Farewell to Two Friends

One day, 2 years ago, I passed by a neighbor's house and saw this little dog. He reminded me so much of Harry, our family dog of many years ago. The dog's name, I was told, was Pom-Pom, and I offered to take him for a walk. So began a daily ritual, every morning, to arrive at Mado's door to take Pom-Pom for his pee & poop walk.

Mado, who is 85, had no children and lives alone; she rarely leaves the house. She has difficulty walking. She sits on her little porch with Pom-Pom, taking the sun, listening to her radio, reading, or doing crossword puzzles, watching life go by on the street.

Yesterday I learned that she is being moved, at the end of the month, to an elderly residence, for those who can no longer take care of themselves. Her house will be sold, and her niece, Social Services and concerned neighbors are all scrambling to find a new home for Pom-Pom.

Mado has become very forgetful lately. She does not realize what is happening. It will devastate her not to have her beloved dog with her.

Imagine leaving a house in which you have lived since birth. Eighty-five years of memories in your kitchen, in the views from your windows. Your closest and dearest companion, suddenly gone. You wake up one morning and don't know where you are. Nothing is familiar. Everything you know and love has been suddenly removed and replaced. Strangers surround you... you are no longer in control of your life.

The latest news is that someone in the neighborhood might take Pom-Pom in. I would love to take him, but we already have four cats and it would be impossible. But if he's somewhere in the area, perhaps I will still see him--and Mado will be but a short bike ride away, not far at all.

All things change. Routines get altered, broken, stopped.

How these crazy little creatures, les chiens et les chats, move into our lives and capture our hearts. I say crazy, because they all have their little quirks--some annoying, but most, endearing. Pom-Pom, for example, runs in circles when he's happy. He is the friendliest, most lovable dog I know. I wish I could keep him.

The morning walks will simply not be the same anymore.

Guardians, Memories, and New Beginnings

OUR GUARDIANS

They borrowed our dreams
Our guardians
Before we'd had time to dream them for ourselves
Those for which our forefathers toiled and died
Those for which we were destined
Our true inheritance
Our brightest thoughts filtered through the ages
The diluted essence of our universal aspirations
However
They dreamed-up more convenient dreams for us
Our guardians
Ones in which we sit in little boxes with headsets
Talking shit
While line managers count down the minutes we take to piss
Logged-in to machines that record the minutes of our lives
Snacking against the clock
Reconstituted meat
Wrapped in processed bread
Bleeding sugar and other
Multicoloured additives
From cardboard luncheon boxes
Our eyes glued to screens
Our bodies hostage to debts they invent
Our minds junked, lest we recall what we were meant to be.

-- Mathieu Cambier

The poem speaks to what Cambier calls "the idea of thinking beings with proud cultural histories reduced to being automotons." His concern is that "the path forged for us by our cultural ancestors has been usurped/corrupted by post-post-modern society with its empty commercialism, empty messaging," etc. and feels that culture and spirit are closely bound, "so that if you damage culture, you inevitably damage the spirit."[correspondence].

His paintings are "a story of sorts, only you have to piece the narrative." He highlights the contemporary with "an increasingly distant past... until eventually there is no more present, only a chronology of pasts, a filament of memories, a piece of string sinking measuredly into the depths... a painted album of half-collected memories."[1]

Memories ... of faces, and places... of conversations; recorded hopes and dreams, realized or quashed, or yet to be fulfilled ...

I was particularly drawn to this one: The Wedding Dance. Enmeshed in a circle of love, of blended hopes and unmitigated joy, they twirl into the future, dizzy with anticipation.

I was drawn to it because ... the image was so familiar--I've BEEN in that moment, deafened by the music and one's own heartbeat, dancing to some internal rhythm, everything else a blur, peripheral--"outside"--wishing it could go on forever. In a sense it does ... it reappears, again and again, to re-live, at will, merely by remembering. (Thanks, Mathieu.)

~ ~ ~ ~

Mathieu Cambier has two novels forthcoming with Raider Publishing in the U.K., under the pseudonym Mathew Carter: Twelve Chesterfield, and A Perfect Day.

At a Coffee Table in London

Look, our cups are interpenetrating,
clinklessly ...

World quietly dissipating!

--

From "Vase Painting (The Banquet of the Dead"), 1922
(James Blair Leishman, Rainer Maria Rilke Poems, 1906-1926
Hogarth Press, 1957)

[Photo by Luis Lazaro Tijerina,
London Collection]

The Joy of Less

A friend sent me an article yesterday from the Happy Times section of the New York Times, its contribution to "The pursuit of what matters in troubled times": The Joy of Less, by Pico Iyer, a fellow who decided to live life more simply, so he left everything behind and went to Japan, where he lives in two rooms and does what we would all like to do--quit our day jobs and just write.

He extols the virtues of the "Less is Better" mindset and I can relate to much of what he says. What unexpectedly interested me more, however, were some of the 695 comments people left at the conclusion of his essay. (Six hundred and ninety-five!!! by last count.)

What kind of a person would plow though 695 comments of anything?! (Don't answer that!) I didn't, of course. But the majority of responses that I did read were fully supportive, and I imagine people secretly salivating at the idea of being able to one day live the simple life, as Pico Iyer defines it. Several have already done so, and elected to add their own stories. But it was the number of peevish, judgmental and seemingly almost anger-ridden comments that seemed to jump out, like a tomato flying out of nowhere, suddenly sailing into a painting, adding yet another dimension to the dimension.

