Yesterday was marked by two events.  I initiated and finished cleaning the shower.  The necessary and unpleasant biweekly chore was alleviated by my Spotify playlist of music.  I use several small fans to ameliorate the noxious fumes of the cleaning agent which removes hard water residue.  There’s no need to describe in further detail this unpleasant task.

The other event was news of the conclusion of the 2nd impeachment trial of former president Trump.  A statement by representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez D-Ny expressed succinctly that accountability for actions on January 6th were precursor for the nation to heal, to move forward.  After the House managers made the case for his conviction and hearing a rebuttal by the defense, the final vote was taken.  To no one’s surprise the former president was acquitted. Immediately after the vote a speech was given by Senator Mitch McConnell R-Ky, Pontius-Pilate-like, to absolve himself of his shameful vote.  By an act of casting a vote to acquit, republican Senators are on record as standing with the former president, as he incited the mob to rush the capitol with murderous intent.  This is as ugly and as dangerous as it sounds.

As has often been the case music “gets me through” experiences and states-of-mind that are difficult.  Life is a thrill ride.  Sometimes the thrill is nauseatingly terrifying.  It is impossible to know what lies out of sight around the next bend.  As one gets older, the pattern becomes more complicated, — music has been one of my lifelines to sanity.

The tunes, divine like, and the lyrics penned by poets lifted me mentally and emotionally in the midst of my immediate shower-cleaning chore, and from my awareness of what was going-down in Washington.  The tunes reminded me there is a rhythm to Being.  Matter and energy and time resonate in an eternal pulse of major and minor chords; that I am immersed, bourn along on this river of unspeakable beauty.  It is there for us if we will be still to listen, to live with eyes wide open.  The idea is not new.  Pythagoras thought so.

I listened to the plaintive voice of Janis Joplin expressing anguish over her inability to make a failing relationship work.  Try (Just A little Bit harder) is about the tragedy of humankind, which we experience directly and personally when love, will-power is not enough to overcome the momentum of the another’s past conditioning, habitual patterns of behaving and believing.

  …Try yeah, try just a little bit harder…so I can give him every bit of my soul.. show him love with no control…

To give all of your soul to someone who has a empty hole where their soul once inhabited, is a lost cause.  And yes, Janis, many of us have been there.

Also, my spirits were lifted by Lawyers, Guns, And Money, by Warren Zevon.  The melody is a rollicking ironic contrast to the grim, dark, trajectory of the story told by the lyric.  We have a way of “painting ourselves into a corner,” of making decisions that become clear only in retrospect.  Habits which seem fun, harmless, have a cumulative bad outcome.  The lyric is a panicked plea for immediate rescue by means of lawyers, guns and money.  Warren Zevon (January 24, 1947 – September 7, 2003) was an American song writer.  The character speaking in the lyric claims to be “unlucky,”  to having taken “a little risk.”  The solution requested is quintessentially American.

Last of the tunes, is White Rabbit by Jefferson Airplane.  I never tire of hearing the powerful voice of Grace Slick deliver a rendition of the mythical Alice in Wonderland story.  Observing, listening to the machinations of Congress and the Executive over the past four years of the Trump presidency, it seems that I might be on “one pill that makes you larger” one day, and the next day on “one pill that makes you small.”  Much said and done was irrational, clearly the issue of spite.  Who would not like to “call, go ask Alice, she’ll know…”

When logic and proportion
Have fallen sloppy dead
And the White Knight is talking backwards
And the Red Queen’s off with her head
Remember what the dormouse said
Feed your head
Feed your head

Well, the dormouse said to me, to keep reading, to keep losing myself in rhythm, and rhyme and lyric of good tunes.

Happy Valentines Day!

White Rabbit

By Jefferson Airplane

One pill makes you larger
And one pill makes you small
And the ones that mother gives you
Don’t do anything at all
Go ask Alice
When she’s ten feet tall

And if you go chasing rabbits
And you know you’re going to fall
Tell ’em a hookah-smoking caterpillar
Has given you the call
Call Alice
When she was just small

When the men on the chessboard
Get up and tell you where to go
And you’ve just had some kind of mushroom
And your mind is moving low
Go ask Alice
I think she’ll know

When logic and proportion
Have fallen sloppy dead
And the White Knight is talking backwards
And the Red Queen’s off with her head
Remember what the dormouse said
Feed your head
Feed your head

Lyrics written by Grace Slick