Adam Chodzko, O, you happy roots, branch and mediatrix (2020), screen 2, two-channel video, Hildegard von Bingens lingua ignotae, and image recognition algorithm (image courtesy the artist)

In the last few years, the humanities have seen a marked shift in interest towards nonhuman forms of intelligence. The recent vegetal turn in eco-philosophy and curatorial practice, for example, attempts to recognize the central but overlooked cultural and ecological presence of plants and to find imaginative ways of engaging with them. The upcoming exhibition The Botanical Mind: Art, Mysticism and the Cosmic Tree at Camden Art Centre, London, looks likely to be a high point on this trajectory towards using creativity and criticality to reveal and correct a modern tendency towards what scientist Monica Gagliano has called plant blindness.

The show was scheduled to open in mid-April, but when the ongoing coronavirus pandemic caused its postponement the Camden Art Centre team worked to create alternative ways of accessing the ideas and imagery touched on in the exhibition. The result is The Botanical Mind Online, a dedicated website exploring the key themes of the exhibition combined with new commissions by artists, writers, musicians, and philosophers.

The Botanical Mind Online opens with an introductory video narrated by curators Gina Buenfeld and Martin Clark, offering an impressively succinct summary of the projects journey through a series of complexly interconnected topics including plant intelligence, patterns and geometry, music and harmony, psychedelia, and the notion of the tree as an axis mundi. Together, they suggest, these aspects point to an encoded intelligence in the patterns of nature a botanical mind.

The online platform draws on perspectives that offer alternatives to Western rationalism: outsider artists and philosophers, Indigenous cultures from the Amazon rainforest, and recent investigations into plant sentience. As such, it hints that an understanding of the vegetal can help to challenge the destructive dualistic divides that characterize much Western post-Enlightenment thought.

Moreover, The Botanical Mind is a laudable attempt to achieve what eco-philosopher Michael Marder describes as encountering plants on their own terms while maintaining a recognition of their radical alterity. This can be seen in Adam Chodzkos new digital commission O, you happy roots, branch and mediatrix (2020). The film uses an algorithm to scan footage of a forest for ciphers visual traces of a secret language created by the 12th Century Christian mystic Hildegard von Bingen. Chodzko has assigned the ciphers a sound from Hildegards choral compositions and uses them to spell out the names of plants both real and imagined. The website features a clip from the work which, in the curators words, attempts to become an idea of botanical transformation at once both a process and its experience.

Elsewhere on the site, ideas and imagery are collected under a range of tantalizing headings, such as Sacred Geometry, The Cosmic Tree, and Astrological Botany. The chapter on Indigenous Cosmologies explains how the patterns found in nature are the basis of sacred geometries found in the visual cultures and music of Indigenous Amazonian communities, many of whom believe these patterns weave the universe together. There is a particular focus on the Yawanaw people, a group of whom Camden Art Centre had been working with to develop a new artwork for The Botanical Mind in collaboration with Delfina Muoz de Toro, an indigenist, visual artist, and musician from Argentina. As the Yawanaw collaborators are currently self-isolating in their village (Indigenous communities are particularly vulnerable to foreign diseases), The Botanical Mind Online presents artworks related to their community. These include two experimental ethnographic films and a series of atmospheric sound recordings by Priscilla Telmon & Vincent Moon, which are presented alongside photographs and musical compositions by Muoz de Toro.

Meanwhile, the chapter on Vegetal Ontology picks up on the theme of patterning and applies it to the biological functions of plants. Gemma Andersons Relational process drawings, for example, are made in collaboration with a cellular biologist and a philosopher of science. They re-imagine the dynamic patterns of plant life by expressing the relationships between processes on molecular, cellular and organismal levels as musical compositions or dance choreographies.

Much has been made of recent research which shows that plants send each other electrical signals and nutrients through strands of symbiotic fungi, dubbed the wood wide web. The Botanical Mind Online effectively makes use of this parallel between plant communication and the internet, using the branching nonlinear structure of a hyperlinked website to subtly hint at plant forms and create a resource rich in multidirectional thought. During this period of enforced stillness, the curators argue, our behavior might be seen to resonate with plants: like them we are now fixed in one place, subject to new rhythms of time, contemplation, personal growth and transformation.

The Botanical Mind Online continues at http://www.botanicalmind.online/. The online platform and related upcoming exhibition at Camden Art Center, London, are curated by Gina Buenfeld and Martin Clark.

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Artists, Writers, Musicians, and More Explore the Intersections of Art and Ecology - Hyperallergic

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Spencer Critchley, managing partner for Boots Road Group, is hosting a discussionthe fourth in an ongoing seriesthat seeks to improve communication across political divides, but the true goal of the discussion is more profound, as evidenced by its title, Saving Democracy.

Its finding the people wherever they sit on the ideological spectrum who believe in civil debate, says Critchley. The members of this partythe party of democracyhave to find each other.

The next Saving Democracy installment is Tuesday, May 26 from 6:30-8pm, streaming on Facebook Live.

