Though the current project started as a series of posts charting my grief journey after the death of my mother, I am no longer actively grieving. Now, the blog charts a conversation in living, mainly whatever I want it to be. This is an activity that goes well with the theme of this blog (updated 2018). The Sense of Doubt blog is dedicated to my motto: EMBRACE UNCERTAINTY. I promote questioning everything because just when I think I know something is concrete, I find out that it’s not.
Hey, Mom! The Explanation.
Here's the permanent dedicated link to my first Hey, Mom! post and the explanation of the feature it contains.
Even though I am three days behind, I decided this day deserved recognition. There's something that feels significant about round numbers, large numbers, another hundred. Eventually, maybe, all this counting will not seem important. In fact, it seems less important now.
It's been 800 days since your death (as I started the blog two days after your death), and I cannot claim that I am as heart broken or distraught as I was when I acknowledged
I cannot claim that I feel the heart break at all now, over two years later. I miss you. I often wish you were here, physically. I still grieve your passing. But the sting of it has been sucked of its venom by time and life. My life is so busy now that I do not have time to dwell on your death as I did in the first year since you passed away. Also, I have more perspective. I had a close friend lose his child, now, close to a year ago as explained HERE. I have a close friend fighting cancer. I know of another young girl, just sixteen, who is losing her eight year battle with cancer. So, to openly grieve for the loss of my nearly 80-year-old mother on borrowed time from a disease that usually kills people outright if untreated immediately seems wrong. There are greater losses and greater tragedies. There are present concerns, such as those trying to win the battle against diseases that can kill them. And then there's the world, the horrid things the maniac that fins himself in the White House is doing or the family of a Spokane teen dealing with the aftermath of a shooting in a school (which has not happened yet by the date and time stamp of this blog, but three days later in my world, it has).
I recognize that my loss is one that I do not need to dwell on or make a public spectacle.
And yet, here I am, writing this note, and I am not sure why.
Perhaps I am trying to work out the purpose of the blog. Originally, my purpose was to work out grief, albeit publicly, to try to come to terms with a loss that I knew was coming, dreaded, and feared would destroy me. It didn't, but without this blog, I may not have healed as I have today.
Maybe I am writing just to check in. You know, where my head and heart is, Mom, as you are always with me. Readers may wonder: "why the Hell is this guy still writing about his mother after 800 days, especially when others have more tragic losses or serious problems?" Yeah, well, we can say that about most anything, right? The spectrum of loss and grief is wide, and one can argue that it's completely arbitrary where we place the values of seriousness and deserving of attention and commentary. I am checking in with readers to once again affirm that this blog is not so much about grief anymore. It's about life and living, which was part of my dedication from the start as more of a goal than a reality when I first wrote my opening thoughts -- HERE IS THE FIRST POST -- about how I wanted to chart what's going on in my life, which, to keep the blog going, is often just a share of something interesting or something I want to read myself.
I do often consider stopping the blog feature (though not the blog) and ceasing daily transmission, especially when I am very busy, and especially when I am just devoting myself to wholesale share after share with very little daily content. But I am not ready yet to stop talking to you, Mom, because to do so is to stop living.
This blog is about living my life not about grieving your loss, Mom.
I feel it's a worthwhile venture to repeat that idea from time to time.
But in living my life, I am also celebrating your life, Mom, the life you gave me, your guidance, your love, and the presence of your spirit that I still feel, that I will always feel.
Thanks, Mom.
And now, onward to more living.
PS: I have shared many photos repeatedly, so I chose a photo that I have shared maybe once and not in a quite some time for the header of this post. It's a goofy photo, and I feel that's an appropriate choice for today.
- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 1709.12 - 10:10
NEW (written 1708.27) NOTE on time: I am now in the same time zone as Google! So, when I post at 10:10 a.m. PDT to coincide with the time of your death, Mom, I am now actually posting late, so it's really 1:10 p.m. EDT. But I will continue to use the time stamp of 10:10 a.m. to remember the time of your death, Mom. I know this only matters to me, and to you, Mom.
Hey, Mom! Talking to My Mother #797 - GoodbyeHolger Czukay
Hi Mom,
Perhaps I should be writing about the 16th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on America and the deaths of so many innocent people, but I am not sure I have anything worthwhile to contribute to that conversation other than re-posting someone else's views. However, the tragedy does deserve recognition.
I am still not in a routine in which I can spend much of any time on my blog, but I saw that Holger Czukay died last week and saved two notices of it to share today for Musical Monday.
