Last page of Newsweek magazine this week is Anna Quindlen's column. Huge letters: Put "Em in a Tree Museum

 [Contributed by Jerry Notaro, 12/10/2004]

"Oh, I loved music. Lived for it. I was really into punk rock as a kid. Then I got into mountain songs and Appalachian music when I was in my late teens. I listened to Joni Mitchell my whole life, knew the lyrics to every song on Blue and Court and Spark by the time I was in the second grade."

 [Contributed by Helen Adcock, 12/23/2004]

My Dean and her husband, a close friend and neighbor of mine who is a prominent historian and civil rights academic here on my campus, went to his 35th reunion at Princeton this weekend. This morning she sent me this note. I think Joni would be pleased.

Hi, Jerry,

I thought you'd be interested to hear that for a reunion gift Ray's class at Princeton funded a garden that included a bench with lines from Joni Mitchell's song "We are stardust.." The class has a big thing about being the Woodstock class maybe one or two actually were there.

Kathy

 [Contributed by Jerry Notaro, 12/11/2004]

Just returned from a lovely week in Bermuda. We took a late night glass bottom boat cruise out of Hamilton one night. After viewing the coral reef (illuminated - now that was a new twist), we came back past what the locals call "Paradise Islands," a set of small undeveloped islands where they spend weekends. The boat captain said that they had to come out to them because Bermuda was suffering from overdevelopment like that Joni Mitchell song about paving Paradise. Of course, my family starts groaning (quietly) and elbowing me on the dark ride back to town. I just sat their with a big grin. Her message is always near.

 [Contributed by Janine Sherman, 12/11/2004]

Will Bush win, or take a big yellow taxi out of town?

If you are familiar with Joni Mitchell's song "Big Yellow Taxi" - and its lyrics "you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone" - you might have an insight into where we will be come January 2005.

Pundits and polls tell us every day who might be president after the election and what our world will be like with George Bush or John Kerry in the White House.

But the reality of the matter is that we will not fully know the answers to all the questions being asked at debates until Bush or Kerry is elected.

Maybe Bush with his firm determination is leading in the right direction. Nearly half the country believes that is true.

It could be that with energy and new ideas, Kerry has the right mix of strength and smarts to do a better job. The other half of the country believes that to be true.

Can an administration chosen by John Kerry really "refocus" the leaders of the world and have them join in the work in Iraq and the fight on terrorism?

How will Iraq and the war on terrorism be dealt with over the next four years of a continued Bush administration?

Will the economy be better with continued tax breaks for those who earn more than $200,000 or are we better off rolling back those cuts and chase Kerry's plan to roll back those cuts and give tax breaks to the middle class?

Both men are capable to lead the country over the next four years.

Who wins depends on how you believe our country is best guided.

It will be some time, though, before we know how that decision affects the United States and the rest of the world.

Will Bush win, or take a big yellow taxi out of town?

If you are familiar with Joni Mitchell's song "Big Yellow Taxi" - and its lyrics "you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone" - you might have an insight into where we will be come January 2005.

 [Contributed by Bob Muller, 12/11/2004]

 [Contributed by Warren Keith, 04/07/2003]

I was just in the kitchen making coffee, turned on the
radio for the news, but the news was all bad - it had
just ended.

The morning DJs on CHUM-FM, Roger, Rick and Marilyn do
a questionnaire every day. Roger Ashby asks Rick Hodge
three questions. If Rick can answer them, he then gets
to ask a question of the listening audience. If Rick
misses one, then you can call in and if you answer it
right, you win a prize.

This morning, Roger asked Rick the following question:
"This recording artist refused to attend the Rock and
Roll Hall of Fame induction in 1997(me now - I may
have the year wrong) because she didn't want to deal
with the media hoopla over her reunion with her
daughter."

And Rick, who is usually very quick with the answers,
said, "It was because she was sitting in the lounge of
the Empire Hotel."

And then, he had a brain freeze and said, "It's just
gone out of my head! I can't remember her name!"

They went on to the next question, but then Rick
yelled out, "Joni Mitchell!"

Dang. I might have been able to win a prize!

But I thought the reason Joni didn't go to the
induction related to the outrageous amounts they
wanted the inductees to pay for those attending.

 [Contributed by Catherine McKay, 12/11/2004]

Clean White Linen

by Mark Aster

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = Adult themes; parental discretion advised. With thanks and apologies to Joni Mitchell. = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

"Carey, get out your cane."

Sitting at the narrow desk, he raised his head and turned, turned to look at her standing in the bedroom doorway, hip cocked, white silk camisole and cotton panties, mouth quirked up at one corner, looking at him.

"We going somewhere?" In the evening outside the window the surf shushed. The fourth-floor apartment was small and cramped; the view out over the water mocked him with its immensity.

She crossed the room in two steps, sat on his lap, one arm over his shoulders. When she kissed him her mouth was soft and sweet and relaxed. She kissed him for a long time, her arm loose at the back of his neck, his left hand resting motionless on one long bare thigh.

"I couldn't sleep last night," she said finally, tilting back her head as his lips moved comfortably down her cheek, onto her throat. She had lain there for many minutes, naked under the sheet, his head cradled on her chest, his hair black and silver and grey tickling her chin, his breathing light and almost silent. Then she'd slipped out of his bed, out onto the tiny balcony, and let the wind play warm and salty over her skin. The moon had slipped out of one cloud, crossed a luminous empty space and buried itself in the mist before she'd yawned and gone back inside, fallen asleep curled around him. "The African wind; so loud and warm."

"Have you decided?" he asked. His mouth touched her neck again and she gasped; his hand on her leg tightened almost imperceptibly, but she felt the pull on her skin all the way up her thigh, between her legs, into the core of her. Her flesh under his lips was young and taut, and he felt, as he always felt, the warmth and aliveness of her, and he wondered at it. She touched his face, and he kissed her fingers.

She stood and took his cane from the corner, handed it to him. "Come on, I'll put on my silk and silver, and we'll go down to the Mermaid Cafe, have some fun." She bent and kissed him again, and his hand moved up her body and cupped one small breast, lightly pinching the flesh of her nipple between his fingers through the fabric. She sighed, and straightened, and went into the bedroom.

They walked down the long staircase and out into the dusk, down the sidewalk with the wind blowing, leaning slightly on each other. She barefoot, in long floral silk, silver at her neck and wrists, head high; he in worn black and grey, soft shoes, cane over his free arm, eyes on her now sardonic, now amazed, adoring. She took his hand in hers and squeezed, and she sighed and spoke, her voice small and clear.

"I don't know how you take it; my fingernails are filthy, I've got beach-tar on my feet..."

"Maybe it's been too long since you were scramblin' in these streets. They've got you used to that clean white linen and that fancy French cologne."

She put out her tongue at him and wrinkled her nose. A seagull called harshly, high and strange, beyond the buildings, and she looked up, her face serious. "It sure is hard to leave, though." He listened to her body move as they walked. The sky darkened into night.

The air in the Mermaid was thick and golden, rich with noise and smoke, scratchy rock 'n' roll and sharp mellow jazz. She leaned far back in her chair, bare feet on the table. She bought them a bottle of wine and drank too much. He sent her out onto the dance floor, and she whirled and laughed in the arms of the young men with long stringy hair and love beads. And she stood on a chair, feet wide apart and pelvis thrust forward, and she swung her arms.

"A round for these freaks and these soldiers!" They cheered and drank and took her into themselves again, and he admired the line of her body as she fell backward into their arms. Later, she came back to the table, smashed her empty glass down in front of him, and they left.

The sky was a dome of stars, the air shockingly cold. "You're a mean ol' Daddy," she said, swaying against him. She slipped trying to touch her lips to his cheek, but he caught her, held her up. "You're a mean ol' Daddy," she repeated, "but I like you. I like you. I like you." He leaned heavily on his cane, supporting them both back home.

They didn't turn on any lights or draw the shades; the stars and the moon lit her body as he undressed her slowly. Sobered by the quiet and the cold walk home, she held her arms out from her body silently, eyes closed. He sat before her on the bed, undid the clasps at her neck, her chest, slid the silk back over her shoulders and off. He leaned forward and took her right nipple between his lips, stroked it with his tongue. She shivered softly. He put his hands on her hips, hooked his fingers under the waistband of her panties.