Past Saving Democracy events have spanned ideologies, with voices from both the right and the left. Critchley says Tuesdays event will focus on the conservative perspectives and on political moderates. It will be titled What Would Lincoln Do. Guests will include former California Republican leader Kristin Olsen and Dan Schnur, who once served as media chief for Senator John McCains 2000 presidential campaign and who now teaches at both USC and UC Berkeley. Another guest will be Mike Madrid, co-founder of the Lincoln Project, a conservative group aiming to defeat President Trump and Trumpism at the ballot box, according to the organizations website. None of the guests are fans of President Donald J. Trump.

Critchley will moderate the talk.

He says the thing that makes Trump so dangerous is his corruption. That includes the presidents self-dealing, his firing of anyone who gets in his way, his efforts to solicit help from foreign governments, and his persistent lies, which are intoxicating in and of themselves, Critchley elaborates.

The point is not to get away with the lie. The point is to do away with the concept of truth, Critchley says.

He says Americans should not give in to their differences, or else those who are driving divisions will get their way by making groups of people hate each other more. Critchley says many of those who pursue a divisive brand of civil discourse are Trump supporters, but not all of them.

Theres a brand of liberal intolerance. Its a different brand. It takes a different shapeif you disagree with me, then youre corrupt, he explains.

Critchley, author of the new book Patriots of Two Nations: Why Trump Was Inevitable and What Happens Next, traces the central schism in American political discourse back to the founding days of United States. There was a group that supported the ideals of the enlightenment and another, which he calls the counter-enlightenment, that did not.

In order to win elections in the 21st century, Critchley says, Democrats will need to learn to better communicate with those they disagree with.

The problem is not Trump, he says. The problem is that someone like Trump could become president.

Saving Democracy: What Would Lincoln Do will air on Facebook Live on Tuesday, May 26, from 6:30-8pm. Attendants may register in advance, to get a reminder when the event goes live. Visit bootsroad.com/democracy for more information.

UPDATE May 22 7:50pm: A previous version of this headline misspelled Spencer Critchleys last name.

Jacob, the news editor for Good Times, is an award-winning journalist, whose news interests include housing, water, transportation, and county politics. A onetime connoisseur of dive bars and taquerias, he has evolved into an aspiring health food nut. Favorite yoga pose: shavasana.

Originally posted here:
Spencer Critchely, Never-Trumpers Look to Save Democracy - Good Times Weekly

A note from the British Marxist literary critic Terry Eagletons 2008 Terry Lectures at Yale University, published as Reason, Faith, and Revolution: Reflections on the God Debate (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2009):

Dawkins falsely considers that Christianity offers a rival view of the universe to science. Like the philosopher Daniel C. Dennett in Breaking the Spell, he thinks it is a kind of bogus theory or pseudo-explanation of the world. In this sense, he is rather like someone who thinks that a novel is a botched piece of sociology, and who therefore cant see the point of it at all. Why bother with Robert Musil when you can read Max Weber? . . .

Dawkins makes an error of genre, or category mistake, about the kind of thing Christian belief is. He imagines that it is either some kind of pseudo-science, or that, if it is not that, then it conveniently dispenses itself from the need for evidence altogether. He also has an old-fashioned scientistic notion of what constitutes evidence. Life for Dawkins would seem to divide neatly down the middle between things you can prove beyond all doubt, and blind faith. He fails to see that all the most interesting stuff goes on in neither of these places. Christopher Hitchens makes much the same crass error, claiming in God Is Not Great that thanks to the telescope and the microscope, [religion] no longer offers an explanation of anything important. But Christianity was never meant to be an explanation of anything in the first place. It is rather like saying that thanks to the electric toaster we can forget about Chekhov. (6-7)

One can hardly fail to be reminded in this context of an exchange in C. S. Lewiss early novel The Pilgrims Regress a book that seems to me more prescient with each passing year. The conversation revolves around the Landlord, who, in Lewiss allegory, represents God:

But how do you know there is no Landlord?

Christopher Columbus, Galileo, the earth is round, invention of printing, gunpowder!! exclaimed Mr. Enlightenment in such a loud voice that the pony shied.

I beg your pardon, said John.

Eh? said Mr. Enlightenment.

I didnt quite understand, said John.

Why, its plain as a pikestaff, said the other.

Your people in Puritania believe in the Landlord because they have not had the benefits of a scientific training. For example, I dare say it would be news to you to hear that the earth was round round as an orange, my lad!

Well, I dont know that it would, said John. feeling a little disappointed. My father always said it was round.

No, no, my dear boy, said Mr. Enlightenment, you must have misunderstood him. It is well known that everyone in Puritania thinks the earth flat. It is not likely that I should be mistaken on such a point. Indeed, it is out of the question.

(C. S. Lewis,The Pilgrims Regress: An Allegorical Apology for Christianity, Reason, and Romanticism[Grand Rapids, MI.: Ecrdmans. 1992], 20-21 .)

