A Wild Musical Conversation

When it was over, I stood still in a corner out of the way of folks filing out of the balcony rows and tried to find a word or phrase that might begin to sum up what just happened on the stage.

After the encore, cheers and applause of a packed Firehouse theater thundered as loud as before it. Smiles of the departing audience matched those of the eight musicians on stage, often with the words “High energy!” on their lips.

“Energetic” understates the rocking “Nor’east AmeriCeltAcadian Roots Music,” as EJ Ouellette calls it, belted out by his band, Crazy Maggy, long a local favorite. New England and the Canadian Maritimes are, he enthuses, “the Fiddle and Folk Funnel of America,” and we hear it in songs such as “In the Pines” and “Boston to Bangor.”

Pumped with energy and enthusiasm, is the intensity of the band’s prolonged instrumental jams with the lead often shifting from fiddle to saxophone to one of a few guitars to pennywhistle to stand-up bass—with occasional statements from two percussionists, one on conga, the other with a full kit. Always riding Crazy Maggy’s energy is a gradually building crescendo.

Ouellette, using his fiddler’s bow like a baton, often called for turns the music took. For a few numbers he put fiddle aside for a banjo, a mandolin, or guitars both electric and acoustic, each of them a seamless addition to a most improbable band.

Improbable? Name one other band that fuses a fiddle with a saxophone, much less one that features them as the two lead instruments. This is no doubt because Ouellette has played longer with sax player, sometimes vocalist, Steve Baker than the others. As unlikely as the pairing is, there are transitions between them where you can’t tell the instruments apart. This was most notable on “Shoe City,” Ouellette’s rueful celebration of his native Haverhill, and the song most often named by attendees after the concert ended.

Billed as “roots music,” Crazy Maggy plays primarily Celtic-Rock, but is open to the influences added by diverse members. Often, Baker added a jazz vibe ranging from Springsteen’s E Street to New Orleans’ Preservation Hall. Lead guitarist Joe Holaday added mesmerizing riffs that ranged from country western to psychedelic to the deep, probing licks once a staple of classic rock—no matter the tempo, you heard every note and the spaces between them. Kristine Malpica double-handedly added a Caribbean flavor to the mix while also serving as the audience’s metronome, the conga strapped around her neck.

And that was just stage left. To the right we heard bassist Justin Meyer remind us why, in the South, it’s called a slap-fiddle, though he often backed the band with an electric bass as precise as the strings and wind before him. Steve Potts added occasional mystical, ethereal, sometimes haunting flavors to the music, including a few nice counterpoints with the instrument’s distant cousin, the saxophone. Rhythm guitarist and vocalist Carol Coronis, she of the WUNH’s Aegean Connection and Ceili Show, added Mediterranean flavors to the mix. Her banter with EJ between songs served as a side-dish of slap-happy relief from the band’s main course.

Last, but I’d say most essential to the sustained energy and many transitions of Crazy Maggy, is drummer John Loud. If Ouellette is the director, then Loud was his assistant who made the directions happen, all of which we could tell by the frequency with which Ouellette turned to Loud to get a nod of his head. Most thrilling of all, was not a moment of Loud’s blazing speed, by the opening of one of the band’s few slow numbers, “Niel Gow’s Lament,” a Celtic treasure. Loud opened it with muffled sticks, soft and low for several bars. You barely noticed when Ouellette joined in on fiddle, also soft and low.

The sensation was that of watching a flower bloom, and as each instrument chimed in, one by one, grow taller, wider, brighter. True to Celtic tradition, the band segued from the reverence of an opening tune into rapid fire, offering “Morrison’s Jig,” a staple of Irish sessions for time out of mind.

As folks walked past me exiting the theatre, I realized that their reactions were not so much those of having watched a show, but of having sat in on a conversation.

As high-charged as it was, Crazy Maggy’s conversation was always drawing us in with all eight participants, each with varying interests having plenty to say, knowing their stuff, and complimenting each other at every turn.

That’s no doubt why, as they filed out, everyone was talking–not just to whom they were with, but to anyone near. And there I was trying to find the word “conversation” to describe what had just happened as we all kept it happening.

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Crazy Maggie. Photo stolen from EJ Ouellette.

Maple MAGAts Run Dry in Canada

Behind the concession stand at the Screening Room, I’m always ready when a patron asks for a ginger ale.

“Ah, Canada Dry! The greatest contradiction in terms in the history of language!”

The busier, the better, and the laughter, the louder. Of course, I say it loud enough for everyone in a crowded lobby to hear. As they say in theater, crack the next one-liner after the laughter peaks and is about halfway down:

“Or is it the history of geography? Or the geography of language?”

These last few months, I get a third round of laughter, as loud as the first two combined, when I put the can on the counter:

“Yes, Canada Dry! Or is it America Dry?”