Naked, she twirled gently around the small room as he undid his own clothes. The moonlight through her skin filled her with dreams.

"Maybe I'll go to Amsterdam, or maybe I'll go to Rome," her voice happy and golden; he smiled despite himself. "Get myself a grand piano and rooms and rooms full of flowers." She fell down backwards onto the bed, naked, her thighs open, her arms up. The bed creaked, and stopped, and she sighed, and the silence filled him.

They made love slowly, in silence and the moonlight. He thought of her far away as she kissed his body, thought of her bathed in perfect sunlight, surrounded by flowers and music. His body was tired, but she was patient and skilled; soon she swung herself over him, put her hand between them and guided him in, sighing and closing her eyes as she slid down onto him. He circled his hips, penetrating her slowly and gently. Her body shuddered.

"Ah, Carey fill me up, oh fill me," she breathed, "oh, ooh, you're a mean old Daddy," she gasped, "but you're outta sight..." and her lips closed over his again, and her tongue slid into his mouth and she moved over him and he surrendered to her there in the dark, and lost himself in her one last time.

The End

 [Contributed by Ron from South Africa, 01/15/2007]

The First Thaw edition of the Coldwater Creek catalog contains a Joni mention from a clever copywriter. On page 6 an exquisite pair of reversible earrings bears the title of Both Sides Now. These pierced earring of antiqued sterling reverse from a vivid heart shaped red onyx on one side to a filigreed heart on the other. You can even remove the heart and wear just the filigreed posts. That sounds a bit like three sides now...

 [Contributed by Warren Keith, 12/09/2004]

Jack Vettriano chose Shades of Scarlet Conquering to take on his Desert Island in today's edition of the program BBC Radio 4 - Factual - Desert Island Discs -Jack Vettriano. Not surprising after the South Bank Show recently which I didn't see but read about right here. He said someting to the effect that Scarlet O'Hara would be his dream woman.

Interestingly, there are Joni links with many of his other disc choices - Leonard Cohen, Dylan, Judy Collins, Don Henley and Crosby, Stills and Nash.

In today's strip, the blond hippie guy is apparently in David Geffen's house protesting some beach access issue. Before he gets down to business he says, "But first, one quick question. What's Joni Mitchell really like?" In the next frame you see a bold italicized "OUT!"

 [Contributed by Russell Bowden, 12/12/2004]

Zonker is talking to the surfer dude after confronting Geffen (Free Man) in his Malibu beachfront home, over the issue of beach access. The last two frames were:

"They carried me out of the house and dumped me at the low-tide mark. It was awful."

"And yet, you must return."

"I must?"

"To find out about Joni. A true fan NEVER gives up."

 [Contributed by Jack Merk, Chuck E, 04/07/2003]

In today's strip, the blond hippie guy is apparently in David Geffen's house protesting some beach access issue. Before he gets down to business he says, "But first, one quick question. What's Joni Mitchell really like?" In the next frame you see a bold italicized "OUT!"

 [Contributed by Russell Bowden, 04/07/2003]

11 Records for the Road
Soundtracks for every scenario all across the land.

 1.  When pondering the urge to flee: Joni Mitchell, Hejira, Joni's nine-song rumination on blue motel rooms, black crows, and the high art of getting the hell away.

 2.  When actually fleeing: The Rolling Stones: Exile on Main Street.

 3.  When sheepishly returning: The Silos, Cuba.

 4.  When looking for parking: The Cars, The Cars.

 5.  When struggling to stay awake: Minutemen, Double Nickels on the Dime.

 6.  When it's as hot as the sun: John Patton, Memphis to New York Spirit.

 7.  When it's cool and rainy: Keith Jarrett, The Melody at Night, with You.

 8.  When the road is black ice: Sigur Rós, Ágaetis Byrjun.

 9.  When in Kansas: The Feelies, The Good Earth.

10.  When crossing the Mississippi: Charlie Rich, Feel Like Going Home: The Essential Charlie Rich.

11.  When in gridlock: Dr. Dre, The Chronic.

The entire article -- which has since been updated to include 14 records -- can be read online, here.

 [Contributed by Laura, 04/08/2003]

This is exciting news - when a Joni question is part of my 5th grader's homework assignment.

Q: Bill Clinton's daughter was named after "Chelsea Morning," a song written by which musician?

Here I am going over my 5th graders Social Studies homework for spelling errors this evening. The bottom of the page wasn't completed and 'somehow' one of the questions caught my eye. I asked my son why it wasn't completed and he said it was just extra credit! Yep, I made him do it........I said, "You better know who this is!" I'm happy to report he answered correctly!! Then he didn't spell Joni's name correctly so I made him erase it and do it over. He usually complains when I do this but this time he just laughed and whined, "Mom". Then it was spelled correctly but pretty sloppy. I told him he better not turn in any paper with Joni's name sloppy like that. He laughed again with, "Mommmm" as he 'perfected' her name on the paper! He knew there was no way he'd win this one. Ha!

 [Contributed by Laura, 12/12/2004]

"Between Georgia and Miami, I listened through the night to a Vietnam veteran with hair longer than Joni Mitchell's talk about..."

From Page 43:
 [Contributed by Reverend Vince, 08/21/2005]

"Last week I listened to a radio show where the featured guest was Graham Nash. (This wasn't the NPR bit that I also caught a little of) On this show, callers from all over the country could call in and ask Nash a question. I heard one caller ask Nash if the song Willie by Joni Mitchell was written about him. Nash confirmed that it was (like we didn't know that already). He also explained that William was his middle name and mentioned four people who still call him Willie -- Joni, his mother, and ??. I was pretty tired and could not stay awake to hear the whole program . . . He also confirmed that the song Carrie Ann was written about Mary Anne Faithful.

"Did anyone catch this show and hear if there were any more Joni mentions?"

 [Contributed by Mia , 04/09/2003]

Here's to Ireland

Patrick McCabe's humour in Call Me the Breeze disguises a tough treatise on the relationship between the artist and society, says CL Dallat

Saturday September 6, 2003
The Guardian

Who ate all the pies? And can Scotsfield's Joey Tallon really tell us much new about the complex, if predictably depressing, intersections of sex, drugs, skinflicks and paramilitary rackets in a 1970s border town? Fans of Patrick McCabe will have relived 60s Ireland through the endearingly homicidal Francie Brady in The Butcher Boy (1992) and discovered the downside of the 70s through the eyes of student teacher and Charles Manson fan Malachy Dudgeon in The Dead School (1995). Now Joey, his latest spaced-out hunk of mother love, siege-survivor, bystander at terrorist atrocities, graduate of Mountjoy Jail and erstwhile community film-maker, offers a weepingly explosive take on that most distressful border between two unstable political realities.

Joey's present position in a dilapidated caravan on Scotsfield's outskirts, and the events that have led him there, piece themselves together gradually from the excavation of a leatherette holdall of manic scribblings dating back to 1976. This year was remarkable in Joey's book for dropping acid; first seeing De Niro in Taxi Driver; being inducted into the worlds of TS Eliot, John of the Cross, Ginsberg, Tagore and Hesse; proximity to a kangaroo-court execution; and the seismic arrival of Jacy, a dream-sequence out of Joni Mitchell's "California Sunshine".

Subsequent episodes parallel the real-life bombings and shootings that characterised the period, while Joey's pursuit of Jacy remains a figment: and when a peace and reconciliation rally becomes the scene of still further carnage, his Jacy-rescue strategy is, predictably, misunderstood as a terrorist kidnapping. Hence the prison diaries.

This overweight butt of local humour knows too much about the town's darker side and who-was-who back when. Beneath the usual slapstick and skulduggery, Call Me the Breeze is, untypically for McCabe, a tough treatise on the relationship between the artist and society; about nothing less than the obligation to speak. The well-meaning prison governor who includes self-expression in his rehab toolkit is replaced on Joey's release by a creative-writing tutor: a bank clerk whose after-class camaraderie is merely groundwork for his own forthcoming "troubles" epic.