I know you have no idea who Holger Czukay is Mom, but this post explains. I reconnected with CAN while you were still alive and did some of your grocery shopping while listening to CAN and Neu! (a related German band), music you gave me for Christmas one year. Thank you.
Having just posted that Walter Becker of Steely Dan died, the music world keeps losing key and influential people, and too soon. It's sad.
Sorry there's not more original content today and this is a day late, but I am in Grading Hell, as usual.
Also, I have some weird ghost of an HTML code box embedded at the top of the post cutting a piece out of the photo inexplicably. Sorry.
We are very sad to confirm that Holger passed away yesterday, in his home, the old Can Studio in Weilerswist.
His wife passed away only weeks before. Holger was devastated by the loss of his beloved partner, but was looking forward to making more music and was in good spirits. His passing has come as a shock. — Can,in a statement issued Sept. 6. Czukay was 79 years old.
In early 1983, the French-born New York DJ François Kevorkian, a drummer who had proved his mettle as a dance-floor remixer, took the opportunity to make a record of his own for Island Records. It would be a collaborative work with an all-star lineup that included Public Image Ltd. bassist Jah Wobble and U2 guitarist The Edge, as well as the rhythm section for the already mythical German avant-rockers Can; the sessions would yield the EP Snake Charmer.
Around that time, a young woman making waves of her own in the city's clubs asked Kevorkian to mix her new single. He turned it down — as Kevorkian told author Tim Lawrence in Life and Death on the New York Dance Floor 1980-1983, he was "so taken with this other project" that there simply wasn't time. Sorry, Madonna — when Can's bassist Holger Czukay said yes, few musicians said no.
It feels somehow inapt, though, to simply identify Czukay as "Can's bassist." Holger Czukay was the band's co-founder (along with keyboardist Irmin Schmidt and guitarist Michael Karoli), its center, its de facto leader, its producer and engineer, its tape editor, its bassist, its radio knob turner (more on that later), and, effectively, its light and its shade. In its early-'70s prime, Can was dedicated to collective improvisation — as Czukay put it last year to Mojo, "We were not thinking. When you make music together, you have to reach a common accident." At its best, the group sounded like a single organism. But one man, Czukay, collectively tuned them.
Czukay was born in 1938 in the then-Free City of Danzig, was educated in Berlin alongside John Cage and David Tudor, and studied in Cologne under Karlheinz Stockhausen, all before moving to Switzerland in 1966 to become a music teacher. At that point, Czukay had barely heard rock music, much less understood and appreciated it. "I never intended to become a rock or pop musician," Czukay said in 1994. "What I wanted to become was like from childhood on I thought I was a creative person."
That changed after meeting a young student named Michael Karoli, who played guitar. "Michael was arrogant, really arrogant," Czukay told Mojo. "But he was trying to teach me something about music. He knew something that I didn't know." When Karoli played The Beatles' "I Am the Walrus" for Czukay, the teacher flipped: "I thought, 'How can they make something like that? It sounds sometimes more [akin] to Stockhausen than to The Beatles!" he told Mojo. ("Stockhausen later told me how proud he was that the Beatles have put him beside W.C. Fields on [the cover for] Sgt. Pepper," he added.)
Can's initial lineup, formed in 1968, featured American vocalist Malcolm Mooney — soon replaced by the itinerant Japanese street singer Damo Suzuki — and drummer Jaki Liebezeit. Early on, Czukay told Mojo, "I tried conventional bass, but then Jaki said, 'Holger, don't play where I play. Never try to double a foot drum, you play somewhere else.' " Their resulting rhythmic push-pull, with Liebezeit's taut metronome full of hesitant accents and Czukay's supple, driving low end, enacted a truly unique, and highly European, take on American rock that would be given its own handle: Krautrock, named for a 1973 song by fellow German outfit Faust.
Minimalism was the key term: Nobody repeated one or two bass notes and made them count like Czukay. From 1968 to 1975, Czukay recorded the band's group-mind improvisations onto two-track tape, then edited them into coherent pieces. "When you make a two-track recording you still have the choice to erase, to put holes into it," Czukay said in 1989. "The holes are sometimes even more important than the actual sound." In 1976, amid other lineup changes, Czukay switched from bass to shortwave radio — like his Stockhausen, he liked to use them "as unpredictable synthesizers," he said in 2009. Czukay officially left Can in 1977, though he would edit the tapes for 1979's Can and participated in short-lived group reunions in the late '80s and late '90s.