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Scientism versus Scientism's Caricature of Christian Theism - Patheos

Should you follow your instinct or follow the rules and guidance set in place by the government? That is the assessment we were invited to make by the PM at the daily press conference on Sunday in the case of Dominic Cummings and his trip to Durham with his family.

Our lockdown has been comparatively relaxed compared to those imposed in France, Spain and Italy. We have been able to exercise once a day and we do not need papers to leave our houses. By contrast, the slogans have been highly aggressive: stay home and save lives; or to put it another way, leave home and risk lives.

We have been invited, again and again, to follow the rules and the guidance and to ignore conclusions derived from common sense, both before the legal lockdown was instituted and throughout its most intense period. For some of us, thankfully, those dilemmas have presented in trivial ways; for others, those dilemmas have been deeply, deeply painful.

Common sense has a great place in the history of ideas. It is the guiding spirit of the Enlightenment and the animating force of the most significant liberal ideals. The maxim We hold these truths to be self-evident cannot make any sense to men who do not share in reason. But we were asked by the UK government to put our common sense aside for several months. Indeed, that it was in our best interests to do so.

We were invited to take part in a national effort, to protect the NHS and save lives. We were asked to direct all our behaviours in light of that effort our contact with family, friends and loved ones, our exercise habits, even the number of times we shop and what we buy in the supermarket.

This was a project that the vast majority of the British public participated in, however grudgingly. If a fundamental question of politics is who has the right to tell me what to do? in normal times; then in a national crisis, this question has a far more potent and urgent set of associations: Who do I trust with my freedoms? Who do I trust to take care of my security?.

And while the public may have held with the government on these questions in the first phase of this crisis, the Cummings argument sets the scene for the next act mass unemployment on a scale that many have not seen in their working lifetimes, a destitute hospitality sector and the potential for a deflationary death spiral.

It is vital for the survival of his administration that Boris Johnson comes up with a far more assured response to this central question: Who has the right to tell me what to do? He may find that in future he has far fewer voters prepared to give him a fair hearing.

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Boris is taking the public for fools - Reaction - Reaction

For Prime Minister Narendra Modis vast demography of admirers, he cannot say anything that they wouldnt agree with. Therefore, when he speaks, they do not pay sufficient attention. For his very wide circle of detractors, he cannot say anything that would rouse their cheer. Hence, memes of censure in their quiver are always ready to take aim.

Essentially, in this polarised ecosystem, nobody listens to Modi because they are pre-decided on his message. One wonders if this is a logjam or a paradox? There is a predictability to the reaction we see, but Modi himself is not so predictable at times in his communication. For instance, the May 12 lockdown address he delivered was the most layered of his speeches in recent times. Speeches may do nothing, they may just buy time until action, or the absence of it, begins to speak louder, but nevertheless it is important to grasp the intent of words since they navigate action.

Modi appeared to be advocating self-reliance all through his latest lockdown speech, but interestingly, he was creating a complicated global circuitry to his concept of atmanirbhar. He kept emphasising that Indias self-reliance is not a self-centred game, but generously accommodates the happiness of the world. He imposed a kinship on the world when he borrowed the idea of Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam. He also spoke of Jai Jagat and Vishwa Kalyan. He emphasised more than once that India was firm on its global path. He said the world has begun to trust Indias ability to help mankind, and mentioned its recent medicine exports, and of course yoga and Y2K. He told us how much the world needs India. There was unabashed flair and zero circumspection in placing India at the centre of global action. Here, his facts may fall short, but he knows emotion and pride can never be fact-checked.

Also Read: The Simple, and Simplistic, Messaging of Modis Lectures Is a Big Hit With His Audience

Amazing certainty

Modi always speaks with amazing certainty. He leaves no doubt in his words because to sound doubtful is to appear human. Speaking to his constituents in Varanasi, on March 25, after the first lockdown announcement, he had said the Mahabharata battle was won in 18 days but the Covid one would take 21 days. There was no solution in sight to the pandemic nor was there a vaccine in production when he spoke of victory in 21 days, but that did not deter him from giving definite goals. When definite goals are a bulb of mythical layers then the discourse is not scientific or a rational one. It is always a satsang, a darshan, a vision in a very Indian sense. Time too is in a puranic cycle, not what is shown on the ultra-slim Movado wristwatch that he is said to wear. Therefore, the 21 days meant something else. More infinite than what an ordinary watch can measure. If one recalls his famous demonetisation address on November 8, 2016, then too he was sure of its consequences. In Ayodhya as well, his party was sure that Lord Ram was born at that very spot where the masjid stood.

