THE PILING-ON PHENOMENA

  Cairns can be seen across the American SW to mark the way of a path. Most not are not piled as elaborately as this one, acquired through my Stencil membership

Two things before I pile on... as in, discuss what piling-on is. These aren't one more important than the other, but one has to go first. 

I have no interest in changing reader's minds. I want to lay out what I think and why, but if someone disagrees, sees it the opposite, I will not fight to the last round to convince them they are wrong. I have a philosophy of not only live and let live, but also that while I do believe in what I do, I could be wrong. Many people do not share that view. They are convinced not only they are right, but I am wrong. I am not one of those people. 

I go by what I have lived, what I have read and heard, and finally what to me seems like commonsense. I don't have to convince other people that, for instance, "I am not a racist". I don't really care what they believe as few of them know me at all. I know me. I know racial prejudice is not in my DNA based on experience. I have known too many people of various races and beliefs for me to think they were inferior/superior based on anything but their actions and the things they say. 

So, when I've written a blog, it's not to convince you to think like I do. It's to tell you why I think as I do; then let the chips fall where they may. I can agree to disagree and do it without insulting others. That is also in my DNA.

Let's see, where was I, oh yeah, the second point or perhaps secondteenth by now. I am not by nature a follower. It might be why I am not into sports. Who would I root for or bet on? It's just not my thing as a non-follower. Same is true of celebrities whether of movies or music. 

These days I would be lucky to even know their names, but back in my younger years, I had one crush on a celebrity, except he was not a real person. He was a character. (I do not btw get crushes on my book characters either.) Actually there were two crushes as a kid and I mean early teens or before. Cheyenne and Spin. Look them up if you want, but the crushes didn't last, as I got old enough to have crushes on real guys. lol

Finally, I am to my point for this blog. Piling-on is one of those things that (forget its dictionary meaning) can go positive or negative. People tend to follow what others think. Now, that's not everybody, but a certain group of people.

Where it comes to me, at my age, I sometimes have a general understanding of what is being talked about but mostly I know little about sports or the celebrity world of today. I know a bit more about political leaders, like where'd they accumulate that wealth on their salaries? I only know about their personal lives what I read, which means media is determining it, whether news or social. 

What I've seen recently for the piling-on has all been negative whether movie, music, or sports stars. Lose a game and the world turns against you as it's 'the' thing to do and a way to be part of the group. To not pile-on is to be suspect. You must be one of 'them.' These can lead to riots or big demonstrations to depict power. Piling-on is about being part of power.

Politically speaking, I've read (often they can be from anonymous or false sources) to make every day January 6, 2021 in terms of disrupting government working. Earlier it was claimed those piling-on should interrupt those, who work for the 'wrong' person/party, should go where they go out to dinner, to movies, and at their homes and yell insults or carefully worded threats (don't wanta get arrested do ya). 

It has also meant trying to kill and sometimes succeeding. With those who didn't do it, piling-on by saying they wish that person had succeeded or were glad for what they did. Piling-on can mean trying to disrupt the economy as punishment; thus, so many phone calls that the one they hate cannot function. Destroying businesses by fires or breaking in (businesses unrelated to the current piling-on cause). And on it goes right up to and including violent protests that block roads for those on the way to work, when they again had nothing to do with what the piling-on person is angry about.

Of course, there can be a seemingly positive side to piling-on. You then become part of fandom. You follow someone and accept whatever they do must be right. This works fairly well for politicians and entertainers until they do something to upset those piling-on, then watch out. It can encourage people to support causes, music or movies because it's popular, not because they even like them or know much about what they mean.

The power of piling-in is how one sports figure just said that the whole experience can 'shoot you to the moon.'  Well, it can also bury you in darkness when it turns if the person depended on it. Here is how it can work: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/10/v-fluence-pesticide-critics

Obviously, I am no fan of piling-on negatively or positively. Decide what you think or like based on what you believe and have experienced yourself. I see there is energy there, but it can turn on you just as fast. 

I don't generally use cartoons, but I thought a humorous approach to this subject, considering how angry things can be right now, could be fun to put together. The three images were found and purchased from Deposit Photos. The images represent the two ways of piling-on and the energy behind it all.

