Glenn Kubish

  Happy end of the week, friends. To keep the noticing equipment from disintegrating, here are three things I noticed I noticed that made me feel happy or grateful. (Just a little longer today. It takes Arendt awhile to get to the point.) Episode 75:                                1. Taking readings   Monday morning’s first stop, even before the bathroom, even before coffee, was the mailbox. The New York Times Sunday edition is delivered overnight. One pound of news. I scanned the headlines. In Ukraine, an ‘Endless Caravan of Death’ ... How Gun Makers Harness Fear to Supercharge Sales ... A Key Hurdle for Prosecutors: Proving What Trump Believed . I am slightly consoled by the mere organization of the newspaper—all this havoc made to fit in boxes, all the power and greed’s copy neatly standing in perfect towers of print, left and right justified. If the message were the medium, a newspaper would be chaos, and not the layout marvel that it is.   Still, I didn’t have the heart to dig in

Happy end of the week, friends! Here are three things that left me happy or grateful this week.  Three Things, episode 74:                                             1. Pop!   I could pretend that my week was more profound than it was. But here’s the truth: what made me the happiest was replaying a clip on YouTube of the closing credits on the broadcast of the 2011 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame ceremony. On stage performing De Doo Ron Ron were Darlene Love, Bette Midler, Elton John, Neil Diamond, Leon Russell—and Alice Cooper. It’s a special bit of joy. Watch it. Dance in your kitchen. Sing out loud.   This can wait.         Cooper sporting his black grease paint while singing the “caught my eye” line. Bandleader Paul Shaffer getting reading with an index finger in the air for the key change. The delight on the face of the rhythm guitarist while Midler is belting it out. The way the percussionist   takes the mallets to the big bass drum for two boom-boom heartbeats before everyone sings,

Happy end of the week, y’all. Auntie Shelagh and I are back from a short holiday to Oklahoma. The things from a good vacation come back with you. I remain grateful for the chance to have passed through the Bob Dylan Center in Tulsa. And, so, this week, it’s Bob Week:                           1.  Making an entrance I walked in the door of the Bob Dylan Center and was met by a giant, wall-mounted photo of the artist as a young man that stands next to a 16-foot, floor-to-ceiling metal gate welded by Dylan an old man. I was greeted by a security guard. I was aware of being at a border. It was worth lingering there. Borders are where gates open and close and where officers stand and scan. Borders are in-between places where traffic flows back and forth. Besides guards, borders have long attracted other characters. The cultural critic Lewis Hyde calls them tricksters. Tricksters, Hyde says, love to hang around doorways. It’s where opportunity knocks. Doorways, borders, gates and loopholes a

From Tulsa, Oklahoma, happy end of the week, friends. Each week, whether at home or on the road, I try to notice what I notice, remember what I notice and record what I notice that makes me feel happy or grateful, little things from my little life. This is Three Things, episode 72:                                              1.  Maintenance  Maintenance is not a topic that attracts much attention. Keats did not write an ode to maintenance. We are attracted more by the beginnings of things (the grand openings, debuts, groundbreakings, inaugurations and births) and by the endings of things (wind ups, deaths, crashes, obituaries, final chapters) than we are by the upkeep of life that happens in between. This week Auntie Shelagh and I have been visiting our friends David and Patty in Tulsa, Oklahoma. As happens on holidays, we have heard and seen some new and exciting things.   Like the unique second person plural possessive case used by the friendly employee at the Woody Guthrie Center.