I haven't been watching the DNC in real time, but the clips I've seen are making me happy. Some very smart people designed and are running this thing: the musical roll call and the double-stadium trolling and the eviscerating speeches and of course the palpable delight. People are doing their job, and doing it well.

What is this feeling of being uplifted by public hope? Jeez, it's been a long time.

This afternoon my older son and his partner are escaping from gaudy Chicago for a quick overnight visit, and I need to decide what we're doing for dinner. We'd had hopes of a picnic and a jazz show on the Western Prom tonight, but the sky keeps leaking rain, so I'm doubtful. But we'll definitely go out for oysters, and then we'll have some sort of seafood for dinner, either at home or out of a basket. I'll figure it out. I'll enjoy figuring it out.

This has been a breathless week--a meeting yesterday morning about what looks to be a fair amount work around designing the student-teacher arm of this big poet laureate project, then rushing off to a brunch, then rushing back to hammer out editing hours . . . A different planning meeting tomorrow, involving a trip to the Portland Museum, then rushing back to hammer out editing hours . . . Today's busyness around my son's visit will be a vacation, comparatively. Nothing more complex than groceries, dinner, and clean sheets.

Well, I'm full of fizz--maybe thanks to a good night's sleep, or to the Democrats; maybe because I love the conversations that happen around embryonic projects, or because I'm going to share a few hours with my young people.

I don't know if any of you remember the Detroit band the MC5. They were loud and raw and often very silly, but "Rambling Rose" is a 1969 anthem, and the live recorded version that opens the album Kick Out the Jams is one of the era's great performances. It opens with a hype sermon by the band's warm-up man, a guy who went by the name of Brother J. C. Crawford, which then leads straight into a grinding blues riff . . . I'm running out of research time right now, but if you can find a clip on YouTube, maybe you'll see what I'm getting at--the sheer delight of using biblical rhythms and a dirt-floor guitar riff to stick it to the Man.

If there was ever a Man who deserves to get pitchforked, it's Donald Trump. I wish Brother J. C. Crawford and the MC5 were here to do it.