Und now, ve prezent…(vait fur eet)…2015, ze preview!

All of my years have been good ones. I realize that I am very fortunate, but I expect no less from 2015. Here are some things to look forward to:

1. This new book of photographs from Ken Schles will be coming out later this month. I like his work; even though the pictures are from a certain time period, they feel timeless, and focus often on expression- he captures the eyes and attitudes of his subjects candidly, at moments when they seem transported by thought or emotion – and motion, in photos that are blurred with action or sweeping in composition. Cool, huh? Here is an article about him as well.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/28/nyregion/the-east-village-in-the-1980s-and-looking-back.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar%2C%7B%221%22%3A%22RI%3A10%22%7D&_r=0

2. Lots of good tv is coming! I got an opportunity to preview the PBS schedule for new Masterpiece Theater, and there are three new shows I am interested in: Grantchester, Wolf Hall and Indian Summers.

http://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/tvandradioblog/2014/nov/03/grantchesters-holy-sleuths-are-brimming-with-bromance-and-charm,

http://www.upi.com/Entertainment_News/TV/2015/01/03/Author-Hilary-Mantel-says-Wolf-Hall-exceeded-her-expectations/9511420239400/

http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/worldwide/2014/bbc-first-indian-summers

And that’s just the classy stuff I’m gonna watch! TV is my best friend! I love it so much!

3. Religious persecution and intolerance will increase and continue to be a destructive, divisive force.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/a-new-anti-semitism-why-thousands-of-jewish-citizens-are-leaving-france/

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-30672391

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/03/world/in-sweden-the-land-of-the-open-door-anti-muslim-sentiment-finds-a-foothold.html

http://www.cruxnow.com/church/2015/01/04/debunking-three-myths-about-anti-christian-violence/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IlBLOJnrui0

Another prediction: I will continue to be a devout anti organized-religionist. Believe what you want to believe. Just don’t try to force everyone else to buy it.

4. Art. It’s out there – it’s everywhere! People’s imagination and creativity thrill me, and restore my faith in humanity. If faith is something that one believes even in the face of overwhelming contradictory evidence, perhaps due to a simple inability to not believe, then I am a humanist.

http://twistedsifter.com/2015/01/moleskine-doodles-by-kerby-rosanes/

https://streetart.withgoogle.com/en/#home

http://jeffgusky.com/portfolio/

There are so many links I could have added to this bit, it’s mind boggling. People are magnificent. Also, they are shitheads, but that is not the point I am trying to make.

5. Adventure! There are so many adventures upon which to embark! McAdams had a baby last year (she also moved, twice!) – that’s a life long adventure, even if it doesn’t always seem that way! Also, congratulations to Mollie and Robert, who will start their infantile adventure later in the year – I can’t wait to meet the new kid!

McBaby, 2014

Sushi joined the Peace Corps and now lives and teaches in Lesotho – betcha don’t know where that is, do ya? Lesotho It’s the pimento in the acid-soaked version of the misshapen green olive that is South Africa! Now that’s an adventure! Check her out at http://lesothoinfinityandbeyond.blogspot.com/

Denichiwa is taking a long deserved vacay to NOLA. She goes there plenty, but each time she comes back with some crazy story about a feather boa or a one-way street. It’s always an adventure! Bon voyage, Nichi!

Toribelle is changing her life by writing. She is taking a Method Writing class and is loving it! http://jackgrapes.com/grapes_approach.php. Discovering what is inside of you is an amazing and often profound adventure, so enjoy that ride! Big, exciting writing news from my mom and Chmchm, both of whom are to be published this year! I’ll let you more know asap. Also, I look forward to hearing more from this guy, David Gianadda, who I think is brilliant, http://newworldwriting.net/back/fall-2014/david-giannada/, and his wife, photographer Emily Stoker http://www.emilystoker.com/. Jeez Louise, what a talented couple. So young and attractive, too. Kind of irritating, that.  Finally, I expect to hear much more from a teacher of mine, Gary Swaim, who just published a book of poetry, A Perhaps Line: Poetry of the Material and Immaterial Worlds. Gary is a poet, playwright, fiction writer, artist, and was the 2011 Senior Poet Laureate of Texas. He’s a real cool cat, and I hope to study with him again. http://www.swaimartsandletters.com/

Also, my dad has a stalker. More on this as it develops.

Laurie and Tom are moving to Rome! That’s a huge adventure! Congratulations, you two, on having the guts to live a dream! I look forward to visiting, and while we are there, maybe we can go see Bonnie, who always has something interesting cooking.

https://bonniemcclellan.wordpress.com/

6. Politics – There will be politics. I’m re-reading Animal Farm. It’s still incredible. That, Machiavelli’s The Prince, and All The Presidents Men should be required reading in every high school civics class. And maybe this documentary.

7. Finally I look forward to all of you, who make each year exciting and inspirational. You all make me feel good, and I love you. I don’t know who all reads this blog regularly, but Happy New Year to those who I know peruse at least now and again. You deserve to be recognized by name, or at least pseudonym, so here’s the shout-out list, with my apologies to anyone I leave off, and in no particular order, except for the first two, to whom I owe all of my new years.