On one occasion, I took it right back out of the patron’s hand: “Let me see that! This can may not be legal!”

Last night, I told patrons I’d ask my friend in Toronto when he and his neighbors were going to comply with President Me’s plan. More laughter.

“Don’t laugh! He’s a smart guy! Has a beautiful home overlooking Lake New York! A perfect home, the likes of which you’ve never seen, I have to say, the most beautiful in the world, let me tell ya’, will make your head spin, a fantastic house to be honest with you, the greatest in the history of great lakes when you think about it, they call them ‘great lakes,’ and they are the greatest lakes ever known, really, for boats and sharks and batteries and windmills and Elton John…”

Luckily, I can end this nonsense on a Blue Nose dime simply by turning to another customer with a smile and a soft-spoken, “May I help you?” and the laughter tails off on its way from the lobby into the theater.

When President Me started bloviating about making Canada the 51st state, our neighbors to the north were preparing for a national election to decide which party would lead its parliamentary government.

Before the bloviation south of their border, the Conservatives had a whopping 24-point lead over Liberals in the polls. Then came the bloviation, including the bloviator’s endorsement of the Conservative candidate, a man so politically stupid that he actually welcomed it.

He may as well have ingested Chlorox. The reversal in the polls was so rapid and extreme that the Liberal victory reminded New England Patriot fans of the 25-point deficit midway into the third quarter that the team overcame to win the 2017 Super Bowl.

Dewey defeats Truman? This was more like David defeats Goliath with an American pea-brain fired from his slingshot.

It was the only time that I, and I believe my Toronto friend, ever said, “Thank You” to President Me.

I did send a question to Toronto, but not about ginger ale.

Rather, it was something that occurred to me when I heard that Canadians had adopted a hockey term as a reaction to President Me’s absurd designs on their country: “Elbow’s Up!”

Politically, it means just what it means on the ice, We are ready to fight!

That’s what makes Canada so appealing to anyone who has traveled there and Canadians to anyone who has spent time with them: The ability to be playful and ferocious all at once.

As an American, I had to be more on the ferocious side of that equation when I wondered how much air time Canadian radio DJs gave The Guess Who’s 1969 mega-hit, “American Woman.”

I think it fair to call the song “hard-rock” before the term was coined. Opening lyrics sound like it’s all about a relationship gone very, very bad. Not until the third verse do we get the metaphor:

American woman
Said get away
American woman
Listen what I say
Don’t come a-hangin’ around my door
Don’t wanna see your face no more
I don’t need your war machines
I don’t need your ghetto scenes

Specifics may have changed over the past 57 years, but the revulsion of Canadians to the idea of having a Prime Minister Mini-Me recalled the seething anger of that song:

Coloured lights can hypnotize
Sparkle someone else’s eyes
Now, woman
Get away from me
American woman
Mama, let me be

My friend answered by making a distinction:

I just did 5 or 6 google searches to see if there was a surge in AirPlay. No success. Will dig further… My feeling is that, except for the Maple MAGAts who were frothing at the mouth to become the 51st state, most Canadians seemed to go out of their way to make clear that it is tRump and fascism we hate, not the American people. For this reason, intuition tells me the song likely did not trend. Just my guess. I’ll ask around.

Never quite thought of it that way, but we Americans let this happen, as 30% of us didn’t bother to vote. Aren’t Canadians being too kind to let us off the hook?

Question may be rhetorical, but it was answered emphatically by a post that went viral on social media. From Dean Trumbley, a self-described Conservative and Chief Executive Officer of Greenwood, British Columbia, a small city that sits on the international border:

I say this, congrats to the minority Liberal Government and now let’s bind together as Canadians again… Grow up and realize that everyone is entitled to their belief and their vote. I don’t care who you are or who you voted for. You are my Canadian colleague, my Canadian neighbor, and we are all in this together. Let’s NOT become the USA in attitude as they are being ripped apart by bigotry, hatred and steeped in false reality. We are smarter than that.

Once upon an attention span, so were we.

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And just whose flag is conspicuous by its absence here?

Toronto with lovely Lake New York in the foreground. Did you know that Lake New York is a Great Lake, the greatest of the Great Lakes, really, when you think about it…

A Holiday with Six Names

As a performer at a Renaissance festival, I’m caught on the Line of Demarcation regarding the holiday Americans observe in mid-October.

As I like to say whenever the controversy comes up in conversation, “For better or worse, Christopher Columbus was our guy. I’m under contractual obligation to call it ‘Columbus Day’.”

At first I was stunned to see a roomful of people gasp. They all believed it. Even as I quickly admit the joke, some will say something to the effect that, “Well, today, it seems possible.”

Notice the emphasis on “today.” This weekend, President I-Alone-Can-Name-It declared that the name “Columbus” will be the only one applied to the day.

