“Music is the soundtrack of your life.” Dick Clark
The definition of a musicophile is an avid lover and enthusiast of music. Point of fact, a musicophile’s passion is deeply rooted in the artistry, history, and emotional experience of the music itself. If this definition is true, I believe most people would call themselves a musicophile.
My love of all styles and types of music began as a child. There was music always playing in our home. My parents had a large collection of albums, 45s and even large reel tapes. I learned how to use the record player long before I could read.
Recently I read Oliver Sacks 2007 book, Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain. In this book, Dr. Sacks explores a range of psychological and physiological ailments and their connections to music. He wrote the book in an attempt to widen the general populace’s understanding of music and its effects on the brain. Sacks states at the outset of the book’s preface, music is omnipresent, influencing human’s everyday lives in how we think and act.
For those of you not familiar with Dr. Sacks work, he wrote the book, Awakenings, which the 1990 feature film by the same name is based. In the book and movie he describes his medical experiences using a drug levodopa on Parkinson’s and post-encephalitic patients at the Beth Abraham Hospital, later Beth Abraham Center for Rehabilitation and Nursing, in New York.
Since the 1970s, there have been multiple studies on the benefits of music therapy for people with medical conditions, trauma, learning disabilities, and handicaps. Most of the documented studies for children have shown a positive effect in promoting self-actualization and developing receptive, cognitive, and expressive capabilities.
For me, music can evoke a time in my life. Can evoke emotions and even the memory of pleasant scents from decades past. All this from listening to a single song.
During 2023 I published my first poetry book, Heartstrings, An Anthology From A to Z. All the poems in my book I always imagined as lyrics to songs. Then in 2026, I wrote, produced and put together a 13 track album, Dragonfly. I’ve uploaded the album to SoundCloud and will soon add the album to Spotify and Apple Music.
My life long love of music has come full circle, for this full-blown musicophile.
“In the height of summer heat Dragonflies can be seen All around day or night With stealth like speed”
J R Malmquist
Happy spring everyone. Hope this post finds everyone happy and healthy.
My last blog post was over five years ago on March 26, 2021. Lots of my followers have reached out to me, curious about what I’ve been doing. I rarely check my blog emails and I apologize for not responding. I’ve been very busy the last five years creating and producing numerous material.
I’ve written and published two books. Also, one of my lifetime passions, music, has been in the forefront. This past month I finally finished writing, producing and putting together an entire album with 13 of my songs.
Currently, it’s only available on SoundCloud but hopefully, will soon be available on Spotify and Apple Music.
You don’t need to have a SoundCloud account. You can click the link below or go to SoundCloud and search using, J R Malmquist and pull up my album, Dragonfly.
“People like us, who believe in physics, know that the distinction between past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.” Albert Einstein
“When we stand together there is nothing, nothing, nothing we cannot accomplish.” Bernie Sanders
Local Artist Jonas Never Mural of Senator Bernie Sanders – Culver City, California
In my youth, I was never a fan of politics. Mostly because, I once worked for a Fortune 500 Corporation as their PAC Administrator. I experienced firsthand how major organizations dole out large sums of money to politicians they buy with their PAC funds. This job highly enlightened me to the true inner workings of politics.
My view of politicians changed dramatically, when in 1993 I saw Bernie Sanders, Independent Vermont Senator interviewed on CSPAN. I had never heard of Sanders before, but he caught my attention that day. He was the first politician I ever saw who was honest and real, which is never two words that are used simultaneously when describing a political figure.
In the past several decades Sanders has never wavered in his viewpoint against wars, helping veterans, private health care options for veterans, improving our healthcare system and attempting to narrow the gap between the rich and the poor. Funny, how half of America despises the only politician who can’t be bought and never changes his moral values and conduct.
My late husband was a disabled Vietnam veteran. As a wife/caregiver, I always followed any and all news about veterans. Back in 2013, I was watching closely a Veterans Bill that was being turned down by both Democrats and Republicans. At the time, Bernie Sanders was the chairman of the Senate Veterans Committee. Sanders was working tirelessly to get this bill passed. An important bill that would help all veterans.
