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Weekend Butler: A funny series in snowbound Norway, an “evidence” bag, Glenn Gould almost dances, and a short book to challenge the near-universal gloom
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Published: Jul 08, 2021
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Weekend
EVIDENCE BAG
Excellent carry-all for writing supplies, makeup, medicine, an iPad mini, and, I suppose, “evidence.” 7.25″h x 9.5″w. Made of 95% recycled polypropylene. [To buy it from Amazon for $9.99, click here.]
GLENN GOULD ALMOST … DANCES
In this video, Glenn Gould is practicing Johann Sebastian Bach’s Partita No.2 in C minor. Two minutes in, he gets up and walks around. You can see the energy streaming off of him. Does he almost dance?
ENOUGH ABOUT BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN! LET’S WATCH STEVE VAN ZANDT!
Steve Van Zandt is the Springsteen guitar player and foil who played a bad guy in “The Sopranos.” In this series, he’s a Mafia underboss who rats out his boss and goes into the Witness Protection Program. Where would he like to relocate? He watched the Winter Olympics — how about Lillehammer, Norway? He pictures it as a clean, orderly haven. It is that. It’s also a haven for grifters, perverts and the lazy. Which also works for him; this is a scene he can take over. “Lillehammer” is fun and silly and sometimes rough, and, in a heat wave, it has the virtue of snow. [To stream Season 1 on Amazon, click here.]
REIKI, VINDICATED
Reiki is tricky to describe. It is not “energy medicine.” It does not require a diagnosis. The practitioner doesn’t need to concentrate or “direct” the treatment. The practitioner need not be in the same room, or even the same city. The patient need not be awake for the treatment to work.
Forbes Magazine recently spoke with Pamela Miles, one of the foremost practitioners of Reiki. The interview is brisk, positive, clear, helpful. [To read it, click here.To read about her book on Butler, click here. For more about Pamela Miles, click here.]
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THE WEEKEND POEM
from Citizen: An American Lyric, by Claudia Rankine.
It’s finally your turn, and then it’s not as he walks in front of you and puts his things on the counter.
The cashier says, Sir, she was next.
When he turns to you he is truly surprised.
Oh my god, I didn’t see you.
You must be in a hurry, you offer.
No, no, no, I really didn’t see you.
“EVERYONE I KNOW IS DEPRESSED. EVERYONE I KNOW IS MEDICATED”
A friend’s lament brought me up short. I’m not depressed. The reason, I suspect, is because I have hard deadlines: a lot of work to do, and just enough time to do it. Others don’t have my good fortune, so they consume too much news and draw the seemingly inescapable conclusion that our situation didn’t get better with Trump gone — it’s just as fraught as last year, maybe worse.
A Butler lives to serve, but I’m no help here. Except, perhaps, to suggest a book. If you had to read it in school, you groan. But it’s a page-turner, and short, and it has helped people for a century…
“Siddhartha” was published in 1922, on the heels of a war that ripped the veil of civility from Europe. It takes place in India, in the fifth century B.C. Siddhartha, the son of a Brahman priest, rejects everything he’s been taught and sets out to find a truth he can accept.
As you know, Siddhartha is the given name of the man who became the Buddha. That is not this story —– Siddhartha will meet the Buddha, be impressed by his message, but he will reject him and move on, believing that no teacher can deliver self-knowledge. “Nobody finds salvation through teachings,” Hesse writes. Or, as someone has noted, “The Buddha did not worship the Buddha.”
This seeker tries everything: extreme poverty and deprivation, commerce, soul-shaking lovemaking. He drains each effort completely. A good thing: “Everything that was not suffered to the end and finally concluded, recurred, and the same sorrows were undergone.”
The end? It’s so obvious. You’ve heard it a million times. But hearing it and knowing it –— these are two different things. “Siddhartha” is a useful reminder. [To read more on Butler, click here. To read an excerpt, click here. To buy the paperback from Amazon for $6.25, click here. For the Kindle edition, click here.]