Anyway, returning to Modis idea of self-reliance in his recent pandemic address, it does not emanate from 20th century economic thinking, either eastern or western, but comes from cultural thinking from a very distant past. A past that again escapes temporal calculations and is imagined to be in the spartan realms of the Vedic divine. To enhance this, there was a gentle sprinkling of Sanskrit to give a varnish of antiquity to his utterances. That appeared to be a deliberate act. That was a differentiator and a response to all those accusing him of not consulting experts like Rahul Gandhi has been doing to improve his score. It was a more euphemistic way of saying that this ancient civilisation has known it all, like it has flown airplanes in the glorious past, conceived IVF babies, and has performed plastic surgeries. Again, he knows faith cannot be fact-checked.

Rahul Gandhi and Abhijit Banerjee. Photo: Screengrab

Amidst this thread of glorious past, not unexpectedly, cropped up Indias subjugation in more tangible history. There was first glory, and then there was ghulami, he said. But now, in the 21st century, glory was destined to return. It appeared he pictured himself as the chosen one, to transition India into that glorious amorphousness. What lay for him between the golden glory of the past, and what is magically shaping up in the present is stygian darkness. In this dark phase of his understanding, India had been subjugated because it neither had atmanirbharta, atmabal nor atmashakti, he interpreted. Therefore that was the real stimulus he was now offering, bigger than the zeroes one could count after twenty. It was the most unusual address in a pandemic season. But Modi presented himself as an epoch maker who was seizing time to bend it to his needs.

Science and technology

In the past, his critics have weighed his COVID-19 addresses against that of German Chancellor Angela Merkel or Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for whom brevity and science make up communication. But Modi never speaks of science or deliberates through science. It is only technology that fascinates him. Science is a philosophy that clashes with all his training, but technology does not challenge anything. It will take the direction of the mind that deploys it. It can function outside reason. In the May 12 speech technology had a distinct velvet position.

Modi speaks like most Indians converse in their mother tongues. Every conversation is a faux spiritual discourse. It is like a retelling of the epics, where sub-plots are as riveting as the main plot. Where each narrator is allowed his own sub-plot, like it often happens with news on WhatsApp; the detours are more delectable. Hence, speaking only about the trajectory of COVID-19 in a lockdown address is boring, and unengaging. Not surprisingly, he took nearly 18 minutes to come to the point.

A municipal worker sprays disinfectant on the bags of people, as they maintain social distancing while sitting in a line to receive free food distributed by Delhi government, in a school during an extended nationwide lockdown to slow the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in New Delhi, India, April 21, 2020. Photo: Reuters/Anushree Fadnavis

In line with this is state policy to replay the pop version of epics on television. It keeps people in a familiar loop in uncertain times. It constantly reminds them of their karma. That helps the state abdicate responsibility. The individual is responsible for his fate. That is atmanirbharta too. The play on the word atma is anyway an indirect invocation of fate. The anglophone liberal who follows the linearity of a beginning-middle-end narrative may scoff at the meandering, figurative, non-linearity of Modis narratives, but the majority identifies with it.

Any counter to Modi will need the superior skills of an M.K. Gandhi, who knew how to blend European Enlightenment with the enlightenment of Indias loaded past. In an essay by novelist Raja Rao, republished recently, Nehru says: Weve had enough of Rama and Krishna. Not that I do not admire these great figures of our traditions, but theres work to be done. And not to clasp hands before idols while misery and slavery beleaguer us. It may be honest and true, but Gandhi would never clinically segregate the two streams. Therein perhaps lies a clue to all those who intend to bait Modi.

Read more:
If Only People Listened to Modi, They'd Understand Him Better - The Wire

The greatest performance in MLB history happened 18 years ago today.

The Los Angeles Dodgers were facing the Milwaukee Brewers in the finale of a three-game series. Dodgers right fielder Shawn Green, a two-time All-Star, was struggling in the early going of the 2002 season, hitting just .231 through the first 42 games.

Los Angeles lost the opener in Milwaukee 8-6, but Green broke out of his slump with a pair of solo home runs. The next day, Green hit a triple in the Dodgers' 1-0 win, but the best was yet to come. In the third game, Green had arguably the greatest offensive game in the history of baseball.

Not long before his epic game, Green had started studying Buddhism. He applied what he'd learned on the field that day in Milwaukee -- and his focus on Eastern philosophy helped inform and inspire a performance for the ages. In his own words, Green recounts what happened at the plate during that game and how his newfound mental approach helped him perform as no baseball player had before.

Thursday, May 23, 2002

We had a 12 o'clock game in Milwaukee. I got to the ballpark around 9 a.m. to take batting practice. I hadn't been playing well that spring, and I was struggling to get my timing down. I think a big part of it was because I'd had my best season in 2001, when I hit a career-high 49 home runs. I struggled at the start in 2002 because I felt like I needed to exceed it.

I wasn't. A quarter of the way through the season I was on pace to hit 13 homers. I got booed for the first time in my career, during our last homestand before our trip to Milwaukee. I was the No. 3 hitter, and I was 0-for-18 [on the homestand]. It's definitely painful when your home crowd turns on you. That Saturday, our manager, Jim Tracy, came up to me and said, "You really need a break, because you're not playing well." He benched me for a game against the Montreal Expos. I was a guy who wanted to play every day. So it's kind of a big deal when the manager says, "You really need a break."

