The Kangaroo Problem

The test fleet had been taken to Australia the previous week
My colleagues, two cubes over, were all aflutter, I asked, "What gives?"
It was the kangaroo problem, I was told. I was rather bemused
For it seems that the autonomous vehicles were rather confused

You see, they had come across some of those long eared creatures
Beasts of burden, sporting those unmistakable features
But they were a new breed in their eyes, the term of art, unknown objects
Simply put, the recognition engine wasn't able to easily detect
Something about the gait and motion of the kangaroos they encountered
The road less traveled, in other words, had left the cars flustered

So now the data scientists were looking for more training data
In a bid to augment the intelligence of the onboard sensors
Scouring National Geographic and YouTube
  to update their detection algorithms
Loading up hours of videos of marsupials
  to finetune the classification schemes

Why did the chicken cross the road?
 Are you blind? It was a kangaroo
Consider, if you will, when a large object starts moving towards you
It seemed to me that the nature of the calculation was rather clear
That it shouldn't matter whether it was a kangaroo or a drunken deer

That any human driver out of caution would seek to avoid collision
Evasive action was clearly called for in this kind of situation
No matter how loping its gait, I'd hope, or how eccentric its motion
Avoid impact and ask questions later, was surely the solution

In this fraught scenario of exigency
 there'd be no time for semantics
Boffins, instead, were bent on reducing things
  down to matters of semiotics
When ontologies raise their specter,
 I rather fear you might be losing the plot
Meanwhile, over their shoulders,
  I saw the visualizations, the bounding boxes
True, they spoke at some length about the determinants
 of stopping distance
At the back of my mind, I recalled the wisdom
 of buying collision insurance

As to the tangible limitations of this artificial intelligence
How to teach the ghost in the machine to learn how to sense
To move beyond the basics of calculating velocity and acceleration
Plotting feasible trajectories while being mindful of sensor calibration
Lessons in obstacle avoidance, the perils of synthesized perception
A panoply of newfangled electronic equipment: cameras, radar, lidar
A catalog of known objects: car, truck, pedestrian, guardrail or barrier
Even in this hostile environment, prudence, protect the least of us
Rodent or marsupial was beside the point, let alone a desert fox
Surely a safety policy would be that you shouldn't hit the bus

The real world is highly unstructured,
  one can hardly play fast and loose
Object identity is rather academic,
 whether horse, camel, donkey or moose
On a grand tour of Mongolia,
 you might run into a herd of cashmere goats
The prime imperative of driving on the road:
  active safety foremost

The state of the art, then, of machine learning is no great panacea
Expect the unexpected, deal gracefully with chaos and disorder
What with near misses or close encounters in Peru with errant llama
Let alone the outrageous daily scenes you meet on an African street
Routine maintenance, force majeure, life is a veritable bestiary
A human marketplace replete with vibrant textures and shapes
The kangaroo problem was the tip of an iceberg of category mistakes

...


Activity, aflutter, what strange creature is this?
Elliptical motion, elusive, proudly prominent proboscis
Apt to be misconstrued, roaming, bounding without effort
Near collision, operator intervention, he filed the incident report
In the aftermath, then, the root cause analysis
Prompting among the boffins an identity crisis

Kangaroo Problem, a playlist

A autonomous soundtrack for this note. Drive safely. (spotify version)

• Can't you see me? by Roy Ayers
• He miss road by Fela
• You don't see me by Amel Larrieux
• Make the road by walking by Menahan Street Band
• Drive by The Cars
• Road Safety by Tony Allen
• (I'm a) Road Runner by Junior Walker
• Sensitivity by Ralph Tresvant
• Drive my car by The Beatles
• Chicken trying to cross the road by Buddhafunk
• Road runner by Bo Diddley

...

This entry on failure modes is part of the Toli Technology Series

...

Cultural Sensitivity in Technology is my perennial theme; everything is local and sensor calibration is paramount...