What he really wants is to erase the movement in recent years to call it Indigenous People’s Day or Native American Day, or even the theoretical compromise of Encounter Day–and, oh by the way, deflect attention from his disastrous dismantling of the economy and the Three Stooges vibe of his ridiculous cabinet.

Five years older than I, he should know that the day has always had alternative names. In the upper Great Lakes among those of Scandinavian descent, it has long been Leif Erikson Day. United States of Leif! Are we not Leifers?

On the Great Plains it has always been Pioneer Day. When they talk about schooners of old, they’re not visualizing sails across an ocean but covered wagons across the prairie.

Indeed, when at the faire, I truly am under contractual obligation not to offend patrons, and so I avoid it in the preceding weeks by telling them what special events we have planned for “the holiday that has six names.”

Always gets a laugh, which fulfills an item in my job description.

Still, the man who knows no past and sees no future will say anything that allows him to boast in the present. Surely he regards his Columbus Day declaration as a big, if symbolic, deal, a victorious battle in the full-scale war MAGA has been waging against history, geography, literature, and science. But as an amateur cartographer and a one-half Italian-American myself, I call it an insulting pittance to Columbus.

Consider the name “America.” If Columbus was first, shouldn’t the continents be named North and South Columbia? Why aren’t we the “United States of Columbia”?

Cue Dinah Shore: See the USC in your Mitsubishi, Columbia is asking you to call! Cue The Guess Who: Columbian Woman, stay away from me!

What happened? Amerigo Vespucci happened. Did he happen across the Atlantic just when some ancestor of Rand McNally stated drawing maps? Did good old Amerigo send a few trunk loads of Aztec gold or Panama Red to the McNally estate? Did he marry McNally’s sister? Did he just have better PR?

No, no, no, and no. A shameless cartographer, he drew the maps himself, and there was no oversight committee or peer review to stop him from naming the New World after himself.

And so we are Americans rather than Columbians. Too late to restore that enormous of a heist.

But President Now-and-Only-Now had a chance to give the Italian who sailed for Spain much more that a measly day out of 365 on the calendar. Not only did he miss it, but he rubbed sea-salt into Columbus’ wounds when he absurdly “renamed” the Gulf of Mexico.

All he had to do was re-name it, “Gulf of Columbia.” Instead, Vespucci steals yet another honor.

Meanwhile, Rand McNally announced that it is awaiting “legal and public review” before making any change in its atlases. Are they bargaining for added shipments of Punto Rojo? A high price in more ways than one!

Just as well. A few historians believe Columbus was a Portuguese impostor papered as an Italian navigator to deliberately take Spain off course. I tend to believe them.

Or maybe I only prefer to believe them. What, in 2025, could be more fitting for this country, no matter what we call it, than to have a holiday for an impostor?

And to have it declared by President I-Run-the-Country-and-the-World?

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This article makes the case that Columbus was Spanish:
https://dominicantoday.com/dr/local/2021/09/25/researchers-seek-to-prove-christopher-columbus-was-in-fact-galician-pedro-madruga/

This one offers the possibility that he was a “Celtic-Jewish pirate”:
https://members.ancient-origins.net/articles/christopher-columbus-0

An Odd Sign of Adulthood

As a resident of Plum Island, I barely know my way around Byfield save for weekly visits to the public library. The two places are on opposite ends of Newbury, a town eight-miles wide as the gull flies.

May have taken me months, possibly years to notice the small signs attached to a chain link fence facing me as I drove in from the interstate. Perhaps because it’s a distance from Lunt St. where I turn.

Eventually, I had an errand at the post office, and was rather stunned to see a crude, cruel, brainless smear made against public officials. Over time the signs would change, with the work of the crayons slightly improved, but their drift of diarrhea always smelling the same.

I prefer not to quote a word of it, nor name the names the signs slurred, except to say that someone who has unchecked access to and use of that fence across the street from the post office must have modeled himself as a political Beavis & Butt-Head now grown into some odd facsimile of adulthood.

Ah, but to call the signs “juvenile” would be generous, and while our better angels always call for generosity, there’s no way we should extend it to those who spew hate.

And for now the signs are gone. Ordinarily that would be good news, end-of-story, but it’s a political story which means there’s always more.

On the chain-link fence is now a professionally printed campaign sign endorsing Dana Packer for town selectman. Any curious Newbury resident who does not already know, needs to know of any connection that might stick Dana Packer to the excrement displayed on the previous signs.

For those of us planning to vote on May 13th, one question must be answered: Has Packer publicly denounced the signs?

If the answer to that question is anything less that a clear and emphatic yes, then a vote for Packer is a vote for hate.

