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MCMXC

This blog gets me crossing paths with individuals who have something to add about the world as they understand it.  Like the Discover feature on TikTok, imagination is an alluring quality.  

Jim Adams is a writer with a fascination for music, who concocts prompts for a blog.  He thinks of words for participants to find in song titles, or lyrics, in a blog format.

Participants discuss the songs with a common element, the writing prompt, as it appears in the lyrics, or in the song title.

Photo by Matt Jones from StockSnap

I have read some of his participants’ blog discussions and I have followed along some of what is new with Jim.  He publishes the prompts carefully, only a few at a time, to let his followers know what is coming.

For November 8, Jim prompted “days of the week,” and the song I thought of is Monday Morning, by the band The Church.  It has taken me a good deal longer than I anticipated to get this post ready and finished, but I thought the finished post might be good enough that I should go ahead and post it.

The Church is a rock band with a dark flavour for their music, rarely undemanding, weird at times, and atmospheric.  It’s not from my part of the world, but I like it.

The Church

The Church in the year 1990 wrote Monday Morning, singer Steve Kilbey, drummer Richard Ploog, guitarist Marty Wilson-Piper, and, guitarist Peter Koppes, for the record Gold Afternoon Fix.

At the time, The Church excused the completed collection as an innovative disappointment.   The percussion on the melodies didn’t turn out.

One of the songs for Gold Afternoon Fix is entitled Disappointment.  “Late for an appointment, clothes everywhere/I cannot find my memory anywhere/Ah disappointment just doesn’t care,” Kilbey sings.

I think Monday Morning is a song that initially appeared only on the CD release of the album, not the LP.  For me, The Church is a charming band, and I believe founding songwriter Steve Kilbey has since allowed that his original opinion about the album needn’t have been so critical.

The Church began in 1980 as a new wave band, a music genre emerging after the punk rock scene.  The Church was pretty noisy, good, though.  By 1983 they were making more experimental music.

By creative failure, I only mean music that lacks integrity, bad music.  That’s not The Church.  They are a band I quite like.

The chief problem with Gold Afternoon Fix is really that the personnel couldn’t come to an agreement about the percussion.  The melodies are very acceptable at any rate.  For example, I like the tune Monday Morning.

Perhaps the song is about a weekend fling, the freedom of time spent away, as from office life, when a free heart gets heavy again, when Monday morning arrives, and the weekend has dispersed.

The Church was in L.A. and the culture of the day must have touched on the lyrics Kilbey wrote for the record.  The air was full of energy.

In the 1990s, Los Angeles Was Both Heaven and Hell

As far as the discography by The Church, Gold Afternoon Fix followed their record Starfish, their 1988 album, which was a major achievement for them, and which contains the exemplary melody Under the Milky Way.  The record Priest = Aura followed two years after the fact, in 1992.  Steve Kilbey recalls fondly the 1990s in Sydney, Australia, he’s said on Twitter.

1988 The Church LP

Gold Afternoon Fix is an album I like.  The band did have trouble getting the percussion for Gold Afternoon Fix correct, and drummer Richard Ploog only plays drums on four of the songs on the album.  The other songs have the beat of a drum machine.

Other than Steve Kilbey writing occasional new material with a drum machine, the band had never considered using that kind of percussion on an album.  They’d become known for being a great beat.  Richard Ploog, the drummer, couldn’t finish recording the drums for Gold Afternoon Fix, however.

Mr. Ploog’s interest in music had stopped meeting the vision the other members of the band had, for the songs.  Ploog’s energy was turning into contention, with the interest in music the other three artists had.

Ironically, one of the first songs The Church did, in their early years as a band, is called Too Fast for You.  “Oh, and I hope I’m not going too fast for you/And don’t believe it when they say it’s over,” Kilbey sings.

Wikipedia says drummer Nick Ward played on their first collection; through the 1980s the band’s steady drummer, for a very long time, 1982-1990, was Richard, who left the band after Gold Afternoon Fix.  Mr. Ploog withdrew from The Church around 1990, to invest more energy with his better half.

In Marty Wilson-Piper’s blog, Wilson-Piper wrote in October 2011 that Monday Morning is one of the four songs that Mr. Ploog is playing on.  Marty Wilson-Piper is one of the founding members of the band, along with Kilbey and Koppes.  He calls attention to Peter Koppes’ mandolin, on the melody, and that is enough to appreciate the tune.

