June 14 & Navalny: Conviction, Faith, and Showing Up

Catching up, here...

A favorite sign at the June 14 "No Kings" march and rally. 
It was a Sunday morning...

She's smiling--there was lots of that--but overall it was somber:
On the morning of the protest, we had heard that a gunman had stalked and shot four people here, killing two people, state representative Melissa Hortman and her husband–– and their dog. 

Their dog! Gilbert, a golden retriever, "was with them again Friday when the Hortmans lay in state at the Capitol in St. Paul." [via PBS]

Political assassinations; and the gunman was still on the loose. 
It was too late to cancel the rally at the State Capitol, but organizers warned people to stay away. Many I talked to said they felt more compelled to SHOW UP.
 "It matters even more," I said to a friend who expressed concern.

I hadn't made a new sign--figured my cat could do another round...
Below, with bink and King Kong... 

More cat eyes, more smiles--it was good to be around others:

And Alexei Navalny... 
Talk about showing up. You know, he had returned to Russia after almost dying of an attempted assassination by poison, knowing what would happen.

Navalny predicted, in his prison diary:  

"I will spend the rest of my life in prison and die here. There will not be anybody to say goodbye to... All anniversaries will be  celebrated without me. I'll never see my grandchildren."

And that did happen. He was arrested and sent to an Arctic prison, where he died of maltreatment.

Why, people were always asking him, did he return, knowing that?

Because, he said,  

"I don't want to give up my country or betray it. 
If your convictions mean something, you must be prepared to stand up for them and make sacrifices if necessary.

"And, if you’re not prepared to do that, you have no convictions. 
You just think you do. 
But those are not convictions and principles; 
they’re only thoughts in your head." —newyorker.com/magazine/2024/10/21/alexei-navalny-patriot-memoir 

Reading the ^ New Yorker excerpts of Nalanvy's prison diaries, I was amazed at two things.

1. He's funny! 

Here he pretends to blame his wife, Yulia, for writing to him about "preparing crimes": 

2. Nalanvy was a man of faith.
Raised atheist, he had entered the Orthodox Christian faith.

This especially struck me because it's one of the things gulag survivor Varlam Shalamov listed as one three possible factors in maintaining your humanity. 
(The others being spite and indifference. (Spite, I love that.))

And it seems faith literally did help Navlany. He didn't survive, that was not possible, but he did maintain his humanity--and his sense humor.
About living/dying in prison, Navalny wrote: 

"You lie in your bunk looking up at the one above and ask yourself whether you are a Christian in your heart of hearts. It is not essential for you to believe some old guys in the desert once lived to be eight hundred years old, or that the sea was literally parted in front of someone. 

"But are you a disciple of the religion whose founder sacrificed himself for others, paying the price for their sins? Do you believe in the immortality of the soul and the rest of that cool stuff? 

"If you can honestly answer yes, what is there left for you to worry about?  
Why, under your breath, would you mumble a hundred times something you read from a hefty tome you keep in your bedside table? Don’t worry about the morrow, because the morrow is perfectly capable of taking care of itself. 

"My job is to seek the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and leave it to good old Jesus and the rest of his family to deal with everything else. 
They won’t let me down and will sort out all my headaches. 

"As they say in prison here: they will take my punches for me."

______________

To wrap up, a bit of wicked humor. You remember Trump said children only need two or three dolls and five pencils?

Books & Toys at Home

 (Thanks for the inspiration, ML!)

I don't think I've posted photos of my own book and toy shelves in a long time, just those at work. So here's an annotated round-up of some of my shelves where books 'n' toys 'n' stuff live together.

BELOW: Books from (mostly) my childhood. A few, like Toot & Puddle, I only read as an adult. I didn't keep any from childhood––I've slowly gathered them when they're donated to the thrift store. Amazing how many of the exact editions I had will come in.

The framed photo of the girl archers (at summer camp!), also from the thrift store.
I brought home the Penguin Michael Innes books (green spines) for their cool covers--thought I'd try one--my mother loved his books--but I don't really care for mysteries.