Mom & Dad, Big Salty (or is it Lil Salty? I always forget!), Ed, chmchm, KB & Mr. S, ED, Mr. Lemonska, Denichiwa, Trixie, Shan, Jono, Robin, Jennifer C., McAdams, Brandon, Bonnie, The Heller Boys, Ms. Le Fave, Mario & Elise, Robert-from-across-the-pond (better than Pommy Robert, right?), Neil, Smurp, Paulie B., Dave, Toribelle, Biskit, and Kari.

May 2015 bring you every happiness!

 

 

Countdown to 2015 – Christmas Edition

I know how disappointed you must be that my consecutive ten day countdown only lasted two days, but I think North Korea hacked my blog. We live in troubled times, and as a purveyor of truth and justice, I am often subject to attack. Cheer up, though! It’s Christmas! Merry, merry to all my Santaist friends! Here are some pictures of the season for you.

Christmas BobChristmas 2015 002Angel blow up dollBlowin' the roof of ChristmasSantalandChristmas, Adams, Family, Dec. 2014 007WOO!!!!

Merry Christmas!

Bonus:The Chopper Brothers

Countdown to 2015 – Day Two

Today was a good day. It started off on a sad, blue note, but the sun was strong and clear and I was with a wonderful friend, and we had fun together. So I’m happy, but today’s countdown is sad, on account of I thought of something to say, and I’m not one to deviate from a plan, even if it makes everyone miserable.

Yesterday I talked about a film I saw in 2014, and then I posted a poem. (Maybe it was more prose than poem; thanks for pointing that out, Pops.)Today the movie and the poem actually have something to do with each other. This year I saw a movie called  Tambien La Lluvia (Even the Rain), which came out in 2010 and starred Gael Garcia Bernal. It’s about this director who goes to Bolivia to shoot a reenactment of Columbus’ conquest of the New World, and the Cochabamba water rebellion that took place in 2000. (Read about that here: http://www.ucpress.edu/content/chapters/11049.ch01.pdf) Though the movie has its flaws, it taught me about several things that I found interesting, and, like Birdman, it plays with the idea of life as theater and the disparity in the things we hold as important, true and real, and the sacrifices we make in order keep our perceptions, beliefs and convictions in our grips. Fascinating stuff, that. You should check it out.

Colombus’ arrival in the Americas and exploitation of indigenous people and resources has sent significant political, economic and cultural ripples into Latin America today. Many people believe it to be the beginning of a curse that is still looming today (Junot Diaz’s fantastic novel, The Brief Wondrous life of Oscar Wao, talks a lot about this subject, which he calls the fuku.) Acceptance of radicalized polarities in patterns of political domination and submission are still common in many Latin American countries today. Because there will always be those brave few who make themselves a thorn in the paw of fascist, fanatical or dictatorial lions, there will always be those who suffer from being too near the claws and teeth of the beast. Often they are the disappeared. The most recent example of the disappeared comes from the forty-three Mexican students that “vanished” at the command of corrupt local officials, or the more than 300 girls who were stolen and still remain missing by the Boko Haram in Nigeria, but they are, by far, not the only ones. Google “the disappeared”; about 15,800,000 results appear in a quarter of a second.

Here’s a poem. This is a real poem. It is even in a specific form, the Abecederian.

 

Again, the disappeared

begin to stir restlessly, seeping from hidden, overlooked and forgotten places:

crevices hardbaked in black earth; eyeholes in yellowed skulls; windowless, airless rooms;

ditched in ditches.

Eventually, pores in cement relax and yawn, releasing and reigniting flames from embers –

fear, grief, longing, helpless fury of the unavenged that never dies, but sleeps fitfully,

groaning;

heavy anchors breed barnacles that detach and float – nothing stays submerged forever.

It’s not that this lesson is new, or even one forgotten- there’s never been time to forget.

Just today, three hundred girls vanished

kids evaporated in math class before music, babies made invisible to mother’s frantic eyes –poof-

lost like magic: university boys; working girls leaving the bus; 22,000 spirited by Los Zetas* and greed

massacred in Mexico, abandoned in Argentina, neglected in Nigeria, alles verloren** at Auschwitz;

no, we never really forget.

Our fists raise in protest, fingers curled in on themselves, fetal; nascent expressions of

pain and rage. We pray; pass laws; proclaim never again; prepare

quietly hoping, crossing our fingers – this time things will change

remembering, this has happened before: the déjà vu of the disappeared.

So it’s not that we don’t know the buried will rise

that energy, neither created nor destroyed, can only change form***

Ultimately, we grieve and move on, remember and forget,

vanquish and create, because- let’s  be honest- if it doesn’t happen to us,

we can’t afford to care for too long, and if we are the unlucky ones,

Xs where our eyes were, we have nothing left to say. One day the earth will shudder and stretch,

yawn , and fan flames that will reignite, a bonfire, an inferno of outraged justice. The righteous, the

zealous will cry, “Again, the disappeared!” nurturing the embryo of their ire until a fully formed child is finally found.