File under: humour, technology, culture, observation, perception, classification, robocars, software, algorithms, sensitivity, best practices, Observers are worried, poetry, toli

Writing log. Concept March 2018. December 14, 2022

The Loud Librarian

I. Miles

Punk would have been his first choice
But most days, he settled for jazz fusion
Mind you, it wouldn't be your smooth easy listening
No, the incarnation he favored was electric Miles
Live-Evil era Miles to be precise
Pip squeaks of funk, a bitches' brew of sonic chaos
Untethered dissonance that destabilized the unwary listener
Barely a minute after they'd entered the library
Check the startled looks of the patrons - priceless

It was not what you'd expect, distorted, unsettling
Very far from what you'd expect given the setting
But this was what you got when it was his shift
On duty at the front desk, he controlled the playlist
Not your garden variety background inoffensive music,
No, at its most friendly, the riffs would place you On The Corner
Or a journey into free rhythmic abstraction, taken to Pangea
Unmoored, with little recognizable features, frankly disconcerting
Pugilistic in intent, the music, it demanded active listening
At such times, you were apt to be left completely disoriented
Wishing for the relative aural safety of A Tribute to Jack Johnson

Electric Miles then, and only occasionally Electronic Miles
No Kind of Blue modalities, no stately Sketches of Spain
No First Quintet bop stylings, no Second Quintet excursions
The library's soundscape became full of challenges
You'd wonder why you kept re-reading that page of the article
Strangely uneasy, enervated and somehow provoked by the music
And as for the microfiche, you'd inevitably lose concentration

The middle schoolers mostly gave up on doing their homework
Best just to decompress or browse the aisles during those hours
The other librarians would exchange looks of concern
The mantle of reverence had been punctured if not shredded
Nervous energy, the wall of sound evoked the shape of dread
Missing, the customary hushed tones of the library
It hearkened to Sly Stone, There's a Riot Goin' On

But we are creatures that avoid conflict, striving simians
So no one confronted him or made any demands for silence
Discreetly and strategically placed, a box of ear plugs was often to be found
Near the display of staff recommendations at the entrance
Passive aggressive too, posters and vinyl, The Birth of the Cool
Sorcerer, Someday My Prince Will Come - Frances on the cover smiling at you
Ascenseur Pour L'échafaud, the iconic Miles projects, Miles Ahead too.
And it became institutionalized and part of the practice
Buyer beware, know what you're getting into
The loud librarian ruled on Tuesday afternoons

II. Method

If organized chaos was his soundtrack
Manufactured serendipity was his methodology
Walking the aisles searching for opportunity
Where a blanket of serenity would normally greet you as you entered
The diffident and deferential queries you expected:
"Is there anything I could help you with?"
No, the loud librarian would approach you head on
"Have you seen this? Over here we have a new exhibit"

And, well, you would often forget what you had been looking for,
The reason you'd come to the library in the first place
He had sized you up as you entered and unerringly tailored the offbeat material
He always gave you something that you didn't know that you needed
Redirecting you, changing the perspective, oblique viewpoints
The connective tissue he saw was inspired direction

So, despite the inevitable naysayers at his aural eccentricity
Despite the chatter and slanted anecdotes he imparted
After a few encounters he garnered a following
Aficionados would leave the library synapses firing

Many a research project would be revitalized
Science fair projects became baroque surprises
No mundane experiments with baking soda
Newton's experiments in alchemy became prime subject matter
The histories of the maroons in Suriname and Guyana
Speculation on elements of continuity within the Akan diaspora
Suddenly Fabian Socialists entered classroom discussion
At the dinner table, parents would now face new contentions
Their curious offspring now questioning state legitimacy
Back from the bibliothèque devotees of oral histories

III. Billie

Come the winter solstice, the soundtrack changed
Tuesday heartbreak became troubled Thursday
A shift change, the director rearranged the schedule
And Thursdays were known to feature a tough crew
Gathered as they were in dueling conference rooms
The first group considered stamps, the Philatelic Society
Altogether conventional, they researched political histories
But the seeds of conflict were sown by the Psychedelic Society
He couldn't help it - simply couldn't contain his curiosity
About what strange things could be going on in their meetings
A fractious lot, not responding to any of his queries
From what he could make out after examining their marginalia,
Their focus was ostensibly on matters mind-altering and minor arcana
They were reluctant to reveal the substance of their "happenings"
But he was not at all impressed with their take on bioprospecting
Their single minded focus on ancient herbal remedies
Commerce instead of the application of indigenous knowledge

And so we all started to listen to Billie Holiday
The Lady in Satin album mostly, autumnal Lady Day
Pathos in the voice, wracked by too much living
Thoroughly wrought with experience, witness the mannered phrasing
Off kilter, her way with a ballad, the lush strings backing
And loud, crucially you could hear every bent note
Trace the curvature of her deliberate voicing
As if caressing the microphone, the breath control, halting
The immediacy in the lyrics was striking, but it tended to take a toll
By the time Glad to be Unhappy came on, you'd be thoroughly wrecked