The author is chasticized for being "a self-involved baby boomer, un-immersed in community, spewing out 20,000 lbs. of carbon dioxide annually on his flights to and from the States. Walden he is not." [The commenter was referring to the fact that Iyer returns to visit the U.S. every three months.] [Walden, by the way, is mentioned often in the comments.]

Another reader criticizes Iyer for his seeming disengagement from the society in which he has chosen to take root ("21 years in Kyoto and you dont speak the language? I would call that ignorant..."), while another rigorously defends him, saying he (the reader) has studied Japanese for 12 years and STILL can't express himself in the language.

Regardless of whether one would actually want to do as Iyer has done, some people seem to have a problem, in general, with those who absent themselves from the status quo and go off to seek a different, less stratified life elsewhere: "I challenge all serenity masters to get angry at some of the problems of the world. Pick one and be its champion! Volunteer for Doctors without Borders if you want to check out the simple life most people live." (I hear in this, concern for those for whom life is never simple--but also discomfort with those who aren't "doing" anything.)

Iyer is simply recounting his own experience and suggesting that having less can be a cause of joy. He "has" less, and it feels joyous (to him). So he wrote about it. A good number of the readers, though, seem bent on interjecting a dose of reality into the equation:

A fellow ex-pat named Earl reminds Iyer that things may not always turn out as one expects: "This laid-back Caribbean paradise life is anything but, it is not stress free, and is more expensive for basic human needs. The water is unsafe to drink and full of parasites,the electricity goes out very often and food in the refrigerator goes bad... There is no sanitation and often you can smell human waste coming up from the pipes as you brush your teeth... I long for a glass of tap water in front of a fan that works while eating some organic French cheese on crackers."

A single mother of five, who has been living with LESS-than-less, for YEARS (the tone in her comment comes through loud and clear) wants to know how she could partake of the "joy" of which Iyer speaks, as she is not able to afford a plane ticket to take off and relocate somewhere less stressful, echoing several other commenters' acknowledgment that for them, "Opting out is not an option."

Well, you don't actually have to get a plane ticket and go somewhere. A reader named Jessica transplanted to Alabama writes that "Rural America can provide for the same escape as a foreign country: lack of technology, lack of consumerism, inability to understand the language, culture shock, etc.," and this forces you "to focus on what really makes you happy."

Ah, so it's not the Place itself, then. It's one's Attitude. Yes, says one reader, "Happiness is a state of mind, not a physical dimension. You decide if you want to be happy or sad, and pick the arguments that will justify it."

Sometimes a reader's comment contains information of which you might be unaware, and finding it is like stumbling upon a tiny bit of hidden treasure. This one, for example, from a reader named Lee:

Mr. Iyer’s writing made me think in many ways of “Hojoki” (A Tale of My Hut), an early 13th-century autobiographical text by a Japanese priest named Kamo no Chomei. Tired of natural disasters, famines, and political unrest in the imperial capital, Kamo retreated from society and moved to a simple hut in the hills outside of Kyoto. It’s a self-reflective piece of literature in which Chomei notes the irony that he became a recluse to escape worldly desire (attachment) but in the end he finds himself driven by his desire for his hut.

Thank you, Lee. You got me googling to find out where to find a copy of Hojoki!

It was also amusing to learn, inadvertently, that including your URL in a comment will sometimes (based on the quality and content of your posting--or simple curiosity) lead readers of those comments to check out your blog. As I did--click on someone's mentioned blog, that is, to find them giddily ecstatic at the number of "hits" as a result of their posting that comment. Sort of like leaving an internet calling card (Never leave cyberspace without it!). Well gosh, how else would people find you, ha ha.

The focus of the above was more on the responses to the article mentioned, than to the article itself. Human nature is fascinating. It's like you go to see a movie and start watching the screen and all of a sudden you're aware of all those other souls around you, munching popcorn, holding hands, sniggering, slurping their sodas, saying "Shhhhhhhhhhhhh!" Oh to be able to tune it all out.

Iyer was talking about less THINGS. Possessions, accumulations, attachments, "stuff", that kind of thing. He was talking about finding Happiness in living simply. But some readers took this to mean escape from responsibility, socially isolate oneself, and remind him that sometimes one's lot in life is not a matter of choice. He was not saying "BE me." In fact, "I certainly wouldn’t recommend my life to most people — and my heart goes out to those who have recently been condemned to a simplicity they never needed or wanted."

It's just what it is, folks, calm down. One man has less, and finds joy in it. Maybe you're envious. Maybe what you're really saying is, "I want what you have." Or, in this case, what he doesn't have--he doesn't have to slave at a job he hates, engulfed in debt, he's free (and can afford) to travel. He's just saying, "Having less makes me joyful."

He's affirming that Happiness is not elusive or unobtainable. Anyone can find it. For Iyer, less is enough; it's also, in some respect, "more." One man's joy may be another man's misery, and vice versa. Happiness is a state of mind.

