"We Bring Fear"

When I was in college, more years ago than I care to remember, a fellow classmate took off, with his guitar one Spring break to go backpacking in Mexico. The following week when classes resumed, his seat was empty. I was told he had been murdered. I don’t remember the details—a robbery gone bad? Memory is a funny thing. You remember most vividly the thing that most stood out in your mind at the time--the initial impression—and at the time (and this remains my most vivid recollection, unerasable)--was one of fear. Fear of going to Mexico.

Many friends since have gone there and absolutely loved it. Relatives who’ve been there bring back photos of gorgeous scenery, colorful markets, pristine beaches, they come back with smiling faces, and they can’t wait to go back. I’ve read writings of ex-pats happily entrenched in their new chosen life there: “It’s warm, it’s beautiful, it’s cheap [to live there]”. Then I think of my murdered classmate. Hey, robberies happen. A few years ago I attended a goodbye/good luck celebration for a local teacher who would leave in a few days to Mozambique for 3 years to work with the poor. En route he stopped off in Johannesburg, where one evening, returning back to his hotel, he was accosted, struck down and robbed. He fell into a coma and died. A random act of violence. Should one refrain from going to Johannesburg because of that? Should I refrain from going to Mexico because a former classmate was murdered there decades ago, in a similar act of violence? That’s irrational. And yet—subconsciously, a whisper of that old fear remains. (To be truthful, today it has more to do with flying on an airplane to get there, than anything to do with the destination, Mexico or otherwise. )

And yet … how safe would it be, say if you went there, not as a tourist, but as a, say, photographer/journalist? What if you saw something … were an unintended witness to some disturbing event, and asked questions about it, or more specifically, wrote about it? Apparently, if this were the case, you had better think twice about it:

There is a man driving fast down a dirt road leading to the border… He is very frightened and his 15-year-old son sits beside him in silence … The father and son are fleeing to the United States. Back in their hometown of Ascensión, Chihuahua, men with assault rifles are searching for them. These men are soldiers in the Mexican Army and intend to kill the father, and perhaps the son, also. As the man drives toward the border crossing at Antelope Wells, New Mexico, he thinks the soldiers are ransacking his house. No one in the town will have the guts to speak up.

The man knows this absolutely. His name is Emilio Gutiérrez Soto and he is a reporter and that is why he is a dead man driving.

There are two Mexicos.

There is the one reported by the US press, a place where the Mexican president is fighting a valiant war on drugs, aided by the Mexican Army and the Mérida Initiative, the $1.4 billion in aid the United States has committed to the cause. This Mexico has newspapers, courts, laws, and is seen by the United States government as a sister republic.

It does not exist.

There is a second Mexico where the war is for drugs, where the police and the military fight for their share of drug profits, where the press is restrained by the murder of reporters and feasts on a steady diet of bribes, and where the line between the government and the drug world has never existed.

The reporter lives in this second Mexico.[1]

On October 27, 2006, a videojournalist for Indiemedia.org named Brad Will was filming a street barricade in Oaxaca manned by protesting teachers and members of the Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca (APPO), when he was shot at and killed by a policeman, former paramilitary and two municipal officials. [2]

Physicians for Human Rights, a 1997 co-recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, conducted a forensic examination and review of the ongoing investigation by Mexico's Attorney General at the request of Amnesty International and Brad Will’s family. Last spring, based on that review “and in light of allegations of corruption and mismanagement of the investigation by Oaxacan authorities,” they recommended “an exhaustive and complete federal-level inquiry into Will's death and into those of others killed and injured in political violence in Oaxaca during the past two years.” [3]

That was more than a year ago. Despite Physician for Human Right’s conclusive expert forensic findings, the Mexican Attorney General rejected those findings, seemingly preferring to stick to his own government's, which contain inconsistencies and despite PHR’s "offer to present their report to the appropriate authorities and testify in a formal, judicial setting," Mexico has never formally replied. [4] It doesn’t appear that the Mexican Attorney General is particularly interested in hearing alternate theories, however well-founded or scientifically based, to get to the truth of the matter. At least that was my opinion, as a general reader.

