Culture as a Hedge Against This Soul-Sucking Political Miasma We’re Living In

Medium Cool is a weekly series related to popular culture, mostly film, TV, and books, with some music and games thrown in.  We hope it’s a welcome break from the anger, hate, and idiocy we see almost daily from the other side in the political sphere.

Arguments welcomed, opinions respected, fools un-suffered.  We’re here every Sunday at 7 pm.

I wouldn’t call myself a poetry person, but occasionally I come across a poem that really strikes a chord with me.

Another Scott posted this excerpt from Robert Frost recently, and I appreciated knowing the context for “the only way out is through”.

[…]

But I don’t count on it as much as Len.
He looks on the bright side of everything,
Including me. He thinks I’ll be all right
With doctoring. But it’s not medicine –
Lowe is the only doctor’s dared to say so –
It’s rest I want – there, I have said it out –
From cooking meals for hungry hired men
And washing dishes after them – from doing
Things over and over that just won’t stay done.
By good rights I ought not to have so much
Put on me, but there seems no other way.
Len says one steady pull more ought to do it.
He says the best way out is always through.
And I agree to that, or in so far
As that I can see no way out but through –
Leastways for me – and then they’ll be convinced.
It’s not that Len don’t want the best for me.

Amanda Gorman blew me away with her inaugural speech for Biden.  What I didn’t know until I searched for an image of her for this post is that she was diagnosed with an auditory processing disorder in kindergarten and has has speech articulation issues that make it difficult for her to pronounce certain words and sounds.  I think she’s amazing.

For there is always light, if only we’re brave enough to see it. If only we’re brave enough to be it.

Whether you’re like me and find the occasional poem that strikes a chord, or whether you are a poetry fiend, or you are a poet yourself, I’m thinking that maybe in tonight’s Medium Cool we can share some of our favorite poems.

In case you are new to Medium Cool, these are not open threads.

Medium Cool – Poetry That Strikes a Chord!Post + Comments (111)

Medium Cool is a weekly series related to popular culture, mostly film, TV, and books, with some music and games thrown in.  We hope it’s a welcome break from the anger, hate, and idiocy we see almost daily from the other side in the political sphere.

Arguments welcomed, opinions respected, fools un-suffered.  We’re here every Sunday at 7 pm.

Happy Mother’s Day!

Tonight let’s talk about Moms and all the mom-adjacent people in our lives and the impact they had on you related to all things culture.

My mom took us to plays, took us to the Art Institute and all the other museums in Chicago, took us to the ballet, played music of all sorts all the time.  She took us to nice restaurants in downtown Chicago after going to a museum or when we downtown to see the Christmas decorations in all the stores, and going out to dinner at a nice neighborhood restaurant was a frequent Sunday afternoon treat.

We had a back-to-school ritual of going to Oak Park to shop for school clothes; those memories are quite vivid.  And Easter!  We got special Easter dresses and spring coats and hats and anklet socks and patent leather shoes and my Dad always bought his 3 girls corsages for Easter Sunday.

My mom took us to musicals, and we had soundtracks to all the Disney movies.  We lived right across the street from the movie theater, so we got to see loads of matinees.  In those days, we could pay to get into the theater and then you could spend all day.  We would walk across the street on Saturday afternoons and didn’t even worry about what time the movies started.  We would watch from whatever point the movie was at when we arrived, watch til the end, and the rewatch the whole thing.  Sometimes there was even a double feature.

The library was just around the corner, and oh how we loved to read.  That surely did not happen by accident.  We had the whole collection of Nancy Drew mysteries, and I was so mad at my mom when she donated the whole set to the library as we got older!

How about your Mom?  Maybe you even had more than one Mom!   Don’t forget grandmothers, and all the mom-adjacent women in your life.  A friend of mine basically had 3 moms – her mom and her two aunts, who all raised her.

Oh, and the influence doesn’t have to be positive!  Maybe they made you sit through an opera when you were 7 years old, and you have hated opera ever since!

Mom-related memories, let’s go!

In case you are new to Medium Cool, these are not open threads.

Medium Cool – Mother’s Day EditionPost + Comments (55)

Medium Cool is a weekly series related to popular culture, mostly film, TV, and books, with some music and games thrown in.  We hope it’s a welcome break from the anger, hate, and idiocy we see almost daily from the other side in the political sphere.

Arguments welcomed, opinions respected, fools un-suffered.  We’re here every Sunday at 7 pm.

So I got the idea for this Medium Cool from Cole’s description of the place where he spent the night on Friday.

I am not saying Joelle put me in a dive hotel to kill me and get my inheritance, but I will say that there is a 4 foot sinkhole in my room and a Waffle House next door, so if this is the last you hear from me, it’s been real.

Pretty sure we all have stories from when we stayed at that place – or somewhere similar.

For me, it was the place with the broken lights, the sink where it was clearly better to not wash your hands at all than to wash them in there, where we each slept on top of the bedspreads on top of our coats, and the pool like this one, except that it was rectangular.

As bad as the accommodations are, we console ourselves with the thought that it will make a great story at some point.

Share your stories!

In case you are new to Medium Cool, these are not open threads.

Medium Cool – Bad Lodging! aka Dives Where You Felt Lucky To Get Out of There UnscathedPost + Comments (98)