Loose Leaf Notes

1. 12” of snow and no power on Sunday, but you don’t need generator to do THIS.

2. I’m reading Rod Stewart’s memoir. He has a whole chapter on his spikey hair.  “It’s what I have in common with the Queen: both of us have had more or less the same hairstyle for the last forty-five years. Well, if something works for you…” he writes in the chapter titled “Digression – in which our hero, sparing no detail, discusses his hair.”

3. In the days before “product,” he and Ronnie Wood wet their hair with sugar water before blowing it dry, the way the kids in my family used flour and water to make paste to “glue” things on paper.

4. Apparently, “Facelifted” now means taking something from Facebook, and not plastic surgery.

5. Waking up every day to Trump as president is like being stuck in an episode of The Black Mirror.

6. If the photo above is ‘ringing in spring’ then the one below is praying for it.

7. “How can I be hostile to religion that uses storytelling as the Trojan horse in which to smuggle into your heart some sense of solace in the face of death?” asks writer Jim Grace – from the PBS documentary “Into the Night: Portraits of Life and Death,” which you can watch, and I highly recommend, HERE.

8. Gentle or raging? Curious, cryonics, near death experiences are all part of the documentary, which “features nine men and women from all walks of life, all ages, believers and unbelievers, well-known and obscure for whom death is no longer an abstraction. Whether through a dire prognosis, the imminence of their own death, the loss of a loved one, a sudden epiphany, or a temperament born to question, these are people who have truly awakened to their mortality.”

9. Grandson Liam (7) to Grandson Bryce (9):  “Robots have personalities but they don’t have aging systems.”

10. My friend Kamala’s grandson is a talented songwriter. “There is beauty in every day.” Watch HERE.

11. “Folk music is a voice of the people,” said Jim Sharkey, who grew up in County Roscommon, Ireland, during his St. Patrick’s Day house concert at Bella La Vita Inn in Floyd.  The concert audience of about 30 was mostly dressed in shades of green.  They were held in rapt attention by Starkey’s melodic and emotionally engaging voice, and by his light-hearted storytelling…  – More from my Floyd Press story “Bringing the Luck of the Irish to Floyd HERE.

12. Damp Down Moon: Last ember of night / unshaken by storm / A warm and enduring / kindle for dawn.

13. “Science is the gateway to awe.”  – Astrophysicist Adam Frank

___________Thirteen Thursday