Anecdotes are usually short humorous stories. Sometimes they are thought-provoking or informative, not amusing.
Automobiles
• Joe S, a regular reader of Bartcop Entertainment on the Web, remembers Saab automobiles from the 1960s. A friend of his ran into trouble with his Saab motor, so he disconnected it from the rest of the car, bolted a handle to it, and hitchhiked to Denver while carrying the motor by the handle to have it repaired. Joe S says, “I don’t think Saabs are like that anymore.”
• Being a world-class gymnast has both advantages and disadvantages. An advantage for Russian gymnast Svetlana Khorkina was that it allowed her to buy a car. A disadvantage is that she found it difficult to find the spare time to learn how to drive it.
Baseball and Softball
• In the 1953 World Series, Dodger pitcher Carl Erskine loaded the bases in the first inning, and Yankee Billy Martin hit a triple. Mr. Erskine was taken out of the game. This made him determined to do better in his next game. In game three of the World Series, he won, 3-2, and after the game another Dodger pitcher, Preacher Roe, told him, “Great game! Do you know you set a World Series strikeout record?” Without realizing it, because of his determination to make up for his previous failure in game one, Mr. Erskine had struck out 14 batters in a World Series game — a record that stood for 10 years.
• When major-league pitcher Christy Mathewson was a kid, he used to play a game he called “hailey over,” in which he would throw a baseball over the roof of a barn to another kid. Once, he threw the baseball too strongly and broke a neighbor’s window. When he was a boy as well as when he was a man, he had good character, so he paid the neighbor the money it cost to fix the window. His mother said, “It took Christy a long time to save the dollar the broken window cost, but it taught him a sense of responsibility.”
• Dodger catcher Roy Campanella used to tell Dodger pitchers, “Now you young pitchers just throw what ol’ Roy calls and I’ll make you a winner.” After losing a game, however, Dodger pitcher Carl Erskine would show Mr. Campanella the box score that said, “Erskine losing pitcher,” and ask him whether instead it should say, “Campanella losing catcher.” Mr. Campanella would laugh and reply, “You can always shake me off.”
• Two nuns went to a baseball game, but a couple of guys sitting behind them began complaining about Catholics. One guy said, “We ought to go to a place where there are only 100 Catholics.” The other guy said, “Better still, let’s go to a place where there are only 50 Catholics.” One of the nuns turned around and said, “Why don’t you go to Hell, where you won’t find any Catholics.”
• Softball great Joan Joyce pitched over 100 no-hit games. Baseball great Ted Williams had a season batting average of .406 in 1941 and ended his career with a lifetime batting average of .344. The two met in 1963 in a ballpark at Waterbury, Connecticut. In ten minutes, Ms. Joyce pitched 40 pitches to Mr. Williams. With those 40 chances, Mr. Williams managed to get one hit.
• Jimmy Piersall was an amazing center fielder who could both make seemingly impossible catches and rifle the baseball to home plate. Manager Casey Stengel was once asked if his team would run on Mr. Piersall. Mr. Stengel replied, “Oh, sure. We’ll run on him — every time somebody hits the ball over the center-field fence.”
Books
• Librarian Malcolm Glenn Wyer decided to accept a position with the Denver Public Library after having worked for years in university libraries. One of his friends wondered why he would want to work in a public library, which was engaged in the distribution of “trivial worthless current fiction.” Mr. Wyer replied that he thought it would be interesting to move from a university library, where 90% of the circulation was by students who were working to complete mandatory assignments, to a public library, where 90% of the circulation was by citizens who were interested in reading for its own sake.
• TV’s Mister Rogers went into television because so much TV was bad, and he knew it could be better. Of course, much TV remains bad, and when he wasn’t working, Mister Rogers watched little TV. He once told a friend that he didn’t want to sound elitist, but he simply preferred reading a book to watching television.
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From The Book of Good Deeds 1914-1918: WORLD WAR I GOOD DEEDS:
PROGRESSIVE APPEAL
ON November 2nd, 1914, I was in command of an ambulance corps in Lille in the north of France. After 8 in the morning I had come back from a very strenuous night’s duty and was so tired that I wanted to lie down at once without waiting for breakfast. Just at that moment my orderly announced that a young French woman wanted to see me on a very pressing matter. I was so tired that I did not want to admit her, but my orderly kept coming back and telling me that the woman was crying and begging to see me. So I let her come in.
She told me that she had traveled from Limoges to Lille (about 800 kilometers in the train) with her two-year-old child, to look for her husband. She had heard that he had lost his left arm, and was now in the Citadel of Lille, from where he would be sent to Germany as a prisoner in a few days.
I explained at once that in that case I could do nothing and that it was as good as impossible to prevent her husband’s deportation to Germany. At this she began to cry so terribly and distressed me so much that I let myself be persuaded, and although I had not been out of my clothes for two days and two nights, and was dead tired, I promised her faithfully to look into the matter.
After breakfast I went first to the station in the north of the town, where I understood that the French prisoners had already been taken, and I had the man brought to me. His name was George Francois Devoux, a painter by profession, a young delicate soldier of twenty-six with an amputated arm. His companions in misfortune were mainly men of the last draft, he was the youngest of them all.
Then I went to see the station commander, a Bavarian, Colonel Wopperer, whom I knew. I explained about the case and asked for his assistance. His adjutant, Major Hunert, called up headquarters, without success, as was to be expected. This I told the woman who was waiting outside the station, but she implored me so insistently to try again that I went myself to headquarters and later to the Supreme Command where I knew several officers. These efforts were also unsuccessful. On my way back to the station I met by chance the station surgeon, also a Bavarian, Doctor Schon, whom I knew very well because we had worked together at the station, and I told him about the case. He wanted at any rate to see the man and thought that perhaps on account of Devoux’s amputated arm something could be done. So we went back to headquarters and—which I had never thought possible—after fifteen minutes we had a safe conduct for Devoux, by virtue of which he was not to be sent to Germany but was allowed to live with his wife and child in Roubaix near Lille.
The scene which ensued I shall never forget. The woman was waiting at the station about half an hour before the departure of the train, and when I told her of the happy outcome she was so overwhelmed with joy that she could not speak a word of thanks to me. I asked her to wait and hurried to the platform where the prisoners were already lined up; had Devoux step out and imparted the good tidings to him. He could not get a word out either. His comrades, however, the old men of the last draft, pressed round me with tears in their eyes to shake me by the hand. Devoux was now taken to a room at the station headquarters, where he produced a cutaway coat and striped trousers from his pack and dressed himself in civilian clothes. He came out in a little round gray hat, took leave of his countrymen, and left the station with me to where his wife received him with open arms. Only then, while his wife was pressing my hands, with streaming eyes, did he manage to thank me. Then I put them into the electric railway for Roubaix, rejoicing in the happiness of these two people.
By Peter von Chrustschoff, Karlsruhe
The Local Girls (Athens, Ohio, USA): “Blue Shadows on the Trail”
“Nick Vandenberg grew up in St. Mary’s, West Virginia and has spent time in Los Angeles, CA and Chapel Hill, NC composing music for film and working as a music producer and audio engineer. Though his songs are clearly shaped by his Appalachian upbringing closer inspection reveals a wide range of influences gleaned from his musical studies including composition lessons with Bruce DeMoll, tenor saxophonist and arranger for the Glen Miller Orchestra in the 1960’s, and sitar and vocal classes with Indian classical music legend Ustad Ali Akbar Khan. He has composed music for projects shown on the Nickelodeon Network and at the Sundance film festival and has toured as a member of the North Carolina based bands bands Bombadil and Blue Cactus for whom he produced the self-titled 2017 debut album. He currently lives in Boston, MA.”
“Nick Vandenberg grew up in St. Mary’s, West Virginia and has spent time in Los Angeles, CA and Chapel Hill, NC composing music for film and working as a music producer and audio engineer. Though his songs are clearly shaped by his Appalachian upbringing closer inspection reveals a wide range of influences gleaned from his musical studies including composition lessons with Bruce DeMoll, tenor saxophonist and arranger for the Glen Miller Orchestra in the 1960’s, and sitar and vocal classes with Indian classical music legend Ustad Ali Akbar Khan. He has composed music for projects shown on the Nickelodeon Network and at the Sundance film festival and has toured as a member of the North Carolina-based bands Bombadil and Blue Cactus for whom he produced the self titled 2017 debut album. He currently lives in Boston, MA.”
Cade Earick the absolute queen of moss rock. happened upon this project when a friend of mine did a concert with them and I’m definitely in love with these guys. pumped for the next album 🙂 Favorite track: Walls.
andycinderella this ep lives rent free in my head. Favorite track: Blank.
Mr Wiggles One time I ran into this tiny girl in an alleyway. She mugged me for 8 dollars. I woke up in that alley with a black eye and this cassette. The music is pretty good. Favorite track: Never at All.
Smashwords has made it mandatory to open an account to read or download free eBooks. The reason is this: “The change was […] made to prevent scraping of free books by bots for machine learning training data or similar. It was not a change made lightly — both authors and readers enjoyed the ability to download free books without an account.”
No account is needed to download my FREE eBooks at Freeditorial.
Anecdotes are usually short humorous stories. Sometimes they are thought-provoking or informative, not amusing.
Alcohol
• A preacher once spoke in his sermon about the dangers of alcohol. At one point, he asked an elderly lady — one of the pillars of the church — if she agreed that alcohol was an evil that should be destroyed. The elderly woman replied, “Actually, I enjoy a little toddy once in a while.”
Animals
• At one time, zoos kept large animals such as gorillas in small cages. Now, zoos prefer to have larger, more open spaces that resemble the animals’ habitat as much as possible and in which the animals can roam around. The open spaces make the viewing experience more pleasurable for the zoos’ visitors, and the open spaces make the animals happier and more likely to breed in captivity. The first person to design larger, more open spaces for the display and comfort of animals was Karl Hagenbeck, who in 1907 placed antelopes and lions near each other in the Hamburg Zoo in Germany — the lions were kept away from the antelopes by an impassible moat. Today, zoos will keep prey animals further away from predator animals. To make the zoo settings resemble the animals’ natural habitat, zoo workers will do such things as force animals in a tropical forest setting to take shelter a few times a day when zoo workers create artificial rain showers. During the showers, the zoo workers flash strobe lights for lightning and play recordings of thunder and the shrieks of howler monkeys and the calls of birds. All of these things make the animals feel more at home.
• The 1,049-mile-long Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race in Alaska is taken seriously. During and after the race the urine of the sled dogs used in the race is tested to make sure the dogs have not been given any performance-enhancing drugs. Preparation for the race is also time-consuming — and not just the training. For each race, Susan Butcher, who won the Iditarod four times, and her friends made up a thousand dog booties to protect the sled dogs’ feet from such hazards as sharp rocks and sharp shards of ice. In addition, she made up about 75 burlap bags of dog food — while racing, her dogs will each eat about 8,000 calories daily. For each Iditarod, she needed about 1,500 pounds of supplies, much of it left at the various race checkpoints.
• When war correspondent and photographer Margaret Bourke-White received permission to fly on a bombing expedition during World War II, J. Hampton Atkinson piloted her himself, saying, “I’m going to fly you myself because if you die, I want to die, too.” (Fortunately, neither of them died.) By the way, while photographer Ms. Bourke-White was attending the University of Michigan in the early 1920s, she kept something strange in her dormitory room bathtub — a pet milk snake.
Art
• While famed photographer Yousuf Karsh was taking the portrait of artist Jean-Paul Riopelle, he admired a circular painting that the artist had completed. Mr. Karsh believed that the painting resembled a stained-glass rosette — an image that brings to mind stained-glass windows in cathedrals. Mr. Riopelle explained that he had a particular purpose in creating a painting with that particular shape: “I’ll tell you why I did that. Because my dealers insist on setting the price of a canvas by the number of square inches in it. For the fun of it, I decided to confuse them and paint one that is round.”
• In New York, artist Louise Bourgeois held a salon on Sundays. One day, an artist called on the telephone and asked for permission to come to the salon. Ms. Bourgeois replied, “Who are you? What kind of work do you do? A painter? What size? … All right. You could come at three o’clock. Don’t come if you have a cold.”
Audiences
• Giuseppe de Stefano sang the high-B note at the end of Celeste Aida exactly the way that Verdi wanted it — softly — instead of the way his Catania, Sicily, audience wanted it — loudly. When the audience whistled in derision, Mr. de Stefano told them, “That’s the way Verdi wrote it!” A know-it-all shouted back, “Verdi made a mistake!”
• Dr. Samuel Johnson once played host to actress Mrs. Siddons, who often sold out theaters. The good doctor’s servant proved to be very slow about getting a chair for her, so Dr. Johnson gave her this compliment: “You see, madam, wherever you go, there are no seats to be had.”
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FREE eBook: THE MOST INTERESTING PEOPLE WHO LIVE LIFE, Volume 2
Smashwords recently made it mandatory to open an account to read or download free eBooks. The reason is this: “The change was […] made to prevent scraping of free books by bots for machine learning training data or similar. It was not a change made lightly — both authors and readers enjoyed the ability to download free books without an account.”
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From The Book of Good Deeds 1914-1918: WORLD WAR I GOOD DEEDS:
APPROACH OF THE ENEMY
THIS was in France, in the Pas de Calais, in a wretched little village, a few kilometers behind the front lines. Every night from twilight till dawn we were on duty on the big reservoir tower. In front of us lay the Division and we had to take up their light signals and pass the messages on to the staff by telephone. For seven or eight hours, a magical display of fireworks would ripple and blaze and vibrate before our eyes: fire from gun barrels, trench flares, light balls, mines—the whole great apotheosis of death. The tower trembled as sometimes a shell crashed through it, but it remained standing. We did not see the terrible beauty of the flaming earth; we could not allow ourselves to see it. We saw only the regular flares of the precisely-working signals of our division, registered them automatically, growing more and more weary, until gradually the sky grayed, the colors grew fainter, and the fallow dawn crept up.