No question, Mexico is a dangerous place. (So’s the USA, depending on where you go and with whom you choose to hang out. So are a lot of countries.) It’s also a wonderful place. But we’re not talking about Place here. We're not even talking about people. We're talking about Fear.

I’m not normally a cusser but I curse the Fear Mongers of the world—all those who bully, intimidate, torture and terrorize their peoples, just because they can. Who stop at nothing to suppress the truth. Who manipulate and propagandize and spend enormous amounts of money to insure that only one viewpoint is allowed—theirs.

It’s like a disease, Fear. People get infected with it and it spreads. You can even inherit fear. Fear of sickness, fear of violence, fear of death. Fear of being bombed to smithereens. Fear of retaliation if you tell the truth. Fear of "Terrorists!" Fear for your sanity. Fear for your Life.

Fear of Fear.

Some have learned that it can be used to their advantage, to instill Fear. And, if you follow current events, you'll note it's everywhere nowadays. From little bullies in the kindergarten to institutional thuggery, the message is clear: Be Afraid.

Not today, thanks.

Is it safe to go to Mexico today? (Depends on where and under what circumstance.)
Should I write about what I see there? (Are you wearing a bullet-proof vest?)
Just kidding.

On second thought ... is my intimating, by citing some disturbing, but isolated instances, that one should "Travel at your own risk" in going to Mexico somehow an example of fear mongering, on a lesser scale? The US State Department issues travel warnings for certain countries described as having "long-term, protracted conditions that make a country dangerous or unstable." Mexico is not listed as one of them.

But elsewhere they say, "Mexican and foreign bystanders have been injured or killed in violent attacks in cities across the country, demonstrating the heightened risk of violence in public places. In recent years, dozens of U.S. citizens have been kidnapped across Mexico." [5].

Wait, there's more:

Some recent Mexican army and police confrontations with drug cartels have resembled small-unit combat, with cartels employing automatic weapons and grenades.

Large firefights have taken place in many towns and cities across Mexico but most recently in northern Mexico, including Tijuana, Chihuahua City and Ciudad Juarez. During some of these incidents, U.S. citizens have been trapped and temporarily prevented from leaving the area.

Robberies, homicides, petty thefts, and carjackings have all increased over the last year across Mexico generally.

Cities have recently experienced public shootouts during daylight hours in shopping centers and other public venues. More than 1,800 people have been killed in Ciudad Juarez since January 2008.

Assailants have worn full or partial police or military uniforms and have used vehicles that resemble police vehicles.

[This travel alert, by the way, "expires on August 20, 2009", at which time, presumably, they will either remove or update it.]

Anyone been to the gang-infested 'territories' of LA lately? Do other countries issue travel warnings to their citizens thinking of traveling to Los Angeles, to avoid, for example, 18th Street? In Los Angeles County alone there are 75 Blood gangs; 200 Crip gangs; 500 Hispanic gangs (in East and South LA); and 20,000 members in the Asian gangs. That is only one county, in one state.

Violence is everywhere, some places just more prevalent than others. So ... if the U.S. State Department is telling is like it is, then--again, depending on where you go in Mexico--you might want to just be a little extra (what's the word?) .... AWARE.

I am reminded of two friends, in my former life. One was a woman named T., who was invited to go with a group of other women, by bus, for a day-trip to a large shopping outlet. It was free, and she was interested in visiting the store they'd be touring. But .... "It might rain." She didn't go.
The second was a man called "M., going into a war zone. "When your time's up, your time's up. Why spoil the day by worrying about it?", he said, grinning.

The people who go about and do the things they want and love to do, regardless of the nay-sayers. They assume everything's going to be all right, but are prepared if it isn't. Then there's, ha ha, the rest of us. "I'd love to go, but ....." (Worry Wart speaking). "Nonsense. Nothing's gonna happen. They lie." (Rosie Coloredglasses speaking).

