What is the nature of faith, and is it something which is properly exercised by man, or is it something which is prompted by the spirit of God? I have long wondered after these questions. For you see, the questions navigate a riddle of individual choice and divine election.
There are verses which state that grace is the gift of God; I do not think that the verses place faith as the gift of God (reader, bear with me as I draw a distinction between grace and faith). In Ephesians: For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast. That seems to me to stand squarely with the explanation in Hebrews: that faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Yes, things hoped for - hoped for by man. I have heard a preacher comment, in passing, that the spirit of God might hover over a man, in analogy as the spirit of God hovered over the waters, on the formless earth. It is a poetic case.
So it seems to go like this: one hears the message, one examines the intellectual case, and finding it incomplete, perhaps foolish, yet one might come to choose faith - confessing and believing, thereafter one is filled with the spirit, and one knows the love of God. In Corinthians: Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God.
I think this faith simpliciter is properly exercised by man; and, reserving room for the omniscience and sovereignty of God, I do not think faith is in any way animated by the machinations of the spirit of God. Were it not the case, I would regard that as being unfair - in the sense that choice means something. Who could resist choosing, were faith sprung by the spirit? As I see it, choice, meaningful choice, as we intellectually understand choice, is enshrined in the word, a zeroth law. In Genesis: Abram believed the Lord, and he credited it to him as righteousness. In Deuteronomy: See, I have set before you this day life and good, death and evil ... therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live. I would not accept that one cannot choose to reject the spirit, even at this time. In Luke: Et noluistis. In Isaiah: I have spread out my hands all the day unto a rebellious people, which walketh in a way that was not good, after their own thoughts.
Now, this is not to be taken as any argument for the glorification of choice, no. Righteousness by faith, and not by works - indeed, choice comprising faith. It is silly to say that the exercise of choice takes away from glory of divine salvation. So the spirit, coming to man after choosing faith, brings knowledge of God the father, and shows his love.
With such sight1 2, with love at hand, faith is no longer needed, as Reverend Wesley argues: all the glory of faith before it is done away which arises hence, that it ministers to love. It is the great temporary means by which God has ordained to promote that eternal end. ... And it was only when love was lost by sin that faith was added, not for its own sake, nor with any design that it should exist any longer than until it had answered the end for which it was ordained - namely, to restore man to the love from which he was fallen. (The Law Established Through Faith, 1750) That sits well with Corinthians: And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity. And further in James: Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone. This seems to me to run alongside the proposition that faith is man's choice; faith being the means to the ends of love. After choosing faith, we find ourselves compelled by love. The spirit gives proximity, but only after acceptance. Can love be spurned? Surely! Hence I argue, faith is our own. Being drawn to God by volition, and not by the spirit, the sanctity of choice is preserved.
1 Wesley: Love is the end, the sole end, of every dispensation of God, from the beginning of the world to the consummation of all things. And it will endure when heaven and earth flee away; for "love" alone "never faileth." Faith will totally fail; it will be swallowed up in sight, in the everlasting vision of God.
2 In Corinthians: For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away. .... For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.
In other words, this argument is for emphasis to be shifted properly from faith to love, to characterise Christian Faith instead as faith and Christian Love; all of it being called, Grace. Seen in that light, it does the sovereignty of God's grace no disservice to say that this rather meagre proposition of faith is exercised strictly by man's choice. I take this view. To the patient sceptic, it may seem duplicitous to exchange terms this way, to replace something fancied, such as faith, with something corporeal, such as love, but I would say in response to such a charge that this love forever remains vulnerable to doubt - doubt of the invisible. Yet is not doubt something which all loves must in time endure, even of the invisible? Returning now, I feel it in my soul, in my following after Christ in all these years - by faith I opened a door. In Revelations: Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.
========
NB. This exercise, in which I have tried to set out the plan of the bible, in single words, has prefigured the foregoing discourse. Words in italics represent the actions properly attributable to man.
beginning
creation
proximity
warning
disobedience
expulsion
death
covenant
faith
righteousness
slavery
cry
deliverance
law
temple
commandments
choice
violation
ordinances
neglect
promised land
conquer
kings
tyranny
idolatry
prophets
stubbornness
judges
wickedness
subjugation
remnant
return
messiah
sacrifice
grace
confess
believe
faith
salvation
justification
spirit
truth
know
love
obedience
sanctification
restoration
Sunday, April 7, 2019
Friday, April 5, 2019
CCXXXII - a treatise of my being old
I have been thinking lately about what it means to get older, how I am getting older. To be specific, I have been thinking about the difference, which is a bit of a stark way to put it, between myself as I am now and myself as a younger man, coming of age. I've been reading a little of John Updike's collected works, starting with the volume of his earlier stories, as a promise to myself which has been standing for about half a year. The earlier stories he writes are typically about a male character, having either a wife or taking a fancy in someone. The male character is usually not fully composed, I would say a little self-centred, having some airs but not quite conceited, lacking a little self-control without being impulsive, judgmental in terms of social class and appearance, even a little snobbish, and yet at the same time, quietly reflective, vaguely, anxiously self-aware, feeling keenly his own conscience, and awkwardly fixated on matters of principle, sometimes short-sightedly, sometimes painfully so. As events pass and conversations transpire, with self-absorbed contemplation, and with knowing such emotions as inferiority, a little spite, and vexing desire, these male characters usually come to a sort of full-circle self-realisation, an awareness of their own emotional edges, misconceived intentions, and yet, in the self-knowledge, some part shame and some part relief. It reminds me of the Borges story of the avatar man, which ends with the words, "With relief, with humiliation, with terror, he understood that he also was an illusion, that someone else was dreaming him." (The Circular Ruins, 1940) I love Borges. I love him with a pride one has for a grandfather who writes unearthly good literature. Naturally, I have already promised myself to read Borges again, jumping the queue. The day is only so long, and only so many books can be so meaningfully enjoyed. Updike's first bound volume is a beautiful one, covered with dark blue fabric, and printed with bible-paper thin sheets. I hold it very, very carefully to read. Borges' uses stiff manuscript, and is slightly jangled on its edges, like the irregular crusts of thin, chipped rock on a high, dry mountain. It also smells a bit more paper-rich, a bit more complex, like a well kept tome in an old library.
