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

"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...

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 ...

Volume 7 & 8 of What if the Beatles never broke up?

With the commercial success of Band on the Run and Venus and Mars , Paul had all but erased the demon of being "merely" the cute Beatle. He had his own success, with Wings, and could stand his own compositions up next to what he did in the Beatles. Wings at the Speed of Sound went to number one on the strength of "Let "Em In" and "Silly Love Songs," which I chose not to include because in this project the critique that lead to its creation may not have been an issue. Instead, I include his great, "With A Little Luck" that came out in 1978 on London Town and the great single "Mull of Kyntyre," which is so damn Scottish its easy to see why it was a hit in Great Britain but no where else. I certainly don't agree with the contemporary critics who characterized George Harrison's Thirty Three and 1/3 as his "best release since All Things Must Pass." In fact I think the earlier releases of Living In The Materi...

Confessions of a Human Nerve Ending

Search This Blog