One final comment (I couldn't resist):

"Great essay.
But I still like my stuff."
— Dave

The Many Faces of Life

The Seasons of Life

Το διάβα της ζωής στο πρόσωπό της.
Ζάρες γέλιου από τα παραμύθια στη χειμωνιάτικη παραστιά.
Γραμμές πίκρας για γιούς πού 'χει θαμένους.
Δέρμα, άλλοτε μαλακό, όλο ζωντάνια,
τώρα αυλακωμένο από χρόνια βροχής και ήλιου....
Το πιό όμορφο πρόσωπο πού 'χω ΄δει ποτέ μου.[1]

The seasons of life are carried on her face;
creases of laughter from stories around the late night fire.
Lines of sorrow for sons she has buried;
skin, once soft, now leathery from years of sun and rain.....
she has the most beautiful face I have ever seen.

_____________________________________________

The Centenarian from Lasithi

To be in Crete is to celebrate life,
to live its sacred energies pantheistically,
obeying the archetypical order of Greek mythology.....

________________________________________________

Resignation

__________________________________________________

Indulgence

He laughed a lot; he frequently cried…….

often, he was a chatterbox ; at times he kept in silence for days…….
there were moments that his eyes were lively, sparkling;
but for days, they would become vacant…….
He would be calm and quiet in one moment;
then he would turn verbally abusive…..
he was there; now he is no more……..

Farewell, Giorgos.

___________________________________________________________

The Mountain Lady

One hundred years old and I run into her
up on the high mountains of Crete,
walking........

____________________________________________

Oliver

He is there, on Union Square, downtown San Francisco; alone;
at times he is hungry, at times he is cold, or wet from the rain….
but his smile is always on; he never loses his spirit;
give him a smile and he will give you one back;
give him some change and his face will light up with joy and love……
to him, the glass is never half empty……….

_______________________________________________

The Shepherd

_______________________________________________

My Summer with George

____________________________________________________

First Love

______________________________________________

Two Good Friends

He is nearly always there, in front of Notre Dame, in Paris,
playing with and feeding the birds.......

______________________________________________

Theo

... in the streets of Berkeley

_____________________________________________________

The Father

A kind, yet tough priest in the village of Milia, Greece

____________________________________________

A Pair of Eyes

__________________________________________

My Name is Nikos

_______________________________________________

Despair

From the Faces of Crete Collection

_______________________________________________

Got a Light?

____________________________________________________

Life Play Back

__________________________________________________
___
Saying Goodbye

____________________________________________________

A Century on My Face

"I cast a final glance around me. To whom should I say farewell?
To what shall I say farewell?
Mountains, the sea, the grape-laden trellis over my balcony?
Virtue, sin? Refreshing water?....

All these will descend with me to the grave."

_________________________________________________

Sparkles

At Monet's Gardens, in Giverny

______________________________________________

A Penny for Your Thoughts

___________________________________________

Watching the World Go By

_____________________________________________

Apocalypse Now

A street performer in Paris

_____________________________________________

The Midnight Talker

____________________________________________________

What Next?

_______________________________________________

Happily Surprised

_____________________________________________________

A Gentleman in Paris

_______________________________________________

Joy
_____________________

If you are wondering where I found these wonderful photographs, it was random blog-surfing last night when I stumbled onto the Deviant Art website. The photographer is Vaggelis Fragiadakis, an "eclectic photographer, responding to the beauty, the humor and the tragedy" he sees in the world around him. He travels the world, capturing images of the seasons of life, with his camera. In his own words:

Among the variety of subjects I have shot, over the years I have found myself repeatedly drawn to create images of “street people”. These people are not just a group or mass or statistic, but are individuals like the rest of us, each wearing his own life on his face.

Though occasionally I will take an anonymous shot from a distance, I prefer to approach a person, learn a little about him, and with his permission take a series of shots hoping to capture some aspect of his reality in one of the portraits. I like to get close to a person whom many other avoid. The black and white versions reveal the critical essence through their emphasis on shadows, light and contrast.

For me the faces are both beautiful with their humanity, and frightening with their hopelessness. I want to share them with the world, both as my art, and as a visceral reminder-- we are all but one bit of bad luck away from this state.[1]

Thank you, Vaggelis, for your kind and generous permission to share these incredible faces, and their stories.

R.I.P. Bill Witherup

Poet William Witherup died yesterday afternoon, of leukemia. I didn't know him, but a friend of mine did. Bill's sister, Sandy, had told his friend, Luis Tijerina, that Bill was dying. Luis had talked with him just three weeks ago, when Bill told him he had a flu that he "just couldn't get rid of." The diagnosis of cancer came as a complete surprise.

They had been friends for many years, and had had several discussions, in the past, about death.
Luis wrote a farewell poem to Bill, in which he recalled:

the last time we walked in a neighborhood park in Seattle,
both of us holding the hands of my little son,
while you talked to me about the poetry of Machado ...

..... how you told me there was nothing
like cherry pie, a good woman, and a shot of whiskey...

I will remember all our talks over the years.

We all die, even the girl next door dies.
But you, dear Friend, you will live on
in a crimson flame of words
shaking, like a mighty wind,
the complacency of our small lives.

In life, Witherup's "dedication to poetry remained unrelenting."[1].

Click here to see a video interview in which he reads several of his poems.

"As I got older, I got more radical..." he says in the interview. Bill Witherup wrote poems about the things that mattered to him: social injustice, war, nuclear proliferation, radioactive contamination, isolation and ... loneliness.

Poets who turn burning, deeply personal issues into poems. This turns some people off, I've discovered. People don't want to hear another impassioned screed against the war, racism, or that nuclear power plants contaminate the environment and cause cancer.

