PJStafford @pjstafford - Tumblr Blog

Video proof that David Duchovny is incredibly dorky and dances like a white boy but is still adorable and I want to touch his butt.

pjstafford

Keep finding videos I haven't seen her from Seattle and I keep being happy with everyone.

Get to know your mutuals

Thank you to @randomfoggytiger for the tag.

1. Origins of your blog's name

My first and middle initial and last name

2. My "I'll always order this food"

At a certain restaurant in town the Artichoke bisque

3. Overused emoji:

😍

4. Current comfort:

Waking up and listening to birdsong for ten minutes before starting my day.

5. Song on repeat:

Stella Blue from The Grateful Dead

6. My current hyperfixation:

Bob Dylan is touring so keeping up with how his performances are going, his set lists, hearing audible recordings.

7. Oddly specific things that brings me joy:

The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. Since 7th grade I’ve kept a copy by my bed to read a verse or two as the mood strikes and a keep a tiny version in my purse for waiting at doctor appointments or at the bus stop.

8. What smell makes me happy:

Coffee, a nice whiskey or bourbon, random floral fragrances on my walks.

9. Something I did as a kid and still do:

Make up stories about strangers

10. Phone wallpaper right now:

11. Are you an early bird or a night owl:

A night owl.

12. If you work, what is your profession and do you like it:

I’m self-employed now and have different contracts. Facilitating trainings and support groups for caregivers, self- advocacy projects for persons with disabilities, and coordinating a state alliance team on disability and aging.

13. Bonus question:

[What was a childhood dream that morphed with maturity?]

I always wanted to write for a living but as an adult didn’t believe in myself enough to think it was a practical goal. At some point realized that writing was still the essential part of who I am and started a tumblr blog and now a coffee site to share my writing.

@lepus-arcticus @dd-is-my-guiltypleasure

Ten Bob Dylan Lyrics I Think of Often

There are certain lines of Bob Dylan’s songs I keep in my brain to bring up and think about when certain occasions arise. They are not necessarily the best song lyrics, but they are ones I recall more frequently than others. On the master lyricist 84th birthday, I am sharing these to memorialize his daily impact on my life.

When I need to center myself within my life’s rhythm:

Yes, to dance beneath the diamond sky with one hand waving free

Gonna sleep over there, that’s where the music coming from.

When life seems fragile:

3. I am hanging in the balance of the reality of man, like every sparrow falling, like every grain of sand.

When I need to remind myself to be in the present:

4. It’s the last temptation, the last account, the last time you might hear the sermon on the mount, the last radio is playing.

When I find yourself in a tricky situation:

5. If my hands are tied, must I wonder within, who tied them and why and where must I have been

When someone is annoying me:

6, He sure has a lot of gall, to be so useless and all

When I need to just keep pressing on:

7. Life is sad, life is a bust, all ya can do is do what you must.

When others judge me because I am not like them:

8. If I’d lived my life by what others were thinkin’, the heart inside me would have died. I was just too stubborn to ever be governed by enforced sanity.

When I get restless:

9. Got a mind to ramble – got a mind to roam, I’m traveling light and I’m slow coming home.

When I need motivation to try something new:

10. He not busy being born is busy dying.

#bob dylan

pjstafford

In the Big Inning - a look at The Unnatural (X Files)

David Duchovny has always defined himself as a writer. His plan for a day job was to teach collegiately and write during his time off. Teaching is a profession that sometimes allows for longer breaks than the typical job. In college, he showed some promise as a poet and, in a few interviews, post success as an actor, joked about the type of money he might have made as a poet. While working on an unfinished (all but dissertation) Ph.D. in English Lit from Yale, he decided that, perhaps, he might become a playwright or screenwriter and that, first, he should learn what it would be like to be an actor and say the lines that had been written for actors to say. He audited some Yale theater classes, took acting classes in New York on method acting, and began his career in a Lowenbrau commercial. With his role as Fox Mulder in The X Files, he achieved international fame, critical acclaimed, awards, and vast financial success. in 2022, David has released four novels, has a novella on its way in June (along with a chapbook with recent poetry) and has written and directed one movie and two episodes of television.