 

what love is

When writing romances, it's part of the deal to care about relationships and the subject of love itself. With a romance, the requirement is a happily ever after-- in short, it has to work out in the end. An example would be Pride and Prejudice where however unlikely it might seem, they're going to be with each other at the end of the book. 

image purchased from Deposit Photos.

With love stories, this is not necessarily the case. An example of that would be Gone with the Wind. One might hope he'd come back but didn't seem likely when the story ended.

Romances are fantasies, not to say love stories cannot also be, but one is satisfying even when it might not feel realistic. Still, does it seem believable that this couple would fall in love to begin or did the writer just throw them together and tell readers that it happened. The best romances make the reader believe, yep, it could make sense. 

I wrote one of my contemporary romances where it began with a couple divorcing, which one wanted and one did not. Divorces do sometimes end with a couple back together in what we call real life. Not always and definitely not needed in a love story.

Always when I begin a romance, I have in mind at least one of the protagonists. Then who seems likely for that happily ever after, with, of course, some major glitches along the way. That is required or there is no interest. When I come up with the second protagonist, I have to believe it's more than seeing each other and bam. If I don't believe in it, the readers will not.

Music speaks a lot about love-- sometimes as a romantic fantasy and sometimes with sad endings. I particularly like this song from the 80s where it speaks of someone wanting to know love, wanting to find someone to teach them.

I want to know what love is

Here's the thing about love. It's within us. Relationships in romances can begin many ways, from friends to lovers or even enemies to lovers, but the real life deals, which last. love for each other, and not in the romantic sense of the word but more the in depth caring for that person and what is good for them as well as one's own self.  

People looking for love in their lives have to be logical as well as emotional. Do I share life goals with that person? Do our backgrounds make it likely that we will understand each other? It can't be just lust, though that might be a beginning. If that's all it is though, don't expect it to last. Real love goes through good and bad times with a desire to work together for a good life. I try to write romances where that seems likely for the protagonists.

Romantic love is lovely in books, soothing to read through dark times, but the kinds of relationships that last take genuine love and that takes the emotion and logic to make it through the dark times-- and I believe all relationships have those. I know something about those long term relationships as I am in one. Not that I don't have dreams that add to what I write.

manipulation

 

Something stirred my interest this week (though, it should not have) and finally I realized I had to write about it or it'd not let me go lol. I tend to be that way with a lot of things. If they are on my mind, I can finally go on, once I do whatever the feeling had me needing to do... even when I had other things to do that 'I' regarded as more important.

This one related to a 'trans' group in Norway that decided Aretha Franklin's song, Natural Woman was offensive to trans and they wanted it taken off Spotify, etc. For reasons beyond my understanding, the media picked up the story from what I gather was a 'new' group. The group doubtless knew that and hence tweaked it. The media is so easy to manipulate. I have no idea what Spotify, etc. did about it, but I know what they should have done-- ignored it.

Whether you are sympathetic to trans causes, are trans, this should have been ignored as it's not about trans at all-- not in its message or its timing (came out in 1968). I think they pushed it to get their group known. Maybe it worked and maybe not but wish it would not and wish our media would be less gullible.

I had to listen to the song again as though I remembered the melody, I'd forgotten the words. If that is your case, here's a link to hear it on YouTube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jCFzreP1ng

Listen to those words and do you hear anything about a man becoming a woman? You do not, as back then it was far less a 'cause' than it has been recently. But if a man wants to become a woman, does he not want to be a natural woman? 

What the song speaks to is this woman finding someone who makes her feel all she hadn't felt before. She has found the one who brings out the female in her. Could not a trans-woman also feel that way when they had the 'right' person come along? It's about an emotional reaction to loving the right person and what it did to the writer's heartstrings. 

A feminist might disagree with that message-- feeling we should not need someone else (notice song never said male or female lover) to feel all our own inner strength and being. We should do it for ourselves as most recently Miley Cyrus sang about in her new song-- Flowers. I can do it for myself was her message. It is probably the strongest way to be when we don't need someone else, but when we do, is that bad when it's the right person? When other people bring out the best is us, isn't that a good thing?

nostalgia

 by Rain Trueax

 

I am in a nostalgic mood and hence thought I'd share here some music from way back in my life-- as in when I was born, from WWII. Because Blogger improved itself.... I cannot figure out how to embed these. Here though are the links to some videos with music from a bygone era.  The first one is 'I'll be Seeing You' with photos from the soldiers fighting that war for the freedom of the world.

