2023 Miscellany #4

 

Szkoła Św. Jadwigi  (St. Hedwig's School)

There are buildings that currently have different purposes, than what they had been built for. Sometimes, they still have the original proud carved stonework, which identifies their origin. Lakewood Ohio, has a few streets off Madison called Birdtown. The people that lived there were from central and eastern Europe. Each group had their church, and often school. Sometimes, the stones were bi-lingual.

LOVE on the rocks, Lorain Impoundment

ring-billed gulls, Lorain Impoundment

squirrel, Bath Nature Reserve

Well, had not been at Bath Nature Reserve for some time. There is a 1.3 mile Solar System Walk, with computer designed art by Alexander Landis. After Pluto, there is Joe Frohnapfel's Chief Logan [click]. Pluto had the terrifying Cerberus, the three headed dog, who is not that terrifying here.

Blue heron at Peninsula Ohio's rookery, 20 February, with not so good lighting. There are now two trees, off a major road, where many herons nest. In mid-February the males take to the nests, and do some repair and add on.

Cleveland Carnival

 

Kurentovanje na Slovenski Narodni Dom v Clevelandu 2023

Perhaps, the oldest settled town in Slovenija is Ptuj. In 1960, a modern organised Shrovetide festival/carnival began, Kurentovanje. Cultural anthropologists suggest these characters are vestiges of pagan gods, turned into laughable and scary buffoonish demons [I wrote these words in 2013, after the first Kurentovanje in Cleveland]. I have been to several outdoor festivals, around greater Cleveland, and brought along a camera. I have posted a bunch of Kurentovanje posts. In 2020 the coronavirus hit America, and the world. That year the only festival i went to was Kurentovanje. I was preparing for the St. Patrick Parade, it was cancelled after the Arnold event in Columbus. There was fear in the air, and disease, and this fed the tinfoil idiots, and they have not stopped.

Northeast Ohio in December and January, especially close to Lake Erie is very, very grey. Three partially sunny days, in either month, is rare enough. The amount of snow, and degree of cold varies greatly. The Christian calendar is centered on the date of Paschal Sunday (Easter Day). Many other days move forward back, on the calendar. Shrove Tuesday, Mardi Gras, Pust is the day before Ash Wednesday (the first day of western Lent, the Orthodox have Clean Monday). These Tuesday celebrations end Carnival season. Some countries have Tuesday, and perhaps Monday and/or Thursday prior to Wednesday as public holidays. This is capitalist, Protestant, America; so these are working days. So, in Cleveland the Carnival season (Pustni čas) is on the Saturday before Lent; which was the 18th of February, this year.

a sheepskinned devil

pre-Lenten partying in Cleveland with a South German/Austrian Krampus mask

Polka is a fun, happy music. It is meant for dancing, but many songs can be played in polka time. Accordions are famous, and any number of instruments can be part of the ensemble. The tubist, Brian Brazier, was very spirited. Chardon Polka Band responded to a request, and began playing, "Grab your balls, we're going bowling". When "Grab your balls" was sung, up went the maracas.

A multi-instrumentalist, Mitch Lawrence, very few flautists are seen in polka bands.

one of the tribe of Kurenti

Apparently, they start out as babies. Who knew?

Competency is not a priority

The function of police is control, and their chief activity is to project their image as glorious. "To protect and serve" is self-satisfying propaganda, or copaganda. Many government officials are complicit in, and actively engage in this gaslighting of the public. By granting police discretionary judgment to act they have license to do anything, and nothing.

The massacre at Uvalde [24 May 2022] is to be remembered for two reasons. The first is of mass murder, the unnecessary and brutal deaths of 21 people, 19 children in the fourth grade, and two teachers. In addition: 14 other children, and a teacher were wounded. The second is the mass cowardice of the police.