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https://www.old-maps.com/ma/ma_towns/essex/Essex56/index.html

One Dimensional Chess

Last night was the annual White House Correspondents Association bash in DC, usually headlined by a comedian and attended by the sitting president.

Reagan, Bush Senior, Clinton, Obama, and Biden all joined the one-line political zingers of comics ranging from Jay Leno to Conan O’Brien to Michelle Wolff with zingers of their own. And Bush Junior was a good sport to stand right beside Will Ferrell.

Much as I would rather not speak well of a Republican, I’d say Reagan got the best laugh when he brought First Lady Nancy to the podium, mentioned tongue-in-cheek all the “wonderful” coverage they had received, and asked if she had “anything nice to say” about the people before them.

Loudest blank stare I ever heard.

This year, President Mussolini skipped it, as he did three times during his first blundering term, and the WHCA skipped the comedy. I’ll leave reasons for that to The Hollywood Reporter (link below).

That left the awards and speeches. I wasn’t taking notes, and frankly I was watching only because I was too exhausted to be cooking up anything of my own or even reading anything. So I don’t know exactly what award it was or what news outlet received it. Axios is my guess, and you can verify that or find another source on its website (link also below).

What piqued my interested was that it was a thorough analysis of Biden’s attempt to play both sides in Gaza. One of the several reasons cited for the selection of the award was that it documents how Joe Biden, still a candidate for president, lost more votes than he would have gained had he refused to assist the Israeli Defense Force raids in Gaza.

Two other awards were also won for coverage related to Gaza. No one said it outright, and the word itself was barely mentioned, sounding as though it should be in quotes, but the overall implication was clear: There’s no hiding genocide.

One included quotes showing that Biden’s staff was actively “covering up” his “mental decline.” At times, decisions were made for him.

Can’t help but wonder if Democrat higher-ups kept the charade going just enough to get past the convention. And will they do it again? Notice last week’s dispute between DNC Chair Ken Martin and DNC Vice-Chair David Hogg, the young survivor of the Parkland HS shootings who called for more primary challengers.

Did Martin and the old guard learn nothing from 2016? How long is the ghost of Debbie Wasserman Schultz going to haunt us? And do we prefer nominations over coronations even as we attend weekly protests holding signs that say, “No Kings”?

Had there been a comedian at the WHCA annual bash this year, he or she could have played that sign as if calling “checkmate.”

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https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/politics-news/white-house-correspondents-dinner-2025-no-trump-awards-1236201648/

2024 Award Winners

America Crucified

Irony abounds:

A teenager flees a Central American country to escape gang violence, only to be arrested and sent back to that country on the suspicion of belonging to a gang.

Moreover: The country is El Salvador, a name that means, “The Savior,” a reference to Jesus Christ who had a lot to say about what we do onto others, including “the least of these.”

But more: Offering no evidence, the White House Press Secretary continues to condemn the man as “a foreign terrorist and an MS-13 gang member” while a crucifix hangs from her neck.

Still more: The Attorney General, always with a crucifix around her neck, chimes in:

“America is safer because he is gone… And that woman that he is married to and that child he had with her? They are safer tonight because he is out of our country…”

Anyone else would have said “his wife,” but “that woman that he is married to” has an implied slur more suited to MAGA’s crucifix-clad purpose.

Notice, too, the “that” in place of “whom.” They never miss a trick to dehumanize.

What “that woman” says while pleading for his return? Don’t listen. She’s not wearing a crucifix. And if she was, it would be called a prop, desecration, paid for by George Soros.

Mind you, a Justice Dept. lawyer had already admitted that the arrest and deportation were due to “administrative error.” If so, is a crucifix now nothing more than an exemption from the Ninth Commandment?

Yet more irony: An American president says he’s going to annex Greenland and Canada, but cannot convince El Salvador’s president to release Kilmar Abrego Garcia from a concentration camp as tightly packed as a new mom’s diaper bag.

Abrego Garcia’s continued confinement is no mistake. The arrest and deportation of an innocent man is every bit as deliberate as the gold trappings just added to the Oval Office.

And just as loud and glaring. Their intended message is to the American public, and they want there to be no mistake about it. Just ask the lawyer who was fired from Justice for admitting that “error”:

He can break any law they want, and no one can stop him, not even a Supreme Court that a year ago granted the convicted felon complete immunity, nor the leaders of a political party on its knees to him.

They are not just above the law. They are beyond reason. As Russian novelist Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn wrote of Stalin’s USSR, their slogan may as well be, “We never make mistakes!”

Abrego Garcia may be innocent, but brown skin combined with a name ending in a vowel make him suspect. In MAGA’s Unravelled States of America, they are all suspect, so it makes a perverse kind of sense that MAGA leaders would make an example, not of a proven criminal, but of a productive citizen.

Innocent? All the better.