However, in the Spring of 1999, David Duchovny was a 39-year-old man who had a story credit on three X-Files episodes and writer isn't the way most people saw him. In the sixth season of the X-Files, he asked Chris Carter if he could direct an episode and was told only if he wrote it. The result is The Unnatural which aired on April 25, 1999. This would be the first piece of writing David Duchovny completed which would be available for mass public consumption. Over 16 million people watched its first broadcast.

As a fan of David Duchovny, the writer, I have watched and blogged on the X-Files episodes that David Duchovny has story credits or wrote. I have been eagerly anticipating this, my favorite episode of the X-files, but find myself now a bit intimated at the task at hand and my desire to write as well as this episode deserves.

The Unnatural is definitely an X-File and, yet, not typical of X-Files episodes. Let's examine the words David wrote for Mulder as the description of the plot:

"MULDER: Let me get this straight: a free-spirited alien fell in love with baseball and ran away from the other non-fun-having aliens and made himself black, because that would prevent him from getting to the majors where his unspeakable secret might be discovered by an intrusive press and public and you're also implying that..."

This is definitely an X-Files. It involves the fatal night of July 2, 1947, in Roswell, New Mexico (the night of the famous alien spacecraft crash). It has two guest characters that have occurred in other episodes - Arthur Dales who originated the X-Files and the Bounty Hunter. It connects the mythology between 1947 and 1999. It has an alien killed by the bounty hunter using the stiletto implement used before.

However, as Chris Carter said about the episode: "I think that David, a person who has a very intimate understanding of the show, made the best of his opportunity to tell a very different kind of X-File, and expand the elastic show that it is."

The Unnatural is first and foremost a fairy tale of the Pinnochio variety. With his refusal to show his real (alien) face to the bounty hunter and the bounty hunter pronouncement of "so be it" before he kills him, Exley dies in the arms of Arthur Dale as a man- who is bleeding red blood instead of the green blood which is toxic to mankind.

The Unnatural is the only true fairy tale of the X Files. To paraphrase Arthur Dales, the episode is less about the heart of the mystery and more about the mystery of the heart. This is not an X File case of how Exley turned into a man. We will never know the science behind it. This is a story of why an alien left its species to spend his life among the humans playing baseball. The lesson is that doing the unnecessary, the thing we love that is useless and perfect, is a component of humanity that elevates mankind as a species. The unnecessary is needed. The lesson is framed by the bookends of the scenes with Mulder and Scully - the first scene where they are working on a Saturday and Scully is urging Mulder to go outside and play and the end where Mulder teaches Scully how to bat.

The alien, Josh Exley, is the only alien in the X Files with whom we grow quite fond. The only other alien who we spend as much time with is Jeremiah Smith in Talitha Cumi and Herrenvolk who left the project because he saw some good in mankind, but we never grow as fond of Smith as we do of Exley.

Many would put this episode, The Unnatural, as the best or among the best episode of season six. While it is light-on scenes with Mulder and Scully, the batting scene is enough to please the most die-hard shipper. Another highlight of the episode is the excellent cuts from 1999 back to 1947 which uses visuals such as a T.V screen or the "poorboy" character running down the hallway of 1999 into the baseball stands of 1947 to further show the time frames are connected. The shot of Exeley dying in Dale's arms as he stares up into the sky and then fading to modern-day Dales looking up into the distance in the same position is very poignant.

This episode, also, reflects on racism and segregation by using the segregation in baseball and the threat of the Ku Klux clan as part of the storyline. The use of the language around "my people and you people" as Exley talks to Dales is used as a way to reflect on racism even as he is talking about aliens. David's story about racism, the negro baseball league, the Ku Klux clan contains the only use of the "n" word in the X Files series. However, David's story is one of a white policeman with "no opinion on negroes" becoming friends with a black baseball player.

In the Unnatural, we have an excellent example of what has become the signature characteristic of David Duchovny's written style. David writes about the serious subject matter in a way that focuses on the good or the positive which comes out of the human experience. He writes in a way that makes you laugh, cry and think. It is hard to watch The Unnatural now and not equate it to his novel which is set in a baseball season and yet is a funny story about the death of a father (Bucky F*cking Dent). That David loves baseball is clear.

The end of Exley becoming a human brings hope and joy to the tragic tale. David Duchovny’s first written X-File is an excellent hour of television which both fits in well within the series while, also, being a different and unique story.

pjstafford

Today is the anniversary of The Unnatural.

As Time Goes By

By Pamela Stafford.

So, you are finding life is hard today.