One of the real targets here is the shift from writing as philosophical exploit to the recent autobiographical upsurge. This might be vital to understanding Ireland's mid-century stasis and the more recent maelstrom, but it often peddles populist simplicities. Joey's ability to exploit funding bodies for his community project, the absurd enthusiasm of London publishers for anything Irish, and the mirage of film-backing from U2's Bono tell us much about McCabe's wariness of a smugly hurt Ireland and the gift of "interesting times". From the cranky neighbour to the dippy friend who finally ODs in Clapham, the supporting cast is well worth watching: the ubiqui tous "Big Fellow" is a version of Damon Runyon's lugubrious white-suited augur of death; cellmate Bonehead's insistence that he's not a "tinker" (despite having a tinker name and being inside for de-leading a church roof) registers a particular local snobbery; and Boyle Henry's sinuous segue between commerce, politics, vice and gangsterism will be familiar to followers of current affairs at local or national level in any country.

Then there's Mona, Joey's caravan companion: an inflatable stand-in for his father's long-dead mistress. The psychological complex characterised by this relationship lacks a Freudian/ classical title only because fin-de-siècle Vienna and the Attic mythologisers lacked the antic decadence of McCabe's borderland. However, Joey's indulgences hardly register on the depravity scale against the power-sex-and-cash nexus that fuels local politics on both sides of the law. Such implacable forces are unlikely to allow the autodidact auteur to shoot his masterpiece, The Animal Pit, a would-be one-man truth and reconciliation process, and Joey ends sadly hoist on his own artform. McCabe's epistolary method acknowledges the Victorian Irish Gothic of Bram Stoker's Dracula, but his grand-guignol imagination has roots in the primitive harshness of other 20th-century writing from the borderlands. Though our pie-eating, Mohawk-tonsured Candide is second cousin to Ignatius J Reilly of John Kennedy Toole's New Orleans novel, A Confederacy of Dunces, the world he frequents - Doc Oc's, The Ritzy, Lakeland Local Radio and the mobile-home site - nods rather towards the hazily indolent Florida of Thomas McGuane's The Bushwhacked Piano. But the blistering, unmediated rawness owes still more to earlier southern (American) gothic precursors: Carson McCullers, William Faulkner and - most persistently - the Flannery O'Connor of Wise Blood.

If McCabe has earned a reputation as a comically savage truth-teller about a country too often regarded with the deluded fondness of hindsight, Call Me the Breeze is his "To Ireland in the Coming Times", and must be read, not just for its reflections on the unenviable state of the nation or a generalised despair of the human condition at large, but for sheer warped humour.

Mia reports that while touring the gallery, Myers also spots some images of Joni and says, "Joni Mitchell is a national treasure. These pictures should be on our Canadian currency."

 [Contributed by Mia, 01/03/2003]

At the end of the programme she had to choose one of the 8 records that she would choose to keep if the rest were flooded away, and she said something like: "I find it impossible to choose one singer as best singer. So it will have to be Joni Mitchell, I'll take "River", but sung by Joni Mitchell herself." So the way I understood her was: as a classically trained singer she could not choose one other classical singer to listen to all the time, but she wanted to take Joni because that was more than just "singing", it was thewhole package of words and music and personality.

 [Contributed by Lieve Reckers, 01/15/2007]

 [Contributed by Mark-Leon Thorne, 01/15/2007]

Did you see the South Bank Show about the Scottish painter Jack Vettriano? I knew something interesting had happened when they showed a painting called Edith and the Kingpin...then later on I heard Joni on piano..intro to his painting called Shades of Scarlet....I think it only had one 't' when he used it (can anyone confirm) and not the Scarlett as in O'Hara. He is clearly a fan. I'm in two minds about his work but it was a nice way to round off the weekend

And from the US, Jenny writes:

That's so funny - just this past week I found a print by this artist (who I had not heard of before) and we used it as inspiration for decorating the bedroom in the house we just bought.

here are links where you can view the paintings mentioned in the show - also found some new joni-inspired works: sweet bird of youth and the arrangement.

edith and the kingpin: http://www.vettriano-art.com/exhibition4.html

shades of scarlet and sweet bird of youth: http://www.vettriano-art.com/exhibition4.html

the arrangement: http://www.vettriano-art.com/exhibition2.html

 [Contributed by Gordon Mackie, 12/23/2004]

On March 3, 2004, on BBC Radio 2 as part of Ken Bruce's show, British singer Will Young chose the "Tracks of His Years" all week. One of the songs he chose on this day was Joni's Dog Eat Dog and he mentioned that he went to a boarding school (I think) and the albums Dog Eat Dog and Chalk Mark in a Rainstorm kept him company!

 [Contributed by M.B. , 08/21/2005]

Last night I had a quick look at the day's Metro, the free newspaper that I pick up from the station every morning. I know it exists in many countries, but this was the London edition. Every day it has a short interview with some celebrity or other, often to plug their latest book or show. There's always an advert-type reference to the interview on the front page, and this grabbed my attention as it said something like:

"Would you believe it? Hippy singer Joni Mitchell is his greatest fan! Read more on page 10!"

Anyway, the interviewee in question was one Adrian Edmondson - a name that meant nothing to me, but I did recognise the face in the photo. He's appeared in British comedy programmes such as The Comic Strip and The YoungOnes. And apparently he's married to Jennifer Saunders.

I knew that if I wanted to be worthy of my JMDL membership, I HAD TO report this, so here goes. Half way through this interview, Adrian was asked: "Who's the most surprising person you've found who's a fan?" - probably a question our man Adrain had suggested, I would think! Anyway, the answer was, "I used to promote pop promos in the 1980s and I went to America to direct one for a band called The Innocence Mission, who have sadly gone missing from the radar. They were managed by someone whose wife was Joni Mitchell. One day, Joni Mitchell turned up at this studio in LA, ran across the room, threw her arms around me and said: 'I love you. Whenever we have Young Ones parties, I always play Vyvyan.' Can you imagine Joni Mitchell playing Vyvyan? On a regular basis? 'Whenever we have Young Ones parties...,' she said, as if it's a regular occurrence. I've always enjoyed that but Jennifer is a huge fan, so she is very jealous."

So voila, I've done my job - can I have a renewal of my membership please?

Back in the 70s, the National Lampoon ran two fictional columns that alternated monthly. One was by an oversexed, materialistic maharishi named Baba Rum Raisin. The other was by a gruff New York City cab driver named Bernie.

Bernie's columns were stories of famous passengers, and usually involved high intrigue and adventure, and his casual sex with famous females. The way they were written, it was understood that Bernie was of course a total braggart, and none of his stories were true. At any rate, one of the Bernie columns was centered on Joni Mitchell.

There's a substantial unofficial National Lampoon site out there, dedicated to its golden era of the 70s, and one could probably come up with at least the issue for the Joni Mitchell story. Maybe if I have some spare time I'll give it a shot. There's a well-visited discussion forum.

Anyway, Joni was once "lampooned" by the masters.

Anyone who knows where to find this coulmn, please let us know.

 [Contributed by Mike Dooley, 12/11/2004]

NEW SOUTH WALES HIGHER SCHOOL CERTIFICATE 2002

GENERAL ENGLISH EXAMINATION, PAPER 1

Section I

Question 1 (15 marks)

Allow about 40 minutes for this section

Examine Texts one, two, three and four carefully and then answer the questions on page 7.

[All the texts dealt with some aspect of change. Text one was a song lyric, text two a cartoon, text three a poem and text four a website.]

In your answer you will be assessed on how well you:

demonstrate understanding of the way perceptions of change are shaped in and through texts
describe, explain and analyse the relationship between language, text and context

Text one – Song Lyric

Extract from Big Yellow Taxi by Joni Mitchell

They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot
With a pink hotel, a boutique
And a swinging hot spot.
Don’t it always seem to go
That you don’t know what you’ve got
Till it’s gone.
They paved paradise and put up a parking lot.

They took all the trees
And put them in a tree museum
And they charged all the people
A dollar and a half just to see ‘em.
Don’t it always seem to go
That you don’t know what you’ve got
Till it’s gone.
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot.

Hey farmer farmer
Put away that DDT now.
Give me
Spots on my apples
But leave me the birds and the bees
Please!
Don’t it always seem to go
That you don’t know what you’ve got
Till it’s gone.
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot.

