TBT

 

TBT

 Hard to believe it’s Thursday already 🤦‍♀️

TBT

 

Atlantis

 

Atlantis

The History of Atlantis
is an old book I found at a rummage sale.
I mailed it to Mom and she mailed it back.
She liked the book and the articles someone had clipped from the 
Burlington Free press of the sixties.
In the paper articles, Jacques Cousteau was looking for Atlantis.
Just like my Mom.
Jacques was like a member of the family, 
TV of the sixties...
that meant we watched his show
whenever he was on. Loved his French accent.

Curious was reading about the theory that there was No Atlantis....
Shocking!
Could Atlantis have been only a fancy tale spun from men looking to explain
a utopian paradise so perfect that the earth swallowed it whole leaving not a trace?

And would Mom be relieved that perfection is Not possible,
and Atlantis is not the be all and end all.
That common daily living raising 7 children is the ultimate challenge.

Yesterday I thought about Noah's ark, seeing 2 swallows yesterday, 2 geese, then 8 vultures.
2 by 2, flying home to our backyard.


The swallows I saw were relieved their home was still here.(I swear they chattered "thanks")

Grey and broken boards,
it is their home, their
Atlantis.

TBT

 Hard to believe that it’s Thursday already 😻

Lake Champlain 

Crown Point 

https://parks.ny.gov/visit/historic-sites/crown-point-state-historic-site

TBT

 It was a long time ago,

You know,

Yesterday 😎

TBT

 

My days working in ICU

Feels like yesterday.

TBT

 

Sunset

TBT

 

Last night,
Fred and I gave each other a special birthday present this year. OK, my birthday was 2 months ago and his is next month, but we said we wanted to do something special, unique, rare and that we both enjoy.
We decided to go back to the most amazing musical experience either of us ever had. Levon Helm's Midnight Rambles.
The next decision was the show with Carolyn Wonderland and Levon or Levon's birthday party. We felt the time ticking to buy the tickets. A growing number of music lovers are discovering this special genre. My blog promotes Levon's shows although if I have tickets I can be more open about how you should, in your lifetime, attend these rare concert experiences.
We decided on the Carolyn Wonderland and Levon Ramble.
We have been listening to CW's music and really appreciate her extreme range in notes, styles and feelings.
Last November we saw Carolyn Wonderland at the Ramble. She played with the masterful Guy Forsyth and band members.
As time went on we found out Guy Forsyth was performing too. Perfectly complementary with CW's voice, instrumentals.
We headed out Saturday morning. Down the long Champlain valley to the ferry at Ticonderoga. Then through the mountain pass to the thruway past Paradox. Down the thruway to Saugerties and meandering through to Woodstock below Overlook Mountain.
We were early in line and greeted by the always stellar staff and chatted with others in line about past shows, strategies to get the dough for tickets. Ebay sell stuff and buy Ramble tickets? Leave it to kids and resourceful adults to think up that one.
Convert your unused collectibles into a musical cleansing, a revival, renewal, healing. What cost redemption?
We energetically watched the sound checks, scanning the stage, fascinated by gadgets in focus, unlike big venues.
The web of wires and electronic things connected to the behind the scenes people, archiving live shows of extreme quality, talent, in one word: life.
Next, Carolyn Wonderland, Guy Forsyth and band step up.
Can I say they are a wonder each alone and together a synergistic powerhouse of sights and sounds.
They both use all the reaches possible with their respective voices and instruments of choice. If that was not enough, they write touching, funny, sometimes sarcastic music with a message resonating with each and everyone. Carolyn's voice is special, unique, masterful.
Her melodical mastery gives way to her amazing guitar playing and the trumpet, too. Carolyn writes both mournful and upbeat lyrics with variable speed from strolling to full speed. Guy played guitar, harmonica, was it a mandolin or a uke or what, and the most amazing saw playing I have ever heard and seen. Guy's lyrics, singing style catalogue, physical presence on stage makes the whole experience more fun to follow.
Last year a carnival barker and this year a common man singing Guantanomo Bay. 
"Walk on" one of my favorites.
We picked up some CD's.
available at 
carolynwonderland.com
guyforsyth.com

Next, Levon's band members set up during the break. Fred went out for CD's. A lightness is already palpable. The first bands jarring our collective bodies into a musical bliss. Humans in a wooden barn, resonating. Now anticipating. We knew what was next. As I said before, we knew we would never be the same.