I like poets who wake us up. Make us think. Paint with words the images that jar us out of our self-absorption, remind us there's a world outside our writing world, encourage us to actually try to DO something about the things that gravely concern us.

These lines of Witherup's poem "On the Death of Theodore Roethke", sadly, now apply to Bill, himself, as well:

He laid down his pen and went out,
feeling the weight of his flesh,
sensing his time of singing was done... [2]

The death of any poet is always a loss. These poet-'singers' may now be voiceless, but their 'song' of words are still read.

And remembered.

Rest in peace, Bill Witherup.


Update: June 11, 2009: Bill's Obituary in the Seattle Times.

Honoring the Tank Man: Tiananmen Square 20 Years Later

One lone Everyman standing up to machinery, to force, to all the massed weight of the People's Republic — the largest nation in the world, comprising more than 1 billion people — while its all powerful leaders remain, as ever, in hiding somewhere within the bowels of the Great Hall of the People.
[1]

Honoring those who died in the Tiananmen Square massacre, June 4, 1989.

And to the unknown tank man, wherever you are, whatever was your fate--you will be remembered, long after most of us are gone.

A symbol of peace and resistance that cannot be erased from memory, despite the current news blackout and efforts by the Chinese government to repress all discussion of this extraordinary, horrific event that occurred 20 years ago.

[Click here to see the 90-minute video Documentary "The Tank Man" from PBS's Frontline.]


NOUS N'OUBLIERONS PAS.

Project NATAL: Milo

My husband is a gamer. I am not. He occasionally reads the things I write and comments upon them but because English is not his first language and because he doesn't normally read poetry or short stories, writing per se is a passion he doesn't share. And while I find some games fun--especially word games where you have to construct words out of constantly changing grids or bubbles full of random letters (in which you are timed)--even that reaches saturation level at some point.

But we listen to one another, when one of us gets excited about a certain piece of writing (in my case) or a particular great new game (in his case). And so that's how I found out this morning all about Milo and Project NATAL, Microsoft's new, X-Box360 interactive game that probably won't be available until 2010.

It's the buzz of the Internet today. What's new and revolutionary about this game is that the digital character (Milo) is programmed to recognize you when you speak. ("Hello awyn, how are you today?", I imagine a cartoonish figure walk up, face and address me from the TV screen.) Hmmm.

"Meet your character", spokesman Peter Molyneux explains in this video demonstration. "Feel connected to Milo's world."

The character ("Milo") can recognize emotion--changes in your tone of voice, whether you're happy or angry. That in itself is kind of creepy. (What ELSE does he know about me?)

Not interested in being friends with an 8-year-old boy? Molyneux said there will also be a "Millie" – a female equivalent. Whichever gender you choose, Milo (or Millie!) will form a relationship with you and, if you so choose, other members of your family. Molyneux asked us to imagine leaving Milo on the screen, and allow various family members [to] interact with him. Milo would have a different relationship with each person, and would even reference you (or them) in conversation with the other. In other words, think of Milo as a family friend ... who just happens to live in a box on your wall. [1].

Somehow THAT's even creepier!

You don't need a controller to have this interactive entertainment experience--you can drive a car, simply by turning your hands as if you were turning a wheel. You can paint a picture just by saying the color and throwing invisible buckets of paint at the screen. ("Look, Ma! I'm an artist!")

If you're into interactive playing guitar, drums or singing at the mike along with the Beatles, check out XBox360's new Beatles Rock Band.

I'm amazed at this rampant enthusiasm for increased interaction with digitized images on a TV screen. I tried the Guitar Hero once and it was damn hard. Proved to be more frustrating than fun and not as much satisfaction as say, being able to pick up a REAL guitar and play from memory, improvise, or compose. Not that I can do that--but if I could .... (Gamers everywhere throwing me dirty looks about now, ha ha.)

Granted, it'd be a novel experience, and for those who love this sort of thing, hours of entertaining, interactive gaming pleasure.

What interests me here is the seeming NEED of people to interact--but to do so vicariously. Technology has made it possible for us to do that without ever leaving our house. It affords us the possibility to create our own character, write our own "story", so to speak, and other on-screen characters are able to recognize and verbally interact with us. And now they can even recognize our moods. "Everyone who's experienced it--their hairs are standing up at the back of their head!" gushes Molyneux. Mine, too--but for a different reason.

Comments re: Project NATAL run the gamut from wildly enthusiastic to darkly skeptical:

The cheerleaders:
"This is very exciting stuff, its the possibilities that are exciting."
"I am totally mind blown by this!"
"This is the solution to loneliness everywhere."
"WE ARE SEEING THE FUTURE!!"

The not-so-enthusiastic, "Let's be cautious" group:
"This thing seems totally staged .. and the whole thing is very obviously scripted."
"There's no escapism here. I can do all this in real life, with real people. Microsoft trying to control the frickin world again."
"Amazing, but this could mean the end of the world..."

And then, this comment:
"Its not about making a virtual friend. Think about what this implies: games that incorperate actually being able to talk to characters in real time and have them responding to you based on what's been said. That's an incredible break through in technology.
Though I'm still not getting it, when Milo becomes self-aware we're all dead."