Meanwhile, during the fight over the bill, national news broke that Veterans across the country were waiting months on end for appointments and the wait times were being hidden. Up to 40 veterans in Phoenix died while waiting for appointments. Hundreds never even got onto a list. And retaliation was the order of the day for those who tried to blow the whistle.
It turned out that nationwide, the VA was coping with the spike in demand by delaying appointments and treatment, manipulating schedules, falsifying records and possibly engaging in fraud. An interim report from the VA Inspector General on May 28, 2014 found it was taking an average 115 days for veterans in Phoenix to get primary care, as opposed to the 24 days shown on official records and 1,700 people seeking appointments were not on any list at all. The IG called the Phoenix problems systemic and said he had opened investigations at 42 VA health centers. On June 9, the VA reported that 57,000 veterans at its facilities were waiting more than 90 days for an appointment, and another 64,000 were not on a waiting list although they had sought care.
My husband and I were not surprised by the news reports concerning the deaths and wait times. We had experienced personally these same problems with the VA for years.
From the moment the scandal broke in April 2014, it took Congress less than four months to produce a new law, a split second by Capitol Hill standards. That it happened at all, and so fast, was a testament to the determination of Sanders and his partners to surmount the red-blue divide in American politics.
In the end, both votes were close to unanimous, a 420-5 in the House and 91-3 in the Senate. Obama signed the VA bill August 7, 2014. The new law, helped ensure that veterans have access to the care that they’ve earned.
Before this bill passed, my husband and I were stressed dealing with the VA and their lack of medical care. I would often wait hours on hold, get disconnected and worse yet, couldn’t get a needed doctor appointment for my husband. After the bill passed, I saw a dramatic improvement in the respect my husband received along with improved medical care and response times from the VA. The biggest improvement was the use of non-VA medical care my husband desperately required.
I truly believe, without Bernie Sanders determination to help veterans, the problems at VA medical facilities would have never improved and more deaths would have occurred.
Most people only know Sanders as that old crazy Independent Senator from Vermont who ran for president in 2016. But, that all changed when Bernie showed up at the 2021 Biden Inauguration dressed in casual attire wearing a heavy parka and hand-made wool mittens from a Sanders fan.
As of today, that image of Bernie bundled up has not only created countless memes and late night jokes, the senator seized on the opportunity to reprint the image on different products that he began selling on his website, Berniesanders.com the following day. The merchandise all sold out in less than 30 minutes, and Bernie has raised over $1.8 million for charities in his home state.
“Jane and I were amazed by all the creativity shown by so many people over the last week, and we’re glad we can use my internet fame to help Vermonters in need,” Sanders said in a written statement.
My son knows how much respect I have for Bernie Sanders, so this past week, he texted me a photo of a mural that a local artist created of Bernie.
I probably will never have the honor of meeting Mr. Sanders. So, being the die-hard Bernie fan that I am, I drove to Culver City and got the next best thing. A photo of this giant, magnificent fresco of my hero, Bernie Sanders bundled up.
“The sense of smell can be extraordinarily evocative, bringing back pictures as sharp as photographs of scenes that had left the conscious mind.” Thalassa Cruso
Trail riding with Jimmy circa 2001
It’s amazing to me how our sense of smell can trigger a memory, even as far back as our childhood.
The part of the brain responsible for our sense of smell is the limbic system and is related to feelings and memory.
Smells we experience can bring up memories about people, places, or events related to these sensations.
The last few days my sense of smell has been in overdrive. The savory smell of a chicken roasting in my neighbor’s kitchen. Then, the smell of sautéing onions with garlic creep through my window. The evening smell of the ocean breeze as it blows in the scent of night-blooming jasmine.
There’s an area in the wetlands of Marina del Rey that is covered with wild oat grass. I’ve often driven by this area at dusk, and every time, I can smell and breath in this intoxicating smell of the wild oat grass. I wish someone could bottle this smell and sell it. They’d be rich.
This favorite scent of dewy wild oat grass brings me back to a quieter much gentler time. It takes me right back to my evening horseback rides of my youth on the Southern California wide-open trails. Such sweet smelling memories.
Chronicles of a Blogaholic 