To get older. The premise is of course, the ever-present present, the irresistible illusion that the present is wholly meaningful, necessary and sufficient, and thus also an easy source of self-irony. The past so easily seems lighter, simpler, memorable. I have thought often about the things that I have become in my older age, the things I have grown to accept as part of being thirty three, or the things that I do not even think twice about doing, about being, about adopting as part of the person I am. There is football, I was playing a simple game of "tennis" with a younger man, a game which involves shooting into the other goal from farther than half-court, and in which neither player may use his hands. The younger fellow kept blasting away at it with the ball with his stronger foot, and I kept trying to curl it gently in, alternating feet. I recognised myself in him, and I thought how ironic it is that I now try to guide the ball in. I thought of explaining to him that he probably had a better shot of it by shooting more meaningfully, more accurately, instead of spanking it and hoping it would fly in. But I felt that I should not have taken the advice well if I were him, at his age. It's just a thing where advice is not much appreciated, it brings a kind of inferiority to listen to advice, it's a kind of thievery of a means of self-expression, and of the joy in the genius of self-evaluation and correction. I say this all the time, I like to figure it out on my own. Well, as an older man, I still think it maybe one hundred percent of the time, when it comes to certain things, like football, and writing, and many other things besides. I like to figure it out, to get a rough internal measure of the thing, based on my mental-spiritual web of thought, understanding and belief, before relying on an external benchmark. Of course, the score didn't matter, but the important thing is not to show up the other fellow. Well, that probably comes from growing older as well. Playing the right way, hard, tough, and fairly, for all its utility, is appreciated only grudgingly. I think everyone should play hard, tough and fair, but it hardly happens. It is a bastard variant of the "will to power" concept Nietzsche proposes - everybody wants to show off what he can do, because he feels good doing so, but if he has to or it looks like he tries hard to do it, it becomes laborious and well, uncool. And so, God forbid, one should practice the fundamentals.
Being older. Being older means sighing a little more. My grandma used to get on me for sighing, long and sometimes relentedly. She didn't think young people should sigh, that they had little cause to regret so mournfully. Maybe it's a matter of perspective, from a woman born during the war. You know, being older means understanding that perspective is determinative, in the same way that behavioural science comprises the hugely important socio-culturo psyche that utilitarian analysis takes as assumed. My grandmother was born during the war, imagine that. Sometimes I look at the buildings around me and I think of how it would have been in the days when war seemed imminent, with all its dread. Perspective is a funny thing. From a child of the atomic age to a child of the information age, it's incredible how different our lives are. I wonder if we float a long a little too easily on these latter-day promises of connectivity, efficiency and triviality. Yes, there's that. Being old, I feel that the handphone is a plague, a crutch that has become a crux. There's this deep unhappiness I get from being with someone who looks at the phone - it seems similar to being amongst the cave dwellers Socrates and Plato described, who prefer security in ignorance and darkness rather than stepping out into the bright sunshine, into the light of understanding. The phone and all its minor distractions seem so wholly stupid, so trivial, so little worth our attentions. But back to sighing, I think sighing is great, I feel that a good sigh takes the air out of a lot of frustration, even if it sounds a little inauspicious, a little discourteous. I feel that sighing is the physical manifestation of my reconciling with events, and with a good sigh the finality of a compromise feels complete.
The truer tests of being older, I feel, are two: in cherishing solitude, and in accepting that romance is one of those helpless things you have to kind of navigate around rather than towards.
Solitude is one of those things, I think as a younger guy it's so difficult to wrap your head around it. It kind of peters around a bit of social ineptness, a shunning of multifarious social situations, requiring fluidity and calm in various masses of people. To be highbrow with the nerds and to be slapdash with the clownies, also everything else in between, and of course, not to be self-conscious. Solitude is difficult, it is different. It is a sense of self-preservation, but more than that, of the pervading importance of identity and innermost rigidity. But it is difficult to set aside the familiarity and low commonality of social interaction, it is difficult to forsake, in a way, fraternal steadfastness and brotherly bonds. To accept that never again would I turn to another person to commiserate, to mourn, to hold on to in times of trouble. Solitude is often self-fulfilling, people can sense a person who holds back in the presence of company. So that itself is delicate, to cherish solitude without being cold. Well, there is frankness, and a sense of purpose, to commend it. But there is also patience, and I think patience is one of those things which is wholly contextual. It is silly to say of someone that he is a patient man or woman, without setting out the conditions in which, presumably, one was patient. Nevermind, back to solitude. Solitude is being quite glad to be alone, and to not feel left out of something; to feel that what one has, in the present, and alone with one's thoughts, is not only better, but that it is truly good and worth seeking. To know that genuine, frank and polite disinterest is respectable is wonderful, peaceful solitude even in company. Siddhartha Gautama Buddha teaches that suffering includes these five kinds - to be born, to grow old, to grow sick, to be far from the ones you love, and to be near to those you do not love. Solitude seems to sit meditatively between the last two, but I think it underlies much of his teaching and philosophy.
Romance, probably I have had more cause to regret than take joy of, but it is not an aching kind of regret, more of a foppish regret. It's funny, the older I get, the more I think of Gatsby and his great old love. In the end, jilted, all lost. He was too late, he was too unfortunate, and his love and her love measured little. I think of Gatsby, and of Carraway's impression of his mystery, that when Gatsby looked at you, he made it seem like you were the only one in the world. And I think he meant Gatsby's genuinity, or genuineness, I don't think he meant it as Gatsby's ability to charm an illusion on someone. That's such a lovely way to be a person. Yes, I think of myself as a bit of Gatsby, with my old love, with my longing, with my solitude. Staring at a green light in the night, standing at the end of a dock, from across the water. And finally, for the dream to die, for the revelry to fall away, for the dapperness to be a final, ironic stand, hoping against impossible odds. I think of the women I have sometimes had to say no to, and a girl I long to be with, and I think to myself, God, it's a mess. It really sucks to say no, and dating is such a drag and a crapshoot. So being older, I kinda give up on the whole thing. I don't even hope for serendipity any more, I figure these things take time, and I have to be in the moment and not care about the search for romance. So, navigating around rather than towards. It's a bit monastic but I find that I manage.