After a few months, he decided to quit, it was time to move on
Another town across the country would require his intervention
He planned out the soundtrack of his last Thursday afternoon
He played The End of a Love Affair it seemed on repeat
Careful observers would realize that it was all seven takes
Variations on a theme, as ever, she preempted the beat
The strings mournful, her voice increasingly emotional
The psychedelics were in distress as they walked out the door
The blues of wist and melancholy, no one could stand it anymore.
Billie. You're killing us, this is too much to bear
How many times can we hear The End of a Love Affair?
Finally smiling, for the encore, he switched to Portishead
He hummed along to Sour Times during his exit interview

The Loud Librarian, a playlist

A soundtrack for this note (spotify version)

• Inamorata by Miles Davis
• The End of a Love Affair by Billie Holiday
• Sour Times by Portishead

File under: culture, observation, perception, life, music, obsession, whimsy, Small Things, poetry, toli

Writing log: November 24, 2022

The Early Bird Catches the Poem

I woke up hearing your brain buzzing,
   It sounded like a lawnmower
Or perhaps it was like a landscape crew
   Deploying their leaf blowers
Disturbing tranquility in the neighborhood,
   I could hear all your thoughts
Clearly, you were lining something up
   Troubling and mischievous

Oh, I hear you say, it must have been a dream,
   You were still sleeping
But lying next to you,
   I could tell from the way you were breathing
The gears were starting to shift,
   As if you were deciphering a puzzle
Leaving me to wonder
   What a girl has to do these days to get a cuddle

What is it this time? Another poem? Really!
     Or is it that godforsaken novel?
That you seduced me with all those years ago.
     I always knew that you were trouble
Now I see you, lost in thought, contemplating,
     Long before the crack of dawn
With sleep in your eye, yet acting
     As if you want to catch the morning sun

You're having an affair with the muse.
     That's right, I know your shady ways
Don't smile at me. I'm the other woman,
     Who's lost her man to constant wordplay
You'd best shape up, you know
     If you want to keep me in the marital home
Don't laugh now, how dare you. What's that?

"The early bird catches the poem"

Early Bird, a playlist

A soundtrack for this note (spotify version)

• Body and Mind by Heavy D

  Your body's here with me
  But your mind is on the other side of town

• Early in the Morning The Gap Band
• You Can't Turn Me Away by Sylvia Striplin
• In the Morning by Omar
• Earn my Affection by Amel Larrieux

  Put your back into it

• The Other Part of Town by Horace Parlan & Grant Green
• Soul Inspiration by Anita Baker
• Good Morning by Gregory Isaacs
• Conception by Black Thought
• Love from a Distance by Beres Hammond

Or alternatively Close to You by Maxi Priest

In my defense, it was the excitement of the winter solstice that stirred the mind that morning but it seems I was misconstrued.

See previously in a similar vein: Quality of Life and The Stereotype

File under: humour, life, culture, observation, perception, Creative Process, language, whimsy, marriage, poetry, toli

Writing log: December 21, 2022

Category Mistake

I must say it was quite gracious
The reception to my latest mistake
Indulgent and polite, they were, my family gave me a break
Tolerant, that time, in the face of yet another faux pas

For that morning, I noticed that the oats weren't at all popular
Huh? Was it another case of the princess and the brown sugar?
I wondered quizzically what the subtle difference was in the flavor
Worried, perhaps, that my taste buds had been afflicted by the Corona

But it was a more mundane class of category error
A substitution - for the spice bottles looked so similar
Oops, instead of cinnamon I had picked up the paprika
Aha, that explained those curious flecks of red powder

...

A class of category error that I should really avoid
Stems from keeping my bottle of eye drops
And hand sanitizer in the same bag

When you're tired and your eyes are watery,
You reach for the small bottle, and you apply the drops and...
Well, you get the picture

...

A kettle is not an iron
- size, shape and steam to the contrary,
It is unwise to mistake the one for the other

#ModernProverbs

...

Error is a poor friend but an excellent teacher

Category Errors, a playlist

Call it poetic licence that I branded a garden variety mistake as a category mistake in one of the examples above, truth be told there is a full spectrum of mistakes. In any case, a soundtrack for this note (spotify version)

• Mistake - Gregory Isaacs
• Full Attention - Beres Hammond
• Distracted - Al Jarreau
• Mistake - Fela Kuti
• Uh Oh, I made a mistake - Pennye Ford
• Faites Attention - Pompon Kuleta
• Mr Magoo - Bunny Lee Allstars
• Mister Magoo - Rich Willey & Boptism Funk Band
• Mr. Magoo - Tana

File under: life, error, humour, failure, culture, observation, perception, experience, best practices, Small Things, poetry, toli

Writing log. October 26, 2022

A DJ's Duty

Seeing friends in the East Coast digging out from their winter storm put me in mind of the Nor'easter of 1995 when I did an 18 hour stint DJing on WHRB in the basement of Memorial Hall. A duty of care, I didn't want to shut the radio station down.