Mandolin

Monday Morning is one of the last songs Mr. Ploog played on while The Church was a big commercial act.  They continued to make records for years, but after 1990 they weren’t the same band, however good Priest = Aura turned out to be (a good album, too).

Artificial Photography

In my first year of school, 1996, I read a gathering about The Church.  There were some jokes about The Church’s concert film for Gold Afternoon Fix turning up in retail discount bins.  It was a joke about Gold Afternoon Fix not being their best album.

All things considered, fans’ excitement for The Church was unmistakable, and Richard Ploog got a ton of regard from audience members.  Gold Afternoon Fix also sold very well, commercially successful.  Ironically, the commercial rock was hard to combine with artistic integrity, Wilson-Piper’s comments reflect in his blog.

The difference between Gold Afternoon Fix and some of the earlier music by The Church, like Remote Luxury and Persia may be that the band’s vision for their music came across loud and clear on releases like the aforementioned, and was more subdued, so to speak, by 1990.  To tell the truth, I don’t know that the meaning of a song like Shadow Cabinet is clear to me; however, Shadow Cabinet was the name of one fan webpage.  Though years ago, I am sure it would have seemed to be quite a simple page compared to how it might have been today; pictures and blocks of text.

I sat in one of the rooms of the home of one of my uncles looking for The Church on AOL.  The Church was one of my very first Internet searches ever, and certainly the first band that I researched on the Internet.

The meaning of the lyrics for Monday Morning are clearer for me than words like “Queueing in the ruins in the wake of the gale it’s/Harmony I say” in Shadow Cabinet.

These days both Koppes and Wilson-Piper have moved on from The Church.  Koppes continues to write and record music; both Kilbey and Koppes had new albums in the autumn on 2020.

Fans of The Church are sometimes referred to as their Army.

Thank you to Jim for his prompt, “days of the week.”

https://jimadamsauthordotcom.wordpress.com/2020/11/07/a-week-is-a-unit-of-time/

As well, you’re welcome to like, follow and/or comment here.

https://www.facebook.com/findingenvirons

https://www.quora.com/profile/Patrick-Coholan

https://about.me/patrickcoholan

Monday Morning

Beyond the city, and evening dust

Dreams and thunder rattle the rust

You had an idea that you won’t have again

She’s forgotten your name and hopes you’ll do the same

Start of the ash, and the end of the flames

Burning you turning you

There was a lifetime spent in the sun

Hundreds of chances, blew every one

Dice rolled, double six, double six, double six

Owner of trouble, flesh blood and bricks

You had an idea that you won’t have again

She’s forgotten your name and hopes you’ll do the same

The start of the ash and the end of the flames

Turning you burning you

Oh Monday morning, the cracks become quite clear

Oh Monday morning, take me back, leave me hare

Beyond the city, and evening dust

Dreams and thunder rattle the rust

You had an idea that you won’t have again

She’s forgotten your name and hopes you’ll do the same

Start of the ash, and the end of the flames

Burning you turning you around

//genius.com/songs/1178162/embed.js

Monday Morning

FOWC–Collaborate

I follow a blog called Fandango, which keeps the custom of single-word prompts bursting at the seams, with the single word prompts WordPress once presented, having reached a conclusion around the time I began composing these.  Tonight I looked in thinking I might benefit from such a suggestion, and I saw that Fandango’s word tonight is the word “collaborate.”

    The word means work jointly, or, alternatively, cooperate traitorously.

    I was taught both connotations to cooperate when I was in college.  In the sense of collaboration with a distinguished painter, I learned that in Film 101, and in the sense of collaboration with the colonizers, I studied that in business law.

    Film 101 identified for me a few ideas which had interested me since I was a child, like why did names of people run up the screen at the end of a movie.

    That film professor was a young, tall, handsome man, who explained that those end credits identified that the film was the collaboration of those people’s work.  He told us in the school auditorium that the film wouldn’t have been finished without the help of all of those people.  I’d once inaccurately assumed that the most renowned people with their names on a film were the ones who chiefly ran the show.

    Until college, I don’t think I’d considered that all of those people were important, not just the ones with star power.  It was an advantageous exercise.

Photographer:
One Idea LLC

    It is too bad that schools everywhere have closed their doors at present.  Although I personally was only an average student, I think of the problems in the future created simply by making school unavailable at the present time.  I have heard of school debunked, of course–Gary Vee, for one, I’ve heard on video overlooking school in favour of an entrepreneur getting started making a living.  I’ve heard him say on camera, as he says so many things, that if a young person’s parents do pay for that individual to go to post-secondary, that person had certainly better make the most of it if it is at the expense of the parents.