The classic early Can sound — as heard on Monster Movie (1969), Soundtracks (1970), the monumental double-LP Tago Mago (1971) and the dryly funky Ege Bamyasi (1972) — was both stark and airy, with Karoli's needling guitar hanging over the groove like cobwebs in a haunted house. The title of Soundtracks wasn't just suggestion — the tracks had actually come from film-score commissions — but its suggestion of filmic vistas was also a guiding principle for both the band and its bass player. Not for nothing did Czukay dub his first solo album Movies (1979). (Last year it was reissued as Movie! — a perfect example of the whimsy Czukay displayed in his later years ... along with all the goofy-uncle faces he made in photos during the '90s.)
Can performing in Hamburg, Germany, in 1977.
Ullstein Bild/Getty Images
In fact, Czukay's shortwave sound-grabs on Movies — a kind of proto-sampling — would prove prophetic. David Byrne and Brian Eno would borrow the idea for their My Life in the Bush of Ghosts (1981), which hip-hop producer Hank Shocklee of the Bomb Squad (Public Enemy, Ice Cube, Bell Biv DeVoe) would cite as a key inspiration for his own sampling adventures.
With its long tracks and stop-and-start sonic tendencies, Can was "progressive rock," broadly defined. Nominally, this would make them punk rock's enemies. But when the Sex Pistols' Johnny Rotten — who had famously written "I hate" on the top of a Pink Floyd T-shirt — appeared on London's Capital Radio to play records for two hours on DJ Tommy Vance's show on July 16, 1977, his penultimate selection was Tago Mago's 18 1/2-minute "Halleluwah." ("They've got the most amazing drummer," he enthused.) When Rotten reverted to his birth name, John Lydon, and formed Public Image Ltd., he recruited his old friend Jah Wobble (John Wardle) on bass, a fellow Can fanatic whose imperturbable bass lines were rooted deep in Czukay's playing. After leaving PiL, Wobble would collaborate with Czukay and Liebezeit on 1982's Full Circle; that album's "How Much Are They?" would become a big favorite of David Mancuso, disco's foundational DJ, at his famed Loft parties.
Can runs through British post-punk and indie like fish through a river. The Fall, in particular, has flaunted the Germans' inspiration, most explicitly on "I Am Damo Suzuki," from 1985's This Nation's Saving Grace; drums a la Tago Mago's "Oh Yeah," guitar a la "Bel Air" from 1973's Future Days, bassist Steve Hanley hammering a couple of notes and daring you to blink. The Jesus and Mary Chain's Barbed Wire Kisses featured a version of Tago Mago's "Mushroom"; the great Irish drone-rockers Th' Faith Healers covered "Mother Sky" on their 1992 debut, Lido. Primal Scream has paid explicit tribute twice: "Movin' on Up," the opener of the beloved 1991 album Screamadelica, directly quotes "Yoo Doo Right" ("I was blind / Now I can see / You made a believer out of me"), while 1997's "Kowalski," from Vanishing Point, samples the drums from Tago Mago's "Halleluwah."
Can's skittering rhythms haven't been sampled at the level of James Brown (a primary inspiration to the German band), but especially in recent years the group has made its mark on hip-hop: "Vitamin C" was utilized as theme music for Jaden Smith's character Dizzee on Netflix's The Get Down, while A Tribe Called Quest sampled "Halleluwah" for its Phife Dawg tribute "Lost Somebody" on last year's We Got It From Here . . . Thank You 4 Your Service.
Other DJs made hay with Czukay's grooves as well. During the early British rave scene of the late '80s, DJ Harvey was pushing the acid-house envelope: "He was really experimenting and bringing in all kinds of radical stuff," his fellow DJ Thomas Bullock told me a few years ago. "I heard [him play Czukay's] 'Cool in the Pool' and 'Persian Love' [from Movies] both [in one] night, and I thought it was all a part of the very same tapestry. I was completely taken out." Years later, when James Murphy wanted to send up himself and his fellow record geeks (in that order) on the first LCD Soundsystem song, "Losing My Edge," in 2002, it wasn't an accident that his first false boast was, "I was there in 1968 / I was there at the first Can show in Cologne" — or that the track's galumphing rhythm, puny at first before ratcheting up to a series of explosions, could have come straight off Monster Movie or Soundtracks.
But the most resonant place to understand Czukay's place in the post-rock musical continuum may be at the end of 2009's The Grandfather Paradox, a DJ-mix CD by Henrik Schwarz, Âme & Dixon subtitled "A Journey Through 50 Years of Minimalistic Music." There, "Sunday Jam," a Czukay-edited track from 1979's Can, finishes off a set that sets him, and them, alongside forebears like Steve Reich, Raymond Scott and Moondog, and followers such as Liquid Liquid, Young Marble Giants and minimal techno innovator Robert Hood. This is Holger Czukay's immersive circularity in a nutshell: looking back, looking forward.
- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 1709.11 - 10:10
NEW (written 1708.27) NOTE on time: I am now in the same time zone as Google! So, when I post at 10:10 a.m. PDT to coincide with the time of your death, Mom, I am now actually posting late, so it's really 1:10 p.m. EDT. But I will continue to use the time stamp of 10:10 a.m. to remember the time of your death, Mom. I know this only matters to me, and to you, Mom.
after being here two weeks, I set up the TV, finally
Hey, Mom! Talking to My Mother #796 - TV arrives - new office - 1709.10
Hi Mom,
I have been here two weeks.
After being here two weeks, and finally, after much consideration, I hauled my TV out of the garage
-- where many packed boxes and things remain as yet not unpacked -- and hooked up my TV to cable in my office and, WHEW! it works!
And I am just in time to catch some NFL football action, and yet sadly, no DETROIT LIONS, who I am happy to say won today, but without me watching for the first time in ... well, I don't know.
Of course, I have taken trips before and missed games, but this is the first time ever in my life that I am in my home and unable to watch the weekly Lions game.
I know what you're thinking. Well, not you, Mom, but dear readers of other stripes, NFL TICKET. I know. LEAGUE PASS. I know. I could have purchased the ability to watch ALL the games. I know. But honestly, I am trying to conserve money a bit and I do not love football enough to spend the money to be able to see all games. Maybe some day.
I am 7-5 in picks so far today helped by both a Lions win and the Chiefs upset Thursday night.
This is a short post today. Still so much to do but also time for bed.
I am just starting to feel more normal. It's funny how TV normalizes things. It's also having more of my things set up. It's nice.
- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 1709.10 - 10:10
NEW (written 1708.27) NOTE on time: I am now in the same time zone as Google! So, when I post at 10:10 a.m. PDT to coincide with the time of your death, Mom, I am now actually posting late, so it's really 1:10 p.m. EDT. But I will continue to use the time stamp of 10:10 a.m. to remember the time of your death, Mom. I know this only matters to me, and to you, Mom.
I have provided links with these graphics, though some of the content is old (2014 for one) but most of it is still relevant and meaningful. And I liked the images, hence the sharing.
So this is a quick share both for the benefit of my own reading, later, and to share with others. This is nothing you would care about, Mom, but you would care that I cared.
For all my readers, do we not want to preserve the Internet for the wilderness it was, may still be, and can continue to be.
So, first a message from FIGHT FOR THE FUTURE and then a good blog from umass.edu with some general information.
Key congressional members -- backed by Verizon and Comcast -- are meeting in secret about net neutrality.[1] It's the first frightening step toward a worst-case scenario: Congress outlawing online free speech and allowing internet censorship.
This is an emergency. Stopping lawmakers from passing an anti-net neutrality bill is the single most important thing we can do right now to save the net.
We've put up nine billboards calling out members of Congress who are doing Comcast's bidding, and with your help, we can put up even more.
Comcast, Verizon and AT&T want to end net neutrality so they can charge extra fees and control what we see and do online. For months, FCC Chair Ajit Pai, a former Verizon lawyer, has been doing their bidding, pushing to undo the strong Title II rules we helped win in 2015.
Apparently, that's not good enough for Big Cable. Having received massive campaign contributions from Verizon and Comcast, members of the House Commerce Committee are now secretly working to rewrite the law that underpins net neutrality -- a step that would be nearly impossible to reverse.[2]
The response from Americans must be swift and unequivocal: Hands. Off. The internet.
We know the vast majority of Americans -- including 73% of Republicans -- support net neutrality.[3] We just need a fraction of them to get in their congressional members' faces in the next month to send that message loud and clear.
We know we can do it: We've already had more than 300 meetings and events with officeholders around the country. We've already put up nine billboards calling out Big Cable's biggest allies in Congress.
Net neutrality is the principle that data should be treated equally by internet service providers (ISPs) and without favoring or blocking particular products or websites. Those in favor of net neutrality argue that ISPs should not be able to block access to a website run by their competitor or offer “fast lanes” to deliver data more efficiently for a hefty fee. Imagine if Verizon could stop customers from researching about switching to Comcast, or block access to negative press about their business practices. For ISPs, network inequality is a pretty sweet deal. Broadband providers can charge premiums for customers to access existing network-structures, and control the content viewed by subscribers.
