I am going home for a few days and I can hardly believe it. Here is California, Here I Come recorded by the California Ramblers, also known as the Golden Gate Orchestra, in 1924, the same year it was written:
Al Jolson sung it famously in blackface, in 1946. I do not approve of the makeup, but it is hard to fault the rest of the performance.
Here is our song again as sung last year by fourth graders at (I believe) George Washington Carver Elementary School in San Francisco:
I would live in that Garden of Eden if I had the Do-Re-Mi. I am taking off now, and when I arrive I will hear Barack Obama’s Oregon victory speech in Pacific time.
Axé.
coldhearted scientist وداد 
Have a good trip!
Graz, Tom! I’m arrived and in this weird motel, the cheapest of the conference hotels for this thing! We’ll see what this is like: my instinct was to rent an apartment and a car but you know how costs run up!
welcome home!
Graz RG! I’ve been to the beach! It was stellar!
Update: the conference is lovely. My brain clicked on. How:
1. Natural beauty and pleasant, relaxed people in town.
2. People I haven’t seen forever saying: how nice to see you, how good of you to come!
3. Good papers.
4. Everyone is very nice and friendly.
5. The whole conference is about my book project (no, I’m not a narcissist, I’ve just got a focus).
My brain clicked on because of all of these things. Everything seems so easy. I wouldn’t even need all five of the listed elements to be pleased as punch.
This may mean that normally I live in a depleted environment … ?
Anyway it is truly amazing how easy everything seems and how the ‘mental fog’ I have identified as the result of tolerating the intolerable lifts every time I get to Greater Mexico.
Great!
The fundamental reason why my brain has clicked on is this:
http://chasingtheredballoon.blogspot.com/2008/05/oh-and-this.html
Thanks kiita!
Related to Kiita’s point above is this, from G Bitch, on worker’s block:
http://g-bitch.com/?p=484
I read the article that Kiita posted about and it rang true. Actually, to me, being in a situation where somebody is trying to dominate you by using institutional power is like being in the boxing ring and being constantly harrassed by an opponent. It’s okay at first, but gradually, you start to feel worn down mentally and physically. Giving in to how they want you to think, however, feels like murder.
Feels like murder, exactly!