2 Related

In Milwaukee, I just wanted to ground myself with my tee work. Set up the tee, put the ball on the tube with the four seams facing the right way. Take a swing and kind of get my body where I feel the movements and I can connect with my breathing.

This wasn't just my batting practice. This was my meditation.

At some point in high school, a friend of mine read "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" and turned me on to it. It resonated with me. Both my parents are Jewish, but my household wasn't religious. I liked Eastern philosophy because it was about finding a way to stay in the moment, be focused and stay present. I devoured other books after that: "Way of the Peaceful Warrior," "Zen in the Art of Archery," "Siddhartha." All of them contributed to how I perceived baseball, especially by the time I was a professional. You know that old Zen koan, "Chop wood, carry water before enlightenment. Chop wood, carry water after enlightenment"? It really made sense to me because baseball is such a process-focused game. A lot of times the results don't add up, so you just have to stick with the process, succumb to the daily routine and sort of let go of what the results are going to be.

That's what I was trying to do on the tee that day in Milwaukee: listen to the sound of the ball as it hit the back of the net. It sounded like the swish of a basketball going through the net, a perfect shot. And I tried to connect with that sense. Something I really liked from "Way of the Peaceful Warrior" was when Dan Millman writes, "You'll have to lose your mind to come to your senses."

The thing about Zen and baseball and how I tried to play -- it's not like you do it all the time. You have to remind yourself to do these things right. And way more so than any other time in my career, that day in Milwaukee was when I was good about remembering to be present.

When I left the cage, I was in a place where my timing, my stride, everything was starting to feel in sync. It was the feeling I'd been searching for the whole season.

Top of the 1st, 1 out, no score

Glen Rusch was on the mound that day for the Brewers. I knew he would try to get me to chase a slider away. When I came to the plate for that first at-bat, we had a guy on second, Cesar Izturis, and I fell behind 0-2 in the count. I thought, "Here we go again, right?"

I took a breath. I wanted to take the doer out of the equation. I thought, "I'm just going to watch and then trust that the pitch is actually a good pitch to hit."

It was down and away, and I just kind of stayed on it -- my front shoulder didn't turn really fast out of the way -- and hit a hard ground ball down the first-base line, just inside the bag, for a double. We scored a run. I was standing on second thinking, "That's a nice, quality at-bat right there." I'd hit a triple the night before and we'd won 1-0. So standing on second the next day, I felt like things were at last starting to turn.

Top of the 2nd, 2 outs, 3-1 Dodgers

The second time up, we had runners on first and second and two outs, but I didn't want to press. So much of Eastern philosophy is just staying relaxed and in the moment. I knew Glen was gonna try a fastball in. I took it for a ball. I didn't overthink, but I knew what Glen was going to throw next: He was gonna come inside.

He threw a fastball on the inside corner. I swung at it. It broke my bat, but the ball took off toward right field. Home run. A three-run shot.

When you do that [homer with a cracked bat], you sort of just want to joke around, show off the bat to the guys: Look how strong I am! But the truth was, I didn't shatter the bat. There was just a crack in it.

What the at-bat really showed me was that I was dialed in. Just completely relaxed. It was me trying to practice everything I'd read.

Top of the 4th, no outs, 8-1 Dodgers

I led off the fourth inning against a rookie I'd never faced before, Brian Mallette. I studied him as he warmed up. Once I was at the plate, I thought one pitch coming my way was a slider. So I waited back a little longer and crushed the ball for a home run. It landed on the walkway in right-center field. I didn't even feel my legs moving as I jogged around the bases.

With each at-bat, I was getting deeper in the zone -- to the point where it really started to feel like I was a spectator, where the pitcher's throwing and it's like I'm just watching how I react. What was even more interesting was that I didn't feel the pressure to analyze my performance or try to hold on to this state. I was just a witness to it.

Top of the 5th, 2 outs, 9-1 Dodgers

The fifth inning was the easiest at-bat of the day. Same pitcher: Mallette. I knew he'd probably throw a two-seam fastball that ran away from me. He was young, and I'd already hit a double and two home runs, so he was going to keep everything to the outside part of the plate. He didn't want anything to do with me. But the outside part of the plate is actually what I wanted. I have long arms and could extend them through the zone. He threw it exactly where I thought he would. I just crushed that one, deep to left-center field.

At this point, I'm 4-for-4 with six RBIs. So yeah: You could say I no longer feel like I'm in a rut.

Top of the 8th, no outs, 10-2 Dodgers

I lead off the eighth inning and I want to hit another home run -- but I'm not over-trying either. I don't change my approach. I'm facing a new pitcher, Jose Cabrera, and on a 1-1 count I swing at a pitch at probably mid-shin level. It was the hardest ball I hit all day. I just couldn't get any air under it. A base hit to center field.