                 ^ Girlettes  Spike & Low

BELOW: I don't like GK Chesterton, I just love the painting on the cover of that book, "Landscape from a Dream" (1938) by Paul Nash (at the Tate).

Gold-framed artwork by my friend S. Barrett Newhall (1934–2011).

Far right: George Harrison's album All Things Must Pass--I remember my mother buying that when it came out, in 1970.

     ^ Girlette: Fight Club.

BELOW: Sixteen-year-old me took that square snapshot, below left, of 21-y.o. Chuck Harding driving on spring break to Alabama––with three little boys—his two cousins and my brother––in the back seat. Chuck was family of a woman my father was dating.

 I always hoped I'd see him again––it'd been several decades—and then I learned that he had died, at 56.
 

This spring it came to me forcefully what a good friend he'd been to me. In many ways because of what he didn't do. Mostly, he didn't do anything but be kind and calm and generous.
I was surrounded by adults who were driven by their emotions--looking back, what a cast of characters! We could have been a Fellini circus.
Chuck was the calm at the eye of that storm. 
I wish I could ask him now--how did he maintain that???

Anyway, if you feel unappreciated by someone you've been consistently kind to--just wait! A dozen years after you're dead, they'll weep and wish they could thank you.

(Thank you, Chuck.)

BELOW: TALK WeRK was donated that way. Inside, it's a normal dictionary. It reminds me of Russell Hoban's Riddley Walker, a favorite book I do not have a copy of! (I do have his Turtle Diary and one of his Francis the badger books for children though.)

Sticking out towards you is a conductor's baton in a narrow box--it belonged to my musician grandfather, presented to him at the birth of his daughter, my mother.

BELOW: Two of my favorite Edward Gorey covers for Anchor paperbacks. The pile behind them are all his too. (I've read the Aeneid but not A Hero...)
The little green bear was a present from Marz's friend Quill.
I almost never use recipes--I just eat sandwiches and like that.

BELOW: I love mid-century tins made in England, like this Byzantine one with the gold knob on the bottom shelf. 
I imagine Barbara Pym (or one of her 'excellent women' characters) strictly rationing confectionery or biscuits out of such a one, in a post-war London bedsit. 
"I allowed myself a caramel for tea."

BELOW: Framed photo of a fellow peregrino helping me get water from a fountain on Camino in Spain.
The reading rat was once the base of a lamp, but has come free.
What is Rat reading out loud? Sci-fi, like the books on this shelf?
I don't think so. I think... something about heroic bears.

BELOW: Firefly, the brown bear, is the first vintage mohair bear I repaired, and one of my favorites. Next to her sits Fog City, another top favorite.
The little black bears (also favorites!) were made in the 1960s in Japan for sale in Yellowstone (and other US National Parks). Decorations added by me.

 

BELOW: Fiction shelves, with, standing, my re-cover of the first of the Murderbot Diaries. (The soldier was a member of a UN security team.)
Several people have told me how good the current Apple TV show of Murderbot is, and I don't doubt it. But I'm not replacing my hard-won image of Murderbot as written: gender- and sex-less (pronoun: "it"). And of indeterminate race, but likely not Scandinavian (as the actor is).
I worked hard not to envision Murderbot as a white male storm trooper (Star Wars style), and to find images that suited it better, in my opinion.
And then they cast it as a white male, storm trooper style. 
This kills me, such a missed opportunity.

BELOW that--basket and suitcase of bears and friends look down. I'm pretty sure they all scramble down to play when I'm not around.

Doll Camp: Doll Eyes

They said they are ‘Doll Eyes’, not god’s eyes—

“That name is for humans”. 

(MT’s doll Margaret Helen is on the far right.)

I liked making these—super simple—I hadn’t made one since art class in … fourth grade. I’d like to try different threads—and maybe more elaborate shapes—for the coming winter holidays,  maybe. 