What the video demonstrates is the possibility of "emotionally triggered gameplay". The digital character reacts to what you say and how you say it. Claire (in the video) "perceives" that Milo is worried about not doing his homework (because she "knows" him now) and when she asks him about it, Milo responds by lowering his head. You, as the gameplayer, now realize that you can cause a reaction in Milo. What would Milo do if Claire, instead of being concerned, suddenly starts yelling at him? How is he programmed to respond in that situation?

"Milo ... go fetch me a glass of water." (Will he comply?)
"Milo, who's your favorite baseball team?" (scripto-glitch? What should we have him say?)

I don't know what to say about Milo and Project NATAL. I can appreciate the advances in technology vis-a-vis interactive gaming, but...

What's that got to do with writing? Oddly, I keep coming back to the opposite world of writing fiction and poetry. In fiction you invent a character and place him/her in imaginary situations. You make the character real to the reader (or try to) using words. In poetry you hope the images you struggle to convey will enable the reader to see the whole picture as you see it, or something very close to it, hopefully ... and of course, who wouldn't like to know the reader's reaction? Did your words connect? Were the metaphors recognizable? Did the writing have *meaning* for the reader?

Does it matter?!!
(I mean, if one simply finds it entertaining, or momentarily interesting but then moves on... (so much to read, so little time! ha ha).

If one COULD interact with a digital reader who "recognizes" you, would that count? I'm trying right now to imagine an interactive writing experience where instead of Milo, the digital character is, say, some famous, revered writer.

"So ... what'd you think of my poem, Walt?"
(Whitman's character fingers his voluminous beard and averts his eyes.)

"How 'bout you, Henry? Care to take a stroll down by the pond and compare notes?"
(H.D. chews on a twig and sets off in the opposite direction.)

I see I am having no luck with the dead. They seem adamently opposed to digitization. But imagine this sort of technology applied to interactive writing workshops, poetry slams, or teleconferencing with fellow writers and poets worldwide! Everyone (except you) is a character on your screen with whom you can chat, suck up to, criticize or simply share a coffee with. THAT might be interesting. These are people, of course, with whom you'd orinarily never be conversing, people who perhaps wouldn't even give you the time of day--or are deceased. They're not really REAL. What would be the point. It'd just be another (albeit entertaining) interactive Game.

As the indomnitable Miss Brodie said (head held back, nose in air) to her impressionable young minions: "For those who like that sort of thing, that is the sort of thing they like."

Okay gamers, just teasing.

Sorry, but I just can't seem to relate to cartoonish characters mimicking real people or digitized actors replacing unemployed human ones. I confess I DO enjoy MadCaps, Greedy Words and Bookworm Deluxe though (a lot!) and find them relaxing and entertaining ... sometimes even mildly addictive ... (did I mention the Need for Speed car racing ones?) but I think I'll pass on Milo and his digital family.

Hey, it's bad enough they have refrigerators that talk to you ("You're running out of milk. The green beans are moldy, what are you going to do about it? That's your THIRD pint of Cherry Garcia this week!"). Imagine turning on your TV, only to see a blank screen and a scolding voice incessantly whining: "Remember, we agreed you weren't to watch Frasier re-runs again until you spent at least two hours working on that novel!!" hahahahaha

[The time I spent penning this blog entry could have better been put to use planting the cucumbers in the back yard and cleaning out the shed. Ah well.]

Over & out....

Dance Again!!

June 5 - 13
au centre ville at Trois-Rivieres, Quebec
Danse Encore
the 15th annual

INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL OF DANCE

Here are some of the Artists who will perform. Click on links below to see a mini-video of their different dance styles:

Vanill É Kola (West African)
Party Time (Hip Hop)
Step Afrika!
Ballet Flamenco Arte de Espana
Tapestry Dance Company (tap dance)
Shaun Hounsell (contemporary dance)
Vanessa Lawson & Jaime Vargas (ballet)

Check here for list of FREE performances outside, this Friday and Saturday night (scroll down).

Little Neighbors

[Photo by awyn]

Play break in the courtyard
talk about Junior's lost stickball
compare the boo-boos on our knees
giggle
lick the sticky remnants of the orange popsicle
off two laughing lips
Let's go chase the butterfly
Nah. Let's just watch.

Hmmm....

Days until an investigation was ordered into the Pearl Harbour attack: 9
Days until an investigation was ordered into the Kennedy assassination: 7
Days until an investigation was ordered into the Challenger disaster: 7
Number of days until an investigation was ordered into the sinking of the Titanic: 6
Number of days until an investigation was ordered into the 9/11 attacks: 411

Amount of mone More..y allocated for the 1986 Challenger disaster investigation: $75 million
Amount of money allocated for the 2004 Columbia disaster investigation: $50 million
Amount of money allocated for Clinton-Lewinsky investigation: $40 million
Amount of money allocated for the 9/11 Commission: $14 million

[From Liveleak.com]

I'm renting a farm!!

farm n. A tract of land cultivated for the purpose of agricultural production

What was I thinking? I already have a garden at the back of my house, several small plots carved out of the lawn that over the past three years have gradually increased so that it is no longer a lawn anymore. I realized the green grassy part the cats love to sit in and my bare feet love to walk on is slowly disappearing. Do I really want to make of my favorite summer sitting place a mini-farm?

Exactly five blocks down the street, behind the soup kitchen, sharing land with a church, is the Friendship Community Garden. I passed by this garden at summer's end last year and was astounded at the number of abandoned, weed-choked plots with hanging, rotted tomatoes and neglected, shriveled peppers. Who would take the time to cultivate the soil, plant and start a garden--and then simply leave it to die?

