Pulling a Pierre

This morning I realized I like waking up before dawn.  We are having a glorious fall season and the early mornings are splendid.  Cool, clear, still.  Just plain lovely.

I went for that auspicious walk this morning.  I made the decision.

Since 2005 I have been jumping from between the sheets, booting the PC, setting up the camera and microphone and presenting the washed face and cleaned teeth to the live class.  More than five thousand, nine hundred, and sixty six times is what my database reports as completed but since I didn't begin the log until 2007 and since I was much busier in the first 10 years than in the last 10 years, I am fairly certain that 10,000 is a safe estimate of the number of 50-minute English classes I have presented over the past, coming to on, twenty years. Often before six a.m.  I have been teaching on Asian time.

Usually, I would wake up prematurely and my first thought would be, "you have another twenty minutes", so I'd roll over and drink those minutes and dread the alarm in a semi-conscious state.  No more.  It is done.

Well except for the 43 left in the pipeline.

I have loved my students. I have 113.  I always met them one-on-one. Some are still with me since as early as 2007, others met with me for a few weeks to prepare for a university entrance exam or a job interview or an immigration procedure. Some came to improve conversation, others for editing support.  My learners were mostly professionals needing practice for presentations in an international forum. Many disciples crossed my screen: medical specialists, software engineers, business executives, legal experts.  I met a film writer, a farmer, a global fashion fabricator, a railway developer, and other teachers of English.  I have taught parents and then their children.  I have met extended families who have recommended my service to each other and become my friends.

It has been hard to build this good-bye phase because it is so pleasant to engage with people across oceans and across cultures.  I have truly benefited from this stage of my career but  have gradually diminished my services over the past few years.

I did not originally intend to be a teacher but it turns out, have been one for most of my working years.  Early Childhood Music, Tennis, Curling, Ballroom Dancing, Computer Support, Marketing and Advertising, Leisure, Yoga, and for the past two decades. English, for speakers of other languages. 

I am ready to dance to a different rhythm. I can work through the night and sleep through the day.  My schedule will become my own.  I have told myself that my teaching has not interfered with my other projects, but now I must set myself free to see.

October 12.  This is the day.

I thank myself for carrying this career along and honour myself for this release.

Poet Thankful for OpenAI and ChatGPT

 Finally. At long last.

As a poet, it has never been about the words, anyway.

It is the same old cycle of panic on new innovation, but the proliferation of cogent text and code and technical explanations and poems and songs is the best thing that could ever have happened to me.

As creative writers, we no longer have to worry about the product. There is no more concern about the end game, the distribution, the market, the packaging, the placement.  Just forget about it.  Now we can write as we always should have, for the process.  We celebrate our spurts and our dry spells and our miraculous flows that spill from somewhere in the crevices that rest between our brain, our mind, our soul and our lovely arms that gallantly deliver our hands and fingers to put forth words on keyboards and paper.  It is a miracle.  Sadly, AI isn't a miracle.  Though it is cool, its outputs, while possibly interesting or timely or apropos, or accurate or voluminous, are well, not the result of the agonizingly beautiful creative process.  So, it has no magic.

In December 2022, one of my colleagues announced the advent of ChatGPT and advised me to hop on board.  I went to set up a userID a few times, then backed out.  I needed to wait.  Next the memes and talking heads started to show up on the socials, predicting the world-changing impact these artificially intelligent texts would have.  Fearful predictions about academic writing, screenplay writing, any research summaries, and even code outputs taking jobs from just about everyone, dominated thought.  Recently, another colleague, a blogger, was so excited because they used a photograph-generating AI platform and got "perfect" photos of tomato toast and avocado toast for their current post.  My first thought?  Oh no - the photographers will be out of work too!

And then I talked it through.  It came to me in a thread.  As a yarn.  I became my Great Granny, Mary Ritchie.  She moved from Ontario settled land into Manitoba settled land 150 years ago. She knitted scarfs and sweaters and mitts and socks but she would rather have been playing the piano.  In her golden years, suddenly, all of these could be purchased, knitted by machines!  She did not resent that one little bit.  Sure, the yarns weren't hand picked, or unpicked from outgrown garments, but she was grateful for this AI.  Of course, stalwart artisans (and poorer folk) kept knitting.  And knitting did not die away with the move to higher technology.