https://youtu.be/cHcunREYzNY

The next is one of my favorites but when it was sung by the Righteous Brothers. A man is singing to his wife that things will be better. When Jimmy couldn't sleep in his own bed, it was because England was being bombed at night. We just think we know tough times. 

https://youtu.be/qI5j7qamG-A

The following song came from a movie called The Sky's the Limit, coming out in 1943 in the midst of the war. It's been sung by many since then, and I like this combination with Frank Sinatra singing it with images reminding us of the high cost of wars and finally Fred Astaire dancing as he did in the film. 

https://youtu.be/wtUVT-d5rmI

There are times when bringing up the past can help us get through the present-- with a few tears, of course. Crying is actually healing as is laughter.

And, of course, can't leave out-- As Time Goes by. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d22CiKMPpaY

music speaking to and for us

 image from Stencil

It was a difficult week... or month... or year. Writing about it does not feel productive. I heard though the words below shared in Facebook; and although I liked Tom Petty a lot, I was not familiar with all his music. The lyrics to this one seem to say so much about what we as humans go through to exist and hopefully prosper. We aren't all the same, and we never know what someone else might be thinking-- sometimes even someone dear to us.

Also on Facebook I heard someone find fault that people were making a big deal over Tom Petty dying when so many others were. The thing is, some people make a bigger difference to more people. Song writers like Petty fall into that category when they speak to life and what it's all about. He is a loss to his family, especially when he died before what we see as his time, but he's also a loss to the rest of us who won't hear the next song he writes. At least though, we have what he had already written and performed.

Shadow people, what's in their head,
In the car next to you, when the light turns red?
Could be thinking of love, might be thinking of hate.
I guess it pretty much could go either way.

Shadow people in shadow land

That one's thinking of great art and eloquent words.
That one's strapped on a gun and joined up with the herd.
That one's saving up water, got some food stored away,
For the war that is coming on the judgment day.
Shadow people in shadow land

And this one carries a gun for the U.S.A.
He's a 21st century man.
And he scary as hell, 'cause when he's afraid
He'll destroy anything he don't understand.

Well I ain't on the left, and I ain't on the right.
I ain't even sure I got a dog in this fight.
In my time of need, in my time of grief,
I feel like a shadow's falling over me,
Like shadow people in shadow land.
Shadow people in shadow land
Shadow people in shadow land
Waiting for the sun to be straight overhead,
'Til we ain't got no shadow at all.

Shadow People

When I went looking for the year he had written it (it was released on an album in 2014), I came across this:

The singer explained to USA Today: "I'm not extremely political. I just look at what makes sense to me. I would think we'd be in the streets demanding that our children be safe in schools. I see friendships end over politics. I've never seen such anger. That's not how it's supposed to work. In a two-party system, ideas are argued and you compromise. You're not supposed to stop the process." 

 It has not gotten better is about all I can say regarding that...

My guest blogger-- Jim Roberts on doing a radio show

Until my 50th high school reunion came along, I'd never gone to any of them. That one though seemed significant, and Farm Boss and I attended his and mine. What I liked about doing it wasn't so much the reunion, which was fine; but it was reconnecting with friends from those years, some I'd known since childhood. In my mind, they were all still 18 until that September. To now see them as my age was very cool.

 One of those was Jim Roberts. When I was a kid, with my mom, brother, and the neighbors, I picked beans and berries on the Roberts' farm. I have very vivid memories of being between the tall bean rows, eating a warm sack lunch when the break came, getting the beans weighed for how much I'd be making toward school clothes.

Jim and his wife Sally

At the reunion, I reconnected with several friends on Facebook and Jim was one. When I found out what he's been doing, I asked him to write a guest blog here because I thought others might find how public radio works and who does these shows to be of interest.

As a side note, it is also interesting what we can do, in our senior years, when the world might think we should be playing Bingo or sitting home watching TV. The following is from Jim:

*************************** 

Will start by saying I've known you since we were kids in the same grade and riding the same school bus.  You were really quiet and studious and I was sort of the opposite!  Fifty years later I see you at the first hi school reunion I'd ever attended and then connected through the magic of face book.

