Meaningful Mud's Monthly Mu - August 2024
"i can dance dance dance in the dirty rain where the streets have no name"
Hey there,
And welcome to Meaningful Mud’s Monthly Mu August edition. Thank you again for your being here and for giving this a read or a glance.
Sitting in the most uninspiring and generic of high school gymnasium halls this past month, I was reminded of the healing properties of playfulness.
With Facebook’s algorithms doing what they do best, persuading me to buy a one time pass to a class marketed only as ‘Movement,’ a name at once intriguing and ridiculous, reflective of our devolution into an age of amorphous titles (and our gradual descent into finding these titles appealing - hence my buying the pass), here I was, standing in a semi-circle with eight other strangers, freestyle dancing to some deep jazz, whilst simultaneously imitating the instructor’s pelvic thrusts and horizontal leg bobs, albeit very poorly. Amongst various other adventurous expeditions, the class also saw us doing capoeira inspired acrobatics, balancing with broomsticks and two and one leg handstand jumps in the air.
Whilst it would be misleading to report that by the end of the class I had outrightly abandoned all sense of prior insecurity, cast off my shackles of inhibition, and “lost touch with a couple of people I used to be,” to paraphrase Joan Didion, I can say that even marginally venturing off my comfortably known frontal and sagittal planes, in ways not decided upon solely by me, delivered a grateful and generous dose of delight.
I feel slightly ashamed and rueful of my passive waiting for this mandate and permission to be playful, which I discovered (or was reminded), that when practiced in measured amounts, is radically and refreshingly redemptive, revealing other realms of possibilities.
No doubt, our unrelenting realities and the misguided pressures and unhealthy expectations of the world nudge much of the innocent playfulness out of us, permeating our beings with doubt and a superficial fear, closing us up and off; disengaging and alienating us from ourselves and disconnecting us from one another, in the process causing our playfulness muscles to atrophy, degenerate and often disappear.
Yes, it seems Charles was right - “we are eaten up by nothing!”
But brothers and sisters, he does not have to remain right!
So on that revolutionary note, I wish you all a month of playfulness, head bobbings, leg bobbings, soul bobbings, other body part bobbings and maybe even a few pelvic thrusts.
I thank you all again for your being here and hope you enjoy this August offering.
And lastly, may we always be stuck in Meaningful Mud.
Take great care.
Tyler
"My lifetime ambition has been to unite the utmost seriousness of question with the utmost lightness of form. Nor is this purely an artistic ambition. The combination of a frivolous form and a serious subject immediately unmasks the truth about our dramas (those that occur in our beds as well as those that we play out on the great stage of History) and their awful insignificance.”
- Milan Kundera, The Art of Fiction #81, Paris Review
The menu ain’t the meal but give it a bash anyway
“Mother, mother ocean, I have heard you call.”
Inspired by my proximity to the Mediterranean, sharing with you all a recipe for a Roma Salad.
I hope you enjoy!
Ingredients:
Rocket – one medium punnet
Ricotta cheese x 450 gm
1/2 cup pesto
3 big onions (to caramelize)
Sliced peppadews – 1 cup
Chopped sundried tomatoes – 1 cup
Fresh rosa tomatoes, halved – one punnet
Three hard boiled eggs - quartered
Toasted pine nuts – generous handful
Caramelized onions:
Slice onions and place in a pot with a 1 cup brown sugar and 200ml olive oil
Allow to simmer and caramelize for about 30 minutes
Breathe in, smell and thank your divine
Dressing:
Reserve the liquid from the caramelized onions
Add an extra 125ml olive oil
Throw in sesame seeds - 60ml
Add in 1 clove crushed garlic
Add in 4 finely chopped spring onions
Squeeze in some lemon juice - 50ml
Add in 1-2 seeded and chopped chillis (alternatively, a shake of chilli flakes also works)
Assembling the salad:
Toss rocket and greens of your choice onto your platter
Mix ricotta balls with pesto (pesto is optional - but come on - life is short)
Roll into bite sized balls and scatter over rocket
Add all remaining ingredients
Spoon caramelized onions over salad
Dress just before serving
Thank your divine (both before serving and after serving)
Sonic Suggestions
Sharing with you all one of my favorites that always manages to make me smile and hope and dream.
Presenting Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros - That's What's Up.
Enjoy the tunes!
“Don’t you remember being young when language was magic without meaning? When what you could say, could not mean? When the invisible was what imagination strove to see? When questions and demands for answers burned so brightly you trembled with fury at not knowing?”
- Toni Morrison, Nobel Lecture 1993
As I said last month and will repeat this month - thank you for reading and for your being here. It is really not taken for granted!
Please also consider forwarding this little offering to a loved one, friend or stranger and feel free to reach out should you wish to share any comments, critiques or suggestions.
Wishing you all an audacious August!(Shout out to Dr. Danni and Alex)
