Shine On Us, Harvest Moon

 soothsayer Lincoln

piano player’s message

love song singalong

Abraham Lincoln, concerned in 1838 about the “perpetuation of our political institutions,” issued this blunt warning from Springfield, Illinois.  “At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected?  I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us.  It cannot come from abroad.  If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher.  As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.  I hope I am over wary; but if I am not, there is, even now, something of ill-omen amongst us.”  The same omens that alarmed Lincoln petrify us now—“increasing disregard for law…wild and furious passions in lieu of sober judgments of Courts…substitution of worse than savage mobs, for the executive ministers of justice.”  Heed the fortune teller.  Lincoln wanted to be wrong—we must make it right.

When record label executives demanded a commercial pop song from Sara Bareilles, she refused.  Stymied at first, she reclaimed her artistry and “sat down and wrote something for me.”  Her corporate-rebuking, rhythmic-seducing “Love Song” wrote itself in thirty minutes.  “I’m trying to let you hear me as I am.”  Her right shoe!  “If your heart is nowhere in it, I don’t want it for a minute.”  Heart in.       

Blowing Horns of Plenty—Anand Giridharadas and Jason Crow  

Indie media stalwart Anand Giridharadas aces “A Tennis Player’s Lesson for Democrats.”  Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner split the four Grand Slam titles this year, but confident Alcaraz’s acrobatic victory at the US Open looked altogether different.  Sinner’s post-match confession: “I was very predictable on the Court today.  Carlos changed the game.  I did not go for serve and volley or use drop shots.  Facing Carlos you must leave your comfort zone.  I will seek changes even at the cost of losing some matches, improve my game, and become less predictable.”  So.  How can we improve our games and save democracy?  “Predictability is a problem,” Giridharadas powers up, and “the difference between Sinner and the Democratic Party is that he knows he has this problem.”  Democrats should not worry about making a mistake, being disliked, moving too fast.  Goodbye, comfort zone—hello, new country.  Giridharadas dons his rally cap: “Get wild.  Get weird.  Hit a drop shot.  Sit in at the Capitol.  Serve and volley.  Shut down the government and see what happens.  Hit a slice.  Make a speech for the ages.”  What an attractive proposition: “Stop playing like Sinner and play like a sinner.”  Amen.

A high school Colorado boy working minimum wage jobs, enlisting in the National Guard and joining construction crews for college tuition, Army paratrooper Jason Crow served three tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan and earned the Bronze Star.  Since 2019 a lawyer representing Colorado’s 6th District in the House of Representatives, his September 19th speech on the House floor emboldens.  “The walls of our democracy are being disassembled, brick by brick…but there is courage everywhere we look.”  President Lincoln pounds his cane at Crow’s goosebump-inducing close: “As a young paratrooper leading an infantry platoon in the invasion of Iraq, I think about the faces of those young men I was responsible for…Black, White, Asian, Hispanic…from the North, South, East, West, farms and cities, rich and poor.  When I think of America I think of those young paratroopers, how we came together despite differences, served and fought together.  We found great strength in one another.  That is America.  There’s a tradition in the paratroopers that the leader of the unit jumps out of the plane first and then the others follow.  I am ready to jump.”    

Sowing Seeds for Reaping—Sonia Sotomayor and Adelita Grijalva  

The Fourth Amendment to the Constitution: “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause.”  A Puerto Rican girl grew up in a Bronx housing project that since 2010 boasts the name of the first Hispanic Supreme Court Justice: “The Justice Sonia Sotomayor Houses and Community Center.”  Read Jen Rubin’s “Undaunted from the Bench” as Sotomayor rails against the recent Supreme Court ruling that allows racial profiling.  From her scathing dissent: “We should not have to live in a country where the Government can seize anyone who looks Latino, speaks Spanish, and appears to work in a low wage job.”  Carwashes and construction sites.  The six justices fail to give the customary majority opinion for their decision.  A concurring justice, however, admits that US citizens and legal residents will be detained on the “relevant factor” of ethnicity, but they “will go free after the brief encounter.”  Sotomayor’s indignation at this ugly, foolish lie comforts everyone living this country’s reality. 

On September 23rd, a Tucson girl proudly announces her public servant mother’s landslide victory in Arizona’s 7th congressional district election: “History made!”  Congresswoman-elect Adelita Grijalva, succeeding her father Raúl, promises that “I will absolutely be the 218th vote” required for the Epstein files discharge petition.  Though she is in DC caucusing with her Democratic colleagues, the House speaker fled her swearing-in until the federal government could shut down.  Her constituents currently have no representation in Congress.  Meet calm and bold Representative Grijalva.  She advocates for healthcare and for small business owners—for everyone “living in constant fear” as ICE rips through her border community “not even asking questions.”  Schools and churches.     

watch Redford’s last scene

in “All the President’s Men”

reenactment soon

October 18th protests—November 4th elections—60 years of Neil Young

“There’s a man with a gun over there / Step out of line, the man comes and takes you away.”  Multicolor-sweatered in 1966, young Canadian protester Neil Young flashed guitar harmonics and wraparound sideburns in Buffalo Springfield’s “For What It’s Worth.”  Since 2020 a US citizen relishing the right to vote, Young and the Chrome Hearts rocked the truth worldwide on August 29th: “Got Big Crime in DC at the White House.”  Foot stompin’ protest.  “Got to clean the fascists out.”               

“Come a little bit closer,” please do, a few minutes before midnight (EST) this evening.  Bask in that “Harvest Moon” glow.  “There’s a full moon risin’ / Let’s go dancin’ in the light.”  Young played a lively set at Farm Aid last month, but we’re squished into this 1992 throng.  Farm Aid’s sideburned co-founder, a feather in his cap, takes his new release center stage.  Moonbeams.          

Thistle.  Crocodile.  You.  Lemon.  Wind.  Ant.  Whale.  Berry.  Me.  “Only a tiny dot brimming with / is is is is is.”    ·  Shared atoms—only union.   Always “Singularity,” never plurality, poet Marie Howe recites.   ·   Liquid rock.  “We were ocean.”  Earthy sky.  “All  everything  home.”   ·

Laufey’s quartet—her voice, guitar, and two cellos—widens “Moon River” more than a mile right straight into brimming All.  Simple room with a window, cozy chair with a pillow.  Drifters round the bend, off to see the world.  “Wherever you’re going, I’m going your way.”    · 

Chilean poet Pablo Neruda lulls us into “Keeping Quiet.”  Slowing down.  Breathing.  Coming to an ease-inducing stop.  Walking together in the shade.  Far from nothing, this is everything.  Only union.  “Now I’ll count up to twelve / and you keep quiet and I will go.”  Silence.  1.  2.  3.  4.  5.  6.  7.  8.  9.  10.  11….    ·

·

but before I go

midnight’s Leon Redbone time

“Shine On, Harvest Moon”

·