Quartet

A quartet of musicians casually gathered in a park at a long, wood-slatted bench constructed around the base of a monument. It was warm for June and the shadow from the granite base of a huge equestrian sculpture provided the performers some cool shade.

The quartet consisted of a violinist, two cellists and a bassoon player. They dressed alike: White long sleeve shirts, white gingham pants, white socks and white canvas shoes, contrasted with black four-in-hand ties. Their appearance was neat and uniform as thought customary of classical musicians.

The violinist placed his foot next to his open violin case on the bench. He fussed with some grass and leaves stuck to his shoe. Seated about two feet away, cello out and bow rosined, the next musician sat legs surrounding his instrument, preparing to tune it's strings. About six feet further down the long bench sat the other cellist, slowly drawing his horse hair bow across his instrument’s wire strings, sounding long, sorrowful notes. Then sitting very close to him was the bassoonist, fumbling with wetting and shaping his double reed. He tried repeatedly to bring the long cylindrical instrument to life but only succeeded in honking like a barnyard goose, much to his frustration.

There they were, getting ready, positioning their feet, straightening their ties, brushing their shoes, turning pegs and tuning strings while the bassoonist kept honking now and then.
"What shall we play today?" asked the first cellist.
"What ever everybody else wants to play, I don't mind." replied the violinist now rosining his bow.
"Well, I think we should start with Brahms today." offered the first cellist.
HONK "Damn." cursed the bassoonist.
"Really. Can't you get those reeds working?"
HONK
"Well, now after thinking about it, I think we should begin with a little Mozart. He’s so fitting for June” re-suggested the first cellist.

The second cellist continued to drawn out sorrowful pitches on his instrument, ignoring the suggestions of the first cellist. With head bowed to the neck of his cello, directing his comment to the cement walk surrounding the monument, the second cellist spoke, "No, I think Schubert better befits the month of June." 
"Oh really?" asked the first cellist with a slight tone of distain.
HONK
A flock of sparrows barnstormed the equestrian statue overhead. A passing senior couple holding hands momentarily lingered near a landscaped bed of tulips in hopes of maybe hearing a private concert.

The first cellist shifted his feet, putting his right foot forward and drawing his left one back, then pulling at the crotch of his gingham trousers behind his cello.
"Maybe, but on second thought, I don't think we should play either Brahms or Schubert now. I think for the park at this time of day in front of this monument we should play Mendelssohn. That's what I think we should start with." He ended his suggestion by bouncing his bow staccato against his strings.
The violinist tugged at the ironed crease in his pants.
"I think Mendelssohn is fine, I really don't mind, whatever anyone else feels like playing is perfectly fine with me."
HONK "Damn it." cursed the bassoonist.
"Really could you stop that embarrassing honking, really." exclaimed the first cellist.

The second cellist bent his head closer to the scroll of his instrument and scratched his head with the top right key peg.
"I think your thinking about this all the wrong way you know. I think the first expression should be a Saint-Saens or Taneyev, that's what I think."
The senior couple shrugged and continued their leisurely stroll, only to be replaced by a group of strutting pigeons bobbing un-rhythmically in search of errant bread crumbs or sod grubs.

"WHoosh, such high-brow tastes you have. Don't you have any consideration for the common public that just wants to hear some serene music? I think I'll stick with my original suggestion, Brahms." concluded the first cellist.
"Whatever everyone else wants to play." said the violinist in support.
HONK
"If you can't adjust that hollow log to play with some modicum of sonority, I'm afraid I can't contribute my part." complained the first cellist.
"In that case," said the second cellist, "maybe we should begin with a trio, a Sibelius perchance?"
"If that's what everyone wants." stated the violinist adjusting his necktie.
"I don't know how I've put up with you gaggle of prima-donnas this long." huffed the first cellist.
HONK
"That's it. I'm leaving. I'm tired of working with amateurs."

With that declaration, the first cellist packed up his instrument, pulled off his tie and threw it on the ground before leaving the group.
"I'm sorry fellas, this reed is shot. It was the last one I had too damn it. The music store is only twenty blocks away, I could purchase a new one and be back here in about an hour or so." said the bassoonist apologetically.
“No, it’s alright, I guess we could just do a few impromptu duets. Some Dvorak perhaps?” The remaining cellist asked the violinist.
"Well," began the violinist flipping his comb-over hair bang with his bow, "do you happen to know any Welsh Mining songs?"
A choir of squirrels chattered in harmony as the sun lowered a curtain on the musicians as they packed up their instruments and headed back to their homes.

