I have books that I have ordered waiting for me both at the library and the Readers World. I am delaying going out into the cold since I am madly trying to read in books I already have from the library. I am continuing to enjoy The Art of Tradition: Sacred Music, Dance & Myth of Michigan’s Anishinaabe, 1946-1955. As I learn more and more about this tradition I have increasing reservations about using melodies from it. It feels like appropriation if not very carefully. I am more likely to simply write some music but not use melodies lifted from this book. It has many melodies, dances, and songs. I love the attitude this book exposes: the humor in the tradition and the genius of people who adapt their ideas and traditions into a changing context. Humans are amazing animals that is for certain.

I love the idea that Anishinaabe do not have a clearly distinct idea of sacred and profane.

I am also continuing to read Lives like Loaded Guns: Emily Dickinson and Her Family’s Feuds by Gordon. As proceed into the story of what happened after Emily Dickinson’s death I can see that the main character of this book is her scattered poems and manuscripts which were divided up as a direct result of feuds in subsequent generations. It is the manuscripts that hold my attention especially since the editing of them is still underway.

The Culture War Has Warped the Supreme Court’s Judgment

Another good article in the Atlantic by Adam Serwer.

“If you read the legal language in the Occupational Safety and Health Act… you might think that the Biden administration’s vaccine mandate stood a good chance of surviving the Supreme Court’s review.

But if you watched Fox News at all over the past year, you would have guessed that it was doomed.”

Ms. Lauryn Hill Is Executive Producing A Doc On The Baraka Family

As in Amiri Baraka the late poet.

Look around you. The way we live explains why we are increasingly polarized

Anthropologist, Anand Pandian writes about America for The Guardian.