Further, I thought about an ancestor who was a courtisan, a few centuries back.  They made a good living in the court with their one specific aristocrat, plying the nuances of love skills.  Some song, some touch.  Some laughter, some erotics.  Their talents were always carefully and tastefully applied and garnered satisfaction-a-plenty. But then one day, their employer came into the boudoir with hard card photos of plump beauties with perky tits and bare bums, all dressed in frills alone, with maybe a parasol, or on a bicycle.  Why hadn't I thought of dressing like that?  The courtisan was momentarily dismayed and wondered whether their job was lost.  But there was no need to worry. Pornography did not erase the sex trade.

And fast fashion has not stopped people from creating their own garments. E-readers have not stopped people from reading. AI certainly can write, prolifically and accurately, and can provide an information service.  But no, it cannot take a thought and process it this way.

I am glad for AI because now, my words are even more precious to me.  Their beauty accelerates in my mind with belief in the intangible soup of being that has plopped them onto the page.  

People using AI to extend their reach and contact (and sales and profile) are victims of trickery.  Money is okay, and if your boss says so, well you do it because you need a roof over your head and some groceries in the larder.  But it will not have been your own work, and you know that.  So, again, it's okay.

When you write your song, or your story, or your letter, or your poem, or your column, or your poster, even as you collaborate, that crazy human magic gives a thrill.  The blank page.  The curious idea.  The stupidity of the next concept.  The wrap-around logic that you are searching for.  The doubt.  The self-assurance.  These are the film behind the text, or hangul, or syallbics, or audio messaging. We benefit from this as makers. And funnily enough, when we review our writing projects, we re-live those sensations.  It is like a magic mirror.  The words are only the output, not the process.

Write on.  It is an end unto itself.

Teabagging Tea Lovers

Just because I like Orange Pekoe, well, I am exotic anyway.  I've never been a brand snob.  Blue Ribbon. Red Rose. Lipton. Twinnings.  Just plane old tea. It is warm welcoming. My #NoName teabags are even okay, and my jumbo bag has lasted me a few years. This week I saw some Red Rose on sale: 144 bags for $7.99.  That seemed fair so through the till we went.

I don't make a full pot anymore.  Just one bag into my to-go cup, and I usually top it up after I've poured my first into a china cup so my subsequent sips are a bit weaker.  It is good!  Don't cringe!

Of course, it is 2020. I compost all my kitchen organic matter. Yesterday, two tea bags were draining in the corner of my sink, before I would plunk them into my compost.  I went to pick them up, and heard this strange crinkling sound.  I had never heard a teabag crinkle before.

My mind wandered to some eco-discussions about the Stash (and other) high end teabags that had been made from plastic, and yes indeed, we'd begun ingesting these micro plastics.  But no.  Not my lowly orange pekoe teabags with no string and no wrapper!  But what about that crinkly noise?

I picked them up and moved them around. I even recorded the sound (Play button is at the bottom of the story.) CrinkleCrinkle.  Yes.  These teabags looked like any teabag I'd seen since birth.  The Red Rose Tea Co. (a subsidiary of Unilever!) had duped me! Grrrr.  I was  using plastic teabags.  I yanked the one that was already in my compost out of the pail, to protect my rich soil-to-be.

Then I began freeing the rest of my orange pekoe from their plastic prisons.  Yes, all 144 prisons.  I do know that supposedly the tea we drink in these square bags is the dregs.  The sweepings from the tea-processing floor.  I already confessed though, I'm not a tea snob. I can buy tea pearls, sun dried green tea, organic and fair trade.  But this tea tastes like my life.  (btw - This box of tea boasted "Rain Forest Alliance Certified" - so there are some ethics, just not the plastic-free ethic.)  I set up a work station.  Scissors, Tea capture plate, plastic capture bin, and so began to de-package 418 grams of tea from those little white sachets.

Before my great tea release, I'd measured how much dry orange pekoe was in each bag.  For my next cup of tea, I measured that into a tweezer-style tea-ball that was seldom used.  It will be getting called into action much more frequently as these 418 grams get steeped into my morning pick-me-up.

Shame on the teabaggers for forcing me to use my tea-ball.  I doubt there will be a return to the paper tea bags that were safe for my compost. Are plastic tea bags a sign of progress or digress or egress or devolution?  

In my mind I can hear the VP of production and the VP of marketing and the VP of finance having the conversation. These bags are cheaper!  We'll have to revamp our whole production line!  Make them identical because we'll have to keep this change secret from our customers.  And I think they succeeded.  The petroleum bi-products industry found a whole new customer, or maybe they are made from recycled pop bottles.  Now, is that justification?