That happens now and then, my dear.

Worried that your life is meaningless,

You feel like you might cry.

When all you know is loneliness

And you don’t even want to try-

When your poems no longer rhyme, my dear,

And your heart is full of fear,

Just place your hand in mine today

To remember I am here.

As boats in hard winds are blown asunder,

Heartfelt friendships can fall apart.

Your words themselves can become twisted

To harm you with a lie.

Friends’ forgiveness is close-fisted.

Don’t lose your faith as time goes by.

Some friendships were meant to end from the start.

Forgive them as they depart,

Stay free of resentment’s thunder,

To preserve your sacred heart.

Anxiety awakens you this morn.

There’s a shift between right and wrong

As the world embraces tyranny.

Changes happen so fast.

You try to find the irony

As the future looks like the past.

You know right is right and wrong is still wrong

My dear, you will have to stay strong.

Remember each new day is born

Each morning brings a new song.

Record scratch – Rhymes interrupted

In summation:

We all are finding life hard day to day.

We will all see family and friendships torn apart

We are all anxious and feel as if we are in a storm

If the facts aren’t the facts, how can we determine right or wrong?

And I give you platitudes to shelter you from the storm because…

Hope is the thing with feathers-

I really do want to believe.

If we take each other’s hands, we will be reminded of what we hold dear.

We must keep our hearts free of resentment’s thunder

Each new day is born

Each morning has a new song

The world will always welcome lovers

The fundamental things apply

As Time Goes By

We will weather the storm.

Keep the Faith.

Hold dear to the truth and act in the best way you can.

And platitudes work because they’ve stood the test of time.

Choose one that had more meaning for you today than it ever has before.

#poetry #platitudes #astimegoesby

dargina

Cliche Juice by David Duchovny set to a scene from Califonication.

itsmckennak-deactivated20140508

OMG, this is genius!! Seriously, this goes so well with Hank and Karen, it’s spooky!

pjstafford

Secrets Declassified by the History Channel and hosted by David Duchovny: A review of Episode One.

Spoilers Ahead

I found each segment of the episode, Secrets of the Skies, interesting. Each segment provided some information I did not know previously. David Duchovny is a good choice as host. I am likely to continue to watch the next nine episodes of the series. Still, I am disappointed in the structure of the story or the lack of a coherent narrative. The episode would have been more compelling with fewer segments and a deeper than surface-level dive into one or two of the stories or could have developed a more complete throughline connecting the segments beyond declassified files about the skies or more accurately aircraft. Either approach would have made the episode more compelling.

For instance, the story of the Goldsboro B-52 crash left me with more questions than answers. The episode said people in the area were evacuated. Was that just the farm families of Faro or did it include the actual town of Goldsboro, a mere 12 miles away? They reported what the teenage son of the family who owned the farm where the bomb and wreckage were discovered said at the age of 80, but there are likely other people alive who were impacted. What were they told then? Is the area around the site radioactive? What did the people living in the area in 2013, when the documents were declassified, think? What changes, if any, were made in 1961 as a result of this accident? There were survivors of the crash. Did they ever talk about it? I realize I can (and did) google for more information and I now know both National Geographic and PBS have done stories about this crash, but none of my questions would really constitute a deep, deep dive into this story. It's not as if we got a very detailed report and I wanted to do a deeper dive. We got a short report which left out basic details. The question of what the geographic and population impact might have been if either nuclear bomb had detonated and what geographic and population numbers were actually evacuated speaks to the relevance of the story.

If there is a reason why these stories all had to be told in one episode called "Secrets of the Sky", then what is that compelling reason beyond the "they all fit into the category of stories about aircraft." They could have tied multiple of the stories, but not all, into stories of the UFO sitings phenomena or they could have more particularly connected the stories into a narrative on how the Cold War created a technology race that included danger, espionage, and strange ways to spend money. It seems like there were ample ways to connect the dots better and, while I will watch any programming with David Duchovny, at the end of the day I would prefer a stronger narrative of why these stories are important.

Finally, if none of these two narrative structures were chosen because the premise of the shows is simply looking at recently declassified files in a historical context and they were loosely gathered into somewhat similar topics (such as declassified secrets of aircraft), then they could have done an introductory segment on why that is important which might have included how historians regard declassification of materials or a discussion of how documents become declassified. if that is the narrative, then introduce it as the narrative.