Questions on Text one (song lyric)

Identify ONE change mentioned in the song lyric.
Explain how TWO techniques are used to convey the ideas in the song.
General Question on all four texts

Which TWO of these four texts would you recommend for inclusion on a CD ROM about change for HSC English students, entitled Past, Present, Future? Explain the reasons for your selection. You must make detailed reference to the TWO texts you have chosen.

Section II

Question 2 (15 marks)

Allow about 40 minutes for this section

In your answer you will be assessed on how well you:

express understanding of change in the context of your studies organise, develop and express ideas using language appropriate to audience, purpose and context

Compose a letter to either the

Songwriter (Text one) or
Cartoonist (Text two) or
Poet (Text three) or
Website designer (Text four)
In your letter, respond briefly to some aspect of their text. Then, describe a related experience (either real or imagined), in which you reflect upon a change in a person, place or time.

Do not use your own name and address.

 [Contributed by John Low, 01/22/2003]

The parties were over, the church functions too
For the next couple days I'd have nothing to do
No bikes to assemble or toys to arrange
And hope upon hope, no clothes to exchange

When out on the lawn there arose such a hissing
I sprang from my chair to see what I was missing
I turned down my music and had a good look,
Twas thinking it might be a burglar or crook!

The Moon at the Window was bright to be sure
And it caused the commotion to appear as a blur
Then there was the strangest thing e'er in my 'burb,
A big limousine that was parked on my curb!

With a long-blond-haired rider, with cheeks oh so bony
I knew in a moment it had to be Joni!
She opened the door, with her crew she came out,
And approaching my doorway she let out this shout

"On Pansy, On Nietzsche, On Larry & Brian,
On Shorter, On Isham, you guys quit your cryin'
It'll be our great joy for a Joni fan so big
To give him the gift of his own private gig!"

At that point in time I knew not what to think,
Perhaps I'd had excess martinis to drink?
But up to my doorstep, they soon started knockin'
"Come in here, ya'll, and let's get to rockin'!"

It wasn't much space but we soon made it do
With guitar & piano & dulcimer too!
Joni then stated she'd play multi-sets
And then I could join her for several duets

Her voice how it twinkled! You just had to hear it!
And of course, twixt her lips, an American Spirit,
So all through the halls did her crystal sounds ring,
From "Harlem in Havana" to "I Had A King"

She played all night long, I could not trust my eyes,
She said she'd do one more set, just for surprise,
And then with remaining time she had afforded,
Played all of the songs she had never recorded!

I lept to my feet and applauded with glee,
To finally hear 'lost' songs like "Strawflower Me",
And when she'd completed the final refrains,
She said she would encore with "Paprika Plains"!

She spoke not a word, but went straight to her work
Played all 16 minutes with nary a quirk,
She finished, and told me "It's not quite enough,
For here in my bag is some other cool stuff!"

I pondered and wondered, pray what would she bring us
"Don Juan's Reckless Demo's" & "Alternate Mingus"
And I was so pleased that she gave them to me,
And knew that I'd soon be creating a tree!

I gave her a hug for the gifts she had brought me
And thanked her for all of the lessons she'd taught me
She said that her visit had been loads of fun,
And she'd shoot for Ashara's in 2001!

She sprang for her car, to her band gave a whistle
And away they then sped like a heat-seeking missile
But I heard her exclaim on this night oh so blest,
"I love ALL of my fans, you guys are the best!!"

“Once in a while, in a big, blue moon, there comes a night like this ...”

Tonight is one of those nights, those perfect nights, where the sky is crystal clear, right up to the stars etched in the heavens. The breeze is cool and scented by wild roses and lilacs and evening stock. Over the rise of the moonlit field to the left of the highway comes the syncopated song of the crickets and cicadas, carried like pale moonbeams on a gentle wind that invites itself through my open window. The road stretches on to the horizon in front of me, behind me, and suddenly, I’m thankful for the solitude. People ruin things. And this is too calming, too ... right ... to be ruined by civilization. It’s just me, the breeze with the flowery perfume and the crickets.

This is how I remember our night now, how I’ll always remember it.

Joni Mitchell’s “Night Ride Home” fills the car. That’s my favourite song; and I can’t help but tap the fingers of my left hand on the steering wheel as my car hurries along the deserted highway. My right hand clasps a yellow manila envelope in my lap, making sure that the contents don’t slip out to the floor. I don’t even know the name of the highway I’m on—I only know that it leads home. Mom told me to take the Coquihalla from Vancouver to Kamloops, and then the Yellowhead the rest of the way to Edmonton, but I don’t like that route much. It’s secondary highways for me, all the way. I tell her that I do it to save time. It’s a lie, of course; that’s why secondary highways are secondary. I really take them for the scenery.

It’s your fault, you know. You got me hooked on the scenic route.

“ ... Like some surrealist invented this Fourth of July night ride home.”

“Our night” was during the summer we drove to Vancouver to visit your family. Do you remember? We were 19, I think it was our first summer together. On the way back home, we made this decision to drive the whole way overnight. We listened to Joni the whole way and you knew all the words. We tried to listen to every song but in the end we only listened to “Night Ride Home”.

“I love the man beside me. We love the open road.”

We had passed this field just outside of Edson. It was about three in the morning, and the sun wouldn’t be up for a few hours yet. Yet this field glowed. It looked like it was lit from beneath the ground, shining silver. There was this low hill right about in the middle of it, and on top, a stand of poplars had taken root and begun to grow. It was an average field; that’s what it amounted to in my eyes. But you pulled over and parked the car on the shoulder of the highway. I asked what it was, and you just pointed. I looked out the window, seeing nothing special. There, there! you pointed, and I stared and stared. What was so special about this place? Look at our fireflies, you whispered. Something clicked and I focused in on the poplars. There, drifting on the wind or maybe just caught in whirling thermal zephyrs, were hundreds of tiny poplar seeds. Caught in the moonbeams that lit them from behind, we both got the impression that we were witnessing hundreds of tiny fireflies dancing on the blades of grass. We knew better, but neither one of us wanted to believe that those tiny dancers could be anything less than ballerinas.

You grabbed your camera, got out to stand on the side of the road. The light was far too low for you to take a picture just holding the camera in your hands, but you had your trusty tripod with you, so everything was okay. You were so confident whenever you set your camera on that tripod. Who wouldn’t be? You could shoot anything from there.

I remember you climbing on top of the car, and me yelling at you to get down. You took at least five pictures after you set yourself up, quietly observing the magic as it unfolded. Capturing that stark image on the black and white film. Dating a photographer had its perks, but I think the biggest joy I had was in seeing those images that you picked through the viewfinder. The last photo you shot that night was my favourite of the five you took.

This was the picture you used.

And now, tonight, I’m passing through a field like that. This field, the one on my left ... it looks just like that first field. In fact, it just might be the same one. And I wish with everything I have that I could stop the car, pull over like you did, and see if I could catch just one firefly. If I did I know I’d never go home. But right now I need to go home. It’s started to smell like rain and I won’t drive in the rain anymore. You drove in the rain and you never came back home.

It’s been a long weekend.

“No phones till Friday. Far from the overkill, far from the overload ... .”

You sent off that photo to the scholarship people at the end of the summer. A letter arrived over Christmas that said you had been shortlisted, and in April a phone call told us that you had won. The awards ceremony was in Calgary on 4 July—a year, to the day, after you took the photos. I had to work that weekend, so your roommate went with you. I wanted to go so badly; I was so proud of you. It was $25 000, which would have covered most of your university tuition fees. You said that I deserved the credit for choosing the winning photo, that I deserved half of the money. I told you that you were crazy. But you kept pointing out that it was my choice to send that particular photo away. I’d been the one who’d done it. Chosen a winner.

You didn’t come home that weekend. There was a thunderstorm. They told me you probably had no idea what was happening; that’s how quick your car skidded off the highway.

“Far from the undertow, far from the overload”

I hate funerals. I had the good fortune of not having to attend one until this weekend, but I think I will always hate funerals because of this. But I have to admit, yours was pretty. You would have wanted someone to take a picture of the church. Medieval and gothic, covered in vines like those abbeys you see in postcards from tiny hamlets in England. The prettiest church in all of Vancouver, I heard one lady say as she dabbed at her eyes with a tissue. He would have liked it. The funny thing is, though I don’t know her at all, she knows you very well. Because she’s absolutely right. You would have loved it.