*Mexican drug cartel

**”all was lost”

***from Albert Einstein: “Energy cannot be created or destroyed, it can only be changed from one form to another.”

 

Well, I can’t format this correctly, but trust me, it’s an Abecederian poem. Who cares, right? Not I, said the fly. Anyhoo, I’ll try to make tomorrow’s post more upbeat. In the meantime, I leave you with this. Rest In Peace, Joe Cocker.

 

2015 Countdown

Ten more days until 2015 – I can’t believe how quickly time flies when you’re growing old! Remember when you were a kid, and you felt every minute dragging its heels for 365 days, and each year took forever to work it’s way around? Remember when every bit of you was rushing ankles over elbows, an endless internal sprint from birthday to birthday? Now I’m dragging and time is sprinting.I’m shocked at how the calender pages rip themselves off and flutter past, like in the black and white movies you used to could watch on the late late show.

I am going to try to post every day for the next ten days, until the first day of the new year. Why? Why the hell not? I can chronicle ten days of life as I see it.

I saw “Birdman” last night, and I really liked it. I watched it with my mom, which is always a good time, but she hated it. “The worst four hours I’ve spent in a long time,” she groused as we left the theater. The movie was only two hours, give or take, and even though it did feel like a long flick, I wonder if mom was including the hour and a half I talked about it afterwards. Anyway, I think you should go see it; I want to know what you think about it. Mostly I have heard people say that they haven’t seen it, but they have talked to people who thought it sucked. Jimmy Fallon thought it was great, but he loves everything, so he doesn’t count.

Today Tunisia held its first democratic elections, the results of the uprising that led to the Arab Spring in 2011. Voter turnout was low, perhaps due in part to an ISIL threat against anyone going to the polls, but more probably the result of voter burnout. The future of the country is unclear – as it is for all countries, I guess – but with so much unrest and upheaval in the world, I hope that maybe people are figuring out ways for us to get along.

http://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/middle-east/2014/12/21/Tunisians-vote-in-historic-presidential-run-off.html

In 2011 I wrote this poem. It’s from the perspective of a drop of water.

Libyan Rain, or Eternal Hope from Arab Springs

The day the revolution began was warm and filled with sunshine which glinted off teeth sparkling in a thousand open mouths. The people cried, sweat, screamed, and spit. Later, they laughed and slapped each other on the back, then danced and kissed under a bright moon, held like a pearl in night’s black palm.

But I was not aware. I was a drop, floating in the sea, submerged in hue and wave, exploring gradation and shadow, giving myself over to the universal flow. My heart pulsed erratically until it settled into the rhythm of the sea, the pump of the waves, and the melody of the currents. The soothing slush of water whispered in my ears, and I floated on my back, then  belly, and felt the pressure, the build, enter me, until the water within and without moved from osmosis to dissolution; blissful, beautiful equilibrium. I dissolve into equality.

Of course, perfect balance cannot last, can never be maintained. All of life steers towards entropy and chaos, which in turn is supplanted by new order and stability, which begins to unravel no sooner than it is achieved. As always, time found me and forced me up out of the sea, the blue dripping off of me, as I rose over land and mingled in the open air.

I blew into town. The mood had changed since I had last traveled this current, which had currently become electrically charged. A spirit of wild hope had seized the people, and they grabbed at it with their hands, and then hopped on its back and rode it bucking through the streets, kicking up sand and fear, trash and glee. Tongues, heavy and long quiet, became moistened, and shouted, ululating in protest and prayer. The first cries bubbled in throat after throat, and soon, people were coming together, gathering strength from each others’ muscles and resolve.

“If I die today,” they said, solemnly and with pronounced clarity, “so be it. Better to die than to exist without anything for which to live. I am tired of being hungry.  I am taunted by thoughts that fill me; thoughts of freedom, liberty. I am weary of want and injustice, of turning my head toward the wall, so that I won’t see the misery just beyond my eyelids. Survival is overrated. I want to live, and if I can’t live, I will die!”

The next day, clouds, soft and small, like curious sheep, gathered in the still blue pastures of the sky. There was no rain, but it was very humid. I took to the streets and kept to myself, blending in. The emotions of the previous days, far from dissipating, thickened and congealed. The atmosphere was heavy with passion. Saliva dripped from the mouths of the furious, enraged by standing in the heat, emboldened by commitment and refusal to back down. The sixty percent of the human body that is water sprang from the pores and formed prayer beads on upper lips, trickled in furrows of brows, rivuleted down ribs and behind knees.  Prayer from the pores. Prayer from the poor. The seventy percent of water that makes up the human brain boiled a bubbling soup of emotion, diluting inhibition and fear. The eyes of men, women and children flashed with understanding. Hearts throbbed with elation, and blood seethed in the veins.

I was again caught up, in the universal hum. Again, there was a push towards equilibrium, but this time, it was not through peaceful permeation. Instead, humans, like a flood, were gathering, leaping and twisting, gushing ever stronger, and hurling themselves towards a high wall, a dam, solid, impervious and unyielding. All that push, all that force, and still that wall; nowhere to go but up and up, higher and higher; nothing to do but go over, up and over, come over, overcome. Nothing to do but overcome.