I would say that the essence of growing old for me is to think wider, to see farther, in the sense of appreciating the wider world, and it's precious oddities and persons marvellous, beyond the narrower ken of my own imagination, and yet at the same time, not abjuring the weight of the inner man, of fire, dash and vigor. To live by the soul. I have often thought about these four things Nietzsche wrote about. His prophet Zarathustra gave this advice in the context of sleeping well, but of course I take him as meaning how one should live so as to live contentedly. There's something so true about this writing - to overcome thyself, to reconcile with thyself, to find truth, and to laugh. Who shouldn't sleep well, by this prescription? And I think that growing older has made sleep, regular, early sleep, quintessential and precious. I am glad for it, to wake up early, to exercise, to eat early, and to have a long, full day in the sun, until one tires out in the evening, old and with cheer.
Ten times a day must thou overcome thyself: that causeth wholesome weariness, and is poppy to the soul.
Ten times must thou reconcile again with thyself; for overcoming is bitterness, and badly sleep the unreconciled.
Ten truths must thou find during the day; otherwise wilt thou seek truth during the night, and thy soul will have been hungry.
Ten times must thou laugh during the day, and be cheerful; otherwise thy stomach, the father of affliction, will disturb thee in the night.
To get older. The premise is of course, the ever-present present, the irresistible illusion that the present is wholly meaningful, necessary and sufficient, and thus also an easy source of self-irony. The past so easily seems lighter, simpler, memorable. I have thought often about the things that I have become in my older age, the things I have grown to accept as part of being thirty three, or the things that I do not even think twice about doing, about being, about adopting as part of the person I am. There is football, I was playing a simple game of "tennis" with a younger man, a game which involves shooting into the other goal from farther than half-court, and in which neither player may use his hands. The younger fellow kept blasting away at it with the ball with his stronger foot, and I kept trying to curl it gently in, alternating feet. I recognised myself in him, and I thought how ironic it is that I now try to guide the ball in. I thought of explaining to him that he probably had a better shot of it by shooting more meaningfully, more accurately, instead of spanking it and hoping it would fly in. But I felt that I should not have taken the advice well if I were him, at his age. It's just a thing where advice is not much appreciated, it brings a kind of inferiority to listen to advice, it's a kind of thievery of a means of self-expression, and of the joy in the genius of self-evaluation and correction. I say this all the time, I like to figure it out on my own. Well, as an older man, I still think it maybe one hundred percent of the time, when it comes to certain things, like football, and writing, and many other things besides. I like to figure it out, to get a rough internal measure of the thing, based on my mental-spiritual web of thought, understanding and belief, before relying on an external benchmark. Of course, the score didn't matter, but the important thing is not to show up the other fellow. Well, that probably comes from growing older as well. Playing the right way, hard, tough, and fairly, for all its utility, is appreciated only grudgingly. I think everyone should play hard, tough and fair, but it hardly happens. It is a bastard variant of the "will to power" concept Nietzsche proposes - everybody wants to show off what he can do, because he feels good doing so, but if he has to or it looks like he tries hard to do it, it becomes laborious and well, uncool. And so, God forbid, one should practice the fundamentals.
Being older. Being older means sighing a little more. My grandma used to get on me for sighing, long and sometimes relentedly. She didn't think young people should sigh, that they had little cause to regret so mournfully. Maybe it's a matter of perspective, from a woman born during the war. You know, being older means understanding that perspective is determinative, in the same way that behavioural science comprises the hugely important socio-culturo psyche that utilitarian analysis takes as assumed. My grandmother was born during the war, imagine that. Sometimes I look at the buildings around me and I think of how it would have been in the days when war seemed imminent, with all its dread. Perspective is a funny thing. From a child of the atomic age to a child of the information age, it's incredible how different our lives are. I wonder if we float a long a little too easily on these latter-day promises of connectivity, efficiency and triviality. Yes, there's that. Being old, I feel that the handphone is a plague, a crutch that has become a crux. There's this deep unhappiness I get from being with someone who looks at the phone - it seems similar to being amongst the cave dwellers Socrates and Plato described, who prefer security in ignorance and darkness rather than stepping out into the bright sunshine, into the light of understanding. The phone and all its minor distractions seem so wholly stupid, so trivial, so little worth our attentions. But back to sighing, I think sighing is great, I feel that a good sigh takes the air out of a lot of frustration, even if it sounds a little inauspicious, a little discourteous. I feel that sighing is the physical manifestation of my reconciling with events, and with a good sigh the finality of a compromise feels complete.
The truer tests of being older, I feel, are two: in cherishing solitude, and in accepting that romance is one of those helpless things you have to kind of navigate around rather than towards.
Solitude is one of those things, I think as a younger guy it's so difficult to wrap your head around it. It kind of peters around a bit of social ineptness, a shunning of multifarious social situations, requiring fluidity and calm in various masses of people. To be highbrow with the nerds and to be slapdash with the clownies, also everything else in between, and of course, not to be self-conscious. Solitude is difficult, it is different. It is a sense of self-preservation, but more than that, of the pervading importance of identity and innermost rigidity. But it is difficult to set aside the familiarity and low commonality of social interaction, it is difficult to forsake, in a way, fraternal steadfastness and brotherly bonds. To accept that never again would I turn to another person to commiserate, to mourn, to hold on to in times of trouble. Solitude is often self-fulfilling, people can sense a person who holds back in the presence of company. So that itself is delicate, to cherish solitude without being cold. Well, there is frankness, and a sense of purpose, to commend it. But there is also patience, and I think patience is one of those things which is wholly contextual. It is silly to say of someone that he is a patient man or woman, without setting out the conditions in which, presumably, one was patient. Nevermind, back to solitude. Solitude is being quite glad to be alone, and to not feel left out of something; to feel that what one has, in the present, and alone with one's thoughts, is not only better, but that it is truly good and worth seeking. To know that genuine, frank and polite disinterest is respectable is wonderful, peaceful solitude even in company. Siddhartha Gautama Buddha teaches that suffering includes these five kinds - to be born, to grow old, to grow sick, to be far from the ones you love, and to be near to those you do not love. Solitude seems to sit meditatively between the last two, but I think it underlies much of his teaching and philosophy.