Don't know if this is pertinent, but I have had a life long love of radio as a means of learning things and enjoying music.  I remember being a little kid listening to my dad being interviewed on a Portland radio station that had something to do with farming.  Blessed to not have a TV until maybe a junior in hi school so consequently listened to radio and read.  Same stuff I do to this day with the recent increase with radio involvement.

We haven't had a TV since 1990 so know virtually nothing about of the current menu on the tube.  Stumbled across KMUN shortly after moving to Wahkiakum county from Anchorage.  Had just retired from 19 years as a staff RN at Providence Alaska Medical Center.

My wife Sally and I arrived to the Columbia-Pacific in February, 2010.  First thing that caught our ears was The Ship Report at 8:49 each weekday morning unless it's in 'dry dock', as the host and station manager Joanne Rideout describes.  NPR news and local interest programs mornings and evenings interspersed with local news covering Oregon and Washington issues.  And then the music starts.  Folk of one sort or another weekdays 10-noon followed by Fresh Air and then, depending on the day, will be two or three hours of music.

 I was listening Joey's Blues in the Afternoon on a Monday afternoon in September of 2012 when he announced that KMUN was looking to train new programmers and to call the station if interested.  He hadn't hung up yet and I was on the phone!

Shortly an application arrived in the mail and ultimate acceptance into the class of 5 that met five consecutive Wednesdays from 4-5:30. Elizabeth Menetrey is the program director and taught us well.  At the end of the five weeks each person had to produce a five minute show with a beginning, two sets with snippets of three tunes in each with a station break between and then an ending to the 'show'.

A committee then decides if you are good to go on air. I was paired with Todd Lippold on a Saturday noon-2:00 show called Cross Road.  I remember the date, 11/10/2012 as it coincides with the Marine Corps birthday.

Since then have hosted a variety of shows including Lost Highway, Blues in the Afternoon, both on Mondays with regular hosts John Stevenson and Joe Patenaude, Cross Roads, Stuck in the Sixties and the Saturday night party from 8-10.

This all leads to the recent major winter storm here with huge wind gusts and lots of rain.  I was enjoying the 50 mile drive from Cathlamet to Astoria to do the Saturday night show which I call The 420 Club/Trippin' with Jimmy when I host it.

I was about half way across the Megler bridge and listening to KMUN programmer Ellen playing her music on the Shady Grove program when there was white noise for less than a minute before the signal was back. Arrived at the Tillicum house studio with my box of CD's for my program and found that another programmer, Suzy McCleary, had already talked to Ellen. She asked me to call our engineer Terry Wilson and find out what happened.

Turned out that Coast Radio was the only signal going out in the local area.  Both TV and radio stations had lost power and were just gone.  The true beauty of our community radio is that it's all volunteer programmers and community supported.  This is why we have the pledge drives and have a propane fired generator which allows us to broadcast even when all else has failed.  People do call with updates on what is happening where they live.

Terry had just left the air room after announcing that power had been restored to a particular area and a person called and said not so.  That's why we do this and this is part of stated objective of serving our community; Ask any of the other programmers and get the same answer.  It's one of the most fun things a person can do is to be on the radio.  Knowing that the entire planet most likely isn't listening to you and your music but also knowing they could is really cool.

Being able to play music recorded by friends of mine in addition to music Sally and I have collected over our 25 years is also really cool.  But the very coolest thing of all is to be a part of this truly amazing family and endeavor we call Coast Radio.

************** 

And for me besides hearing an old friend on the radio, here is the cool part-- you can listen to this music and station from anywhere in the US. When I went on the trip down here to Tucson, all I had to do was click on the link and there it was coming through my computer. To hear music a friend has chosen, the kind you might not hear elsewhere, then it's on a station that is not tied to corporate masters, that's worth protecting, don't you think?

KMUN 

An Arizona Sunset

There is nothing more musical than a sunset. He who feels what he sees will find no more beautiful example of development in all that book which, alas, musicians read but too little-- the book of Nature.

Claude Debussy

When you follow a sunset from its beginning to the end, it is like music. The sky keeps changing and going from pastels to intense colors and then finally fading to dark gray and then black for nightfall. It is when you want to have Grofé Grand Canyon Suite playing on the stereo.

what does the fox say?

After a summer of the foxes, I came across this on Facebook and loved it. Come on, we all need something to make us feel good. Check it out.

