. and David Stoltze M.D.
For the last two years, David and I have been editing his memoirs - "vignettes" as we call them. If you would like to be part of a loosey-goosey "focus group" that reads and reviews these adventures as soon as we've declared them "Done!" - please let me know.
I think you will find that David's experiences and escapades are all splendid tales -- globetrotting episodes in Zimbabwe, Nicaragua (where we met), San Francisco, Europe, La Barranca del Cobre, Las Vegas-New Mexico (where David operated "the only socialist clinic in the United States"... also home to the Netflix series, "Longmire"), New Zealand and Australia where David doctored in the waaaayyyyyyy outback, psychedelic Cal-Berkeley, his near death on an overnight cross country ski outing in the New Mexico's Sangre de Cristo mountains, hoboing from Califorlornia to New Orleans to celebrate Mardi Gras, David's horrifying stint at Cook County Hospital; and "finally" retooling as a "Canadian Doc" who served 8 years at the Royal Inland Hospital in Kamloops, British Columbia...
More to come in January!
Pax et amor
Alan
And...
"It's The Law!"
Don't forget, love covers a multitude of sins.
So...
Just love one another.
And whatever you do, don't Goddamn finger wag.
San Francisco Stevedore Eric Hoffer, Greatest Autodidact Of The 20th Century: Quotations
"How Self-Taught Philosopher-Longshoreman Eric Hoffer Judges A Government, Or A Way Of Life"
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