Frighten them all. The more cruel, the better. Ditto the more unfair. Some will self-deport

Irony appears endless. Millions of white Americans who call themselves Christian voted for this.

And, yes, they knew it was coming, just as they knew of the cuts planned for Social Security, medical research, veterans’ benefits, and all the rest.

Project 2025 explicitly calls for a theocratic government, what they call a “Christian” government. Modelled on Viktor Orban’s Hungary, the term is as fraudulent as a crucifix around a MAGA neck.

Some of us are displaying-upside down American flags at recent “Hands Off” and “No Kings” rallies from coast to coast. Occurred to me that an upside-down crucifix would be more to the point.

Then I learned that an inverted cross has a specific meaning related to the crucifixion of St. Peter that has to do with being unworthy. Now that’s irony!

But the greatest irony of all is that this defiance of American courts, this contempt for the American Constitution, this crime against humanity dominated national news through Easter week.

And many self-professed Christians, while observing every step of the Passion 2,000 years ago, remained silent through it all.

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*St. Peter’s crucifixion:

Filippino Lippi, *Disputation with Simon Magus and Crucifixion of Peter*, 1481-82, Brancacci Chapel, Florence, Italy
https://www.stefanimcdade.com/upside-down-cross/

By Himself But Not Alone

My immediate reaction to local artist Richard Jones’ latest painting echoed that of seeing Norman Rockwell’s 1965 Murder in Mississippi for the first time.

Americans grow up with Rockwell’s work even if they never hear his name. His wholesome, reassuring portraits of American life are everywhere:

Saying Grace, Freedom from Want, The Runaway, Fishing Trip, and others we see to this day on placemats, greeting cards, advertisements.

Jones is just as Dickensian. Other local artists tend more toward landscapes and rural scenes, such as Alan Bull’s rustic driveways with rusty pick-up trucks. Comparable to the Hudson River School, they might be called the Salt Marsh School.

Though he also does many portraits of the marsh and other landscapes, Jones is known for his downtown scenes, no doubt why his work is so frequently seen in State and Pleasant St. shops, and therefore, known to Newburyporters.

He also has the advantage of serving as city clerk for 18 years in an office keeping him downtown long enough to paint it from memory if he had to.

By capturing it in every season, day and night, rain or shine or snow, with people singing or shopping, walking and talking, Jones is the Norman Rockwell of Newburyport.

But the gallery of both artists is more than most everyone thought. I cannot not be the only white Boomer who saw Murder in Mississippi for the first time shortly after an unarmed African-American man was killed under the knee of a Minneapolis cop in 2020.

After sixty years of associating Rockwell entirely with heart-warming, Leave-It-to-Beaver Americana, it came as a shock.

Now we have Jones’ By Myself but Not Alone. A depiction of Newburyport High School’s graduation in 1941.

I’d heard of that incident, so the subject was no surprise. Former Essex County Sheriff Frank Cousins told the story about a four years ago at a Martin Luther King Day commemoration.

Cousins’ father graduated with that class. However, the mayor’s daughter would not walk with a person of color. She nagged dad, dad pressured the principal, and, as a compromise, Cousins Sr. was relegated to the back of the line.

I’m no art critic, and the painting is so rich in detail, that I’ll leave full descriptions to others—including to Jones himself who describes on social media the details and their distinct purposes.

As for the impact of the image? Riveting. In its force, its thoroughness, its humanity.

Followed by surprise—not at the subject, but by who painted it. All of which recalls any Norman Rockwell fan’s first sight of Murder in Mississippi.

Granted, a portrait of a high school graduation with most of the people in it cheering and applauding, conveys none of the menace of one of murder in which the murderers are not in the frame but cast as shadows on the ground.

Jones’ By Myself is more comparable to two other Rockwell paintings: Moving In (1967) showing integration of a white neighborhood, and The Trouble We All Live With (1964) which was turned into a meme last year with Kamala Harris as the shadow of Ruby Bridges.

In fact, it’s easy to imagine Frank Cousins Sr. as Jones’ adaptation of Rockwell’s Bridges. Notice, for instance, the posture.

However, Rockwell depicted the South where Jim Crow was still the law of the land; Jones portrays a city where we like to believe we have always, unanimously been on the side of William Lloyd Garrison.

Rockwell held up a mirror to America in real time. Jones gives us a window into a past that is now a divisive issue in the present.

Here in Newburyport, as is true across the country, the MAGA movement is working to keep “uncomfortable” (for white people) history out of American schools.

What they think they hide is as clear and direct as any Rockwell or Jones illustration: White people have an “again” in “great again.” Minorities do not.

Let’s raise a toast to Jones for including that canvas in his vast catalog of otherwise warm-hearted, reassuring portraits of Newburyport life.