    In fact, I wouldn’t mind hearing what Gary is saying about the present catastrophe.  I have seen GaryVee video titles on YouTube recommending that business enterprise on the Internet is as yet a practical road for what’s to come.  Good luck to the young people of today, then–they need it.

    My college business law class took some of the wind out of my sails at the time.  There were a lot of definitions run past us that seemed important yet awfully complicated for beginning young people.

    In a day in the classroom, the gentleman who taught us gave us a TV recommendation, of all things.  “Watch Law & Order,” he said to us.  For a long time I did, not having had such a title dropped on me in a setting like that previous to the day he did.

Photographer:
Leeroy

    He was joking about the difficulty he was imposing on us.  Thanks for that, I think now.  Although for a while I was a fan of the show, you know you don’t get the time back.

    There was just so much of it–when did I ever find time to work?

    The synonyms for collaborating, both join forces and fraternize, were thus equally handled by the well-meaning but slightly eccentric business law teacher.  Some business education is important.

    I appreciate Fandango’s prompt tonight.  Good luck with staying safe.

You’re welcome to follow or to comment.  Remember to respect the space of everybody in it.  A lot is counting on it!

https://fivedotoh.com/2020/03/20/fowc-with-fandango-collaborate/ #FOWC

On My Desktop: Jarte Word Processor and Its Benefit

Single glove left behind

Blogging is a hobby I have my hand in–I like to write a little.  WordPress.com is the home for my blog, as you already know.

Single glove left behind
Fallen glove

One of the blogs that I enjoy reading is that of is the Christian blogger beautybeyondbones. Beautybeyondbones writes of her path in life with the guidance of Jesus, of her personal recovery years later from a troubles with anorexia, and, rounding out these themes, she blogs her recipes that connect her readers to an additional source of goodness in her life.  She writes a message of hope for troubled and confused women, along with insight into her faith.

 

On top of that, she adds recipes that lend themselves to preparing food, right from her kitchen.  She should consider being an entrant on Top Chef!

Dimensions: 5616 x 3744
Photographer: Aidan Meyer

I believe beautybeyondbones goes “live” Monday evenings, Wednesday evenings, and Thursday evenings.  Her latest recipe from her blog is here:  https://t.co/34JoyrFSye

 

What I have found interesting about beautybeyondbones is her writing style.  She is clearly writing from the heart, and her vigor and elegance are clear.

 

I think of myself as a fledgling writer.  Sometimes I use a free word processing tool I downloaded called Jarte.  It is a comparatively simple program (compared, say, to the Office Suite from Microsoft).  I think if you are writing a straightforward document, as, for example, for blogging, Jarte’s been around a long time and matches many of the most important features that you can find in a word processor.

 

For example, you write onto the Jarte window the way you do most other word processors, and if you want to select a feature there are drop-down windows that facilitate this.  It is very ease to use.

 

If you want to write a list, you can organize a list in Jarte that’s either bulleted or numerical.  If you are listing ingredients for a splendid recipe, like you might find in the beautybeyondbones blog, you could write a bullet list of what’s necessary to make the dish.  Or you could combine bulleted and numerical lists together, as in, perhaps, the method of preparation by number, and then a bullet list of the ingredients going into the recipe.

 

To make your recipe clear, you could introduce more than one font into your Jarte document to emphasize different sections of your recipe in a way that is visually aesthetic.  As you probably know, the font is the visual aspect of the text in your document.  You can change the size of the font and also italicize, make bold, or underline.

 

The font of your title could be underlined, for example, and the bullet list of ingredients could be one font and the numerical steps to do the preparation of the food could be in a third font.

 

The Jarte word processor can handle more than one document tabs, so you can have more than one document open at the same time you are working on them.  If you are organizing your recipes, you can have several of them active, for instance, so that you can go from to another by clicking on the tabs for each at the top of the Jarte program window.

 

The Save and Save As features work similar to how they do in other word processors.  To keep a copy of your recipe or of other documents on your device, you select Save.  If you want a second copy with a different filename you select Save As.

 

I picked Jarte for the word processor I sometimes favor because I am familiar with it and because it is a free download that runs efficiently and appeals to me.  The design of the word processor is intuitive and all of its commands are easy to find.   The drop-down menus in Jarte are not unlike those of other small word processors.

