Two years with a piano

It's been two years since I got a piano. It's been glorious.

I don't think I play like someone that's been practicing for two years - I wish I had progressed this year much more than I have. I'm probably now where I should have been a year ago. Oh well, I love it and I'm not stopping. And I'm not going to stop sharing - I want you, yes YOU, to get busy trying something you have always wanted to but have been afraid to. And I want you to OWN IT and not let anyone ridicule you into stopping doing something you might love. 

I also want to note that research shows that the brain benefits from learning to read and play music later in life - after 50, after 60, whatever.

Here are my imperfect recitals for 2023 (I gave up trying to do them every month):

• Di Provenza by Verdi for December.
   
• The Skater's Waltz by Émile Waldteufel and We Shall Overcome. November.
   
• The Blue Danube waltz ("An der schönen blauen Donau", Op. 314) by Johann Strauss II and This Little Light of Mine. September.
   
• Rondalla Aragonesa by E. Granados Arranged for Easy Piano by Allan Small, butchered by Juana la Loca. then Beautiful Dreamer by Stephen Foster. Summer.
   
• a practice piece with no title, All Through the Night and By The Light of the Silvery Moon. June.
   
• A Sonatina from Alfred's Basic Piano Library, Lesson Book Level 1B, and Unfinished Symphony Theme by Schubert and Caro Mia Ben by Giordani, both arranged for easy piano by Allan Small. March.
   
• Two church hymns: The Old Rugged Cross and Blessed Assurance. January.
  

I also played guitar a lot this year, but did very little recording of such - I was mostly working up to being able to play well enough to sing with my sister when I was in Kentucky in November. My last video for the year, as of this blog, is me playing and singing Away in a Manger and Feliz Navidad on guitar.

Also recently, I played a dulcimer for the first time ever!

Also see a year with a piano, my blog from my first year. 

Get out there and do something you are afraid of! And make music! 

If you're in the area: John James Audubon in Henderson, Kentucky

I grew up in Henderson, Kentucky, but knew very little about John James Audubon State Park in my time there. I went to its picnic shelters every summer for family reunions, church socials and class parties. I swam in the lake a couple of times. I went with my elementary school class to what was then a small museum space that didn't have much in it. My parents would say that the park was built by the Civilian Conservation Corps and what a great program the CCC was, but I didn't really understand what they meant. To me, in the 1980s, the park was the place with lots of picnic shelters, with a lake to swim in, with the museum that, from the outside, looked like a beautiful fairy tale castle, and with a carriage house or something nearby that was never open except for the bathrooms. And a golf course I had never seen (and still haven't). It was nice... but not anything I ever recommended as a must-see place to visit. 

Here we are almost 40 years later and the park has been transformed into a wonderful destination and celebration of both the work of the CCC and conservationists, with a kick-your-butt back country trail and access to a lake that I only heard about as a kid (back then, I don't think there was an open trail to it). The cabins are beautiful and I believe they are open for rentals year-round. The main lake no longer has swimming, having been restored to make it more wildlife-friendly, but I believe you can take a kayak out on it.  

The museum space inside is GREATLY expanded with artifacts and information from the life of John James Audubon and why his work led to the creation of Audubon societies all over the world. There's also regular presentations inside about the importance of wildlife conservation and the wildlife of the area. That always-closed carriage house - actually, the Tea House - is now open and serves as the park's office (and it's totally worth it to visit - the woodwork is gorgeous). And events (hikes, presentations, workshops, art fetivals and more) abound - you need to follow the park on Facebook to be able to keep up. 

The trails are amazing. There's over six miles of trails, and some will have your calves screaming because of the inclines. We didn't get to do the expanded trails along the river, which you access outside the park on Warbler Road, next to the Ohio River, but we did do the backcountry trail and I'm still hurting from it. 

The trails do NOT allow dogs except for one, near the campground. But you can take your dog on all of the roads through the park, and that's a few miles of terrific, scenic exercise. Wish they had trails along the roads to make it safer for walking along them. 

The park now has reminders about the CCC everywhere: a statue, a couple of plaques, mentions in the museum, and more. My parents' mentions of the CCC have stuck with me all the years and, after studying the CCC in high school and at my university, I became a CCC fan girl: when I travel, I immediately notice CCC-built structures in parks and public spaces, and make a point of visiting any that might be nearby as I travel. I have a photo album tribute to the CCC, noting all of the CCC-built places I've been and memorabilia I've come across. 

