Awesome music from Quebec: De Temps Antan: http://ping.fm/0Jx60

Having worked retail, am really glad I don't have to do food service for these selfish, obtuse, entitled infants.

CW: don't let the flame go out.

NM: morning walk in the High Hills, crystalline 6 degrees: rakish black & white magpie hops behind a tree when he sees us coming.

CW: Respect the ingredients; avoid waste.

CW: Don't dick around with distractions: start when it's time to begin.

Don't buy shit today! We exist to make things (objects, friendships, art, lives), not buy things!

In wake of Brit Conservative "austerity" (really "protect the rich"), Royals wedding plans are obscene.

Gonzalez admits he knew of Geneva violations: http://ping.fm/JOq63

CW: ultimately, we are ALL part of the food chain.

CW: typically, creating something is far more satisfying than buying something.

CW: direct relation: higher incidence of home-cooked meals = happier & healthier life.

Colm Toibin: "Looking at Ireland, I don't know whether to laugh or cry" http://ping.fm/hlqFe

Lesson learned (again): direct equation: later the semester-week, the louder (& dumber) the coffeeshop discourse.

NM: bumper-to-bumper rush hour traffic, low November light, but a V of westering geese honking by, close overhead.

James Murphy: "The best way to complain is to make things"; http://ping.fm/53pTs

I'm from Up North; "cold weather" is just a reminder (which some of the Entitled Infantile definitely require) that we DON'T control everything.

Amazaing how peaceful it is round here when "cold" weather keeps children home.

This is one of the great Wisdom-bearing Elders of our English-speaking tribes; LISTEN! http://ping.fm/s17i6

CW: Keep track of time.

CW: Accept that the greatest successes will disappear most quickly.

CW: Trust your nose (intuition).

CW: Pay attention.

CW: Avoid waste, as it is unaesthetic & disrespectful.

CW: Practice basic skills.

CW: Memorize the fundamentals.

CW: Know when to punt.

CW: Trust your choices.

CW: Create for the heart & spirit as well as the tongue & the belly.

CW: Workable improvisation comes from practice & familiarity with ingredients.

CW: Clean & store as you go.

CW: Don't clatter.

CW: A plan is just a goal + a sense of the right next step.

CW: Clean as you go.

CW: Use the right tools.

Herewith "Cook's Wisdowm."

I've joked for years that I'd be a "bad monk, but a good Trnzo."

Dogen Zenji wrote a spiritual manual employing kitchen metaphors: "Instructions to the Cook."

In Zen monasteries, the Cook (Tenzo) was considered 3rd in spiritual authority, after Roshi ("old teacher") and head monk.

Middle-schoolers singing African songs w/ quite-competent amadinda-style percussion: quite peaceful.

Cars full of excited kids going to their gig--I like this energy.

NM: faintest sliver of a golden crescent moon, glowing behind high thin nighttime clouds.

Jiggity-jig

Feeling particularly conscious of Samsara, tonight.

Tom Watson (Populist Party) nailed it 120 years ago

Tom Watson, 1893:

“You are kept apart that you may be separately fleeced of your earnings. You are made to hate each other because upon that hatred is rested the keystone of the arch of financial despotism which enslaves you both. You are deceived and blinded that you may not see how this race antagonism perpetuates a monetary system which beggars both.” [Zinn 285]

The motivation--greed--never changes. It never will.

Got to STAND UP!

Roseanne Cash responds to John Boehner's taking of her daddy's name in vain: http://ping.fm/V5pUd

"We are building a new society in the shell of the old." --IWW Preamble, which I taught today. OBU!

Davey Spillane, Eoghan O'Neill, Donal Lunny, "Downtown": some possible hope for humans' potential for greatness.