VAN MORRISON, 1972 – Another outtake from the Saint Dominic’s Preview
album cover session. Source: http://www.michaelmagic.com/
— kenne
In 2010 we experience our first Sonoran Desert monsoon season. There was lots of rain, wind and lightning.
This year’s monsoon season has been a nonsoon! So far we have had only 2 inches of rain.
This weekend’s forecast was for heavy rains and flash flooding — somebody stole our rain!
So, for this monsoon season the best I can do is revisit an August 31, 2010 posting. — kenne
Catalina Foothills, Tucson, Arizona — image by kenne
During this summer’s rainy season, many storms have provided much-needed rain to southern Arizona. However, when it comes to rainfall, not all areas are treated equally. We had received little rain till the other evening, so when the rain began, it was a time to rejoice. So much is special about the desert. I wrote a poem and produced a video. You can read the poem below and/or in the video.
Desert’s Rainy Season
Desert’s rainy season is
A product of summer highs
Mixed with atmosphere lows
Bringing a refreshing brief break
To her blue-skied summer heat
Desert’s wide-open spaces
Provide panoramic views
Showcasing threatening clouds
Only too often breakup
Before reaching your sky
Welcoming rains come
Only at Desert’s well
Playing havoc with forecasters
Never seeming to learn
She does not keep time
Wind shaking the trees,
Olive, palo verde and mesquite
Shadowed by rains wetness
Shining with each lightning flash
While drinking of life’s fountain
Olives falling from twisted branches
Rolled by wind over wet flagstones
Pounding rain leaving behind puddles
As rainwater exits through openings
In old pueblo walls
Wind chimes dance wildly
Ringing out in nervous joy
Desert’s unlocked sounds
Composing a melodic refrain
Proclaiming Desert’s delight
— kenne
“The poet makes a personal yet universal confession about the walls that bring suffocation to his life.
These walls are related to the social structure, the economy, religion, and much more.
The worst thing is not the existence of these walls, of these limitations of the free development
but the fact that the walls were created before us, so we cannot even notice
their existence and fight against them.”
Walls
— Constantine P. Cavafy
Joy — Photo-Artistry by kenne
Warning
When I am an old woman I shall wear purple
With a red hat which doesn’t go, and doesn’t suit me.
And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves
And satin sandals, and say we’ve no money for butter.
I shall sit down on the pavement when I’m tired
And gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells
And run my stick along the public railings
And make up for the sobriety of my youth.
I shall go out in my slippers in the rain
And pick flowers in other people’s gardens
And learn to spit.
You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat
And eat three pounds of sausages at a go
Or only bread and pickle for a week
And hoard pens and pencils and beermats and things in boxes.
But now we must have clothes that keep us dry
And pay our rent and not swear in the street
And set a good example for the children.
We must have friends to dinner and read the papers.
But maybe I ought to practice a little now?
So people who know me are not too shocked and surprised
When suddenly I am old, and start to wear purple.
The Helga Pictures Poster Has Been On Our Bedroom Wall For Over 32 Years
— Photo-Artistry by kenne
Christina’s World–Source: Wikipedia
— kenne
Pee Wee Stephens, Pete Mayes, Grady Gaines, Calvin Owens, Joe “Guitar” Hughes,
and I don’t know the gentleman playing bass on the stage at Billy Blues (1999)
— Image by kenne
During our time living in the Houston area, Joy and I were very much into live music, especially the blues. Although there are still plenty of blues venues, many have passed with time. One such place was Billy Blues, on Richmond Avenue on Houston’s trendy westside. Regional and nationally known blues musicians played there for about seven years. Known for its 63-foot-tall saxophone made of Volkswagen Beetle parts and beer kegs, the venue never seemed to capture the same blues feeling of clubs in Houston’s working-class 3rd and 5th Ward communities. “I love the blues. It’s a feeling,” Martha Turner said to Roger Wood in his book Down In Houston: Bayou City Blues. “You got to feel a song, you know. When a person comes into a club to see you, they enjoy your expression, not so much as what you’re singing. They watch your face.”
“You watch this person sing a song,
and it’s almost like you’re doing it yourself.
Know what I’m talking about?
You enjoy that blues.