We went to the park over two days: the first just to hike, and the second, to spend time in the museum. If you go, be sure to take some snacks and water - there's no restaurant in the park. 

The park is easy to turn into if you are coming from Henderson, but REALLY difficult to turn into if you are coming from Evansville, Indiana. Please be really, really cautious when turning in and out of the park onto Highway 41. 

With all that said, I do have some criticisms of the park. Here is an email I sent to the park manager, the head of Kentucky State Parks, and the Friends of Audubon State Park group after my November 2023 visit: 

I visited John James Audubon State Park during my Thanksgiving holiday in Kentucky. I haven’t been there since I was a teen - more than 40 years ago. The vastly expanded museum and hiking trails, the restored lake, the quality of the groundskeeping - it was amazing. I was particularly pleased to see so much information about and tributes to the Civilian Conservation Corps - that is a legacy I always knew, because of the park and because my father always noted it when I was growing up. I have followed the park on Facebook for years and knew the park now regularly had events - guided hikes, science talks, workshops for kids - but being onsite and seeing everything for myself, firsthand, really brought home what a treasure the park is now. Kudos to everyone who has, over many years, made this possible. Well done.

However, there are some things I feel compelled to note that need to be addressed urgently.

One thing that should be simple to fix: please put closed captioning on your films on rotation in your theater. This is a very easy fix, something anyone with video editing software could do for you. I bet there are students or faculty at area universities and colleges that would be happy to make this happen for you on a volunteer basis. This would help both the hearing impaired and people who are not native English speakers to better experience the films.

I was deeply disturbed by the lack of focus - even mention - in the museum that John James Audubon enslaved people and that he dismissed and belittled the abolitionist movement. When the Audubon family lived in Henderson, Kentucky, they had enslaved people working for them in their household, and they bought and sold enslaved people. Think of the families they broke up. Think of the lives they destroyed. This is all well documented on this web page of the National Audubon Society's own web site: https://www.audubon.org/news/the-myth-john-james-audubon

Why not reproduce this web page on a series of display boards and put these up in the museum? Why not be open and honest and transparent on the very dark side of this man? You don't have to answer this question - was he a good man who did something horrific or was he a bad man who did something good? - but welcome the discussion! The answer, either way, could lead to a lot of self-examination by visitors.

The other very large hole in all that's wonderful about the park is the lack of prominent acknowledgment of the people settled in the area long before European Americans came: no statue, no information board, no anything that I could find. That's as shameful as not acknowledging Audubon's enslavement of people and his defense of slavery.

I hope that all of this is being addressed already by funders and supporters of John James Audubon State Park. In fact, if there is a fundraising campaign to make any of this happen, let me know: I'll donate to it and publicize it.

Here is the response I got. I'm pleased about the revamp, but wish, in the interim, they would just print out the web page I mentioned, as a couple of large signs, and just put them on some easels. 

Dear Ms. Cravens,

I wanted to express my gratitude for your visit to Audubon State Park during the holiday. I'm delighted that you had the opportunity to enjoy our park's trails and grounds. I will be sure to share your kind words with our grounds team. It is a priority for us to preserve and convey the unique history of the park, particularly our association with the Civilian Conservation Corps.

Thank you as well for suggesting the addition of closed captioning to our videos. I believe this is an excellent idea and being personally aware of the challenges faced by individuals with hearing impairments, I fully understand the importance of such accommodations.

I wanted to inform you that the Kentucky Department of Parks is currently working on the design for a comprehensive restoration of the Audubon Museum building. As part of this restoration, we intend to revamp the museum layout, install new display cases, and incorporate significant information and scholarly works pertaining to the entire life of John James Audubon. It is essential for us to not only celebrate Audubon's contributions to natural history and bird depictions but also acknowledge and comprehend his history as an enslaver and anti-abolitionist.

While our collection of indigenous art and artifacts is limited, we are continuously searching for items that will enrich our understanding of the area's history. Our objective is to present a comprehensive history to our guests, allowing them to interpret the information in their own way.

