Last Full Moon of 2020

I am adding a few pictures of the last full moon of 2020. These pictures were taken from one of the parks where I live. The app on my phone said the moon rose today at 3:57 p.m., but I still had to wait about an hour to get these pictures. Our weather is expected to contain sleet, freezing rain, and rain tomorrow, so this evening was probably the best time to photograph the moon.

The Great Conjunction

On the evening of the winter solstice, my wife and I took our lawn chairs to a rural part of the county where we live. A few months prior, we had found a hill and an open field that offered a great view of the sunset. 

Initially, I got a few shots of the sunset before we discovered Saturn and Jupiter in the southwestern sky. At 250 mm, the telephoto lens for my camera is not very strong. Even so, I got a few shots of Jupiter's moons. You may need to enlarge the picture, using Ctrl and the plus key, for a closer look.

We left once it started to get cold. Several other families stopped their cars to get a look at the same location as we were packing everything into the car. 

Keeping Politics Out of the Classroom

My students have not expressed surprise at the absence of politics in my online class. Although I did encourage them to vote, I did not tell them who they should vote for and why. My emphasis in the class is on their writing and the individual assignments.

I emphasized in the syllabus that I seek to create a harmonious learning environment. Any student who cannot accept the experiences of his/her peers will be asked to leave the class. As the instructor, I seek to create a harmonious environment by not sharing my own political views. 

Having adopted a textbook that emphasizes academic writing, I have revised my assignments and eliminated the personal essay in my first-semester writing class. There are fewer opportunities for the students to share their personal experience, except when their experience lends support to the literacy narrative, the information essay, the evaluation essay, and the position essay, which is limited to such things as food dyes, sugar, plant-based diet, plastics, microfibers, cosmetics, sleep deprivation and academic performance, and student loan debt.

My awareness of current events is somewhat limited to the topics my students research for their position essay. I feel extremely fortunate at not having cable TV, which means that I cannot access the news on the major networks. While it may seem as though I distance myself from politics or news stories in general, I actually go to the BBC News website (one of the few forums for objective news) every morning and get updates on developing news stories on Twitter during the day. I have a subscription to the New York Times through my college but don’t access it on a regular basis.

Twitter, for me, is more a source of information than a social medium. Many of the people I follow are authors whose nonfiction I have read. I also follow those people whose concerns match what my students research for the position essay.

During the recent election, I used a separate browser, one without an adblocker, to check on the voting statistics--that is, the number of states that had voted for Biden. It was my wife, however, who told me one morning that Biden had gotten enough electoral votes to become president by winning Pennsylvania.

I hope that the next couple of months go by smoothly and that we will start to see change in this country on January 20. If my classes for the spring semester fill, I still will not be expressing my enthusiasm for Biden’s presidency in my classes. My emphasis, as always, will be on the subject matter.

Pictures of Autumn in 2020

Autumn where I live has not been as colorful as it has been in other years. This year has been particularly dry, with much less than average rainfall. I am adding the best of the pictures that I took this year. There were, of course, some pictures that I missed because I didn't have my camera with me. At times, I thought I would have other chances to capture a picture, but the weather often didn't cooperate or my schedule didn't allow me to get outside at the right time.

I have been using the manual setting on my camera, and I am slowly gaining more control over such things as white balance and ISO. I haven't yet started shooting in RAW, probably because I don't have the software program that would let me manipulate pictures shot in RAW. 

I hope you find something to like here. These pictures, by the way, were shot over a period of almost thirty days, starting in early October. I recommend that you click on the first picture and then scroll through them. 

 

Choeofpleirn Press & Coneflower Cafe

 

My wife and I have decided to create our own small press. We will start taking poetry and short fiction submissions for Coneflower Cafe, our first journal, on October 1. This journal is one of four that we will be publishing during each year, beginning in 2021. Check our website, www.choeofpleirnpress.com, for more information. 

Marigolds

My yard, and one flowerbed in particular, has been more colorful this year. As someone who prefers to cultivate native plants, partly because the deer who wander into the yard don't eat them as readily, I have garden phlox and purple coneflowers growing in the front flowerbed. I also found some volunteer black-eyed susans growing elsewhere in the yard and transplanted them into the front flowerbed. It takes a lot of water, surprisingly, to keep these black-eyed susans from drooping. 