The sheepish clouds turned dark, wolfish.  Unusual, but inevitable. As the barometer rose, so did I, ascending on winds of discontent and vapors of hope. I looked up to the clouds for relief. The heat on the ground was stifling, oppressive. I watched the shifting of shapes and the massing of patterns and I felt myself lift up, lift up, uplifted, until I was one with the force that would break with a torrent, and once loosened, would fall on the people, the land, the buildings, and cleanse them, making all pure, baptizing and blessing the new day.

The day the revolution ends, I am high above, looking down. In my cloud, there is serenity. I listen to the wind, to space, and I can barely hear the thunder from below. There is a feeling of meeting, of joining, of coming together, thickening, and then, bloating, impending pressure, ripples in the pond, the pull of the tide, threatening the balance. Again, always, the descent, the feeling of being a liquid lemming, of following, of falling, of spilling over, flowing over, overflowing, and I am falling down, faster falling, a bullet in the barrel, speeding to where gravity, another force, forces me. No fighting a force.

Time becomes viscous. I see everything slowly, through open, clear eyes, unclouded by sediment or sentiment. I see the past and the present in the same frame as the future.

My eyes are prisms and I see it all.

I see a building, a courthouse, in flames, black smoke billowing through glassless portals.  I think, “Justice burns.”

I see green flags bobbing and fluttering around a giant poster of a man with coiled snake hair and dark sunglasses, erect in a military uniform, gold braiding down each arm, medals gleaming on his chest, pointed teeth cutting into his lips. The flags are waved by people who chant and serpent themselves into a writhing, throbbing parade. They smile, but I don’t sense joy. They hold their children high on their shoulders, and tiny hands wave at the drops of rain that have begun to come down.

A man in a red shirt and blue jeans dances on the roof of a burned out, twisted, black metal sculpture that had, but a few hours ago, been a car. As he dances, ash puffs from his feet and crystal drops of water spill from a plastic bottle in his left hand. Diamonds in the smoke.  His eyes roll like pebbles in the tide. People run around him without direction, frantic, shouting, “Police! Police!”

I see teargas canisters streak gray clouds into great crowds, and I think, “Liquid tears from fired gas splash on solid ground.”

Men in black hoods and pants walk on rooftops, lift massive machine guns, and open fire. A boy of about twelve drags a man by the armpits. “Run, Papa, run!” The boy is begging. The man’s pants are torn at the knee and are stained, purple turning to brown. His toes turn to the left and etch a trail in the dirt behind a store that sells fruit and batteries.

An old man in long brown robes stands hidden in the shadows, behind a refrigerator. He is cold, though it is hot outside. Only his eyes glitter. “All the people,” he weeps. “So many people…” He wants to pray, but cannot stop sobbing into his hat.

I see a woman arguing, gesticulating wildly, her flat face red and glistening. “No, I forbid you! If you go out there you will be shot like a rat in the garbage! I forbid you!” She stamps her feet and gnashes her teeth.

Two boys run, faster than they ever have. One is crying, tears streaking out of slits of eye. The other is laughing, and it sounds like ice tinkling against glass. Their hair flies out on the air behind them, and then they are gone.

The sky splits, and, tearing through the drops that are multiplying rapidly, merging like newborn waterfalls, shrieks a plane and a missile, one missile, then two. I see in all directions and watch as the cockpits above open, and destruction rains down, reign is down, the reins are down and the horses of the apocalypse are running, frantic and terrified. I see the heavens are ripping, and one of the planes breaks formation and turns, hard, flying away, firing away, fly, firefly, fly. Below I see a million tiny suns sparking, exploding the flesh of the earth, the plash of flesh exploding on the earth.

Red rivers. Storms of suns, bursting yellow, orange, and always red.  Brown mud sucking at brown robes, as brown feet run through burned, brown fields.

The hum becomes a moan. The rain becomes a storm, brief, but powerful.

Time, so relative, so fluid, speeds up and I am a flying bullet again. I suddenly see my target: a window in a white house.  Beyond it is a girl with a blue scarf wrapped around her head, framing her face in a perfect oval. In that oval I see pink, sculpted lips, very fine, quivering. In the corner of her almond eye, I see my reflection, my doppelganger, and she sees me see me. I feel both inside and outside at once, both now and later, both here and gone.  Her teardrop mirror-me slips very gently, and I crash into the thick wave of window, a transparent expanse, now oceanic in proportion. She reaches a thin, bone-finger and delicately traces my path as I slide, and as I slide, so does my parallel self; me, down the window; me, down her perfect face. Me, gliding on glass; me, skating the smooth circumference of her cheek. I lick the glass and taste the salt on both sides. I nestle into her neck, her warmth, and I feel her pulse beat under her jawbone, before I sigh and spread into the blue sea of her scarf, first on my back, then on my belly. I become one with the fabric, finally.  My other self skims down the window, glancing the cracks in the wood frame, until she is, until I am, out of view, but I know I am still there. I left a bit of me behind, and more on the cement of the house, until only the tiniest bit of me bled into the ground, which was already soaked with the blood of others.  Saturated.  Water is the blood of life and blood is the water of humans. We mingle, and can’t be separated.