Actually we do know what the fox says:

Yellowstone Experience

My enthusiasm for writing this blog is low in the aftermath of driving so far and with so much traffic. I came back to the farm feeling highly stressed which didn't lessen when I got an episode of food poisoning at the same time as the emotional upset over it led to sky high blood pressure. EEk.

So I went to my doctor-- reluctantly I might add-- even though the numbers were back down to what is normal for me but borderline not okay by the medical system. He suggested with one of those little smiles he does so well, that I try a med for it. I was prepared, mentally resigned, and so I am starting onto something he claims is mild, without side effects-- and might help.

I also know I need to reduce my stress level by expecting less of myself, walking more, losing weight, and not letting things get to me. I am a lucky woman in a ton of ways but stress is about anything that isn't going well or does upset a person. I am going to work on improving my reaction to it.

Today I am relishing the sound of rain outside an open glass door. I do love that sound and all the green that is so lush around the farmhouse.

So, stress tips appreciated and in the meantime, here is one of the scenery videos I created for YouTube. I had put it out before but with different music. For this I used JewelBeat (which provides a license to use anywhere for $.99 or free if you allow their name at the end). But I like owning the license and this brings back wonderful memories of one almost magical trip and all the wonderful animals we saw. Doubtless I will go there again but it's unlikely I will ever have so many wonderful chances to photograph so many animals. It was awesome.

The music perfectly matches its energy. See if it helps your stress level.

You might consider bookmarking my YouTube Channel as once in awhile I will add more of this sort from trips that truly did feed my soul as I took them and now again through these photos!

The Yellowstone Experience

For those interested in Yellowstone National Park, I sorted through the nearly thousand digital images to find a little under 90 for a video or slide show illustrating some of the flavor of Yellowstone. That's not an easy task as it's a park with many aspects.

The video uses Mozart's Piano Sonata No.11: I. Andante grazioso. a lovely piano concerto. That link runs just under 15 minutes, so not something when you are in a hurry; but if you want a meditative time, I think it's the ticket.

Video with music: Yellowstone Experience

Because not everyone has the connection speed to look at a video, I also posted these same photos as a slide show: The Yellowstone Experience..

Nurturing Nature

One of the things I did when it was raining so much outside, while I had been dealing with some winter (which was lasting a tad too long) depression, while trying to figure out what I want in my life, was to create slide shows with music.

Art has often been a thing that helps me heal, but oil painting wasn't doing that so much as I kept thinking I had to have a product when I was finished. With digital, that's not so much an issue. I can do things for the fun or to express something inside for which I cannot find words. Digital art, for me, can be like keeping a journal would be for someone else.

Music has proven to be part of this process recently even though I am not a person to always have music going. In my home, I like silence most of the time to let my own thinking flow but also so I will hear if anything is going wrong outside. Sometimes though music really speaks to my soul and I go through a period where I play it a lot.

A few years back, I had seen a friend's photographs put into slide shows with music and I really liked that idea. It wasn't until I got involved with [Picasa] that I realized I had a tool that would let me do the same thing. First it was for my photographs and I shared some of that here. Then I realized it would work with my digital paintings. The next idea was-- what about creating art just for a piece of music?

That's what this is, a mix of my own ideas and some that I created especially to go along with a song. The song is from the children's movie, Pocahontas (which I have incidentally never seen) but I have the song on a Disney CD. The lyrics are [here]. I have loved its message and melody since I first heard it as it's about seeing the beauty around us, responsibility to nature, and understanding that we are all connected. The Nurturing Land is about two things-- how nature nurtures us and we nurture it.

[The Nurturing Land]

The art in this video is all mine, a combination of digital and oil paintings with the emphasis on digital. With two exception (the imaginary wolf howling at the moon and the painting of dancing around the medicine wheel) they are all places I have been, inspired from photographs I (or Farm Boss) have taken.

I have been fortunate in my life to have been allowed to richly experience a part of the world that I love so much. It's still here in places, open and wild, because earlier generations fought to keep it that way. I hope future generations will be able to say the same thing.

John Day rivers and a high mountain lake

For me, the greatest appeal of the John Day rivers would be their beauty against the hard lines of the land. There are the cliffs, the rock formations, the rich colors, the uplifts and then these beautiful, peaceful little rivers. Their water is what makes the John Day country possible for agriculture.