Then shivering with cold we left and sank dead tired into our beds. Not even a drum fire could have disturbed that leaden slumber. And night after night passed like that.
Then one morning it happened that a voice disturbed my sleep, an excited voice. But that did not concern me: I only wanted to sleep. These stupid dreams. My brain would keep on working, the lights flickering behind my eyelids, the balls of fire straying through the subconscious. But I jumped when a firm hand shook my shoulder. Words came mounting up to me through the darkness “Monsieur!—Monsieur, les Anglais!”— Very slowly, reluctantly, consciousness returned: so, the English were coming. Before me stood the landlady of my billets. She gesticulated wildly with her arms. With one bound I leaped out of bed, now wide awake. A glance out at the village street told me all: down there everyone was streaming backwards in wild confusion. Batteries, infantry, horsemen, columns of men; and right into the midst of them the first shells were crashing. Cries, commands, curses, casualties, bolting horses, dust, sticky yellow smoke; in very truth, the English had broken through.
I stood petrified. Was it possible? “Vite, vite, Monsier, depechez-vous!” Yes, she was right, my landlady, I must hurry if I wanted to get out of here.
“And you, Madame?” I asked, as my hands started collecting my things and shoving them into the bags.
She shrugged her shoulders. Then she held out her hand to me: “Au revoir, Monsieur, et bonnes chances!” she said in a soft trembling voice. I pressed her hand. “Thanks, madame, auf wiedersehn.”
In her eyes, which had already looked on so much misery, so much cruelty, there was expressed no triumph over the defeat of an enemy, no joy over the release from a foreign occupation, no new hope. Only pity was in them, and anxiety for the safety of her adopted child who was her enemy, only understanding of the afflictions of suffering mankind.
I never saw her again. The attack was soon checked by us this time and the front line reestablished. But the village lay in ruins.
“I’m a singer songwriter from Springfield, OH. Music is one of the few things that gives my life meaning. I love all types of music, but my music is generally in the acoustic rock vein. I’m influenced by early greats like The Beatles and Eagles and more recently, The Avett Brothers and Jason Isbell.” — MICHAEL MANLEY
Michael Manley and Katie Harford: Roxanne Acoustic (Police Cover)
Megan Wren is an Americana artist with a touch of edge. Inspired by the likes of Brandi Carlile, Jade Bird, and Katie Pruitt, she is steadily growing into a presence that is all her own. Megan values giving back and prioritizes philanthropy in her artistic decisions; through the last year she has become known for her regular charitable and community-building livestreams. Her debut EP SYMPATHETIC VIBRATIONS is available on all streaming platforms, and she is currently dedicating her time to writing her next original release.
Megan Wren live at Noah Smith’s Crooner Circus: “Just Getting Started” (Original Song)
Peter Mealy and Laurie Rose Griffith: Live From Home (Includes at end Bruce Dalzell’s cover of “My Neighborhood,” previously recorded by Peter Mealy and Laurie Rose Griffith)
Smashwords has made it mandatory to open an account to read or download free eBooks. The reason is this: “The change was […] made to prevent scraping of free books by bots for machine learning training data or similar. It was not a change made lightly — both authors and readers enjoyed the ability to download free books without an account.”
No account is needed to download my FREE eBooks at Freeditorial.
This email includes at the bottom a selection from The Book of Good Deeds 1914-1918. Collected and Edited with a Foreword by Bernhard Diebold. 1938. This book consists of accounts of good deeds during World War I. Most accounts are by Germans.
Anecdotes are usually short humorous stories. Sometimes they are thought-provoking or informative, not amusing.
Actors and Entertainers
• Actors join acting companies for different reasons. Robert Stephens joined England’s National Theatre simply because John Dexter asked him to play the Dauphin in St. Joan — a part for which he thought he was unsuited physically. Mr. Stephens told Mr. Dexter, “I’ll join immediately, because I don’t think anybody would ever offer me that part.”
• Liliane Montovecchi was a stage star of the Follies-Bergère, an occupation in which she made members of the audience happy. Tommy Tune met her later and asked her, “Don’t you remember sitting in my lap at the Follies-Bergère?” She replied, “How could I remember? I sat on everybody’s lap!”
• Actor Douglas Fairbanks became infatuated with European royalty. Charlie Chaplin, who grew up poor, once brought him back down to Earth by asking, “Hullo, Douglas, how’s the duke?” “What duke?” “Oh, any duke.”
Alcohol
• The Doubner Maggid once ate dinner at the house of a wealthy man, who urged him to drink. The Maggid drank one glass of wine, and the wealthy man asked him to drink another, which the Maggid did, despite protesting, “I am not accustomed to drinking.” When the second glass of wine was empty, the wealthy man urged the Maggid to drink a third glass, so the Maggid asked him to fill the glass to the brim. When the glass was full, the Maggid told the man to pour more, surprising him, because — as he pointed out — the glass was already full. “There is a lesson in this,” the Maggid said. “The glass is a lifeless object and it holds only a certain amount. This is even more true of a human being, who has life and will power and therefore should know the limit of his capacity for alcohol.”
• A judge got very drunk and then took off his robe and lay under a tree half-naked to sleep. Mulla Nasrudin came along, saw the judge, and took his cloak. Later, the judge sobered up, returned to his village and saw Nasrudin wearing his cloak. “Is that your cloak?” the judge asked. “No, it is not,” Nasrudin replied. “I saw a very drunk man lying under a tree, asleep, and I took his cloak so that robbers would not steal it. I should like very much to find that man so that I can return his cloak.” Fearing lest his friends and neighbors find out that it was he who had been drunk, the judge replied, “Such a drunken fellow deserves what happens to him,” and then he left Nasrudin and the cloak alone.
• The Hassidim abhorred drunkenness, but they felt that a drink after prayers was appropriate. Once, Rabbi Israel of Rizhyn was asked why the Hassidim took a drink after prayers while the opponents of Hassidism (the Mitnagdim) studied the Mishna instead of taking a drink. He answered, “The Mitnagdim pray frigidly, without life, enthusiasm, or emotion. They appear almost lifeless. After their prayers, they study the Mishna — an appropriate subject when one mourns the dead. But the prayers of the Hassidim are alive and living people need a drink.”
• When Casey Driessen was in junior high school, his parents bribed him. They told him that if he stayed away from illegal drugs and tobacco and alcohol until he was 21 years old that they would give him $1,000. He accepted the challenge, and he didn’t cheat. When people would ask why he didn’t cheat, he would say, “Could you take $1,000 from your parents?” When he turned 21 years old — at midnight when December 5 changed to December 6 — he took his very first sip of beer.
• Some pro athletes make sure to be good role models for the kids who idolize them. Major-league pitcher Nolan Ryan gave up chewing tobacco when he saw some Little Leaguers chewing it. And when NBA star Bobby Jones accepted an award from a liquor company after a computer analysis stated that he was the most effective NBA player, Mr. Jones thanked the liquor company but also stated that he did not drink alcohol.
• Russian bass Fyodor Chaliapin enjoyed partying all night even though he knew that it would interfere with his singing the following day. American industrialist Henry Ford once offered him a large sum of money to sing at 10:30 a.m., but Mr. Chaliapin replied, “Unfortunately, at that early hour I cannot even spit.”
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FREE eBook: THE MOST INTERESTING PEOPLE WHO LIVE LIFE, Volume 2
Smashwords recently made it mandatory to open an account to read or download free eBooks. The reason is this: “The change was […] made to prevent scraping of free books by bots for machine learning training data or similar. It was not a change made lightly — both authors and readers enjoyed the ability to download free books without an account.”
No account is needed to download my FREE eBooks at Freeditorial or any of my blogs:
From The Book of Good Deeds 1914-1918: WORLD WAR I GOOD DEEDS:
A MINOR RESCUE
IN the Champagne Valley during the nights of Spring 1916, the French airplane raids from Vougiers became more and more frequent, and more and more terrifying. Night after night everyone would rush to the cellars, to seek safety or rather to imagine themselves in safety. The population and the soldiers alike crowded into the narrow confines of these clammy little cellars, often up to the ankles in water.
Alone and deserted—while everyone else made sure of their own safety in the darkness of night—there was a poor old blind French spinster. The only living creature belonging to her was a hen, the last one left to her. And so in her fear she fled to the place which the French call “le cabinet.”
Some German wireless operators heard of this and led the poor old blind woman, one on her right, the other on her left, to the shelter of a neighboring cellar: although the enemy bombs were already crashing around them.
Singer-songwriter Megan Bee writes with an unquenchable wanderlust and a raw love for the land. Her fourth studio album COTTONWOOD releases February 2022. It follows WAITING (2020), which was named album of the year by The Ark of Music. Bee has won The Ohio Music Awards Best Americana and Best Singer-Songwriter Albums along with a finalist spot in the USA Songwriting Competition.
Her music is a blend of distinctly homespun vocals, acoustic simplicity, yearning soulfulness, and winsome storytelling. Her background as an environmental educator, traveling farmhand, and vagabond once took her into a desert wilderness where she found her voice around a campfire. She bases out of the rolling hills of Athens, Ohio and frequently roams the country playing festivals, coffeehouses, brewpubs, house concerts, and around campfires.
“She seems to have nothing to prove and no agenda, just to write her heart and then sing it. (…) The album is beautifully produced, and Megan’s voice cuts like a warbling bird through the music, like a line on a map.” Hold the Note Magazine
“WAITING is wonderfully uncomplicated, genuinely soulful, and as storied as its creator — a true masterpiece that showcases stellar Bee’s songwriting skills phenomenally.” The Ark of Music
“… warm and inviting … incredibly organic sounding. It sounds pure and human throughout.” Divide and Conquer (about WAITING)
LIKE A CANYON is a collection of songs inspired by canyons, birds, lovers, and old cars. Ohio Music Award 2017 Best Singer-Songwriter and Best Americana Album. Featuring ‘Late 70s Ford,’ a finalist in the USA Songwriting Competition.
MEGAN BEE: “ECSTASY” (at Farm: Folk Alliance region Midwest)
Megan Wren is an Americana artist with a touch of edge. Inspired by the likes of Brandi Carlile, Jade Bird, and Katie Pruitt, she is steadily growing into a presence that is all her own. Megan values giving back and prioritizes philanthropy in her artistic decisions; through the last year she has become known for her regular charitable and community-building livestreams. Her debut EP SYMPATHETIC VIBRATIONS is available on all streaming platforms, and she is currently dedicating her time to writing her next original release.
Megan Wren live at Noah Smith’s Crooner Circus: “Just Getting Started” (Original Song)
Peter Mealy and Laurie Rose Griffith: Live From Home (Includes at end Bruce Dalzell’s cover of “My Neighborhood,” previously recorded by Peter Mealy and Laurie Rose Griffith)
Smashwords has made it mandatory to open an account to read or download free eBooks. The reason is this: “The change was […] made to prevent scraping of free books by bots for machine learning training data or similar. It was not a change made lightly — both authors and readers enjoyed the ability to download free books without an account.”
No account is needed to download my FREE eBooks at Freeditorial.
Anecdotes are usually short humorous stories. Sometimes they are thought-provoking or informative, not amusing.
Wisdom
• Human beings have free will. According to the Babylonian Niddah 16b, whenever a baby is to be conceived, the Lailah (angel in charge of contraception) takes the drop of semen that will result in the conception and asks God, “Sovereign of the Universe, what is going to be the fate of this drop? Will it develop into a robust or into a weak person? An intelligent or a stupid person? A wealthy or a poor person?” The Lailah asks all these questions, but it does not ask, “Will it develop into a righteous or a wicked person?” The answer to that question lies in the decisions to be freely made by the human being that is the result of the conception.
• Chin-sin asked his teacher, the Buddhist priest Si-tien, how he could be sure he was welcome when lying was so prevalent in the World. Si-tien replied, “A man knows he is welcome when he is asked to come again.”
Work
• A gay man was in a bad relationship with his lover, who threatened to go to his very Republican boss, tell her that he was gay, and get him fired because he was gay. Frightened, the gay man told his very Republican boss everything. She replied, “First of all, you need to know that only I can fire you, and you’re doing a fantastic job, so I have absolutely no reason to fire you. And if he comes here, we’ll call security.” By the way, some parents react well when their son reveals that he is gay, saying merely, “Is that all?” (Another good response is, “You go, girl.”)
• A fisherman was taking it easy, lying on the shore on a beautiful day. A rich man saw him and was horrified, so he told the fisherman, “You should be out fishing.” The fisherman replied, “I’ve already caught enough for one day.” The rich man said, “If you catch more fish and save your money, you can acquire another boat and hire men to fish for you. Eventually, you will be able to acquire a whole fleet of boats and be a rich man. Then you can take it easy and enjoy life.” The fisherman replied, “What do you think I’m doing now?”
• After Stan Freberg graduated from high school, he took a bus to Hollywood, got off at the Stars of Tomorrow agency, did a few voices and impressions, and got an interview with Warner’s cartoon director Fritz Freling. Mr. Freberg did so well at the interview that Mr. Freling asked, “Why haven’t we heard of you before?” Mr. Freberg answered, “Beats me. I’ve been around, you know.” Mr. Freling apologized, saying, “I didn’t mean that the way it sounded. I’m sure you didn’t just get off the bus.” Actually, Mr. Freberg had just gotten off the bus.