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For a more representative example of Richard Jones’ work, as well as his sense of humor, here’s *Wintry Inn Street at Market Square*. Carolers near the center may gain your initial attention, but don’t miss the hatless old man seated on the bench at the right side.
See the collection at *richardburkejones.com*

“In the bleachers above the principal and Ruth Carens is Ward Cleaver and his family from *Leave it to Beaver* fame representing the status quo in America at the time. Forgive me for that artistic license.” Richard Jones describing *By Myself But Not Alone*.
*richardburkejones.com*

Norman Rockwell’s *The Trouble We All Live With* 1964

Trend Over Time

Every Tuesday morning I sit with four fellow musicians more or less my age sipping coffee and wolfing down lemon-ginger scones in the one and only Cafe Chococoa in downtown Newburyport.

The place is often busy. There are a few tables for six, but those are often taken–sometimes by just one, but I’ve already made that complaint. So, we push smaller tables together and fit ourselves into a row of smaller gatherings lined against the wall.

No doubt my role as a projectionist and ticket-taker (a.k.a. “Jack the Ripper”) in the downtown cinema of this modest-sized town makes all faces seem familiar. Both women at the adjacent table this week have been regular patrons for as long as it took their hair to gray. We say hellos while I take my seat, and they return to their conversation. Must be a good one, as they are there for nearly as long as we are, smiling every time I glance their way.

We ganders also laugh, as always, for most of two hours. For reasons I can’t recall, we tell stories of interstate hitchhiking and college campus streaking, both of which were extinct half a lifetime ago. Those are offset by recent stories of “senior moments,” such as reporting a car stolen only to have the police find it just a few parking spaces away. Music and film get their usual doses of attention, while politics is avoided without so much as a call for its avoidance, also as always.

On this day we are joined by a retired naval doctor who gives us insights into the medical challenges old guys face. I’ll spare you the details, but I will report that I learned a new term. Wrote it down in one of the several pocket-sized note pads I received on my birthday thinking I’d maybe use it as a headline for some deep-dive topic–and soon find that it’s a commonly used term not just in medicine, but in business, education, and other walks of life. All the better.

Almost skip a necessary trip to the supermarket to hasten home to write it. But I know just what items I want, and it’ll be quick. Before I know it, I’m putting two bags in my trunk when a voice calls from the distance. It’s one of the two women. She walks toward me, beaming, and speaks first:

I want you to know how nice it is to see men sitting at a table, facing each other, and talking. It is so rare!

The implied compliment and the cheer in her voice make me smile. Luckily, the smile must be masking my confusion and surprise. What to say to that? I stuttered a bit, and so she repeats the point, adding that it’s something that she and her friend thought was lost in the past.

“What kind of men do you hang out with?”

She shares the laugh, but adds, “No, I mean in public places.”

Well, she may be onto something. I do recall doing it much more frequently than I do now, although I tend to think that’s a natural function of age, something that can’t help but fluctuate over time. Not just the age of people, but the age of a nation. And couldn’t the USA use a strong dose of 18th Century coffeehouse culture to help put the brakes on our headlong descent back into Dark Ages?

I resist the temptation to tell her we were talking about streaking and drinking in our college years, and I figured I best leave before confessing that we spoke of colonoscopies last month. Her perception of us is so generous, and makes her feel so good, so hopeful, who am I to deflate it?

There’s a chance that, in time, I may live up to it.

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Article attached to this is all about London, but coffeehouses were an egalitarian, caffeinated rage in Paris and Vienna from the late-17th through the 18th centuries as well, at some point cropping up in the colonial cities of the New World:
https://blog.history.ac.uk/2021/09/london-coffee-houses-of-the-late-eighteenth-century/

Music with a Dash of Sea Salt

After hearing Stellwagen’s version of “California Dreamin'”, I went home and wrote a spoof called “Massachusetts Dreamin'”.

Whether I ever get to hear it or not may depend on the Newburyport duo who bill themselves as “Acoustic Folk & Rock with a Dash of Sea Salt.”

Certainly no lack of variety in the repertoire of Rob Brun and Jim Grenier, guitarists and singers both, as well as sailors both. Stellwagen takes the name from Stellwagen Bank, the historic fishing grounds off Massachusetts’ coast and a National Marine Sanctuary.

So it was no surprise to hear Jimmy Buffett’s pirate from the makeshift stage at Cafe Chococoa on Sunday. Nor is the slowed tempo of the song any surprise from a group with a knack of making every song sound as if it’s their own, as if they have lived it.

Could be wrong, but as a wind-musician who knows nothing of playing strings, I’ll guess that Stellwagen achieves this by letting us hear every note and any silences between them. Plus, they perform with a sound-system accurately suited for the venue.

From Paul Simon’s New Jersey Turnpike to Toto’s “Africa,” Stellwagen offers ample room for a scenic as much as sonic ride. Johnny Cash’s “Riders in the Sky” pulsates across flat land, while David Bowie’s Major Tom breathes deeply from outer space.