I dream of going down, under the ground, six feet under the ground to rest, to rest in peace, and then, dive further still, swim all through the earth, to hear the hum and become reacquainted with the silence and the gradations, the rhythms and the whispers. The song of the sand. The aria of the wind. The march of the ant and the scrape of the rock as it rubs, shifts and displaces. I want to feel the lava flow over me. I want to forget now and know forever. I want only to hear the pulse, the lullaby of the eternal, the soothing susurrations of time. Hush, hush.

And then, in a millennium, I want to come up on the other side of the world, on a sunny day, in the petals of a daffodil that smiles a yellow glow back up at the sun and heralds an early spring.

 

Life Is A Walk on the Beach

I got this email from my friend Jono.

Hi A,

Happy everything!  Life is good here.  I took the kids to the beach yesterday, it was about 75 degrees.  They had giant piles of sand, to keep the beach from washing away, global warming, I guess.  We had fun climbing up and sliding down.
There was a pervert there.  He was wearing tiny bikini pants with some sort of horrid red phallus attached.  He was kind of flashing at it at people.  I wanted to beat him up for doing perverty stuff like that around so many kids. There’s nothing wrong with a dick here and there, but still, common decency and decor dic-tates discretion.
There was also a weird woman in a wheel chair who was yelling, screaming, berating this poor brown skinned couple who were just sitting on the wall looking at the ocean.   She was saying that all fucking mexicans should go back where they came from, etc.  The couple just tried to ignore her, said, “That’s cool lady, whatever”, but she just kept on yelling.  I wanted to push her into the ocean, or oncoming traffic, but I had my kids with me, so I just kept going.  I suppose the couple could have walked away, but they wanted to stand their ground, I guess.
I don’t know when Zuma beach turned into the Port Authority bus station.   Good with the bad… A walk on the slippery rocks…
Peace,
 Jono
So that’s something, right? I’ve been thinking about people, lately, and here’s what I’ve come up with: People are weird. I mean you never really know them, even if you think you do, and they all have these highly subjective points of view, and we only ever meet so few of them… so many stories we don’t even think to imagine.
I spend a lot of time alone, but I manage to talk to a lot of people. I’m  a chatty Cathy – I talk to people in line, while picking out produce, sometimes at the sinks in a public restroom, to waitstaff and bus drivers and people walking their dogs – I even sometimes do market research surveys on the phone, on account of I did that for a living at one time, and I feel sorry for the operators. I can’t help it. I have a lot to say. Still, I am always surprised at an unexpected human connection, be it positive or negative.
The other day I was running errands. At a stoplight, I looked over in the car next to me, and there was this gray-haired lady just going to town with a tweezers on her chin, plucking these big, black, witch hairs that looked like licorice whips sticking out of a tiny, puffy face, white and powdery as a doughnut. I understand that the light in the car is especially good for detecting blemishes and, shall we say, “facial maintenance issues”, but this lady was performing surgery, tugging on those hair ropes like there was no tomorrow. It seemed like such a personal, intimate act of hygiene, and those errant hairs had to have been there for a pretty long time – had she just noticed them? Was she on her way somewhere special and simply could not show up looking like an evil catfish? Why where they so black? She had gray hair! It simply didn’t add up, and I couldn’t look away. When the light changed, neither of us moved, and someone behind us tapped on the horn. I started to go, but I noticed the old lady looked over at me. She smiled sweetly, tweezers still a’flashin’…and then slowly flipped me off! What the hell? What did I do? If you’re gonna pluck in public, you can’t expect privacy! That’s the rule!
Obviously rattled, I pulled into a strip mall to get a new phone at the phone place – my old one had ceased to give messages or send things or call out, so, you know, it was time. I chatted up the saleslady, a lovely young woman named Esmerelda Cruz who sold me a phone and lots of extra things by telling me about her recent trip to Vegas. I was just about to get into my car, recently repaired by Ralph Anderson, a handsome man with gold eyes who knew my grandfather, after a car backed into me in a parking lot (Vicki Sedowski – she was very nice about the accident, and so was her insurance agent, Rick Harmon.)  Anyhoo, the door doesn’t always unlock when I press the button on my key, so I was standing at my car, fruitlessly pressing it over and over again, when a man walked up to me and said, “Excuse me, kid. Do you write pretty?”
Not only was the question intriguing, but nobody has called me kid in years. I surmised the man must be very drunk indeed.
The guy looked a little rough, I must say. He was big and wide, and had a purple bruise on one cheek. I don’t think he bathed too often. He was holding out a Christmas card with a penguin and a reindeer, both wearing hats and scarves.His has hands were calloused and dry.
I know what you’re thinking, especially if you are my parents. It is not wise to talk to strangers. Especially kind of scary looking ones.
“Nope, I’m not really known for my penmanship,” I replied.
He looked crushed.
“What do you need?” I asked.
“I need to write a card. But I need help. And what I have to say is not so great. C’mon kid.”
 What could I do? Besides, to tell the truth, my penmanship is pretty good.
“Write this,” he said. “I hope you and your new beau – that’s B-E-A-U – have a happy Chanukah and a very Merry Christmas.”
He didn’t tell me how to spell Chanukah, so I used my own discretion. He looked very tired and licked his lips a lot. His eyes were bloodshot, and he smelled like whiskey.
“You know,” I said, “this sounds great! If you wanted to end it here, it would be a nice card somebody would love to get. You could take the high road, and just send a nice holiday greeting.” I really didn’t want to have to hear something filthy or evil or gross, and then have tell this guy to fuck off and leave me alone, or scream for sweet Esmerelda Cruz to come rescue me from the phone store.
“Nope. Here’s the kicker. It has to be said.” He sucked in his breath. I turned my head before he let it out. Old whiskey breath stinks. “I’ve been here two weeks. After fifty years, you never even said hello to me.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. He looked really sad. “Maybe she was out of town.”
“I have heart failure, kid. I came here from Coral Gables to die. I didn’t want to die alone. I think I’ll go back though. I got nothing here. Give me the card. I can sign it.” His hands were shaking hard. He wrote ‘Tom’ in big block letters that were wavy and malformed. He put the card in an envelope and tried to lick it closed, but his hands were shaking so hard and were sweaty, so he just succeeded in mangling it.
“Give it to me, Tom. I’ll fix it. What’s the address?”
“Her name is Lightning. It’s a hippie name, not a stripper’s. Lightning Rassmussen.” He gave me the address and offered me a dollar to send the letter. Of course, I refused the money. “Promise you’ll send it. Do you promise?”
I reached out to shake his sweaty, shaky hand. “I promise. I hope things get better, Tom. A new year is coming. Good things might happen.”
He shook his head. Then he blew me a kiss and walked away.
Ah, people. It’s a big world out there and there are a million stories with a million sides to each one. I wish nobody had to be alone. I wish nobody was sick or scared. I wish nobody was so angry they screamed at strangers, and that little kids didn’t have to be worried about pervs, and that people who do get screamed at by strangers, or who have horrid, unasked for things shook in their faces didn’t take it personally, but they probably do. I wish people didn’t destroy the world with their bad, dirty habits, and that people would be able to fix it.
People are strange. I have to think about them a lot.  I hope we’ll all be okay.

