9.8.25 - BRAIN FREEZE THAWED

MONDAY 9.8.25

KCMO

Dear candle-lighters, ambiance analysts, and mood manifesters,

Monday AM brain freeze is a thing. I have it right now. Every word I put down is as if pulled from an icy alpine stream. Unhhhhhh…

I started The Open Road by Jean Giono last night. It’s part of the New York Review Books Classics series. The series is international and ranges far and wide and would make one rippin’ reading list. I love the graphics and the feel of all the paperbacks I have run across. I found this one at Powell’s on Burnside on our last visit. NYRB should offer a blind 5-pack like Bomp! Records does with 7” singles. These marketing ideas are free, I’ll be here every Tuesday on all-you-care-to-eat spaghetti night.

I’ve read Giono’s Blue Boy and The Man Who Planted Trees, but many year ago. This one is definitely a tonic for the tech age. Here is the work of someone who survived the worst battles of WWI and yet wrote books of earthy joy, and a lot of them. He became a pacifist who took the heat for it. People even called him a Nazi sympathizer.

I opined mucho political here the other day. I took it down, not because I don’t believe it, but because armchair spouting has nothing to do with the discernment and ethics and action needed to advance justice. Adding to the noise doesn’t help. As William Stafford once wrote, Justice will take us millions of intricate moves. (“Thinking for Berky”).