1. While I walked down to the building once occupied by Steins, the now shuttered grocery store, to mail our property tax payment, I decided to take a short break from the podcast 1619 and tuned in, instead, to Gravy, a podcast I love that I'd neglected for way too long. Gravy is a production of the Southern Foodways alliance and explores changes in the American South through food. The episode I listened to today featured Duke University professor and photographer named Tom Rankin. He and his wife, writer Jill McCorkle, raise goats. Much of the interview with Rankin centered around the possible future of goats as a food source in the USA.
Brief interruption: Back in October, 2016, a group of educators from the school district of Prince George's County (Debbie taught in this district) met at a Kenyan restaurant in Beltsville, MD called Swahili Village. I got to tag along as a trailing spouse (!). Our table ordered a bountiful group platter of grilled meats, including grilled goat meat. I loved the gilled goat and loved that meal and that whole evening.
Back to Gravy.
Tom Rankin didn't only talk about goats, he talked about photography. He quoted a photographer from the 1840s, William Henry Fox Talbot, who described an 1843 image he created as showing "the most evident marks of the injuries of time and weather."
I've done a few photography projects -- the holding hands project and the pictures I took of chairs and sofas and other furniture people put on porches or in their yards -- it was called "Come Have a Sit".
I like the idea of snapping pictures of things that show the marks of the injuries of time and weather. There are plenty of possibilities in and around Kellogg.
2. I'm going to jump to the end of my day and then come back to the early evening.
At some point today on Facebook, thanks to Jay Gorham, I saw a New Yorker review from 2018 of a Netflix series, Midnight Diner. I didn't read the review. I'll wait until I've watched more episodes, but I learned that this series, imported from Japan, is about an Izakaya, a tiny twelve seat diner in Shinjuku, Tokyo. Its hours are 12 midnight to 7 a.m. The diner is operated by one man, Master. On a wall of the Izakaya is a short menu, but Master will prepare any meal by request if he has the ingredients on hand.
Each episode runs about twenty-five minutes. I've watched two so far.
Keep in mind that I've been reading Jane Hirshfield's essay on Basho, a Japanese master composer of haiku from the 17th century.
The two episodes I've watched of Midnight Diner made me think that these stories are like haiku turned into short dramatic presentations. Like haiku, these individual stories are meditative, paced slowly, spare, minimalist, compressed, focused. Like the haiku, they feature contrasts, the way any one moment in time contains oppositions within it. The haiku is structured to startle the reader. Likewise, these two episodes featured startling turns of events that sprang suddenly into the story, just as an unexpected image or insight does in the haiku.
As an added pleasure, to conclude each episode, one of Master's customers comes into the kitchen and explains how to prepare one of the dishes featured in the story. For me, then, as someone who loves Japanese cuisine (but I have few opportunities to dine on it), Midnight Diner stimulates my yearning to return to a Japanese restaurant or leap into learning to prepare Japanese food at home, assuming I have the ingredients on hand or can readily obtain them.
(Writing about Japanese food ingredients touches off nostalgic feelings, feelings of love, actually, for Hung Phat Grocery, the Asian market I loved shopping at in Wheaton, MD -- and for the restaurant next door, Thai Taste by Kob -- where I enjoyed several afternoon meals after shopping at Hung Phat.)
3. Earlier in the evening, I tuned into tonight's Tree House Concert performed by Bill Davie.
Bill overcame neck pain and his hands not always cooperating with one another, because of MS, and gave a stirring concert.
Tonight he played his song,"Raise Your Heart" for Christy and me, in memory of Everett.
If you'd like to hear Bill's performance from last night, it's up on YouTube. After a few directions, I'll post the link to the video of the concert.
If you'd like to listen to the entire concert, just let the video play.
If you'd like to jump right to "Raise Your Heart", sung in memory of Everett, click on the SHOW MORE under the beginning of the set list and click on the blue 20:38 right by the song title, "Raise Your Heart". This will take you right to the song.
Once you get there, if you'd like to hear Bill introduce the song, Bill's intro begins at 20:18. If you know how to drag a YouTube video back a bit, take it back to 20:18.
Got it?
OK!
To go to the video, click right here.
Endnote: Several listeners in Bill's virtual audience last night were people Bill knew from when he lived in the Methow Valley. While the concert progressed, these Methow Valley friends exchanged comments about their love for the place, expressing special affection for the Twisp River Pub closed since a fire in February 2016 forced its closure.
I noted in the midst of all this affection for the Methow Valley, after Bill sang "Raise Your Heart", that Everett was born in Twisp on July 3, 1930. Another listener, Holly, posted that her father was also born in Twisp back in 1913.
Having many paths and much love converge tonight around the history and the memories of Twisp and the Methow Valley greatly enriched tonight's Tree House Concert.
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