Skip to main content

Admire

My daughter's class is talking about leaders, people they admire, pioneers the next 3 weeks. Who do I admire? There's way to many people of course, but here are some:

I'm reading Bill Bryson's book on Shakespeare and I admire both. 

Sangharakshita is my deceased root guru, I've read most of his many words, and appreciate the Buddhist order he created. 

Wes Anderson's movies are good.

Greta Thunberg's activism to save the planet and the environment is admirable.

Just read a biography of Henry David Thoreau, really like him.

Best president in my lifetime was Barack Obama. 

So many musicians I love, but just to pick one jazz pianist, Bill Evans. John Coltrane and Charlie Parker, Miles Davis. Last jazz I saw was Ari Hoenig on drums, amazing. I took a class with Richard Davis at Wisconsin, he played bass.

Best symphony? Mahler's 5th. 

Favorite opera: La Traviata by Giuseppe Verdi.

Favorite pop band? Maybe REM with singer Michael Stipe.

I like the paintings of Sasha Gordon and Lisa Yuskavage.

Poets: Mary Oliver, Rilke, Yeates, Dickinson.

Novelists: Kurt Vonnegut, Paul Auster, Philip Roth, Octavia Butler, Thomas Pynchon.

Favorite TV shows: Community and Rick and Morty, produced by Dan Harmon.

Favorite Anime: Cowboy Bebop by Shinichirō Watanabe.


I instantly think of 5 other people in each category, but you know to actually put it down isn't easy. When I put down a soccer lineup, other quibble with it, but find it harder to say I'd play Sands over Perea or take out Fernandez. 

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Manet and Degas

  Brilliant video explaining the exhibit. Go to the Met and see the exhibit! It's really quite special.  In the last gallery the painting this sketch is based off of, of the execution of a Mexican president. The painting has been cut into sections, and the surviving Degas has reassembled them. NY Times review

The case for Harris

Motley Kamuka Blog endorses Kamala Harris. In general, Trump just wants to lower taxes on the rich, and do nothing, sell whatever influence he can to line his pockets. Apparently the emoluments clause in the constitution has no teeth. Harris has a set of ideas about policy that are fairly middle of the road. In most countries she's would be seen as a centrist. Spin about her radical agendas are exaggerated.  I'm not sure how he got past " grab them by the pussy ", but he did and here we are. Women: Obviously the idea of giving women pregnancy tests at the borders of the state, and then if they come back and don't have a baby, they go to jail, isn't really what most women want. Pick Harris.  I understand if you think abortion is murder, maybe you've been told that by the Catholic church, which has the same ideal of Buddhism that you don't kill--so follow your religion for yourself. Not everyone is Christian or Buddhist or even has a religion. Women are ...

AOC

Dark Brandon meet Dark Alex. I see her advising the republicans to stick to their guns and never compromise. They don’t want to do anything, only obstruct. So they don’t actually need to be unified. Chaos isn’t organized. This is fine. Read all about it from Heather Cox Richardson , a historian who covers current events. "As their policies threatened to lose voters by concentrating wealth upward and hollowing out the middle class, Republicans increasingly warned that minority voters wanted socialism and were destroying the nation to get it. Trump rode that narrative to power, and now tearing down the current government is the idea that drives the Republican base." While we're at it, here's another funny photo from the Onion: And then: I listened to the Times podcast about George Santos . He basically lied about, I don't know, 80% of his resume, and has a mysterious $700k in his "corporation" which has no clients. So he's a Russian or Chinese plant, o...