Phthursday Musings: A Claim of Ginkgo

After publishing five pieces in the last eight days I’m pretty well tapped, but I had a few musings to scatter about. Here they are:

What’s happening in America right now is, well, evil. Full stop.

A lot of other countries have gone through things like this and I very much believe we will come out the other side. Not unscathed, but, we’ll come out the other side. While we’re in the fire, though, we need to take care of each other, and we need to do what we can to take care of the people most in harm’s way.

To that end, this week I donated to the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant & Refuge Rights (ICIRR), a well-respected organization on the front lines of helping people navigate the madness that’s going on. Read about ICIRR here.

I could write a lot more about it all but part of the point of what’s happening is to overwhelm us and leave us feeling helpless, and I’m not going to let them do that to me, and you shouldn’t let them do that to you. Fight back by living your lives and when you can helping others to live their lives.

My old buddy Dan Butler has lived in Austin for a while and does something pretty damn unique: he teaches music to blind students. And there’s a great article out from Texas Monthly about the Semi-Modulars, a synthesizer band of visually impaired students.

If you find the article intriguing, head to their Bandcamp page and check out the five albums the Semi-Modulars have released. Better yet, buy one on Friday, because this week it’s Bandcamp Friday, with all profits going to the artists.

And while you’re at, look all around Bandcamp. Support independent musicians, especially those who are community cornerstones, wherever they might be. I got the idea to support ICIRR from Chicago’s own Rosalba Valdez.

Consider also another of Chicago’s own, Nathan Graham, and if you like it, come hang out with us in Aurora in a couple of weeks when he plays at The Venue.

Music doesn’t magically fix everything… except when it does. We need to stay uplifted together and support the artists who provide that uplift!

This week’s Phthursday flag is the symbol flag for Tokyo Metropolis:

Allegedly this is a stylized ginkgo leaf. Now, I am not here to tell you that it is not. I do see the resemblance:

Still… if I hadn’t told you it was a ginkgo leaf… what would you have thought it was? An upside down his-and-her back-to-back chair? A poorly designed bulb to suck snot out of a baby’s nose? Something vaguely Romulan?

I find it mesmerizing. It is so simple and yet feels like it is concealing so many meanings. Which I’m sure was the point.

Design is hard but sometimes extraordinary things can come from simple design.

I do plan on writing a really long baseball recap at some point. I’ve got so much to say about the year. And we’ve got some very intriguing LDS matchups starting Saturday.

Our fall ball team isn’t doing too well. The Gummy Bears have lost all five games and we’ve been losing big. I’ve been letting anyone who wants to go out and pitch, and we’ve had some rough innings with a lot of walks. But I’m more committed to giving the boys a shot even though I know it’s made for some rough outcomes. They’re mostly 10 and 11 and in the more competitive spring they might not get a chance to pitch… which means they might never get a chance to pitch in a baseball game again. That might sound a little weird but I only pitched once, when I was 12, and that was it. So my bias is, take the ball, give it your best shot.

Hey, maybe you haven’t been following me on BlueSky, where I’m @huckelberry.bsky.social, but now you can. I don’t post a whole lot but I’m there and encourage you all to share META-SPIEL with all your pals there.

As we get into the fall and things slow down a bit I’m thinking of trying to do a couple of little interviews and maybe trying to do another book club in the winter months. If this is all of any interest please speak up. Having seen a lot of people in the last week I’m feeling inspired to do more little collaborations. I think it’d be a healthy way to try and combat the existential pull of what’s happening all around us.

I’m told though that what I really need is some real time off, not time off to spend running around (literally or figuratively), so I might try to do more of that in the fall. This might require getting a couple more pecks of apples from an orchard though.

I also think this November I’ll try to write another mini short story. I’m not sure what about. Maybe about a 12 year old trying to play volleyball. I’ll probably have a lot of material to work with…