1. Bill Davie is not only an accomplished guitar player, songwriter, and singer, he is also an accomplished poet. He recently published a complex book of poems entitled, The Pandemic Suite. I've been reading these poems and today I finished writing a short piece for the Ancient Victorys newsletter, summarizing what I saw as the many dimensions of the pandemic Bill explored in his poems and that his daughter, Alyce, portrayed in her evocative cover painting.
If you'd like to read what I wrote about Bill's book, scroll down. I'll post it after 3BT #3. Scroll and little farther and you can read about Ancient Victorys.
2. I've never dropped acid and have very little experience with weed. But, hey, who needs hallucinogens or psychoactive drugs when I can just tune in to any basketball game with Bill Walton on the mic and go on a magic carpet ride with the Big Red Head.
Tonight, Grateful Bill was providing baked commentary during the Oregon Ducks' match up with the Stanford Cardinal. Walton LOVES Palo Alto, LOVES Stanford University, and LOVES the Bay Area and so every once in a while he interrupted his enthusiastic exultations and ramblings about Northern California and his LOVE of trees and acknowledged that Oregon and Stanford played a tightly contested basketball game. Cue up Steppenwolf.
3. As I see it, the Ducks haven't quite gelled yet. Chris Duarte is playing great as a scorer from the outside and driving to the tin and he plays menacing defense. I enjoyed L. J. Figueroa when he played for the Johnnies the last two years and he brings great energy to the Ducks. Figueroa can be a little erratic, but when his shots are dropping, as they did in a crucial stretch tonight, he is a force. Like Duarte, he's a tenacious defender and a strong leader. The third senior who makes these Ducks a tough opponent is Eugene "from Eugene (Walton)" Omaruyi. I love how he carves out space inside and makes quick moves to the hoop and he's capable of scoring from deep as well. He's tough, experienced, a little foul prone, but, to me, rock solid.
My hope is that Will Richardson has a break out game soon and re-emerges as the kind of player he was a year ago. He missed much of the season recovering from thumb surgery and has not quite been himself since he returned. I've seen flashes of him at his best with cagey moves to the iron, some great plays on defense, and splashing the occasional trey. I think Oregon's fortunes as the season winds down and the tournaments get underway rest significantly on how much Will Richardson returns to form.
Tonight, the Ducks defeated Stanford, 71-68, thanks largely to the three seniors and some excellent minutes from Chandler Lawson -- oh my! if this guy continues to mature, look out!
Here's what I wrote about Bill Davie's book, The Pandemic Suite:
When you first lay hands on Bill Davie’s latest book of poems, The Pandemic Suite (Moonstruck Press 2021), linger over Alyce Davies’ evocative cover painting of a discarded sky blue mask, one loop hooked to a bare branch of a tree in late autumn. It’s emblematic of Bill Davie’s poems as they plunge into multiple facets of experiencing the pandemic. The blue mask is temporary, out of place. Wind will blow it away. Likewise, the pandemic is out of place, impermanent, but hardly insignificant.
Bill’s suite of poems confronts significant questions raised by the pandemic about meaning in life, isolation, despair, and government along with his sense of his own mortality, aging, living with M.S., physical pain, and seeking relief from it. But this is not a gloomy book. Bill finds joy in reliving boyhood memories, inviting us to survey his world while sitting on a roof, read books with his family around a crackling beach fire, go fishing, and fall in love with rivers.
Above all, the pandemic gives rise to Bill’s gratitude for crows, trees, water, the rhythms of seasons, his children, his marriage, and, significantly, for the act of writing itself. Bill often makes us aware of himself as a writer of these poems, expressing his gratitude for art as a way to explore life and create beauty, especially poignant in the midst of a pandemic.
Here's the lowdown on Ancient Victorys -- and an appeal:
Ancient Victorys is an individual business, operating in a non-profit manner, to support, present, and document over 3000 musicians who appeared on Chris Lunn-run Open Mikes, concerts, jazz sessions, dances, seminars, and workshops in California and Washington from 1964-1990.
We are supported solely through memberships, door donations, and your donations.
COVID has hit us hard... HELP!
Email: chrislunn@comcast.net
POB 7515, Bonney Lake, WA 98391
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