Now, Edmonton comes into view on the horizon. This hazy dome of light stretching across the line where the sky meets the earth; this is the city I live in. It feels like I’ve navigated the world and this is the city that I come back to every time. I press on, hoping to make good time. My eyes are grainy and I’m struggling to keep them open. Joni continues to serenade through the speakers.

“Once in a while ... .”

All I’ve got left to remind me of you is a faded manila envelope with your photos inside, images that you saw and captured, developed and printed. Looking at them is like viewing the world through your eyes, because this is what you saw. Each and every one of those prints is an image that you personally decided was too beautiful to go unnoticed. It’s a small comfort, knowing that I have a piece of you with me.

I clutch it tighter in my hands as I drive.

I don’t drive in the rain anymore because the rain took you from me. But I will still drive at night—all night—from Vancouver to Edmonton, whenever I get the chance. This night, the night I’m driving back from your funeral, it’s only the first in a long line of nights that I’ll travel through. I’ll drive straight on until the sun comes up over the horizon, as long as it’s Edmonton that I arrive in. I’ll keep driving, speeding along down the deserted highway, kicking up dust behind me and carving a path homeward up front. Ms Mitchell will always be on the CD player.

“ ... Like some surrealist invented this Fourth of July night ride home.”

Song credit: Joni Mitchell. “Night Ride Home” Night Ride Home. Geffen, 1991.

I was listening to National Public Radio (NPR) on Thursday afternoon and they were talking about the next 'Science Friday' show.

The focus was urban ecology.

To promote the following day's show (which was last Friday) they said something like. . .

"There's more to urban ecology than cockroaches and rats . . . find out what happens when they pave paradise in tomorrow's 'Science Friday' show."

 [Contributed by Marianne Rizzo, 12/11/2004]

This is part of a written paper written by Rob Fairmichael for the War Resisters International Triennial Conference, Dublin, August 2002 on 'Stories and strategies - non-violent resistance and social change'. It includes many Irish musicians and a description of the socio-political setting of the songs. There's a link to the full listing at end of mail. It's worth a read, I think.

14. Joni Mitchell and the Chieftains - The Magdalene Laundries

During the mid-nineteenth century Ireland became a more conservative place in many ways, including regarding sexual behaviour. In 1966 Oliver J Flanagan, a member of the Dáil (parliament in Dublin) could say "Sex never came to Ireland until Teilifís Éireann* went on the air" (*the state television broadcasting agency, now RTÉ) - an obviously ludicrous comment but one which he felt he could state at the time. Severe penalties - including ostracism and social rejection - could be meted out to people, particularly women, who did not meet a very conservative sexual moral code. Women pregnant out of marriage, and others, could be sent to an institution like the Magdalene Laundries. The mistreatment of many women in such institutions, and of children sent to institutions by the state, has been a shocking discovery within the last decade or two.

This song tells of some of the women in 'the Magdalene Laundry'. It's from the Chieftains' 'Tears of Stone' album and sung by North American singer Joni Mitchell.

http://www.innatenonviolence.org/old/pamphlets/wrimusic.htm

 [Contributed by Mike Pritchard, 12/23/2004]

"The Tigris and Euphrates merge today in the abject town of Qurnah. This confluence is recent, after a 1954 flood redirected the Euphrates. On the banks is a tiny park about the size of an outdoor basketball court. It contains a shrine to Abraham, a few trees, lots of concrete and no grass. Joni Mitchell was right: They paved Paradise."

 [Contributed by Lori Fye, 12/23/2004]

May 12, 2004. 12:06 AM Sharing the stage with a mixed bag of dance works

SUSAN WALKER DANCE WRITER

Kate Alton does Peggy Baker and Peggy Baker does Sarah Chase in a truly mixed program, Unfold, at the Betty Oliphant Theatre until Sunday afternoon. Peggy Baker Dance Projects presents four vastly different works by three choreographers viewed from the theatre's backstage area.

It's a toss-up as to whether seating the audience onstage facing the empty auditorium, only a few metres from the performers, achieves a useful intimacy with them or an uneasy proximity to them.

Watching Kate Alton perform Baker's Unfold, a solo the choreographer created for herself in 2000, one is appreciative of the effort it takes to dance this detailed, tempestuous piece. As pianist Andrew Burashko moves from one grand piano to another to play Scriabin's Opus 11 Preludes, a little distance might have helped delineate the relationship between dancer and pianist, movement and music.

Baker's choreography is so particular to her that it was like encountering a familiar suit of clothes on the friend of one's friend. Alton, similarly long-armed and wide-shouldered and possessed of Baker's condensed emotional energy, takes charge of the difficult solo. But it may take a few performances before she can make this piece - a gift to her and Andrea Nann through Baker's Choreographer's Trust - her own.

While Unfold is all about disclosure and revelation, a way to master silence is just the opposite. A very short solo with no music was a peekaboo affair that Baker performed in partial light, so that only pieces of her moving body were illuminated. It's the ultimate solo: A secret, soundless dance viewed as if the watcher were a peeping tom.

New York choreographer Doug Varone has had a long-running influence on Baker and the dances he has created for her always draw on her ability to create narratives. Heaven, with Burashko at the piano playing Cesar Franck's poignant Prelude, Fugue and Variation, is a duet between player and dancer.

The pianist's delicate fingering is viewed up-close, a perfect counterpoint to the dancer's lightness of foot. Baker dances like a lover trying to find a way to get closer than flesh will allow to the loved one.

Sarah Chase has created one of her dance stories for Baker, called The Disappearance of Right And Left. Like the portraits that Chase performed last week in her own show, this solo is crafted out of Baker's own life stories and is both spoken and danced.

Her tales are fascinating: a Scottish ancestor loses his wife in childbirth; a grandmother loses two sons in World War I; the astounding birth of Baker's sister's baby boy. As she speaks, she turns over rectangles in a partitioned panorama of a prairie hay field. On the back of each piece is a family photo to illustrate her anecdotes. The stories gain little from Chase's choreography, which consist of a good deal of arm-waving moves that look too simple for Baker. In this case, Burashko subsides into the background as Baker dances to a recording of Joni Mitchell's "Amelia," and then accompanies her with a Beethoven sonata and a dance piece by Ginastera.

Much as one might enjoy her storytelling, Baker's dancing is more eloquent than her speaking.

 [Contributed by Bob Muller, 12/09/2004]

Cole Hamels - an inspiration
CD's Connect the Dots... The Circle Game
Date: Aug 20, 2003

There was a delightfully poetic song in the late 1960's called "The Circle Game." Sung by Joni Mitchell, the lyrics speak of a beautiful circle of life that goes round and round, and the painted pony that goes up and down. It speaks of the symmetry of life...and of the people who create that symmetry.

This column has been a wonderfully enriching and personally moving experience since I began writing it four months ago. To share my love and devotion about a team, the Philadelphia Phillies, that has been with me since my youth is quite exhilarating. To know that readers share the same passion for the team, and show it in their e-mails, brings me new friendships that may last a lifetime. This alone makes writing these articles, quite endearing. Yet, if you are blessed and fortunate enough to experience something truly significant during your labors of love, it makes the experience all the more significant. This writer had two such experiences this week...and made the song, "The Circle Game" all the more meaningful.

Oh, Kevin Millwood wins are meaningful. The Phils three-game sweep of the St. Louis Cards last weekend was meaningful. A Jim Thome upper deck blast is meaningful. But this week, the writer received two touching e-mails that put the word “meaningful” into proper place. That their stories are entirely different is in and of itself fascinating. That they both center around the Phillies is symmetric.

The first was from a very nice family who wanted to share their hopes and prayers for their son, who had recently suffered a broken arm while pitching on a wet field. It seems the 14 year old, with an 80 mph fastball, slipped and broke his pitching arm. While trying to console their son about their hopes for his recovery, they discovered my article written in May called ”Baby Steps”.... my examination into young Cole Hamels debut as a professional pitcher for the Philadelphia Phillies.

