Big Ugly Man Doll

Thinksgiving.  That’s not a typo.  OK, it was a typo, but on reflection I left it there – because I decided that the things I’m thankful for require thought.

I’m thankful for people who can see past the end of their scripture.  Be it a Bible, Koran, Talmud, or the CyberTaoTeChing, I’m thankful for people who can read them for the good these books can do, for the joy and the peace they can bring, without building walls in their minds.  These books are filled with slogans, in many forms, and a good slogan can stop thought for 50 years.  I’m thankful for people who can think their way past them.

I’m thankful for family, those by blood and those by bonds of friendship.  Family is what we say it is, the tribal ties that we forge or we inherit by accident of birth with those around us.  I am lucky to have mine, and happy to be cooking for many of them today.

I’m thankful for my luck to have been born in an interesting time of change and of plenty, in this Western World.  These are not good days for all, but they are still good days for us – and likely for all who can read these words today – and I am thankful.

I am thankful for the Reigning Queen of Pink, for a thousand reasons, not least of which is that she loads the toothpaste on my toothbrush, and SOBUMD’s, every night.  No one asked her to, she just decided a few months ago that she could, and so she does.  Damned handy kid sometimes.  I stumble upstairs in the dark after reading into the night, and it’s there.  Thanks for that.  I am thankful for the Human Tape Recorder’s willingness and increasing ability to be my sous chef; she can make eggs, cookies, and brownies on her own, on request.   I am thankful for Number One Son, who teaches me a little every day about how people can be different and still be the same. 

I am thankful for readers, meaning people who read books, and Readers, meaning all of you lovely people who read me.  Your adolation is like crack to me, you know that. 

And last I am thankful for SOBUMD, who makes it all possible. 

Happy Thinksgiving to you all!  What are you thinkful for this year?

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I’ve decided to count down to Thinksgiving, and take a moment each day to think about things I’m thankful for.  Here we are at T-minus One and counting!

Number One:  Turkey!

Dear Great Pumpkin, thank you for allowing all the birds that we’re all gonna eat tomorrow to live long enough to get really juicy.  They did not die in vain.  Amen.

Roasted, stuffed, ladled with gravy, basted with bourbon and butter, and carved up on a platter, if there’s much better out there on the menu tomorrow, I don’t know about it.  Fried, sliced, diced, hashed, or next to the cranberries, I’m thankful for all them there birds what who’ve given their all for the sake of my next four or five meals. 

Tomorrow is Thinksgiving – are you thinking about what you’re thankful for?  Let us know!

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I’ve decided to count down to Thinksgiving, and take a moment each day to think about things I’m thankful for. 

Number Two:   Poetry.

There once was a poem for Thanksgiving
About a turkey, absolved and forgiving.
Despite all his pluck
That bird’s outta luck,
And in death he’ll be stuffed for the living!

Is there anything better than a sappy, ignorant scrap of doggerel to lift our spirits?  Sure there is, but I can’t think of it at the moment.  A good poem, though, unlike the above, can stop us in our tracks.  Poets at their best make us hear the sounds of the babbling brook rushing over the rocks past us, make us smell the decay of the old building as we see the foundations crumbling over the course of a lifetime, make us believe not only that ravens can talk but that, there but for the grace, it is ourselves they would address.   The poet’s job is not just to show you, not merely to tell you, but to bring you there, willy nilly, whether you really wanted to go or not. 

I have seen the frost-bitten skies of the Yukon through the words of Robert Service.  I have heard the siren call of the East in the temple bells of Mandalay, and that of the shores of Loch Katrine in the songs of Walter Scott.  I have been a rooster over at Free Range Poetry, once in a while, once in a while. 

I have seen the best of minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked, and for this, I am thankful.

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I’ve decided to count down to Thinksgiving, and take a moment each day to think about things I’m thankful for. 

Number Three:  Books.

The reading of them, the writing of them, of the making of books there shall be no end.  I surround myself with them, in part because they help insulate the walls in the wintertime, but mostly because I’ve so often found a wonderful world waiting for me on the other side of a wall of words, full of magic, of science, of fascinating characters, of bastards and dastards and witches and bitches and lions and tigers and bears, oh my. 

My favorites have always been those that reference books that have come before, whether those of the author or others – the quiet in jokes that solidify the conversation between reader and writer.  When the protagonist mentions something that happened in Oz, or Middle Earth, or Narnia, it’s a wink from the author, saying, “I’ve read those, too.”

The three lunatic children have been known to describe the house as living in a library, and for the chance to offer them two thousand passports to distant lands, I am thankful.

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OK, sorry, that’s their tagline.  They were totally pretty good, though.  The Human Tape Recorder was not alone at the Fillmore in Silver Spring last night: some of the songs seemed to consist of the folks on stage just holding the microphones out to the audience.  I didn’t remember “Karaoke with 2000 people” on the ticket, but hey.

If you’re not familiar with Starkid and the StarKidPotter show, I assume that you are over the age of consent and don’t have teenagers at home.  The music didn’t suck, generally, and some of the standout songs were really good – when this group puts its collective mind to doing an R&B old school blues number, they can bring it down.  The parts that came from the college auditorium review still sound like they came from a college auditorium review – not that there’s anything wrong with that. 

While it’s disconcerting to be among 2000 people at a show and still raise the average age by 5 years, I have to say that makes me glad to see teens at a concert like this wearing Spinal Tap tee-shirts.  Another good one said “Shakespere hates your emo poems.”  On me, that would be rude.  On the skinny goth emo chick wearing it, it was hilarious.  I would have bought her a drink, but of course she was probably 12. 
 
The HTR had several friends there, bordering on a mob of their own, and one of the other parents loaned me a pair of earplugs for the duration.  What little hearing I have, I owe to him.  What little sanity I have I don’t owe anyone for, I paid for it – in the form of a Dewers on the rocks, mid-way through the show.  The venue is actually great; the acoustics at the Fillmore are amazing in surround-sound – I got all the songs from the stage, from the sound system, and from 1500 female amplifiers, all aged 18 and under. 

The highlight of the evening was being groped by a teenage girl with a Ron Paul for President button.  Of course, when I texted this fact to SOBUMD (“My life is getting weirder by the minute!”), all I got back in terms of sympathy was “Just lie back and think of the blog.”  Heh. 

The opening act was a guy named George Watsky.  He was more than just pretty good – I’d’ve paid to see him by himself.  He recalls Bo Burnham, but I mean that in a nice way.   More interesting to me was that when someone shouted something about “do the something something one” he said, “This is a concert.  That’s a poem.  You don’t really want me to recite a poem to you, do you?”  The crowd said yes, pretty clearly – and he stood there on stage and recited a poem (about lisping, and getting past that fact) to a crowd of 2000 mostly teenage girls.  And they applauded like crazy – his delivery was great, the content was good, but to me the simple fact that the opening act can still hold a crowd like this steady and happy with a poem…  Well, it does my heart good. 

But all good things must come to an end, and I got the HTR home a little after midnight – a near-final birthday gift concluded – and it was totally awesome.  Just ask her!

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