Good News, Bad News
#178: Then & Now, Jeremy Lent and Bayo Akomolafe, LindaLay, Teoh Yi Chie, Jeremy Mathew, Paul Klee, Glenn Gould, and Hania Rani
THEN & NOW
Then:
My parents’ letters from September, 1953 revealed both good and bad news. I was glad to read that Mom had finally written to Dad—with some good news. The HFC home loan and purchase of the new house on Fair Avenue—just one block away from where we were then living with my Uncle Mike and Aunt Mona—had been secured.1 Dad’s anxiety about the project becomes evident when he feels compelled to add some advice:
Darling, I also received your letter which I’ve been waiting for. I’m so happy indeed that our plan is shaping up right to [this] point. I know you must be happy about it too although you must realize we’ve a big job at hand. Remember furnishing the house is one thing & landscaping the lawn is another. So honey, brace your chest up & roll your sleeves as you have a job now.
If I were you, do not get the washing machine yet. If you think we can afford to get the bedroom set right now, get that first & the stove. You can send the laundry out to be washed if you cannot do it for the time being. Or wait until I get home so we can both figure out how much money we can afford to spend for all those things.
. . . Good luck darling, don’t forget to give me the new address & telephone number if you happen to move in before I get back home.
Mom must’ve been tremendously excited about the purchase. Knowing her, I’m sure she had a great time perusing the Sears catalog, looking for furnishings and appliances. It was the first real home of her own in America.
Mom also received a letter from her sister bringing disturbing news. My grandmother had had an argument with her youngest son’s wife, who later apologized and embraced her. However, my aunt wrote that the embrace revealed “a slight internal hemorrhage (you could see the bluish color)” from my grandmother’s breast, leaking through her dress. The family took her to a doctor who said “it was nothing to worry about.” He prescribed hot compresses and gave her a “Crystacillin injection” (Penicillin G). Later events revealed that the worry was justified.
Now:
Thanks to my partner, I finally got my scanner hooked up and working with my Linux Ubuntu operating system! Now I can get back to scanning and downloading the letters to my portable external drive.
I’ve been listening to several video discussions with the philosopher and former clinical psychologist Bayo Akomolafe. While I’ve had some trouble fully understanding all the points he’s making, some of his ideas about the modern human fixation on productivity and outcomes resonates with me (see his video in the Rabbit Hole). I relate this to how I’ve been feeling this weekend, when all the bad news I’ve been reading and hearing about has me feeling depleted.
Currently, the idea of “productivity” or any goal-oriented process has no appeal to me. It just tires me out. I don’t want to associate a “project” or an “outcome” with my parents’ letters. I am just allowing the letters to tell me what they have to say. Maybe this is a mental and emotional process that personally needs working through, and maybe the process will end before a book is ever produced. Today, I’m just attending to what’s happening as I read and write. For once, I’m listening to my parents, and I’m listening to my body and heart as well.
RABBIT HOLE
In discussion with Jeremy Lent, Nigerian-born philosopher Bayo Akomolafe riffs on what can thrive in “the cracks and ruptures” of modernity, and the need to shift our perspectives from binaries and productivity-oriented outcomes to a deeper engagement in process:
I had a “witchy” period when I was younger, and eventually followed a Buddhist path. But I don’t think these impulses ever leave you, entirely. They appear for a reason. Despite my mother’s half-hearted attempt at Catholicizing me when I was young, that religion never had much appeal. Yet, I did feel a need for some kind of spiritual foundation, and developed an individualized and constantly changing spirituality as I grew older. I love this post by LindaLay on “spiritual gleaning”—wherever one can get it.
This is for art material freaks like me: Teoh Yi Chie reviews the Indigo brand of art paper (one of my favorites), and compares it to other papers, including Khadi (another favorite). I enjoy watching this artist draw and paint even as he discusses the materials he's using. I'm drawn to his videos partly because my first drawings (when I really got interested in art) were urban sketches done live on location, and later sketched from old photos—which I still do, occasionally.
I’ve been making a lot of small and tiny art works, especially after Covid started. Now I’m thinking of working larger again. Jeremy Mathew, on the other hand, has been meditating on miniaturization and writes, “One must become small to see oneself fully.” Read his wonderful essay “How to Be Small.”
Miniature things, people and moments contain the divine and infinite. If this wisdom is forgotten, I’m not convinced that life would be worth living.
—Jeremy Mathew
I learned about the artist Paul Klee when I was in high school, and was immediately smitten. The playfulness of his drawings and paintings freed me from trying to make “realistic” art. I learned to relax and have fun. Here is a short retrospective of 70 works by Klee:
SOUNDINGS
I took piano lessons when I was a kid and during my teens. I was pretty bored with most everything I learned, until I was introduced to Bach. I never became “good” at playing piano,2 but just attempting to play Bach and listening to recordings of pianists performing his work made me happy. Decades later I heard a recording of Glenn Gould performing the Goldberg Variations, and knew I was listening to something special. Genius Within: The Inner Life of Glenn Gould (full documentary):
“Home” by pianist Hania Rani, with Kacper Chlanda. This video makes me think of Jeremy Mathew’s meditation on smallness.
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My ongoing appreciation goes to the Mysterious M. for his excellent editing skills.
Website and blog: Jeanvengua1.wordpress.com
A Crooked Mile (blog).
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Twenty years earlier, the loan and housing opportunity would never have been available to a Filipino family in California. Filipinos frequently experienced racial discrimination and violence in the state during the 1930s. Everything changed during WWII when Filipinos became allies with the U.S. in the war against Japan.
“Mediocre” would be a charitable way of describing my piano playing.
Thanks for sharing my Substack post! Also, I love thinking about your young parents starting a home via that letter from your dad. I love considering this moment in their lives, and how it led to yours.
These letters are so telling of your parents’ living relationship. You are blessed to have them. I will watch the videos later. Good to know you play the piano. I had one year of classes when I was fourteen. I still remember the waltz I played at my first recital.