Romance, probably I have had more cause to regret than take joy of, but it is not an aching kind of regret, more of a foppish regret. It's funny, the older I get, the more I think of Gatsby and his great old love. In the end, jilted, all lost. He was too late, he was too unfortunate, and his love and her love measured little. I think of Gatsby, and of Carraway's impression of his mystery, that when Gatsby looked at you, he made it seem like you were the only one in the world. And I think he meant Gatsby's genuinity, or genuineness, I don't think he meant it as Gatsby's ability to charm an illusion on someone. That's such a lovely way to be a person. Yes, I think of myself as a bit of Gatsby, with my old love, with my longing, with my solitude. Staring at a green light in the night, standing at the end of a dock, from across the water. And finally, for the dream to die, for the revelry to fall away, for the dapperness to be a final, ironic stand, hoping against impossible odds. I think of the women I have sometimes had to say no to, and a girl I long to be with, and I think to myself, God, it's a mess. It really sucks to say no, and dating is such a drag and a crapshoot. So being older, I kinda give up on the whole thing. I don't even hope for serendipity any more, I figure these things take time, and I have to be in the moment and not care about the search for romance. So, navigating around rather than towards. It's a bit monastic but I find that I manage.
I would say that the essence of growing old for me is to think wider, to see farther, in the sense of appreciating the wider world, and it's precious oddities and persons marvellous, beyond the narrower ken of my own imagination, and yet at the same time, not abjuring the weight of the inner man, of fire, dash and vigor. To live by the soul. I have often thought about these four things Nietzsche wrote about. His prophet Zarathustra gave this advice in the context of sleeping well, but of course I take him as meaning how one should live so as to live contentedly. There's something so true about this writing - to overcome thyself, to reconcile with thyself, to find truth, and to laugh. Who shouldn't sleep well, by this prescription? And I think that growing older has made sleep, regular, early sleep, quintessential and precious. I am glad for it, to wake up early, to exercise, to eat early, and to have a long, full day in the sun, until one tires out in the evening, old and with cheer.
Ten times a day must thou overcome thyself: that causeth wholesome weariness, and is poppy to the soul.
Ten times must thou reconcile again with thyself; for overcoming is bitterness, and badly sleep the unreconciled.
Ten truths must thou find during the day; otherwise wilt thou seek truth during the night, and thy soul will have been hungry.
Ten times must thou laugh during the day, and be cheerful; otherwise thy stomach, the father of affliction, will disturb thee in the night.
Friday, March 15, 2019
CCXXXI - to live is to get older
In earlier times, there was a Borders bookstore at Wheelock Place. It's funny, I write about past things now the way that people from earlier times write about past places. You can hear about such places, and see the odd photographs, but the connection with the physical reality they once inhabited is totally gone. What it meant to be there, what it was like, how it was lived in, the familiarity and the feel, all gone. The past entails an older place, once younger, and an older cast of principals, once youthful, existing concurrently, both now forever changed. We are talking about things that were once "the present", with all the fullness and immediacy and realness that "the present" is to us, us who live in the right-now of the present. Isn't it such an odd feeling to consider "the present"? to know that the present, however total and encompassing it is right now, with all its weightiness, significance and severity, will never be much more than it is as the present? The eternity of the present! And yet, as it does, time rolls unceasingly on, fore-running its ever-marching peoples. Tiong Bahru (塚 bahru), Badok, the Padang, Jurong East, Marina Bay, Fort Canning, Pulau Belakang Mati (Sentosa) ... virtually all the old places one thinks of, of which now only abridged histories and sepia photos on plaques, slightly forlorn, carry a reminder, the metamorphosing inhabitants of which no longer have the memory or language to reminisce, to provide substantial, deeply-rooted discourses of lives and lived-in-ness. We have so little "historied-ness" in us, nor the sense that any of that matters, until it becomes our turn to comprise old news, old history. I don't know, I love the sense of being connected with a place, of sharing deeply personal, even ancestral ties to the land. To know the lie of the land. To recall in the mind's eye vistas, scenes, scapes, the chiaro of the hazy sunshine, and the oscuro of the sleepy, staid earth. Megarry and Wade were right, land, real property, is fundamentally a special thing, not what some call a bundle of rights.
Well, there used to be a Borders bookstore at Wheelock Place. I would have gone there in my school days, with not much money to buy a book. Buying actual books was never in question for me, as a child of the nineties. Well, Borders was expensive, compared to Times (not to mention, Popular). In the psychology section was a book by Sigmund Freud, the Interpretation of Dreams. This was a virtually irresistible title. Well, I eventually bought it. To some dismay, it turned out to be very difficult reading. Between reading this, and Mein Kampf, I gained the impression that Germans are not fun to read. Of course, there were other Germans, up to even Schopenhauer, or Schopi, as I call him in my mind, whom you might say was intellectually exciting, but not necessarily fun, even then, to read. But for the record, neither Hitler nor Freud is fun to read, and one of the things they share in terms of literary presentation is that they are both fond of very, very long sentences, some of which are unbearable. Anyway, Freud was in the field of psychology, naturally, and psychology is inherently a difficult field of science to grasp, not to mention that the subject of dreaming is even more so, even more illusory, chimerical. I didn't finish the book. I did get that Freud understood the dreams of his patients as being wish-fulfillments, coupling anxieties, and sensory inputs received over the course of one or two days. He posited some concepts as being symbolic, such as representing carnal desire, but those analyses might have escaped me. At any event, the book sits in a box somewhere, unexhibited. I am not sure that I will ever desire to thumb through it again.