Once again, thank you for sharing your ideas and concerns with us.

Best regards,

David Miller
Park Manager
John James Audubon State Park

daring to comment on the situation in Israel and Palestine

I support a Palestinian state AND I unequivocally condemn the rapes by Hamas. I want the borders of the West Bank to be returned to 1982 lines and I condemn violence perpetuated upon Palestinians by settlers AND I condemn all calls for the elimination of Israel. I want a ceasefire by Israel AND Hamas. I don't believe peace and prosperity is possible in Israel nor Palestine while Hamas is in power NOR while Netanyahu is in power. I hate anti-Semitism and condemn it outright, with no reservations, AND I hate anti-Islamic or anti-Palestinian sentiments that imply these people are somehow inherently subhuman or dangerous and I condemn such outright, with no reservations, and if any of this sentence bothers you, unfriend me, because I just can't with racism. 

And I believe there's no place for me in any demonstration, in any pubic act meant to comment on what is happening, because of the absolutism demanded by organizers, that in supporting something I want to support I must turn a blind eye to something I loathe. I don't know how to support what I want to support without seeming like I'm supporting violence and the dehumanization of one group or another. 

I don't know what to even ask of my elected officials. 

I don't know what the answer to all of this is. 

Just please, everyone, don't lose your humanity. Don't smile at anyone being hurt or killed. Don't choose the dark side, no matter how good or righteous it feels.

New Music from Me - With My Sister!

I went to Kentucky for Thanksgiving for the first time since the 1990s. I wanted to spend time with my mother, to give my husband the experience of Thanksgiving with my family, and to sing with my sister. 

I met all those goals!

And added bonus: Stefan filmed some of the singing. 

Here's us singing In the Garden. 

And here's a mega compilation of all of the videos he took - more than 15 minutes. 

Note that I practiced for months to be able to do this - but my sister hadn't at all and just dropped those harmonies on the spot, reading lyrics off of her phone. She's amazing, truly. 

Thanks to Abbas Music in Henderson for helping me pick out a beautiful but affordable guitar for the ocassion. 

Visit New Harmony, Indiana

New Harmony is a picturesque historic town on the Wabash River in Posey County, Indiana, and if you are anywhere nearby, you absolutely should take a day to visit. I grew up in Henderson, Kentucky, and I had never been until last month, almost 40 years after moving away - embarrassing, because it's so close by! It's about 26 miles from Evansville, Indiana. It's midway between St. Louis, Missouri and Louisville, Kentucky. 

The best days to go, IMO, are Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday or Sunday - lots of businesses are closed Monday and Tuesday. Go in dry weather, because you will spend a lot of time outside. 

The town is filled with beautifully-preserved houses and buildings from the 1800s. I highly recommend renting a golf cart outside the Atheneum, the large white modern building next to the Wabash River at the edge of town, to tour the town. Get a map while you are there or download one on your phone. 

Understanding the history will help you appreciate the town even more:

New Harmony was established by the Harmony Society in 1814 and was originally known as Harmony (also called Harmonie, or New Harmony). It was a settlement for a group of German Lutherans who had separated from the official church in Württemberg and immigrated to the USA. They were nonviolent pacifists who refused to serve in the military and tried to live by George Rapp's philosophy and literal interpretations of the New Testament. The Harmonites believed Jesus Christ was coming to earth in their lifetime to help usher in a thousand-year kingdom of peace on earth. They believed that the old ways of life on earth were coming to an end and that a new perfect kingdom on earth was about to be realized. 

The Harmonites believed that people should try to make themselves "pure" and "perfect", and share things with others while willingly living in communal "harmony" (Acts 4:32-35) and practicing chastity. The Harmonites tended to view unmarried celibate life as morally superior to marriage, based on Rapp's belief that God had originally created Adam as a dual being with both male and female sexual organs. According to this view, when the female portion of Adam separated to form Eve, disharmony followed, but one could attempt to regain harmony through celibacy. Rapp often spoke of the virgin spirit or Goddess named Sophia in his writings. The Hamonites built 180 buildings in the 10 years and many are still standing today. They produced textiles, rope, barrels, tin ware, leather goods, candles, bricks, wine, whiskey and beer. Read about the Harmonites at the Harmony_Society entry on Wikipedia.