In short, give us some reason to watch the series beyond that the host is David Duchovny.

pjstafford

The second episode of Secrets Declassified hosted by David Duchovny was better. The stories all connected in a more obvious way and they did a better job of connecting the dots from the past to today. I enjoyed it more.

It's Time for Women to Reclaim their Born Identity- re: The Save Act

It probably surprises no one that I am against the SAVE Act which claims to be to prevention against voter fraud and is actually a voter suppression act. if passed by the Senate and signed by the President, it would mean that to vote the name on the registration must match your birth certificate. There are many reasons people legally change their names beyond women getting married. Trans people are another target of this act, but people also change their names for other personal reasons such as to distance themselves from family abuse or scandal, for safety to make it harder for an abuser or rapist to find a person, or to return to a name changed when their ancestors came to this country. So I understand that what I am about to propose doesn't "fix" the problems with the act.

However, the vast majority of people this would impact would be married women. Yes, I understand that there is a clause that puts it back on states to create a process to handle this concern. This opens the possibility that some states women the right to vote or make the process of voting for married women so complicated and complex that it will keep women from voting.

This is part of a targeted attack on women aimed at reversing voting rights and returning women to a property of status. It has after all only been a short 25 years since these rights were granted and rights women had fifty years ago have already disappeared in some states.

I am divorced, but even when married I retained my birth name. There were two times this came up as a concern. When my husband and I were in apartment management, our supervisor had a concern that because I wasn't using his name, it might appear as if an unmarried couple was hired which would shock the residents of the apartment complex so I hyphenated it- not legally, no change on my driver's license or paystubs, but in all apartment complexes newsletters or notices or when I signed leasing agreements. The second time was when I went to get a "real" ID. My driver's license and birth certificate have always matched, but at the MVD they asked me if I had ever been married and I said yes, but retained my birth name and was now divorced. The clerk said he needed to see my divorce papers because otherwise I was "supposed to" use my married name. Both of these events- one 30 years ago and the other within the last 10- are evidence of the mindset of narrow-minded people in the country and the country is now ruled by narrow-minded people.

I urge women, whether the SAVE Act passes the Senate or not, as an act of deviance to take back your birth name. It is, by current statute, a woman's choice whether or not to use your married or birth name. You will need to use your birth certificate and your marriage license to change your social security card and your passport and change all your legal documents. You should not have to go to court to change it. Will that upset the right-wing Republicans who believe that women are "owned" by men and that taking your husband's name is not an old remnant of past property laws but a decree from God? YES! That's the point. Republican knows that any proposals to not allow women to vote UNLESS they are married and have children is, at the current time, too extreme for even this congress. Yet, to assure future Republican victories, they want to solve their "gender" deficiency by making it impossible for married women to vote. This will make it easier for some states to change their statutes in time to address that it's not fair for unmarried women to vote if married women can't.

Let's say no to any notion of women being denied the right to vote and to any notion that women are the property of men. Let's Take Back Our Birth Names.

#save act #voter suppression #women rights

Secrets Declassified by the History Channel and hosted by David Duchovny: A review of Episode One.

Spoilers Ahead

I found each segment of the episode, Secrets of the Skies, interesting. Each segment provided some information I did not know previously. David Duchovny is a good choice as host. I am likely to continue to watch the next nine episodes of the series. Still, I am disappointed in the structure of the story or the lack of a coherent narrative. The episode would have been more compelling with fewer segments and a deeper than surface-level dive into one or two of the stories or could have developed a more complete throughline connecting the segments beyond declassified files about the skies or more accurately aircraft. Either approach would have made the episode more compelling.

For instance, the story of the Goldsboro B-52 crash left me with more questions than answers. The episode said people in the area were evacuated. Was that just the farm families of Faro or did it include the actual town of Goldsboro, a mere 12 miles away? They reported what the teenage son of the family who owned the farm where the bomb and wreckage were discovered said at the age of 80, but there are likely other people alive who were impacted. What were they told then? Is the area around the site radioactive? What did the people living in the area in 2013, when the documents were declassified, think? What changes, if any, were made in 1961 as a result of this accident? There were survivors of the crash. Did they ever talk about it? I realize I can (and did) google for more information and I now know both National Geographic and PBS have done stories about this crash, but none of my questions would really constitute a deep, deep dive into this story. It's not as if we got a very detailed report and I wanted to do a deeper dive. We got a short report which left out basic details. The question of what the geographic and population impact might have been if either nuclear bomb had detonated and what geographic and population numbers were actually evacuated speaks to the relevance of the story.