Ape Astrophysics

Everything organic or inorganic degrades. It's inevitable. Well, maybe a package of Twinkies and a couple of cockroaches will shelf-date into the future. But this planet was originally a slick, tiger-eye glass marble and then all these panspermia organic things started crapping and trashing and stuff. Eventually over billions of years that shiny marble is now covered with mile thick layers of crap, detritus, MANURE. Dead stuff, rotting stuff, excreted stuff, fossilized and petrified stuff. We beings at the supposed top of the food chain tend to forget stuff like that. Memory lapse is in our genetic nature. Where else is all this decaying baggage gonna go anyway? So it piles up in more and more tectonic plate strata of putrified complexity and Voila! A planet is born, genesis. Yeah, man wasn't exactly made from a lump of clay, probably more like a loaf of dinosaur turd. Then someone invented lip stick. 

Final Frontier

While taking the dogs out for a walk in the forest one last time before bed, I looked up into the clear night sky and enjoy all the stars I didn't see while wandering through my many years of urban life. Amongst the scent of pine and deer droppings, I casually wondered if all the ancients that ever looked up into the same night sky, up into space, -those that obsessed with it's mysteries and vastness- I wondered if they ever entertained thoughts about escaping this planet. 

So far we can't escape our planet, like taking a Disney vacation to the moon or colonizing mars on the lay-a-way plan. And if you adhere to the concept of the earth as center of the universe, then you’re instantly at your destination. The place every other sentient entity in the universe strived to come to; but didn't. 

Today I don't think we wonder about the mysteries and vastness of space, I think we selfishly want to leave this planet and go somewhere else, screw the mysteries, we're bored, discontent and lack unselfish thought. 

Not until Uranus has cable and wifi will we even consider venturing into the final frontier. Not even if Capt'n Kirk has expanded a Trekkie hamburger franchise in the middle of the milk-shake way. 

We've lost our eloquence. We've shed our pioneering spirit. We've abandoned our golden age, all for a super sized, Kali Yuga happy meal..... 

Ask

It's not good to ask why. It's not good to constantly ask what if. Asking detracts from the beauty and serenity of the now. Becoming obsessed with the whys and what ifs surrounding us generates a compulsive lust for discontentedness. But asking questions is seductive. Questions are beguiling conceive-abilities that taunt us and demand to be vocalized. It’s then the trouble starts.

Conversations, jumping in, interrupting- expressing thoughts, feelings, notions, wonderments aloud. Communication has become a lost art. Fight or flight are the guidelines of conversation in non virtual world. So why bother? Considering the content of the conversation these days, it's not worth bothering much. Conversations today are not much different than how people dress for shopping at Walmart.

Talk, talk, talk. Text, text, text..... somewhere in between the importance of content and communication gets terribly lost. Then it becomes Jabber. Gibberish.  Maybe that's what it was in the beginning, before guttural grunts and clicks became words and words strove to have meaning.

How quiet the whole planet used to be.

But then all the words had to be used in definitions, the meaning of people places and things, beyond what the eye and mind could distinguish in silence.  

People places things. Mass tribes of neanderthals holding a mastodon barbecue, Tropicana casino slot-machine arena, Beverly Hills swimming pools filled with condoms and ecstasy..... people places and things...

Its all kind of like a game of rock paper scissors.
Rock paper scissors- flint knife.....horse shoes and atom bombs. The games people play.

Isn’t naked Twister outlawed in Utah?

Ever feel like your thoughts are like chase lights on the old Bijou marque?
Ever feel like you're one of the fish in a barrel and the guy fishing is using a shot gun?
Ever feel like you should stop the runaway train, but you don't feel like stopping it?

Its all a magicians act. Stuff, all stuff is pulled from a shiny magic hat. Is it a trick? Is it real? You pays your money and you takes what you get.

We should respect space more, strive to acquire gravity, fertilize where we stand. Kinda like trees.

Youth passes, middle-age ends. There’s a brief period of wicking consciousness- then old age sets up like cement. Your heart beats and your lungs breathe long after you stopped knowing or doing anything. Then it’s too late to ask questions. But, what if...