Alex Morton I know, but with all the baseless anti-Canadian rhetoric and downright lies spewing out of the White House I'm feeling very protective of my country and countrymen.

E. Writer How are the hockey winners decided?

Alex Morton The US team won fair and square in the tournament. This was the first time that the Canadian women's team has lost to the US.

E. Writer I can see that as shocking, especially since it is not a prominent sport here. I don't watch hockey so I wasn't sure how it worked.

Alex Morton I never watch sports except the Olympics and America's cup sailing. I've never been one to sit and watch "the game", whatever it is. Even as a kid, the only time I would watch a game was when my father would take me to a baseball game and that was always special. I've always liked participating in sports, rather than watching. And, even there, the sports have always been ones that challenged myself rather than against someone or something else. Fighting my way across the Strait of Georgia in a storm with just a scrap of sail up has always been far more interesting and exciting to me than any game I could have played or watched. I don't usually care about what a bunch of strangers are doing with a ball. I know that makes me weird, but I've always taken a bit of pride in my weirdness.

Roy Scarbrough Than you. That's both reassuring and also a game plan.

Roy Scarbrough In the time I've been off facebook, a friend of mine was home suffering from GERD, and it was so bad that he was hospitalized, only to learn he has cancer. He let friends know on facebook, so not knowing, sent a note innocently asking, how are you. The note came back a 3 a.m. from his hospital bed. Cancer. Just the one word. Cancer, and he turned off notifications. He could not do more. Fuck Facebook.

E. Writer That is sad. My husband noticed that on his birthday he received fewer birthday wishes from lifelong friends, who have all historically over the past decade wished him happy birthday in big numbers on Facebook. It hurt his feelings when some of his closer friends didn't get on, with a few people wishing him a Happy Birthday days later. I reminded him that Facebook's algorithms are preventing us from seeing our own friends and what they post. I told him it was unlikely that they received a notification about his birthday because everyone is getting less engagement, so they're not getting on as much because their friends are not engaging them on Facebook anymore when in reality, we simply don't see each other's posts anymore because of the algorithms. I am sorry about your friend. I hope you have everyone's email, or at least someone's email so you can keep in touch outside of Facebook. GERD is terrible. I have it, and it sent me to the hospital a few times and gave me Paradoxical vocal cord dysfunction, which caused my vocal cords to snap shut at the wrong time, which felt like my air was being cut off. I would swerve my car, thinking I had stopped breathing.

Roy Scarbrough The algorithms are weird. I was getting ads from plumbers and roofers and realtors who live thousands of miles away.

E. Writer That's because facebooks ads show your book to everyone. Doesn't matter where they are located. That's why I run a lot of ads on facebook.

E. Writer This is very true. People would also travel together or take a train across the country to stay with a friend for a few weeks. Your post reminds me of how renaissance writers Richard Wright, James Baldwin, Chester Himes, and Ralph Ellison all went to Paris to live during the 1948-1950s to escape racism and segregation. There, they wrote some of their greatest works while in Paris in this artistic bohemian counter-culture. Imagine, writers traveling together, having this shared and lived experience. There was a thriving artistic scene that they belonged to, that influenced their writings and they were quite famous there and a number of intellectuals traveling in their circle. Langston Hughes paved the way for them when he traveled to Paris in the 1920s to escape the U.S. Quincy Jones the musician traveled there in the 1957 to study composing under one of the greats, and returned to the U.S. to become one of the world's biggest music composers/writers/producers. A number of musicians from that era traveled across America working on music, and traveling. It was quite a time...

Roy Scarbrough Yes, Paris was an important place for that. Black WWI soldiers often returned, and stayed. Imagine how it must to have been for them to walk around paris and walk into any restaurant or bar they liked. It must have been exhilarating. Do you know if Zora Neal Hurston was there at the same time?

Roy Scarbrough Also on my list: Wordsworth and Coleridge; Boswell and Samuel Johnson, Auden and Louis MacNiece in Iceland.

E. Writer Zora Neal Hurston and Langston Hughes spent time there in the 1920s. They were the first to go there as writers. The next generation of Harlem Renaissance writers like Baldwin, Wright, and Ellison went in the 1950s. They did not cross paths with Zora or Langston as far as I know. I imagine those were "the best of times" and the "worst of times" but the best of times to be a writer and an artist.