But what I am MUCH more interested is what happened after that settlement failed and was sold to Robert Owen, a social reformer and wealthy industrialist from Scotland. Owen's vision was for "a New Moral World" of happiness, enlightenment, and prosperity through education, science, technology, and communal living. Per the call of Owen inviting others to come be a part of his intentional community, in the winter of 1825–1826, the president, librarian, and several members of the Philadelphia Academy of Sciences headed west from Pittsburgh on the Ohio River to New Harmony. Academy President William Maclure, “father of American geology,” had gathered them all aboard the keelboat Philantropist [they used the French spelling]: scientists, artists, musicians, and educators, some bringing along their students, and all eager to settle in New Harmony on the Indiana frontier. Owen described it as a “Boatload of Knowledge.” 

This New Harmony was very different from the original founders: the community provided free co-educational schooling for children from infancy to adulthood half a century before the state mandated it. Town residents also established the first public library and a civic drama club. Among its prominent citizens was one of Owen's sons, Robert Dale Owen, an Indiana congressman and social reformer who sponsored legislation to create the Smithsonian Institution. It was a bold, glorious experiment in communal living with a focus on learning, on the arts and on science. But like pretty much every communal experiment in the USA, most of which were religious-based, the town failed as a utopia - in this case, because of disputes over who had power and influence and who didn't, as well as philosophic disputes. New Harmony was dissolved in 1829 and the town's parcels of land and property were returned to private use. But although Robert Owen's vision of New Harmony as an advance in social reform was not realized, the town became a scientific center of national significance, especially in the natural sciences, most notably geology. And the soul of the town continued through the work of many of its residents, including Robert Dale Owen, eldest son of Robert Owen: in 1830 he published Moral Philosophy, the first treatise in the United States to support birth control, and he returned to New Harmony in 1834.

With this history in mind, going into the Working Men's Institute - part library, part museum, part memorial to a Utopian dream - is a must.  

You should also go into any building or business that's open during your visit, like Community House No. 2, any historic church, whatever. If there is a tour of the town being offered that takes you into houses or buildings, take it! If you hear music coming from a building and the door is open, go in! 

Go into Creation Station 310 and behold the gorgeous dulcimers available for sale - and stay if the owner is playing one! He may even show you how to play one (he did with me!). Visiting Creation Station 310 was the highlight of our entire visit. 

Give yourself time for a hike or a ride on your golf cart on the trails from the open-air church to the Atheneum.  

If the Roofless Church is having a service, and it's a beautiful day, I would think that would be a worthwhile experience, regardless of your religion (or, like me, lack their of). 

I wasn't that impressed with the labyrinth, I must admit. I love the symbolism of it, but actually seeing it didn't really do anything for me. Apparently, for the original founders of the town, the Harmonists, the labyrinth symbolized the difficulties of attaining true harmony and the choices one faces in life trying to reach that goal. The labyrinth was a place of meditation for the Harmonists. Maybe if the shrubs had been full of leaves and had been higher... but I did find it interesting that the labyrinth was so important to the Harmonists, they of the Christian faith, rather than the scientifically-focused settlers who came later. 

There are also a lot of antique shops, including a record store, and some food options in beautiful settings. Christmas is a very big deal for the town. 

You can do everything in a day... but if you are looking to stay overnight, there is Harmonie State Park nearby, which has cabins, as well as some picturesque guest houses. 

The Visit New Harmony official web site has complete info on where you can stay, eat, shop, tour, etc. 

You can see all of my photos from my November 2023 visit to New Harmony here. I loved the town so much, I've been joking with my friends that it's where we should all move when we retire, to create the second attempt at a science and arts-focused learning utopia there. But... am I really joking?

Sometimes, yes, you have to quit what you love

I loathe the "you just need grit to get what you want" pep talks. 

I abhor "Dream it, want it the most, and it WILL happen" advice. 

Because here's the reality: 

People who achieve their dreams and get what they want are NOT always the grittiest, nor the people that "wanted it" the most, nor the hardest workers. 

Also, I regularly meet people who had just as much, if not more, grit and determination and creative ideas as some of the most successful people out there, and they didn't get that career, or that fellowship, or that big sale of their project, that far less talented or determined people have achieved. 

