June 13ths

6/13/1886, Sunday

Me, too young to remember the fire, too old to accept easy answers about justice and order.
Churches preach reconciliation while congregations whisper of revolution. Sermons and sedition share the same summer air.

Kindness persists despite the fear. Perhaps this is how we survive—one gesture at a time.

The war took my certainties. The city took my youth. What remains? The daily choice between compassion and convenience.

[It's interesting that Civil War babies are still traumatized by it--at least as inferred by AI. I see this as plausible. Sometimes the plausibility of something can stand for a partial truth. This is like a 30-year old in 1975 feeling traumatized by World War II--probably not plausible, but perhaps plausible in the mid-1880s relating to 1855]. https://claude.ai/public/artifacts/f6ae1bd0-0ea0-4643-930e-73e410a29999

6/13/1949 (Denver)

Kerouac gets settled in and types 10,000 words for “On the Road”. “Beautiful summer is mine”.  

Songday idea--a potential keeper.

  

6/13/1984 (Milan)

(Keith Haring Journal)

“The problem facing modern man now is compounded by the increasing power of technology and its misuse by those in power who wish only to control. The mentality of people who are motivated by profits at the expense of human needs is perfect for the computer. ...The worlds of art and money are constantly intermingling. To survive this mixture the magic in art has to be applied in new ways. Magic must always triumph.”

 [6/13/2025: The first Mac was released in 1984, and that’s probably what he’s referring to. This is repeating again with fears about AI. “Abuse of power” isn’t a human universal as was delineated by Donald Brown, but it should be].    

6/13/2004, Sunday

(Neil Peart, Roadshow)

“The Lake of the Ozarks area was pleasantly scenic, though busy on his summer Sunday, and Michael and I gradually angled back to the Northwest, to the farms and woodlands of Southwestern Missouri. Church Sign: “If God had a wallet, your picture would be in it.” That’s pretty good, I must say, kind of lyrical. Could be a line from a song, Maybe by the New Main Street Singers in A Mighty Wind.”