Alex Morton Quincy Jones was far from the only great jazz musician to head to Paris. The 1986 movie, Round Midnight, starring Dexter Gordon, was about that period. Dex was one of the greatest sax players and all the music in the film was done live and featured some of the world's best jazz musicians. ... Herbie Hancock, Dexter Gordon, Bobby Mc Ferrin, Wayne Shorter, John McLaughlin, Ron Carter, Billy Higgins, Tony Williams, Chet Baker, Lonnete McKee.. The movie was really based on the life of the musician, Bud Powell. Only in Paris could the great black jazz musicians find a comfortable home and an audience that truly appreciated them. This would have been in 1959-1964 when jazz audiences were on the wane in the US. Dex was actually one of the musicians who was there, along with Chet Baker, Donald Byrd and Kenny Clark. Here's the extraordinary soundtrack https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4nVDKeVxok&list=PLHKC1i6dpteC6N_FdHlLuTWAiFgpP0U69

Roy Scarbrough When I was a boy, there was a show on Saturday afternoons called ABC's Wide World of Sports. They had a lot of track and field and weird stuff like curling and water skiing jumbs, steeple chasing, so the variety made it interesting to me. As it came one, the annoucer would say "The thrill of victory! The agony of defeat!"

Steven Terry Of course, we all remember Mr. Agony of Defeat--and boy, if anybody ever looked defeated...!

Roy Scarbrough There's been a couple crybabies with the winter olympics. Jeeze, get a grip. Even it you didn't get the gold you got to play in the Olympics. If you can, be happy for the ones who got the medals.

Alex Morton We have a family friend who is in the Olympics. Lara was a friend of our granddaughters when her family lived here in Lions Bay. Her parents were determined to help her become an Olympic skier and moved to the Dolomites for her to get the best training. She represents South Africa (her mother's birthplace) in Alpine skiing just as she's turned 19. She didn't place very high but it was a thrill just to see her there. Not sure whether she'll compete again because she's on a track towards med school.

Roy Scarbrough When I was but a lad, I met another American lad in london who was on the American olympic wrestling team and arrived weeks ahead of the games, We rode our newly purchased motorycles from London to Paris. While in paris, he got a call from his brother who wanted to meet him in Europe. So, he rode back to London to pick up his brother. We were going to meet up again in Pamplona at a designated time in the Plaza de Torros. He didn't make it there.


I presume he and his brother made it to the games. But then the games turned out to be a no go in Munich that year. 1972.


That was something worth crying about.

E. Writer This reads like a person on a cross-European trip. Very nice.

Roy Scarbrough I was!

E. Writer I wasn't a huge fan of folk music when I was young, but over the years I've grown into it, and have grown a serious appreciation for it, especially the 60s and 70s era. It feels very serene, and thoughtful compared to music today that feels most arrogant, angry, and flashy. I listen to songs like You've Got a Friend by James Taylor, is one of my favorites. It's so soothing. I can think of so many others, but that one is at the top of my list. I feel peaceful. Of course I love George Harrison, though he leabs a bit into rock, too.

Roy Scarbrough I didn't like Dylan when I was young, but when some of his songs were covered by the Byrds and Peter, Paul and Mary. I loved them. Early Dylan was influenced by the poet Rimbaud. Something happened to him around 1966 that changed him. Some say it was the motorcycle accident.

Alex Morton My world centered around folk music at one period in my life. There was always a banjo or guitar at hand. I wanted to play the twelve string guitar like Leadbelly and the banjo like Pete Seeger. Everywhere I'd go we were playing that music. I went to parties in artist's lofts with people beating on African drums and half a dozen assorted guitars, banjos and dulcimers with fifty people singing anti-Vietnam War songs. Alan Lomax and others were combing the hills for the real article, the old blues and mountain folk singers. They'd bring people like Mississippi John Hurt, Sonny Terry and Brownie Magee and Bascom Lamar Lipscome to the Newport Festival to mingle with Joan Baez and Dave Von Rank.

It was a very fertile time, musically, and lots of great music came out of the cross-pollination.

I didn't know him, but Dylan was one of us until he wasn't. But what he gave us was far better ... he gave us himself. I was driving across the Triboro Bridge in NY the first time I heard Positively Fourth Street .and I just wanted to pull over to the side and listen. Nobody before or since has ever jolted radio more.
Dylan was influenced by Rimbaud, but he was also influenced by Allen Ginsburg and the antihero mythologies of the late fifties.

The folk magazine of the time was Sing Out and I was a subscriber during the time they published Dylan's first songs and whatever else was new by Tom Paxton and all the other singer/songwriter folkies. As soon as a new copy came out, I'd get out my banjo and figure out how to play it all. When I'd get out to Washington Square Park with all the other folkies, there'd always be a few others you could jam with who were already playing the new stuff, too.

Roy Scarbrough those were good times, a little before my time. It seemed like times were a changing for the better. Jim Crow was taken down a peg. That was encouraging, but I'm not sure times changed as well as was hoped.