There was a security camera that showed the 19 armed police standing in a hallway. One of their finest pumped a sanitizer dispenser on a wall. Yes, i noticed the Lady MacBeth ritual. The spot will never wash away. That video was leaked to the public. Uvalde's district attorney did not want that released. Police dislike cameras. Police regularly, and so in Uvalde, did and do not want police records made available. All sorts of reasons are, and were used to suppress evidence. Police want their actions secret, so to be able to present a version of events that only reflects well on them. Reality is often a foe, and something to be scared of.

Depending on your age, you may remember a time when the murder by long guns of civilians was not a common occurrence in the United States. Texas seems to be the harbinger, and ground zero of this common American phenomena [it does happen elsewhere]. The assassination of President John Kennedy (and a patrolman) truly shocked the country. After that, the University of Texas Tower sniper [1 August 1966] made mass shootings a new American hallmark of behaviour. Charles Whitman, a former Marine as Oswald was, killed his mother, and then his wife, stabbing both. He used a hunting rifle, and other weapons. He shot to death 14, and wounded 31, until he was shot and killed. That was the most murderous use of guns by one man in one day in America. Now it is #10. Other ones that have surpassed it in Texas are Uvalde at #8;  El Paso Walmart 2019, where a man drove across Texas to find Mexicans to kill at#7; Luby’s Cafeteria in Killeen 1991 at #6, it was #1; First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs 2017 is #5. The period of 1994-2004, which co-incides with the assault weapons ban does not place on the list.

376 police of several varieties were at the school when the killer was there. Most proved to be cowards. They were well armed, well financed, and had extra and specific training. They had so many officials willing to lie for them, and to attack anyone who opposed their lies, and actions. Governor Greg Abbott lied for them. Cowboy hatted, Director and Colonel of the Texas Department of Public Safety, Steve C. McCraw, lied aplenty, and directed blame at innocents. Uvalde city government went to extreme lying, "There was zero hesitation on any of these officers’ part, they moved directly toward the gunfire",  "The total number of persons saved by the heroes that are local law enforcement and the other assisting agencies is over 500".

One lie was a cop shot at the killer, and the killer hit him, before the killer entered the school. That was all false. There were many lies told to protect the police, and if others suffered—so what?

Cowboy McCraw lied that a teacher propped the door open, through which the killer entered. That was a lie. She called 911 from when she saw the killer crash the vehicle he was driving. She shut the door. The lock mechanism did not work. From the lie told against her, she suffered vilification and mental distress.

All the killing took place in two adjoining rooms. Video shows cops did not attempt the door for 77 minutes. McCraw lied that the door was locked. The door could only be locked from the outside. Its locking mechanism had been reported as not working. The police had possession of a fireman's Halligan tool, which rips doors open. It was not used. In that one lie, he told several—very economical.

A stupid cop move was when one called out, "Yell if you need help!". A girl did, and was then shot. There is certainly more to find out, and perhaps some of it will be known to the public.

_______________ 

postscriptum: i started writing this in August. My disgust was great. I thought there would be more information coming out. I know, many people want zero things said against police. Police vociferously attack anyone who does. There are individuals who have credibility, but it is prudent to be skeptical about anything the police say.

50 years of not being music

Well, it has been noted that hip-hop/rap is fifty years in existence. No need to celebrate, just to acknowledge. It has rhythm, it has beat, maybe cadence, it has too much volume, and it is very percussive. Forget the lyrics, tune into the sound. It is not music, it is anti-music. It vexes the ears, an aural assault. It is an attack on sonority. Alcohol hangovers are unpleasant, supposedly the Danes (and maybe other former vikings) say "carpenters in the forehead" — an unrelenting, hammering on the brain. At least it doesn't make you barf, usually. It has physical posturing and gesturing in performance that is aggressive, confrontational, and often absurd, but ugly.

Music theory is taught, and studied. Music theory is not applicable to this genre. A song is a poem with music. Hip-hop has lyrics, and can be looked at as spoken poetry. The black community engages in a version of spoken word poetry that has much similarity to hip-hop. Music has a trajectory of progression, so does poetry. The words and the music have a relationship. None of this applies to hip-hop/rap. This essay has no musical notation, and neither does hip-hop/rap. Elements in recorded tracks can offer samplings from music, but they are independent and unnecessary for the lyrics. There are also sound effects that have the same role. 

