Archive for April 2009


Mohammed and Me

April 26th, 2009 — 11:02am

There’s a citrus tree in my neighborhood, filled with small, sour oranges. I love them. Whenever I pass the tree, I grab one and suck on their sour, satisfying juice.

I did this just yesterday, when I hear a man come up behind me. “Nabbed,” I thought.

I turn around and their is a slim, elderly gentleman. As I’m about to say I’m sorry, he says with a smile, “I know where there’s a great persimmon tree, and other orange trees too.”

A fellow forager!

We fall in step and continue our walk together. He is from Iran, and he tells me that he is not particularly talented at music, or painting, or writing, “but I know the cycles of the seasons.”

He gets a dreamy smile in his old eyes, and starts telling me about how his family made their own yogurt, how his mother cooked wild greens, and all the beautiful fruit trees in his childhood garden.

After walking together for several more blocks, and discussing the beauty of our Northern California clime and its copious food gifts, we shake hands, and part ways.

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April 9th, 2009 — 7:49pm

The very first album I ever bought was Stevie Wonder’s “Talking Book”. The album, released in 1972, had brilliant songs — the super fabulous funky “Superstition,” the very cool “You are the Sunshine of my Life,” and the wonderful “I Believe (When I Fall in Love with You It Will Be Forever)”. But my most favorite song on the album is “Blame it On the Sun”. Wonder’s keyboard work, his voice, the amazing chord progressions rocked my world then, and they still do.

I found this very cool version of Diana Krall singing it at at tribute concert to Wonder. And a less cool version of Wonder singing with Tom Jones (it was the latter who made it less cool. Wonder is a genius and I wish it could have been a solo performance).

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