Rosenbush Cafe

5769 on the Jewish calendar, is the year of Hakhel, a year of Jewish unity but I would like to think of a year of world unity, regardless of religion, race, gender or social status. There may come a time in the not distant future when the remaining humans will wish they had unity before the fragmentation period.

As the second month of twenty o nine comes to a close, and 1-2 inches of snow are predicted later tonight and early Sunday, this following thunderstorms and tornadoes Friday, one is left to ponder where humans actually fit into the grand scheme of Planet Earth. Stores were selling out milk and batteries and bread while I was buying coffee, cat related vittles and green tea. Is the world ending Monday?

As always, southerners freak at the mention of snow and when the meteorologist call for 1-2 inches it might as well be 2012.

As a southerner who more often doesn’t sound or act like one (years of practice being an individual) there is a giggle at the way people deal with snow versus tornadoes; snow is so infrequent as to be more frightening, than alluring, while funnel clouds are more prevalent - yesterday when I spent fifteen minutes in the power company basement during a tornado warning with other customers, laughing and talking calmly there was no concern. I thought of my business, home and car and the hope they would be spared by the winds of misfortune and that no one died or lost property. My business and other possessions were OK and no one I know personally was affected.

It was just a tornado…

Uh-huh.

A twister on a day when the temp never passed 57 degrees, which in itself is freakier but predictions of snow, especially in a college town, is another question to ask: Will it really snow? It would be nice for my Rabbit, Rabbit post to have a snow pix tomorrow and the outside cats will be impressed with a Milo Institute of Feline Well-Being monthly meeting in the fluffy white stuff that could very well be ice and sludge by sunny mid day tomorrow.

My northern sisters and brothers can laugh their collectives off at poor Alabamians worried about an amount of snow that anywhere else would barely cover their hands as they deal with footage that would cover my Pontiac.

Some questions are never answered: Why worry about inches when feet would pose enormous difficulties? Just another in a never ending line of fatuous questions that are never answered. Heads too filled with Q&A rather than maybe one per day. Less stress on the mind unless one is predisposed to mental overload which is more likely.

Somewhere down the road that has been exhaustively traveled is the answer and perhaps we were never meant to answer all the questions of existence and after existence has ended. One question answered is enough for me these days as I realize time is short and the master is pressing. Tornadoes and snow are far less pressing than the master’s whip.

Keep faith and like Alice, in her wonderland, continue to travel down the rabbit hole for the answer my friend isn’t blowing in any wind but right before your eyes. Unity is probably not too far from us if we just dig a bit deeper into our own private rabbit hole.

We hope to see you in March for my own particular brand of madness, which has absolutely nothing to do with hoops, as Rosenbush Cafe brings food and drink to hungry travelers and the hope for a future world where the menu is open to free sustenance for all and sundry.

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Fever for Cabin

Who in their right southern mind would want to be trapped in a snowbound cabin in Maine rather trapped in a continuous loop admist the warmer, dreary cloudiness of Alabama?

Me. The challenges facing this humble one recently has given pause to the oft daydream scenario of starting over with a new career, hopes, aspirations, disappointments and, in the end, moderate success. Children may daydream of climbing trees, playing Cowboys and Indians - I was always an Indian, Running Rose Bush - or fantasizing about being an adult; stable, married, family and well liked.

I wanted to live on the Moon with a cat and dog and telescope aimed at the cosmos. That didn’t work out well: I flunked fundamentals of science in college and the best telescope I ever owned was a handheld-lensed cheapie barely capable of focusing on the moon face. Always looked like a lady in the moon rather than the man in the. She was looking down at men and encouraging that one day I would live on her barren face and bring life and flowers to bear.

Invariably the daydreams end with the realization some people are not destined for greater and higher purposes. They will never marry, have children or a business that makes it a pleasure to open the doors to the public. The main streets are gone, except in quaint little towns that spent millions for downtown revitalization plans in the eighties and are now bankrupted because malls never stopped appearing nearby.

Like most average sized towns, Tuscaloosa has plenty of mall space, a downtown and university in the midst of ongoing billion dollar improvements to an end not obvious to the casual observer. Downtown is a chess game with a new city hall and parking deck replacing the old one next door - the original downtown post office and ib 2010 the new federal building construction will begin.

The University of Alabama is never without a project being implemented. Daily reminders when I trek from my home 5.5 miles to my office off the edge of campus, next to the future police department which currently is an ugly fenced-in collection of piles of rock, trucks and all manner of construction materials for other ongoing projects.

