Category / Agora

by stolzyblog

Hormone Train

I heard that story, a month ago, about some radio station in Ohio or somewhere proclaiming they’d banned any further airplay of “Baby It’s Cold Outside” due to its supposedly Neanderthal take on #me-too morays. Don’t really like the song that much, but my gut reaction was to organize a marathon podcast featuring every cover of the song I could find. Then a dream came a few nights later, resolving the matter in a different direction. Adapted below… it takes place probably somewhere in the mid 2030s.

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by stolzyblog

Pilgrimage to Moishe’s

My solo evening meal at one of Leonard Cohen’s favorite haunts. Perhaps the main reason why I came was to figure out why I came…

[ Parc du Portugal, in the evening ; Leonard Cohen as an almost-young upstart, from his first album cover circa 1968 ; Moishe’s Rumanian ambience ; Leonard Cohen as an old upstart, performing in London to wide acclaim, aged 75. ] 

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by stolzyblog

Christmas Intonation (2018)

These lines made me write them early last Christmas morning, while still half asleep in bed… they still seem entirely relevant and quite difficult to improve upon, so I offer them again this holiday season, having added only exactly one word. Warmest hopes and thanks to all readers. 🙂

It is the question you cannot ask which matters
The axiom you must never scutinize

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by stolzyblog

Shepherd Flutes Of Slovakia

In centuries recently past, but not before men’s memory, deeply haunting and evocative calls echoed over valleys between adjacent hills, under the wing of night in the rural countryside of central Slovakia. The shepherds who loosed these sounds, it is told, communicated observations about wolves numbers and directions to others of their trade. Sometimes five kilometers their informative melodies would traverse. And an art form grew from this, the shepherd musicians soothing one another and flocks alike in the loneliness of the dark central European nights. Whether this legend was ‘true’ no long mattered to me when first I came across it; I knew I had to go there.

[ 3 fujarists under a crystal sky ; Details of traditional fujara decorative carvings ; Young musician integrating an alto fujara into her performance art ; Dushan Holik, selling his musical wares ]

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by stolzyblog

A Remark You Made

We don’t remember conversations in full tableau. Instead, glistening moments, a bluesy vignette, a mere phrase filled with undisclosed meaning. They shine like supernovae across our lifespan, persistently prodding us to mine their significance with each new contemplation. Gifts which keep on giving.

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by stolzyblog

A-i-t-S 3A : Cold Turkey Zazen

The 3rd in a series venturing beyond the veil of the obvious. Read this for more orientation info about the series. I almost feel a need to apologize since the length of this piece is over 5000 words, but only almost. Within this entire series (A-i-t-s) I try consciously to build as vivid a context as possible, according to my memory, within which the events in question unfurl. If I lose some people enroute, that is something I can live with. It is important to me to treat these things comprehensively and lovingly.

“Love is our true destiny. We do not find the meaning of life by ourselves alone – we find it with another.” – Thomas Merton

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by stolzyblog

Recalling a Mentor

I think on biographies often of late. Not that I read them much, just occasionally. I’m more attracted to imagining the life maps of people I’ve crossed paths with, sometimes in major encounters but just as likely in subtle, ephemeral ways, like when a billiard ball kisses another in passing on a pool table. As experience grows, so does the depth of meaning one becomes able to infer from these encounters. It was such an imagination which caused to me look up an old high school teacher not long ago…

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