It all started so innocently, I was set to do the Street Beat hip hop show from 4 to 6 pm on Saturday. I showed up 90 minutes early, having paid no attention to the weather forecast. Albeit I did notice a few flakes of snow as I exited the shuttle bus with my crate of records. Who knew?

Almost immediately, I got the sense that something was up. As I poked my head in the studio, the DJ who was on air signaled to me and pointedly asked me if I wanted to go on early. I didn't know any better and so said "Sure, why not" and ran to pick out a few more records from our stacks.

The Street Beat credo, if there was one, was simply that we didn't play commercial stuff. If you did play a club banger, it had to be a rare white label remix. The founders of The Source magazine were Street Beat alums. We had standards. We did vinyl. We mixed. We were underground.

I had my work cut out because I hadn't been keeping up with the latest releases so I was half expecting some irate caller from Roxbury complaining about the lack of Ed O.G. & Da Bulldogs. Anyway, I started my set off with Dip Dip Divin' by Justin Warfield and got more esoteric from there.

At 5 pm, I got a call that the next DJ wasn't going to be able to make it for the 6 pm show. Hey, I thought, more airtime and, well, I wanted to play some soul. The Boston hip hop audience is unusually demanding whereas the soul crew are far more forgiving. I threw on Rainbow by Shinehead.

Anyway 6 pm came and I switched to spinning club classics. Grooving really, everything was beat-matched; not a bad mix. I was feeling it and getting lots of requests. Callers did mention that the snow was really coming down but my music was giving them soul comfort.

I suddenly realized that I was getting hungry. Ah right, I'd missed dinner. But, well, I could pass by the Hong Kong at 8 pm and grab something. The red leather furniture of the restaurant, the ambiance of disrepute and the strangely comforting food. Salivating. Bruce Lee would approve

Of course, I'd forgotten Francis Bacon's adage:

Hope is a good breakfast, but it is a bad supper.

7:45 pm came and the next DJ hadn't shown up. I went to the front door and saw a pile of snow. It was coming down hard. Blizzard conditions really. I checked the schedule but didn't see a phone number or who to call for backup. Ooooh trouble.

I decided to not just put on a cd, it's a point of pride to always be mixing vinyl. So I dug more records from the vault and I mixed, blended and matched beats.

8 pm came.

For You To Love was our quiet storm show. DJ Zik had heavy boots to fill but I thought I'd be up to the task for the next two hours. Where his signature was the titular Luther Vandross song, I went with Crying Overtime by Alexander O'Neal, the king of ad libs.

10 pm came. I now had to read a Public Service Announcement, something about a storm advisory, how you should avoid leaving home if at all possible. As I read the script, the penny dropped. Stay off the roads. No wonder no one was coming to give me relief.

Midnight came. No replacement. I continued with a set of torch songs. Again it would have been easy to throw on an Isaac Hayes half hour lament but that would feel too much like cheating. I dug deep: Luther Ingram, The O'Jays, Eddie Kendricks etc.

2 am. Despair set in.

Burning Spear came to my rescue (Mi gi dem was the joint). I turned to roots reggae. Then decided to explore the falsetto singers in reggae. The phone calls to the studio blew up at this point. I must have struck a nerve.

Also: scavenging around the studios, I managed to find a Twix bar. I didn't query its vintage, I just ate it up. Where there's a snack gap...

4 am. This was getting ridiculous. UK soul then - I put on Loose Ends, Omar, Mica Paris and some acid jazz, Young Disciples, Galliano, Jamiroquai. Also I started to think of drastic measures...

When you comped, you had to learn how to turn the station on and off. FCC regulations or something. But no one really paid attention to that part of the training. I certainly couldn't remember how to turn the station on if I came in cold in the morning. In any case, who ever heard of shutting it down?

I grew up in newsrooms and the BBC World Service formed the backdrop of my teenage years. Dead air was anathema to me. I wasn't going to be the one to let the side down. So I kept spinning, running back and forth to pull more records. Mixing on the turntable decks always, I refused to play cds.