After the inning, Jim Tracy came up to me and said, "Greeny, why don't you hit the showers?" I usually would have taken him up on it. The game was a blowout, and I wouldn't have normally wanted to gear up for another at-bat -- especially after a 5-for-5 day and when we were facing Curt Schilling the next day in Arizona -- but I told him, "Hey, if we get a couple guys up in the ninth, I could get up again."

Part of the reason I wanted to stay in was that I was surprised at being this spectator and not feeling any anxiousness to maintain that feeling, any pressure to hold on to this incredible wave that I'm riding. It was almost this Eastern-inspired curiosity: How is this not changing?

Top of the 9th, 2 outs, 14-2 Dodgers

Cabrera was still the pitcher. I wanted a pitch up in the zone, up above the shins where I'd hit the last one. He threw me one, and I swung as hard as I could. But I foul-tipped it.

So I just waited for the next one. It was on the inner part of the plate, and this time I swung even harder.

The ball landed above the walkway in right-center. The farthest shot of the day. I was just trying so hard not to smile so I didn't show up the Brewers, but the fans in Milwaukee gave me a standing ovation. Me, the guy who'd just been booed at home.

Green goes 6-for-6 that day with six runs, seven RBIs and a record 19 total bases. ESPN's David Schoenfield later picks the performance as the greatest by a hitter in MLB history.

I hear that a lot: the greatest performance ever. It's wonderful to hear. I could get very streaky. The first pitch I saw in the next game -- in Arizona, against Curt Schilling -- I hit for a home run. I ended up with two more hits that day. And the day after that, I had two more home runs and six RBIs. Later that year, I had four home runs in four at-bats across two games against the Angels. Crazy, crazy streaks. The point is: I think studying Zen and Eastern philosophies all those years, they allowed me to go deeper in the zone than other guys.

It made me a better player. It's helped to make me a better person, not think about what you should or shouldn't have done. Just take this moment in front of you. Focus on that.

Green played for five more years, retiring before the 2008 season, and at one point was one of four active players -- the others being Barry Bonds, Ken Griffey Jr. and Gary Sheffield -- with 300 homers, 1,000 RBIs and 150 stolen bases. In 2011, he published a book about the game and his study of Eastern philosophy called "The Way of Baseball." He lives in Southern California.

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Shawn Green and the greatest offensive game in MLB history - ESPN

Lots of people have turned to baking bread as a means of passing the time during a quarantine that is entering its third month. But most aren't baking bread like Sabina Valenzuela bakes bread.

The Grosse Pointe resident began baking, mostly teaching herself, about 17 years ago while still living in Chile with her family. Valenzuela would sell her baked goods to neighbors to bring in additional income.

But now, during the COVID-19 pandemic, her baking skills are coming in handy in a new way. Valenzuela's 27-year-old son Sergio Rodriguez-Valenzuela is the co-founder and CEO of startup ToDoolie Inc.

The company previously used its platform to match homeowners with college students looking to work around the house. But in the age of COVID-19, the company instead uses the same platform to deliver Valenzuela's freshly baked bread to customers around Detroit and in the Grosse Pointe communities, as Crain's has previously reported.

Valenzuela has been baking bread for years, including as a way to provide for her family, but the transition to baking during a pandemic and for her son's evolving business "was born out of a necessity to help," she said with some translation assistance from her son.

Valenzuela said that at the onset of the pandemic she had visited the supermarket several times and found a lack of bread. With many older people in the Grosse Pointe area, she thought her baking skills could help.

"I wanted to share that feeling of having fresh bread," Valenzuela said.

The bread she bakes is now delivered using ToDoolie's platform within 30 minutes of coming out of the oven, Rodriguez-Valenzuela said.

With people turning to bread-baking during lengthy quarantines, coupled with an upside-down supply chain, shortages of flour have been rampant. The Valenzuelas say they had some trouble at first sourcing flour for their bread-baking operation, but have found that bulk stores generally have plenty of supply.

Since switching from ToDoolie's original business model, Valenzuela's breads have made their way to 157 unique clients of the company, according to her son, the company's founder. Additionally, Rodriguez-Valenzuela said that because of donations from some of those clients, about a dozen families have gotten free bread.

While Instagram posts of people trying out their first batch of sourdough have become ubiquitous during the lockdown, Valenzuela's creations go slightly beyond that. Among her favorite breads to bake are a traditional South American style called hallulla; breads with fruit, typically known as Christmas breads; and empanadas.

Valenzuela said she applauds people who are trying out bread-baking during this time and offered some tips for people just getting started with home baking.

"It's something that you do for yourself and you put energy into it," she said, adding that she often puts on relaxing music and tries to put her "heart and soul" into each concoction.

"It's almost a therapy thing," she said.

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COVID-19 Heroes: Bread baking as 'therapy,' and a way to help, in lockdown - Crain's Detroit Business

[05/20/20 - 06:00 AM] Sit Back, Unwind and Watch Relaxing Old Footage with Joe Pera to Calm Your Worries An ideal program to watch before bed, comedian Joe Pera and director Marty Schousboe have collected their most subdued footage and pieced it together in the most relaxing way possible. [via press release from Adult Swim]

Sit Back, Unwind and Watch Relaxing Old Footage with Joe Pera to Calm Your Worries

Watch NOW on Adult Swim YouTube and on Adult Swim this Friday at Midnight ET/PT.