As the uni becomes more of a walking campus with housing going up as I write making this a college town with a future where masses of students will never need to leave the area; there are perks but all not free; parking, buses around campus and to other areas in town, housing, cafes and a view of the Warrior River. Off campus housing has slowly been devoured by the condo-mania that first swept the hurricane ravaged coastlines. We even have a condo overlooking the cemetery where my parents and dad’s parents are buried. Nice view. I expect any day for the city, which owns the cemetery, to advise the bodies will be exhumed, cremated and all surving families will receive a biodegradable bag with the ashes…a small fee for a metallic urn, all to make way for a Bryant-Denny Highrise since the stadium is scant yards from the burial site.

Progress is an overused word because much of it is really building, tearing down and rebuilding. After the Industrial Revolution forever changed the face of nation there has been an increasingly disturbing trend towards marketing communities as seriously as toothpaste and asprin advertisements in the sixties.

Bad teeth and headaches are the least concern today. Remember the days of a handful of brands and the stand-by baking soda, whic eventually Madison Avenue finally exploited so they could branish: NEW AND IMPROVED labels. Ipana, Crest, Colgate were the popular brands and for headaches, well no one figured yet the public need one kind for migraines, one for sinus-related and a myriad other human foibles: aching, feverish, restless.

Today there is virtually some brand in the market place to aid, cure, incite or relax and ailment.

Eyes red, ache? Cure Available
Losing hair? Cure Available
Difficulty urinating or peeing too much? Uh-huh.

Listless or overactive…trouble with erections…need a bra that helps posture and makes smaller breasts…need an attorney to sue andyone for anything….?

Cures Available in popular colours, shapes and easy to swallow capsules.

The cures are not actually.

Cancer cured? No
Alzheimers? No
Common cold? No
Evil and corruption? No

It would seem there are more remedies for limp penises than series mental illness. Too bad if men cannot find other recreation after the torch is passed. Would Elvis appreciate Viva Las Vegas being sung to the scene of smirking men and far too sexy women heading to the hotel room for afternoon delights? Considering the King was into pharms himself he’d probably be in an ad with Heidi Klum.

It always seems gray hair is more of a problem than letting nature’s inevitability of baldness. Where are the Bald is Beautiful or I’d Rather Be Bald Than Dying From Colon Cancer T-shirts? Somewhere, someone is printing one right now. Good for You.

Bridgton, Maine is partly sunny and 36 and Tuscaloosa is 55 and overcast. Nice Choice, remain in the south and freeze to death in a warmer climate or move to the Artic Circle; at least if you freeze you were meant too.

Throughout the years there has been a nagging sensation tugging infrequently at the heart more than the mind, and as I watched my mother’s life dissolve from Alzheimer’s disease I became more aware of the frailty of life in the left turn lane; always behind another vehicle waiting for the green arrow but missing it everytime anyway.

We all have intentions be they good, evil or non emotionally attached to the deed. During the past two years I have seen the very best and worst of humankind and I didn’t have to go further than my front door. The night Frances died there was a police car and ambulance with flashing lights but no one came over except one three-house-up neighbor, David, who knew my mother’s condition and was in a similar situation. It was a moment of clarity for as the days passed only two other people called.

No one ever came by.

In the era of reason that was the fifties, neighbors went to the visit their neighbors; some to console, others with food while some were just morbidly curious. They were your friends and everyone knew their neighborhood and its peoples.

So as the warmer days of spring close in on the south bringing the only season we’re certain to always have - tornado - which is anytime these days my bags are packing for colder climates. Everywhere in the world the snow will melt except in hearts so cold or minds too misdirected to care.

For those of you who do care, bundle up snuggly, I feel a blast of artic air as the sirens blast to reminds us its noon on Wednesday.

Like we didn’t already know.

                   V

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Typed by Cous Cous LaPress, 1020p, Monday, February 23, 2009 with delicate paws and deeper thought that I.

Wonderful how she was able to hit a space or two before making a Capital V followed by a lowercase i and no spaces before the torrents of Os and like a true poet left out needless and confusing punctuation. Using her two front paws only, while never walking across the keypad, reminds me that creativity is not necessarily, or exclusively human, and that thoughts can be transmissions of letters without meaning to sentient beings but capable of profoundness nevertheless. Paws are fingers and her mind sharing talent and while the poem is open to your interpretation the meaning is clear to me: Cous Cous is a feline poet who could no longer contain her words.