 

You can run more than one instance of the Jarte software and close one Jarte window without negatively impacting the other.  It never ever seems to give me an error and the performance of the program is consistent.  As well, it doesn’t seem to trouble the user with software updates like some computer tools that frequently ask you to download a new update.

 

Jarte is freeware and if you are starting from scratch, you could do worse!  I make use of Jarte on a frequent basis.  You can download the Jarte word processor here:  www.jarte.com/download.html

 

Remember that if you are interested in recipes or have someone in your life or you yourself that is troubled by the impact of anorexia, beautybeyondbones is an excellent resource to turn to.

Dimensions: 4896 x 3264
Photographer: Aleksandar Spasojevic

Beautybeyondbones has also published a book inspired by her diary when she was afflicted the worst in her life by anorexia.  The title of this book is bloom and you can find it on blurb:  www.blurb.com/b/8086385

 

I appreciate very much the encouragement that beautybeyondbones has given me when she actually kindly left “likes” on posts of mine that spoke true to her.

 

You are likewise welcome to select like.  Or even “follow” and/or comment.  Have some fun in the kitchen, too!

 

Thank you for taking an interest in my blog.  All the best to you in terms of your mental health, in your faith and in your blog or other writing.  Good luck to you all the more if you are a blogger and on WordPress.  Take care!

Showing Photos Past the End of the Challenges

St. Paul

Between 2011 and 2018 WordPress.com provided daily prompts, to help bloggers think of new posts while joining in together to write on the same theme.  As well, there were weekly photo challenges, challenges getting bloggers showing photos.  It was helpful to have this focus, for bloggers on WordPress.com joining in the same pursuit.

 

When the photo challenges ended on May 30, it left a void!  I was undecided what to do, as I was running this blog both as a little hobby while tying it to the work I do for Maple Lawn Cemetery (often in stages of development).

 

I live in a small town, which means there is some concern about being creative without seeming odd.  Quora has been helpful in ascertaining how to make a decision to continue.  An established author on Quora – Jennifer Marshburn – https://www.quora.com/profile/Jennifer-Marshburn – suggested that I keep dabbling in photos if it has been established there is a potential to do this.

 

It is like starting from scratch, but that’s not a problem.  I am sure it will be similarly examined to how it has been when I was working inside the structure of the prompt challenges.

 

I have thought that I could include photos I’ve shot myself, and also present stock photos, to draw parallels between what I think is right for this, and what a professional photographer might have thought of and made available.  I know stock photos seem artificial, but I enjoy selecting photos as much as taking them.

 

The blog I have may or may not be effective, but it’s been a curiosity so far.  Occasionally I worked on the challenges from WordPress.com the last few years, and I was surprised, like everybody else, when they finished this very spring.

 

If something happens where I am no longer useful, I change, but it hasn’t happened yet.  I usually explain that my blog is nominally tied to the business because a small business rightfully should have a blog.  That being said, I am “on the fence” in case an unforeseen problem arises that means that I have to abandon what I have been doing.  I shouldn’t think so.

 

In any case, I appreciate the feedback I get from visitors.

 

The photo I am featuring today is of one downtown bus route, where the bus heads to the campus and to the biggest shopping mall in town.  When I was younger, the odd time I would be there at these places, but no longer.

St. Paul
The way back from the busiest places

It’s all changed so much!  The offices of the local newspaper are across the street from where I stood.

 

I am optimistic I will have more ideas.

 

It was Father’s Day I took a picture of my parents, and maybe my ability is better suited to photos of locations rather than of people.  I will remember I have to watch what I photograph, and where I go.

 

If I think to take photos at the cemetery where I work, I will include some of those as well.  We are on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/LouthUnited

 

Occasionally I add my photos to the Facebook page for the business and I occasionally post links to sites I feel could be of interest.

 

© 2018 Stocksnap.io
Photographer: José Martín

I suspect the result I get will be determined by the quality of the content I post on Facebook and to the blog.  Both will remain a dedicated hobby, I think.

 

It is a work-in-progress.

 

I am grateful, it bears saying again, for responses I receive, so to speak, the gift of a visit.  This is what sparks interest in writing a blog.  Have fun and thanks!

 

Today is World Rainforest Day.

A New Challenge: Blogging Photos and Miscellanea

Friday‎, ‎June‎ ‎08‎, ‎2018

Between 2011 and 2018, WordPress organized weekly photo challenges. These essays provided inspiration for bloggers to publish photos in their posts. The final photo challenge was the thirtieth of May this year, but after the surprise came that the challenges were finished, I think I will continue to blog with photos I’ve taken.