• Genius requires hard work. One of Ludwig van Beethoven’s students, Carl Czerny, reports that the composer’s fingers were powerful but not long. Because Beethoven had played the piano so much, the tips of his fingers were flattened. As you would expect, Beethoven concentrated on the important things. His young student Carl Czerny often would show up for a piano lesson, but Beethoven would cancel it because he was busy composing.
• Japanese gymnasts such as Kenmotsu and Tsukahara used to work in Japanese private industries such as banks that helped them to become great athletes by allowing them to train in the afternoons. This was a win-win situation. The athletes received financial remuneration for their work, and the private industries received prestige by having an Olympic athlete working for them.
• Not all basketball players work hard, but Chris Mullin is one who did. When Mr. Mullin joined the Golden State Warriors, the team wasn’t very good and lost many more games than it won. Mr. Mullin often stayed after practice to work some more on his shooting, but one of his teammates criticized him: “Hey, man — are you crazy? You’re making us look bad.” By the way, Mr. Mullin certainly loved his dog, Kuma — sometimes he even fixed Kuma hot meals.
• A man once applied for a job and submitted a resume that had three preachers listed as references. The prospective employer looked at the references, and then told the job hunter, “Around here we don’t work on Sunday. Do you have any references from people who see you on weekdays?”
• In Jerusalem, some of the old people who work at Lifeline for the Old mend books. In each book they mend, this bookplate is placed: “Your book has been renewed by the Old People of Jerusalem.”
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Smashwords recently made it mandatory to open an account to read or download free eBooks. The reason is this: “The change was […] made to prevent scraping of free books by bots for machine learning training data or similar. It was not a change made lightly — both authors and readers enjoyed the ability to download free books without an account.”
No account is needed to download my FREE eBooks at Freeditorial or any of my blogs:
From The Book of Good Deeds 1914-1918: WORLD WAR I GOOD DEEDS:
MADAME PATERNOSTER
IN the spring of 1915 we were stationed in a medium-sized village north of St. Quentin, to protect the railway lines. I heard from some comrades that at the far end of the village a woman kept a little inn and store, and that at any time you could get a good glass of coffee to drink there, and—which was the main thing for most of them—the woman would not accept any payment for it. I wanted to see for myself and so I went there. I found a woman of perhaps forty, with a boy of eight or ten, very busy but always cheerful and friendly. Several of my comrades were already seated at their free coffee and feasting on delicacies which they had brought along. I also ordered a glass and asked the price. It cost nothing, Madame said. I asked her if she were so rich that she could give away the coffee, which at that time cost three or four francs a pound. She was not, she said, but it did not make her any poorer. I ordered a cognac at ten centimes, so that I had something at least to pay for, and spoke to my comrades about how it was not fair to drink up the poor woman’s coffee without at least some compensation. Money she would not accept, but a piece of bread or something would surely be welcome to her, because her boy with his healthy appetite must certainly clean up most of her bread ration, so that there would be little enough left for herself. My comrades saw the point, and from then on would bring along an extra slice of bread and butter when they had their coffee there, which pleased the woman very much. Usually she ate it at once, but always kept a piece for her boy.
On Whitmonday 1915, a glorious day, I decided to take a morning stroll and have breakfast with Madame. I had received some army mail packages, containing cake, from home, so I made up a little parcel and set off. The woman was already busy when I appeared, and greeted me with a friendly “Bon jour.” I immediately ordered three glasses of coffee, and asked her and the boy to have breakfast with me. When she brought the coffee, I had already cut the cake and put it on a plate, and I asked her to help herself. She stood before the table looking at it and was so touched that tears rolled down her cheeks.
A wound in the eye which I received a few days later made it necessary to remove me to the base hospital at St. Quentin, and prevented any leave-takings. On the second day of my stay there, the wounded sergeant who was in charge of my ward, came and told me that a Frenchwoman was waiting outside to see me, and what was he to do? I told him that I thought she would not do us much harm, so to go ahead and bring her in. He went, and to my astonishment, brought the friendly innkeeper woman and her boy to my bedside. With tears in her eyes she told me that she had heard from my friends that I was in St. Quentin, and that she wanted to see me once more: she wanted so badly to give me something but she had nothing, so would I accept this? At that she laid a Swiss franc and five sous on the bedcover. I refused the money, but she begged me to take it because she had nothing else to give me— “Vous avez été toujours un bon camarade.”
I never saw her again, for on the third day I was sent by hospital train to Aachen. Nor do I know the name of the woman, whom my comrades called “Madame Paternoster” because of a pleading gesture she made with her folded hands when the jokes became too broad. But the Swiss franc is still in my possession, as a souvenir, and reminds me of how easily, often, a bridge can be built between one human being and another.
By Alfred Fischer, Office assistant, Frankfort on the Main
MARK HELLENBERG
Mark Hellenberg is the undisputed KING of groove and percussion in the world of contra dancing. He is also a well-known public radio host in Athens, OH, as well as an expert on World War 1 and the history of beer, and many other things.
SONGS and ALBUMS:
Below: From the album RUSTY SMITH AND FRIENDS by RUSTY SMITH
A song for the rights of all: the right to be safe in our bodies, the right to make decisions for our bodies, and the right to be who we are in our bodies. (Lyrics below.) I wrote this song […] out of the need to process my anger at women’s rights being taken away and for what this means for other rights down the line. A never-ending issue it seems, but one we can’t stop fighting for. A big thank you to Tom Riggs for taking footage of my first performance of this song with Mark Hellenberg on drums at The Union in Athens, OH.
Caitlin Kraus: “Gone Beyond”
Caitlin Kraus, Matt Box on bass, and Mark Hellenberg on drums.
Catherine MacLellan at 2013 Nelsonville Music Festival
On this episode of “Crossing Boundaries Extra,” WOUB’s Mark Hellenberg talks with Canadian singer-songwriter Catherine MacLellan and guitarist Chris Gauthier at the 2013 Nelsonville Music Festival.
J.P. Fraley’s “Sail Away Ladies” on minstrel banjo and baritone uke 🙂
My pal Mark “Pokey” Hellenberg stopped by and I was noodling on my minstrel banjo this evening. I think these two instruments sound pretty together. Here’s JP Fraley’s Sail Away Ladies. (Keep in mind if you’re a clawhammer player eying my hands… this nyl-gut strung banjo has a longer scale length. The tune is in G, but the banjo is essentially tuned in “double G” … that is, string relationships and therefore chord shapes are as if I were playing in double D or double C, to play in the key of G. On a different banjo, I’d just use an open G tuning.)
Hart, Bob: “Caitlin Kraus: Making her own kind of music.” The Athens News. 19 December 2023
“It was a song called ‘Garden’ that did it for me. Perhaps only when a musical artist writes deeply personal lyrics do their words become universal, belying the specifics of their own situation and emotions to touch others on an intimate level. That song and many other good ones are on the CD “Gone Beyond,” by Caitlin Kraus. It’s her second recorded collection (following “What Rises”) and is available through many outlets, including caitlinkrausmusic.bandcamp.com, Spotify and Apple Music.”…
Caitlin Kraus: “Make It Clear” (Caitlin Kraus performs “Make It Clear” Aug. 17, 2023, at the Athens (OH) Community Center.) — From the album GONE BEYOND.
It is a very special honor to have completed this music video for “Follow Me,” which was directed by the wonderful Adam Remnant who also recorded the song itself back in 2016. We collaborated on the concepts in the video and spent a chilly, beautiful spring day filming it with his talented students (listed below) at the Nelsonville, OH brick kilns, Hocking River, and surrounding neighborhood. For me, the lyrics and music of this song portray real imagery and memories that have grown dream-like with the passing of time, yet still remain formative and foundational. At its core, it is about transformation and being/becoming, but I hope the ambiguity and symbolism of the song and video also lead to your own interpretation and that you can find something resonant within it. Lyrics and digital/CD format available at caitlinkrausmusic.bandcamp.com. Music website at caitlinkrausmusic.com.
A huge and sincere thank you to Adam Remnant for his direction of the video and to the Hocking College students listed in the following credits: AC – Alex Rhinehart & Najayah Shepard; Grips – Alex Rhinehart, Alexis Pariseau, Najayah Shepard, Nate Ruhl, & Richard Valentine; On-set Photographer – Ivan Reardon
“Follow Me” is featured on the full-length 2020 release WHAT RISES and includes myself on vocals/guitar, Adam Remnant on bass/drums/keyboard, and Hannah Simonetti on violin. The song was recorded and mixed by Adam in Athens, OH while the full album was produced, mixed, and mastered by Bernie Nau at Peachfork Studios in Pomeroy, OH (https://peachforkstudios.com/).
A song for the rights of all: the right to be safe in our bodies, the right to make decisions for our bodies, and the right to be who we are in our bodies. (Lyrics below.) I wrote this song […] out of the need to process my anger at women’s rights being taken away and for what this means for other rights down the line. A never-ending issue it seems, but one we can’t stop fighting for. A big thank you to Tom Riggs for taking footage of my first performance of this song with Mark Hellenberg on drums at The Union in Athens, OH.
Lyrics for “This Body”:
This body is temporary, but while it’s here / It’s not yours to hold captive in fear / This body is mine, it was never yours / So fuck your laws and gods and guns / I get to say what I put inside / I GET TO CHOOSE, IT IS MY RIGHT / This body is sacred, but only safe / When I’m in charge, you have no claim / This body is proud and wears the crown / Makes the decisions and won’t back down / I get to say what I put inside / I GET TO CHOOSE, IT IS MY RIGHT / And don’t tell me who I can love or about my identity / Don’t use your privilege to subject your patriarchy / I get to say what I put inside / I GET TO CHOOSE, IT IS MY RIGHT
Caitlin Kraus: “What Rises” — From the album WHAT RISES
Interview & Article for WOUB Public Media (8/6/2020): Interview about upcoming performance for the Virtual Nelsonville Music Festival, history as a songwriter and musician, and experiences as a performer during the pandemic.
OVRLD Austin Music First (6/13/2016): “On her new single ‘Waiting for the World,’ Caitlin Kraus’ sweetly shimmering voice rises out of an oceanic musical backing, giving the track a melancholic feel, like a reinterpretation of The Awakening’s bitter conclusion. Kraus’ voice is powerful but not in a bombastic sense, it’s instead devastating in its emotional richness. The well-arranged strings that emerge after the beginning of the song aid in this, making ‘Waiting for the World’ an excellent bit of chamber pop that stands out for the frequently unimaginatively produced singer songwriter tracks Austin is oversaturated with.”
Suggested Listening ’23: Caitlin Kraus Suggests Good Music to Listen To
Caitlin Kraus is a Licensed Professional Clinical Counselor and Board-Certified Music Therapist providing services to students at Ohio University in Athens, OH. When she is not counseling, Caitlin is an active musician and songwriter, performing her music both solo and with a band under her name. She has released two full-length albums from Peachfork Studios: “Gone Beyond” (2023) and “What Rises” (2020). She also sings and plays in the band Drift Mouth. She is the proud companion of two wonderful dogs.
Some of the music choices presented here were not actually released in 2023 as I am usually a time traveler when it comes to music. While it was hard to choose only 10 albums/artists and songs, this is some of the music that I happened to listen to often in 2023 and which personally resonated the most. It is presented in no particular order. I hope you can enjoy it along with me!
Drift Mouth opens its Jan. 13, 2024, set at The Union in Athens, OH, with “Starling.” Lou Poster on lead vocals and guitar, Caitlin Kraus guitar, David Murphy drums, Nate Brite bass.
“Lead track from Supernobody album YOU CAN’T GO BACK. This video was made by Adam Remnant and his video production team at Hocking College in Nelsonville, OH 2019.”
SUPERNOBODY: “V for Victory: the fall and rise of Connie Startraveler (Director’s Cut)”
“A Space Rock film by Supernobody. Connie Startraveler brings NASA’s golden record #1 back to Earth and is befriended by Citizen Ape. Together, they square off against UFO investigators in order to broadcast the golden record to the human race.”
Smashwords has made it mandatory to open an account to read or download free eBooks. The reason is this: “The change was […] made to prevent scraping of free books by bots for machine learning training data or similar. It was not a change made lightly — both authors and readers enjoyed the ability to download free books without an account.”
No account is needed to download my FREE eBooks at Freeditorial.
Anecdotes are usually short humorous stories. Sometimes they are thought-provoking or informative, not amusing.
Sports
• Opera singer Plácido Domingo is a soccer fan. During the World Cup, he watched the match backstage. When he had to appear onstage in Pagliacci and sing “Un grande spettacolo a ventitrè ore” (“A big show at 11 p.m.”), he did not hold up the usual sign saying “11 p.m.” Instead, he held up a sign telling the audience the score of the World Cup game. On another occasion, after a performance, he wanted to leave the opera house as quickly as possible so he could watch a World Cup soccer match, so while making his bows, he pantomimed the kicking of a soccer ball to let the audience know what he wanted to do.
• When Kurt Thomas joined the Miami (Florida) Central Rockets high-school gymnastics team as a freshman, the team was rated dead last out of 14 teams before the season started — but it went undefeated for the entire season. Remarkably, the team was number one despite horrible training conditions. Team members practiced gymnastics while other students played basketball around them. In addition, the team had only one mat that they had to drag from one piece of apparatus to another.
• Jenny Thompson has won several Olympic gold medals in swimming, a sport that requires strong arms. Once, a guy she was dating told her that although he liked her, he was freaked out by her arms. She worried briefly and then decided, “My arms are what make me swim so fast and they’re part of who I am.” She adds, “Being a strong woman and an athlete isn’t entirely acceptable in society.”
• Early in his career, Olympic figure skater Michael Weiss also played hockey, and when the members of a rival hockey team teased him about being a figure skater, he challenged them to get a radar gun and find out who was fastest. Mr. Weiss defeated the members of the rival hockey team by achieving a speed of 22 miles an hour.