Mark Strand – “The End”

Mark Strand died today. He was 80, won a Pullitzer Prize, and was the U.S. Poet Laureate in 1990. i’m not sure I really understand a lot of the poems of his that I have read, even though the language is simple and the images are clear. I get this one, though. At the end, I hope I sing “What A Wonderful World”, or maybe that Natalie Merchant’s “Thank You”, except I don’t really like that song. Still, I’m all for going out with gratitude. I’ll be sad if the only song I can think of at the time is “Cold As Ice” or “Who Let the Dogs Out”.

The End

BY MARK STRAND

Not every man knows what he shall sing at the end,
Watching the pier as the ship sails away, or what it will seem like
When he’s held by the sea’s roar, motionless, there at the end,
Or what he shall hope for once it is clear that he’ll never go back.
When the time has passed to prune the rose or caress the cat,
When the sunset torching the lawn and the full moon icing it down
No longer appear, not every man knows what he’ll discover instead.
When the weight of the past leans against nothing, and the sky
Is no more than remembered light, and the stories of cirrus
And cumulus come to a close, and all the birds are suspended in flight,
Not every man knows what is waiting for him, or what he shall sing
When the ship he is on slips into darkness, there at the end.

“The End”, © 1990 by Mark Strand from The Continuous Life by Mark Strand. Used by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, a Division of Random House, Inc

Source: The Continuous Life: Poems (Alfred A. Knopf, 1990)

Sacrifice of Isaac

Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio

Caravaggio - The Sacrifice of Isaac

Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn

Rembrandt

Juan de Valdez Leal

Juan de Valdez Leal

Tizanio Titian Vecillio

Sacrifice of Isaac Tiziano Titian Vecellio

Isaac – Amir Gilboa

Early in the morning the sun took a walk in the forest
Together with me and with Father
And my right hand in his left.

Like lightning a knife flamed between the trees.
And I fear so the terror of my eyes facing blood on the leaves.

Father, hurry and save Isaac
And no one will be missing at lunchtime.

It is I who am being slaughtered, my son,
And my blood is already on the leaves.
And Father’s voice was stifled.
And his face pale.

And I wanted to cry out; writhing not to believe
And tearing open the eyes.
And I woke up.

And bloodless was my right hand.

Here is a site with more poems on the subject, interesting commentary, and even lesson plans for you teachers. It is well-worth checking out:  http://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/education/lesson_plans/sacrifice_of_isaac.asp

ABRAHAM AND ISAAC

He really meant to do it.
All it took was an angel’s merest touch
to stop him, but the boy’s hands
were tied, the father’s fingers
wrapped around his jaw
(perhaps to smother him — one paltry act
of mercy before the fatal slice?).

What kind of God would require
such appalling fidelity?
What kind of father could bear
to imagine the blade
leaving its trail of red
in the tender skin of a throat
no beard has covered?

What would it take?

What must be the magnitude
of a love that would go this far?
The look in Abraham’s eye
is crazed. The angel’s message
relieves him (though all his life
some madness will haunt him,
and Sarah will follow his steps
with darkened eyes).

You don’t have to do this
any more. Another father
will take your place
Another son will be led to slaughter.
The promise will be fulfilled,
Israel’s seed will be planted.
Let him grow old and die.

