The Lyrics Acquisition Stage (Piaget’s Theory Amended)

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The Master, Leonard Cohen, wrote this in 1984.

I’ll be 70 in 7 years and the 70s were my playground. I was 10 going on 11 when they started.  It was then that I discovered the power of music to inspire, soothe, invoke love, and provoke dance.

Piaget’s Theory of the Four Cognitive Periods of childhood development are Sensorimotor stage (0–2 years old) Preoperational stage (2–7 years old) Concrete operational stage (7–11 years old) Formal operational stage (11 years old through adulthood).  Piaget was a famous Swiss child psychologist.  My friend Dale always maintained that the Fourth Stage was The Lyrics Acquisition Phase followed by the Operational Stage as the Fifth.

I agree.

I came of age during the 70s and the early 80s.  Didn’t dive into real adulthood, whatever real might mean, until I was 25.  Before that, I was a party girl.  Party girl in the sense that I was out with friends all the time — all the time — loading lyrics into my brain.  We were dancing, we were at concerts, we were cruising around listening to the car stereo, we were in someone’s basement listening to Pink Floyd until 2, 3, and 4 a.m.

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I want to think again of nothing.

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Photo by Connie Kinsey

I want to think again of nothing.  There must have been a time my brain wasn’t churning, churning, churning.  The incessant monkey mind silenced.  But it’s probably a pipe dream.  I read recently, that even in the womb we dream. If we dream, we must think.  But about what?  Surely not the things I think about all the time.  Surely not.  Please. All that thinking just wears me out.

I want to think again of recess – that wonderful part of our day when we left it all in the classroom and went outside to the bright sun.  I usually played jacks.  When we came back in, the teacher would read aloud from a chapter book.  What glorious days were those.

I want to think again of the latest book I’ve read.  To ponder where the story is going and imagine the characters.  I want to be lost in that scenery, invested in those lives, living vicariously through both protagonists and villains.  If one is too busy to read, one is too busy.

I want to think again of the sounds of the forest and the garden.  I want to sit in my garden, close my eyes, and just listen to the wind rustling through tree leaves, the sound of animals scurrying here and there in the forest, and hear the heart-pulling yet peaceful call of the mourning dove.  Who is she mourning?  What is she mourning?  Does she too want to think of what was?

I want to think again of endless possibilities of what I might be when I grow up.  All the possible pearls one might pull out of the oyster.  The curiosity about where life might lead me.  I’ve been led and there aren’t a lot of years ahead of me.  I think of the inevitable things.

I want to think again of nothing. Blissful, peaceful nothing.  Still and quiet.  Feel the wind on my skin and sound of mourning doves and the scent of late-blooming roses.  I want to close my eyes so I see nothing—nothing that needs to be done or fixed or some other unpleasant chore.

Nothing.  I want to think again of nothing.

A riff on the poem Starlings in Winter by Mary Oliver

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Political Assassinations, Dead Chickens, Pop and Popcorn

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One movie poster proclaimed, “No grander Caesar…No greater cast!” It was the first filming of Julius Caesar in color. It was released in 1971 in the US. It might have been ’72 before I saw it but see it I did at the Northwoods Park Movie Theater in Jacksonville, North Carolina. It was walking distance from my house, a long walk, but walking distance, nonetheless.

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100 Days of Badass Women

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I interrupt this blog to bring you a note from Doug Imbrogno, founder and editor of Westvirginiaville – a digital magazine.

The short version is that “100 Days of Badass Women” is a semi-finalist in a new online film event called the Paris Women Festival. You’ll have to read more to find out why I am so proud of this accomplishment!

NOTE: View the film here: https://westvirginiaville.com/2021/02/100badasswomenvideo/

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THERE ARE A BUNCH OF world-class artists at work in West Virginia. The habitual ‘hillbilly chauvinism’ against the state often obscures their work to the wider global audience it deserves. Yet, at least in the case of Cabell County-based artist Sassa Wilkes (they/them), artful judges are noticing. I’m pleased to report the 19-minute AmpMediaProject 2021 documentary, “100 Days of Badass Women,” about Sassa’s remarkable artistry and “badass women” portrait series, has earned semi-finalist status in a new online film event called the Paris Women Festival (yes, THAT Paris, not Paris, Texas).

This continues an impressive run whenever I submit to filmfests this showcase of Sassa and their art and philosophy, in a video crafted by Bobby Lee Messer and myself from a Connie Kinsey interview. The doc has earned spots in: the 2021 versions of the SiciliAmbiente Festival; the Montreal Independent Film Festival; the Chicago Indie Film Awards; Venice Shorts in Venice, California; and was an award winner in the 2021 Accolade Global Film Competition and Best Shorts Competition.

Lest you think I dressed in drag to enter this new online fest, here’s how the festival self-describes: “Paris International Women Festival is a competitive online event that valorizes the work of women filmmakers or films about women. In this festival, we are looking for a unique and innovative perspective from female filmmakers to introduce them and promote them. We also accept projects directed by non-female directors who have something important to say about womanhood. We are an online event based in Paris and we are dedicated to female cinema.”

Sassa (and Connie) indeed have something important to say, show and reveal. Bravo to a West Virginia artist and work deserving of all the success in a world that is actually taking notice of this showcase of it. -Doug Imbrogno