Only eight people came last week to sign up for a garden plot in the community garden this year. Eight! The monumental lack of interest in taking advantage of this wonderful opportunity, to me is staggering. Here you can have, for a mere $10 [Cdn.] per year, a 15' X 15' plot of enriched, tilled earth that gets FULL sun; a key to the shed, with free rakes, hoes and shovels; barrels full of water available and all the help you need if you have never gardened before. For $15, you can have TWO plots.

Imagine, your own little "farm"--a mere 10-minute walk from your house, where you can grow and harvest your own organic vegetables. How many people living in tin shacks in poverty-stricken countries while their children scavenge among trash mounds for objects to sell to buy food--or dwellers in urban high-rises surrounded by concrete--would give anything to have access to such land. It's not fair, that such opportunities exist but the people who could most benefit by them won't ever get the chance, and the ones for whom they do, simply aren't interested.

My mate asked me if I was sure I wanted to tackle three separate gardens this year--the one at home and these two huge plots in the community garden. "No problem," I said, envisioning the long, neat rows of carrots, beets, cucumbers, chard, radish and lettuce on my newly rented mini-farm.

On Saturday I stopped by to locate my plots, which I marked with some Tibetan prayer flags. One fellow gardener had already planted his onion bulbs and cucumber seeds and was watering them. Another--a 90-year-0ld man!--was stooped over his plot, digging and scraping. Yesterday I spent two and a half hours getting the ground ready for planting and realize it is going to be far more work than I had ever imagined. Every bone in my body ached and I haven't even put the seeds in yet. I can understand now why some might want to just give up. You have to really really want to do this, to make it work.

The advantages to having this second, larger garden:
(1) It's possible to grow more vegetables there;
(2) the soil is richer than in my back yard;
(3) the water barrel's always filled and their shed has more and better tools than I do;
(4) it's located further away from the dastardly Wayagamack paper mill whose noxious fumes and toxic air-borne particulates float daily over the river towards my sector.
And so for all these reasons, I am determined to keep renting these two plots and give it my all.

My main crop will be Swiss chard. It's very rare that you find it in the supermarkets here. On Wednesdays, sometimes at Panier Sante you can find chard imported from California, and at Metro market, sometimes chard produced regionally (but it always seems too limp and lifeless, and is expensive).

There is nothing so great as plucking vegetables directly from the garden, while they're still "live" and eating them fresh out of the earth. So much better than sprayed, irradiated produce that sits in a crate or refrigerated truck and travels thousands of miles to get to you.

I've only been gardening for six years. Before that I knew absolutely nothing about it. People would go on and on about their gardens and I found it boring. About dirt, for example. The Ph balance, acidity, nitrogens; fertilizers; natural ways to discourage bug takeover; but especially about dirt--I mean, really, what is so fascinating about DIRT?

And now I am one of those dreaded people, ha ha. The soil is really important. You don't just throw something into the ground and it grows....

AND YET --

Mitso's Accidental Garden

One summer in Greece we were staying in the countryside and I watched my then father-in-law sweating and swearing over his garden, at which he worked endlessly, planting things in neat, symmetrical rows with the utmost care--and the curses that ensued when the crop did not turn out as he expected.

Meanwhile, a short piece down the road was grizzled old Mitso, sitting on his ramshackle porch swigging ouzo. His method of planting was to (and I actually watched him do this) literally scoop up and throw a bunch of seeds from his chair on the porch and toss them into the air, letting them land where they may. What eventually came up was a little patch of cucumbers here, tangled in with some radishes, followed by a big dusty bare spot there, next to a hilly mound of weeds; some more hilly humps of peppers over there, with an occasional onion mixed in; and there by the fence a tomato plant sharing space with a raspberry bush bordered by the most gorgeous wildflowers---really, it was very hodgepodge and all the more ironic because Mitso's peppers were far nicer looking than Yorgo's (my father-in-law), a fact that grated Yorgo no end.

Mitso, the accidental gardener. We think his garden flourished despite his seeming disregard--because he sang to it. He was always singing, Mitso . They were compatible, he and his land. I can still see him, there on his cluttered veranda, the devilish squint in his eye, waving his hand toward his lumpy, prolific terrain.

I stand corrected. Dirt IS important. But singing to Life, perhaps even more so.

Their words spoke to me. Still do.

Hello Darkness, my old friend
I've come to talk with you again ....

In restless dreams I walked alone
narrow streets of cobblestone ...

People talking without speaking
people hearing without listening
people writing songs that voices never share ...

Silence, like a cancer, grows

My words like silent raindrops fell
and echoed in the wells
of silence.

-- Simon & Garfunkle, in "Sound of Silence"

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

All my words come back to me
in shades of mediocrity
like emptiness
in harmony ....

-- Simon & Garfunkle, in "Homeword Bound"

Here and There, Everything and Nothing

A while back I wrote a poem describing what it feels like (to me) to be physically firmly planted in one place but find myself still mentally there in another place that nostalgically gnaws at the heartstrings. Apropos my posting the other day about location disorientation, I revisit the memories but can’t imagine actually living there again because Now is not Then, and I am not the same, and even if I were, it still wouldn’t work because There isn't the same there anymore.