~ Marilyn Chandler McEntyre, born 1949, American poet and essayist, from Drawn to the Light: Poems on Rembrandt’s Religious Paintings

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-y36zbbuX7w&feature=youtu.be

Leonard Cohen

Bob Dylan

I forgot Chagall…

the-sacrifice-of-isaac-1966 Marc ChagallActually, Chagall is not my favorite. I always want to like him, but I don’t so much. Here is what Ferlinghetti has to say about him…kinda…

Don’t Let That Horse . . .

BY LAWRENCE FERLINGHETTI

Don’t let that horse
                              eat that violin
    cried Chagall’s mother
                                     But he
                      kept right on
                                     painting
And became famous
And kept on painting
                              The Horse With Violin In Mouth
And when he finally finished it
he jumped up upon the horse
                                        and rode away
          waving the violin
And then with a low bow gave it
to the first naked nude he ran across
And there were no strings
                                     attached

Lawrence Ferlinghetti, “Don’t Let That Horse…” from Coney Island of the Mind. Copyright © 1958 by Lawrence Ferlinghetti. Reprinted with the permission of New Directions Publishing Corporation, www.wwnorton.com/nd/welcome.htm.

Source: These Are My Rivers: New and Selected Poems (New Directions Publishing Corporation, 1993) 

I do like Ferlinghetti!

Thou Shalt Not

The Inquisition, Boko Haram, and What God said to Abraham

 

Interesting to know, in the shadow of a sign, that God says:

Son, live for me, and if it is my will, die for me a sainted death

Insane to know, in the sunglint of a scimitar, that God says:

Son, my will is for you to kill, and you will live a sainted life

AVR, 9/25/2014

ISIS Political cartoon

Iraqi woman activist killed by Islamic State

By VIVIAN SALAMA September 25, 2014 3:03 PM

BAGHDAD (AP) — Militants with the Islamic State group tortured and then publicly killed a human rights lawyer in the Iraqi city of Mosul after their self-proclaimed religious court ruled that she had abandoned Islam, the U.N. mission in Iraq said Thursday.

Gunmen with the group’s newly declared police force seized Samira Salih al-Nuaimi last week in a northeastern district of the Mosul while she was home with her husband and three children, two people with direct knowledge of the incident told The Associated Press on Thursday. Al-Nuaimi was taken to a secret location. After about five days, the family was called by the morgue to retrieve her corpse, which bore signs of torture, the two people said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of fears for their safety.

According to the United Nations Assistance Mission in Iraq, her arrest was allegedly connected to Facebook messages she posted that were critical of the militants’ destruction of religious sites in Mosul. A statement by the U.N. on Thursday added that al-Nuaimi was tried in a so-called “Sharia court” for apostasy, after which she was tortured for five days before the militants sentenced her to “public execution.” Her Facebook page appears to have been removed since her death.

“By torturing and executing a female human rights’ lawyer and activist, defending in particular the civil and human rights of her fellow citizens in Mosul, ISIL continues to attest to its infamous nature, combining hatred, nihilism and savagery, as well as its total disregard of human decency,” Nickolay Mladenov, the U.N. envoy to Iraq, said in a statement, referring to the group by an acronym. The statement did not say how she was killed.

Among Muslim hard-liners, apostasy is thought to be not just conversion from Islam to another faith, but also committing actions that they believe are so against the faith that one is considered to have abandoned Islam.

Mosul is the largest city held by the Islamic State group in the self-declared “caliphate” it has carved out, bridging northern and eastern Syria with northern Iraq. Since overrunning the once-diverse city in June, the group has forced religious minorities to convert to Islam, pay special taxes or die, causing tens of thousands to flee. The militants have enforced a strict dress code on women, going so far as to veil the faces of female mannequins in store fronts.

In August, the group destroyed a number of historic landmarks in the town, including several mosques and shrines, claiming they promote idolatry and depart from principles of Islam.

Al-Nuaimi’s death is the latest in a string of attacks by the militant group to silence female activists and politicians. In July in the nearby town of Sderat, militants broke into the house of a female candidate in the last provincial council elections, killed her and abducted her husband, the U.N. said. On the same day, another female politician was abducted from her home in eastern Mosul; she remains missing.

Hanaa Edwer, a prominent Iraqi human rights activist, said at least five female political activists have been killed in recent weeks by the Islamic State group in Mosul, including al-Nuaimi, who Edwer said was also running for a seat on the provincial council.

“But it is not just women being targeted,” Edwer said. “They will kill anyone with a voice. It is terrifying.”

The Gulf Center for Human Rights said Wednesday that al-Nuaimi had worked on detainee rights and poverty. The Bahrain-based rights organization said her death “is solely motivated by her peaceful and legitimate human rights work, in particular defending the civil and human rights of her fellow citizens in Mosul.”

The Islamic State extremists’ blitz eventually prompted the United State to launch airstrikes last month, to aid Kurdish forces and protect religious minorities in Iraq.

This week, the U.S. and five allied Arab states expanded the aerial campaign into Syria, where the militant group is battling President Bashar Assad’s forces as well as Western-backed rebels. Despite making gains in some of the country’s more isolated areas, where airstrikes have paved the way for successful ground operations by Kurdish and Iraqi forces, the cities of Mosul and Fallujah remain major strongholds of the group, which has buried itself among large civilian populations.