I looked them up—they can get reeeeeally elaborate!

https://makezine.com/article/craft/these-arent-gods-eyes-you-made-at-summer-camp/

"Different kinds of unnowen"

Somebody donated to the thrift store a postage stamp collection from a 1980s childhood, with envelopes labeled by country---
and Different kinds of unnowen [unknown]:

I priced the box $28, and as I was carrying it to the display case, someone bought it right out of my hands.
 _________________

Perfect Dog Days

I went to see the new Superman with L & M last night. 
I'm generally tired of superhero movies and haven't seen one in years, but I'd heard good things about this one.
And I loved it! 
Superman: Triumph of the Dork. 

Favorite movie moment: Lex Luthor's tennis-ball sized dronebots are defeating Superman... until he says to the flying Superdog,

"Krypto! Get the toy!"

...in exactly the up tone of voice you do say such a thing to a dog.
It's like the scene in Up when fierce Rottweillers are menacing the heroes, and one calls out to the dogs, "Squirrel!"
All the dogs become dopey doodles, looking for the squirrel. 

Also, as a pet-sitter, I related to how Superman feels the weight of responsibility of caring for someone else's pet. (Krypto is his cousin's.)

Superman (David Corenswet) and Krypto were charming, but my favorite character was, above left, the supersmart Mister Terrific (Edi Gathegi). Sort of a snarky Mr. Spock.
To Lois Lane, he says,
"I'm not interested in your human emotions". 

And Nicholas Hoult, right, as Luthor was terrific. Elon Musk & Trump rolled into one (with a touch of Epstein?). 
He admits he hates Superman because he's envious. But, nice touch, he's also kind of in love with him.
 "Tall, dark and Martian is not my type," he sneers, leading you to suspect it is exactly his type.

It's easy for we who are alive now to line up the events of Superman with current affairs–– because we're in the middle of them. 
It'll stand alone in the future too—it reminds me of reading The Master & Margarita and knowing that I was missing so many codes that would have been perfectly clear to the readers of the time. 
The whole movie could be studied in fifty years as a coded commentary on our political landscape. 

Russia & Ukraine; Gitmo and other offshore prisons;
climate disaster (in the movie, Luthor's meddling with the environment means creating a cosmic rip)–– 
and our own piddling inaction.
While his cohorts bicker about the name of their group, the Justice Gang?, Mister Terrific says, 

"We’re here to stop dimensional collapse. 
But sure, let’s workshop the logo.”

Reminds me of comic Marc Maron on our self-satisfaction as the climate collapses:

 "We did everything we could. 
We....we brought our own bags to the supermarket. And the drinking straws thing." 

______________

Krypto was CGI-genertated (a real dog named Jolene stood in on set), but after the movie, bink & Maura and I were exclaiming how realistic the relationship between man and dog was. 
Whoever crafted that knows how it goes. 

This morning I looked it up, and director James Gunn said that...

"Krypto was influenced by his adopted dog Ozu, who was abandoned in a backyard and had no human contact. 
Ozu destroyed Gunn’s home, his shoes, furniture, and laptop. 
When he was writing Superman, he contemplated what if Ozu had superpowers, and that shaped his characterization of Krypto. Who wouldn’t laugh at a dog with superpowers chewing up the Fortress of Solitude?"
[via]

His dog is named Ozu! 
Surely after Japanese filmmaker Yasujiro Ozu, right?
 
That reminds me, I recently watched the DVD of Perfect Days (2023) about a Japanese man who cleans Tokyo Toilets (17 artist/architect designed public toilets). 
Director Wim Wenders said he was most inspired as a young movie maker by Ozu.
{––Via Criterion}

Having enjoyed working as a janitor myself, I related to the story of a man, Hirayama (Koji Yakusho), who chooses this simple work/life. (It is not explicit, but Wenders says he imagines the character was a successful businessman who broke his life.)

After work, Hirayama, single man, reads in bed in his little apartment until he falls asleep. His bed is on the floor, of course.
 Just like me!
I can't think of another such scene from my life in a movie. 

