Suffer the People

 How did we choose these leaders?

Mixed Media Practice

 

Mixed Media: And then you're out of ink!

 

Where the Falcon Flies by Adam Shoalts

 For the adventurer in all of us: geography, history, perseverance, appreciation of the wild, and belief in humanity. 

I SUPPORT CUPW

 

What kind of society do we live in? Ticket gouging should be punishable by law.

 

More practice with watercolor pencils

 

Support Alberta Teachers

 STOP THE EXCUSES

Support local businesses instead

 What are governments doing to protect their people and the environment with the increased use of AI and robotics? Are we still shopping til we drop? How about a Buy Nothing Day? Multinationals won't stop their speedy production and will keep on feeding their insatiable thirst for profit as long as we keep on shopping at their behest. Buy now! Shop now! Get it now!   

More practice with watercolor pencils

 

Thanks to my sister for the art supplies

 

When all eggs are in one basket, what happens during an outage?

 

2025: Goodbye MTV

Did we even know you were still around? Oh, well... Thank you for those fun times in 1981 with my young brother in front of the TV on weekends. He would laugh at the funny dance moves but danced with me anyway. MTV transitioned us from the 70s vinyl player which had given me and my little siblings happy times singing along and dancing to every record my father brought home. Later in high school, I would get some of Michael Jackson’s and the Bee Gees’ with my piggy bank money. My Sharona by the Knack and We Will Rock You by Queen that we belted out still ring in my ears. With MTV in the 80s, all these songs came alive in our color TV set.

Also became popular in the 80s were cassette tapes which I played in my Sony Walkman, my weekend companion in the dorm after long nights of pounding on my portable typewriter. I kept this player during long trips to and from the refugee processing center where I taught in the 90s, and I think I haven’t disposed of it. Only in the summer of 2025 while vacationing in the Philippines did I dare put my cassette tapes in the garbage as no one would take them anymore, along with the DVDs I’d collected while in North America. Neighbors no longer have DVD or cassette players while their children and grandchildren have earbuds on all the time. As much as I also love music, I hope they discover the magic of silence, too.

Growing up in a home filled with music, it was hard not to have a portable CD/cassette player with AM/FM radio while in Moldova and the US for teaching jobs in the 90s and 00s. In North Carolina, I got my news, tornado warnings, and country music by tuning in to 95.9 on low volume, so I was shocked to see these loud boomboxes or ghetto blasters resting on the shoulders of some subway riders as they walked from car to car in NYC. I thought I’d see them only in the movies! I had to cover my painful ears until they got off the train. I don’t mind people sharing music in public spaces while others share their phone conversations, but it shouldn’t hurt so much, should it?  

At home, my father and sister would play the piano, my brother his electric guitar and drums, and another sister, her recorder. Sometimes, my mother would beg my sister to stop playing the creepiest, most terrifying classical pieces, saying “I can’t focus on my food!” Luckily, no neighbor complained when my brother’s band practiced some of Guns N’ Roses’ and Bon Jovi’s on weekends. My mother and I were the unlucky members of the family who didn’t play any instrument, so we would just belt out a song once in a while, not really knowing whether or not we have a pleasing voice. This reminds me of my grandma who sang in church and at a fiesta in her soprano voice. I thought that all our drinking glasses and mirrors were breaking that night. Family members have either moved to Heaven, moved out, or stayed in our house built in the 80s, but whenever I visit, it’s the sounds that make it feel like home still.    

My boombox came with me during my four-day drive from North Carolina to Alberta and became useful in my Kindergarten classes during movement breaks and work periods before the cassette player died, followed by the CD player. Now do I still have music CDs? Well, well, well... A used 2010 Honda Civic didn’t disappoint when I got it in 2019 for it had, and still has, a working CD player, so I’m still keeping John Denver, Tina Turner, Kenny Rogers, Whitney Houston, the Beatles, ABBA and the likes alive with me on long drives during summer breaks. Of course, their music brings nostalgia for memories of happy years (or decades) gone by, with friends and loved ones. It’s been a good ride really, literally and metaphorically, and I won’t forget ABBA’s Thank You for The Music lyrics:    

So I say thank you for the music, the songs I'm singing
Thanks for all the joy they're bringing
Who can live without it? I ask in all honesty
What would life be?
Without a song or a dance, what are we?
So I say thank you for the music, for giving it to me.

To MTV: Did the video really kill the radio star? AM/FM radio remains alive in my boombox. As I’m not a fan of earbuds, I guess it’s coming with me to my nursing home. Thank you for the music indeed. MLJ17102025GoodbyeMTV

King-Free Since 1776

 

Water or AI? How about some balance?