At 6 am the woman who normally did the Sunday gospel show called apologetically to say that she couldn't make it, commiserating about the snow drifts, danger and all that jazz. Sigh...

I threw on some divas. Aretha, Brenda, Mavis, Chaka and Rachelle Ferrell. Know what I mean?

8 am came, and it seemed as if relief beckoned. Some poor soul called and said that he hoped to be there soon to do the folk show. The storm had abated somewhat. I started playing songs that mentioned Heaven. Bebe and CeCe Winans, Miles Jaye and so forth.

9 am and the guy hadn't showed up. I was tempted to Shut 'em down c/o Public Enemy - the Pete Rock Remix of course (still the best remix of all time).

I cheated and decided to throw on Freedom Suite by The Young Disciples. A good 15 minutes of respite. Isaac Hayes's By the time I get to Phoenix was another option considered (18:45 minutes for those in the know) but I couldn't find Hot Buttered Soul in the stacks.

10:15 am. He arrived. Another human being in the flesh. He said that it was rough outside. Of course he needed some time to pull some records together for his set but by this stage I didn't care anymore, blending and beat matching almost like an automaton.

I couldn't find Keep the Beat by Eric B & Rakim so I closed my set out with And the beat goes on by The Whispers. I was fully committed to the task.

The studio was an almighty mess when I handed over and I started reshelving the hundreds of records I'd pulled and deliberated over. 18 hours worth. It was tough going.

I walked back to the dorm through the 14 inches of snow with my crate of records. No shuttle bus obviously. I didn't have boots on, no gloves and, well, I wasn't appropriately dressed. It was a long, treacherous walk but, at length, I made it to the Quad. The Cabot House dining room was just opening for brunch.

...

There's no moral to the story, just the abiding memory of holding down the fort in that basement, at one with the music and the radio audience.

DJs may be a strange breed but we have a keen sense of duty.

- The basement entrance to the old WHRB studios

A DJ's Duty, a playlist

A soundtrack for this note. Some of what I played that weekend (spotify version)

• The Basement by Pete Rock & C.L. Smooth
• Dip Dip Divin' by Justin Warfield
• Rainbow by Shinehead
• Got To Keep On by The Cookie Crew
• Last Night a DJ saved my Life by Indeep
• Mi gi dem by Burning Spear
• Burrup by Nardo Ranks
• Shut em down (Pete Rock mix) by Public Enemy
• Can't Stop a Man by Beres Hammond
• Crying overtime by Alexander O'Neal
• I get the job done by Big Daddy Kane
• And the beat goes on by The Whispers

Bonus beats: a tape of a Club Classics set I did circa 1993 that I digitized when I found time during the early covidious lockdowns


File under: music, obsession, memory, humour, life, youth, culture, observation, perception, WHRB, whimsy, Social Living, toli

Writing log: January 5, 2022

A Blade of Grass

It's a minor eccentricity
That, I must recognize
Or perhaps an affectation,
  That I now no longer mow my lawn
And so early mornings you'll find me in the front yard
On my hands and knees pulling up blades of grass

'Twas the old man who lives in the park who encouraged me
To continue my tribute to Sisyphus's boulder
Having found me hand weeding that evening
He was quick to point out the classical analogy
For the task promised to be never-ending

He noted the more common name for the wild knotty grass
I was striving with difficulty to pluck with arthritic hands
Exquisitely adapted to our soil, and fittingly named:

Eternity grass

...

Now a connoisseur of the various types of grass species
The commercial ones, much loved by our Latino brethren
Lawn care is a quintessential family business in America
Putting entire families - villages, through school

At church the Belizean grandma would pray for God's strength
A catch in her throat, pausing before she started speaking,
Strength to sustain the impact of the merciless summer heat
They were all out there, outdoors, dealing with clients's landscapes

Amen, I joined her in prayer, solidarity and admiration
And wonder too, contemplating infinite vistas of grass

...

At one with the earth, inclined towards the textures of the soil
Tempered ambitions, comfortable with this uneasy life
Returning fortified with inspiration to these blank pages
Settled and finally ready, clasping in my hand a blade of grass

Soundtrack for this note

• A Blade of Grass by Keith Emerson
  I prefer this quiet piano piece to the original band version from Emerson, Lake & Palmer

...

The book is done.

This note concludes another collection of toli, my fifth collection of poems, written over the course of five months in 2022. Hopefully it will escape hypertext into physical form sometime soon. As usual, it is an article of faith, the hope that these pieces might resound long after they were conceived (years even) but such is my asylum.