The character's room--mostly plants and books–inspired me to declutter my place a little.
I want some tatami floor mats too, but they're a couple hundred dollars. I hadn't realized they are not hard, flat rush mats--they're slightly cushioned (with rice straw, traditionally).
Even better.

I liked Perfect Days, especially the first half when nothing happens. We just follow Hirayami on his daily rounds. 
But the second half becomes too obvious, "as told to the children". 
I felt the director did not have the courage of his conviction, and had to make sure we knew what he was getting at.
And the music score is way too narrative.

So I'd recommend it, but I  wouldn't say I totally loved it.
Three out of four stars.

I give Superman 4/4  stars for its genre. It has no pretense to be anything but an entertainment, and yet it's more. 
Of course Superman also preaches the sweetness of being good-natured (with good glutes!), but we are the choir who has heard it all before.

Even its music is a touch unexpected: 
"Punkrocker," by the Teddybears with Iggy Pop.
 

Oh yeah, and another reporter complains that Clark Kent eschews adverbs. So cinnamon roll, so pure— – what’s not to love?______________

As for the dog days of summer... 
We haven't had it too bad this year so far. Lots of rain, so everything is plushy green, and daytime temps haven't risen above 90º F (32ºC) very often. 

Unfortunately every time it cools off, that sucks in Canadian air, which means smoke from wildfires. Today it's a pleasant 78, but the air quality is a high 120: "unhealthy for sensitive groups".
That is, people with lungs.
________________________

I'm blogging this morning on my laptop at the café in the atrium of a fancy hotel downtown. 
As always, I marvel at how well– dressed and coiffed everyone is here. It's a treat to see that the kombucha and bobba tea (paper straws! compostable cups!) crowd is flourishing.

Honestly, I find this a comforting illusion to be around once in a while, even as I judge it as entirely artificial and morally indefensible.

LOL. It's the world we live in.
Look, circled in red--the hotel shares its high-tech building with a Wealth Management firm.

But it's just such a nice respite, I wish it were sustainable and fair.
My workplace is so dirty, we all wear pretty grungy clothes, and often the customers do too. Sometimes a customer's body odor will almost gag me. 
(Mostly though, they come trailing clouds of weed.)
I can guarantee that NO ONE here in the café has any body odor. Well, maybe they smell of expensive "hair product".

Whatcha gonna do?
I am enjoying a break from grunge and my own illusion of moral superiority with oat milk latte in a ceramic mug.
A moral corrective!

 I don't really think I'm morally superior---
except, of course, don't we all, secretly? 
It's such a boring state of mind.
One of those bread crumbs sticking to the wooly sweater of my self that I'd love to brush off.
_______________

Some of my work yesterday.

Sometimes I love my job so, so much.
Often in fact.
Very happy making: I put electrical tape on this statue and a warning sign, "Peek at Your Own Risk!"
The upside down wrestler’s hand is grasping the other guy's penis. Priced to move at $4.99, it sold right away. I wish I'd seen who bought it.
(I didn't want Big Boss to see it because he might say I had to remove it so nobody gives us a bad google review. Really!
Big Boss is the fly in my love ointment, 
the karmic pebble in my shoe. 
Probably the Divine Mother sent him for my own good.
UGH!)

Remember TANG? A customer said it was "scientific Kool-Aid".
I put the Tang pitcher with a map of Space Travel from 1966.

I almost bought these cuties, but honestly, I have more than enough toys. 

Okay, that's it for today. 
I am liking blogging again, after detoxing from my own reactions to the blogosphere. A couple folkx have emailed that they are liking it too--thanks for saying!

To come: Doll Camp Report.
This afternoon the Girlettes and I are going to MT's place to make yarn gods eyes.

Doll Camp: "The Raft of the Medusa"

 Penny Cooper wants everyone to know:
"Don't be upset, it's ONLY PRETEND."

