Makonikey Head from Lambert's Cove Beach

Kenneth Vincent ~ Looking Around - 2020

Blockbuster's Rise and Fall

Clear marketplace evidence of the continuous innovation and disintermediation in digital media. Blockbuster survived the shift from VHS videotapes to DVDs, but bit torrents, The Pirate Bay, and Netflix pound a stake in its heart.

Shadows

West Tisbury, Massachusetts 

National Flag Week

Sunday, June 14, is officially Flag Day and commences National Flag Week.

"You're a grand old flag

You're a high-flying flag

And forever in peace may you wave

You're the emblem of the land that I love

The home of the free and the brave

Ev'ry heart beats true

Under red, white and blue

Where there's never a boast or a brag

But should old acquaintance be forgot

Keep your eye on the grand old flag.

George M. Cohan, 1906

Say Their Names

Say Their Names – The New Yorker ~ Kadir Nelson

NYT: Bob Dylan Has a Lot on His Mind

Bob Dylan ~ Rough and Rowdy Ways, 2020

The New York Times just published an arresting interview with Bob Dylan – Bob Dylan Has a Lot on His Mind – by reporter Douglas Brinkley. It's well-timed with next week's release of Dylan's first new album since 2012 - Rough and Rowdy Ways.

It's further proof that Dylan is the looking glass of America's Baby Boomers.

Excerpts:

"I Contain Multitudes" has a powerful line: "I sleep with life and death in the same bed." I suppose we all feel that way when we hit a certain age. Do you think about mortality often?

I think about the death of the human race. The long strange trip of the naked ape. Not to be light on it, but everybody's life is so transient. Every human being, no matter how strong or mighty, is frail when it comes to death. I think about it in general terms, not in a personal way.

There is a lot of apocalyptic sentiment in "Murder Most Foul." Are you worried that in 2020 we're past the point of no return? That technology and hyper-industrialization are going to work against human life on Earth?

Sure, there's lots of reasons to be apprehensive about that. There's definitely a lot more anxiety and nervousness around now than there used to be. But that only applies to people of a certain age like me and you, Doug. We have a tendency to live in the past, but that's only us. Youngsters don't have that tendency. They have no past, so all they know is what they say and hear, and they'll believe anything. 20 or 30 years from now, they'll be at the forefront. When you see somebody that is 10 years old, he's going to be in control in 20 or 30 years, and won't have a clue about the world we knew. Young people who are in their teens now have no memory lane to remember. So it's probably best to get into that mindset as soon as we can, because that's going to be the reality.

As far as technology goes, it makes everybody vulnerable. But young people don't think like that. They could care less. Telecommunications and advanced technology is the world they were born into. Our world is already obsolete.

Does having the Pacific Ocean in your backyard help you process the Covid-19 pandemic in a spiritual way? There is a theory called "blue mind" which believes that living near water is a health curative.

Yeah, I believe that. "Cool Water," "Many Rivers to Cross," "How Deep is the Ocean." I hear any of those songs and it's like some kind of cure. I don't know what for, but a cure for something that I don't know I even have. A fix of some kind. It's like a spiritual thing. I never heard of "blue mind" before. Sounds like it could be some kind of slow blues song. Something Van Morrison would write. Maybe he has, I don't know.

How's your health holding up? You seem to be fit as a fiddle. How do you keep mind and body working together in unison?

Oh, that's the big question, isn't it? How does anybody do it? Your mind and body go hand in hand.  There has to be some kind of agreement. How you integrate those two things, I have no idea. I just try to go on a straight line and stay on it, stay on the level.

The Right to Know

Following the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy, and the public's growing disillusion with the Vietnam War, Norman Rockwell painted The Right to Know, an editorial illustration advocating for greater government transparency. It first appeared in Look Magazine on August 20, 1968.

This coming Thursday, June 11, Norman Rockwell's Four Freedoms Forum will hold a Zoom webinar on Justice and Equity from 5:30 - 7:00 pm.

The Right to Know ~ Norman Rockwell, 1968

A Time For Revolution

Change?

Change ~ Bob Gorell