I call it A Comfortable Unease. Start your reading with High Tech Luddite

File under: life, Creative Process, culture, observation, perception, whimsy, poetry, toli

Writing log. September 25 October 9, 2022

A Last Request

If this interlude should come to an end
Let there not be any regret
If this moment passes and we should lose each other
Know that conversations like ours never end

We gave it our all
This much we know
For, even in the depths,
Together we bore witness

So tell, tell our story
That we should leave our mark
Inscribed in relief on this fleeting canvas

Tell, tell our story
The struggles to be considered
And joys to be relived

Tell, tell our story
Fixing a time and a place
And people too
The fragments to be discovered
For this is our story

Spoken like the griots of old
Written like those scribes
Drawn with delicacy
Or sung with abandon
Tell, tell our story
That we should not lose these memories

A last request:
With one breath, in one motion
Tell, tell our story

A Last Request, a playlist

A soundtrack for this note.

A lush playlist that I've long luxuriated in, ballads of wist and yearning, nothing is left behind (spotify version)

• Last Request by Omar
• Kissing a Fool by George Michael
• Kick out of You by Dwele
• One Last Cry by Brian McKnight
• I Should Have Loved You by Chuckii Booker
• A Last Request by George Michael
• Whenever Wherever Whatever by Maxwell
• Keep Your Head to the Sky by Earth, Wind & Fire
• Simply Beautiful by Al Green
• Do You Feel by Jose James
• Please Stay (Once You Go Away) by Marvin Gaye
• Careless Whisper by George Michael
• Spend a Lifetime by Jamiroquai
• Come to my Door by Jose James
• Another Life by D'Angelo
• When the Party's Over by Alexander O'Neal
• Gills and Tails by Amel Larrieux
• In the Morning by Omar
• Vain by Dwele

See previously The Tale of the Lost Stories and The Fleeting Canvas

File under: sensory, culture, observation, perception, emotion, lyricism, life, love, wist, memory, poetry, toli

Writing log: September 22, 2022

Three Centuries

Voyagers through the terrain of time
Living out three centuries simultaneously
Time travelers in the torrid zone
Navigating its fraught territory

The near past is nothing to speak of
Replete with close encounters with dread
Luckily therefore, we shy away from nostalgia
After all, these were labeled our lost decades
Moreover, even the earlier eras bore a taint of calamity
Of pawnage at home and, in middle passages, chattel slavery

We made our accommodations, and devised our survival strategies
At times resisting those who marked our lands as uncharted territory
They came with breech-loading muskets, Maxim guns at the ready
Meanwhile we had nature's usual afflictions too as adversaries

Mindful of the mosquito principle, we cultivated fever trees
Prepared potions of bitter roots contra miasmas and rank diseases
Plainly the ancients suffered the ailments but didn't have the vocabulary
The graves were getting full - these days we'd call it excess mortality

Black gold and crown jewels extracted, there were protection treaties
Signed under duress, some of the chiefs yielded to malign authority
The structural adjustments of yore, a taste of excessive liability
A short sale, in retrospect they put a human face on ugly realities

Young, ever hopeful, unencumbered by the past, we look forward
As an article of faith, trusting that better days lie ahead
In time, as well as in place, removed from the burden of deference
We bring forth the elements of survival to charge our present

Fumes, fragments abound, shards of memory
That the storytellers left, the faint glimpses of glory
Elements of our present could do with a touch of modernity
We hold on, we hold fast, and we will tell our story

And so some of us, by default, have found ourselves living in three centuries
Simultaneously navigating tradition and modernity
Overlapping frames, for humanity knows no boundaries
No one is coming, it’s up to us to shape the memories

Off kilter, confronted, as we are, with many uncertainties
We wear, as protective armor, our masks of civility
Treading a fine line, but finally in charge of our destiny
Comforted, we attempt the choreography of normalcy

So, the battle enjoined, charting our own direction
The upshot now, the nature of our contribution
Clear-eyed, is to press beyond a naive sentimentality
And demonstrate that we move forward through community

Truth and reconciliation, a conversational strategy
Social living, the antidote to manifest destiny
In the torrid zone, then, this was a matter of necessity
We paid our premiums, soul insurance was the remedy

Three Centuries, a playlist

A soundtrack for this note (spotify version)

• Out of the Past - The Three Sounds
• Side by Side - Dianne Reeves
• Let's forget about the past - Clyde McPhatter
• Now's the Time - Charlie Parker
• Back to the Future - D'Angelo
• Jazz in the Present Tense - Solsonics
• Out of the Past - Art Farmer
• I Can See the Future - Incognito
• Out of the Past - Benny Golson Sextet
• Til It's Done (Tutu) - D'Angelo
• The Past, The Present - Kupla

