Pounding The Keyboard

     Today is Nick Mason’s, former Pink Floyd drummer, birthday. The video above is one of may favorite parts in Pink Floyd: Live At Pompeii (1972), a concert documentary where they performed in an audienceless ancient Roman amphitheater in Pompeii, Italy, a city buried by the eruption of volatile Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD. Vesuvius (its eruptions have killed around sixteen thousand people) remains one of the most dangerous volcanoes in the world.       Mr. Mason, while not regarded as one of the greatest drummers of all time, helped make Pink Floyd songs great and unforgettable. And in a recent interview, he even said that if only he had his way, he’d never let Pink Floyd quarrel and break up and that they would play as long as they’re able to do so. And as if to prove his determination and love of playing drums and making music, at 4:59 in the the video, he lost his stick, but didn’t miss a single beat.

     Does it spark joy? This is the question, they say, that you should ask yourself when decluttering and throwing old things away. You hold the thing that you don’t use anymore and you’re thinking of throwing away, and see if it still sparks joy. If it does give you even the tiniest bit of joy, you should keep it. If it doesn’t, then, hurl it to the nearest trash can.      So yesterday, I was thinking, while the issue of this government's intention of lowering the criminal liability age to nine raged on, what if you want to declutter this government? This government which foremost policies are to “Kill! Kill! Kill!” and to jail everyone who doesn’t agree with them   and to pamper, cuddle and protect plunderers and criminals. This government, if you’d try to throw away all the trash in it, would probably be totally emptied, no one would be left, because nothing in it sparks joy.      Anyway,a little incident happened in our family that indeed sparked joy. Four day

     Whenever my three year old nephew visits us, he always spends some time in front of my (desktop) computer, typing the alphabet, numbers, his name, our names and other strange words and watching YouTube videos. Last week, he was at it again, busy with the computer.   When my nephew left, I went to the computer and saw several windows and tabs open. Nothing unusual, except that on the next day, I couldn’t find a file ( a story which I am currently working on, with more than 12K words). I searched for it, to no avail. Did he delete it permanently? I don’t know.       But I took it as a sign for me to stop writing and concentrate on further honing my dishwashing and rice cooking skills (my chores in the house) and, yes, reading. I bought a few books (a couple of them still wrapped) from Booksale during the holidays (aside from the other unread books I own) and I still haven’t found the time to read them—until now. Thanks to my nephew who probably only wanted me to stop tre

           Many years ago, a young man formed a rock band, but as they were starting to get famous, his mind and his sanity started to slip away. The rest of the band decided to replace him, but he was allowed to write and contribute one last song to a new album, which he obliged.      And the song he wrote and sang, it was obvious there that he was aware that his mind was slipping away ( “And I’m wondering who could be writing this song" ), that he was sarcastically grateful to his bandmates that they were accommodating him for one last time ( “it’s awfully considerate of you to think of me here” ) and that they would soon abandon him ( “And I’m most obliged to you for making it clear that I’m not here” ) but that he didn’t care anyway ( “I don’t care if the sun don’t shine, I don’t care if nothing is mine” ), then he wondered if everything that was happening was just a dream or just a joke ( “and what exactly is a dream, and what exactly is a joke” ).       But m

     A few days ago, I was lazily scrolling my Facebook News Feed when I saw a post from a family of an acquaintance of mine, a former colleague during the heyday of local komiks, They were asking for some financial help for him. He is currently confined in a hospital due to kidney and heart complications from diabetes and is almost blind.      Diabetes.      I looked at the dark chocolate bar I was currently holding, my dessert after lunch, and refrained myself from biting at it again.   Instead, I put it back in the ref and made me some tea. Then I performed three push-ups and three sit-ups and promised, while terribly panting, to go back to exercising starting the next day. Everyone’s New Year resolution should be taking good care of their health, and you could do this, they say, by regularly exercising, eating healthy food (too much rice coupled with too much soft drinks, they say, can cause diabetes), not smoking, avoiding too much alcohol, caffeine, sugar, and sal