Also, it could never happen because, as you can see from her Red Cross pin, she is an Intermediate Swimmer! 
And will be going for her Lifesaving badge too.

So, here is their first rendition of "The Raft of the Medusa". (Original follows.)

 The most coveted role was the one with the falling down socks. My favorite touch is the birdbath (a ceramic pie tin) for the ocean.

BELOW: "The Raft of the Medusa", by Théodore Géricault (1818, France)-- more info at The Louvre. (It's quite big--the people are near lifesize.)

I'm not sure we'll do another version. Our raft is too small, and I think this rendition is actually pretty great. (Though the grass bugs me—I should have put down a blanket.)
_______________________

Making a raft was the first project of their summer Doll Camp 2025, way back in early June--but I wasn't blogging so I never posted it!

(Penny Cooper says the blog is important:
 "It's where you show what we do".
That's true enough.)

They assembled the raft...

...but the final steps were human-sized. I tied off the sticks (at some event I attended at the lake but wasn't interested in):

(Comments off, email welcome.)

Valuable Paper File

Some catch-up photos... 
One particular donor has been decluttering all summer and giving us the Most Excellent vintage thrift.

            VALUABLE PAPER FILE
                       for home and office

______________________

BELOW: My display in BOOK's:

Do-it-Yourself 
PROUSTIAN MOMENT!
Madeleine tins! Wow!

The tins sold the next day. 
Maybe some baker happened to want madeleine tins? But in the past they have not sold from the Baking Aisle...

 

 

Finally! Besty-Tacy books with the original illustrations by Lois Lenski! I wish they were hardcover with dust jackets, but even the Harper paperbacks from 1979 are rare donations. 
THEY ARE FOR ME.
(Also, I pinned a Thing (2) to my apron--chaos agent from the Cat and the Hat, you know.)

Maud Hart Lovelace's girls are like Girlettes--rolling on with Being, without the brakes of self-judgment.
 In a few years, if they were humans  that would be gone, but they never age--the girlettes or the early Betsy-Tacy. (I don't read the later books when they're older.)

Debating Wagner, book below. Tangled up in blue.

Birds mingling with composers. The busts have been around for weeks---will they sell now?

That green glaze juice-squeezer set ^ has also been around for weeks. ($15) Made in Japan, 1950s-60s. I'm amazed it hasn't sold. 

More birds.  
Brn Birds on Wire 30¢ listening to St Francis preach.

"We like him, but we know all that stuff. 
Does he have any bread crumbs in his robes?"

I do believe Linda Sue sent me this diptych frame. A prayer was pasted on the right side, but the birds didn't like it. B-O-R-I-N-G. words, words, words

Doing Nothing.

I'm pretty well this summer. I'd gotten off all social media six months ago, after seeing those 'net moguls on Trump's inauguration platform woke me up: 
This is not playing with in the garage anymore! 
This is world domination.

After that, and then stopping blogging a couple months ago, I had a lot of free time! 
What I should do?

And it came to me--(was it Penny Cooper who said it?),
Why don't you try DOING NOTHING?

 

So I have been doing that.
Close to nothing, anyway. Sitting with my amber prayer beads with my coffee in the mornings. Trying to count to ten breaths without interrupting myself. Very amusingly bad at it. 

Then, being human, my brain wanted to investigate Nothing.
 I've been reading and listening to things about/from Hinduism--mostly American-style, like Ram Dass. "Be here now," from my childhood!

And Christopher Isherwood's 1980s memoir of his 40-some years as a disciple of an Indian guru in California: My Guru and His Disciple.

Very comforting to me that after decades meditating, Isherwood doesn't seem less self-obsessed. (Though, what would he have been like without it?) 
And that's not the point.
Doing Nothing, dropping the self, is NOT A SELF-IMPROVEMENT PROJECT.
And yet, it sort of is?
More of a Self-LIBERATION project:
 Drop bits of yourself like bread crumbs for the birds.

It's a slippery one too--the harder you grasp, the more it eludes you.
Very appealing to this Pisces.
Frankie says, RELAX.