The John Day country is more or less created by upheaval, volcanic and river action. The center of Oregon is drained by four rivers: the North Fork of the John Day, the Middle Fork of the John Day, the John Day and the South Fork of the John Day.

One thing about rivers in this high desert country is they look innocent and innocuous but they are not. They can abruptly change into torrents. Three times the town of Mitchell has been badly damaged by a flooding Bridge Creek which was so nearly dry at this time of year that you'd only know it was a stream because of the indent and trees.

In the high desert, even the smallest streams have caused catastrophic floods as this is not a country of dams and it is a country where a fierce rainstorm can settle in mountains far away, eventually sending a torrent of water down the gullies to wipe out homes and towns.

The hard part, especially in the 1800s was you wouldn't have any way of knowing the flood was coming. When such a flood hit the town of Heppner, Oregon (to the north of the John Day country, in 1903, 250 people were killed. Story of Heppner Flood. This experience was and can still be repeated many places throughout the west.

The John Days are beautiful rivers, famous in Oregon for their fishing and rafting, but they are as tough as the land through which they flow. Even the photos of the lake don't tell of the avalanche of rock that formed a natural dam making it possible.

John Day rivers and lake

Since there was no way to cut the number of these photos down to anything reasonable, I created the above slide show. The music is Chopin from On Classical which if you listen to the whole thing, you will hear their blurb at the end. It is free for non-moneymaking sites and has beautiful versions of many classical compositions.

Hallelujah

When I have the time to play, to take ideas wherever they can go, it can be anywhere. Recently it was finding this version of [Hallelujah] at YouTube.

I became re-addicted to the song watching Shrek (which I love) with my two small grandsons. Now I can't get enough of Hallelujah's melody and lyrics.

I want to suck the words, the images right into me. I want to sing it over and over. I need to get some simple piano music for it because I love to sing it. It's not as though it presents a particularly happy view of love; but it's a passionate one, full of imagery when you close your eyes and imagine what the song is describing.



But is the best version the one on the Shrek CD, the one that Rufus Wainwright sings or... would it be Leonard Cohen, who wrote it: [Hallulujah at Glastonbury in 2008]?


Some would say finding things like this are not a better use of my time than the necessary driving into town for groceries. Well I am realistic enough to know that there has to be work, there has to be some time at stores, but I try to structure my time; so that I am not running around anymore than need be.

I want to leave myself unstructured time to make an unplanned drive to Portland (85 minutes) to spend an afternoon in Powell's Bookstore. Boy was it crowded that Sunday. There I can meander around with no idea what I want or need, but I will always find something.

When I go to say the grocery store or even when I need to buy clothes, I know exactly what I want and make it as quick as possible. After all, I need to get back out to the farm for learning more about [Leonard Cohen] because I always want to know where creative people got their energy. What did this composer live through that led to such a song?

Earlier, from Netflix, I had seen the documentary [Leonard Cohen: I'm Your Man], which I enjoyed but I am not sure it answered what life experiences led to writing something like Hallelujah that is about questions of love using music with undertones from religion.

Sometimes I stop trying to figure out the why and just want time for meditating and letting something like his music soak all the way through me. With that song, there is so much to soak in.

(Personally, I like Cohen's version best. It's like listening to a writer or poet read his/her own words. It is always better than even the best performer's version).

Deck Garden

This farm house doesn't have a backyard or front yard like some homes. What is in front, or closest to the mailbox is not the entry to our home. The actual 'front' door hasn't been used as an entry in all the years we have lived here.

The deck, which is at the back of the house and closest to the creek, is where guests first come. This is where we spend time outdoors, have a table for meals, and enjoy most of our summer flowers. It is also where recently we put together a small fountain.

For Christmas I had been given the mechanics and a small copper butterfly to put together for a fountain but it needed a pool for the water to fall into and be recirculated. Very cool but we hadn't quite figured out what to use with it.

After trying several things, where the water bounced out of the fountain too quickly, we came up with an unused, old concrete birdbath. When I say came up, I mean I thought of it, and Farm Boss carried it around and positioned it; then we used rocks which had been tumbled by my parents from their rockhounding years, some chunks of sandstone from northern Arizona, and had new, pleasurable addition to our outdoor living.

This combined with another idea. Because of having so many good photographs especially this summer, I had been thinking again about a way to combine music and photos.

