February cabin at sunset

Watercolor, 7 by 10, 140 pound paper

Where I'd like to be snowed in today...

Perking coffee kind of day

Morning snowfall.
20 degrees outside.
Fire in fireplace.
New York Times
brings the world inside.
Leather couch.
Two cats in windows
watching birds on feeder.
Doves, cardinals, juncos, wrens, titmice.
Out of fancy coffee maker cups.
Grinding the beans.
Uncle Mike's
Percolator perking.
Reading Huck Finn,
Sipping real coffee.
That kind of February day.

Huck Finn's calling, thanks Mark Twain

"I've got to buy and read Huckleberry Finn," I said.
That's the first thing I said, as we  got in the car after watching  Hal Holbrook be Mark Twain the other night at UCO, part of the Broadway Tonight program bringing actors to town, directed by Greg White.

Holbrook's been performing Mark Twain Tonight! for more than 50 years in more than 2,200 performances. Though he is now 89 and stooped, he held us mesmerized for almost three hours with wit, wisdom and acting so fine you know you are in the presence of Mark Twain himself.  Not only does Holbrook look like Twain, he is Twain.
Asked ahead of time for a program, he declined, saying that would inhibit his inspiration. The Emmy and Tony award winner  chooses material as he goes along, with every word spoken coming from Mark Twain in the early 1900s, plus an excerpt from The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
I found it interesting that his words from 1905 were so true today. Most of the program included Twain's comedic remarks, sarcasm and wit with barbs thrown to  three major subjects--Congress, the media, and religion. I get the feeling those were selected with conservative Oklahoma in mind.
If you wonder how this red state crowd took to it, there was lots of laughter and tears of laughter, and some very silent moments when the truth was painful or almost brought tears of sadness. Twain could have been writing those words yesterday, they fit our country so well, congress owned by corporations and big money, the media full of opinion and distorted facts, and religions full of hatred and judgment, and making fun of them ignoring science.
       We were in the presence of greatness.
The other highlight was when he recited and acted out a large portion of a chapter from Huck Finn--without notes, using different voices for different characters. The scene took at least 15 or 20 minutes, and the audience was dead silent at the story telling, the power of the words, and the art on state. The stage was sparse--an oak library table, some books, a chair, and a small podium...and Mark Twain.
We found out later that instead of going out to eat at fancy places, he preferred I-Hop, and paid for his own meals.
His closing lines were, "Well, my teeth are loose, so it's time to go. Good Night."
I've since bought The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn at Full Circle Book Store, and after just a few nights, am halfway through it. The reading is so easy, in spite of the dialects, and the story so strong...like the current of the Mississippi, and irony so powerful. I've found the excerpts Holbrook acted out, and they are as alive as he performed.
I hear Huck Finn calling.

Pete Seeger--a voice in truth telling.

There  is a silence in the land,
A voice for the people missing,
A banjo without a player,
A voice stilled from truth-telling.

Pete Seeger died yesterday at age 94. He was another Woody Guthrie, singing and active as a champion for common people. His musical force touched generations, including "We Shall Overcome."
Though Malvena Reynolds wrote the song in 1961, it is Pete's singing of "Little Boxes" that strikes closest to me as I age and teach at a university. Over the years, I've learned and observed how our education system...at all levels...follows the corporate model of exterminating individualism.
The great ones in all areas of our societies don't bend, but like Steve Jobs, Ray Bradbury, Martin Luther King, and Pete Seeger go their own way and set an example I try to instill in students in today's mass-market university system.
That's why I play this and other You-Tube Videos, trying to prompt individuality and success in my students. Deep down, I hope there will be more Pete Seegers listening.

If you haven't, you should read  three articles in the New York Times today about Pete.
Folk Revivalist 
Complete Obituary 
Singing and Saving the Hudson

Janus--Record month "blogstone"

Screen shot of stats at 2:36 p.m. today

January, month of Janus, the Roman god of two faces, looking back and forward, set two  records, reaching a 'bloodstone" for Coffee with Clark. 

Roman god Janus

The blog surpassed 6,000 page views this month between 2 and 2:30 pm CST today, about 500 more than last month, and more than 6700 page views in the last 30 days. 
Boosting the traffic this past month have been the numerous articles about my twitter for journalists class at UCO, #clarkclass, which generated a lot of interest. As with the new year, I don't know where this is going, but Coffee with Clark will continue to change and grow as it approaches its sixth birthday.
And during the month, a reader from Cameroon in Africa notched the 131st country to have readers of the blog, and 19th in Africa.

Cameroon

Cameroon, located just north of the equator, was colonized by Germany in the 1880s, but divided by Britain and France after WWI. After about 10 years of fighting against those colonial powers, the country gained independence in 1960-61. 
With more than 20 million people, Cameroon is slightly larger than California. While it is relatively stable and economically strong compared to its neighboring countries, there is a lot of poverty. In the early 2000s, unemployment was about 30 percent. French and English are official languages.
It has the same authoritarian president since 1984, and corruption is rampant, ranking it 144 out of 179 countries, according to one report. Still, it is a haven for many refugees from neighboring countries. Its flag was adopted in 1975. 

With more than 200 linguistic groups among the population, and a widely varied geography, Cameroon is often referred to as "Africa in miniature."I have no idea who the reader from Cameroon was this month, but these visitors help me travel the world in my imagination.