Superstitions
• Many athletes believe in superstitions to help them through competitions. Curtis Hibbert, a black Canadian gymnast who was a Commonwealth Games champion in 1990, used to play solitaire until he won a game the day before a competition. That may not be such a good superstition to believe in, for Mr. Hibbert admits that to win a game, “Sometimes I had to stay up pretty late.
• Ice skater Linda Fratianne used to perform while wearing a little blue pouch filled with good-luck charms: a medal the Pope had blessed, two four-leaf clovers, a piece of green yarn, and a bit of gold foil.
Training
• Being a world-class and Olympic gymnast involves long, grueling workouts, and the resulting exhaustion means that the gymnast sleeps really well. For example, when Mary Lou Retton was training with Bela Karolyi in Texas, she slept through a tornado that cut her host family’s house in half. During the tornado, one of the host family’s sons, Preston, came into her room and said, “Get up. Get out of bed.” Mary Lou replied, “Get out of here. I’m sleeping.” He finally carried her out of the house.
• Training in gymnastics is very important. After the 1996 Olympics, gymnast John Roethlisberger listened to an interview of an Olympic decathlete, in which the decathlete said that he begins training really seriously two months before a competition. Mr. Roethlisberger says, “I’m standing there thinking, ‘O.K., the Olympics just ended and I took two weeks off — if I don’t get to training right now, I’ll never be ready for the Games in 2000.”
War
• In 1948, Israel fought a war for independence, despite shortages of weapons. Sometimes, Israelites were told to pretend that they had weapons. For example, a soldier on guard duty was told to pretend that he had a gun, as no guns were available. That night, he heard someone coming toward him, and he yelled, “Stop! Or I’ll shoot!” The person kept coming toward him, and when the person got close enough, the sentry saw with relief that it was another unarmed Israeli soldier. The sentry said, “Why didn’t you stop? You could have gotten killed!” The other Israeli soldier replied, “You couldn’t have hurt me. I’m a tank.”
• Emperor Sing-un’s country was on the verge of war. The emperor prepared his country as much as possible by training soldiers, storing supplies, and stockpiling food, and then he asked Buddhist priest Si-tien for advice about waging war. Si-tien advised, “Go, and watch carefully the matches between heavyweight wrestlers and heavyweight boxers.” Emperor Sing-un asked, “Why heavyweights?” Si-tien replied, “They hit seldom, but with much consequence.”
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FREE eBooks: THE MOST INTERESTING PEOPLE WHO LIVE LIFE
Smashwords recently made it mandatory to open an account to read or download free eBooks. The reason is this: “The change was […] made to prevent scraping of free books by bots for machine learning training data or similar. It was not a change made lightly — both authors and readers enjoyed the ability to download free books without an account.”
No account is needed to download my FREE eBooks at Freeditorial or any of my blogs:
From The Book of Good Deeds 1914-1918: WORLD WAR I GOOD DEEDS:
THE STEAMBATH
THIS happened in Russian Poland in the Jewish quarter of Opocno, where I was in charge of the local administration, holding the rank of captain. On the very first day there arrived with all due solemnity, a delegation of elderly Jews, to ask me for permission to build a steambath. This permission had been denied them for twenty years under the Russian administration. This was reported to me by a Jewish sergeant, and I gave orders to admit the delegation. Even before the delegates had ceremoniously gathered in the room, I entered and asked bluntly, “What is it you want?”
“A bath,” shouted a voice.
“Got the dough?”
“Yes.”
“O.K. Go ahead.”
And the delegates were dismissed, beaming with joy; and to this very day they praise the benevolence of the Austrians who so promptly gave them permission to build the steambath.
Back in the summer of ‘23 I played the River and Rails Bass Festival in Saint Marys, West Virginia. A week or two before the show, I was pumping gas at a Sheetz in Parkersburg when the idea hit me to write, (naturally enough), a fishing song for the bass festival. This is that song. It has been a delightful surprise to see the love this song has received, and I am so happy to have a recording to put up for those who have enjoyed it so much. The memories I have of singing this song with y’all will stay with me for the rest of my life. Thank you. Also, a special thanks to Chris Landaker over at SMP Live for shooting this and several other songs with me this year. He’s a good dude, and he does great sound and light work. If you’re in need of such services, I certainly recommend you check him out.
McCoy, Jackson. “COURT STREET CROONERS: Street Musicians Hightlight Benefits of Busking.” 27 October 2023
An Excerpt:
“Logan Reynolds, a philosophy graduate student and teacher’s assistant at Ohio University, shared why he sings and plays the acoustic guitar on Court Street.
“What pushed me to start (performing) up here was I was having a good time, but also I figured I could make more money doing it,” Reynolds said. “I don’t do it for the money, but the money helps keep it going. I basically treat it like a part-time job. I sing for anywhere between six and 10 hours a week and make enough to actually really help with my situation.”
Sad Girls é: Vocal – Maya Baixo – Luíza Guitarra – Giovana Guitarra – Maíra Bateria – Julia Teclado – Laís
“LOVE YOURSELF” CHORUS
Você não sabe como eu me sinto, quando você me critica Eu posso e vou amar meu corpo como ele é Você não sabe como eu me sinto, quando você me critica Eu posso e vou amar meu corpo como ele é
Girls Rock Camp’s Deep Waters perform live | Polaris Music Prize Gala 2018
“2018 Polaris Music Prize shortlisted band Alvvays invited Girls Rock Camp band Deep Waters to perform on their behalf at the 2018 2018 Polaris Music Prize Gala.”
“The official recordings of Girl’s Rock Camp Calgary!”
“Songs written and performed by GRCC 2017 campers.”
Girls Rock Camp Calgary – Class of 2023
Girls Rock Camp Calgary was a week-long immersive rock camp for cis/trans girls and non-binary youth running 2013-2023. Our final camp before the name change was August last year, and to send it off we wanted to do something really fun! On our band photography day of camp, each camper and mentor was filmed posing for ‘school photos’ which we sped up and put together in a ‘Freaks and Geeks’ intro style video, followed by band photos from the shoot, school photos, and live photos from the final showcase at The Ship & Anchor Pub. We’re so excited to re-launch as BAM! Camp Calgary (Building Allied Musicians)! Our mandate remains the same, as well as our core programming – with some very cool add-ons for 2024. “Building empowerment and self-esteem through creative expression. Creating space for cis/trans girls and non-binary youth in YYC music.”
Hart, Bob: “Caitlin Kraus: Making her own kind of music.” The Athens News. 19 December 2023
“It was a song called ‘Garden’ that did it for me. Perhaps only when a musical artist writes deeply personal lyrics do their words become universal, belying the specifics of their own situation and emotions to touch others on an intimate level. That song and many other good ones are on the CD “Gone Beyond,” by Caitlin Kraus. It’s her second recorded collection (following “What Rises”) and is available through many outlets, including caitlinkrausmusic.bandcamp.com, Spotify and Apple Music.”…
Caitlin Kraus: “Make It Clear” (Caitlin Kraus performs “Make It Clear” Aug. 17, 2023, at the Athens (OH) Community Center.) — From the album GONE BEYOND.
It is a very special honor to have completed this music video for “Follow Me,” which was directed by the wonderful Adam Remnant who also recorded the song itself back in 2016. We collaborated on the concepts in the video and spent a chilly, beautiful spring day filming it with his talented students (listed below) at the Nelsonville, OH brick kilns, Hocking River, and surrounding neighborhood. For me, the lyrics and music of this song portray real imagery and memories that have grown dream-like with the passing of time, yet still remain formative and foundational. At its core, it is about transformation and being/becoming, but I hope the ambiguity and symbolism of the song and video also lead to your own interpretation and that you can find something resonant within it. Lyrics and digital/CD format available at caitlinkrausmusic.bandcamp.com. Music website at caitlinkrausmusic.com.
A huge and sincere thank you to Adam Remnant for his direction of the video and to the Hocking College students listed in the following credits: AC – Alex Rhinehart & Najayah Shepard; Grips – Alex Rhinehart, Alexis Pariseau, Najayah Shepard, Nate Ruhl, & Richard Valentine; On-set Photographer – Ivan Reardon
“Follow Me” is featured on the full-length 2020 release WHAT RISES and includes myself on vocals/guitar, Adam Remnant on bass/drums/keyboard, and Hannah Simonetti on violin. The song was recorded and mixed by Adam in Athens, OH while the full album was produced, mixed, and mastered by Bernie Nau at Peachfork Studios in Pomeroy, OH (https://peachforkstudios.com/).
A song for the rights of all: the right to be safe in our bodies, the right to make decisions for our bodies, and the right to be who we are in our bodies. (Lyrics below.) I wrote this song […] out of the need to process my anger at women’s rights being taken away and for what this means for other rights down the line. A never-ending issue it seems, but one we can’t stop fighting for. A big thank you to Tom Riggs for taking footage of my first performance of this song with Mark Hellenberg on drums at The Union in Athens, OH.
Lyrics for “This Body”:
This body is temporary, but while it’s here / It’s not yours to hold captive in fear / This body is mine, it was never yours / So fuck your laws and gods and guns / I get to say what I put inside / I GET TO CHOOSE, IT IS MY RIGHT / This body is sacred, but only safe / When I’m in charge, you have no claim / This body is proud and wears the crown / Makes the decisions and won’t back down / I get to say what I put inside / I GET TO CHOOSE, IT IS MY RIGHT / And don’t tell me who I can love or about my identity / Don’t use your privilege to subject your patriarchy / I get to say what I put inside / I GET TO CHOOSE, IT IS MY RIGHT
Caitlin Kraus: “What Rises” — From the album WHAT RISES
Interview & Article for WOUB Public Media (8/6/2020): Interview about upcoming performance for the Virtual Nelsonville Music Festival, history as a songwriter and musician, and experiences as a performer during the pandemic.
OVRLD Austin Music First (6/13/2016): “On her new single ‘Waiting for the World,’ Caitlin Kraus’ sweetly shimmering voice rises out of an oceanic musical backing, giving the track a melancholic feel, like a reinterpretation of The Awakening’s bitter conclusion. Kraus’ voice is powerful but not in a bombastic sense, it’s instead devastating in its emotional richness. The well-arranged strings that emerge after the beginning of the song aid in this, making ‘Waiting for the World’ an excellent bit of chamber pop that stands out for the frequently unimaginatively produced singer songwriter tracks Austin is oversaturated with.”
Suggested Listening ’23: Caitlin Kraus Suggests Good Music to Listen To
Caitlin Kraus is a Licensed Professional Clinical Counselor and Board-Certified Music Therapist providing services to students at Ohio University in Athens, OH. When she is not counseling, Caitlin is an active musician and songwriter, performing her music both solo and with a band under her name. She has released two full-length albums from Peachfork Studios: “Gone Beyond” (2023) and “What Rises” (2020). She also sings and plays in the band Drift Mouth. She is the proud companion of two wonderful dogs.
Some of the music choices presented here were not actually released in 2023 as I am usually a time traveler when it comes to music. While it was hard to choose only 10 albums/artists and songs, this is some of the music that I happened to listen to often in 2023 and which personally resonated the most. It is presented in no particular order. I hope you can enjoy it along with me!
Drift Mouth opens its Jan. 13, 2024, set at The Union in Athens, OH, with “Starling.” Lou Poster on lead vocals and guitar, Caitlin Kraus guitar, David Murphy drums, Nate Brite bass.
Smashwords has made it mandatory to open an account to read or download free eBooks. The reason is this: “The change was […] made to prevent scraping of free books by bots for machine learning training data or similar. It was not a change made lightly — both authors and readers enjoyed the ability to download free books without an account.”
No account is needed to download my FREE eBooks at Freeditorial.
Anecdotes are usually short humorous stories. Sometimes they are thought-provoking or informative, not amusing.
Problem-Solving
• If the paparazzi are following you to get photographs to sell for big bucks, and you happen not to like the paparazzi, what can you do? Jennifer Aniston has interesting problem-solving skills. She knows that she can’t totally stop the paparazzi from taking photographs of her, but to lessen the value of the photographs they shoot, she will sometimes wear the same outfit many days in a row.
• Before travel by air was common, international athletes had to train while traveling by ship to a competition. While traveling to the 1912 Olympic Games in Sweden, American athletes figured out how to practice throwing the discus and javelin on board ship. They attached ropes to the discus and javelin, hurled them out to sea, and then retrieved them by pulling in the rope.
• Basketball player Michael Jordan endorsed Nike shoes, not Reebok shoes. When Mr. Jordan was playing for the United States basketball team in the 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona, Spain, the official sponsor of the team was Reebok, so when Mr. Jordan accepted his gold medal, he covered up the Reebok logo on his team warm-up suit with a United States flag.
• Bob Dole was a problem-solver back when he was attending Russell High School in Russell, Kansas. He didn’t like taking tests, so when the teacher told his journalism class that they would take a test on a certain day, Bob brought a five-gallon container of ice cream to class that day. Everybody ate ice cream and forgot about the test.
• Karate fighters often make a loud yell while kicking or hitting. The yell is called a kiai (Japanese for “spirit shout”), and it can be effective in making an opponent run away. An old karate master once met a tiger on a road one night. The old master unleashed a kiai, and the tiger ran away from him.
Religion
• According to Leviticus Rabbah XXXIV, 3, after Hillel the Elder had finished a session with his students, he left the House of Study. His students asked where he was going, and Hillel replied, “To fulfill a religious obligation.” The religious obligation was to have a bath in the bathhouse. The students asked if having a bath really was a religious obligation, and Hillel replied, “Yes! If the statues of the kings that are placed in theatres and circuses are daily cleaned and washed, […] how much more does this apply to me, seeing that I have been made in the image and likeness of God! For it is written in Genesis 9:6, ‘In the image of God did He make man.’”
