I’ve been grooving to several upcoming releases this morning, including the sophomore set from Song People, Tho I Seem Tame, and Margo Cilker’s Little White Cross, both of which are slated to hit the street on October 9; plus Devon Church’s The Shame of Winnipeg, which will be out this Friday and that I plan to spotlight—if all goes according to plan—on Thursday. Also on the playlist: jazz percussionist Adam Rudolph’s Invisible Threads, also out Friday, which I’ll write about over the weekend. I’ll save my deep thoughts of the first two for the week of their release, but my short and sweet take on both can be summed up with: They’re extraordinary. Devon Church’s set, meanwhile, is a moody treatise that lingers in the subconscious, with his deep rumble of a voice akin to recovered memories, while Adam Rudolph’s instrumentals delve one layer lower, to the unconscious, with the musical symbolism welling up primordial forces. Or something like that.
Today’s “daily writing prompt” poses the question: “What’s the best advice you’d give to someone younger than you?”
It should come as no surprise, I suppose, that one piece of advice I’d give to the young is related to the first paragraph: Find time for art in all its many forms, from abstract paintings to wordy poems to provocative novels to melodic symphonies to Appalachian folk ballads to black-and-white films. Be open to it all. Think. Relate. Empathy has become something of a dirty word in some quarters, but empathy is a necessity for navigating the world; art, at its best, teaches us that.
Also, and this is perhaps the most important, embrace this quote from Alexander Pope, “To err is human, to forgive, divine.” Everyone makes mistakes. We trip, we stumble, we fall flat on our face—and we get up again, often with help. When or if you see that happen, offer a hand.
Of course, such unsolicited advice often comes with an air or attitude of superiority attached: I know better than you! We come across it everyday, right? Despite the many social media apps that exist, we live in an unsocial age that features competing keyboard collectives seeking to shepherd their contrarian worldviews into the mainstream not through reasoned advocacy but by shouting over those who disagree with them. It’s not a right v. left thing, either, as both extremes essentially embrace the Moral Majority of yore. Thus, my last piece of advice is this: Don’t follow TikTok trends. Follow your heart instead.
The Old Grey Cat 