Time for some tea to ponder that circular thinking.

Listen to the Crinkly Teabags:

Conjuring the Ghost Plane

We have knitted in.

We have found ways to keep going forward without the big fat social obligations.

Practical things have happened to me.  I do my dishes more frequently, so that's good.

My physical self seems to be hanging on.  I am not as great a victim to my shopping behavior in the grocery market.  I do fall off my chips and cookies wagon every week or so, but that frequency has diminished.

Dreams though.  Well there is something else.  My diurnal clock has shifted.  Mornings are more welcoming than they used to be.  I resisted and resisted.  Time to get up.  Really?  It's 5:30.  I have succumbed to predawn alertness.  But, since I feel generally well, physically, what is the harm.  No harm.

Except for the dreams.  I think it is the dreams that are awakening me.

Every morning is different.  I am learning to take messages from them, and posting them in to my daily thoughts and reflections.  They bring curiosity there.

This morning was a case in point.

I ran into Bobby Dove. I asked her if she lived in  Oakburn and indeed she did.  Miraculously, so had I, in a previous iteration of my little life, and I asked her the address.  "Ten Matheson", she reluctantly reported. We were standing in a very run down version of pre-nineties Brandon and I had a marble-sized lump under the insole of my shoe, and my bunion was killing me.  But I was eager to share useless touristy information in an over-enthusiastic travelogue toward a place where she could share her art.  A gig.  We got to the place, an outdoor stage setting, albeit, messy and there we found Ainsley Friesen who was waiting. Bobby pulled out her lap steel and Ainsley was standing at a mic up high on a secondary platform.  Electronics were all in place and they started to sing.  My bunion was still sore, but I was pleased to see art begin.  They reached a crescendo and I added a loud wailing harmony to their voices.  I was filled with joy.  Instantly they both exuded guttural anger at me.  They yanked out their audio cables and stomped away, leaving me standing with my aching bunion, and wondering why they despised collaboration. 

I woke.  My bunion was killing me.  Wait.  I don't have a bunion!  Wait, does this really hurt?  I moved my big right toe in circles to check.  I could swear it still hurt.  I actually sat up and put my foot on the ground to check for pain.  I was still doubting.  No indeed.  I had no pain, but my mind had really made me believe in it.  I wondered if this was the nature of Ghost Pain that my uncle, a diabetic amputee had described.  

More important, though, was the reflection.  I had a the Phantom Pain of resentment resting just under my rib cage.  That was much more interesting than the physical pain.  Then I laughed.  No!  It is exactly the same.  The only difference is that physical pain can be real, but resentment is never real.  It is always only conjured.  I have, in this realm, only love for Bobby and Ainsley.  Of course, this says something about my reaction to disappointment.  Who among us has not had to face disappointment?  Who among us dwells on the resentment and who just lets it float, like a dream, beyond the now of a waking moment?

I give thanks to my Yoga Guru, Shell Andréa for gently bringing awareness to my thinking.  I am pleased that the lessons are arriving in my dreams. I am also grateful that I do not suffer from bunion pain and have great empathy for those who do.

No Invitation to the Pandemic Vinyl Party

Pandemic album covers are a thing.  I have been nostalgic, seeing everyone posting the most obscure collectible "favourite" albums that they have, or that have moved them, or that they think are cool.  Since I didn't get invited and since I don't feel like doing it for 10 days in a row, I decided to do it in one blast.  I only have half of my record collection with me here - so I might have to add a few later.  Carly Simon, No Secrets (1972) comes to mind as an important after thought. I do not know why I didn't bring my collection of her with me to this part of my life.  We Have No Secrets is a great song.  She influenced me as a singer.

Lastly, before I post the supposedly top 10, a couple of comments.  I honestly think my first love is soundtracks.  When I started my list Popeye  (by Harry Nilsson) (1980) and Lady Sings the Blues (1972) (featuring Diana Ross) screamed to be first in line.  Tommy (1975) and Phantom of the Paradise (1974) also received worn grooves over the years.
I didn't include any albums that I obtained on CD or Cassette or as digital files, either purchased or by pirating.  My total collection of vinyl comprises about 300 units. I will report the dates and the artist(s) and let the album covers speak for themselves.  The links in the captions are to the album.