• A student once asked a Zen master how one could practice the Tao. The Zen master replied, “When you are hungry, eat, and when you are tired, sleep.” Puzzled, the student asked, “But isn’t that what people already do?” “No,” replied the Zen master. “When most people eat, they are filled with 1,000 worries, and when they sleep, they are bothered by 1,000 cares.”
Signs
• P.T. Barnum had a problem with his museum of curiosities in New York — people stayed too long when looking at the exhibits. Therefore, to lure people to leave his museum, he put up a huge sign that many people believed at first glance was directing them to another exhibit. The sign said: “TO THE EGRESS.”
• Queen Julianna of the Netherlands once visited the United States, where the funniest thing she saw was the sign of an undertaker in Los Angeles, which said, “Why walk around half dead, when we can bury you for $39.95?”
• While in Ireland, musician Bill Worland noticed this sign in front of a cemetery: “NO DUMPING!” He also saw an Irish pub with this sign in the window: “We are open until closing time.”
Sports
• Jim Thorpe was a descendant of Sac warrior Black Hawk. Mr. Thorpe’s Native American name was Wa-tho-huck, which means “Bright Path.” Mr. Thorpe attended Carlisle Indian School, where he saw some track and field athletes unsuccessfully trying to jump a high bar set at the height of five feet, nine inches. He asked for a chance to try, and the other athletes laughed at the overalls and heavy shoes that Mr. Thorpe was wearing. Nevertheless, they let Mr. Thorpe attempt to jump the high bar — and he succeeded. Coach Glenn Scobey “Pop” Warner heard about the jump, and he informed Mr. Thorpe that he had just broken the school record for the high jump. He also informed Mr. Thorpe that he had become a member of the Carlisle track and field team. Carlisle track star Albert Exendine helped train Mr. Thorpe, and he did such a good job that his pupil broke all of his track records at Carlisle.
***
FREE eBooks: THE MOST INTERESTING PEOPLE WHO LIVE LIFE
Smashwords recently made it mandatory to open an account to read or download free eBooks. The reason is this: “The change was […] made to prevent scraping of free books by bots for machine learning training data or similar. It was not a change made lightly — both authors and readers enjoyed the ability to download free books without an account.”
No account is needed to download my FREE eBooks at Freeditorial or any of my blogs:
From The Book of Good Deeds 1914-1918: WORLD WAR I GOOD DEEDS:
ESPIONAGE
TOWARDS the end of 1917, we had been brought up as heavy artillery into a section of the front near Lille. Each gun squad was relieved every three weeks, sometimes every two weeks, and was sent back to rest in Haubourdin. We held this position for quite a time, and in Haubourdin we always had the same quarters, in a schoolhouse. Thus it came about quite naturally that on leave one made the acquaintance of the inhabitants. We, young nineteen-year-old warriors, wanted naturally to try out our school French at the front, too.
Well, in short, in the course of time I had made friends with a nice French family. A father, at the front but recently taken prisoner by the Germans, a mother and two daughters of fifteen and nine respectively. Every three weeks I was looked for, my dirty linen taken away to be washed, and a simple little meal served to me. Then I had to tell my experiences. The two girls were like sisters to me, my youth may have helped to promote this familiarity. The woman showed me letters from her husband in prison, all of which commended the good treatment shown him by the Germans. I could really feel how this woman wanted to repay me by love and kindness for the fortunate lot of her husband.
When once again I came back safe and sound from the front, my first errand was as usual, after I had taken possession of my quarters, to go and see the P. family. Now I must mention that at roll-call it had been announced that the schoolhouse was to be evacuated because it was to be transformed into a temporary hospital. In fact we were to move the following day. This news I told Madame P. and at once I noticed a great uneasiness on her part. And I also noticed that the woman had been crying. She answered my repeated questions as to what ailed her, evasively. After a short time she sent the children, who were as bewildered as I, to bed. Hardly was she back in the room, before she seized both my hands and began crying in a piteous manner. I was greatly affected by her grief and begged her again and again to have confidence in me and tell me her troubles. At last, after a long time, she grew quieter and said: “Monsieur Konrad, I know you as a kind person, not as an enemy. Will you do me a favor and tell no one of our conversation just now?” As I hesitated, she spoke again: “What I ask of you will harm no one, only—” there she started crying terribly again —“only it will be my ruin if you refuse my request!”
I did not know what was happening to me; the behavior of the woman was so strange. I was to give her my word of honor without knowing what it was all about. Those must have seemed long minutes while I sat silent, and the woman’s eyes were fixed anxiously on me. At last I said: “You’ve just said that what you ask of me will harm no one. Is that true?” As though released from a spell the woman sprang up and addressed me in pleading tones: “Yes, Monsieur Konrad, it is so. If it is not so, my children will never see their mother again.” Now I asked what she wanted of me.
“A letter to be delivered to a farmer in Erquinghem.”
“What does this letter contain?” I wanted to know. That she could not tell me.
Damnation! Now I began to feel really spooky. I did not want to have anything to do with the thing, but the despair of the woman overcame all my scruples. I promised her to deliver the letter that very night, and she got out her writing materials. I had pledged myself, and in half an hour I was able to start.
The village Erquinghem is about six kilometers from Haubourdin. I knew the way there very well because a friend of mine whom I visited frequently, was billeted there: the place lay actually within the war zone. As far as I could remember, there were no inhabitants left there, so I had to rely on the description of the farmer’s house, which the woman had given me in great detail. All sorts of misgivings possessed me as I went my way through the pitch-black night. Was I being made a tool for some treachery? Had there not been some talk lately about carrier pigeon spying and had not some Frenchmen been arrested on that charge a short time ago? My heart was in my mouth, and the nearer I got to my goal the clearer became the responsibility I had taken on myself. So by degrees I worked up to a decision. I had to read the letter. Fully resolved, I looked up my friend at his battery and let him in on the situation. Then we opened the letter. It was fortunately not sealed and after a few minutes’ manipulation the letter lay open before us. No heading. In concise phrases the spy—for the contents made everything clear—was asked to get the message “across” by the quickest possible means, that there must not be any bombing of the schoolhouse, because starting “tomorrow” it was to be used as a hospital.
Now I understood the woman’s conduct. My news had touched a cord of human feeling in her. She did not wish wretched men, already injured, to be the victims of airplane bombs as well. But none the less she was a traitor. Was I not guilty if I conveyed this letter to the spy? No. We realized we must pass on this letter with its message. But we also realized, with equal clarity, that the spy must be exposed. I was, however, convinced that the woman was only the pawn of this man, perhaps under compulsion.
Together we now set off for the “farmer’s.” We had no difficulty in finding the place, for this man was really the only civilian who had remained in the demolished village. While I was admitted, after a prolonged knocking, my friend lay in wait. The farmer had cold uncanny eyes, but his manners were very obliging. After a short explanation of my acquaintance with Madame P., I handed him the letter and withdrew. Very cautiously, so as not to rouse any suspicions, I took the route back to Haubourdin. My friend observed that the Frenchman actually crept after me and did not return till he felt sure I was actually going back. However, I made a big bend and returned over fields and ditches to my friend.
And now we both lay in ambush, so that we could keep an eye on the back door of the farm which led to the court and barns. Hours passed before we heard a sound in the house. Our eyes were aching from the strain of watching, but we saw what we wanted to see. The heavens, so to speak, came to our assistance, for the curtain of clouds seemed suddenly to grow thinner so that a shimmer of light from the quarter moon which hung in the sky was sufficient to let us see a pigeon dart like an arrow over the house in the direction of the front lines.
We had our evidence. My friend promised not to talk and left me the further steps in the exposure of this man. The rest is quickly told. The battery commander accepted my observation which I told him I had made just by chance, and a few days later the man was quietly arrested, although he was not again caught red-handed. What happened to him I could not find out.
How was I to act towards the woman? She had saved well-nigh a hundred comrades, but she could also have been the cause of their destruction. She had, however, shown human feeling the moment it came to injured men. I told her frankly that I had read the letter. She went as white as a sheet and nearly fainted. In great indignation I reproached her with her underhanded action. I would refrain from reporting her only on account of the children; but I was going to see to it that she would be watched in future and would be arrested on the slightest suspicion.
Now she confessed that the farmer was her brother and that he compelled her to report to him everything noteworthy about the occupation. Now and then he came to see her and got all the news which he then sent over by carrier pigeons. Again and again she had refused but her brother threatened to inform on her if she were not compliant. So, against her will, she took part in the spying. She implored me on her knees to forgive her and to have faith in her, that she would never tell her brother anything more.
Well, that part was taken care of in any case, and I was convinced that the woman spoke the truth. Was she to suffer for past offenses? This my conscience would not permit. To this day I have kept silence on this point.
By Konrad Adelmann, Technician, Nuremberg
LANDON ELLIOTT
Landon Elliott Music
I am a musician/guitar player and student at Ohio University. This channel was created to show the various groups I have performed with and the variety of instruments I play. Click on channels to check those out!
ATHENS, OHIO (AND ENVIRONS) SINGER-SONGWRITERS ON BANDCAMP AND/OR LIVE FROM HOME
All musical friends of Bruce Dalzell are honorary Athenians no matter where they live and love. And as is well known, Austin, Texas and Nashville, Tennessee are very large suburbs of Athens, Ohio.
Adam Remnant
Albert Rouzie
Albert Rouzie: Live From Home (Includes at end Bruce Dalzell’s “Gifts”)
Peter Mealy and Laurie Rose Griffith: Live From Home (Includes at end Bruce Dalzell’s cover of “My Neighborhood,” previously recorded by Peter Mealy and Laurie Rose Griffith)
Smashwords has made it mandatory to open an account to read or download free eBooks. The reason is this: “The change was […] made to prevent scraping of free books by bots for machine learning training data or similar. It was not a change made lightly — both authors and readers enjoyed the ability to download free books without an account.”
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Anecdotes are usually short humorous stories. Sometimes they are thought-provoking or informative, not amusing.
Problem-Solving
• Rabbi Yitzchak of Worka asked a rich man to make a donation to charity, but the rich man refused. Rabbi Yitzchak remained sitting. Again the rich man said that he had no intention whatsoever of making a donation. Again Rabbi Yitzchak remained sitting. This continued until the rich man asked Rabbi Yitzchak to explain himself. Rabbi Yitzchak said that all human beings have two inclinations: a good one and a bad one. We receive a bad inclination at birth, but we don’t receive the good one until we are age 13. The rich man’s bad inclination had spoken first, which was proper, since it was older. Now Rabbi Yitzchak said that he was waiting for the rich man’s good inclination to speak. The rich man made a donation.
• Ice dancers Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean ran into a problem with the music to their Olympic performance of Bolero. The music was simply too long, even though it had been compressed into 4 minutes and 28 seconds. The maximum length of performance allowed at the Olympics was only 4 minutes and 10 seconds, but compressing the music further would have hurt its quality. Fortunately, Torvill and Dean checked the rules regarding the timing of performances. The timing started when the skaters began to skate, so when the music started Torvill and Dean were on their knees. They allowed a few seconds of music to play, and then they began to skate.
• As a man with cerebral palsy, which makes his arm movements difficult to control, Cordell Brown has had many interesting experiences in life. Once he took a test for a license to ride a motorized scooter. He did fine on the written part of the test and on most of the driving test, but his driving instructor laughed at Mr. Brown’s attempts to control his arm movements and signal turns. Although the driving instructor laughed, he still was forced to deny Mr. Brown his license. No problem. Mr. Brown simply installed turn signals on his scooter and passed the test the second time he took it.
• Bob Dole wanted an Illinois farmer named John Block to be named Secretary of Agriculture, but he was afraid that the Ronald Reagan administration was going to give all the Cabinet positions to fat cats from the Coasts. Therefore, he sent a map of the United States with a circle around the middle to Reagan intimate Paul Laxalt. In a note, Mr. Dole wrote, “Paul, that blank space is what is referred to as the Midwest.” Mr. Block was appointed Secretary of Agriculture.
• Many Jews do not think it right to smoke on the Sabbath. Once, a Jew asked Rabbi Meir Leibush ben Yehiel Michel (known as the Malbim) whether he could figure out a way for Jews to smoke on the Sabbath. The rabbi replied, “Yes, but you will have to smoke in a different way on the Sabbath than on other days.” “And what way is that?” asked the smoker. “You will have to smoke with the burning end of the cigarette in your mouth.”
• Kristen Maloney has an older brother and an older sister. When she was young, she also had a tendency to be jealous of her older siblings’ accomplishments. To combat the jealousy and enable Kristen to make her own accomplishments, her mother, Linda, enrolled her in a gymnastics program. Kristen did succeed — she was the United States national all-around champion in 1998 and 1999, and she was an Olympian in 2000.
• Back in the days when chewing gum in school was regarded as a heinous crime, some teachers would punish young offenders by telling them to put the gum on the end of their nose and leave it there until they got home. The school bus drivers helped the teachers to enforce the punishment. (Nowadays, this kind of punishment would probably get a teacher fired.)
• One problem of Quaker worship is that small children sometimes find the unprogrammed meetings, which can be filled with long silences, tiresome, so they grow restless. At the Rich Square Meeting in Indiana, Lydia Parker White noticed some small children growing restless, so she went to them, reached into one of her pockets, and gave each of them a homemade cookie. Problem solved.