The militant group recently killed 40 Iraq soldiers and captured 68 near Fallujah and then paraded their captives through the city in a show of brawn.

Nearly a dozen countries have also provided weapons and training to Kurdish peshmerga fighters, who were strained after months of battling the jihadi group.

In other developments Thursday, German Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen visited northern Iraq for talks with Kurdish leaders about the fight against Islamic State extremists and Berlin’s efforts to help with arms deliveries.

Thursday also marked the start of German arms deliveries to the semi-autonomous Kurdish region, with the ultimate goal of supplying 10,000 Kurdish fighters with some 70 million euros ($90 million) worth of equipment.

“We are involved with relief shipments and the airlift, but we know that this is not sufficient,” said von der Leyen. “Much more is needed to get these (millions of people) through the winter.”

Associated Press writer David Rising in Berlin and Bram Janssen in Irbil and an Associated Press reporter in Mosul contributed to this report.

ISIL's Planned Islamic State

Random Rebellion

I spit in the face of coherency in writing! I am a rebel!

Rebel, rebel

If I wanted to, I could have the hugest penis you have ever laid eyes on. It could be gigantic.Not a day goes by when I don’t get an offer to enlarge it.Why would you want an enormous six foot King Kong ding dong? I would not. This is not only because I am five feet tall. It’s also because I don’t like to carry things, and it would slow me down. I’m speedy fast, like a hyper-caffeinated mosquito.

You know that poet Shelley? He was quite the progressive dude. At eighteen he was kicked out of Oxford for writing a paper called “The Necessity of Atheism”. He was also a champion of free love. All that in the 1800’s.

Percy B.

Would that I could

My penis much enlargèd

Would the ladies gamely flock

to see my engorgèd cock

and take into stock

such pleasures to unlock

even the most clenchèd personality?

Nay, such posh and pish

They would still laugh at my name, Byshhe

But, by heavens, when perchance they fish

In my pants, no greater dish,

to tempt them into murky immorality.

And when one is beset

By women all preset

to feast on a large, well-doughed baguette

With chivalry most grand I abet;

What compliments more than a seafood specialty?

If only I had sturgeon rather than anchovy

They’d treat me like a trophy

And I like Neptune in a pool

Couldst hook not one fish, but the whole school.

 

If you would like a real poem, here’s a great one by Sherman Alexie:

http://www.theawl.com/2012/05/a-poem-by-sherman-alexie

Damn, he’s good. I am reading a poetry anthology, and so many of the selections are just blowing me away. I used to hate poetry, because what the hell was it talking about anyway? Now I realize that there is so much out there to love, and I am learning how to appreciate all kinds of diverse people and perspectives. I even know some poets, and I think they are great. Inspiring, I tell you!

I watched documentaries all night instead of doing my grading, but still, I’m no smarter.

The other day one of my colleagues burst into the classroom. Apropos of zero, she said, “Yeah, so I had morning sex, and now I’m all frazzled.”

I said, “Well congratulations! That’s terrific! Good for you! Why are you frazzled?”

Another teacher said, “Oh my gawd! You’ve got to be kidding! Where did you find the time? Weren’t you afraid the kids would walk in?”

The third teacher was the oldest in the group. She has been married for forty-one years. “Whaddaya want,” she asked without looking up from her papers. “A parade?”

The night before last  I had terrible nightmares. I kept waking upset from the dreams, but also that those dreams had come from my head. Who knew I was deranged and scary? Getting to know the real me is such a profound disappointment. Anyway, last night there was redemption, because all night long, I was building a meaningful dream relationship with John Stamos, and now I think I’m fallin’ for him – HARD! I mean, he was cool when he was Uncle Jesse and all, but when you really get to know him, he’s even better! I think this time it might be for reals, yo! I hope I see him tonight.

Suddenly I feel like going to bed right this very second. I leave you with a poem I wrote about one of those inspiring poets I know.

Advice of the Poet Laureate

The advice of the Poet Laureate on reading in front of others:

If you get nervous, read more loudly. The louder your voice, the less it quivers. You have something to say. It is important and deserves to be heard. Remember that.

And…

No matter how slowly you think you are reading, read more slowly. People need time and space to understand what you are saying. They need to hang on your words as they float into the air, pulling your images down onto their brains where they can examine them closely. People don’t get it if you move too fast.

And…

Don’t be afraid! Reading your words, connecting others to your ideas, sharing your life – that’s the beauty of poetry! This is the fun part!

Later she perused the buffet at the reception. When she found a crystal bowl of fruit, her eyes lit up, and she came back to the table with a perfect little Clementine, cupped in her palm like the sun in a cloud.

The Poet Laureate took a spray bottle of sanitizer from her purse and doused the orange peel of the Clementine.  I imagined the rosy skin bruising, yellow, green and purple.

She noticed me staring, pupils like the dot that underscores the question mark.

“I’m going through chemo,” she said quickly. “Can’t have fresh fruit. There might be bacteria, pesticides….this is ok, though. The Clementine is safe in its skin.”

I had to lean in to hear her. I almost missed it.