For comedy, Stellwagen includes a take on Jethro Tull’s “Thick as a Brick.” They kindly dedicated the song to me, apparently oblivious to the suggestion that the title must therefore describe me. Or, was that the reason why? But no matter, that’s okay, as I was sitting down and quite willing to sit the song out. And they mercifully rendered a three-minute version rather than the full 43-minute original, which enabled them to skip the flute parts, which in turn enabled me to remain seated rather than joining them on stage and embarrassing myself.

Comedy or not, every song is as clear as Seals & Croft’s “Summer Breeze.” That one let us feel the breeze and the hot, sunny day. Stellwagen’s cover of The Beatles’ “If I Needed Someone” let those of us old enough return to carefree schooldays. Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young’s “Teach Your Children” put me back one day when I coached my 10-year-old grandson who has taken up playing flute.

Maybe someday he can join me in a duet to put these guitarists back in their place. Until then, Stellwagen is just beginning to book gigs. Keep an eye on their website in the caption below. And write to them to say you want to hear “Massachusetts Dreamin'” with a dash of sea salt.

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As I say, a makeshift stage and tough to get an angle, but here’s Stellwagen L2R: Rob Brun on guitar, harmonica, and tambourine (with his foot!); Jim Grenier on guitar and mandolin. Photo by Robin Harvan
https://stellwagenmusic.com/

Massachusetts Dreamin’

(with apologies to The Mamas & The Papas)

All the sand is warm and the sky is bright

I’ve been for a swim in this Gulf coast light

I’d be cold and wet if I was back in Mass

Massachusetts dreamin’ I must be such an ass

Stopped into a bar right here along the beach

Well I sat upon a stool and I began to preach

Most barkeeps like to shoot the breeze

But this one found me full of gas

Massachusetts dreamin’ I must be such an ass

All the sand is warm and the sky is bright

I’ve been for a swim in this Gulf coast light

If I didn’t tell her with such uncalled-for sass

Massachusetts dreamin’ I must be such an ass

Put the Penguin in the Pool

As if to defy all the current news here in Conform-or-Else America, penguins are enjoying quite a Renaissance lately.

Cartoon penguins were on many signs sported coast-to-coast in the estimated 1,400 Hands Off rallies last weekend. Indeed, they were among the highlights, reminding us of the laughter needed to confront President Mob Boss and his authoritarian rule.

Americans have seen this since 1940 when Charlie Chaplin’s Fuhrer waddled a bit like a penguin in The Great Dictator.

My daughter was about eight when she imagined and wrote a most memorable story titled “Chilly the Penguin.” She set it in Antarctica, but it was heart-warming nonetheless. With crayons, she drew Chilly and his family and a few human fans who helped them out of some existential dilemma involving melting ice as I recall.

If she did that today in Florida—and in many other places in these Unraveled States of America—her teacher would be investigated, the books that informed her removed from the school, and the school itself threatened with defunding.

No matter that the phrase “climate change” was nowhere on her pages, much less “global warming.” What did matter? Laughter. Laughter and compassion. It was hilarious, and penguins delivered the lesson to children in the earliest years of schooling without burdening them with any heavy terms.

Nothing heavy in the promos for The Penguin Lessons. The new film has so delighted Screening Room audiences here in Newburyport that it will run for a rarely-granted third week. Riding a wave of success across the country, it’s as hilarious and feel-good as advertised, but the setting and several scenes will take you by surprise if the ads are all you see and hear of it.

With Argentina’s 1976 authoritarian coup as a backdrop, Penguin Lessons mirrors scenes we now see in America’s nightly news: random arrests made for no other reason than what is said and thought; innocent, working people taken off the streets, out of schools, away from jobs; children as young as eight taken out of third-grade classes and put in prisons.

Patrons leaving each show smile as they remark on the comedy. And then they cringe with words such as “timely” and “relevant” and “all too real” at the tragedy of seeing people “disappeared.”

Rio de Janeiro 1976? Or Sackets Harbor, New York, 2025? In the shadow of Christ the Redeemer from atop a rock? Or in the claims of an Attorney General always with a crucifix hanging from her neck?

And what of the oil spill? South American playas? Or beaches along the Gulf of British Petroleum?

No penguins in Louisiana or Texas to gain our sympathy, but pelicans did well. Before too long, a few were given baths, much like Juan Salvador’s in Lessons, shown in TV ads—ads aired by BP to convince us how environmentally conscious the company is, what “responsible citizens” they are.

Might that be where President Gaslight got the MO of creating a crisis and then taking credit for solving it, no matter the irreparable damage left with us?