They say that dreaming is not special to humans. They say that the platypus experiences up to nine hours of rapid eye movement type sleep a day (night, rather), which may or may not be a lot for the platypus, but that he does it the most. Perhaps he does it when the nights are longer, in winter. After all, doesn't the polar bear hibernate? Well, I often have a dream of running away. It's unpleasant, because I am not, in my dream, terrifically good at running. I manage obstacles, that is true, but I do not manage them well. I don't think the simulation includes getting caught, or perhaps I exclude it. Perhaps I manage the mounting anxiety by shifting the narrative to something else, subconsciously. That is one theme that recurs. For my own reasons, I think I have seen through this dream. Another one that recurs, with some emptiness at awakening, is of having a loved girl close by. It's not a longing per se, but a kind of wistfulness. I could go on, but the man I was at twenty, twenty-four, isn't the man I am now, at thirty-two, and no amount of gentle recollection changes that. Which is not to say that I am proud of the man I am now, but perhaps I am a little prouder. I think that this vein of dreaming, over the years, acknowledges that. This dreaming wells together now a feeling more of serenity and conviction than of desire and pining. Little calming gestures, placid comforting, resting a head together, on a shoulder, or feeling for, holding hands under a blanket, bring courage and a little joy. The rising day feels like it lacks a little something, upon waking, but not something that upon contemplation will never be found again. So I take (if unfairly) what Eliot wrote, in his Little Gidding,
Well, there used to be a Borders bookstore at Wheelock Place. I would have gone there in my school days, with not much money to buy a book. Buying actual books was never in question for me, as a child of the nineties. Well, Borders was expensive, compared to Times (not to mention, Popular). In the psychology section was a book by Sigmund Freud, the Interpretation of Dreams. This was a virtually irresistible title. Well, I eventually bought it. To some dismay, it turned out to be very difficult reading. Between reading this, and Mein Kampf, I gained the impression that Germans are not fun to read. Of course, there were other Germans, up to even Schopenhauer, or Schopi, as I call him in my mind, whom you might say was intellectually exciting, but not necessarily fun, even then, to read. But for the record, neither Hitler nor Freud is fun to read, and one of the things they share in terms of literary presentation is that they are both fond of very, very long sentences, some of which are unbearable. Anyway, Freud was in the field of psychology, naturally, and psychology is inherently a difficult field of science to grasp, not to mention that the subject of dreaming is even more so, even more illusory, chimerical. I didn't finish the book. I did get that Freud understood the dreams of his patients as being wish-fulfillments, coupling anxieties, and sensory inputs received over the course of one or two days. He posited some concepts as being symbolic, such as representing carnal desire, but those analyses might have escaped me. At any event, the book sits in a box somewhere, unexhibited. I am not sure that I will ever desire to thumb through it again.
They say that dreaming is not special to humans. They say that the platypus experiences up to nine hours of rapid eye movement type sleep a day (night, rather), which may or may not be a lot for the platypus, but that he does it the most. Perhaps he does it when the nights are longer, in winter. After all, doesn't the polar bear hibernate? Well, I often have a dream of running away. It's unpleasant, because I am not, in my dream, terrifically good at running. I manage obstacles, that is true, but I do not manage them well. I don't think the simulation includes getting caught, or perhaps I exclude it. Perhaps I manage the mounting anxiety by shifting the narrative to something else, subconsciously. That is one theme that recurs. For my own reasons, I think I have seen through this dream. Another one that recurs, with some emptiness at awakening, is of having a loved girl close by. It's not a longing per se, but a kind of wistfulness. I could go on, but the man I was at twenty, twenty-four, isn't the man I am now, at thirty-two, and no amount of gentle recollection changes that. Which is not to say that I am proud of the man I am now, but perhaps I am a little prouder. I think that this vein of dreaming, over the years, acknowledges that. This dreaming wells together now a feeling more of serenity and conviction than of desire and pining. Little calming gestures, placid comforting, resting a head together, on a shoulder, or feeling for, holding hands under a blanket, bring courage and a little joy. The rising day feels like it lacks a little something, upon waking, but not something that upon contemplation will never be found again. So I take (if unfairly) what Eliot wrote, in his Little Gidding,
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
Thursday, March 14, 2019
CCXXX - Et Noluistis
Evangelium secundum Lucam
13:34 Ierusalem, Ierusalem, quae occidis prophetas et lapidas eos, qui missi sunt ad te, quotiens volui congregare filios tuos, quemadmodum avis nidum suum sub pinnis, et noluistis.
13:35 Ecce relinquitur vobis domus vestra. Dico autem vobis: Non videbitis me, donec veniat cum dicetis: “Benedictus, qui venit in nomine Domini”.
13:34 Ierusalem, Ierusalem, quae occidis prophetas et lapidas eos, qui missi sunt ad te, quotiens volui congregare filios tuos, quemadmodum avis nidum suum sub pinnis, et noluistis.
13:35 Ecce relinquitur vobis domus vestra. Dico autem vobis: Non videbitis me, donec veniat cum dicetis: “Benedictus, qui venit in nomine Domini”.
Tuesday, March 12, 2019
CCXXIX - Thermae Antoninianae, or the Terme di Caracalla
Latin! So divinely pristine.
Balnea, vina, Venus corrumpunt corpora nostra;
sed vitam faciunt balnea, vina, Venus.
Baths, wine, the desire of women corrupt bodies of ours;
but vital-life is made of baths, wine, the desire of women.
- epitaph of Senator Tiberius Claudius Sacerdos Julianus, 2nd century AD.
Balnea, vina, Venus corrumpunt corpora nostra;
sed vitam faciunt balnea, vina, Venus.
Baths, wine, the desire of women corrupt bodies of ours;
but vital-life is made of baths, wine, the desire of women.
- epitaph of Senator Tiberius Claudius Sacerdos Julianus, 2nd century AD.
Monday, March 11, 2019
CCXXVIII - Skydog
Excerpts (including interviews from the book, One Way Out, by Alan Paul):
Butch Trucks (groove drummer): One day we were jamming on a shuffle going nowhere so I started pulling back and Duane whipped around, looked me in the eyes, and played this lick way up the neck like a challenge. My first reaction was to back up, but he kept doing it, which had everyone looking at me like the whole flaccid nature of this jam was my fault. The third time I got really angry and started pounding the drums like I was hitting him upside the head and the jam took off and I forgot about being self-conscious and started playing music, and he smiled at me, as if to say, "Now that's more like it."
It was like he reached inside me and flipped a switch and I've never been insecure about my drumming again. It was an absolute epiphany; it hit me like a ton of bricks. I swear if that moment had not happened I would probably have spent the past thirty years as a teacher. Duane was capable of reaching inside people and pulling out the best. He made us all realise that music will never be great if everyone doesn't give it all they have, and we all took on that attitude: Why bother to play if you're not going all in?
Reese Wynans (keyboard player): Dickey [Betts] was the hottest guitar player in the area, the guy that everyone looked up to and wanted to emulate. Then Duane came and started sitting in with us and he was more mature and more fully formed, with total confidence, an incredible tone and that unearthly slide playing. But he and Dickey complemented each other - they didn't try to outgun one another - and the chemistry was obvious right away. It was just amazing that the two best lead guitarists around were teaming up. They were both willing to take chances rather than returning to parts they knew they could nail, and everything they tried worked.