If there is a reason why these stories all had to be told in one episode called "Secrets of the Sky", then what is that compelling reason beyond the "they all fit into the category of stories about aircraft." They could have tied multiple of the stories, but not all, into stories of the UFO sitings phenomena or they could have more particularly connected the stories into a narrative on how the Cold War created a technology race that included danger, espionage, and strange ways to spend money. It seems like there were ample ways to connect the dots better and, while I will watch any programming with David Duchovny, at the end of the day I would prefer a stronger narrative of why these stories are important.

Finally, if none of these two narrative structures were chosen because the premise of the shows is simply looking at recently declassified files in a historical context and they were loosely gathered into somewhat similar topics (such as declassified secrets of aircraft), then they could have done an introductory segment on why that is important which might have included how historians regard declassification of materials or a discussion of how documents become declassified. if that is the narrative, then introduce it as the narrative.

In short, give us some reason to watch the series beyond that the host is David Duchovny.

#david duchovny #secrets declassified #history channel #critical review

Sign in My Dream Says...

I had a bifurcated dream.

(Too much Severance?)

A part of me dreaming blissfully-

A part of me aware, rational, analyzing-

A dog runs to me in joy,

(I don’t have a dog)

I am happy to see him.

(I can’t have a dog where I live)

He’s non-descript, a blur in shape,

Dreamt in abstract-

The feelings aroused are specific, familiar-

Present, playful, pleasant.

(Don’t go thinking I need to get a dog)

A deep booming male voice -

“Get that sexy ass over here, mama.”

Talking to me?

I turn, smiling, anticipating

There’s my man, but I can’t see him well.

(No one says that about a 64-year-old ass)

I’m dancing, his hands caressing my (64-year-old) ass.

I’m aroused

(Subconscious telling me I’m horny)

We belong, him and me, together

(That’s never going to happen)

Dylan sings, “This must be what it’s all about.”

(He’s right, but it wasn’t meant to be for me)

Spinning around I notice a sign.

I can't see what it says

Sudden darkness and a knock three times on a door.

I wake.

No one is knocking on my door.

A knock on the door in my dream that awakens me-

It is a sign to remember this dream. Remember.

It has happened two to three times in my life.

An important dream. Remember!

(What does it mean?)

Usually a foretelling-

(like my future includes a man and a dog)

Not impossible…

(It’s more painful to believe and not have than not to believe)

It could just be telling me I need connection,

Human or dog, I need to feel

Connected, a being depends on me,

A being I can depend on.

(Let’s be realistic)

Don’t make me, not right now,

(Might as well get up now)

It’s 3:30 in the morning

(I could briefly scroll on the phone to make sure nothing is on fire around me)

Stop!

(It’s a time of deep insecurity right now for all of us. My dream is my sub-conscious trying to give me the comfort I need now in these uncertain times.)-

Shut up. I snuggle under the blanket.

(It’s 3:30. I might as well just get up. Maybe do some cleaning)

Ok, but first let me scroll my phone and make sure nothing is on fire near me.

#poetry #dreams #bob dylan

Why I’m Willing to Give Up Wokeism.

I watched the speech last night fully.

Here is what I think is the most important thing we can do.

Within ourselves, within our hearts, within our family, within our conmunities we need to fight all the isms of human nature that segregates any of us and welcome all the isms that show a path forward.

We all are guilty of practicing the negative isms. Ageism, racism, sexism, ableism. We are all guilty of ism-thinking even when we become part of that ism misjudged group. For instance, if I forget where I left my keys am I really having a senior moment when I have, in fact, been forgetting where I left my keys since my twenties? The negative ism thinking is part of our process of finding our own worth through dismissing that of others. We all do it. It’s a way of processing our identity and our perception of reality through a competitive lens which is part of our human nature We have to fight against that. Anything that says you as a human being are not as relevant, significant, important, competent, or you are by definition of your differences less than me somehow is something we have to fight because it pits us against each other rather than for each other. Humans are intrinsically relevant, important, worthy. We are all part of the fabric of humanity. Ism thinking belies that. It is says humanity is important except for you because…

