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Buy it on Amazon.
The last thing you need is one more well-meaning friend reminding you how important it is to vote. So I’ll refrain. Anyway, music is a better messenger, and this song by Hozier, performed with Mavis Staples, is the proof — if this doesn’t get your heart pumping and your feet moving toward a polling place, what will? [To buy the song from Amazon for $1.29, click here.]
For those who like rewards for doing the right thing, here you go: If you are in Manhattan on Election Day, bring proof that you voted to Cassava House (on First Avenue, between 116th and 117th Streets) and Antoine will serve you a croissant, courtesy of Head Butler. He may, in a French accent, even praise you. That alone is worth the trip uptown.
It’s not the waking, it’s the rising
It is the grounding of a foot uncompromising
It’s not forgoeing of the lie
It’s not the opening of eyes
It’s not the waking, it’s the rising
It’s not the shade, we should be past it
It’s the light, and it’s the obstacle that casts it
It’s the heat that drives the light
It’s the fire it ignites
It’s not the waking, it’s the rising
It’s not the song, it is the singing
It’s the hearing of a human spirit ringing
It is the bringing of the line
It is the baring of the rhyme
It’s not the waking, it’s the rising
And I could cry power
Power
Power
Nina cried power
Billie cried power
Mavis cried power
And I could cry power
Power
Power
Curtis cried power
Patti cried power
Nina cried power
It’s not the wall but what’s behind it
The fear of fellow men, his mere assignment
And everything that we’re denied
By keeping the divide
It’s not the waking, it’s the rising
And I could cry power
Power
Oh, power
Nina cried power
Lennon cried power
James Brown cried power
B.B. cried power
Joni cried power
Nina cried power
And I could cry power
Power has been cried by those stronger than me
Straight into the face that tells you
To rattle your chains if you love being free.
The Show on the Road: Emmylou Harris, Graham Nash, Steve Earle, Jackson Browne, Shawn Colvin, Jerry Douglas, Joan Osborne and Lila Downs
The concert at Town Hall, the last in a 5-city tour, sold out in 3 hours. Over the decades, I’ve seen some of these musicians many times. But after a week of terrorism –– and just a night after Pittsburgh — the performances were incendiary. Graham Nash nearly spat out “Immigration Man.” Steve Earle, looking like a biker cousin of Alan Ginsberg, was more profane than usual. Jackson Browne, gray as your cat, delivered songs as prayers. Emmylou, Shawn, and Joan soared. Lila Downs, Mexican American, began as a sentimental favorite, ended up stealing the night. Jerry Douglas played dobro solos so exquisite that he had to laugh in amazement at what he’d done. Nash invited the audience to sing along to “Teach Your Children,” and to no one’s surprise, everyone knew the words. The Lantern Tour was a benefit for the Women’s Refugee Commission, which has worked to welcome immigrants for 30 years and is now, as you’d expect, working overtime. To donate, click here.
Cassava House: an oasis in East Harlem
My daughter and her friends have “streaks” on Snapchat –– that is, they make it a point to post something every day, and when one of them goes on vacation, they assign a friend to keep up their streaks. I’m maintaining a streak at Cassava House; if you’re in East Harlem around 8 AM, I’m the guy at the counter, buying just one blueberry muffin and kibitzing with the owner. The muffin is excellent, but the atmosphere is the lure. Antoine is the first person I talk with each day, and he’s up to the job: French, blazingly well-informed, appropriately ironic, not shy about teasing a smart response from his customers, who increasingly seem to know one another and, like me, welcome having a “local” for breakfast or lunch. Antoine’s menu is a unicorn in East Harlem: not just smoothies and significantly good drip coffee, but sandwiches on 9-grain bread, salads with homemade balsamic vinegar, and an all-day breakfast of two eggs, salad and toast for a ridiculous $3. Free wifi. A garden with a wall-sized mural. Cassava House is at 2270 First Avenue, between 116-117th Streets. 7 AM to 7 PM. See you there at 8 AM?
Instant Pot Programmable Pressure Cooker: Yes, it is a Thing
This runaway favorite on Amazon is a pressure cooker, slow cooker, yogurt maker, and more — and it cooks 2 to 6 times faster than other methods. And now it’s official: It’s been anointed by the New York Times.
“I already own a stovetop pressure cooker, the conventional kind that you would heat over a burner and then regulate yourself,” Melissa Clark writes. “It is currently supporting a colony of dust bunnies in the back of my highest cabinet, behind the panini press. I never got over my fear of exploding split-pea soup to use it with any regularity. What makes this newest generation of electric pressure cookers different is that it is designed with a slew of self-regulating safety features, including sensors to monitor the unit’s temperature and amount of pressure. All you do is plug it in and tap a button, and it does everything else. It’s as user-friendly as a slow cooker — except that it gets dinner on the table a day or so faster.”