***
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From The Book of Good Deeds 1914-1918: WORLD WAR I GOOD DEEDS:
A DISTURBANCE
IN June of 1915 our company was billeted in a small Galician village and, as in almost all Galician villages, our quarters were huts and barns with thatched roofs. Fatigued by the extensive marches which we as a reserve force had had to do in the preceding days, our platoon lay down early that evening in a barn, and was soon fast asleep. Around twelve midnight we were suddenly awakened by the barn door being noisily torn open by some Galician women, and by their loud shouting. Since none of us could understand the words or the gestures of the women, we were not particularly edified by this disturbance of our rest and treated the women in a not exactly friendly manner. Boots, cooking utensils, and whatever came handy, were hurled at them. Despite our not very respectful conduct the women would not leave off shrieking and raving but kept indicating by even more urgent gestures some danger which was threatening us. At last this did arouse some of our comrades from their lethargy—they got up to investigate the matter and on leaving the barn they immediately found what danger we were in. The barn had caught fire. The men left behind were given the alarm at once. At the rate at which the fire was spreading we only just saved ourselves by a tremendous effort. Elaborate toilets, or salvaging of valuables, was of course superfluous in our warlike way of living. For once we felt this to be a real convenience. But had it not been for the Galician women, the whole platoon would have perished miserably in the flames.
By L. Herrmann, Merchant,
JUNO BEARD
Ready Aim Flowers Musical Guest on Fridays Live: “Might Could”
“Adam Remnant is a songwriter, producer, and photographer living in Athens, Ohio. Remnant got his start in music fronting the folk-rock band Southeast Engine. As the principal singer and songwriter of the band, Remnant and his bandmates garnered critical acclaim from publications such as Paste Magazine, Pitchfork, NPR, American Songwriter, Magnet, Stereogum, PopMatters, AV Club, and many more. They established a substantial following over the years, releasing five albums and touring across the United States and Canada.
“As Southeast Engine wound down, Remnant began plotting his way forward as a solo artist. He assembled a little studio in his basement and earnestly began writing & recording the songs that comprise the 2016 EP, When I Was a Boy, as well as the 2018 LP, Sourwood. Remnant’s signature baritone voice and literary songwriting act as the focal point in the productions spanning between folk, rock, and indie sounds mined from a Midwest basement.
“In the summer of 2019, Remnant took up film photography as a new means of artistic expression. Remnant’s photography explores many of the same themes of his music, including place, memory, history, and identity. Remnant typically shoots landscape/documentary style color photos of his surroundings as well as neighboring towns and cities.
“Remnant continues to work on new music, including a recently completed full length album, entitled Big Doors. An EP tentatively titled Rainy Day Savings is also in the works. The new recordings are performed by Adam Remnant and his working band, consisting of brother, Jesse Remnant, on bass and harmony vocals; Ryan Stolte-Sawa on violin and harmony vocals, and Jon Helm on drums.”
“Basement Tapes is a series of videos with live performances recorded to an analog tape machine here in my basement home studio. Inspired by the spirit of Bob Dylan & the Band’s Basement Tape sessions, this series serves as a sort of sandbox for alternative takes, demos, covers, and more experimentation.”
Adam Remnant: “Run of the Mill” (George Harrison cover on 4-track cassette)
“A huge and sincere thank you to Adam Remnant for his direction of the video and to the Hocking College students listed in the following credits: AC – Alex Rhinehart & Najayah Shepard; Grips – Alex Rhinehart, Alexis Pariseau, Najayah Shepard, Nate Ruhl, & Richard Valentine; On-set Photographer – Ivan Reardon.” — Caitlin Kraus
Supernobody: “Sheep”
“Lead track from Supernobody album YOU CAN’T GO BACK. This video was made by Adam Remnant and his video production team at Hocking College in Nelsonville, OH 2019.”
davekillcountysmith, a fan, wrote, “There is joyousness unrestrained by inhibition in the songwriting of Southeast Engine. [Canary] is my favourite album of theirs. Wonderful! Favorite track: ‘Red Lake Shore.’”
davekillcountysmith, a fan, wrote about CANAANVILLE, “This was the last recording released by Southeast Engine. It’s only four songs, but they are four songs of such magnificence that we wonder what this band could have become. Favorite track: ‘Great Awakening.’”
davekillcountysmith, a fan, wrote about FROM THE FOREST TO THE SEA, “A very well put-together album. Each song flows into the next. A proper album. Favorite track: ‘Preparing for the Flood.’”
davekillcountysmith, a fan, wrote about A WHEEL WITHIN A WHEEL, “There’s a real retro feel to this album. Like with The Jayhawks, you get a real sense that these tunes could have originated from the 60s or 70s. Favorite track: ‘Oh God, Let Me Back In.’”
davekillcountysmith, a fan, wrote about COMING TO TERMS WITH GRAVITY, “I love this band’s sound. There’s a bit of Americana, a bit of indie, a bit of folk and even a bit of psych. They are probably what Dr Dog would sound like if they weren’t so mad. Favorite track: ‘Undergrad.’”
ADAM REMNANT ALBUMS
SUNRISE AT THE SUNSET MOTEL (EP)
SOURWOOD
WHEN I WAS A BOY
ATHENS, OHIO (AND ENVIRONS) SINGER-SONGWRITERS ON BANDCAMP AND/OR LIVE FROM HOME
All musical friends of Bruce Dalzell are honorary Athenians no matter where they live and love. And as is well known, Austin, Texas and Nashville, Tennessee are very large suburbs of Athens, Ohio.
Adam Remnant
Albert Rouzie
Albert Rouzie: Live From Home (Includes at end Bruce Dalzell’s “Gifts”)
Peter Mealy and Laurie Rose Griffith: Live From Home (Includes at end Bruce Dalzell’s cover of “My Neighborhood,” previously recorded by Peter Mealy and Laurie Rose Griffith)
Hart, Bob: “Caitlin Kraus: Making her own kind of music.” The Athens News. 19 December 2023
“It was a song called ‘Garden’ that did it for me. Perhaps only when a musical artist writes deeply personal lyrics do their words become universal, belying the specifics of their own situation and emotions to touch others on an intimate level. That song and many other good ones are on the CD “Gone Beyond,” by Caitlin Kraus. It’s her second recorded collection (following “What Rises”) and is available through many outlets, including caitlinkrausmusic.bandcamp.com, Spotify and Apple Music.”…
Caitlin Kraus: “Make It Clear” (Caitlin Kraus performs “Make It Clear” Aug. 17, 2023, at the Athens (OH) Community Center.) — From the album GONE BEYOND.
It is a very special honor to have completed this music video for “Follow Me,” which was directed by the wonderful Adam Remnant who also recorded the song itself back in 2016. We collaborated on the concepts in the video and spent a chilly, beautiful spring day filming it with his talented students (listed below) at the Nelsonville, OH brick kilns, Hocking River, and surrounding neighborhood. For me, the lyrics and music of this song portray real imagery and memories that have grown dream-like with the passing of time, yet still remain formative and foundational. At its core, it is about transformation and being/becoming, but I hope the ambiguity and symbolism of the song and video also lead to your own interpretation and that you can find something resonant within it. Lyrics and digital/CD format available at caitlinkrausmusic.bandcamp.com. Music website at caitlinkrausmusic.com.
A huge and sincere thank you to Adam Remnant for his direction of the video and to the Hocking College students listed in the following credits: AC – Alex Rhinehart & Najayah Shepard; Grips – Alex Rhinehart, Alexis Pariseau, Najayah Shepard, Nate Ruhl, & Richard Valentine; On-set Photographer – Ivan Reardon
“Follow Me” is featured on the full-length 2020 release WHAT RISES and includes myself on vocals/guitar, Adam Remnant on bass/drums/keyboard, and Hannah Simonetti on violin. The song was recorded and mixed by Adam in Athens, OH while the full album was produced, mixed, and mastered by Bernie Nau at Peachfork Studios in Pomeroy, OH(https://peachforkstudios.com/).
A song for the rights of all: the right to be safe in our bodies, the right to make decisions for our bodies, and the right to be who we are in our bodies. (Lyrics below.) I wrote this song […] out of the need to process my anger at women’s rights being taken away and for what this means for other rights down the line. A never-ending issue it seems, but one we can’t stop fighting for. A big thank you to Tom Riggs for taking footage of my first performance of this song with Mark Hellenberg on drums at The Union in Athens, OH.
Lyrics for “This Body”:
This body is temporary, but while it’s here / It’s not yours to hold captive in fear / This body is mine, it was never yours / So fuck your laws and gods and guns / I get to say what I put inside / I GET TO CHOOSE, IT IS MY RIGHT / This body is sacred, but only safe / When I’m in charge, you have no claim / This body is proud and wears the crown / Makes the decisions and won’t back down / I get to say what I put inside / I GET TO CHOOSE, IT IS MY RIGHT / And don’t tell me who I can love or about my identity / Don’t use your privilege to subject your patriarchy / I get to say what I put inside / I GET TO CHOOSE, IT IS MY RIGHT
Caitlin Kraus: “What Rises” — From the album WHAT RISES
Interview & Article for WOUBPublic Media(8/6/2020): Interview about upcoming performance for the Virtual Nelsonville Music Festival, history as a songwriter and musician, and experiences as a performer during the pandemic.
OVRLD Austin Music First(6/13/2016): “On her new single ‘Waiting for the World,’ Caitlin Kraus’ sweetly shimmering voice rises out of an oceanic musical backing, giving the track a melancholic feel, like a reinterpretation of The Awakening’s bitter conclusion. Kraus’ voice is powerful but not in a bombastic sense, it’s instead devastating in its emotional richness. The well-arranged strings that emerge after the beginning of the song aid in this, making ‘Waiting for the World’ an excellent bit of chamber pop that stands out for the frequently unimaginatively produced singer songwriter tracks Austin is oversaturated with.”
Suggested Listening ’23: Caitlin Kraus Suggests Good Music to Listen To
Caitlin Kraus is a Licensed Professional Clinical Counselor and Board-Certified Music Therapist providing services to students at Ohio University in Athens, OH. When she is not counseling, Caitlin is an active musician and songwriter, performing her music both solo and with a band under her name. She has released two full-length albums from Peachfork Studios: “Gone Beyond” (2023) and “What Rises” (2020). She also sings and plays in the band Drift Mouth. She is the proud companion of two wonderful dogs.
Some of the music choices presented here were not actually released in 2023 as I am usually a time traveler when it comes to music. While it was hard to choose only 10 albums/artists and songs, this is some of the music that I happened to listen to often in 2023 and which personally resonated the most. It is presented in no particular order. I hope you can enjoy it along with me!
Drift Mouth opens its Jan. 13, 2024, set at The Union in Athens, OH, with “Starling.” Lou Poster on lead vocals and guitar, Caitlin Kraus guitar, David Murphy drums, Nate Brite bass.
A song for the rights of all: the right to be safe in our bodies, the right to make decisions for our bodies, and the right to be who we are in our bodies. (Lyrics below.) I wrote this song […] out of the need to process my anger at women’s rights being taken away and for what this means for other rights down the line. A never-ending issue it seems, but one we can’t stop fighting for. A big thank you to Tom Riggs for taking footage of my first performance of this song with Mark Hellenberg on drums at The Union in Athens, OH.
Lyrics for “This Body”:
This body is temporary, but while it’s here / It’s not yours to hold captive in fear / This body is mine, it was never yours / So fuck your laws and gods and guns / I get to say what I put inside / I GET TO CHOOSE, IT IS MY RIGHT / This body is sacred, but only safe / When I’m in charge, you have no claim / This body is proud and wears the crown / Makes the decisions and won’t back down / I get to say what I put inside / I GET TO CHOOSE, IT IS MY RIGHT / And don’t tell me who I can love or about my identity / Don’t use your privilege to subject your patriarchy / I get to say what I put inside / I GET TO CHOOSE, IT IS MY RIGHT
Smashwords has made it mandatory to open an account to read or download free eBooks. The reason is this: “The change was […] made to prevent scraping of free books by bots for machine learning training data or similar. It was not a change made lightly — both authors and readers enjoyed the ability to download free books without an account.”
No account is needed to download my FREE eBooks at Freeditorial.
This email includes at the bottom a selection from The Book of Good Deeds 1914-1918. Collected and Edited with a Foreword by Bernhard Diebold. 1938. This book consists of accounts of good deeds during World War I. Most accounts are by Germans.
Anecdotes are usually short humorous stories. Sometimes they are thought-provoking or informative, not amusing.
Problem-Solving
• During the Middle Ages, a man went on a long religious pilgrimage. Before leaving, he sold all his possessions and used the money he received to buy a few jewels that he gave to a grocer for safekeeping. However, after he returned from the pilgrimage, the grocer refused to return his jewels. Wailing for his lost possessions, the pilgrim met a wise man, who said he would solve the pilgrim’s problem if the pilgrim would meet him at noon and enter the grocer’s establishment a minute after the wise man had entered it. The next day, the two met at the grocer’s and the wise man entered first. The wise man showed the grocer a large bag that he had filled with several pieces of glass cut to resemble very valuable jewels. The wise man said, “I am going on a pilgrimage and I wish to leave these jewels with a trustworthy man who will take care of them for me. Can I trust you with them?” “Of course,” answered the grocer. Just then, the pilgrim entered the shop and asked the grocer for his jewels. “I’ll get them for you,” the grocer said.
• In 1968, skier Jean-Claude Killy won three gold medals at the Winter Games held in Grenoble, France. At the time, Olympic officials would take skis away from the athletes immediately following a competition so that the brand names of the skis would not appear in photographs and give the manufacturers free publicity. However, Dynamic paid Mr. Killy to wear its skis, and so he wanted to give the company free publicity. Therefore, he made sure that a friend — conspicuously wearing a pouch with the word “Dynamic” printed on it — congratulated him when he was photographed. The friend, Michel Arpin, also took one of his own Dynamic skis, which had the Dynamic trademark sign of two yellow bars, and planted it in the snow where it would appear behind Mr. Killy’s head in the photographs.
