“Oregon reports more hate crimes than anywhere else in the country per capita.” I’m quoting from a pamphlet that promotes friendship and building a beloved community. We went to the first meeting at the Ainsworth United Church of Christ. Bobbin Singh is the director of an organization that promotes civil rights. He spoke to about 100 people about his vision and asked us to discuss our ideas in small groups. We did. It’s slow going, isn’t it? Like most people, I’m overly fond of the sound of my own voice. But it was a beginning.
On Tuesday I listened to my favorite pianist rehearsing his Schubertiade. Michael Kelly will play two works by Franz Schubert (1797- 1828) on Aug. 18. I won’t be in Portland so Michael allowed me to attend a rehearsal at the First Congregational Church UCC of Portland where Michael is the musical director. Michael played two pieces that Schubert wrote in the final years of his life. Schubert dead at 31 because of syphilis. Here we are in the Church’s Sanctuary.
The Seventeen year old film, Best in Show, still resonates with those of us who go to dog shows to laugh. It’s a close knit society and if you don’t belong you might feel like Alice at the Mad Hatters Tea Party. In other words, everybody is on the same wave
length except you.We went to a Portland Kennel Club dog show and watched terriers: Welsh,Rat, Norfolk, Scottish being brushed, curled, groomed to walk around in circles to be judged.
Tony Starlight? The name conjures up a fast talking guitar player from the 70’s, right? Tony Starlight made music in public for free and it was blast. Neil Diamond, Elton John, you name it.
Graphic Lessons: Recent thirty-five-year-old widow Millie Fitzgerald applies for a private school teaching job, faints on a stabbed and dying man in the school kitchen, deals with the only witness to the stabbing – a troubled nine-year-old, develops a crush on a NYPD detective and her dog dies.
Graphic Lessons: Nine-year-old Dana is the only witness who overhears three people fighting with George Lopez, the soon to be stabbed Windsor School kitchen worker. Who can she tell? Her mother who never listens or accuses her of lying? Her father who’s started a new family in Singapore? She tells Millie.
Graphic Lessons: Something’s eating at NYPD Detective Steve Kulchek: a failed marriage? surviving a car bomb? his girlfriend marrying his corrupt boss? screwing up an important case? It doesn’t matter because he’s relentless.