Recently, I discovered what my Search by Image app refers to as field marigolds growing in the front flowerbed. My wife's sister says that her app refers to them as tree marigolds. I don't know where these flowers have come from. I am hoping that I can get their seeds to grow so that there will be even more growing next year. Even though today is the autumnal equinox, some of the blooms have yet to open.

The pictures appearing below capture these field marigolds/tree marigolds.

A Field of Sunflowers

 

The fields of sunflowers near where I live are in bloom. The farmer who owns the field pictured below says that these sunflowers are meant for bird food, not for human consumption. 

Shirley Scott

If I am not listening to Carla Bley at night or while running errands, I often turn to the music of Shirley Scott. I am currently listening to Scott's One for Me, which is available on Bandcamp and which features Billy Higgins on drums and Harold Vick on saxophone. It was originally released in 1975 and recently re-released. 

Shirley Scott, unfortunately, only gets two paragraphs in Linda Dahl's Stormy Weather: The Music and Lives of a Century of Jazz Women. Very few contemporary women in jazz actually appear in that book although Carla Bley is one exception and is given an entire chapter.

One track of Shirley Scott's that I often listen to is "Deep Down Soul," which can be found on her album Soul Shoutin' and on YouTube. Stanley Turrentine can be heard on that track as well.

Carla Bley & Steve Swallow

The isolation and social distancing that have characterized much of the year have led me to find solace in music, particularly Carla Bley, whose work I had gotten to know initially through the music of Gary Burton. My days often start or end with my listening to Carla Bley on YouTube, particularly one of the two songs appearing below. It's unfortunate that Carla Bley's "Lawns" is not on the Duet album released in 1988 and has not appeared on her trio albums with Steve Swallow and Andy Sheppard.

 

Racism in America

Some of the jazz musicians in the books that I recently have been reading fled this country for Europe to escape the inherent racism that makes up America. Racism has been a part of this country since its creation, beginning with the treatment of the Native people. I am happy to see that America has been starting to examine itself more closely. There is still much more that needs to be acknowledged. I am hoping that the protests and the recognition of America’s past and of the actions of the police (which mirror the actions of the American military in the 19^th century) will bring about change in this country, beginning with the election in November.

Spots of Color

The redbud trees where I live have been adding spots of color and helping us overcome the drabness that accompanies prolonged periods of time spent indoors because of COVID-19.

Natural Music of Birds

Like everyone else where I live, I have been remaining at home where I exercise daily by lifting weights and by riding a stationary bicycle. When I can get away from the computer and my online classes, I have been walking in a wooded area not far from where I live. This location is much more musical than where I usually walk because of the number of birds. Other walkers pass me in both directions while I tend to linger so that I can hear the birds. The other day I noticed that two or three birds, none of which I could identify, were prominent in the foreground while a mourning dove added its mournful cry in the background. If I were able to write music, I think I would try to capture this natural music, with a bassoon or a double bass replacing the mourning dove in the background and a clarinet, oboe, and alto sax replacing the more prominent birds in the foreground. I suspect that early humans attempted to imitate the birds when they first started to create musical instruments. Jon Hassell, the trumpeter credited with creating fourth world music, while commenting on the advantages created by technology in music, says in a recent interview that “we don’t ever want to lose the joy of hearing” instruments “imitating bird calls.” I probably need to dig out David Rothenberg’s One Dark Night I Left My Silent House, which was released in 2010 and which draws inspiration from birds, with titles like “What Birds Sing,” “Owl Moon,” and “Grosbeak.”

Pear Blossoms

I don't have any magnolia pictures to share this year. Last year, when I hired a tree trimmer to cut down an ash tree that was dying from an ash borer infestation, the tree trimmer had to cut back the magnolia to gain access to the ash tree. Several tree trimmers have told me that tree limbs need to grow upwards. The magnolia in the yard was shaped more like a willow with the branches nearly touching the ground. It was a great place to get pictures of the blossoms in the spring and to stay cool in the summer. This year, however, it was difficult to get any pictures because the branches are so high now.

In place of the magnolia blossoms, I am adding pictures of two pear trees that were in bloom last week. It was cloudy the first day; the sun appeared on the second day when I was taking pictures. We have since had a frost, and I haven't been back to see how the blossoms have fared. Another frost is expected next week.