There are scientific quests for the earthlike Planet X and to learn more about dark matter, dark energy, black holes, white holes, wormholes and magnitars and quasars; the last two formed from densely heavy neutron star material so significant that a bucket full of equivalent sand weighs as much as Mt. Everest, the largest mountain on earth.

While the incomprehensible immense seems to fascinate a majority it is the infinitesimal that is even more stimulating.

Neutrinos (Italian for little neutral one) pass through the earth and its inhabitants by the trillions every second; many from our own sun and even more from other distant star systems but don’t actually interact with us, just energy in abundance, with very little mass, accelerating through the cosmos at near the speed of light. Nuclear reactions inside stars and especially our own sol create enough that 60 billion solar neutrinos pass through your fingers every second. There are neutrinos on earth in the matter of natural elemental decay in rocks and created through nuclear power plant reactions.

Myriad experts across the scientific community vary in their belief of when our universe will tear itself apart - 50 billion years seems to come up often - dark energy - different from dark matter - is constantly expanding the universe while black holes are disintegrating stars, light and planets and in a cosmic redistribution matter will no longer matter.

While it does, however, we should continue to study the smallest details in conjunction with the massive ones to better appreciate the grand design of existence everywhere. Even though we are earthbound there is much we do not know and will never comprehend while exploring our place in the universe.

While those neutrinos are passing through consider the tiniest molecules in our bodies and how much smaller this substance is in relation. There are enough problems facing planet earth and her inhabitants but in those moments of clarity between worrying about mortgage payments, continuing in business, raising families and praying for devine intervention accept that all the answers were never meant to be answered. The challenge of life was once to seek answers; today it should be acceptance of what is unanswerable and work towards the goals of individual life.

Science will always give a glimmer of hope to where the human race is headed but while everyone is earthbound the hope is in humankind to solve what can be and allow the natural order of chaos continue its inevitable course.

Slumdog Millionaire gets romantic

Recapped by Henry B. Rosenbush

A sense of well-being swept through Tinstletown as a small film set in India took top honors at the 81st Academy Awards held Sunday night as Slumdog Millionaire won Best Picture and seven other Oscars, while Sean Penn took home Best Actor for Milk and Kate Winslet for The Reader .

Slumbog also won for Director Danny Boyle; Screenplay by Simon Beaufoy; Cinematographer, Anthony Dod Mantle; Sound mixing, Ian Tapp, Richard Pryke and Resul Pookutty; Editing, Chris Dickens and A. R. Rahman won for Best Score and song, Jai Ho.

The line of the night came from Penn when he called the Academy “commie, homo-loving sons of guns,” which was met with derisive laughter from the assembled fellow thespians, Winslet looked as if she was going to hyperventilate while giving her acceptance speech and Cruz said she might faint.

Best Supporting Actor went to the late Heath Ledger for The Joker in The Dark Knight with his parents and sister accepting the statuette in front of a standing ovation. Ledger joins Network winner Peter Finch, in 1976, as the only other performer to receive the accolades after death. Best Supporting Actress went to a surprised Penelope Cruz for Vicky Cristina Barcelona.

Dustin Lance Black gave a heart felt plea for gay rights equality after he won Best Screenplay for Milk.

Walt Disney’s computer generated WALL-E won for Best Animated feature; Best Animated Short winner was La Maison en Petits Cubes.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button also won for Art Direction, Donald Graham Burt and Set Decoration, Victor J. Zolfo; Makeup, Greg Cannom; and Visual Effects by Eric Barba, Steve Preeg, Burt Dalton and Craig Barron

Japan copped the Best Foreign Film with Departures while Best Documentaries went to Man on Wire (feature) by James Marsh and Simon Chinn and Smile Pinki (short) directed by Megan Mylan. Best Live Action Short was Spielzeugland (Toyland) and Best Costumes went to Michael O’Connor for The Duchess.

Clocking in at 3 hours and a half the usual lengthy program was made through vignettes tributes to the various genres or 2008 and the necrology with the likes of Paul Newman, Van Johnson, Roy Scheider, Cye Charisse and Nina Foch leading those who died since last year’s awards show. There were plenty of the usual hokum this year presenting the major actoring awards with five previous winners doling out compliments to the individual perfs rather than showing film clips.

Australian actor Hugh Jackman hosted with dancing, singing and a few humorous quips before getting one plug for his summer release X-Men Origins: Wolverine during an opening song and dance routine. He even pulled Oscar nominated Best Actress Anne Hathaway from the front row for a odd, but cute, Frost/Nixon riff. Brad Pitt (Button) and wife Angelino Jolie (The Changling) were shut out as the only couple nominated, perhaps a first.