Dear Laura,
My 2021 Year-in-Review begins with Jesuit James Martin's observation about love.
But first, there are a few other quotes I want you to have:
And where there is no compassion, there we have the epitome of right-wing America.
Compendium Of Trump Videos That Reveal His Arrogance, Inhumanity, Stupidity And Cruelty
"Cruelty Is The Point": An Update On Donald Trump And His White "Christian" Base
https://newsfrombarbaria.
https://newsfrombarbaria.
Cruelty And Retaliation: Who Comes To Mind?
https://newsfrombarbaria.
https://newsfrombarbaria.
Compendium Of Best "Pax-Barbaria" Posts About Trump-Cult Cruelty
https://newsfrombarbaria.
https://newsfrombarbaria.
"The Cruelty Was The Point: The Trump Administration's Cruel Treatment Of Migrant Families Was Intentional And Calculated," Washington Post
https://newsfrombarbaria.
https://newsfrombarbaria.
"Compendium Of Best Pax Posts On Trump, Toxic Christianity And Cruelty As A Moral Obligation"
Lies As The Newly-Fabricated Gold Standard For "Truth"
https://newsfrombarbaria.
Lies As The Newly-Fabricated Gold Standard For "Truth"
https://newsfrombarbaria.
"The Thinking Housewife", A Traditionalist Catholic: "We Can Be Pretty Sure That Many Good People Are Roasting In Hell" - "Liberalism Is Satanic Rebellion Against God?"
Liberalism is not satanic rebellion against God.
Rather, liberalism is one of two general dispositions that God/Universe saw fit to built into humankind.
It is more likely that you will "roast in hell" for your self-satisfied, self-righteous laceration of liberals than liberals will spend eternity roasting there for being liberal.
BTW...
God told me to tell you that.
With remarkable regularity, one of the easiest ways to be wrong is to be certain we are right.
Wishing you all good things.
Alan
Why "Conservative" "Christians" Are All Going To Hell (If There Is A Hell...Which I Don't Believe)
Any fixated quest for "Salvation Assurance" is essentially self-centered - "the left hand knowing what the right it doing."
A tawdry "commercial" exchange.
*****
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, 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 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 served as 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, 2021, Danny graduated with honors from Colorado College -- Lynn 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 Quick, a University of Toronto student - also from Rochester, although she was born in Chicago and has lived there since her 10-year interlude teaching dance and English as a Second Language in Montreal during the 1970s.
Back in 2019, mutual friend, Fred Owens, put Cynthia and me in touch, 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 spend my winters.
I remember my shock seeing Cynthia's incoming email while working in "my" office, high above the city, el valle oriental sprawling beyond my window - 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 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 January '22. https://www.
Thank you, Fred, for making this resurrection possible!
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 just moved to Saco, Maine where he's teaching at The Ecology School (after working there this past summer) - the same school where Maria taught some 9 years ago. https://theecologyschool.
Since Maria does not welcome the spotlight -- much less any "fanfare" -- I will not delve into her stellar 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 evening for our Zoom "tertulias" - the current manifestation of "Monday Night Class" which friend Alonzo "Lonnie" Coleman asked me to begin over 25 years ago. https://en.wikipedia.org/
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., continual companions from my year at the Managua, Nicaragua Medical School in the late '80s.
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 once we've declared them "Done!" - please let me know.
I think you will find that David's experiences and escapades are fascinating and edifying -- un sin fin de globetrotting episodes in Zimbabwe, Nicaragua, 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 New Mexico's Sangre de Cristo mountains, hoboing from Califorlornia to New Orleans to celebrate Mardi Gras, David's horrifying internship 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!"
But don't forget: "Love covers a multitude of sins."
So...
Just love one another.
Finger-wagging is counterproductive.
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"
Buckminster "Bucky" Fuller: What Happened After He Attempted Suicide
Compendium Of Best "Pax-Barbaria" Posts About Red State - Blue State Secession
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