Despite penguins being so far south of USA’s borders, they have enjoyed ample attention on both big and small screens, both animated and real, documentary and feature films, most notably with the enormous success of March of the Penguins in 2005 narrated by Morgan Freeman. How many Disney penguins did that begat? How many more in DreamWorks’ Penguins of Madagascar? Children love them; Pittsburgh’s pro hockey team is named for them; and on his 2003 solo album, Rupi’s Dance, Ian Anderson sings of “A Raft of Penguins” on a frozen sea:

Tenuous but clinging, the missing link
Joins us, closer than we might think.*

Darwin aside, penguins captured the American imagination back in the mid-19th Century when explorers and whalers started plying the South Seas, and descriptions started appearing on the pages of popular magazines. Relying on magazine illustrations, Edgar Allan Poe admired their “beautiful plumage” and their “stately carriage.” Herman Melville saw them first-hand and could not resist word-play at their expense, calling “the members at their sides… neither fin, wing, nor arm. And truly, neither fish, flesh, nor fowl is the penguin… On land it stumps; afloat it sculls; in the air it flops.”

Perhaps President Science Schmience took literally the author best known for—and much more straightforward at—describing whales, and thinks nothing of punishing the cute but ungainly creature. Too bad he never paid attention to the newspapers’ comic strips. That’s where Opus T. Penguin and his friends rivaled the social commentary and satire of Doonesbury’s cast of characters from 2003 to 2008, easily making Opus America’s longest running celebrity penguin—even though Bloom County had a relatively short-run for a newspaper strip.

Often it was just for laughs, but creator Berkeley Breathed’s satire was pure when applied. And who cares if it was lucky coincidence or a stroke of genius that he could avoid all preconceived notions of African-Americans, Asian-Americans, Mexican-Americans, Native Americans, and every variation of European-Americans by casting an Antarctic-American in the lead role?

Not that the same should have been expected from, say, Bugs Bunny or Wile E. Coyote. And I am convinced that if rabbits such as those who run around my old Shoebox here on Plum Island at dawn and dusk, or coyotes such as the one I just watched race down the marsh, had been tariffed by President Price Tag, they, too, would be celebrated.

As the English teacher declares in the final scene of Lessons:

Sometimes you have to put the penguin in the pool.

And as a student notes, that’s “a metaphor, sir”—at which the headmaster quips, “not a very good one.” Good or not, it’s curious considering that the collective noun for penguins is raft.

If we all live in a pool, does a raft of penguins stay afloat? Or do we seek another answer blowin’ in the wind? With a hard rain to fall? And had we better start swimming so we don’t sink like a stone?

The times have changed back. Why not sing and play the tunes that defy those who will impose on us a Conform-or-Else America? Like penguins, such songs have a history of capturing our imagination.

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*”A Raft of Penguins”

From Edgar Allan Poe’s The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket (1838):

Some seal of the fur and hair species are still to be found on Kerguelen’s Island, and sea elephants abound. The feathered tribes are discovered in great numbers. Penguins are very plenty, and of these there are four different kinds. The royal penguin, so called from its size and beautiful plumage, is the largest. The upper part of the body is usually gray, sometimes of a lilach tint; the under portion of the purest white imaginable. The head is of a glossy and most brilliant black, the feet also. The chief beauty of the plumage, however, consists in two broad stripes of a gold colour, which pass along from the head to the breast. The bill is long, and either pink or bright scarlet. These birds walk erect, with a stately carriage. They carry their heads high, with their wings drooping like two arms, and, as their tails project from their body in a line with the legs, the resemblance to a human figure is very striking, and would be apt to deceive the spectator at a casual glance or in the gloom of the evening. The royal penguins which we met with on Kerguelen’s Land were rather larger than a goose. The other kinds are the macaroni, the jackass, and the rookery penguin. These are much smaller, less beautiful in plumage, and different in other respects.

From “Sketch Third” of Herman Melville’s Las Encantadas (aka The Galapagos, 1854):

(describing the lowest level of Rodondo, “the aviary of the Ocean,” an island on which one ascends “from shelf to shelf”)

What outlandish beings are these? Erect as men, but hardly as symmetrical, they stand all around the rock like sculpted caryatides, supporting the next range of eaves above. Their bodies are grotesquely misshapen; their bills short; their feet seemingly legless; while the members at their sides are neither fin, wing, nor arm. And truly, neither fish, flesh, nor fowl is the penguin; as an edible, pertaining to neither Carnival nor Lent; without exception the most ambiguous and least lovely creature yet discovered by man. Though dabbling in all three elements, and indeed possessing some rudimental claim to all, the penguin is at home in none. On land it stumps; afloat it sculls; in the air it flops. As if ashamed of her failure, Nature keeps this ungainly child hidden away at the ends of the earth, in the Straits of Magellan, and on the abased sea-story of Rodondo.