Jai "Jaimoe" Johanny Johanson (fill drummer): Duane talked about a lot of guitar players and when I heard some of them I said, "That dude can't tote your guitar case," and he was surprised. He loved jamming with everyone.
Thom Doucette (harmonica player): None of them could hold Duane's case except Betts.
Gregg Allman (lead singer, keyboard player): I walked into rehearsal on March 26, 1969, and they played me the track they had worked up to Muddy Waters' "Trouble No More" and it blew me away. It was so intense.
I got my brother aside and said, "I don't know if I can cut this. I don't know if I can cut this. I don't know if I'm good enough." And he starts in on me: "You little punk, I told these people all about you and you don't come in here and let me down." Then I snatched the words out of his hand and said, "Count it off, let's do it." And with that, I did my damnedest. I'd never heard or sung this song before, but by God I did it. I shut my eyes and sang, and at the end of that there was just a long silence. At that moment we knew what we had. Duane kinda pissed me off and embarrassed me into singing my guts out. He knew which buttons to push.
Joseph "Red Dog" Campbell (roadie): He was my hero. I mean. I would have followed Duane to the end of the earth. I was older than him, but I respected him enough and loved him enough to do it. Duane had a sixth sense - or a seventh sense, man. He just knew what to do at the right time. There’s a fork in the road, right? If you go to the left, there’s a pot of gold. If you go to the right, you’re in a pile of crap. Duane could walk right up to the fork without thinking and say "Let’s go to the left." And he’d come out smelling like a rose.
But he was fair. He was honest. He was up front and didn’t beat around the bush. You didn’t have to hear “Well, you know ... I was thinkin’ ... It ain’t really nice for me to say it, but ...” You didn’t have to hear it. He’d just say, “Red Dog, you messed up bad man. We’re gonna have to let you go.” There wouldn’t be no beatin' around the bush. I try to live like that myself. I just don’t have the tactfulness or the position in life to deal the other way. So I just hit it, bam-bam-bam.
I don’t really think you can put it into words, on Duane. He used to say, “You guys do all the work. We just come over and have fun.” That’s really what it’s all about. If these musicians say “I’m out here working my butt off, something’s wrong.” I mean, if he ain’t out there playing and having fun, something’s wrong. It’s at the stage of the game now where it’s not work. It’s “Hey, let’s enjoy ourselves and play.” The roadie’s the guy who’s doing the work to get the thing going.
Jaimoe: One morning, Duane came over and knocked and he was bouncing off the wall - full of energy, as he always was, but more so. He said, "What's up, my little chocolate drop?" He often called me that.
I said, "Nothing. Just waiting around until it's time to practice." And he said, "You want one of these?" He had a little container of something that I thought were blackberries, which were a kind of speed we took with some regularity. I said I was all right and he laughed and said, "Okay," and dashed off on his bike.
I went over to the pad to use the commode and sitting on the back of it was a little bottle of those pills - anytime someone got a little something they stored it there so that if the police came it could be flushed away. I looked at them and thought, "This is what Duane had. The way he was bouncing around, I'm gonna give it a try," and I popped three of them. God damn! They were psilocybin tablets and they slowly came on. They were real natural and earthy and pleasant, but I should not have taken three.
We got something to eat at Mama Louise's and went to practice like we did every day, but rehearsal was a waste. It had to be canceled because we had all taken some of those things. Butch couldn't play the drums because he said they were flying away. Gregory wasn't really into psychedelics so maybe he didn't take any, but the rest of us were flying, so we just called off practice and the day finally came to what it should have been, hanging out. There's been a lot of stories told about how we had this incredible jam, but we couldn't even play.
Gregg: I had mainly played rhythm guitar. That was my instrument, but the Allman Brothers had too many guitars, so they blindfolded me, took me in this room, sat me down, took the blindfold off and there sat a brand-new, 1969 B-3 Hammond and a 122-RV Leslie, with a few joints on it, and they said, "OK, we'll see you in a few days! Good luck! We'll bring you food and check back with you now and then. Learn how to play this thing."
That's only a slight exaggeration. The truth is, my brother knew I really, deep down, always wanted a Hammond. I always admired them when I saw them with blues bands and whatnot. But then I stayed up day and night, hour after hour, learning how to really play it.
Dickey Betts (lead guitar): Duane and Gregg had a real "purist" blues things together, but Oakley and I in our band would take a standard blues and re-arrange it. We were really trying to push the envelope. We loved the blues, but we wanted to play in a rock style, like what Cream and Hendrix were doing. Jefferson Airplane was also a big influence on us; Phil Lesh and Jack Casady were Oakley's favourite bassists. We liked to take some of that experimental stuff and put a harder melodic edge to it.
Duane was smart enough to see what ingredients were missing from both of our previous bands. We didn't have enough of the true, purist blues, and he didn't have enough of the avant-garde, psychedelic approach to the blues. So he tried to put the two sounds together, and that was the first step in finding the sound of the Allman Brothers Band. When the two things collided, by the grace of God it was something special. You can't say someone conceived of it all. It just happened and we all played a big part.
Steve Morse (guitar player, Dixie Dregs): [It's] a Les Paul Custom with tiger stripes and a sunburst paint job. It doesn’t have a pickguard, and the neck looks like a regular Les Paul neck, a sort of dark brown. It was cracked once, but Twiggs [Lyndon, road manager] had it fixed when we were in California. And it’s got regular humbucking-looking pickups, but the one in the lead position is so intense! It’s so powerful. Something is so right about it. That’s the main thing about the guitar. I think the reason Duane had that guitar is because it would scream so much on the lead pickup. I remember Twiggs saying that Duane used that guitar on Layla and a lot of the Fillmore East. He liked to use it for songs where he’d switch from playing regular fingerstyle to slide. I’ve used the guitar for solos on every album, just about. You can hear it on the melody of ‘Cruise Control,’ the slide guitar parts in ‘Rock and Roll Park,’ and in ‘Twiggs Approved’ there are two short guitar solos – one is in a regular style and the other is slide, and both of those are on the Les Paul.
That guitar of Twiggs’ has gone through a long journey. Twiggs traded a car to Gregg Allman to obtain the guitar. Twiggs had a lot of old-time cars, in really good shape, and it was one of those. It wasn’t like Gregg was just giving the guitar away. He knew that Twiggs would really take care of it. At a time when Twiggs was really broke, someone offered him $15,000 for the guitar, and he wouldn’t take it. Twiggs all along was planning on giving it to Duane’s little daughter when she turned 18, so the family is holding the guitar until then. The reason Twiggs was gonna wait until then is he didn’t think that the girl would realize what she had. And Twiggs was just that kind of person – the principle of the whole thing was more important than anything.