I’m going to include wokeism in that negative ism category going forward. Isn’t the above paragraph woke? Yes. Many of us have been searching the last few years for our own hidden biases and we said we were woke when we found them in ourselves or society. Then we made damn sure to bring it to everyone’s attention that we were more woke and more enlightened than the rest of the population. We have in fact spent much of the last few years saying that the world we inhabit is divided into the enlightened woke and the rest of you Neanderthals. The fact is that wokeism was still a way to say why we were better than half of the population. It was wrong. It led to a backlash of people embracing all the negative isms fully. If it is so challenging to rid our own thought processes of stereotypes about say Native Americans than to Hell with it we will just insult people by calling people Pocahontas and Squaw. Half of the US population said they couldn’t stand wokeism and elected Trump. That’s where we are now. How is that working for us?

Isnt it better at this point to say the negative isms are something of which we all are guilty? WE should fight against that, I’m saying, in ourselves, our families, our communities, our country WITHOUT using that fight to divide ourselves into us vs them because THAT is what we are trying to avoid in the first place. Let give ourselves and others the grace of forgiveness for our sins in this struggle.

Let commit instead, whenever those negative isms confront us to look for the isms that are more productive towards walking our path of valuing all humans. Activism, optimism, altruism, even absurdism, humanism.

I’ve been screaming into a void of futulity. I’m done with that. I have to find a path forward to wake up with a smile. A way out of…wait for it… defeatism.

This is the philosophical path forward for me.

#wokeness #donald trump #a better world is possible

Unremarkable Eyes

Her eyes are unremarkable.

They are not bluer than Robin’s eggs

Or Dark eyes.

They are green,

But not with hints of fire or emeralds.

They are kind of pale but not pale enough to surprise.

They are the most unremarkable of eyes.

But when I look in her eyes I see-

Lust and desire,

Sometime happiness,

A sadness that is hidden,

A mystery I’ll never understand-

These looks she reserves for just this man.

Her eyes are unremarkable -

Hidden by glasses

Or without them, she squints.

Sometimes they show all the fatigue,

Redden from eye strain, work and devices,

They are the most unremarkable of eyes.

But when I look in her eyes I see-

A sparkle when I make her laugh,

A flash of anger,

A demand for an answer,

The look that says it’s a lie-

The looks she reserves for just this man.

When she cries, my heart breaks.

Her eyes are unremarkable until

She forgives me.

Her eyes are unremarkable until

She tucks our child into bed.

Her eyes are unremarkable until

She needs to be strong.

Her eyes are unremarkable

Until I remember to whom they belong.

They are the unremarkable eyes of a remarkable woman.

I crave their every glance.

#poetry #eyes

Inauguration Day Eve, 2025

I wish I could wrap us all in a blanket of warmth

Such that we would sleep through the winter

Awakening only with spring’s new growth

Or, at least, get a good night’s sleep tonight

With a joyful awakening at dawn’s first light-

Confident of the promising day ahead,

But I cannot wrap us all in a blanket of warmth.

I am one of the restless in sleeping

Who will wake to a dark, frozen day

As if Mother Nature, tired of weeping,

Shocked us all with cold and gray

To say better to get numb

Then to care so deeply

Or to see too clearly

The future we step into on this Inauguration Day.

I wish I could wrap us in a quilt of serenity-

Keep us all safe, sheltered, warm

With an endless supply of precious eggs

And a nation that in perpetuity

Welcomes the foreign-born seeking freedom’s shore,

Embraces the diversity among us

But I cannot wrap us in a quilt of serenity.

For I am one for whom insecurity will become the norm.

I am aged, disabled, transgendered and queer,

My skin isn’t quite white,

My status might be questioned,

A woman unable to birth a child,

I am one of those with little worth in a land where

Security and safety belong only to the wealthy born.

I wish I could surround us all with grace

So with gratitude, we might embrace

A past of greatness and shame

And mourn a present of greed and sin,

Believe in a future that will make us all…

Well, I will not say great again,

Perhaps, kind, creative, innovative, strong, and free

A world of grace I would bequeath to thee and me,

But what I wish is not what is to be,

So I cannot surround us all with grace.

Yet…

I will not wrap us all in anger, despair, or apathy

Even if it seems we’ve given away the soul of the American dream.

America’s never been exceptional.

It’s always been a myth.