• Richard Bell of North Carolina has a trick for dealing with harassing telephone callers: “One of my all-time favorite tricks for any harassing phone caller is to get a tape or mp3 of the late Alexander Scourby reading some esoteric verses from the Old Testament handy to play into the handset.” And Tom Brennan of California received a telephone call from a debt collector in 2006. The caller asked, “When do you think you will repay this debt?” Mr. Brennan replied, “No comment.” In fact, that was his reply to every question the debt collector asked. Eventually, he did say something different; he said that “No comment” was the only reply he would ever make to the debt collector’s questions. Mr. Brennan says, “He laughed and I laughed and we said good night and they never called again.”
• A week before a scheduled performance of Richard Wagner’s Die Meistersinger, conductor Arturo Toscanini became unhappy with one of his singers — a man who was a good man and a good singer, but who was unsuited for his part. Taking thought about how to replace the singer — but without harming the singer’s reputation — Maestro Toscanini composed a letter in which he said that during rehearsals he had noticed that the singer was not well, and if the singer should wish to withdraw from the performance, he would understand. The singer was no dummy — he took the hint and told the Maestro that yes, he was ill, and yes, he would withdraw from the performance. His replacement was better suited for the part, and Die Meistersinger was a success.
• Two men who were engaged in a dispute came to R’ Avraham Yitzchak of Karlitch and asked him to make a ruling. For hours, the two men presented their cases, making argument after argument. After they had finished speaking, he quickly made his ruling, which the two men accepted, and the two men departed as friends. Afterwards, R’ Avraham Yitzchak was asked why he had listened for hours to arguments when the case was simple. He said, “Had I cut them off before each had his full say, neither of them would have been satisfied. Both would have felt that an injustice had been done. After I gave them all that time to say everything they had to say, they felt that justice was done, and they accepted the verdict gladly.”
***
FREE eBooks: THE MOST INTERESTING PEOPLE WHO LIVE LIFE
Smashwords recently made it mandatory to open an account to read or download free eBooks. The reason is this: “The change was […] made to prevent scraping of free books by bots for machine learning training data or similar. It was not a change made lightly — both authors and readers enjoyed the ability to download free books without an account.”
No account is needed to download my FREE eBooks at Freeditorial or any of my blogs:
From The Book of Good Deeds 1914-1918: WORLD WAR I GOOD DEEDS:
THE BURGOMASTER
LATE in the summer of 1916, I was in command of the occupied town of Chérisy, south of Douai, and therefore had often to make arrangements with the Burgomaster, an elderly widower, arrangements which were necessary to the German interest but frequently demanded grave sacrifices on the part of the inhabitants of the place. The situation had thus become extremely difficult, and he could be certain of having serious trouble with his countrymen once we had left. Did he not appear to them as the announcer of all evil and suspect of conniving with us? Once he tried to resist, and I had no choice but to tell him that I would remove him and put in his place a more willing, though probably less patriotic man. In deep perplexity he left me.
Now, on that occasion he had come to see me to get my permission for the population to slaughter one of their cows. This permission he had received. A few hours later I was informed that the cow had had tuberculosis, so I gave them another cow free to be slaughtered. Afterwards I suddenly remembered that the sick cow had probably contributed to the milk from which the butter was made. Of this butter I had bought, with the permission of my superiors, and sent it to my wife, who was nursing her second child. My anxiety was all the more acute, because even by writing at once I could not alter things. All the same I did not speak to anyone about this.
Late that night a soldier came to ask me whether the burgomaster, who like all the French in the occupied area might not cross the street after dark, could come over and see me once again. He had been standing in his garden and had asked the passing soldier to deliver the message. I consented. The old man arrived:
“I wanted to bring you comfort, mon capitaine,” he said, “for you must have been anxious about the butter which you bought. You can be perfectly at your ease, the butter-acid kills the bacilli. I know you have a little child, and your wife will need fat. I know something about tuberculosis, my son died of it: so I know how a father feels when he thinks his child is endangered. And how a soldier feels, I also know; in 1870 I fought against you. I only wanted to tell you this. Good night.” That was the Burgomaster of Chérisy.
Madeline Daley, Julia Krauth, Ben Shaw, Sean Eifert, Mike Wells, and I [Issy Martin-Dye] made this short film for Ohio University’s 48-Hour Shootout film competition. We had 48 hours to create this. Every group got a prop, line, and genre that had to be used, and it was judged based on how well you followed it. Our prop was a ballon, our genre was action, and our line from the Terminator was, “The future has not been written. There is no fate but what we make for ourselves.”
Hart, Bob: “Caitlin Kraus: Making her own kind of music.” The Athens News. 19 December 2023
“It was a song called ‘Garden’ that did it for me. Perhaps only when a musical artist writes deeply personal lyrics do their words become universal, belying the specifics of their own situation and emotions to touch others on an intimate level. That song and many other good ones are on the CD “Gone Beyond,” by Caitlin Kraus. It’s her second recorded collection (following “What Rises”) and is available through many outlets, including caitlinkrausmusic.bandcamp.com, Spotify and Apple Music.”…
Caitlin Kraus: “Make It Clear” (Caitlin Kraus performs “Make It Clear” Aug. 17, 2023, at the Athens (OH) Community Center.) — From the album GONE BEYOND.
It is a very special honor to have completed this music video for “Follow Me,” which was directed by the wonderful Adam Remnant who also recorded the song itself back in 2016. We collaborated on the concepts in the video and spent a chilly, beautiful spring day filming it with his talented students (listed below) at the Nelsonville, OH brick kilns, Hocking River, and surrounding neighborhood. For me, the lyrics and music of this song portray real imagery and memories that have grown dream-like with the passing of time, yet still remain formative and foundational. At its core, it is about transformation and being/becoming, but I hope the ambiguity and symbolism of the song and video also lead to your own interpretation and that you can find something resonant within it. Lyrics and digital/CD format available at caitlinkrausmusic.bandcamp.com. Music website at caitlinkrausmusic.com.
A huge and sincere thank you to Adam Remnant for his direction of the video and to the Hocking College students listed in the following credits: AC – Alex Rhinehart & Najayah Shepard; Grips – Alex Rhinehart, Alexis Pariseau, Najayah Shepard, Nate Ruhl, & Richard Valentine; On-set Photographer – Ivan Reardon
“Follow Me” is featured on the full-length 2020 release WHAT RISES and includes myself on vocals/guitar, Adam Remnant on bass/drums/keyboard, and Hannah Simonetti on violin. The song was recorded and mixed by Adam in Athens, OH while the full album was produced, mixed, and mastered by Bernie Nau at Peachfork Studios in Pomeroy, OH (https://peachforkstudios.com/).
A song for the rights of all: the right to be safe in our bodies, the right to make decisions for our bodies, and the right to be who we are in our bodies. (Lyrics below.) I wrote this song […] out of the need to process my anger at women’s rights being taken away and for what this means for other rights down the line. A never-ending issue it seems, but one we can’t stop fighting for. A big thank you to Tom Riggs for taking footage of my first performance of this song with Mark Hellenberg on drums at The Union in Athens, OH.
Lyrics for “This Body”:
This body is temporary, but while it’s here / It’s not yours to hold captive in fear / This body is mine, it was never yours / So fuck your laws and gods and guns / I get to say what I put inside / I GET TO CHOOSE, IT IS MY RIGHT / This body is sacred, but only safe / When I’m in charge, you have no claim / This body is proud and wears the crown / Makes the decisions and won’t back down / I get to say what I put inside / I GET TO CHOOSE, IT IS MY RIGHT / And don’t tell me who I can love or about my identity / Don’t use your privilege to subject your patriarchy / I get to say what I put inside / I GET TO CHOOSE, IT IS MY RIGHT
Caitlin Kraus: “What Rises” — From the album WHAT RISES
Interview & Article for WOUB Public Media (8/6/2020): Interview about upcoming performance for the Virtual Nelsonville Music Festival, history as a songwriter and musician, and experiences as a performer during the pandemic.
OVRLD Austin Music First (6/13/2016): “On her new single ‘Waiting for the World,’ Caitlin Kraus’ sweetly shimmering voice rises out of an oceanic musical backing, giving the track a melancholic feel, like a reinterpretation of The Awakening’s bitter conclusion. Kraus’ voice is powerful but not in a bombastic sense, it’s instead devastating in its emotional richness. The well-arranged strings that emerge after the beginning of the song aid in this, making ‘Waiting for the World’ an excellent bit of chamber pop that stands out for the frequently unimaginatively produced singer songwriter tracks Austin is oversaturated with.”
Suggested Listening ’23: Caitlin Kraus Suggests Good Music to Listen To
Caitlin Kraus is a Licensed Professional Clinical Counselor and Board-Certified Music Therapist providing services to students at Ohio University in Athens, OH. When she is not counseling, Caitlin is an active musician and songwriter, performing her music both solo and with a band under her name. She has released two full-length albums from Peachfork Studios: “Gone Beyond” (2023) and “What Rises” (2020). She also sings and plays in the band Drift Mouth. She is the proud companion of two wonderful dogs.
Some of the music choices presented here were not actually released in 2023 as I am usually a time traveler when it comes to music. While it was hard to choose only 10 albums/artists and songs, this is some of the music that I happened to listen to often in 2023 and which personally resonated the most. It is presented in no particular order. I hope you can enjoy it along with me!
Drift Mouth opens its Jan. 13, 2024, set at The Union in Athens, OH, with “Starling.” Lou Poster on lead vocals and guitar, Caitlin Kraus guitar, David Murphy drums, Nate Brite bass.
Smashwords has made it mandatory to open an account to read or download free eBooks. The reason is this: “The change was […] made to prevent scraping of free books by bots for machine learning training data or similar. It was not a change made lightly — both authors and readers enjoyed the ability to download free books without an account.”
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Anecdotes are usually short humorous stories. Sometimes they are thought-provoking or informative, not amusing.
Pitchers
• Pitcher Bobo Newsome was having a rough time in a game. His St. Louis Browns were behind 15-0 against the Philadelphia Athletics. A teammate told him, “They’re hitting you all over the lot. You won’t win today.” Mr. Newsome replied, “A pitcher can’t win ball games if his team can’t get him any runs.”
Politicians
• One of the people watching on television as the United States women’s gymnastics team won the gold medal at the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta was President Bill Clinton. Actually, because of his Presidential duties he watched only the first rotation live, then he had someone record the competition so he could watch it later. To make sure no one would reveal the outcome to him before he watched the competition, he told the person making the recording, “If you tell me or anybody else what happened, I’ll just cream ya.”
• Sam Rayburn, the late Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, was noted for keeping his word. Hundreds of people saw him each day and asked for favors, and Mr. Rayburn always gave an answer to their requests — yes, no, or maybe. However, although he spoke to so many people a day, he never made a note of his promises — and he never forgot a promise. When he was asked how he was able to do this, Mr. Rayburn replied, “If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember.”
Prejudice
• Track star Jesse Owens attended Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio, in the 1930s. Of the school’s 14,000 students, only about 100 were African Americans. Because he was black, he was not allowed to live on-campus. Instead, he and the other African-American students lived in an off-campus boarding house. According to Mr. Owens’ teammate Charles Beetham, many restaurants and theaters in Columbus would not serve blacks. While traveling to compete, Mr. Owens had to eat in his room, as the hotel would not serve him in its coffee shop or restaurant. In addition, he could not compete in the South because blacks were not allowed to compete against whites there.
• In 1968, at the Summer Olympics in Mexico City, two African-American athletes, Tommie Smith and John Carlos, made a memorable protest against American racism. They won the gold and bronze medals in the 200-meter dash, and on the awards stand, they each donned a black glove, raised the black-gloved hand in the air, made a fist, and bowed their heads. This Black Power salute raised consciousness about racism in the United States — and got them suspended from the United States Olympic team.
Problem-Solving
• In 1831, the land of Israel was ruled by Egypt and the governor Ibrahim Pasha. One day, the governor met a Jewish goldsmith who complained about a robbery, insisting that before Egypt ruled the land, he had never been robbed, but as soon as Egypt had gained control of the land, he had been robbed. The governor did not want the Jewish goldsmith to think that Egyptian justice was nonexistent, so he announced that the next day in front of the goldsmith’s shop a miracle would occur. The next day, a crowd gathered to see the miracle. The governor then sentenced the door of the goldsmith’s shop to 100 lashes for failing to protect the shop against robbery. After he had given the door 100 lashes, he leaned toward the door in a listening attitude, then said angrily, “What you are saying is nonsense. I sentence you to another 100 lashes.” Again, after giving the door 100 lashes, he leaned toward the door in a listening attitude, and then he said loudly, “You say that the thief is present in this gathering, and that he still has a cobweb from the store sticking to his fez!” A man in the crowd took off his fez to examine it for cobwebs, the governor had that man arrested, the man confessed, and the Jewish goldsmith was satisfied with Egyptian justice.
• Céline Dion grew up in a large family — she has 13 brothers and sisters. Her parents, Théresè and Adhémar, worked hard to support the family. They wanted to raise their children in a rural setting, so they decided to buy land in the country. Instead of spending 40 cents for bus fare, her father walked to and from work, and then he added the 40 cents to the family savings. Eventually, they bought land, but not a house. No problem. They built one. Although she was pregnant, Céline’s mother climbed up a ladder and hammered nails in the roof. Céline started entertaining her family at age four, standing on the table and using a fork or a spoon as a pretend microphone. In 1973, her brother Michel got married, and Céline, who was then five years old, entertained by singing. Even then, she was good. With so many people in the family, the kids had to do chores. For example, everyone in the family washed his or own dinner plates. To reduce the number of dishes they had to do, sometimes they would eat dinner and then turn the dinner plates upside down so that they could use them as dessert plates, too.