THE THERE AND THE HERE

When you reside in one country
but your heart lives in another…
the Here becomes the new familiar.
What may have begun as reluctant acquiescence
turns to habit
as the Now slowly compartmentalizes
all former knowns.

Sometimes, lured by the pull of nostalgia,
you return to the There,
only to be met with a chill of alienation
wrought by time
and changes,
prompting you to question:
Where do I belong?

You vacillate between the There
and the Here,
between the Then
and the Now,
struggling to hold a life remembered
against the blistering winds of change
that take you sometimes
where you may have never
intended
to go.

--awyn

This morning I came across a poem called “Here and There” by French poet Jean-Michel Espitallier.

I was intrigued by these particular excerpts regarding his take on the Here and the There because it seemed to clarify something that I myself have been unable to articulate:

The world is all that is there... one cannot conceive a universe comprised of there only. However, all that is not here, does not exist... and thus the world does not exist. Save here... The totality of other people over there corresponds to the totality of the potentials of here... Each there is the there of all the other theres at once... The frontier between here and there is not very neat... The statement “I am there” is a logical impossibility.

And he ends the poem with these lines:
"Just one here for two there is a logical aberration. Or is it the war."

[Click here to hear Espitallier read the poem in French, with the accompanying complete translation in English.]

Nicholas Manning’s Review of Espitallier’s Theorem gave me a somewhat more complete picture of Espitallier and his style of writing. I like the way Espitallier pushes the envelope, so to speak. His poems make you think. Of course the problem with satire is that it can get overdone, become the sole costume for which one is known, obscuring the unexpected insights hidden in the play on words that could open doors of perception previously inaccessible. Reading a satirical poem--one starts laughing (or perhaps, as Manning suggests--ending up groaning).

Manning's review includes Espitallier’s poem about:

"Something rather than nothing ... Everything rather than something ... Something rather than everything ... A little nothing in each thing ... All of everything in each nothing ..."

(excerpts, not in order [apologies to Espitallier] , but it’s like a song that if I listen to it over and over again, pieces of the puzzle slowly begin falling into place.

I’m not making much sense. I don’t pretend to understand Wittgenstein, or mathematics “poetically rendered”, or what this particular poet might actually have been trying to say in these poems. It could be that what resonates with me here is applicable solely to my own personal conundrums re: the Here and the There, the foggy worlds of Somethings and Nothings, and existence in general, and the trail threads more to philosophy than poetry.

Sometimes a single poem or story is innovative and interesting enough that you seek out more writings from the author, and discover a pattern--but when the pattern gets sequelized, reader boredom can set in. Not always. Some readers, insatiable, demand more. But for me, when the formula becomes predictable, such that what jumps out at me IS the pattern, not the content, my interest wanes. And that's a shame because the single poem, on its own, is still powerful. The pattern should not be dominating the content. When all one's poems start sounding alike--the impact lessens. (Or does it? I suppose that depends on the poet.)

Linguistic combination and intentional attempts at satire aside, with this Here and There thing at least, I’m finding in Espitallier's poems certain threads that have particular current meaning to me, which is neither here nor there [no pun intended], but it’s helped me understand the nature of the Here and the There, of Something and Nothing, not in the Wittgensteinian sense but more in a kind of Buddhistic sense--if that makes sense.

Perhaps the confusion lies in our frame of reference. You try to understand something and you can't express it in words. Someone suggests maybe you're not using the right WORDS. Let's analyze the words. What do they MEAN? No, let's just be quiet and BE. Stop dissecting and just breathe it in. It is what it is. You feel it. You ARE it. Why do you need to SAY it?

Because.

Can a painter not paint? A dancer not dance? A writer not write?

I’m babbling. How can I express this?

Let's see:

I disagree that THERE does not exist. (Jean-Michel says “All that is not here, does not exist.”)
(Define Exist.)
To exist is to be. (Define Be.)
To have real life. (Define Real).
Be where you are (they say).
I was There, but now I’m Here.

(Sometimes I’m not Here, though.
Sometimes I’m still THERE--the There that is there but now different… that one.)

Which one is a place?
Which one a state of mind?
Does it matter?
All the Theres are me. The Collective Me.
The Here is me and Not-me. Both, all.
My choice.

Espitallier believes that "Today, the poet is no longer the spokesman of the deeper Self – that is completely outmoded. Writing poetry does not mean cutting yourself off from the world. You are right there in it.” [1]

But the "deeper Self" is part of the Here and Now. Be where you are. Be here.
And included in the Here is all the Theres that ever existed--even the ones that don't exist.

Arrgghhhhhhhhhhh.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

“It must be the war.”
You’re right, Jean-Michel.
It must be the war.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Some of Jean-Michel Espitallier's other poems:

Monsieur Cossus's Thoughts
History of Amorous Discourse
On Civil War [audio]

Back

I went away for a week and ended up staying a month. Sometimes things happen that you just don’t plan for.

S. is home after 15 days in two hospitals, not quite in the same condition as when she went in. It’s rather disconcerting when the top neurologists can’t decide on a diagnosis, but the suggested one is tranverse myelitis. Transverse Myelitis is a rare neurological disorder for which there is no effective cure. About a third of those afflicted experience good or full recovery; a third are left with significant deficits; and a third show no recovery or get worse. We don’t yet know into which category S. falls. They can’t do a biopsy because it’s IN the spinal cord, and so, way too dangerous to operate. Meanwhile, life goes on … with limited functioning, loss of income and only questions regarding the future. But we are hopeful.

