David Hidalgo, Los Lobos Guitarist — Photo-Artistry by kenne
Cortez the Killer
He came dancing across the water With his galleons and guns Looking for a new world A palace in the sun On the shore lay Montezuma With his cocoa leaves and pearls In his halls he often wondered The secrets of the worlds Oh, and his subjects gathered round him Like leaves around a tree In their clothes of many colors For the angry gods to see And the women all were beautiful And the men stood straight and strong They offered life in sacrifice So that others could go on
Hate was just a legend And war was never known The people worked together And they lifted many stones They carried them to the flat-lands And they died along the way They built up with their bare hands What we still can’t build today And I know she’s living there And she loves me to this day I can still remember when Or how I lost my way
Cortez, Cortez He came dancing across the water Cortez, Cortez
Came dancing across the water
Came dancing across the water Cortez, Cortez Dancing across the water Dancing across the water Dancing across the water Came dancing across the water Cortez, Cortez Dancing across the water Dancing across the water Dancing across the water
Pala Casino, Spa and Resort Pool Area — Images by kenne
Since moving to Tucson ten years ago, we have annually spent Thanksgiving with Joy’s family in southern California. However, because of COVID, this year, we will be staying in Tucson.
Instead of the usual big family get together (as many as 25 people), we decided to meet two of Joy’s sisters (Jody and Jeri) at a neutral location, and of course, for them, it would have to be a casino.
So, last Wednesday, we drove to Pala Casino, Spa, and Resort, which is located in the mountains northeast of San Diego. Since I’m not into gambling, I spent time around the pool, took photos of oranges, and listen to live music in the casino. During past visits, I usually spent time walking the 1.5-mile Pala Band of Indians Cultural and Nature Trail behind Pala Spa. This time it was closed.
We returned to Tucson last Friday.
(During this time of COVID, we have found casino resorts to be relatively safe, keeping everything clean, requiring social-distancing and masks, except when eating and drinking.)
With so much of my knowledge of literature I was taught by my brother, Tom. In an April 26, 2003 note from him, he wrote:
“Hey . . . you Metaphysical degenerates . . . Bantered alone by impulse . . . Here I am attempting to essay a few coherent thoughts . . . God it’s risky! ‘God and the imagination are one.’
I am in the midst of trying to memorize a poem . . . ‘Final Soliloquy of The Interior Paramour’ by Wallace Stevens . . . never mind why.”
Tom goes on to write about a piece by George Steiner on memorization amid the technological revolution where media is ubiquitous:
“The danger is that the text or music will lose what physics calls its ‘critical mass,’ its implosive powers within the echo chambers of the self.”
He continued — “I can really be in awe of Shakespearean stage people in recitation of exact lines!! Read closely . . .”
Our wills and fates do so contrary run that our devices still are overthrown: our thoughts are ours, their ends none of our own. (The Player King’s Crucial Speech in the Play Within the Play — Act 3, Scene 2, 183-209-Hamlet)
I probably don’t need to tell you that Tom never memorized the Wallace poem.
Final Soliloquy Of The Interior Paramour
Light the first light of evening, as in a room In which we rest and, for small reason, think The world imagined is the ultimate good.
This is, therefore, the intensest rendezvous. It is in that thought that we collect ourselves, Out of all the indifferences, into one thing:
Within a single thing, a single shawl Wrapped tightly round us, since we are poor, a warmth, A light, a power, the miraculous influence.
Here, now, we forget each other and ourselves. We feel the obscurity of an order, a whole, A knowledge, that which arranged the rendezvous.
Within its vital boundary, in the mind. We say God and the imagination are one… How high that highest candle lights the dark.
Out of this same light, out of the central mind, We make a dwelling in the evening air, In which being there together is enough.
“Into the Mystic” in Van Morrison’s 1970 Moondance Album
We were borne before the wind Also younger than the sun Ere the bonnie boat was won As we sailed into the mystic Hark, now hear the sailors cry Smell the sea and feel the sky Let your soul and spirit fly into the mystic And when that foghorn blows I will be coming home And when the foghorn blows I want to hear it I don’t have to fear it and I want to rock your gypsy soul Just like way back in the days of old And magnificently we will flow into the mystic When that fog horn blows You know I will be coming home And when that fog horn whistle blows I got to hear it I don’t have to fear it and I want to rock your gypsy soul Just like way back in the days of old And together we will flow into the mystic Come on, girl Too late to stop now
“Into the Mystic” — the words and melody ethereally flowing together as one — is about a spiritual quest. But over the years the song has become much more — an affirmation of life for me, and I would like to think for my generation, as well, should we choose to embrace its sentiments, an anthem of lives lived as we float down that stream, merrily or otherwise, after leaving this mortal coil. I am honored that my path intersected with friends departed, and I am a better person because it did. The fog horn has blown for them and they will be coming home.
On Friday, September 18, 2020, District Ranger conducted a guided tour for Partner members ahead of the Scheduled Reopening of Sabino Canyon Recreational Area on September 21, 2020. Fifteen Partner members, five each from:
Friends of Sabino Canyon Sabino Canyon Volunteer Nationalists Santa Catalina Volunteer Patrol
In addition to the following video, images of the Drive-thru are in this Flickr Album.