Alex Morton Things did get considerably better, including stopping the Vietnam War, major civil rights and human rights advancements, respect for and support of the arts. But then, the focus of the US changed from empathy to cold-bloodedness and many of the advancements were reversed. The folk music days were ones of hope and positive change. Today, it's mostly despair and pretense, primarily churned out by a machine that has no social conscience and cares only to ring the cash register. and shout, "me me me me". Jesse Welles' music says the people still do have a voice. Bruce Springsteen has also stepped back into that arena and I expect we'll be hearing from others. This new trend is positive in the way that the protest music of the folk era and the rock music that followed it was positive. I think of Marvin Gaye's "What's going on" and songs like "Lean on Me". And I think particularly of Gil Scott-Heron's masterpiece, "The Revolution Will Not be Televised." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vwSRqaZGsPw&list=RDvwSRqaZGsPw&start_radio=1

E. Writer Yeah, you just have to set it to public. Log into your group, go to where it says "settings" and you'll see an option on that page to make it a closed or public group. You can choose public in the options.

Roy Scarbrough It still confuses me that there is both a news feed and a forum, as well user categories, as well as groups. I keep forgetting where I last posted a thought.

Roy Scarbrough People have been asking to join. Does that mean no one can get in and post without my permission? I'd like it to be open to all who stroll by. I don't own it. I made it public. No one should need my permission, right?

E. Writer Oh I found this post again by going to your profile page. Yes, they can still click join and come right in if the group is set to public. Yes, a lot of sections on this site. Similar to how Zoetrope had forums and private offices (groups). Bios (here is a profile page), and main feed, which zoe did not have. Plus a group chat for people to chat in real time.

Roy Scarbrough My claustophobia has more to do with being in position of possible escape being impeded by the presence of other people who would be needing that too. My worst fear is being in a building with others that collapses around us and having to spend days in the rubble.

E. Writer That is a terrifying feeling. I think of that awful event that happened in Switzerland this month, a New Year's Eve party I think it was. That huge tragedy.

Roy Scarbrough Filipo Brunelleschi was an irascible man. I think the Florentines enjoyed goading the rivalry between he and his rivalry of his rival Lorenzo Ghiberti. Some years earlier Giberti won the commission to build the gilded baptistery doors, which up to then was probably the biggest single commission any artist was every awarded.
For they competed for the commission by producing a single panel depicting the scene of a Bible story, the sacrifice of Isaak.

The two men could not be more different in personality. Ghiberti had a sense of humour and was likely fun to be around, although he was slow to complete projects, and was unreliable in that way. Brunelleschi was not as easy to get along with, and did not enterain suggestions or directives with grace.


When the time came to award the commission for building the dome, Brunelleschi won. He won based on the plans he submitted. And yet, the committee awarded the commission to both Brunelleschi and Ghiberti, as co-masters of the project, requiring the two men to split the payment. They must've known that would infuriate Brunelleschi.


As the project continued, Brunelleschi made no effort to share the plans or discuss construction methods.


So at one critical point in the project, Brunelleschi feigned illness and stayed home. The work crews required some direction on how to proceeded to the next phase. They went to Brunelleschi for guidance. His response was, "I'm an not well. Ask Lorenzo." Lorenzo, of course had no idea.


The ruse paid off in that it was then established that Filipo would be the sole master of the project going forward.

E. Writer That was a shrewd move on Brunelleschi's part. Just as there is only one chef in a kitchen, an artistic project of this magnitude should only have one master.

Roy Scarbrough Shrewd. Lorenzo was a better artist, but he did not know diddly squat about engineering. Bruneleschi and Donatello traveled to Rome where they measured all the Roman ruins. He had a pretty good idea how to build structures that would bear a lot of weight. He invented machines that could lift tons of building materials to the top of the structure where the work was being performed. So ingenious where these cranes that for a along time Leonardo was credited with the designs that many years later Leonard drew in his note books. The machines themselves predate Leonardo, but he likely knew of them, so he drew them.

Pack animals were harnessed to a turnstile at the base of the crane tower to live the brick and block. It was equipped with a geared transmission so that it could be lowered back to the ground without having to unharness the animals.

E. Writer Happy MLK day. I posted an MLK day video on my profiles elsewhere but couldn't post it here. Such a great video but... His voice still gives me chills.

Alex Morton Once a century, if we're lucky, we're blessed with someone like him. I remember it all in real time. He brought such light and hope and asked nothing but that we share it with him. When I was young, they murdered all my heroes and his death touched me the most.

E. Writer His voice was powerful and as moving as his words. There is a history of turning heroes into symbols of various movements, especially after they have passed on.