The ear does hear. Machines can produce a drum beat, and bass; but the speaker's words do not need to align in these performances. There is an analysis that has the beat as cyclical, because it is not linear. It is alien from folk music, and art music. Jazz and rock does not apply either. It is pop, because it is charted there in sales; and it is popular to a segment of the population.

A while back, an accomplished musician from a family of musicians critiqued hip-hop/rap. Wynton Marsalis said, it is “more damaging than a statue of Robert E. Lee”. He was right, but he was only talking about the ugliness of the words. The pornographic words, and the "minstrel show ghetto routines" degrade people. He and me know this exists, and people have a right to have it; but rap is crap, and not music.

Principessa Karma visits the Akron lands

For her 7th birthday Karma is ready to take up a claymore and find Sassenachs.

at St. Vincent's

Great sidewalk remains, long after the tree it skirted has departed.

Traffic light on Mull was being worked on.

better than the Cleveland script signs

2023 Miscellany #3

Doggy in the window, on Madison, Cleveland west side

Wizard on Lorain, also Cleveland  west side

There is a devoted following for the movie, “A Christmas Story”, in Cleveland where much of it was filmed. There is a lamp of a woman's leg in fish net stocking, which is “a major award”. Metropolitan Cleveland has them in many windows. Superman was created in Cleveland, this may be the first Superman leg lamp that i've seen. It is in the window of a Lakewood toy store.

Someone imprinted a horse shoe in the cement in front of a building in Ohio City. Looking over the foto, one can see the shoe above level, and below level of the pavement. It is below level.

By the entrance of Franklin Circle Church, there is an old nest.

downtown columbus walkabout

Rudolf Scheffler. mosaic of Vulcan. 

There are two Roman gods in the elevator lobby of the Ohio Supreme Court, originally the Ohio State Office Building. They are wonderful, alas mosaics gleam, making photographing imperfect. Considering the relationship between religion and politics currently, this might be problematic if the idiot Republicans and their supporters knew of their existence. Scheffler was an artist working during the Roosevelt recovery from Hoover's Depression. Perhaps, there was a kerfuffle then, the mosaics are subtitled "Harnessing the Elements & Fruits of the Soil". Vulcan holds a hammer, and Ceres a sickle (literature printed by the State of Ohio reads "scythe"; either, the writer is not familiar with agriculture, or did not want hammer and sickle appearing).

Rudolf Scheffler. Ceres. c.1933.

Ralph Crawford. Arnold. 2010. Columbus.

By odd co-incidence, i snapped this foto on the same day i saw his daughter promoting her book. She looks like a Kennedy. Previously, i have passed this by, because i was not interested.

When the covid scare came to Ohio, the first major event cancelled was the Arnold Sports Festival. I heard of it, and was never interested. Now in typing this, i read it is considered the biggest thing in bodybuilding after Mr. Olympia. Arnold won that contest seven times.

I did not have positive feelings for Arnold Schwarzenegger, or his party politics. But, when he expressed his anti-fascist feelings, i changed my opinion (on him, not his party). He saw what fascism did to his father, and that generation of people in Austria, and their spirit. They were broken men. Arnold was one of the very few Republicans who spoke against trumpenfuehrer's failed putsch. Schwarzenegger began speaking of Kristallnacht, it came to America on a Wednesday. "It all started with lies, and lies, and lies, and intolerance." [click, see, and listen]

Karma enjoyed the walk. Her nose was exercised a lot, much sniffing.

The YMCA's in big cities were impressive architectural buildings.

One of a row of such heads of terra cotta sculpture on what is now the LeVeque tower. It was built  to be 5 inches taller than the Washington Monument's 555'. It was the tallest building in Columbus for decades.