An ideal program to watch before bed, comedian Joe Pera and director Marty Schousboe have collected their most subdued footage and pieced it together in the most relaxing way possible. These clips, too long to fit in a traditional tv program, are threaded together by Pera's narration and will hopefully leave viewers feeling as calm as the fish floating around in one of the special's 2,700+ aquarium shots.

Directed by Marty Schousboe, Narration by Joe Pera, Music by Ryan Dann, Edited by Whit Conway and Marty Schousboe.

Adult Swim (AdultSwim.com), launched in 2001, is a WarnerMedia network offering original and acquired animated and live-action series for young adults. Airing nightly from 8 p.m. to 6 a.m. (ET/PT), Adult Swim is the #1 network with persons18-24, 18-34 and 18-49 and is seen in 85 million U.S. homes.

Warner Bros. is a global leader in the creation, production, distribution, licensing and marketing of all forms of entertainment across all current and emerging media and platforms. A WarnerMedia company, the Studio is home to one of the most successful collections of brands in the world and stands at the forefront of every aspect of the entertainment industry, from feature film, television and home entertainment production and worldwide distribution to DVD and Blu-ray, digital distribution, animation, comic books, videogames, product and brand licensing, and broadcasting.

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Breaking News - Sit Back, Unwind and Watch Relaxing Old Footage with Joe Pera to Calm Your Worries - The Futon Critic

MY husband and I have adhered strictly to lockdown and thus, although living in Bournemouth, Tuesday was the first time we have got in our car to go to the beach for daily exercise.

We went late afternoon and chose to go the beach near Southbourne crossroads, believing it would be quieter than in the middle of town.

A relaxing walk by the sea it really wasnt! And I have to say it was due to the number and irresponsible behaviour of cyclists.

Almost as soon as we started walking on the promenade I was almost knocked down by a speeding bike that missed me by inches.

Read today's other letters

We witnessed groups of teenagers riding three abreast down the prom, others not looking where they were going whilst talking on phones or playing music, unaware of anyone else.

We decided to return via the cliff top for safety, and what happens? Cyclists on the pavements. We could not get away from them to enjoy a walk.

What rights do pedestrians have to enjoy a walk? It seems none. This is not satisfactory at the best of times, but given social distancing this is ridiculous BCP.

If necessary give cyclists free range to 10am and after 7pm, or some such arrangement, but do something because cyclists and walkers do not mix. Add the necessity for social distancing and what is going on is dangerous and totally unacceptable.

ELIZABETH LUCAS

Bournemouth

Go here to see the original:

Letter to the Editor: A relaxing walk by the sea? No it was not - Bournemouth Echo

Words of wellbeing: Concubium is the soundest, calmest, deepest part of your sleep. Illustration: Eva Bee/The Observer

Like language, our emotions are universal and whatever fears and anxieties we are now experiencing, someone else in centuries gone by has felt the same way. Here is an A-Z of archaic and forgotten words that at some point in the past exactly described an elusive sense of peace, calm and delight. So, if you want to know your agathism from your euneirophrenia, read on and draw comfort from these linguistic oddities

Agathism Its hard to be an optimist knowing that there are tough times ahead. But in lieu of optimism, theres always agathism a word coined in 1830 for the belief that all things eventually get better, though the means by which they do is not always easy. It is a word to remind us that though we may be in for hard times, there is light at the end of the tunnel.

Bummel Our daily constitutional neednt be an exhausting run around the block. Derived from a German word for strolling, a bummel is nothing more than a relaxing leisurely walk or wander.

Concubium Adopted into English from Latin in the 1600s, the concubium is the soundest, calmest, deepest part of your sleep. That time of night when all men are at rest, as one 17th-century dictionary put it.

Dolorifuge Whatever it is that makes you happy, that is your dolorifuge: this 19th-century term describes anything or anyone that alleviates feelings of pain or sadness.

Euneirophrenia One of the strangest side-effects of our curtailed routines at the moment is that our brains are working overtime while we sleep, so the word euneirophrenia might come in useful. It describes the wholly pleasing feeling you have on waking from an equally pleasant dream.

Focillation Derived from the Latin for nourish, a focillation is a momentary act of comfort or refreshment. Take it as a reminder that it is perfectly fine to take some time out, whenever you need it.

Glee-dream If you find solace in films or music, or find that youre dearly missing the theatre or cinema, the word you are looking for is glee-dream. The modern form of the Old English gleodream, the Oxford English Dictionary defines this as delight of minstrelsy that is, the pleasure that comes from a musical performance or similar entertainment.

Heterocentric How we all should and, thankfully, how a great many of us currently are living our lives: if youre heterocentric then youre more concerned with other people than you are yourself.

