Today is the birthday of blues harmonica player Blind Mississippi Morris. He arrived on the planet on this day in 1955, in Clarksdale, Mississippi as Morris Cummings.

His artistry is the subject of this short documentary.

Blind Mississippi Morris from Bill Totolo on Vimeo.

Blind Mississippi Morris lost his harmonicas and a valuable microphone when his truck was robbed three years ago. It was just one in a series of losses and disappointments which included losing his eyesight to glaucoma, his childhood to institutionalization, and a home to foreclosure. He has also parted company with at least a dozen wives along the way if this article is to be believed.

Turning fifty-eight today, Morris began playing harmonica when he was four and has now become old enough and has suffered enough trouble to comfortably wear the persona of a genuine Old Blues Guy.  It’s reassuring to know such characters still exist in the digital world.

What was the first musical instrument you remember playing?

Today’s post is by Bart the Bear, a hairy beast who found a smart phone in the woods. His comments have been translated from the original Ursus Textish.

H’lo. Bart here.

I’m up. Been a long winter. Still is. Though I guess it’s just a game to you. As soon as I was alert enough to start surfing the Internet I saw this one article that picks “winners” and “losers” for the season. Looks like the losers are sheep and garden centers. The winners? Hot chocolate and apple trees.

Yup, I’ve got coverage up here in the woods but those aren’t the kind of “bars” I’d like to have. I’m just coming around and will be out looking for meals here in the next few days. Don’t know what I’m going to find, so if you wanted to toss some day-old bagels or bags of potato chips into the roadside ditches near my patch of the forest … maybe some Easter leftovers like the red Jello with mandarin orange slices suspended in it … I wouldn’t complain, y’know? Meal planning is hard, especially when the raw materials are still under two feet of crusty snow.

But that’s not what’s been bugging me.

What’s bugging me is the way people snoop on bears and share really private details about where we are and what we’re doing – all thanks to your “brilliant” invention – radio collars for animals. I laugh when I see how you worry about Google and Facebook sharing your “private” information, and smart phones tracking your whereabouts. These days a bear in the woods has no more privacy than a bear in a zoo.

That’s why I kinda get a kick out of your complaints that police are storing information about where your car was spotted around town.

You have a car? I’d love to have one of those – I keep trying to climb in one when people come touring up here in the summer, but there aren’t too many of them that are built for a guy my size.

You’d like some privacy? What makes you so special when a noble animal can’t climb out of his pajamas without triggering a worldwide alert? It’s true! I saw online that they’re all a-twitter in Banff because “Grizzly #122” is out of his hibernaculum.

Yup, I said “hibernaculum.” Think I’m stupid? Go look it up. Or what’s worse, try typing it out on the tiny keys of a smart phone. And then try doing it with paws that are four times the size of your itsy-bitsy hands. Paws with matted fur, and there might be some poop caked in there, too. And I haven’t had my nails trimmed either, so don’t complain about how hard it is to do some texting! You have no idea.

I wake up ornery, what of it? I won’t apologize for who I am.

Anyway, Grizzly #122 is out of his bed and the panic is on, like they know he’s been dreaming of raiding a passing school bus for morning snacks.

Oh, he’s dangerous. But you’d be dangerous too if sirens went off every morning when your feet hit the floor.

My favorite quote in the Grizzly #122 story is this one:

“Resource management specialist Ron LeBlanc said ‘Residents need to … dispose of empty beer cans left outside’.

In other words, “time to pick up the trash you’ve been tossing in the yard all winter.”

Now, I ask you. Who’s the animal?

Your pal, Bart

Bart definitely has an edge this Spring.   How’s your mood when you wake up?

In case you haven’t heard, we’re getting excited about the (remote) possibility that we’ll see a comet crash into Mars next year. A comet named C/2013 A1 is scheduled to come careening into our solar system in 2014, and its path has been a little difficult to track. Best guesstimate – it has a 1 in 2,000 chance of smashing into our neighbor, the Red Planet.

Yes, observers say, those chances are slim, but forget probability. Wouldn’t it be awesome?

The reasoning goes like this – we’re watching Mars closely right now with multiple mechanical eyes overhead and on the ground. A comet’s impact would be catastrophic, just as a comet or a large asteroid striking Earth would be calamitous for our environment and might possibly signal the end of human habitation of the planet.

Not something you could enjoy watching.

Having the whole thing play out on Mars, however, gives us a chance to witness armageddon at a proper distance. We get a taste of the end times with the security of knowing this isn’t really happening (in any way that will actually affect us.) As far as we know, the dinosaurs didn’t get a sneak peek at their own apocalypse. Like any good end-of-the-world movie, we get to go home and climb into in our own beds afterwards, our pants officially scared off.

But how would that experience change our worldview (or universe-view), and our planning, the next day?

Describe a time when you enjoyed the exhilaration of being frightened.