Two Books, Two Songs, & a View

Oh. Hello there! I’m excited to share my 2nd post of Dopamine’s Delight (Here’s the first). They say growth in a blog comes largely from consistency. Who’s they? Smart people, I suppose.

And I’m feeling dang good since I have delights to share. See. When deciding on whether to start a blog, I worried I wouldn’t have enough material to consistently post. And this blogger (Oh, no! I’m a blogger now!) is making consistency look sexy. Two-in-a-row sexy. Like, I-be-nailing-this-blogging-thing sexy. So without any further preamble, I share with you my delights: two books, two songs, and a view. 

Go Tell It on the Mountain by James Baldwin

I’ve never read anything from James Baldwin before, a fact I intended to remedy since time immemorial. Sure. That statement drips with hyperbole. But truth lies there too because while story rules the roost, my favorite authors (Toni Morrison, Cormac McCarthy, Bradbury et al.) tell their tales with panache and pleasing prose. And I’m pleased as punch to tell you that Go Tell It on the Mountain checks each of those literary boxes. 

There’s a lot to love about this story of how John, the 14 year-old protagonist, comes to terms with his identity. It’s brutal. It’s rage-filled. And it’s told with the lyrical beauty James Baldwin became acclaimed for. But you don’t have to take my word for it (Yep. Nice catch. That was a Reading Rainbow reference). Here’s a selection from Go Tell It on a Mountain that showcases James Baldwin’s chops:

“The morning of that day, as Gabriel rose and started out to work, the sky was low and nearly black and the air too thick to breath. Late in the afternoon the wind rose, the skies opened, and the rain came. The rain came down as though once more in Heaven the Lord had been persuaded of the good uses of a flood. It drove before it the bowed wanderer, clapped children into houses, licked with fearful anger against the high, strong wall, and the wall of the lean-to, and the wall of the cabin, beat against the bark and the leaves of trees, trampled the broad grass, and broke the neck of the flower. The world turned dark, forever, everywhere, and windows ran as though their glass panes bore all the tears of eternity, threatening at every instant to shatter inward against this force, uncontrollable, so abruptly visited on the earth. Gabriel walked homeward through this wilderness of water (which failed, however, to clear the air) to where Deborah waited for him in the bed she seldom, these days, attempted to leave.

And he had not been in the house five minutes before he was aware that a change had occurred in the quality of her silence: in the silence something waited, ready to spring.”  

See. Told ya. 

James Baldwin is masterful, this novel delightful. My first foray into his work will not be my last. 

4000 Weeks. Time Management for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman

My wife is most often right. 

That’s a thesis, for many of reasons, that I live by. As an example, take her suggestion I read Oliver Burkeman’s 4000 Weeks. Time Management for Mortals. She said it might help with my problematic relationship with time, said it might help me become kinder to myself. Softer. 

And guess what? Ding. Ding. Ding. You’re right. She was right. Not a shocker? You and her being right. But this book is fantastic, full of wisdom and truth bombs galore. And rest assure. This isn’t a book about creating systemic tricks to become a productive hustler. Quite the opposite. It’s a philosophical dive into the concept of time, delving into why many of us within a capitalistic society develop a negative relationship with it, mortality, and our perceived expectations of ourselves. Heavy? Sure. Enlightening? Heck yeah. Soul-enriching? For me. Yes. For you. Perhaps, if you, like me, feel an unsettling comfort when contemplating the big extensional questions. Here’s a exert to wet your philosophical whistle: 

“[W]hen your relationship with time is almost entirely instrumental, the present moment starts to lose its meaning. And it makes sense that this feeling might strike in the form of a midlife crisis, because midlife is when many of us first become consciously aware that mortality is approaching—and mortality makes it impossible to ignore the absurdity of living solely for the future. Where’s the logic in constantly postponing fulfillment until some later point in time when soon enough you won’t have any ‘later’ left.” 

Oh. Don’t mind that thunk. That’s just Oliver Burkeman dropping his philosophical mic.

Louis Armstrong’s West End Blues

Dopamine’s Delight: A recording of Louis Armstrong’s “West End Blues”

Perfection. That’s the word that tips off my tongue whenever I listen to this recording. Mind you. My background in music stops at 3rd-grade violin with torturous renditions of “Mary Had a Little Lamb.” Sorry again, Mom. I hope your ears have fully healed. 

So I neither have the musical knowhow, steeped in musical theory, nor the language to dissect and analyze how Louis Armstrong does what he does in this song. But I can simply marvel at the song’s beauty, be grateful for Louis’s genius and dedication to his craft, and be attentive to the ever-changing emotions, evoked by this song.

Jon Batiste’s “Freedom”

Dopamine’s Delight: Jon Batiste’s “Freedom”

While also within the jazz tradition, Jon Batiste’s “Freedom” dangles on a different musical branch than “West End Blues,” a branch with leaves of R&B and sticky sap, sweet with gospel. It’ll get your booty shaking, hips swaying, feet tapping, and mouth smiling. Simply said, your body will surge with joy. 

Jon Batiste first danced onto my radar as the bandleader on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. He’s since left the show and put out two fine albums, one of which,“We Are,” I can regularly check out at the Missoula Public Library. That my local library stocks its shelves with vinyl albums is a delight by itself!

Besides his obvious talent, Jon Batiste has that special aura, emitted only by a select few musicians, their performative art seemingly never dulling. He’s one cool cat. His style. His music. His dancing. His joy. It’s all contagious. The best kind of contagion that can spread exponentially. 

A view

Dang. I love this picture. It’s my kiddo taking in the view of Grinnel Lake on a hike to Grinnel Glacier at Glacier National Park. That camping trip last summer was full of amazing views, involved a night of digging emergency canals away from our tent during a down pour, and abounded with wildlife sightings that included big horn sheep that routinely ran past our campsite, two black bears, many deer, a moose, and two grizzlies seen from a very far (i.e. safe) distance away.

I imagine it’ll be a core memory of his, this hike, that trip, and I’m grateful the kiddo got to see the glacier before it tragically melts. The latest alarming estimates have it melting by 2030.

As an aside, I do get a tweak of delight whenever I hear Sir David Attenborough (or any Brit, for that matter) say glacier. Much more refine than my American pronunciation of the word. 

Until next Dopamine’s Delight….