Meanwhile, I got to bond with the grandbubs, especially GB #1.

Kid-facts learned from conversations walking on the way to Kindergarten:

You can put a ladybug in the plastic bag containing your inch-worm collection and not worry about them eating each other because … “They’re cousins.”

If you touch poison ivy, your fingernails will fall off and you will die.

A tennis-ball whose outer skin has gotten wet has forever lost its bounciness and will no longer bounce the same, even if you dry it out. Its bounce-force will never come back.

~~~~

I have enjoyed the little morning walks, through shady lanes under towering pines and spruces, past the manicured lawns of mansion-sized houses on the way to the crumbling high-school-turned-elementary-school that is falling apart, for which they don’t have the money to rebuild.

I got to bed earlier, but still woke up exhausted.
I walked more and lost 5 lbs.
I missed my mate and hearing spoken French.
I was torn between needing to stay and having to leave.
The sounds and images of there still play in my head.

Woke up the first morning I was back, disoriented, thinking I was still there, in Massachusetts.

I miss seeing their little faces--I, J, and V--hearing them laugh and watching them play. I miss breakfast talks with S. I wish I had had more time to visit with A. I miss the daily morning walks to the school.

Here, there, here, there, it’s all a big tangled mesh.

Now, four days later, it’s as if I’d never left. Almost. Time and physical distance are such disorienters. So many images/perceptions accumulated, I don’t know where to start—or even if I will. I’ve missed reading and writing. The arrival of Spring in the back yard.

The small notebook I took has not a single space available. It contains to-do lists, budget projections, telephone numbers, grocery getables, hastily scribbled recipes, herbal formulas, contact reminders, overdue library book dates, bus schedules, rideshare references and occasional “jottings” of a more creative nature. Not even one space left even in the cramped margins.

Getable, as a noun. Not "It is getable" (able to be gotten) but "It's a getable" (i.e., a thing that you can get). It sounds like something Abu's creator would say. [Abu is a fictional character created by another fictional character in an unpublished short story, sitting in my desk drawer, begging for revision.]

Back.

Morning Randoms

The leafless cherry
old as a toothless woman,
blooms in flowers,
mindful of its youth.
-- Matsuo Basho


La recherche de l'absolu ne doit pas sacrifier ce qui la fait vivre.
-- Robbert Fortin (1946-2008)


The day when homeowners devote an entire room in their houses to a library is probably a thing of the past.
Paul L. Martin

Only the hand that erases can write the true thing.
-- Meister Eckhart


A cappy hamper descends
on the cocky roast of Maine,
falling, in one swell foop
into the prior batch.
-- an unapologetic wordplayer, unable to stop :)

REMINDER TO SELF:
Live simply
Love generously
Care deeply
Speak kindly

Wheatgrass is indigestible to humans--
you have to juice the blades and drink it.
It's dark green and it tastes awful
but has an abundance of vitamins, minerals, enzymes,
protein and chlorophyl & contains every
amino acid, vitamin and mineral necessary for
human nutrition. My cats love chomping on it.
Personally, I can't get past the taste.

Some people seek to profit from any disaster.
Last month, the housing crisis.
This month: the swine flu 'epidemic'
"How to Profit Off Swine Flu"
What a mindset. :(


Notes for next week:
uprootedness in culture;
chosen ideological homes;
soil analysis for the veggie garden.
Traduire le livre d'Ani Choying Drolma;
get my energy back!

Good news. S. will come home from the hospital tomorrow!
Yay!
Yay!
Double Yay!!!

Haydn Orgy!!!

Rain today, under gloomy Boston skies.
S. is still in the hospital, 10 days now. We wait for her return.

Meanwhile, during a quick run to the market, from a car radio, such beautiful music, it suddenly surrounds me, it transforms Everything, makes everything bearable. All the gray and gloom and anxiety--for some hours at least--disappeared!! A thousand, hundred thanks for the reminder, from Dr. G., that this is Harvard's Haydn Orgy week, and had I not heard it on his car radio this morning, I might have missed it!!

For anyone who is interested, from Tuesday, May 6 (today) at 5:00 AM through midnight Friday, May 8th and next weekend will happen WHRB's Spring (musical) Orgy. Listen to 175 hours of continuous music, airing most of the complete surviving works of Franz Josef Haydn (1732-1809), in chronological order. [For the complete schedule, click here.]

Harvard Radio Broadcasting Co., Inc. is a private, non-profit corporation operated on a volunteer basis by undergraduates at Harvard College.

Legend has it that the WHRB Orgy® tradition began over fifty-five years ago, in the Spring of 1943. At that time, it is said that one Harvard student, then a staff member of WHRB, returned to the station after a particularly difficult exam and played all of Beethoven's nine symphonies consecutively to celebrate the end of a long, hard term of studying. The idea caught on, and soon the orgy concept was expanded to include live Jazz and Rock Orgies, as well as a wide variety of recorded music.

The Orgy® tradition lives on even today at WHRB. Each January and May, during the Reading and Exam Periods of Harvard College, WHRB presents marathon-style musical programs devoted to a single composer, performer, genre, or subject. The New York Times calls them "idealistic and interesting," adding, "the WHRB Orgies represent a triumph of musical research, imagination, and passion."[1]

What magical music--it soothes, it heals, it makes it seem like everything will, finally, be all right.