See previously: The Torrid Zone and Soul Insurance


File under: Africa, culture, observation, perception, identity, strategy, Social Living, memory, poetry, toli

Writing log: September 18, 2022

On the Death of a Poet

That’s fine dude, I'm not mad at you
The masked man's video footage revealed the poet's last words

Some men can't bear the thought of not being feared
And, faced with an incandescent smile instead of a stare,
He fired three shots in rapid succession
He let her know who was who

In his own way, he dispensed some American home truths
Call it the imperial boomerang, that obscene point of view
Visit America before America visits you

I couldn't bear to watch the clip of the death of the poet
But from the still, I could see in her smile, the sense of bemusement
And knew all too well what would have happened, later, when she got home
That that masked man - puff, with his big weapon
Would end up as a minor character in a poem


After Renée Nicole Good


See previously: Prone

File under: grief, blood, outrage, murder, USA, crime, violence, rogues, culture, observation, perception, creative process, hatchet job, The Rough Beast, poetry, toli

Writing log: January 10, 2026

Chasmaphobia

Mind the gap, the train operator's message over the intercom
Murphy's law. Or was it nervousness that caused the fumble?
The black rectangular shape shuffled out of the breast pocket
Its curvilinear flight path deftly avoiding the outstretched hands
The rainbow's end right in the gap destined for the tracks
Parabolic trajectory congruent with the laws of physics
Serene, but all you could do was watch and bear witness
That sinking feeling, well none of you were able to react
Superfluous, the message you should have heeded: mind the gap

Chasmaphobia n. the fear of dropping one's keys, badge, wedding ring or equivalent into a gap (say between the elevator and floor)

Mind the Gap, a Playlist

A soundtrack for this note (spotify version)

File under: life, accident, improbable, whimsy, humour, observation, perception, poetry, toli

Writing log. Concept: February 10, 2006; April 18, 2022

Dark Milestones

A dark milestone, they said, and a "terrible toll"
A profound loss repeated so many times is awful
Easy words out of the mouth of these opportunists
Spewed in profusion as a shield for their mistakes

Their blather rather underscored the lack of concern
As if one could be saved by platitudinous laments
What was once unthinkable became the norm,
 we heard of incalculable loss
Mass extinction on a regular basis, so many were paying the cost

The unending daily tallies were duly consigned to the middle pages
We heard of fatigue and, after false starts, a return to normalcy
Time to move on, they said, we should resign ourselves to mass death
Fatalistic even when the evidence showed that things could be mitigated

The brief moment of solidarity had passed,
 the clapping and shared sacrifice
It was all up to individual choice,
 people should be left to their own devices
The previous narratives reasserted themselves
 in this renewed torrid zone
The rest is history, all that remained was to mark the dark milestones

After a dark milestone (January 2022)

See previously A Panoply of Mistakes a year earlier

Wrong, a playlist

I might as well recycle the previous playlist, nothing changed in the interim, only the body count. (spotify version)

This internal displacement is part of a series: In a covidious time.

File under: failure, coronavirus, pandemic, hypocrisy, outrage, hatchet job, culture, observation, England, incompetence, politics, language, humour, Observers are worried, Buyer's Remorse, covidious, poetry, toli

Writing log. Concept: January 10, 2022. June 1, 2022

High Wire Act

It takes considerable effort to appear effortless performing a complex task; we all applaud the display of excellence.

It takes no considerable effort for a high flyer or leader to fail miserably; we all laugh at the display of incompetence.

The walk of life is a tightrope.

High Wire Act, a playlist

A funky playlist for this note. (spotify version)

• Live Wire by The Meters
• So Tight by Rick James
• Tightrope by Junie Morrison
• Tightrope by Janalle Monae and Big Boi

File under: life, culture, observation, perception, aphorisms, zingers, humour, failure, Observers are worried, toli,

Writing log: February 22, 2021

Shakedown (Part π Pay the Piper)

A new variant by any other name, this one came in many disguises
The claims adjuster decided that naming it Pi was not needed for this crisis
Let things evolve independently, trust in the process of natural selection
Buyer beware, humanity had been given fair warning about the threat of mutations

Thus he released a swarm of new ailments, troubling in their variety
Escape artists altogether adept at evading mitigations in their entirety
Cerberus, Centaurus, Hydra, the nicknames were telling for this pressure group
A cloud of stealthy lineages with growth advantages, some called them grief soup