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
One of the things I love about living in the Tucson area is its biodiversity. Being in a desert surrounded by mountains (Sky Islands) with different forest biomes.
In the summer we spend time hiking in nearby mountain forests. However, this summer has been a little different because of the pandemic and forest fires.
Mountain Trail
Sabbaths 1999, VII
Again I resume the long lesson: how small a thing can be pleasing, how little in this hard world it takes to satisfy the mind and bring it to its rest.
With the ongoing havoc the woods this morning is almost unnaturally still. Through stalled air, unshadowed light, a few leaves fall of their own weight.
The sky is gray. It begins in mist almost at the ground and rises forever. The trees rise in silence almost natural, but not quite, almost eternal, but not quite.
What more did I think I wanted? Here is what has always been. Here is what will always be. Even in me, the Maker of all this returns in rest, even to the slightest of His works, a yellow leaf slowly falling, and is pleased.
— Wendell Berry
Since I write and share poetry nature, I was not surprised to receive a Wendell Berry poem from one of my hiking buggies, Deborah. She wanted to know if I had posted it in the past, having not it gave me good reason to do so along with the video, “The Women Who Planted Trees,” by Emily Barker.
Cable Cars Connect El Alto Plateau With La Paz In The Valley — Images by kenne
A PAZ and EL ALTO, Bolivia — In these two cities, geography and rank stand in inverse relation. La Paz — the seat of government, old money, and a lighter-skinned elite — sits in a valley. Above it on a high plateau is the frenetic city of El Alto: poorer, younger, and generally darker-skinned. La Paz has always looked down on its upstart younger sibling above.
Now, that relationship is being challenged, and this urban Möbius strip, where down is up and up is down, is getting a new twist. A mass-transit aerial cable-car system, a cross between a ski gondola and an elevated train, is being installed to better connect them, chipping away at the physical barriers and possibly some of the psychological ones.Read more here.
David Lindo (London, England), The Urban Birder at the Sabino Canyon Visitor Center — Image by kenne
As a blogger, I follow a lot of bloggers, mostly those into music, poetry,
and nature photography. One of my favorite blogs is Michael Stevenson’s “The Hobbledehoy.”
Yesterday (08/09/20), Michael reblogged “A month in the life of The Urban Birder, David Lindo.
” Right away, I thought, “I know who David Lindo is.” Why do I know him?
In February of 2013, David presented to the Sabino Canyon Volunteer Naturalists (SCVN)
in Tucson, Arizona.
I videoed the presentation, which was about 45 minutes. The idea was to make
it available in the SCVN library or on our website.
Well, without going into the details, it didn’t happen.
So, after Michael posted the article from Country Living,
I decided to reduce the length of his presentation and put it on YouTube.
This happening here in Tucson took place long before the Karens of the world were making news in Central Park.
I want to see young people in America feel the spirit of the 1960s
and find a way to get in the way. To find a way to get in trouble.
Good trouble, necessary trouble.
–John Lewis
John Lewis, Dead At Age 80 — Photo-Artistry by kenne
I came of age in the 1960s, a time of national unrest centering around civil rights and the Vietnam War. I served three years in the Army during the Vietnam War era, marched and demonstrated for peace and justice. Now nearing my 80th birthday, I remember will the assassinations John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, and Robert Kennedy while embracing the “Beat” generation, its writers, and beliefs.
Having lived in Alabama in the 40s, I couldn’t help but notice state troopers and county posse men attacking the unarmed marchers with billy clubs and tear gas after they passed over the county line. The event became known as Bloody Sunday (March 7, 1965). After Bloody Sunday, President Johnson and Congress began working on a voting rights law on March 15.
A third march started on March 2, averaging 10 miles a day, the marchers marched “Jefferson Davis Highway” from Salma to Montgomery. The marchers arrived in Montgomery on March 24 and at the Alabama State Capitol on March 25. With thousands having joined the campaign, 25,000 people entered the capital city that day in support of voting rights.
The route is memorialized as the “Selma To Montgomery Voting Rights Trail”, and is designated as a U.S. National Historic Trail. The Voting Rights Act became law on August 6, 1965.
“On the front lines of the bloody campaign to end Jim Crow laws, with blows to his body and a fractured skull to prove it, John Lewis was a valiant stalwart of the civil rights movement and the last surviving speaker from the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in 1963.”
He died on the same day as did another civil rights stalwart, the Rev. C.T. Vivian, a close associate of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
For Rep. Lewis, the Black Lives Movement was a very moving experience, “. . . very moving to see hundreds of thousands of people from all over America and around the world take to the streets — to speak up, to speak out, to get into what I call ‘good trouble.” John Lewis was a genuine “profile in courage.”
“When you see something that is not right, not just, not fair,
you have a moral obligation to say something,”
he said on the House floor, December 2019, to impeach President Trump.
“To do something. Our children and their children will ask us,
‘What did you do? What did you say?’
For some, this vote may be hard. But we have a mission
and a mandate to be on the right side of history.”
Cable Cars Connect El Alto Plateau With La Paz In The Valley — Images by kenne
Subway In The Sky
David Lindo (London, England), 
Golden Columbine — Image by kenne
Sunset — Image by kenne
John Lewis, Dead At Age 80 — Photo-Artistry by kenne
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