Picasa3, which I had recently downloaded (free) as a useful tool for transferring photos, turned out to also have a program to make movies. That sounded even more interesting when I saw it had an audio option for slide shows.

I know this probably isn't a big deal to others, but for me it was exciting. Several times I had looked at various software options to make slide shows combined with sound, but nothing seemed easy enough for my level of computer skills. The garden photos, that we had taken on Sunday, were a perfect opportunity to try this out. I downsized them to make for faster viewing but didn't try to put together a show to match sound.

Eventually, if I can find music to buy at a reasonable cost, I might try to do something with my landscape photos for YouTube as photo work is very enjoyable for me. So far the online sources for music have confused me. One wanted $20 for one song but then with unlimited use. It offered several arrangements but still wouldn't I get sick of one song for all photo combinations? Free ones required downloading software, and then I wondered are they really legal as they claim?

For my first attempt, since it's in my private album, I used music from one of our CDs. If you go to the video, pretend you are on our deck. The music is what you'd be likely to hear from the stereo inside. You will have to imagine the sounds of sheep maaing and cows mooing.

[Deck Garden]

Photos above were taken August 2 at the farm.

The Songcatcher

Poster Janet McTeer and Aidan Quinn

Netflix might prove expensive for us if we keep wanting to order the movies to buy after seeing them. One more joins that list. Netflix is cheap, an excellent way to see a lot of good films, but how could I see The Songcatcher only once?

The plot is a framework for us to get to know the people of Appalachia and the music that runs through their blood. Dr. Lily Penleric (Janet McTeer), a musicology professor at a university in the early 1900s, is frustrated by the limitations of her position-- talented, hard-working women don't get made full professors. She is in a dead-end affair with a married man, a full professor, more interested in bedding her than helping her.

So Lily takes a leave of absence to visit her sister who is teaching at a small school in the hills of Kentucky. When she gets there, she is astounded to hear the music these people's ancestors brought with them from their native homes in Ireland, Scotland and England (Emmy Rossum plays a young mountain girl). Music is part of their soul and Lily starts out to collect those songs, these wonderful lyrics, far purer than any available elsewhere with her intent to put them into a book.

For those of us who love hill music, real folk songs, the sounds of dulcimers (I have one Farm Boss made many years ago), banjos and fiddles, the singing of songs that tell stories of a hardscrabble life that wasn't easy when they came and won't get better but has left them with a richness money can't buy, those things let us have two hours sharing something we will never really know personally but can feel deep inside.

The Songcatcher is about music, about culture, nature, beauty, about finding the freedom to let go and be ourselves. It is also about a love whose name must not be spoken and about a love that doesn't come conveniently but cannot be denied. I had not seen Pat Carroll in years but she plays a wonderful, old mountain woman, Viney Butler, talk about spunk and spirit.

The film takes Lily from the fine lady with a lot of self and society imposed limitations to a woman who can strip down to her basic elements as she stubbornly digs her toes into mountain soil. A beautiful film on all levels, it's one of those little independents that often flies under the radar but should not. Movies like this one enrich and help us grow as people-- and do it with great joy.

If you haven't seen it, I heartily recommend it. If you have, but it's been awhile, rent it again or maybe like me-- buy it. It took an award for best ensemble film in 2000 and with good reason. All the characters in this film are rich and fully portrayed even when they are onscreen very little real time. They are part of the fabric of the tale.

Jane Adams and Katherine Kerry from The Songcatcher

Happy Mother's Day

Beautiful by Claudia Carawan

music for the spirit

Last spring I put together a blog to use this YouTube; and then got sidetracked by other topics and it disappeared from view. As I was looking through my old posts, to see if I had missed anything, there it was.

It seems very apropos after the one on rewriting our history because there is something else we can do with our history, even the part of which we might not be very proud. We can learn and be inspired from it. We can make it part of us becoming better as people. It is always our choice.

Incidentally, I love spiritual music from many religions. The following link is to my favorite old hymn.I only wish I could have such a simple faith again. Wintley Phipps not only sings it as beautifully as anyone could, but he sets the mood to give the melody even more meaning.

Amazing Grace

Western Skies

Friday's music was of an epic love which may or may not end happily. Sunday's was about an epic task, one that takes all a person has but that they will finish come hell or high water.