Now, Hamels is not your average minor league player. Blessed with a wonderful left arm, he was the Phils number one draft pick last year and was making his professional debut in May of this year. This, is in and of itself significant, but what made it even more significant was that Hamels was doing it with an arm that had been shattered two years ago.

The medical marvel that put back together what was once broken has inspired many Phillie fans...and was being used to inspire and uplift a young boy who was convinced his career was over. That Hamels, and the Baby Steps article written about him, could be used to inspire a young boy recover emotionally from what must have been a traumatic event, was quite touching. That the circle game of the written word about a young professional ballplayer was read and having a positive impact on a 14 year old was not lost on this writer. Humbled would be putting it mildly. The boy is hopeful of contacting Hamels in Clearwater. If Hamels responds to this boy and with his words helps with the healing process, then this circle game will be complete.

Had this been the symmetric event for the week, this writer would have considered himself fortunate, but an e-mail received yesterday allowed the circle game to expand even wider. For those readers familiar with this writer’s childhood stories, the details of my early experiences with the Phillies are quite extensive. From Johnny Callison to Joe Koppe, Tony Gonzalez to Pancho Herrera, my youth was spent collecting baseball cards... and memories.

Foremost among those memories is the love I had for a relatively unheralded left fielder named Tony Curry. Now I never saw him play, I missed him by a year. But, oh, how I treasured my Tony Curry baseball card, it was my prize collection and one of the reasons I adopted the Phillies as my own. His card was of a color I had never seen before and his smiling face made the card even more meaningful. I have it even today! That Curry was a favorite of mine can be seen in the way I weave his name into stories of Phillies yesteryears, as if he were the reigning NL batting champ in 1960.

Actually, although he did have a fairly successful rookie year in 1960 and made the Topps All-Rookie team, his defensive deficiencies made him a liability in the field and he was gone in 1961. Though he resurfaced as a pinch hitter for a few games in Cleveland in 1966, for all intents and purposes his major league career consisted of that one season in 1960. As any fan of a long forgotten former hero, I often wondered what became of Curry…where he lives, how he is doing, is he even still alive?

On Monday, my answer came in the form of an email from a man named Steve from Oregon. It seems he had read my article called “The Sure Thing”, an article in which I discussed Curry at length. To my surprise, Tony Curry did not have just one fan, he had at least two. Steve had seen him play in Portland while a Triple A Beaver in the mid 60's, loved his smiling demeanor, and had been a fan ever since.

The story of Curry is now a disquieting one as he recently suffered from double kidney failure while back home in Nassau, Bahamas and is dependent on a dialysis machine. An article on Curry recently appeared in his local newspaper, the Nassau Guardian. The irony.... and potential for good will, was not lost on this writer. That a former Philadelphia Phillie player could so inspire two young boys from entirely different backgrounds to maintain a lasting interest in him is simply amazing. That my childhood memories of Curry have taken me to a place where I now write about the very team he played for, is poetic. That a person who shared the same feelings about this player, and read of my memories is symmetric. That Curry should know of this symmetry is symbiotic. The hope is that Curry will read this article and know that there are at least two people whose prayers he can count on. That it may lift his spirits as he once lifted ours is a fitting end to the circle game.

A number one draft pick, with a rebuilt left arm, beginning his professional baseball career. A boy, with a broken arm, who gains strength and courage from this recovered athlete. A former professional baseball player, who so inspired a young boy in Portland with his smile, and the boy, now a man, who continues to follow his story. And a writer, fortunate enough to be able to connect all the dots into a truly wonderful story of the human experience!

Joni Mitchell's song is nearly 40 years old, yet rings as true today as it was when first sung...."and the seasons, they go round and round, and the painted ponies go up and down.....in the carousel of life.....in the circle game."

Columnist’s Note: Suggestions, questions and comments welcome. Please send them to connectthedots@earthlink.net and I will respond!

 [Contributed by Randy Remote, 08/21/2005]

Marianne received a postcard in the mail from an organization called Common Good Planning Center, located in Rochester, NY. On the front of the postcard the following...

"Don't it always seem to go that you don't what you've got til it's gone
They paved paradise and put up a parking lot"

--Joni Mitchell

 [Contributed by Bree Mcdonough, 08/21/2005]

I was at our organization's office in Paradise, California today (it's about 20 miles east of Chico and 90 miles N. of Sacramento). No, I'm not making this up! There is a town of 30,000 called Paradise, California!

Anyway, I saw a funny election poster. I have no idea what Propisition O is, but the sign said:

No on O, Don't Pave Paradise!

 [Contributed by Mike, 12/11/2004]

Sunday evening Radio 4: program about natural good food. Piece about alice walters, owns a 'french' restaurant in LA, can't recall name, 'child of the 60's'. Anyway, they played California whilst talking about this woman and her food/restaurant.

 [Contributed by Colin, 12/11/2004]

Help me I think I'm falling in love again. When I get that crazy feeling, I know I'm in trouble again. I'm in trouble 'cause you're a rambler and a gambler and a sweet-taIking-ladies man. And you love your lovin', but not like you love your freedom...

The morning came fast as I heard my clock radio turn on with Joni Mitchell singing. This was one of my favorite songs of old. The tune played on as I felt the person in the other half of my bed stir. I looked over to see mobs of brown curly hair coming right at me. The sight was very amusing and would have been even more so had it not been eight o'clock in the morning. Crystal came at me with the purpose of breaking my alarm clock.

"If you don't turn that thing off, I will, and then you'll need to buy a new clock." Crystal grumpily said.

"What, you don't like Joni Mitchell?" I playfully teased.

"At this hour, I don't like anything." She said matter of factly.

"Aww, not even me?" I continued.

"Especially not you. Will you please turn that off? God, I don't understand why you get up so damn early. Your shop doesn't even open for another two hours for Chrissakes!" She said as she pulled her pillow over her head.

 [Contributed by Monica , 03/26/2004]

Help me I think I'm falling in love too fast. It's got me hoping for the future and worrying about the past. 'Cause I've seen some hot hot blazes come down to smoke and ash. We love our lovin', but not like we love our freedom...

My eyes drifted open as I heard my alarm turn on. "Damn, again with Joni Mitchell. They need to change the deejay on this channel." I leaned over to hit my alarm, but it wasn't there.

Holy shit, where the hell is it? Now I was starting to panic. There must have been someone in my house last night. Why the hell would they take my alarm clock? Why is it that this song won't stop playing? Where was the music coming from?

I rubbed my eyes again and sauntered over to the window. I looked down and I felt my mouth fall open and pressed my head to the glass.

"What the...?" My eyes didn't believe what they were seeing. I was looking down at my neighborhood, but it looked like it did in the seventies.

Jesus what is going on? The Twilight Zone ended years ago, but I'll be damned if I don't feel like I'm there now. I thought to myself.

I went to bed naked, but here I was with clothes on, and ones I don't remember buying that's for sure. I had on long ass bell bottoms and a gray top with a big flower in the middle of it.

I think I need some fresh air. I'm going to take a walk outside I think and try to clear my head. Where the hell is that music coming from? I couldn't stop the thoughts racing through my head.

As I got closer to my bedroom door the music seemed to be getting louder.

Shit, whoever stole my alarm clock is messing with my stereo and is STILL in my house.

"OK, Frankie, you can handle this." I blew out a long breath and grasped the doorknob.

I slowly walked through the doorway and minded all the creaky spots on the wood floor. I felt like a cat burglar sneaking through my own house. "Jesus!" I whispered, there was a shadow of a person hanging on the wall. My heart was totally racing, but I needed to call someone, anyone at this point for help. Then he spoke.

"Honey, can you help me for a minute?" I heard the voice, but I couldn't believe my ears. This man sounded just like my father.

"Just a minute Frank, I'll be done in here soon." I heard the woman say.

I pressed the back of my head against the wall for support. What the hell kind of joke is this anyway? I needed to see this with my own eyes. I tried to control my breathing and gather up enough courage to peek into the living room.

"Come on Frankie, you can do this." I whispered my own support to myself.

I slid down my hallway that was now empty of all my pictures. I was so close to the front room I could barely breathe. I heard the song end and start back up again. I think this alone is going to be the death of me.