The Blues is something you can identify with.”
(Martha Turner)
During these trying times, what better way of coming together than with The Blues, and Buddy Guy reminds us,
“. . . you treat everybody just the way you want them to treat you.”
— kenne
Lyrics
I've been around a while I know wrong from right And since a long time ago Things been always black and white Just like you can't judge a book by the cover We all gotta be careful How we treat one another I say Skin deep, skin deep Underneath we all look same Skin deep, skin deep Underneath, don't we all look the same? A man in Louisiana He never called me by my name He said "boy do this and boy do that" But I never once complained I knew he had a good heart But he just didn't understand That I needed to be treated Just like any other man Skin deep, skin deep Underneath, don't we all look the same? Skin deep, skin deep Underneath we all look the same I sat my little child down When he was old enough to know I said "I fear in this big wide world You're gonna meet all kinda folks" I said "Son it all comes down to just one simple rule That you treat everybody just the way You want them to treat you" Skin deep, skin deep Underneath, don't we all look the same? Skin deep, skin deep Underneath we all look the same Skin deep, skin deep Underneath, don't we all look the same? Yeah Skin deep, skin deep Underneath we just all look the same (the same, yeah) Skin deep (treat everybody), skin deep Skin deep, skin deep All look, all look the same Skin deep, skin deep Don't we all look the same?
Ezra Charles and The Texas Blues Band Gruene Hall, Gruene, Texas (06/17/07) — Image by kenne
Joy with Grandchild Audry and James In San Antonio, April 2009 — Image by kenne
In the previous posting “Ready To Start Going Places” I used an image of the
San Antonio River Walk which brought to mind a video I produced of our spring vacation in April 2009.
— kenne
Lake Tahoe — Image by kenne
— kenne
A Teacher’s Teacher: Ellis Marsalis (November 14, 1934, April 1, 2020) Image Source: Chicago Tribune
All of us reach an age when it seems like every day someone of our generation dies, even more now with the COVID-19 pandemic. Sadly, on April 1, a giant in education and jazz became one of the numbers in the current pandemic.
In the 1980s, Ellis Marsalis, with his sons, became the fresh new face to a resurgence of jazz in the last decades of the 20th century. “My dad was a giant of a musician and teacher, but an even greater father,” Branford Marsalis said in a statement. “He poured everything he had into making us the best of what we could be.”
Ellis Marsalis had a light and graceful touch at the piano, allowing his enter fellings to pour out like a gentle flowing mountain stream. He had held a weekly gig for decades at Snug Harbor, one of New Orleans’s premier jazz clubs, before giving it up in December.
The New Times critic, wrote: “Sticking mainly to the middle register of the keyboard, the pianist offered richly harmonized arrangements in which fancy keyboard work was kept to a minimum and studious melodic invention, rather than pronounced bass patterns, determined the structures and tempos.”
One of my favorite Cole Porter songs done superbly by Ellis and his son Branford.
thesheaf.com
SCVN President, Phil Bentley Teaching a Kindergarten Class In Sabino Canyon — Image by kenne
As Sabino Canyon Volunteer Naturalists (SCVN), we are not currently offering nature education programs to school children and the public because of the coronavirus. However, individually we are in the canyon, encouraging everyone to spend time outdoors.
This morning naturalist Nancy Wilkenson, who teaches in our kindergarten program, did this short virtual nature walk encouraging people to come out to the canyon. Nature is always open!
— kenne
Sabino Creek Below The Dam In Sabino Canyon — Image and video by kenne
The Rhythm Room, Phoenix, Arizona (February 28,2020) — Photo-Artistry by kenne
It’s been several years since we have seen our good friend Diunna Greenleaf live.
So, when we learned that she was going to appear at The Rhythm Room in Phoenix,
On February 28th, we made plans.
Charley Parker, A.J. Murphy, Diunna Greenleaf, Kenne Turner, Dale Armet
We have known and loved her music since she worked with us to form
The Friends of The Blues — Montgomery County in the north Houston area in 2000.
Bob Corritore and Diunna Greenleaf — Photos and Video by kenne
Since we first met Diunna, she has won many Blues Music Awards,
including the ‘Koko Taylor Award’ twice.
— kenne
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