A dream our forefathers dreamed one afternoon long ago.

A dream never quite achieved.

Sometimes we have come closer.

Sometimes we have failed astonishingly.

Today we fail by will collectively.

Yet, there is nothing exceptional about America or Americans-

Only something exceptional about the dream.

In America we will do what we have always done.

Dreamers dream

Workers work

Lovers love

Voters vote

Marchers march

Families care for each other

Humanity endures.

We must live in the reality.

We cannot live in a dream.

Yet, we cannot give up on this dream.

it is the American soul.

So, I rewrap us all today in that American dream-

Of Equality for all.

It never was, but it might someday yet be.

It is a worthwhile dream.

#inauguration #poetry

mrsmulder

Video proof that David Duchovny is incredibly dorky and dances like a white boy but is still adorable and I want to touch his butt.

pjstafford

Keep finding videos I haven’t seen her from Seattle and I keep being happy with everyone.

pjstafford

I love this video so much I have to repost.

A Review of A Complete Unknown

Spoiler alert. This review contains spoilers for the movie A Complete Unknown, but also the movie is about actual historical events that occurred 60 years ago and so maybe do not be so sensitive about spoilers.

I posted a short tongue in cheek and very political “non-review” earlier. The point of that was to point out that the unique political and social-cultural circumstances surrounding the events of the movie are like those we face today. This review is intended to be a more serious and less political review.

The fact that Dylan went electric is a historical fact. This a significant event not just musically or in Dylan’s career, but in the history of the country and especially the countercultural movements of the sixties. The significance of this is really about the reaction of the audience and the folk musicians and folk media of the time. The chaos that occurred when Dylan appeared with an electric band as the closing act at the Newport Folk Festival is not exactly as portrayed in the movie, but is a fact, as is the subsequent concerts where people threw things on stage, booed, called him Judas. Al Kooper is quoted as saying that he quit the band because he did not want to be shot. There were death threats against Dylan. When Dylan stopped touring protest marches were organized in front of his house to try and convince him to return to writing protest songs in the folk tradition. These events were significant enough for Elijah Wald to author his book on the fiftieth anniversary and for the great director Martin Scorsese to create a 3-and-a-half-hour documentary (which is divided into two parts). In many ways these events have gained more significance as the artist involved has continued to be culturally important including winning a Nobel Prize.

For me, I have known this history most of my life and up until Elijah Wald’s book was published was baffled at the absurdity of why or how a musician, even Bob Dylan, changing genres could produce this much anger and angst. I mean, people bought tickets to boo him instead of simply not listening to him. People protested at his home instead of other important marches happening. People fighting for the rights of others didn’t afford this one man the right to determine his own musical endeavors. It is so bizarre.

The book helped to conceptualize it on an intellectual basis. The folk movement believed they were in a fight for the soul of our country (a sentiment I can relate to more these days). Their movement leaders had been largely silenced through being blacklisted during the McCarthy era and in a couple of years this twenty-year-old songwriter had gained more attention and followers through his incredible songs. He was supposed to take the movement mainstream and instead, from the movement’s perspective, went down a more commercial path.

What the movie A Complete Unknown does is tell the story in a way that allows the viewer the visceral understanding of the story. We are transported to a place and time The fact that to do this they fictionalize conversations or condensed events does not matter if it helps to get the story told in a way that explains these events in a more impactful way. There are ample places to get the facts. I have known these facts most of my life. I now understand them better than I ever have and that is a significant feat for the movie to accomplish.

It is also a challenging feat given that hindsight is always 20/20 and we know now what we didn’t know then. We know that in the 1990s Pete Seeger wrote a letter to Bob Dylan related to the Ax incident at the Newport Folk Festival. We know that after hearing Earl Scruggs cover of Maggie’s Farm (a song Dylan performed at the festival) he had to acknowledge what a great song it was. We know the impact that Dylan going electric had on rock and roll song lyrics and even on the country music outlaw movement. We know that in a short two years later Dylan would return to semi-acoustic music and produce the John Wesley Harding album. We know many of Dylan’s future songs would contain messages aligned with left movements. Joan Baez is on record now as saying as upset as she was at the time about Dylan not wanting to go to marches and events (like they had appeared together at the March on Washington), she now recognizes that the songs he gave the world could only be written by him and that is where his talents needed to be utilized. There is so much history since the event and only speculation on what might have happened if Dylan had made the choice which the folk movement wanted, that it is challenging to combat all of that to put us into the mindset that the people involved in the folk movement were justified in their feeling that Dylan had betrayed them. One sign of how successful the movie is at this is the current social media discussion over how we might have had a better world now if Dylan had been more committed to the cause because he could have been the only human who could profoundly change the world by writing a song.