I have been liking Ravi Shankar's Morning Raga: Lots of nothing happens. And then... the sun!

Anyway, a friend said she missed my blog and I thought, maybe I do too.
Let's see how it feels...
If I leave comments off, I won't get so entangled in judgment (my own!).

__________________

I've been more friendly with food this year, after dropping added-sugar last Halloween.
Sort of trying to release myself there, too. I think this is all to do with AGING. Release, release--turn into a helium balloon...

When I was young, being fat was my friend!
I didn't exactly see it that way--but I did suspect that it kept me safe, out of the eye of sex, where I didn't want to be.
It worked! 
But at a cost, that as I age becomes more evident:
 the physical weight of weight.

Can I lighten up?
In every way?

Maybe, a little anyway. 

Below, left: On Camino, 2011. Fourteen years later, right, this summer I am finally the same weight again. After years of enjoying the ice-cream and beer diet! That was great, but oddly, I don't miss it. Or, not much.

I do feel better, lighter, but no Camino this summer--my knee is still healing--and every time it gets better I think, I can bike now! 
And that always sets it back. 
So: no biking or hiking until fall.

I am taking the bus instead, and sort of enjoying it:
I envision cartoon rays of light coming off all the other bus riders.
The bus to the thrift store is often a little village of people staying out of the heat in the a/c, napping, doing business in the back... (I bought some ankle socks the other day.) I am sometimes the only white person. (Notable here in Scandinavian-settled territory: 

who has money; who has cars?)

Still setting up side-by-sides.

And the Toy Bridge has expanded to another ledge too.
I've been putting cool pictures in little empty frames.

 

Comments are off, email is welcome. 

 

“Stop trying to tidy yourself up”

Some of my end-cap displays at work:

I’m really enjoying Christopher Isherwood’s “My Guru and his disciple” – – his memoir of living monastically with a Hindu swami. This entry from December 31, 1944, made me laugh in happy recognition.

Snap out of it!

 “Everything, including your scruples about your conduct, is vanity, in the last analysis. Never mind what other people think of you. Never mind what you think of yourself. Stop trying to tidy yourself up. Stop making vows – –you’ll  only break them. No more tears, I beg. Come on, Saint Augustine – – amuse us. And let’s make this a happy new year.”

————

BELOW: Lucinda is entirely redoing their upstairs bathroom, after a pipe broke – – with help from their neighbor Christopher:

Me and sister at the Stillwater Carnegie library

Independence Day: Completely Unprepared

ABOVE: They are singing independence day songs they wrote themselves. (I can’t quite make out the words. It may have something to do with getting Popsicles out of the freezer by yourself? Or maybe it’s nothing like that at all.)

Penny Cooper’s RedCross badge shows she has achieved intermediate swimmer status!ABOVE: I read this quote last night that reminds me of my temptation for GLP-1 drugs that silence food “noise” as they are calling it. It’s in a memoir by Christopher Isherwood – – he’s talking about his Hindu guru, who told him that being released from desire would mean missing “all the fun of the struggle”. 

(Not always so “fun” – – and I certainly think people like Maura’s brother who are chronically, morbidly obese are smart to take Ozempic.)

 I read a thing about rats in labs – – they are bored! And so they are more susceptible to fighting and to addiction. 

They did this experiment where they gave a bunch of rats a playground – – all the things rats like to do – – and these rats were healthier and friendlier! 

I think we are, as a book title says, literally “amusing ourselves to death“ – – because we are bored and we are not spiritually struggling— that’s where the fun comes in! 

It is fun to be in the playground of our own lives.

BELOW: cover of a book about a Buddhist take on the Jewish holy days, This Is Real and You Are Completely Unprepared. Always applies, but with a special emphasis for me (us) after Trump’s “big beautiful bill” passed this week.

BELOW: I set up a 4th of July end cap at work …

… and pinned a Thing 2 to my work apron. It’s a tilt-a-whirl world.