Good morning. Hello. How are you? #607
Trip planning, questions about Joy Elementary, Joe Manchin is a dick, Laura Logan went crazy, Sonic Youth is still sadly broken up.
Good morning! Hello! How’s it going? Doing okay? Did you get COVID? Positivity rate has more than doubled in New York state in the last 24 hours. Congratulations, now it’s higher than here. Not in the city, though. In the city, it’s only gone up 50% in the last 24 hours. Be careful out there!
Thinking more about this trip to Boston in May, I am excited. I think the week we’re in Salem, I will make a trip up to Portland, maybe even for a night, and see Nick and his spiffing brewery and Briana and her awesome coffee shop. Maybe I’ll even see Shelbers, that would be nice. We could stay at that fancy hotel downtown I stayed at once for that weird conference. That’ll be fun. I am trying to explain to Jane about the trip, asking her if she remembers her other trip to Boston. I don’t think she does, but she keeps saying yes when I ask. It’s been so long since she’s traveled anywhere I don’t think she even really knows what travel is. I keep explaining we’re going to take a really long ride in the car. She says she’s excited.
And then I have to figure out how to get Jane up to Alaska this year. I really want to go for Solstice, but that seems a little quick after the Boston trip. Unless, you know, we just say “screw it” and make it all one big trip and drive up to Alaska from Boston. Which is very tempting, but, you know, I am putting so much work into this garden that seems somewhat self-defeating. But, then, so does planning your life around your garden I am not an old man yet! Yet. Ish.
Then again, there will probably be a giant wave of COVID Omicron BA2 anyway. Or, more likely, my two years of dillegence will be negated because I’ve cracked at the end, everyone else has gotten Omicron, my vaccines have worn off and my daughter never gets one because reasons, and the whole family gets it.
Speaking of Alaska, sort of, I have some questions for anyone that went to Joy Elementary that has a better memory than I do:
Am I remembering correctly that we generally ate lunch in our classrooms?
Am I remembering correctly that that balcony area above the gym was pretty much all we had in terms of a cafeteria?
Am I imagining that there was a stage built into one end of the cafeteria?
Does anyone have any photos of the interior of Joy Elementary at all?
I heard it is closed this year? Or going to close? That makes me very sad. Last night I had a dream that I bought Joy Elementary and moved into it. It was pretty awesome, though it needed a lot of infrastructural and physical plant repairs. Also I am slightly peeved about this dream because I went to bed reading a book called The Future of Capitalism by Paul Collier that is making me so mad at it’s half-assed analysis of society’s problems. I’m reading it for the latter chapters that supposedly contain some interesting potential policy solutions for our current partisan predicament, such as making “bankicide” a crime. Question mark? No idea. But that part sounded interesting. But the first half of the book is intolerable. It is intolerable because this clearly very smart man has somehow managed to completely negate the process of editing, and the text is almost comically impenentrable and poorly written. It’s also intolerable because if you DO get through to the true meaning of the text, it’s thoroughly facile and self-conflicting. Anyway the reason these two are linked in my mind is because Collier is, like, “for most people home is where they grew up and it always will be,” which is somewhat unobjectionable when I state it like that but the conclusions he drew from that, and the problems he ignored, and the privelege with which he stated it was all really quite problematic.
Anyway I was about to begin a great run of books by women and minorities and decided to throw this one in before I began that run, and I deeply regret it, and it’s only 270 pages but it’s taking me forever because it’s so awful. The last half better deliver.
While we’re on this sort of policy and economics train, let’s just throw in here that Joe Manchin is a total dick, and his coal baron persona decided to take over again and block the nomination of Sarah Bloom Raskin as Vice Chair of Supervision of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, aka “top cop” of the Fed because—quelle horreur— she had the temerity to believe that we ought to consider the climate change emergency when making our fiscal laws and policy. It should be stated of course, that every Republican also found this idea objectionable, including Susan “grave concern” Collins. But Joe is the coal baron of the bunch, so the rank corruption of the move looms much larger. Joe Manchin still makes a half million dollars a year off of coal, even as he is supposed to be a lawmaker. He sucks. He sucks so hard.
A weird thing I learned about yesterday is that Lara Logan is now a crazy right-wing conspiracy theorist, which is so nuts. Do you remember Lara Logan? She used to be CBS’s chief foreign correspendent. She used to be on 60 Minutes. She was good! She was a rising star until she was brutally assaulted while covering the Egyptian revolution in 2011, and then she totally screwed up a 60 Minutes report on Benghazi which at the time seemed like an unfortunate mistake, but now, hrm, who knows. Anyway, now she’s out there saying that Zelensky’s old comedy sketches are evidence of him being in the Occult, and that Fauci should be compared to Mengele. It is really shocking. I had no idea. Hadn’t thought about her in years, but man. I kinda wish I still hadn’t. I used to really respect her.
On a totally different note, this Pitchfork article about Sonic Youth’s post-Sonic Youth career is really good, and informative. They have a new album out soon. I mean, I’ve had a copy for a few months now because I am a weirdo who subscribes to Three Lobed Records’ record-of-the-month club, but it seems like it’s now coming out for the rest of the world. It is good. Check it out. I kinda wish I could see Sonic Youth again, they were one of my first concerts, and I’ve seen them in every decade of my adult life except the 2020s, sadly. This was an interesting thought exercise I saw on Rob Sheffield’s Facebook yesterday. What bands have you seen in every decade you’ve been an adult? So for me that would be the 90’s, 00’s, 10’s, and 20’s. So far the only band that qualifies is Yo La Tengo, since, you know, not seen many bands yet in the 20’s. I think by the two bands of Richard Butler’s career combined might qualify, and I think by the end of the year Dulli in his various incarnations and Spiritualized will qualify. Low would if I can manage to see them this decade. Sonic Youth too would have. I miss those guys. It took a while, but I miss them now.
Okay let’s do a raaaawk playlist. Let’s feel upbeat! Get some energy. Some blood pumpin. Plus it’s got Kim Gordon, one-quarter of that band I said up above that I missed. And the new Afghan Whigs single which definitely rocks. And other rocking stuff. Raaaawk!
All right, short one today. Was that a short one? It felt short. Maybe that’s just me. I hope you enjoy this issue immensely. If you have any questions, concerns, or feedback about this morning’s edition of Good Morning. Hello. How Are You? please do not hesitate to call.
Once I see Bob Weir in a few weeks, he'll qualify as the single human I've seen perform in all four of my adult decades, starting with the Grateful Dead in March 1990. And had I not passed on an 89 Dead show (to go on a vacation) could've tacked on the 80s too, ha