That was some Sunday, 14-15 news cycles ago …

For someone trying to maintain equilibrium, Super Bowl Sunday was a notable challenge.

Friend Al had no interest in equilibrium: “Yup, I’ll be at the game, to chat up Moscow Mitch and his steadfast Republican Senate.”

That dud buried itself in the residual muck of the Greatest Deliberative Body in the Cosmos deciding not to subpoena several first-hand witnesses and documents for their trial of president Trump for alleged extortion of a U.S. ally at war with Russia over its annexation of a Texas-sized chunk of our ally’s territory.

Al and Friends were seated In a circle and had just finished their hour of centering silence.

The floor was open for retrievals from that time of grace.

JM offered: “from where I’m sitting I can see the eastern ridge line, and in this light it looks as though there’s nothing beyond it, as though this valley and our circle is all there is . . . and what a relief! . . . were that true,” he trailed off.

Clara: “Usually this hour brings me some focus or clarity on some point. Today, No.” She was sounding a bit sad, as though her other Sunday pleasures—a concert at 2 (it was already noon), then a book group, and then the Super Bowl—had become obligations.

There was something out there, in the void beyond the ridge line . . . it weighed about about 363 kilos.

Jake bore witness to it.

“Trump’s going to win in November. It’s not that I want him to . . . but I’ve seen it among my friends hundreds of times. Liberals are really good at sitting around and talking about doing good things. Conservatives don’t talk much. They do things.” Exasperation underlined a phrase or two.

Celeste had read in The At

lantic about Physiological Disgust Response and something of a correlation between low PDR and liberalism, high PDR with conservatism. Conversation picked up speed, and I was left behind, missing my chance to say “My Libertarian friend says I’m about as liberal as they come, and my PDR to #45 is stratospehric.”

Bella said that we—meaning the human species—needed both high and low PDRs to get to where we are. “Which is where?” I didn’t ask.

We broke for lunch, all of us but Clara, who rushed off to prepare for her afternoon duties.

At Schat’s/Friedman’s we descanted a bit on the forenoon’s tune.

Jake was on his game: “Liberals just don’t know how to talk to people. Trump does, and he’ll win.”

I leant into the conversation: “You know, Liberalism is a Victorian British invention, and with it you get the whole package: capitalism, imperialism, exploited labor, WOGs, racism . . . that stuff’s mostly all doomed today . . .”—I was lecturing, so conversation moved away from politics. Hypatia let me know that she was spaying her golden retriever, so poor Nick will have to lose his virginity with someone else’s doggie— . . . “but the replacement governmental scheme is not likely to be more democratic than what we’ve got. Human history and dog packs are on the side of despotism.”

It was 1 p.m. Several of us headed for the 2 p.m. concert.

First, tea with Isis. I didn’t have the heart to tell Nick he’d missed his chance with Goldie.

Isis and I headed for the concert. Gina Marie graciously if nervously omitted intermission to let people catch the late afternoon Super Bowl start. She left the auditorium doors ajar for any urgencies.

—I don’t think we’ve heard a better concert here. The Lee Trio (piano, violin, cello) play

ing Finnis, Beethoven, and Dvorák.

Edmund Finnis, belying his Orwellian birthdate (1984), composes beautiful, spare music, which Lisa Lee graced with exquisite violin work, almost impossible to describe. Best I can do is “rising diminuendo,” a note drawn out to inaudibility, as though a solitary bird had flown beyond our valley’s horizon, saying “trust me.”

Then Beethoven, 5th piano trio, Melinda Lee Masur, virtuoso, with 88 keys of energy. It was pleasure, not distraction, to watch her cuing Charlie Seltzer’s page-turning.

Her playing was the thing, of course, yet watching the interaction between the two of them was itself a mime duet within the worldly energy of her solo.

Angela Lee’s introduction to Dvorák’s folkish Piano Trio # 4 in E Minor— ”as though he were saying good-bye to a country he hadn’t left yet”—exactly suited my mood as the conclusion for Sunday, 2 February 2020.

As Isis and I were walking to our car, Clara caught up and—still in a hurry, but with joy in her voice: “Hello, you two! Wonderful concert!”