Today's is a song more about real life inspired by the land and people where I live and love. Take me out of the west (although strictly speaking it's probably from the Plains to the Cascades, I define it as reaching to the Pacific Ocean) and I'd wither. I know my roots, where I was born and where my ashes should be spread and it can be anywhere under--

Western Skies

If you write a blog, you know how they have a way of taking over, just as writing fiction will do. What was planned is not always what happens. Such is the case here when I thought of this song, then of the man who sang it, the land where he lived, and suddenly the blog expanded.

Not everyone is a fan of western music, but I am among those who are. Chris LeDoux, who died way too early in March 2005 of a rare form of liver cancer, was the real deal in terms of his character, singing and cowboy lifestyle . He had ridden rodeo in his younger years. He and the love of his life raised their family on a ranch in the same country where Butch Cassidy had one of his hideouts-- Kaycee, Wyoming.

In 1998, before I had heard of LeDoux but was very interested in seeing more of the country through which Butch Cassidy rode, I made a brief trip through the Powder River country getting as close as I could to the Hole in the Wall. In the town of Kaycee was this wonderful little museum full of western information and memorabilia. This area, Johnson County, was also a region of struggles between big cattlemen and homesteaders.

Because of the reminder of Kaycee, I dug into my drawer of photos and scanned a few from that trip (back in the days before digital made this all so much easier) and will share them tomorrow as there are few parts of the west as beautiful as Kaycee and none prettier in my opinion.

Red River

"There's three times in a man's life when he has a right to yell at the moon: when he marries, when his children come, and... and when he finishes a job he had to be crazy to start."
said by Mr. Melville (Harry Carey) in the film Red River.

As there are with the friendships we have made, the things we have done, there are those films that pass right on through after one viewing (if we're lucky); while others stay inside for a lifetime. Red River, starring John Wayne and Montgomery Clift, is in the latter category for me. It has a soundtrack that to me is the gold standard of movie soundtracks. While I generally feel most western soundtracks are great, it's at the top of any list.

When I went looking for a video for Red River, I found this YouTube. Only rarely do I read the comments below but this time I was rewarded when I learned Amazon now has the full soundtrack available. I skipped over as fast as my keyboard would take me and ordered Dimitri Tiomkin composer, William T. Stromberg conductor and Moscow Symphony Orchestra for the full soundtrack of the 1948 film, Red River.

Acquiring this particular soundtrack is a big deal for me. I have a lot of them. Mostly whenever I choose to use music to paint or write by, it's a soundtrack. I like them for how their soaring melodies play certain emotional strings, and (the ones I choose) for how they have no words to get in the way of my own ideas.

For years I have enjoyed the shortened version of Red River's soundtrack for bringing to life feelings of grandeur, of someone taking on a job that they know they can't succeed at but they stick with it anyway, for feelings of strength, and now I have the whole soundtrack to provide that inspiration. If you have seen the film, you know its soundtrack is like another character.

Maybe this year I will learn to do music montages such as are on YouTube; so I can create my own. I bought the software but haven't taken the time to learn how to use it. For now, someone else's creativity will have to do.

Red River

Unchained Melody

In my part of the Pacific Northwest, because of very heavy rains, there has been water water everywhere. (I guess you could drink it but I wouldn't suggest it.) Because I live on a creek, flooding is always a possibility when the conditions have been right. They predict, downstream from the farm, that local flood crest will come in the afternoon.

Currently the creek below my house sounds like a river and is just barely outside its banks. The closest it has ever gotten to the house has been to the edge of the driveway (the year of the sandbags), but it seems unlikely it'll come that close this week. Still definitely not the pretty season on the creek as the muddy water rushes past.

This is the season of long nights, of lots of hay for the cattle and sheep, of carrying in firewood to feed fires, of cats staring outside in disappointment or looking in the french door with their noses pressed against the glass-- like why did you let me out?

For me, this has always been the season for evaluating last year, fixing what I can fix, and devising plans to change what isn't working. It is a season where I look for inspiration many places and among them would be movies (more about them in the future) and music. Because I have the blog, it seemed a good time to look for videos to fit some of those songs that speak to my soul. YouTube is such a wonderful resource for creatively using music.

To begin, here is one for all those who have loved and had it work out and just as true for when it did not--

Unchained Melody with the Righteous Brothers