Unlike the angels, the claims adjuster was not possessed with a rhadamanthine spirit
A pragmatic sort, he considered all arguments he beheld strictly on their merits
He was not averse to give and take, he would agree to reasonable accommodation
The caveat in his dealings was that he could not tolerate duty abrogation

He heard the elevator pitches from the delegates of the Ushers
Rather full of pretension, they had aspirations of grandeur
Some griots might label their posturing as akin to erstwhile Pharisees
When, at heart all that drove them was the profit motive and its sanctity

The law was for their friends, often irrelevant, and applied selectively
But, when it came to their enemies, they expected strict severity
Onerous, they loaded their side of the scale, the contest was unequal
Yet, by their rhetoric, they were worthy victors, men of the people

Justice from their point of view was merely a gesture
To be ignored in the heat of the deal at their leisure
Enamored of exclusivity, they wanted the lion's share of the pie
Indeed, theirs was a policy towards others of default deny

Inscrutable obstacles they erected, what mattered was who paid the piper
Impenetrable defenses, secret codes that were impossible to decipher
Poised between despair and folly, it was the reign of the incurious
A sad state of affairs when ignorance was the prevailing consensus

...

Third time's the charm, Ananse decided to let his comperes lead the delegation
There was no need, with these careless Ushers, for a personal intervention
Sika, with her actuarial prowess, essentially promised an investment safe harbor
The chief linguist and head scribe plainly assumed that everything was in order

They hadn't realized that their old playbook had been rendered obsolete
Without a reappraisal, they were well and truly heading for defeat
Concerted action, and, most of all, cooperation, was what was needed
But alas, short-sightedness meant that a decisive response was impeded

Shakedown, the Ushers hadn't realized they'd been placed in a straitjacket
For Ananse had devised the ultimate shell game, a kind of protection racket
And by playing them off the gods and the claims adjuster with his mystic brew
He wouldn't even need to seek to hustle the other tribes for further revenue

...

Out of Agona always something new went the old saying
Life in the torrid zone was brutish, harsh and often dismaying
But constraints and necessity seemed to foster invention
Moreover they accepted the value of an ounce of prevention

They'd had to keep their heads down throughout the crisis
Having meager rations of even the most basic prophylaxis
Luckily their old ways, living mostly outdoors, conferred a few advantages
But as normalcy was reasserted they would slowly lose those temporary privileges

They realized they had a long journey ahead but now had better examples
Eyes open, they'd seen what the Wan tribe could achieve by being sensible
That flashy appeals, seductive as they may have been, were no substitute for planning
That by staying the course they could perhaps leapfrog development and continue advancing

...

And so back to the Ushers, Dear Reader,
  how would they handle the weight?
Truth be told, it was only on the matter of form
 that there was a little debate
Since their herd immunity was to shame, they were hardly blameless
The claims adjuster was under no obligation to make things painless

Nyame observed their insatiable appetites,
 incorrigible, they continued to misbehave
Altogether irrational behavior,
 they would soon look back fondly on the second wave
The gathering storm was on hand
 and there was a clear deficit of disaster relief
The tale of the lost stories,
 they'd now have to abide with the laws of grief

The tipping point was the specter of the looming claims adjuster
Which impressed on the majority how close they had come to disaster
A bitter lesson learned, they would be consigned to internal displacement
For not having heeded the warning: greed always brings its own punishment

Shakedown, a playlist

A soundtrack for this note (spotify version)

• Shake you Down by Gregory Abbott
• People get Ready by Brand New Heavies
• Risin' to the Top by Keni Burke
• Shake Your Body (Down to the Ground) by The Jacksons
• Let's Get Back to Love by Loose Ends
• Shakedown by Brand New Heavies
• Your Mess by Omar
• (If You Ain't) Comfortable by Lynden David Hall
• Soul Shakedown Party by Bob Marley
• Shake Down Blues by Blind Boy Fuller
• Shake Down by Evelyn "Champagne" King

See previously Shakedown Part 1, Protection Racket Part 2 and A Modern Bestiary Part 3


The Soul Insurance suite of folktales:

• Soul Insurance
• Buyer's Remorse
• Shakedown

File under: humour, satire, culture, observation, folktale, Ananse, storytelling, whimsy, myth, coronavirus, pandemic, Social Living, Things Fall Apart, Observers are worried, Buyer's Remorse, hatchet job, covidious, poetry, toli

Writing log. October 9, 2022