Essentially, a lack of network neutrality actively promotes discrimination against competitors and encourages ISPs to deliberately limit high-speed data access. This form of throttling speeds when there are negligible costs of production after initial development is known as “artificial scarcity.” Supply is intentionally restricted which makes the item, internet access, more valuable.
Without net neutrality, internet providers have free-reign over deciding which content reaches their subscribers. In 2014, this issue came to a head when Comcast and other broadband suppliers intentionally restricted the data transmission for Netflix services. To appease customers with a paid subscription who could no longer watch the streaming service, Netflix agreed to pay the broadband companies tens of millions of dollars a year. Evidently, a lack of net neutrality creates a conflict of interest between wireless service providers and content firms like Google, Facebook, and Netflix. These content providers want consumers to have unfettered access to their services. Tolls for network access create barriers for internet-based services which rely on ad-revenue and network traffic.
Despite the threat network neutrality poses to content-centric services many tech companies have been hesitant to vehemently oppose restricting data access. Facebook is investing in creating their own ecosystem. With Facebook as a central hub where you can connect with friends, view businesses, listen to music and play games, the company has little incentive to petition for the free and universal flow of information and Web traffic. From a corporate perspective, every web-interaction would ideally be done through Facebook. In a similar vein, Google has been moving closer and closer to becoming an internet provider themselves. Company initiatives like Google Fiber, Project Fi and Project Loon are the stepping-stone to Google dominating both the web-traffic and web-access businesses. This creates a double-edged sword where unrestricted internet access both helps and harms content-providers. While tech companies do not want restricted access to their sites, they would love to restrict consumer-access to that of their rivals. The burden of protecting a free internet and the unrestricted flow of information therefore lies on consumers.
NEW (written 1708.27) NOTE on time: I am now in the same time zone as Google! So, when I post at 10:10 a.m. PDT to coincide with the time of your death, Mom, I am now actually posting late, so it's really 1:10 p.m. EDT. But I will continue to use the time stamp of 10:10 a.m. to remember the time of your death, Mom. I know this only matters to me, and to you, Mom.
My phone called this "Boise" as the place location.
As you see the Interurban logo (right) calls the location the Lower Albina District.
We ate appetizer meats, olives, almonds, chicken wings, and salads and had delicious cocktails. Mine was a Bourbon Mint Punch.
The food was great and reasonably priced with artful though not overly ample portions. I would go back here. More even than the delicious food and drinks, I loved the atmosphere and the feel of the place.
The special happy hour menu was printed artfully on a hand bill, and the full menu was stored in old style medical folder (photo below).
The decor (below) is in the style of old public houses of Britain but with a modern flair. We ate upstairs. I learned that "Publican" was originally a tax collector in old Roman times but eventually came to mean someone who runs an inn (open to the public, clearly) in Britain. I moved the camera in my photo here, but I like the effect it provided.
Across the street, I saw this sign and took a picture (below), which I then posted to Instagram/Facebook. I am loving the sensibilities of people in the PACNW. I wanted to affirm that I am starting to feel that these people are my people because we share sensibilities. I mentioned "my tribe" in reference to 10,000 Maniacs and some conversations I have had, though the idea itself -- calling these people "my tribe" -- is not my original idea.
We did a little shopping. I did not take pictures of everything. But in one store, The Meadow, we saw Gwen Frostic cards. You remember, Mom, Gwen Frostic is a famous Michigan artist. We've been to her studio in northern Michigan, Benzonia. There are reminders of Michigan everywhere here.
And then we had Blue Star donuts.
We tried to go in Bridge City Comics, which is right next to the Meadow and Blue Star Donuts, but there was "back in 5" sign on the door. Another time.
All in all, I was very impressed with this neighborhood and can't wait to go back. There are many cool neighborhoods like this one and literally, some 5000 restaurants in metro Portland.
I hope we go back soon and do more exploring.
As I wrote yesterday, I am in a new phase with the blog. Most of the posts will be about my new home, unpacking, moving, the trip west, and new explorations of Vancouver, Portland, and surrounding areas. I know you are always interested, Mom, and love the show and tell. I hope other readers who venture here are interested as well.
- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 1709.08 - 10:10
NEW (written 1708.27) NOTE on time: I am now in the same time zone as Google! So, when I post at 10:10 a.m. PDT to coincide with the time of your death, Mom, I am now actually posting late, so it's really 1:10 p.m. EDT. But I will continue to use the time stamp of 10:10 a.m. to remember the time of your death, Mom. I know this only matters to me, and to you, Mom.
Love that classic Rexall sign - Historic Mississippi Avenue, Portland, OR