The movie has terrific performances by all the actors. The character of Pete Seeger in this movie is the one character who truly can hold the audience emotional investment in the folk movement. Therefore, without the superb performance by Edward Norton, the story would lose its impact. Instead, he carries the emotional impact of the movie well. There is a moment during the earlier Newport Festival where Dylan is performing and the audience is singing along in unison and someone whispers to Seeger, “this is your dream. To see the movement reach a mass audience.” At that moment, Edward Norton’s expression of fatherly pride and hope for the future very effectively imprints on the audience how important Dylan is to the movement. This creates the pathos for the next year scene when Seeger is begging Dylan to perform acoustic. Those two scenes more than any others provide the viewers the empathy for the folk movement which at least explains if not justifies the subsequent events after Dylan goes electric.

This is an excellent movie, and I recommend it for anyone interested in folk music, Bob Dylan, or historical drama. Be prepared that there is a lot of music in the movie and if you don’t like the style of music, it might be too much for you.

#bob dylan #a complete unknown

Not An Actual Review of the Movie a Complete Unknown

A Complete Unknown is an excellent movie highlighted by truly amazing acting and musical performances. Most people who are familiar with Dylan’s career and/ or the history of the sixties likely have some basic details about the Newport Folk music where Dylan “went electric” and started to play rock and roll instead of acoustic folk music and protest songs. It is an unusual occurrence for a change of genre of music to be considered not only significant in the artist’s career but a major historical event with potential repercussions for the civil rights and peace movements of the day. It is enough of a historical event for a book to be written on the fiftieth anniversary of the event and now a movie is to be made. It’s true Dylan isn’t an ordinary artist. But from the distance of time, I never understood it. As much as I love Dylan and as much as I understand the history- it always sounded a little absurd to me. Dylan changed his genre of music and people got so mad that there were rumors a peaceful, peaceful man like Peter Seeger would try to cut his wires with an axe. On a subsequent tour people bought tickets to boo him, call him Judas and throw things at him. People staged protests marches outside of his home because he wouldn’t’ write a protest song. People believed that his songs could lead to full equality of African Americans and bring peace to the world and if he didn’t write them that might not happened. Dylan refused because he wanted to play rock and roll. He chose rock and roll over full equality and world peace. I mean it all seems absurd.

The movie really helps to set the stage for how the event came to be. It was a strange time. It’s helpful to be transported, through the power of a movie, to a place and time – a distant past so we can understand how this all occurred. It’s not an easy task though to portray such a time and space.

I mean first you must understand that in the United States of American there were powerful congressmen who were true fascists. They wrapped everything they did and said in patriotism although often the people they were going after were people who simply believed that all people had inalienable rights. They would label them as communists, unamerican, woke… oh, wait, that last one might be another time I’m thinking of. Then, they would silence them by blacklisting which meant they couldn’t perform or sing their songs. So, performers who were very successful could suddenly be, like… we would call it canceled. And some of the courts upheld the decisions these powerful congressman would make. And the world wasn’t at peace at all. We were afraid of nuclear attacks. If you can imagine, children in school had to do drills where they would learn to shelter in place, get under desks or in a closet. Can you imagine children going through drills as to how to shelter in place in case of an attack? Some people begin to think the end of the world was possible. Also, women had no reproductive rights. Abortion was illegal.

I mean when you put yourself in that time you can understand how people were desperate for hope and how absurd things could happen.

#weneedmoreprotestsongs #Dylan #A complete unknown

youreadarkwizard

"There was an added bonus of doing that episode, which was, after seven years of teasing, we could let Mulder and Scully kiss. And the reason we could do it is because it was New Year's–New Year's millennium–and that's a thing people do.

I love the way the kiss turned out. Not just for the kiss itself, but for the looks that those two actors gave each other after the kiss, which I thought were so rich and loaded that they invite all kinds of questions about what the two of them thought about that kiss and whether they would ever kiss again."

-Frank Spotnitz

The X-Files - "Millennium"

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