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From The Book of Good Deeds 1914-1918: WORLD WAR I GOOD DEEDS:
THEORY AND PRACTICE
THE artillery squad to which I belonged had been brought up as a reinforcement during our offensive in the Champagne, on September 28, 1915. Both officers and men came from army units that had so far only had experience with distant range firing. The officer in command assembled the men, made them form a circle, and gave a little speech calculated to raise the spirits of his audience. He was a professional soldier, simple, and unskilled in judging the truth of the war propaganda. He dished up rumors which were then circulating about the cruelty of the Germans and which, as has happened at all times, exaggerated, and made generalizations about, breaches of international morality on the part of the enemy. And, since the Germans were waging a merciless war against us, he concluded, it was our duty to be inhumane, and even prisoners had lost their claim to pity.
This speech made all the deeper an impression since it was addressed to men who hailed from the North of France. They belonged to a stock which is industrious, but rougher and fiercer than in the center or South. Their villages were occupied by the enemy: many were desperate because, since the outbreak of hostilities, they had had no news from their relatives. This was good ground for the seed of hatred.
The next day my battery reached its station between St. Hilaire and Souain, behind the ridges of the Vedegrange. On the way we encountered several groups of prisoners, but we were in marching order and there was no occasion for personal contact. Then, for days and nights, we were bombarding: suffering cold, hunger and especially thirst upon this barren plateau of the Champagne where springs are not to be found. Some of our men were killed, others wounded.
On October 6, after we had put an end to a counter attack, there was an interval of quiet. Then, in the gray dawn, we saw a wounded German working his way painfully towards us. The soldiers quickly left their dugouts and crowded round him. I hurried to the spot, a little troubled in mind, thinking of the commander’s admonitions.
The prisoner was a very young man, who—as he told us later—had shortly before been called quite suddenly from the Eastern front, thrown into the attack as soon as he arrived and taken prisoner at once. For the moment he could only utter a few faltering words. “What does he say?” the artillery men asked me. “He says he is in pain and thirsty.”
In a jiffy the curious throng melted away and were back again at once, vying with each other to hand him their flasks of scarce and precious water.
Certainly, it was only a slight sacrifice and I should not like to represent it as an heroic deed. But what touched me in this was the spontaneous feeling of these men in the front lines, who, though just before they are in full fury against the boche [German soldier], change suddenly when they find themselves face to face with a human being.
“‘A pioneer of San Francisco psychedelia, Jorma Kaukonen is a bona fide graybeard folk swami. He mostly lays back, a master in situ, unfurling melodies and savoring every note.’ – Rolling Stone Magazine
“In a career that has already spanned a half-century, Jorma Kaukonen has been one of the most highly respected interpreters of American roots music, blues, and rock. A member of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and a Grammy recipient, Jorma was at the forefront of popular rock and roll, one of the founders of the San Francisco sound and a progenitor of Psychedelic Rock. He is a founding member of two legendary bands, Jefferson Airplane and the still-touring Hot Tuna. Jorma Kaukonen is a music legend and one of the finest singer-songwriters in his field. He continues to tour the world bringing his unique styling to old blues tunes while presenting new songs of weight and dimension. His secret is in playing spontaneous and unfiltered music, with an individual expression of personality. In 2016, Jorma, Jack Casady and the other members of Jefferson Airplane were awarded The GRAMMY Lifetime Achievement Award for their contributions to American music. […].”
“Jorma Ludwik Kaukonen, Jr. (born December 23, 1940) is an American blues, folk, and rock guitarist. Kaukonen performed with Jefferson Airplane and still performs regularly on tour with Hot Tuna, which started as a side project with bassist Jack Casady, and as of early 2019 has continued for 50 years. Rolling Stone magazine ranked him No. 54 on its list of 100 Greatest Guitarists. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996 as a member of Jefferson Airplane.”
About Jorma Kaukonen’s Fur Peace Ranch
The Fur Peace Ranch is nestled in the rolling foothills of southeast Ohio…
In 1989 Jorma and Vanessa Kaukonen’s goal was to create a place where musicians could come together and surround themselves with music for several days and emerge with a new-found inspiration. Jorma said he wanted to demystify the process of playing music for those who attend the camp. For students arriving around noon on a Friday and leaving Monday morning with classes scattered throughout the days, the process of demystifying music came with ease. Guitar is the main language spoken at FPR.
Apple iTunes keeps track of how many times I play a song. If you’re like me, you think it’s an incredible value to buy a track for a dollar or so (and sometimes FREE) from Bandcamp and listen to it 100 or more times. Here are the Bandcamp tracks I have listened to 100 or more times (along with YouTube Channel or YouTube Video info when available and if I can find it):
AJ Davila (?): “Dura Como Piedra” [“Hard as Stone”]
Smashwords has made it mandatory to open an account to read or download free eBooks. The reason is this: “The change was […] made to prevent scraping of free books by bots for machine learning training data or similar. It was not a change made lightly — both authors and readers enjoyed the ability to download free books without an account.”
No account is needed to download my FREE eBooks at Freeditorial.
Anecdotes are usually short humorous stories. Sometimes they are thought-provoking or informative, not amusing.
Names
• Women’s gymnast Mary Lou Retton became the major star of the 1984 Olympic Games, in large part because she won the gold medal in the all-around competition by scoring a perfect 10 in her final event: the vault. Before the 1988 Olympic Games, Kristie Phillips was repeatedly compared to Ms. Retton. In 1986, she said, “I guess it’s good exposure for me to be Mary Lou Number Two, but I’d rather be Kristie Number One.”
• When she was 17 years old, Evelyn Cornwall teased a friend because he had lost a drag race. Her friends told her, “Put up or shut up,” so they went to the drag racing strip, where she raced and won! Her mother was very upset and told her, “You’re not going to do that again.” Later, Evelyn Cornwall changed her name to Lyn St. James and drove in the Indianapolis 500 — she was only the second woman to do so.
• Catherine Shipley was both a Quaker and a character. While living in Philadelphia, she visited businesses, collecting money for charity. One businessperson was very interested in what she had to say, and he asked what her name was because he wanted to write out a check for her. She replied, “Does thee know, I really have forgotten, but I’ll just walk around the block, and tell thee when I get back.”
• When the Buddha needed help, he called all the animals of the world to his bedside. However, only 12 animals showed up: a rat, an ox, a tiger, a rabbit, a dog, a horse, a sheep, a monkey, a rooster, a dog, and a pig. To honor these animals, the Buddha created a year for each of them, and therefore each Chinese year is the year of the rat or the year of the ox or the year of the tiger, etc.
• Sportswriters were confused about whether fighter Bat Nelson spelled his full nickname as “Battling” or “Batling,” so they wrote to ask if he spelled it with one T or two. Bat wrote back, “I spell it with one T.” However, he signed his name, “Battling Nelson.”
• Major-league baseball player Alex Rodriguez has acquired several nicknames. Because of his friendship with Ken Griffey, Jr., he is sometimes called “Junior Jr.” Others call him “A-Rod,” because of his name. And Mr. Griffey calls him “Young Buck.”
• Mildred Didrikson was nicknamed “Baby” when she was growing up, but after she hit seven home runs in one baseball game, a feat reminiscent of Babe Ruth, her name was changed to “Babe.”
• Amanda Borden, captain of the gold-winning USA women’s gymnastics team at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, became known as the Pepsodent Kid because of her big, warm, winning smile.
• Dorothy Parker once owned a black French poodle she named Cliché because at the time black French poodles were very popular in her neighborhood.
• One of the people participating in the CB radio fad of the 1970s was First Lady Betty Ford. She used the CB handle “First Mama.”
Nobility
• A nobleman deeply loved his garden of chrysanthemums. In fact, he loved the flowers more than he loved his wife, and he used to severely punish anyone who accidentally broke off a blossom while walking in his garden. Zen master Sengai learned of the nobleman’s behavior, so he walked into the nobleman’s garden one day with a sickle. Hearing a noise in his garden, the nobleman went to investigate — and discovered that Sengai had cut down every chrysanthemum. Sengai told the nobleman, “Even weeds like this become rank if they are not cut.” The nobleman realized that he had been wrong and began to treat people with more respect.
• Bahlul was thought to be a fool. One day, a king told him that if he could prove that the king was no more powerful than other men, he would reward him with 100 gold coins, but that if he could not, the king would have him beaten. Bahlul replied, “I will be happy to attempt what you order, but first please order these flies to stop bothering me.” The king gave Bahlul 100 gold coins.
Pitchers
• Dodger pitcher Preacher Roe gave up a lot of home runs because he hated to walk hitters and because he kept his pitches close to the strike zone. His not often walking hitters also meant that he usually didn’t give up big-scoring home runs. In the 9th inning of one game, he had a 5-0 lead, but gave three straight home runs on three straight pitches after getting an out. He then got the two remaining outs and a 5-3 win. Of course, after the game, the sports writers were asking about the three consecutive home runs, but Preacher told them, “Just say old Preacher pitched a complete game today and won. He scattered five hits. Two inside the park and three outside.”
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Smashwords recently made it mandatory to open an account to read or download free eBooks. The reason is this: “The change was […] made to prevent scraping of free books by bots for machine learning training data or similar. It was not a change made lightly — both authors and readers enjoyed the ability to download free books without an account.”
No account is needed to download my FREE eBooks at Freeditorial or any of my blogs:
From The Book of Good Deeds 1914-1918: WORLD WAR I GOOD DEEDS:
COURT MARTIAL
NAMUR had surrendered. At the end of August, 1914, the 87th Militia Regiment came with its four battalions to this fortress. The district was divided into four sections, each of which was assigned to one battalion for custody and defense. The forts were utterly in ruins and the town itself had suffered badly from our “dicke Bertha” cannon. It was full of out-of-work men from the once busy factories and of young men who had changed from uniform to civilian clothes just before the surrender of the fortress. The prisons were crammed with prisoners, and in the Central Prison, which lay within our particular section, conditions were really inhuman and not to be put up with. To begin with, there were no records at all to show why the people were there. Most of them did not know why they had been imprisoned, and those who knew would not tell. It was necessary to get things in order as quickly as possible and to sift the grain from the chaff.
I ran round from pillar to post trying to relieve the conditions of the wretched creatures or to have them set free wherever possible. Thanks to the impartial temper of our governor, a Bavarian general, Baron von Hirschberg, the decisions were just and even liberal.
Among the prisoners was an old Catholic priest of about seventy, on whom firearms and ammunition had been found. Since, according to the proclamation, they should have been handed over, death was the penalty for this crime; for in war-time a proclamation is law. The officers of my battalion and I were assistant judges at the Court Martial. The evidence lay on the table; (a) a pocket pistolet of the oldest design; (b) a few bullets of the Lefaucheux model; (c) a traveling bag with “Bon Voyage” embroidered on it, in which the revolver had been found hidden under some garments in the attic.
The priest explained that the traveling bag had belonged to his long-deceased brother, that no one had remembered its existence nor known in the slightest that it contained a “weapon.” The bullets had been found, a long time after the proclamation, when dusting behind a row of books; and then, anxious to get rid of them, they had buried them in the garden of his neighbors, two old ladies. They could not throw them down the toilet for fear of choking it. This one could either believe, or regard as a subterfuge. However, the chief investigator took an offense for granted and was expecting a verdict of guilty. Things looked bad for the accused.
Then, during the ensuing discussion, one of the assistant judges, an old hunter, pointed out with some humor, that one could do more harm by throwing this little old-fashioned pistolet at someone, than by shooting with it. It was a joke rather than a weapon and would in fact only shoot round a corner. And the ammunition was just “small shot,” good for scaring off sparrows; and anyway didn’t fit the pistol. So the conditions of the proclamation had not been broken at all.
That settled it. The accused was unanimously acquitted. The chief investigator of our court martial had taken all his trouble for nothing.
Caitlin Kraus and her band perform “All Along” Sept. 17, 2023, at the Ohio Pawpaw Festival in Albany, OH. Matt Box on bass, Mark Hellenberg drums, Bernie Nau keys, John Borchard pedal steel guitar.
The Wingnuts: “Hippology”
John Borchard (left) on guitar, Bernie Nau keys, Mark Hellenberg drums, Dave Borowski bass, guest Kyle Slemmer sax, Jimmy Smailes guitar.
The Return of the Cannibals live from the Adelphia Music Hall in Marietta, Ohio on March 26th 2022. Steve Lipscomb, Jason Swiger, Jacob Dunn, Kirby Evans, John Evans, and John Borchard
The Wingnuts with the John Hiatt song “Slow Turning” June 23, 2023, at The Union in Athens, OH. Mark Hellenberg on lead vocals and drums, John Borchard lap steel guitar, Bernie Nau keys, Dave Borowski bass, Jimmy Smailes guitar.
Apple iTunes keeps track of how many times I play a song. If you’re like me, you think it’s an incredible value to buy a track for a dollar or so (and sometimes FREE) from Bandcamp and listen to it 100 or more times. Here are the Bandcamp tracks I have listened to 100 or more times (along with YouTube Channel or YouTube Video info when available and if I can find it):
AJ Davila (?): “Dura Como Piedra” [“Hard as Stone”]
Smashwords recently made it mandatory to open an account to read or download free eBooks. The reason is this: “The change was […] made to prevent scraping of free books by bots for machine learning training data or similar. It was not a change made lightly — both authors and readers enjoyed the ability to download free books without an account.”
No account is needed to download my FREE eBooks at Freeditorial.