Derek Trucks (guitar player, nephew of Butch Trucks): The sound is so distinct and powerful. There was definitely some extra spirit in the room. At one point, Butch looked down, saw I was playing Duane’s goldtop and was really struck.
Butch: It was during ‘Dreams,’ And seeing and hearing Derek play the solo on the guitar Duane used was very emotional.
Butch Trucks (groove drummer): One day we were jamming on a shuffle going nowhere so I started pulling back and Duane whipped around, looked me in the eyes, and played this lick way up the neck like a challenge. My first reaction was to back up, but he kept doing it, which had everyone looking at me like the whole flaccid nature of this jam was my fault. The third time I got really angry and started pounding the drums like I was hitting him upside the head and the jam took off and I forgot about being self-conscious and started playing music, and he smiled at me, as if to say, "Now that's more like it."
It was like he reached inside me and flipped a switch and I've never been insecure about my drumming again. It was an absolute epiphany; it hit me like a ton of bricks. I swear if that moment had not happened I would probably have spent the past thirty years as a teacher. Duane was capable of reaching inside people and pulling out the best. He made us all realise that music will never be great if everyone doesn't give it all they have, and we all took on that attitude: Why bother to play if you're not going all in?
Reese Wynans (keyboard player): Dickey [Betts] was the hottest guitar player in the area, the guy that everyone looked up to and wanted to emulate. Then Duane came and started sitting in with us and he was more mature and more fully formed, with total confidence, an incredible tone and that unearthly slide playing. But he and Dickey complemented each other - they didn't try to outgun one another - and the chemistry was obvious right away. It was just amazing that the two best lead guitarists around were teaming up. They were both willing to take chances rather than returning to parts they knew they could nail, and everything they tried worked.
Jai "Jaimoe" Johanny Johanson (fill drummer): Duane talked about a lot of guitar players and when I heard some of them I said, "That dude can't tote your guitar case," and he was surprised. He loved jamming with everyone.
Thom Doucette (harmonica player): None of them could hold Duane's case except Betts.
Gregg Allman (lead singer, keyboard player): I walked into rehearsal on March 26, 1969, and they played me the track they had worked up to Muddy Waters' "Trouble No More" and it blew me away. It was so intense.
I got my brother aside and said, "I don't know if I can cut this. I don't know if I can cut this. I don't know if I'm good enough." And he starts in on me: "You little punk, I told these people all about you and you don't come in here and let me down." Then I snatched the words out of his hand and said, "Count it off, let's do it." And with that, I did my damnedest. I'd never heard or sung this song before, but by God I did it. I shut my eyes and sang, and at the end of that there was just a long silence. At that moment we knew what we had. Duane kinda pissed me off and embarrassed me into singing my guts out. He knew which buttons to push.
Joseph "Red Dog" Campbell (roadie): He was my hero. I mean. I would have followed Duane to the end of the earth. I was older than him, but I respected him enough and loved him enough to do it. Duane had a sixth sense - or a seventh sense, man. He just knew what to do at the right time. There’s a fork in the road, right? If you go to the left, there’s a pot of gold. If you go to the right, you’re in a pile of crap. Duane could walk right up to the fork without thinking and say "Let’s go to the left." And he’d come out smelling like a rose.
But he was fair. He was honest. He was up front and didn’t beat around the bush. You didn’t have to hear “Well, you know ... I was thinkin’ ... It ain’t really nice for me to say it, but ...” You didn’t have to hear it. He’d just say, “Red Dog, you messed up bad man. We’re gonna have to let you go.” There wouldn’t be no beatin' around the bush. I try to live like that myself. I just don’t have the tactfulness or the position in life to deal the other way. So I just hit it, bam-bam-bam.
I don’t really think you can put it into words, on Duane. He used to say, “You guys do all the work. We just come over and have fun.” That’s really what it’s all about. If these musicians say “I’m out here working my butt off, something’s wrong.” I mean, if he ain’t out there playing and having fun, something’s wrong. It’s at the stage of the game now where it’s not work. It’s “Hey, let’s enjoy ourselves and play.” The roadie’s the guy who’s doing the work to get the thing going.
Jaimoe: One morning, Duane came over and knocked and he was bouncing off the wall - full of energy, as he always was, but more so. He said, "What's up, my little chocolate drop?" He often called me that.
I said, "Nothing. Just waiting around until it's time to practice." And he said, "You want one of these?" He had a little container of something that I thought were blackberries, which were a kind of speed we took with some regularity. I said I was all right and he laughed and said, "Okay," and dashed off on his bike.
I went over to the pad to use the commode and sitting on the back of it was a little bottle of those pills - anytime someone got a little something they stored it there so that if the police came it could be flushed away. I looked at them and thought, "This is what Duane had. The way he was bouncing around, I'm gonna give it a try," and I popped three of them. God damn! They were psilocybin tablets and they slowly came on. They were real natural and earthy and pleasant, but I should not have taken three.
We got something to eat at Mama Louise's and went to practice like we did every day, but rehearsal was a waste. It had to be canceled because we had all taken some of those things. Butch couldn't play the drums because he said they were flying away. Gregory wasn't really into psychedelics so maybe he didn't take any, but the rest of us were flying, so we just called off practice and the day finally came to what it should have been, hanging out. There's been a lot of stories told about how we had this incredible jam, but we couldn't even play.
Gregg: I had mainly played rhythm guitar. That was my instrument, but the Allman Brothers had too many guitars, so they blindfolded me, took me in this room, sat me down, took the blindfold off and there sat a brand-new, 1969 B-3 Hammond and a 122-RV Leslie, with a few joints on it, and they said, "OK, we'll see you in a few days! Good luck! We'll bring you food and check back with you now and then. Learn how to play this thing."
That's only a slight exaggeration. The truth is, my brother knew I really, deep down, always wanted a Hammond. I always admired them when I saw them with blues bands and whatnot. But then I stayed up day and night, hour after hour, learning how to really play it.
