Wednesday, April 21, 2021

Three Beautiful Things 04/20/2021: Luna to the Vet, Discovering Scary Pockets, Fleetwood Mac and Talking Heads Nostalgia

 1. First thing this morning, I gathered up Luna and, facing nine pounds of earnest resistance,  quickly put her in her carrier. We then headed down to the veterinarian's office where I checked her in for a dental cleaning and a couple of tooth extractions. Much of the news was very good. Dr. Cook checked her glucose number and it was very good. Luna continues to be in remission from when her numbers were high and it looked like she was diabetic. She also got through the procedure with no problems. Once home, she was a bit lethargic and spent hours on the ottoman. At one point, after I'd gone to bed, I got up, picked her up, and brought her into bed with me, but she was not interested, leaped off the bed, and returned to the ottoman.

Once every twelve hours, I am giving Luna a liquid antibiotic and a liquid pain med. 

She doesn't like that. 

2. As I was scrolling through Facebook this evening, I spotted a post (h/t to Mark Kenney) entitled "If Stevie Wonder Wrote 'Layla'" by Scary Pockets.  I listened to it, enjoyed it a lot, and soon discovered that Scary Pockets is a project, spearheaded by two guys, Ryan Lerman and Jack Conte. They bring together different session musicians and every week release a video performing a well-known song as funk. Scary Pockets has a YouTube channel and I spent at least a couple of hours listening to funk covers of songs by The Beatles, Blue Swede, Gloria Gaynor, Fleetwood Mac, and others. It was thrilling. They are covering songs as funk in the same way Scott Bradlee's Postmodern Jukebox covers songs in vintage swing and jazz styles. In became more enamored than ever with soul music by listening to different artists perform on Daryl Hall's show, "Live from Daryl's House" and tonight I was awakened in ways I never had been to the beauty of funk. 

3. When I lived in Greenbelt, Maryland, I experienced my long delayed awakening to the beauty and genius of Fleetwood Mac. It was a private pleasure that I enjoyed while home alone, but that also got a welcome jolt by a guy who poured beers at DC Brau and played a channel on one of the music streaming services called Yacht Music. Often, Fleetwood Mac and Stevie Nix solo songs came on that channel. 

That experience of awakening to Fleetwood Mac became an emotional experience and tonight, as I watched videos of "The Chain" and "Dreams" and "Don't Stop" and "Tusk" and other Fleetwood Mac songs, I was moved to tears. Both times I had teaching jobs at Whitworth, songs from Rumours were in the air, on the radio, playing in the HUB, and, later, featured on MTV. I was thrown back to days I loved in Spokane. I also felt nostalgic about living in Greenbelt, about Sundays with Debbie at DC Brau, and longed to have those days back again.  

It was getting late, but I wasn't done with YouTube videos yet and decided to relive visits to movie theaters in Eugene and Portland and dance parties I attended featuring the film Stop Making Sense by the Talking Heads. I listened to several songs once,  but a couple, "Life During Wartime" and "Thank You For Sending me an Angel",  I repeated and gave special attention to Tina Weymouth's innovative and perfectly played bass lines. I loved them. 

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