Audience (1971)

JJ Cale (1972)

Todd Rundgren (1972)

Taj Mahal (1968)

Beach Boys (1973)

Stevie Wonder (1973)

Queen (1973)

Rory Gallagher (1973)

Faces (1973)

Boz Scaggs (1974)

Hall and Oates (1975)

Robert Palmer (1975)

The Other Pandemic

Okay, it was the blood that time.  This time it's the lungs.
I am old enough to remember that fear.  It was like missing your period when you did not want a pregnancy, only worse - the wondering, the panic.

I remember that isolation - sexual isolation.

I remember the shock when I heard about infected people who had not declared nor protected others!  It was a crime and people went to jail.

Yes.  People died then too.  Millions.

Interactive Map

I didn't live in Africa but in my own fears I sensed the dread and panic and eventually the matter-of-factness of grandmothers and children living in a world of a lost generation.  Not the old folks, that time.  Not usually, anyway.  And not always this time, either.

HIV, the virus can be kept secret.  No symptoms?  Shhhh. Nobody needed to know the truth.  Many people in  our midst died of "adrenal problems", or some strange "blood cancer" or "pneumonia".  Such a stigma that even through death, it was never acknowledged: AIDS: acquired immune deficiency syndrome.

So this time, it's just the breath.  It's not the blood.  There is less stigma but just as much denial.  Asymptomatic carriers - it is a thing.


Back then, there was no cure, no vaccination, no treatment.  For the first decade, tests were not reliable: the virus could linger, undetected, for months, some said. Prevention was to simply cover up!  Same as today.  Many did cover up.  To this day, many still do. A generation does, or so we hope. And back then, many abstained, with great difficulty, while today many are self isolating, with some inconvenience.  And there are more deniers this time.  #OhYeah.

Canadian Blood Services tried to pretend that virus didn't exist in their products.  Kind of Trumpish of them.  They denied until their backs were against the wall.  By then, people had died from tainted blood and today people are getting infected from lack of PPE.

We have been through this before.  This time, celebrities declared their infections, and we were chilled, but thought, "Thank you Hank, and Idris, and Charles," and we paid attention.  Back then, we were shocked when the celebrities faded and stepped forward in sorrow and the hope of education and research fundraising, so "Thank you Rock, and Magic, and Freddie."  Thank you Annie Lennox and Elizabeth Taylor.

The science catches up eventually.  Many people live with HIV now, and more survive AIDS.
That curve has been flattened.  AIDS is still with us, but education and science have made living with HIV in our midst, though still very real, but like in Africa, more matter-of-fact.  People are surviving AIDS (green), there are fewer infections (red) , and fewer deaths (blue) from those infections.  It still remains epidemc across countries in southern Africa.  And it is in every country on our planet.

Our job is to slow down the spread of COVID-19 so that it can run its natural course in a safe and treatable way, with as few casualties as possible.

It will not ever be gone.  We will always practice safe hygiene just as we now practice safe sex.

Profanity in Bridge

From Beavertown PrestoWorks - June 20, 2018

The president of the local duplicate bridge cartel in Minnedosa Manitoba has reported that after 24 years of regulated weekly tournament play, beginning in September theirs will be the first club in Canada to permit profanity during their Thursday afternoon gatherings.

The local duplicate group consists of up to seven tables, so 28 players, with the eldest, just passing her 102nd birthday in April.  

“It is true, but we're still just like any regulated bridge game in the world,” said Nelly Mills, the newest player to the group that meets weekly at the local Legion. “We have players who report their performance to the Bridge Gods and get their points or whatever, so la ti dah.” She reports that when she began with the group 18 months ago, she thought, “Fuck yeah!, Legion bridge, I can have my half-pint of draft while I'm the dummy, just like my Mom used to do!”.

But noooo, “We have to wait until all of the boards are played before we can head to the bar,” she lamented. “Yeah. I got used to that.”

Many of the local players reported that they grew up in families where their parents swore and hollered at each other for failing to use a convention they had invented.

“I thought drinking and arguing were just kinda part of the reality of bridge,” said Mills. “At least it was in my house. So when I finally decided to start back into the game, in my retirement here, well, frankly, I was put in my place!”

Mills researched the rules in detail and found no clauses that prohibited swearing.

“Shit, noshit, fuckballs, I mean we all forget what's been played sometimes, and you need to let it go, just like the curlers,” she said, “They swear all the time, and it fuckin' helps their game. Ask me. I know!”

Beavertown staffers followed up with duplicate bridge clubs in Vancouver and Orillia, and confirmed that there is no prohibition against using profanity, but that the hairy eyeball has been effective at keeping civility as the norm during weekly play.