If and when other ideas come to mind, I will introduce them into the same blog, but I feel I should continue with similar enthusiasm to what I had when I was reading the photo challenges, over the last two or three years.

To get the answer what to do next, after the photo challenges ended, I turned to Quora, the site where users can pose questions and provide answers for others with a question – https://www.quora.com/

A couple of my old friends use Quora. A wonderful answer was provided by Ms. Jennifer Marshburn. What I could do next, she elegantly wrote, drawing on both her own experiences as a blogger and what she learned from similar circumstances.

You can find her answers on Quora here – https://www.quora.com/profile/Jennifer-Marshburn

The photo I took yesterday morning is of trees, in the city, sheltering a schoolhouse underneath a fabulous blue sky. I want to feature it as it is the first time I have decided for myself to be challenged to take a photo and say a few words. At the moment I took it, I was relieved I finally had an idea.

Friday‎, ‎June‎ ‎08‎, ‎2018
Above the Schoolhouse

WordPress has been nothing but great fun. In my case, it’s been an addition to the work I do as part of a not-for-profit cemetery in its junior operations. You can find us on the Internet here – http://www.maplelawncemetery.org/

There are a couple of other sources I would like to mention that provide additional inspiration.

Sources

How To Use Internet Images Responsibly For Blogs
Blog design mistakes you are probably making – and how to fix them

May 30 Weekly Photo Challenge: All-Time Favorites

Saturday‎, ‎August‎ ‎24‎, ‎2013

Like everybody else participating in the weekly photo challenges from WordPress, I also got the word that the challenges are finished.  Naturally, people reacted.

It was part of my day-to-day life.  I was drawing quite a bit of inspiration from the weekly essays intended to spark inspiration for bloggers taking photos.

I looked through photos I’d taken and picked a few favorites.   It is the very last challenge.

I liked to write something to go with a photo.  The photo challenges have been served up since 2011.

I only made it a hobby in the last few years.  It has been fun.

I am sure others were far more dedicated to the hobby, but I am pleased I did as much as I did.

It was worthwhile to join in while the fun lasted, I think.  It provided a little joy to be part of something like that.

I am not sure what to do next, but I know I will think of something.  I’ve written it before, but my blog is tied to the operations I do at a local cemetery in a not-for-profit capacity.  It is chiefly a hobby, but I am aware many businesses of all sizes utilize blogging to publicize what they do.

One photo I took, that I always liked, is a photo I took August 24, 2013.  I haven’t shown it much at all, but it is the interior the church as it stood in the first several months we were working there.  I liked how it turned out, and I haven’t taken that many inside the church proper.

 

Saturday‎, ‎August‎ ‎24‎, ‎2013
Louth United Church and Maple Lawn Cemetery, Saint Catharines, ON

Another photo of the interior of the church I took October 11, 2013.  There was something soothing about the peace of the church, and these two photos are the ones I like best of the ones I took there.

 

Friday‎, ‎October‎ ‎11‎, ‎2013
Louth United Church and Maple Lawn Cemetery, Saint Catharines, ON

The cemetery where I work has a small Facebook page.

www.facebook.com/LouthUnited

 

Some of the photos I took where with done with the possibility they would fit into the space we have on Facebook for the not-for-profit.  I learned photography “on the job” as I carried out my photos on a “trial-and-error” basis.

The end of 2017 I capped the experience I gained with the free ten-day Developing Your Eye I.   The course suggested ten days of photos on specific themes, similar to the weekly photo challenges, which I was already pursuing.

Expertise is a hard road to master, and I learned a little about photography and a lot of what doesn’t work.  Still, enough of the photos were pleasant such that they merited a look, I feel.

The Developing Your Eye I course helps break you out of your comfort zone, a touch, and teaches a little more clarity about the matter of taking photographs.

As I got the weekly photo challenges tackled I got included in posts curating people’s output for the photo challenges en masse.  There were dozens of links to bloggers demonstrating photos put together by people who wanted the best out of their participation in the photo challenges.  That was always a pleasure.

Some very talented people participated in the photo challenges.

I’d say I’ve been left better by the experience.  It was a surprise to see this week that the challenges have ended.  it is nonetheless interesting to possibly view the change as an opportunity to do something new that was never anticipated at all.  I guess time will tell.

Thank you for showing support to this endeavor.

It was, I suppose, bittersweet to read this week’s photo challenge by Krista Stevens