Dickey Betts (lead guitar): Duane and Gregg had a real "purist" blues things together, but Oakley and I in our band would take a standard blues and re-arrange it. We were really trying to push the envelope. We loved the blues, but we wanted to play in a rock style, like what Cream and Hendrix were doing. Jefferson Airplane was also a big influence on us; Phil Lesh and Jack Casady were Oakley's favourite bassists. We liked to take some of that experimental stuff and put a harder melodic edge to it.
Duane was smart enough to see what ingredients were missing from both of our previous bands. We didn't have enough of the true, purist blues, and he didn't have enough of the avant-garde, psychedelic approach to the blues. So he tried to put the two sounds together, and that was the first step in finding the sound of the Allman Brothers Band. When the two things collided, by the grace of God it was something special. You can't say someone conceived of it all. It just happened and we all played a big part.
Steve Morse (guitar player, Dixie Dregs): [It's] a Les Paul Custom with tiger stripes and a sunburst paint job. It doesn’t have a pickguard, and the neck looks like a regular Les Paul neck, a sort of dark brown. It was cracked once, but Twiggs [Lyndon, road manager] had it fixed when we were in California. And it’s got regular humbucking-looking pickups, but the one in the lead position is so intense! It’s so powerful. Something is so right about it. That’s the main thing about the guitar. I think the reason Duane had that guitar is because it would scream so much on the lead pickup. I remember Twiggs saying that Duane used that guitar on Layla and a lot of the Fillmore East. He liked to use it for songs where he’d switch from playing regular fingerstyle to slide. I’ve used the guitar for solos on every album, just about. You can hear it on the melody of ‘Cruise Control,’ the slide guitar parts in ‘Rock and Roll Park,’ and in ‘Twiggs Approved’ there are two short guitar solos – one is in a regular style and the other is slide, and both of those are on the Les Paul.
That guitar of Twiggs’ has gone through a long journey. Twiggs traded a car to Gregg Allman to obtain the guitar. Twiggs had a lot of old-time cars, in really good shape, and it was one of those. It wasn’t like Gregg was just giving the guitar away. He knew that Twiggs would really take care of it. At a time when Twiggs was really broke, someone offered him $15,000 for the guitar, and he wouldn’t take it. Twiggs all along was planning on giving it to Duane’s little daughter when she turned 18, so the family is holding the guitar until then. The reason Twiggs was gonna wait until then is he didn’t think that the girl would realize what she had. And Twiggs was just that kind of person – the principle of the whole thing was more important than anything.
Derek Trucks (guitar player, nephew of Butch Trucks): The sound is so distinct and powerful. There was definitely some extra spirit in the room. At one point, Butch looked down, saw I was playing Duane’s goldtop and was really struck.
Butch: It was during ‘Dreams,’ And seeing and hearing Derek play the solo on the guitar Duane used was very emotional.
Friday, March 1, 2019
CCXXVII - Day out in town
Got up early today in a little caravan park in Wanaka. It's a town about an hour's drive from Queenstown. Funny, seems like a few things are an hour's drive from Queenstown. Anyway yeah got up early today, had an egg and bacon pie. Microwaved it, too. Lot's of food today. Took a little walk in Wanaka, walked right into a little park by the lake. Gate led into an arch of lime trees from Berlin. Beautiful place, had lots of old trees, open grassy spaces, totally my thing. Quite a few nice homes around. It made me wonder whether it's expensive to own a place down there. Not of a lot of places do that for me.
Got a ride back down to Queenstown, had a gas station cheese and steak pie. Pretty good pie, but nothing like the ones from Mrs. Woolly's back in Glenorchy. That day I had two large pies in one sitting. Mince, and salmon and bacon. Real pastry, man, not a machine pat crust. Anyway, dumped the bags, made some coffee, thank God, and went up a little trail in town to do the zip lines. Great times on the lines, good speed, between the trees, looking at the lake. Met a couple of crazy women from Hawai'i. Kinda miss them already. Told them I didn't like Adele. Something in her voice I don't buy. Didn't go over well.
Anyway, that, then down to get a Big Al Fergburger. Double everything, pretty much. Pretty good, but for my money the Center 4 Hamburgers in Takayama was better. Better taste, more love, Japanese whiskey, can't quite put it in words. Devoured it watching a couple bands rock a little park with a stream. Pretty good for a garage band, actually. Some dad rock, no big deal.
Popped back home, little one and a half walk, for a shower and sunset photos. Raced back up to the gondola for a night time astronomy lesson. Hell, we caught the international space station tonight. Learnt the southern cross from alpha centauri. Had a couple hot chocolates on the way down, bought a five dollar pizza for breakfast tomorrow. Wine to wash the day away.
It feels like I did a fair bit today. Good weather, too, God willing. I'm happy. Got a little teary listening to the Man in Black on the way to town. Well, what can I say. Lovely day for it. Wouldn't be bad for a groundhog day. Alright. Time to be heading home.
Got a ride back down to Queenstown, had a gas station cheese and steak pie. Pretty good pie, but nothing like the ones from Mrs. Woolly's back in Glenorchy. That day I had two large pies in one sitting. Mince, and salmon and bacon. Real pastry, man, not a machine pat crust. Anyway, dumped the bags, made some coffee, thank God, and went up a little trail in town to do the zip lines. Great times on the lines, good speed, between the trees, looking at the lake. Met a couple of crazy women from Hawai'i. Kinda miss them already. Told them I didn't like Adele. Something in her voice I don't buy. Didn't go over well.
Anyway, that, then down to get a Big Al Fergburger. Double everything, pretty much. Pretty good, but for my money the Center 4 Hamburgers in Takayama was better. Better taste, more love, Japanese whiskey, can't quite put it in words. Devoured it watching a couple bands rock a little park with a stream. Pretty good for a garage band, actually. Some dad rock, no big deal.
Popped back home, little one and a half walk, for a shower and sunset photos. Raced back up to the gondola for a night time astronomy lesson. Hell, we caught the international space station tonight. Learnt the southern cross from alpha centauri. Had a couple hot chocolates on the way down, bought a five dollar pizza for breakfast tomorrow. Wine to wash the day away.
It feels like I did a fair bit today. Good weather, too, God willing. I'm happy. Got a little teary listening to the Man in Black on the way to town. Well, what can I say. Lovely day for it. Wouldn't be bad for a groundhog day. Alright. Time to be heading home.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)