Then the pinnacle moment we were waiting for, the powerful man, drummer, singer, mandolin player, conductor, with the gentle soul, the self giving persona, the performer, the father, the historian of musical genre.
Levon Helm steps on stage. The audience reponds with a roar, a whooping and hollering, at once ready to take the journey through the music with him, their Shaman guide.
We feel a healing coming on and each song, a word on the set list we can read from overhead, is so much more than a word. 
We enjoy once again Amy Helm, Theresa Williams, Larry Campbell, Jim Wieder, Howard Johnson, Brian Mitchell, et al (if i do not mention a name it is because I am sleep deprived and it is getting late. Each musician is top notch to play in the barn! We need to mow!) 
Then we have deja vu. Special guest Donald Fagen is here! We enjoy a new version of Shakedown Street, an old dead tune. Katie is on my mind as she would have had an incredible time at the ramble. Tennessess Jed, Calvary, the Weight with the first verse by CW.
So many tunes. 
Unlike the Nashville reviews I read, I want to say that Levon Helm played every tune I loved. The Ramble never leaves me longing for one more signature tune.
The Ramble is about being a unique live concert with fantastic musical talents and redeeming your feelings of worth by getting healed in Levon's Church with the heaven's choir. I don't know how he does it, but he does. And we are grateful.
Keep in touch with Levon's travels in my margin or at 
levonhelm.com

What a great gift!

TBT Understanding Bureaucracy

 Bureaucratica 

Friday, August 20, 2010

Bureaucratica

Dedicated to fellow co-workers, the government employees who suffer working in the system we must have and yet 

always is a complicated quagmire of opposing political directives incrementally f*ing things up to the point of 

exhaustion on our part, the bureaucratic gnats who juggle, throw and dodge regulations to the best of their human abilities.

Bureaucratica,
Bureaucratica,

Give me more paper please,

Give me more ink, 



Print some more paper

Cure my bureaucratic dis-ease.
My well has run dry,

Criteria recalled,

Print protocols,

Criteria

Recalled.

My life is printer to mailbox,

Phone message to e-mail,

Paper or plastic

None of this rhymes.

I wonder just how,

We can juggle it all,

Then who will pay,
Where will it fall.

For now I am a bureaucrat,

Legislated to be here,

A paper pushing gnat

For another fiscal year.

TBT

 

TBT

 A Day a long time ago 

TBT

 Remember when?

When your old clunky computer would Whir away?

You kept pressing ctrl-alt-del and popped a beer open.

Then you went and sat by the fire.

It wasn’t so long ago and 

It was a lifetime away.

Do you remember?

TBT

 All I had was a minute…

Minute Poem

All I have is a minute
To tell you all I know.
Will I leave out the hateful things,
Because I really have to go.
Will I omit the ugly mean things I have endured
Since the clock says 30 seconds.
Soon I am gonna blow.
Should I tell you how some wanted what I have,
Or hated who I was,
Or how that bitter stench remaining
Stained my view of man, because...
But 15 seconds is all I have
My tale is brief I know.
I loved a few, Hated none, 
And left a minute poem.

by mary e. gerdt 2.15.2010

TBT

 Posting again.

Two of my favorites 😻

Night Angel

As imagined by grok

Poems by Me

Night Angel 1

Night Angel

Night Angel,
Call to the angel,
in the night.

Close your eyes,
Fall to sleep,
Wait for a
Sweet heavy hand,
On your shoulder,
Weary traveller,
roam the World,
Oh, Night Angel.

And you fly over,
All the pain and sorrow,
All the stress and strain,
What do you find unfair,
What makes you sad,
Night Angel?

Wish tonight,
For your Perfect world,
For better days,
For justice fair,
For a letting go
of hate,
Night Angel,
Will you be here,
tonight?

Night Angel 2

Night Angel
Oh, Where are you?
The darkness came,
Where did you go?

How to coax you?
Simple Angel,
Where do you hide
When it all falls apart?

Are you there,
There in the darkness,
Even when,
I cannot see?

Do you whisper,
words of urging,
to be the best
that I can be?

What if,
My own Night Angel,
There is no sound,
I cannot hear you?
What If my ears,
no longer work?
Will you touch
my shoulder softly?
Let me know,
you are alright.

Oh Night Angel,
Hurry softly,
Hurry back,
Hurry back,
tonight.

 

TBT

 

Grok Imagined 

 A Vulture 

TBT

 

TBT

 I just tossed some photos, negatives,

writings from 30 years ago that I thought were good and

now need to be tossed. A lightness with each shoe box emptied.

Captain’s Cave

TBT

 

TBT