Help me I think I'm falling in love again... Joni kept singing without a care in the world.

Well she has the "help me" part right... I need it really badly right now. One more step and I would be able to stretch my neck into the family room to see my unwanted guests.

 [Contributed by Monica, 03/26/2004]

The polls may be close, but the feeling here is unprecedented. People are pouring in from all over the country to work the phones and walk the streets. All the Democrats say the pollsters are way off, missing the wave of new voters that will flood the polls on Tuesday. I'm not so sure, but I have to say I've never felt anything like this in America before. Just like Joni Mitchell used to sing, "You don't know what you got till it's gone." I think that's what people are feeling now, as they see "the nation we carry in our hearts" (thank you, Springsteen!) slipping away under this brutal administration.

 [Contributed by Mitch, 12/11/2004]

Second Time NASA Has Tried to Retrieve Material From Space By NED POTTER

Dec. 21, 2005 b - For seven years now, the little ship has wandered the inner solar system, working flawlessly despite the extremes of outer space. Its makers have called it Stardust -- inspired partly by a Joni Mitchell song, partly by its mission. Two years ago, it passed through the tail of a comet called Wild 2, gathering the tiny particles of ice and dust that pelted it at thousands of miles an hour.

Now comes the final challenge: It must return safely home.

In the early hours of Sunday, January 15, Stardust's sample-return capsule will come tearing into Earth's atmosphere at 28,800 miles an hour. Slowed by friction with the air, and then by parachute, it will land on the floor of the Utah desert, at the Dugway Proving Grounds, west of Salt Lake City.

Helicopters will follow it in the dark, carefully landing upwind of the little ship. They will carry it to a clean room, where it will be disassembled forshipment to a sealed laboratory in Houston.

That's what will happen if all goes well. But as often happens in space exploration, "if" is the key word.

This is only the second time since the Apollo moon landings that NASA has tried to bring anything back from deep space. The first time, in 2004, ended in near-disaster.

Genesis

That probe, called Genesis, also featured a capsule returning to the Utah desert. But instead of wafting down under a parachute, the Genesis sample capsule came tumbling toward the ground at 400 miles an hour.

"We do not see a drogue chute. Negative drogue," reported a waiting controller, referring to the parachute that was supposed to slow the craft's reentry. v

As mission scientists watched helplessly, the capsule crashed in the sand --the whole event perfectly framed by an automatic long-range tracking camera.

"Do you have an altitude?" asked a controller who could not see the pictures.

"That's impact, sir," came the irritated reply. "Ground level."

After months of painstaking work, scientists could finally identify cosmic particles collected in space and extract them from the wrecked capsule. An investigation concluded that small servos that controlled parachute release had been installed backward, years before when Genesis was assembled.

"I think the space business has humbled us occasionally," said Firouz Naderi of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Managers of the Stardust mission felt humble too; their ship, while designed differently, was already in space -- and if it was flawed, there might be no way to fix it.

"We went through a very rigorous and extensive process," said Ed Hirst, Stardust's mission system manager, "digging up the blueprints, going through all the testing that was done prelaunch." Hirst and his colleagues were at a news conference to preview the landing. "We're convinced that is not going to happen on Stardust."

But, he said, the 100-pound landing capsule is a complicated machine. "Bringing it home for the first time is the only way to test a system like this."

Older Than the Sun

What can get overlooked, amid the drama of the return, is why Stardust was sent into space in the first place.

"Our mission is called Stardust, in part because we believe some of the particles in the comet will, in fact, be older than the sun," said Don Brownlee of the University of Washington, the Principal Investigator for the mission.

"Comets may be responsible for bringing the oceans and atmosphere to early Earth," said Andrew Dantzler, who directs Solar System exploration for NASA.It is believed that after the sun and planets formed, the solar system was crowded with comets and other leftover debris, crashing frequently to Earth -- and perhaps carrying the chemical building blocks for life as it exists today.

Stardust came within 150 miles of its target comet, passing through its "coma," the cloud of dust and ice that surrounds it. As Brownlee pointed out, the comet has probably been spewing the same material for more than four and a half billion years. Having this material in the lab, scientists say, is well worth the $168 million the mission cost.

They will be out in the cold Utah night waiting for their ship, and Tom Duxbury, the project manager, said the streak of the re-entering capsule will be visible up and down the West Coast.

"We are coming in," he said, "faster than any man-made object has ever come in before."

Copyright B) 2005 ABC News Internet Ventures

 [Contributed by Julius Mills, 01/15/2007]

Recently in a local area there have been plans to demolish a local park and turn it into a parking lot. Last night, a spray-painted cardboard sign appeared at the front entrance - "PAVED PARADISE AND PUT UP A PARKING LOT".

Right on! Good ol' Joni. A great song never dies...

 [Contributed by Dylan Rush, 12/10/2004]

I was flipping through a small zine called ``Tchin Tchin,`` published by our provincial liquor board, which offers ideas for summer entertaining and ettiquette. Light summer reading, you might say. To my great surprise, there was a Joni mention in this zine. A local music critic drew up a list of 10 pairings of summer music and drink suggestions. For example, Earth Wind & Fire with a tequila sunrise; Yma Sumac with a gin & tonic; Ibrahim Ferrer with an aged white rum, etc.. Well, number 8 on the list pairs Joni with a crisp white wine, such as chardonnay or sauvignon blanc! I'm always pleased and surprised to see that Joni continues to register on cultural radars here, considering that her music is quite peripheral to the contemporary pop scene. Raising my chilled glass to Joni and Jonilistas.

 [Contributed by Michael O'Malley, 12/10/2004]

I'm bummed they use the lyrics of Joni's beautiful protest song to endorse one of the most hard-core rightists on the radio.. Have they no shame?

 [Contributed by Viva La Resistance , 08/21/2005]

In the weekend magazine called 'Play' which comes with The Times as a weekend supplement, in the section called 'My Cultural Life' which features a different person every week, the actor Brian Cox (who played the first Hannibal Lecter in 'Manhunter' which was remade into 'Red Dragon' recently) talks about his loves and pet hates of British cultural life. In the section called 'Music' he writes: 'I am a product of my time and was a great Beatles fan. I used to love the Mamas and the Papas, especially the voice of Mama Cass. In late Eighties I was besotted with Carly Simon. 'You're So Vain' is a classic. Joni Mitchell's Blue is one of my favourite albums. I have always liked women writers. They come from a position of having been used by their lovers in some way and it makes them put incredible stuff on the page.'

 [Contributed by Jaime Zoob, 12/11/2004]

TOYAH WILCOX: And Joni's spirit is embodied even more by Tori Amos, currently one of the world's top singer-songwriters.

TORI: She took the clay and moulded it in a way we hadn't seen before. If you really sort of analyse songwriting at that time, male or female, what she was doing with her structures and her use of melody and her poetry and the voice too, you know that's just one of the gifts that we've had.

 [Contributed by Stephanie Morrison, 04/09/2003]

It is based on a novel, so not sure if the same content is in it,

 [Contributed by Janine Sherman, 01/15/2007]

I really don't know love at all

by Robinson Duffy

I thought I hated Valentine's Day.

The crass commercialism still makes me retch, and I simply do not understand why stores feel compelled to put up their Valentine's displays in December, but the actual day itself, I've discovered, isn't on "the list."

Did Hallmark get to me? Are they now, at this very moment, holding a pink, beflowered gun to my head? No, the patent holder of pre-packaged love had nothing to do with my change of heart; it is all Joni Mitchell's fault.

Relatively early in her career, Mitchell proclaimed to the world that she didn't really understand love all that much. "It's love's illusions that I recall," she admitted, "I really don't know love at all."

Mitchell was accosted for having the audacity at such an early age to claim that she had "looked at love from both sides."

The criticism was silly, petty. Love is one of the most fundamental and yet complex emotions humans have to deal with. The sooner we find the courage to admit that we really don't understand love, the better.

Complacency is the killer of relationships, especially those involving some form of love. We cannot slip into the rut of assuming we know everything there is to know about the love in our life. Constant evaluation of our relationships is crucial to the health of those relationships. We have to be willing, even at an early age as Mitchell did, to look at love from both sides. We need to understand the people we love, why we love them, and make sure that we don't lose the love.