And as arrogant this sounds, I have met oh-so-many people in jobs that I deserved way, way more than they did, based on my experience, talent and grit. 

I touched on this a bit in my blog back in May, You are smart! when I wrote:

In her first book, Michelle Obama noted that she has been at the table with leaders of countries, corporations and foundations, that as a lawyer she worked with powerful corporate folks and served on corporate boards, that she's met oh-so-many people from the United Nations, and she has realized, they are not that smart, they are not brainy super humans. It isn't to say that these leaders aren't capable of the work at hand, that none of them should be in those roles, etc. But they really are not THAT smart, no hugely smarter than YOU.

I'm much closer to 60 than I want to be, and as I've lamented oh-so-many times, the last 20 years, with just a few brief exceptions, have regularly gutted me professionally. I keep trying to be at peace with how these 20 years have gone, and how I'm not where I intended to be professionally speaking, and while I've made some good progress, I still have moments where I get lost in mourning. 

This piece from Freakonomics Radio, about failure, about how grit is NOT always enough to get you to your professional dream, was what I really needed. I found it liberating. I strongly urge you to listen to it. Lots of interviews with people who have failed, who don't have a "but, eventually, I got there!" endings. I didn't feel hopeless afterward - I felt comforted. 

The reality is that, for about 20 years, my life regularly turned out WAY better, professionally-speaking, than I had ever dreamed. So many of those fantastic jobs I had felt like they just dropped in my lap, that I just happened to be at the right place at the right time. I'm so grateful for those experiences. I just wish I'd leveraged them a bit better with an eye to what I would need later. 

Anyway...  

Also see these previous blogs of mine, if you want to see just how much I've struggled with failure and aging and, sometimes, my own advice for dealing with it:

Gen X, struggling for employment? I hear you.

Job searches: they never get easier.

Lesson learned. Again.

Failure and triumph.

Jezebel blog shut down

Jezebel has been shut down by its owner, G/O Media. 

The site of feminist commentary and news was launched with the tagline "Celebrity. Sex. Fashion. Without airbrushing." A 2007 post by editor Moe Tkacik, a former Wall Street Journal reporter, said, "Jezebel is a blog for women that will attempt to take all the essentially meaningless but sweet stuff directed our way and give it a little more meaning, while taking more the serious stuff and making it more fun, or more personal, or at the very least the subject of our highly sophisticated brand of sex joke. Basically, we wanted to make the sort of women's magazine we'd want to read."

The Writers Guild of America-East, which represents G/O Media staffers, said in a statement, “A well-run company would have moved away from an advertising model, but instead they are shuttering the brand entirely because of their strategic and commercial ineptitude. Jezebel was a good website.”

The name Jezebel is a name writers of the two books of Kings in the Bible gave to a wife of Ahab, King of Israel, two hundred years after she existed (if she existed at all). The compilers of the biblical accounts of Jezebel and her family were writing in the southern kingdom of Judah centuries after the events they are supposedly depicting, which happened elsewhere. The name Jezebel is now associated with sexual promiscuity and with women who seek to control others - it is a derogatory term that the blog flaunted, and I loved it for that. 

According to the newly laid-off employee, G/O Media editorial director Lea Goldman had reassured Jezebel staffers in recent weeks that Spanfeller was not looking to shutter the site. So, clearly, Goldman lied. 

I am so upset at this news! Jezebel was not only incredibly fun, it not only explained trending celebrity gossip in a way that made such relevant and interesting, it wasn't just an echo chamber for feminism: it challenged me so often, made me reconsider so many things. I didn't always change my mind, but if I did, it was often because of how an issue was reframed by Jezebel. Plus, my c*nts on c*nts on c*nts sticker from Jezebel on my motorcycle top case was found to be oh-so-amusing to three guys on Vancouver Island recently, and offensive to all those I want it to be offensive to.

A major source of contention has come with automation and AI. In the summer of this year, the (parent) company announced that they planned to publish stories using AI, which resulted in stories that contained false information.

AI is so lousy at writing and even worse at accuracy - but the people holding the purse strings love it nonetheless. So, no more insightful, thoughtful commentary, no more framing of entertainment news in a way that made me care, no more biting insights that challenge how I think. Just crappy coppy and clickbait. 

The world needs Jezebel.