Skip to main content

Thank You aka Necessary

Don McIver
1801 Gold Ave. SE
Albuquerque, NM 87106

Thank You
aka Necessary

You are:
            unemployed,
            underemployed,
            working your way out of debt,
            just not spending as much as you once did.
We live:          in "interesting" times.
We live and go on living,
                        go on putting food on our tables,
                        paying rent or mortgage on a shelter.
Just trying to be...
trying to understand a little bit more.

In these "interesting" times,
            we may neglect what makes
            life worth living.
Art makes
            life worth living.

Art and poetry and theater and music and cooking
painting,       
            sculpture,
novels,                       movies,          videogames
are not a luxury we're lucky to have in abundance.
They're as vital as food, water,                  and shelter.
So in these "interesting" times
I challenge you to spend on something that is necessary
and spend it here.
Buy a local poet's book,
buy and hang a local artist's painting,
enjoy community theater,
dance to local bands, DJs, singers,
eat local food at local restaurants
Talk to them.
Ask them why they create?
Support them, love them, appreciate them,
            but don't call it luxury, disposable money.
Necessary.
Art                  
            Necessary.
Local art
            Necessary.

June 27, 2010

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

"That's Scaughtland for ya!"

The United Kingdom Up at the top of that map, basically the top half, is a tiny nation with a big footprint.  With roughly the same population as Minnesota, Scotland has a land mass the size of South Carolina, yet there are more people in the United States that have Scottish and/or Scotch-Irish ancestry than live in Scotland. My family is one of those. In the course of growing up, I was indoctrinated to celebrate my Scottish ancestry (primarily by my grandmother but we'll talk about that later).      So a year ago, my wife took a trip with her mother to Japan.  I looked at the pictures that she posted, and when I'd talk to her on the phone, I noticed something.  She was happy.  This is not to say she's always unhappy, but this was different.  She was having a good time, engaged in the world, curious, and happy-like no matter what the challenge.  And traveling to Japan with her mother posed some interesting challenge...

Peregrinating the Albuquerque Bosque

  The Map. Overview: Starting in the San Juans in Colorado, the Rio Grande "is the twenty-second longest river in the world and the fourth or fifth longest in North America" ( Texas State Historical Society ).  While the river is characterized by the area it flows through, the river from Elephant Butte Dam to the south to Cochiti Dam in the north is called the Middle Rio Grande.  And in the middle of the middle Rio Grande is the roughly 20 plus miles that flows through Albuquerque.  From an airplane, the Rio Grande is a brown ribbon bordered a green ribbon.  That green ribbon is the Bosque .  I've always been fascinated really exploring an area, getting a sort of overview of an area then drilling down to really get it.  It's led to me hiking the Sandias from end to end and then hiking outlying trails multiple times, biking all the trails in the Cedro Peak area because someone put them on a map, trying different routes to get to ...

Keith Jarrett: The Koln Concert and What it says about Creativity

Life is about listening.   Sometimes what life is saying comes at you in in strange ways.   On Friday, I was reading this story on Salon.com and it mentioned that few jazz musicians have the same clout as they once did.  Of the few who still draw considerable audiences, it mentioned Keith Jarrett .   I don't know Keith Jarrett, but I've been trying to school myself on jazz for the better part of a year now.   Since I'm relatively new to this jazz thing, I want to make sure I'm really listening to what people think of as "great."   With that in mind, I bought a book:   The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings .   Under Keith Jarrett they mention the album,  The Koln Concert as his best album (part of any enthusiasts' "Core Collection").   So, when I saw the album while perusing Mecca Records in ABQ, I knew I had to buy it.   Life was talking. The Koln Concert  (So, go ahead and ...