And love does not get any easier the older you get.

In 2000 Mitchell recorded her song a second time. Now in her 50's, Mitchell reexplored the words of her childhood. The song had a deeper poignancy, perhaps, sung by a woman wearied by the years, but again the theme was the same: even now she doesn't understand love.

As we get older and change, our relationships change. And, again, they require constant evaluation. Love is made up of many facets: sexual passion, deep respect, admiration, trust, affection, devotion, tenderness. Without all these attributes no love is complete. But how much power any one of these holds in a particular relationship can change. If the relationship is truly worth it, we need to be willing to roll with those punches?admit, understand, and adapt to those changes.

That's where Valentine's Day comes in. Any day that makes us stop and think about love is a glorious thing. In a perfect world we wouldn't need Valentine's Day to remind us to evaluate our relationships, but this simply isn't a perfect world. We so often get caught up with the frantic mad-dash of life that we need days put aside to perform preventative maintenance on our many relationships.

So this Valentine's Day, fine, ignore the commercialism if you wish, boycott the candy stores and burn a Hallmark card or two. But take a moment -- a long moment -- to dissect your relationships with your girlfriend, your mother, your best friend, your husband, your wife, anyone you love. Make sure the love is still strong, that you understand what it means to love and be loved.

If we don't, all we'll have are love's illusions; we really won't know love at all.

 [Contributed by Brian Gross, 08/21/2005]

"We paved paradise and have put in a grocery stop"

Ouch.

 [Contributed by Happy the Man, 08/21/2005]

Paul Lisicky
by Gregg Shapiro
2003-06-25

Paul Lisicky’s astonishing memoir Famous Builder (Graywolf Press, St Paul, MN, 2002, $15) is a clear-eyed depiction of life in the suburbs. As a member of the generation of writers who have become the literary voices of suburbia, Lisicky says, “I think we’ve all come to the point in our lives where we have some distance from where we’ve been and we want to examine that phenomenon on our upbringings and our identities.” He does so with grace, in Famous Builder, constructing a personal history through his marvelous essays.

Gregg Shapiro: I was born in Chicago, but like you, I grew up in the suburbs, and I found a lot of universal suburban themes in the book. One of the things that jumped out at me was the list of department stores from your youth. One of them, E. J. Korvettes, is mentioned twice.

PL: There’s something about Korvettes, to me, that’s an emblem of a particular time and place. In a way, it’s a lost world now. A pre-K Mart, pre-Wal-Mart world feels quite distant. For my parents, E J Korvettes signified all sorts of opportunities. We would actually go there every Friday night and it was part of a ritual. I think the experience of that would be much different from the experience of a 16 or 10-year-old being taken to Wal-Mart. It’s not imbued with the same sort of significance.

GS: There is also the whole “mall generation.” When I was a kid there were “shopping centers,” not malls.

PL: Right. Now, going to the mall seems so banal. But, it was still something new and fresh then. In part, I wanted the book to put that time and place in a historical context. I think it’s very easy now to look back upon that world as tepid and shallow. There was a period in American life when middle-class style was, how to say this …

GS: There’s something romantic about it, almost.

PL: Yeah. But Vietnam changed that, the late ‘60s changed that. I think it’s all tied to Kennedy-era optimism. That, in fact, I think many Americans who had been in the (World) War (II), people who had, or whose parents had, been in the depression believed that reinvention was possible. They could transform themselves and move up the ladder of class. I think that was a significant possibility for many people.

GS: The architecture of prose would seem to be the logical progression following your early interest in the architecture of buildings. While you were drawing in those early years, were you also writing?

PL: Writing a bit. I wrote little plays and stories that were primarily meant to entertain my brothers or cousins. Most of my creative work was in music, that wasn’t part of my interest in building communities. I was writing music from the age of eight onward. I fully believed by the time I was a teenager that I would be a professional musician all my life, a professional composer. That changed obviously.

GS: Your career in music is one of the most fascinating aspects of the book. You talk about working in the realm of religious music, and it made me think of performers who have been able to make that transition into popular and secular music.

PL: Back in the ‘70s it didn’t seem to be possible that you could crossover into popular music if you were writing music for worship. The worlds of music were much more boxed in then. It was really important, I think, in the late ‘70s to be “cool.” Anything could stigmatize you. Like playing in Las Vegas. Joni Mitchell was offered (the opportunity) to play in Las Vegas, back in the ‘70s and she wouldn’t do it because it would have seemed like a sell-out gesture. I think that part of my struggle in music involved the fact that the world of music seemed to be so stratified and compartmentalized. You couldn’t stand in many worlds at once. You had to make a choice. The choice was oppressive to me. I didn’t know how to negotiate that. One of the pleasures of coming to writing was that you could fuse high and low art. You could stand in many places at once. I guess I see myself as having a complex identity. Writing allowed me to traverse boundaries in a way that felt right.

GS: A lot of gay men appear to have a history with and connection to Joni Mitchell and Laura Nyro …

PL: … which I never knew until I went to the last Joni concert. It was astonishing, proportionally, how many gay men were in the audience. I think she’s probably the Judy Garland of my generation. Obviously her manner and presentation are different from Judy Garland. (But) there is that kind of identification.

GS: She’s even worked gay men into her songs. “Underneath The Streetlights” and “Two Grey Rooms,” for example.

PL: I love “Two Grey Rooms.” I think that Joni Mitchell has seen (gay performance artist) John Kelly (who performs as Mitchell in his shows) perform and my sense is that something clicked. She got who she is to a whole generation of men simply by witnessing his homage to her. He makes fun of her and loves her at once. It’s really thrilling because those two points of view are simultaneous.

GS: There is also Laura’s connection to the community, considering the fact that she was a lesbian. You write about her a lot in the book.

PL: She’s really important to me. (Big sigh) I still can’t believe that she’s not around.

GS: I can’t either. I was devastated by her death.

PL: I was too. My mom called me up—that’s how I found out about her death. I wept for two days. Part of me assumed that I would always meet her. We had friends in common and didn’t live that far apart. It seemed inevitable that one day we’d sit in the same room, and I’d be able to tell her how much she’d meant to me and continues to mean to me.

GS: In addition to writing about your family in the book, you also write about your life with (your partner) Mark (Doty). Did that present any problems because you are both such public figures?

PL: No. He’s really willing and open to being written about. I’ve been a character in many of his books. I’m in Firebird, Still Life, and Source. I think I’m going to be a major character in his next book. I know that when I am writing and his name appears in a piece of my work, I am aware that I am writing about a public figure. There is some complex negotiation going on between who Mark is for me and who I know Mark is for the people who find meaning in his work. If I ever thought that I was violating his privacy, I’d certainly talk about it with him. We’re each other’s first readers. We’re intimately involved in each other’s work.

GS: Nothing’s going to make it to the page that either of you wouldn’t approve of.

PL: No. But at the same time I think we’re sophisticated enough to know that what is on the page is a made thing. It’s a piece of art. You try your damnedest to capture the complexity of a particular moment in time when you’re writing. But you never can get all of that moment’s dimensions. It’s always one take on the moment and the fact that there’s more to say about that moment offers a strange kind of comfort to the writer. There’s no reason why, at another moment in time, it couldn’t be explored through a different lens.

GS: Lawn Boy, your first book, was a novel. Famous Builder is a work of non-fiction. In what genre will your next book be?

PL: The next book is already well under way. It’s a novel called The Gods of Luna Township. It’s about redevelopment at the Jersey Shore. The protagonist is a young woman who isn’t very pleased that half of her community is being torn down house by house to be replaced by mini-mansions. In part, I want to write about the escalation of real estate values in the last five years. To think about how that has affected community life in good and negative ways.

GS: Do you have a preference for one genre over the other?

PL: I like the idea of working in both forms, actually. I think one of the dangers of being an artist in one form is that over time you can start to repeat the same trajectory. Ideally, I would like to go back and forth between the two. I’d love to write a memoir about my life with my father. He’s a major character in Famous Builder, but there’s so much more to say about him. And I’d like to write a memoir about my life in church music (laughs) and my encounter with that world. And many, many more novels.

 [Contributed by Kardinel, 12/11/2004]