Interfulgent A fitting metaphor for the triumph of light in dark times. Derived from the Latin word for shining, something that is interfulgent shines through or between that which would otherwise obscure it as sunshine through clouds or the leaves of trees.

Jamb-friend A jamb is a supporting timber, of course, which makes a jamb-friend an early 19th-century word for a friend with whom you could quite happily sit by a fireside talking and relaxing well into the early hours.

Kaffeeklatsch Borrowed from German in the 1800s, a kaffeeklatsch is a chattering catch-up with friends and family over endless cups of coffee. Its a lot more poetic than the Victorian alternative: according to one contemporary dictionary, scandal-loving women who like to meet over a cup of tea were once known as muffin-wallopers.

Back in the 1600s, laetificate meant to lift someones spirits

Laetificate Its a word not much used since the 1600s, but its one you might need today or might be called on to offer to someone else. Quite simply, to laetificate is to lift someones spirits.

Meliorism George Eliot coined the word meliorism to define her outlook on life, once writing to the psychologist James Sully to explain that: I dont know that I ever heard anybody use the word meliorist except myself. Operating halfway between optimism and realism, meliorism is the belief that the world no matter what shape it may be in can always be improved by the concerted effort of mankind.

Nikhedonia Nike was the Greek goddess of victory. Hedone (as in hedonism) was a Greek word for pleasure. Put those two together and you have nikhedonia a term from psychology for the inspiring, adrenalin-raising excitement of anticipating a future success.

Omnibenevolence Just as an omnipotent person has power over everything, an omnibenevolent person exhibits kindness to everything and everyone. That endless, all-encompassing compassion is omnibenevolence.

Peeled-egg Were all guilty of worrying that the worst could suddenly befall us, but rarely imagine that something just as unexpectedly wonderful could take place. JRR Tolkien coined the word eucatastrophe to describe an unforeseen event of sheer good fortune, but the Scots beat him to it. First recorded in Scottish proverbs dating from the 1800s, a peeled-egg is: A stroke of good fortune which one has not had to strive for. It was once a popular name given to farms established on land with unanticipated natural advantages.

Queem Something described as queem is perfectly calm or serene or by extension, perfectly smooth and level. Queemness, likewise, can be used to describe perfect serenity, or perfect smoothness and levelness, while two things that work queemly with one another are either perfectly harmonious, or, like two parts of a joint, snug and well adapted to one another.

Adopted from French, retrouvailles literally means 'refinding'

Retrouvailles Adopted from French, retrouvailles literally means refinding but its more usually understood as the French equivalent of what we might call a reunion or homecoming. Recently the word came to be used more imaginatively to describe the utter happiness or joy sparked by reuniting or catching up with someone you havent seen in a long time. A word well worth recalling in the months ahead.

Supernaculum It might be a fine glass of wine or whisky or nothing more than a perfectly brewed and timed cup of tea. A supernaculum is a drink so appreciated that it is savoured to its very last drop.

Traumatropism A tree partly felled by gales or lightning can often continue growing albeit in some ever more unwieldy or implausible shape. That undeterred response to earlier damage is an example of a phenomenon called traumatropism. Taken literally, it reminds us that nature is stronger and more resilient than we could ever imagine; metaphorically, it tells us that harsh setbacks need not end our progress.

Unsoulclogged Its not the most handsome of words, but were all striving to be unsoulclogged. It is total contentment, peace of mind, and freedom from sadness and dejection or, as one 1881 dictionary defined it, the state of not being weighed down in spirit.

Villeggiatura When youre tired of the city or your usual routine, its time for a villeggiatura. Adopted into English from Italian in the 18th century, a villeggiatura is a restorative trip or holiday to the countryside, taken to lift the spirits and unwind the mind.

Worldcraft Ageing is hardly the most welcome of lifes certainties. But for every word to remind us of its drawbacks (to be eildencumbered is to be held back by age), there is one for its seldom considered positives. Worldcraft is an 18th-century word for the unmatched cumulative wisdom of an aged person whose long life has given them unique and much venerated insight far beyond anything a younger, less experienced person could ever imagine.

Xenodochy Hospitality offered to strangers. The prefix xeno comes from the Greek word for strange or foreign, but we only tend to encounter it today in xenophobia. Now seems an apt time to highlight one of its overlooked opposites.

Yahrsider We are all looking out for our yahrsiders at the moment. A dialect term from the 18th century, a yahrsider is someone from the same family or town as you, or who shares the same community spirit.

Zenobia A courageous and effective third-century queen of Palmyra, Zenobia expanded her kingdom into the almighty Palmyrene Empire, stretching from Ankara to Aswan. Her name has been adopted as a term for a powerful, unstoppably determined woman.

The Cabinet of Calm: Soothing Words for Troubled Times by Paul Anthony Jones (Elliott & Thompson, 12.99) is out now

Read more:

An A to Z of old words to calm and inspire hope - The Guardian