Three Things from Edmonton podcast - Episode 72: maintenance, manuscripts, your captain speaking

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. “I’ll get y’all’s receipt for y’all,” she said. And the fireworks after the baseball game that looked like recorded flowers blooming in fast forward in a black-soil sky. On the anniversary of the Greenwood Massacre, we listened to Nikole Hannah-Jones talk about the 1619 Project at Booker T. Washington High School. We walked through The Gathering Place, which is a spectacular park development along the Arkansas River. What I think was a cardinal was singing its heart out. I’d never received a gift like that before.

Shelagh noted how much work it must be to maintain the park, its trees, flowers, lawns, bridges, walkways, play areas. Cue the recency bias, because I immediately saw two lawn crew workers trimming the grass in a fresh light. And once that thought had been thought, the thought that was waiting behind it revealed itself, which was how much maintenance David, our co-host, applies to his friendships. Four decades-plus after we faced off on the Hi-Q Quiz show on ITV, he continues the maintenance work of friendship—the work of staying connected. 

Which is why out of all the art and artifacts I have seen in galleries and museums and parks on our trip, it was David’s itinerary for us, written out on a sheet of 8 1/2 x 11 in his unique, wiry cursive hand, that was the most valuable. Maintenance, from the French for holding onto.

2. Manuscripts 

This time I was ready, sort of. 

Years ago on a trip to the British Museum with Shelagh, I was not prepared for the force with which handwritten manuscripts would hit me. Virginia Woolf’s opening lines from Mrs. Dalloway there under glass—what a lark, what a plunge! James Joyce, too, a page from Ulysses in his hand. That day in London I glimpsed the art of the art. There is flux behind the finished product—the crossed-out lines, the rewritten lines, the preserved edits that <backspace-backspace-backspace> on a keyboard now make invisible. Behind these artistic amendments, there is the artist’s internal dialogue that can be made out. The voice that says, let’s try this another way, let’s make it better, keep going, struggle, find the best words, let’s know our song well before we start singing.

At the Bob Dylan Center in Tulsa, I saw all of this again, looking at versions of Dylan lyrics on their way to monumental recordings. Here’s Dylanphile David Blatt of Tulsa:

“I think we always knew that Dylan was able to re-invent and re-create himself, and what you see is the process of him re-inventing and re-creating individual songs, and just to be able to see the early lyrics of Tangled Up In Blue and Jokerman, in particular, and realize just how brilliant and bursting with ideas and images early versions of the song that just got completely discarded and could have been lost forever…”

Listen to the alliterative music of David’s analysis: “brilliant and bursting with ideas and images.” That’s what can happen at the Bob Dylan Center. The words get in, the poetry gets in. It’s kinda weird. You spend a day with his words and come out trusting your own a little more.

3. Your captain speaking 

We connected to Tulsa via Dallas. As we got ready to take off, the captain reminded the passengers that the federal mask mandate had been cancelled. What was still necessary was the need to respect individual decisions about masks, he said. As a member of the visible mask minority on the plane, I appreciated the sentiment. And I will remember what the pilot said next. 

“We ask that you respect their decision, and just get along. We’re 40 minutes out from Tulsa, so I know we can do it.”

As it turned out, Tulsa hosted a mass shooting while we were there. In all of the subsequent commentary from politicians, all of their calls for prayer, I kept hearing the down-to-earth voice from the cockpit. We are not with each other for a long time. Our flight on this earth is not a long one. We are all 40 minutes from Tulsa. We can get along better. 

Thanks for being out there friends. Take care. 

Three Things podcast, episode 72 [5:49] includes sound from the Tulsa fireworks, Hannah-Jones, the Gathering Place songbird, Blatt and the American Airlines pilot. 

Photos: 
1. Detail of floor map of Oklahoma at the First Americans Museum in Oklahoma City.
2. The view of the Woody Guthrie Center from our hotel’s street corner in Tulsa’s Arts District.
3. Maintenance work at The Gathering Place.
4. Our trip’s handwritten itinerary composed by David Blatt. 
5. Jokerman exhibit at the Bob Dylan Center.
6. With Shelagh, Bob Dylan Center executive director Steven Jenkins and David after lunch at The Tavern.
7. Handwritten lyrics on the way to Jokerman.
8. Getting ready to fly from Dallas-Forth Worth to Tulsa.
9. Downtown buildings during our Art Deco walking tour.