Butler readers agree. Jean Barrett: “Steel-cut oats take 25-30 minutes normally, but you have to keep an eye on them when you cook on the stove. Cooking oats in the Instant Pot really doesn’t save much time because of the time to warm the cooker and the time to let off steam, so to speak. But it’s time you can be doing something else entirely. In the morning, I put steel-cut oats into the pot with water and a dash of salt, set it for 10 minutes (the pressure-cooking time), then leave for a 35-minute walk. When I get back, the IP has the cooked oatmeal waiting for me — hot.”
Note: This is not a small item. It weighs 14 pounds. It has a 13” footprint. It will not roast a chicken to your satisfaction. To buy it from Amazon, click here.
A David Bowie story: “Are you scared? Here’s an invisible mask. It’s magic. Put it on. And I’ll put mine on. And this is how we’ll feel brave in the world.”
Neil Gaiman tells this story….
My friend told me a story he hadn’t told anyone for years. When he used to tell it years ago people would laugh and say, ‘Who’d believe that? How can that be true? That’s daft.’ So he didn’t tell it again for ages. But for some reason, last night, he knew it would be just the kind of story I would love.
When he was a kid, he said, they didn’t use the word autism, they just said ‘shy’, or ‘isn’t very good at being around strangers or lots of people.’ But that’s what he was, and is, and he doesn’t mind telling anyone. It’s just a matter of fact with him, and sometimes it makes him sound a little and act different, but that’s okay.
Anyway, when he was a kid it was the middle of the 1980s and they were still saying ‘shy’ or ‘withdrawn’ rather than ‘autistic’. He went to London with his mother to see a special screening of a new film he really loved. He must have won a competition or something, I think. Some of the details he can’t quite remember, but he thinks it must have been London they went to, and the film…! Well, the film is one of my all-time favourites, too. It’s a dark, mysterious fantasy movie. Every single frame is crammed with puppets and goblins. There are silly songs and a goblin king who wears clingy silver tights and who kidnaps a baby and this is what kickstarts the whole adventure.
It was ‘Labyrinth’, of course, and the star was David Bowie, and he was there to meet the children who had come to see this special screening.
‘I met David Bowie once,’ was the thing that my friend said, that caught my attention.
‘You did? When was this?’ I was amazed, and surprised, too, at the casual way he brought this revelation out. Almost anyone else I know would have told the tale a million times already.
He seemed surprised I would want to know, and he told me the whole thing, all out of order, and I eked the details out of him.
He told the story as if it was he’d been on an adventure back then, and he wasn’t quite allowed to tell the story. Like there was a pact, or a magic spell surrounding it. As if something profound and peculiar would occur if he broke the confidence.
It was thirty years ago and all us kids who’d loved Labyrinth then, and who still love it now, are all middle-aged. Saddest of all, the Goblin King is dead. Does the magic still exist?
I asked him what happened on his adventure.
‘I was withdrawn, more withdrawn than the other kids. We all got a signed poster. Because I was so shy, they put me in a separate room, to one side, and so I got to meet him alone. He’d heard I was shy and it was his idea. He spent thirty minutes with me.
‘He gave me this mask. This one. Look.
‘He said: ‘This is an invisible mask, you see?
‘He took it off his own face and looked around like he was scared and uncomfortable all of a sudden. He passed me his invisible mask. ‘Put it on,’ he told me. ‘It’s magic.’
‘And so I did.
‘Then he told me, ‘I always feel afraid, just the same as you. But I wear this mask every single day. And it doesn’t take the fear away, but it makes it feel a bit better. I feel brave enough then to face the whole world and all the people. And now you will, too.
‘I sat there in his magic mask, looking through the eyes at David Bowie and it was true, I did feel better.
‘Then I watched as he made another magic mask. He spun it out of thin air, out of nothing at all. He finished it and smiled and then he put it on. And he looked so relieved and pleased. He smiled at me.
‘’Now we’ve both got invisible masks. We can both see through them perfectly well and no one would know we’re even wearing them,’ he said.
‘So, I felt incredibly comfortable. It was the first time I felt safe in my whole life.
‘It was magic. He was a wizard. He was a goblin king, grinning at me.
‘I still keep the mask, of course. This is it, now. Look.’
I kept asking my friend questions, amazed by his story. I loved it and wanted all the details. How many other kids? Did they have puppets from the film there, as well? What was David Bowie wearing? I imagined him in his lilac suit from Live Aid. Or maybe he was dressed as the Goblin King in lacy ruffles and cobwebs and glitter.
What was the last thing he said to you, when you had to say goodbye?
‘David Bowie said, ‘I’m always afraid as well. But this is how you can feel brave in the world.’ And then it was over. I’ve never forgotten it. And years later I cried when I heard he had passed.’
My friend was surprised I was delighted by this tale.
‘The normal reaction is: that’s just a stupid story. Fancy believing in an invisible mask.’
But I do. I really believe in it.
And it’s the best story I’ve heard all year.
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his article originally appeared on The Head Butler
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Photo by Element5 Digital on Unsplash