Little anecdotes aside, suggesting that what it basically boils down to is Attitude, doesn't reflect the whole picture though. The truth is, murders happen in Mexico, gang murders occur frequently in LA, massacres here, genocides there, and perhaps even, in some secret, paneled boardroom or biolab, hints of the possibilities of mass annihilation. One cannot live one's life in fear.

I suppose the truth will out, one day. About everything. Meanwhile, across the street, at this very moment, on the upstairs balcony of the house on the corner, a woman is scrubbing her mailbox. I fully understand. We have some rather, shall we say unabashedly impertinent crows here that consider our mailboxes their personal dumping grounds, so to speak. They swoop by to desposit their little white droppings, Squawk, Squawk, hello, PLOP!--their favorite place, second only to the car's rear windshield. Where was I? Oh yes, washing ... you can actually be outside washing today, or hang your washing out today. After 5 plus days of rain, and more rain, of intermittent showers, sprinkles, downpours, clouds, grey sky, and threats of even MORE rain--the sun is finally out again!!

And why am I sitting here behind a computer screen, instead of being "out there"?

Enough. Word explosion again.
Over and out for today.

At McLean

Don’t make eye contact, they said.
So when one of them passes me in the hall
I’m supposed to look away, lower my eyes,
pretend I don’t see them.

There are locks on the door of the nurse’s station.
All day long I'm locked behind a glass window,
typing, filing ... watching.
In the hallways, glaring down from wooden frames,
jarring paintings of chaotic brushstrokes
slashed across the canvas
as if zapped there by electric bolts.
It bothers them, I can tell.
Art they can’t look at, art that shrieks at them
from the walls,
messing with their minds.

They go outside for a smoke break
You’re allowed to join them.
Just don’t make eye contact.

I was never afraid working there.
Bored ... but never afraid.
A clerical temp assignment,
one month, one summer,
working in that grey building
surrounded by the severely mentally disturbed.
I loved the rolling green hills,
the graceful trees, the expansive lawn
where you could walk barefoot at lunchtime
and sink into the utter quiet,
penetrated only by the whispering wind
or gentle song of a bird.

One night one of them died.
She'd complained of not being able to breathe.
The next morning in the nursing station closet,
a paper bag containing
all her earthly possessions:
Some pink bedroom slippers,
slacks, a shirt and some underwear,
a stuffed animal,
her bathrobe.

I remembered her.
The day before, we had talked briefly as
she smoked her cigarette,
and spoke of life “outside”.
I broke the rules.
I made eye contact.
How can you sit together and talk with someone
and not
make eye contact.

I forget her name
but not her face.
I still see her face sometimes,
and that paper bag in the closet,
waiting to be
disposed of.

--Annie Wyndham

______________________

*photo by awyn

Dance with the Universe; Nix the Bully Ads

A friend sent me the link to this You-tube video and at first I thought it was, well, "cute." Some guy named Matt in a T-shirt goes on an adventure for 14 months, travels to 42 countries and gets people to dance with him. Cool. But there was something about the strong emotions it invoked while watching it. I was getting goose bumps. I felt strangely--okay, I'll say it--uplifted.

Today I was researching something on the Web and landed at some on-line discussions about synchronicity--and global consciousness--which brought me to an article by Jim Walsh, written a year ago, about this very video. "It's a concrete manifestation of the change that the world's leaders have been preaching at a time when the human race could use a little pick-me-up, a little jig in its step," he says. "This one is a high-definition television commercial for hope."

The song in the video is Rabindranath Tagore's poem "Stream of Life," adapted and sung by Palbasha Siddique, then a 17-year-old native of Bangladesh in high school in Minnesota.

STREAM OF LIFE

The same stream of life that runs through my veins night and day
runs through the world and dances in rhythmic measures.

It is the same life that shoots in joy through the dust of the earth
in numberless blades of grass
and breaks into tumultuous waves of leaves and flowers.

It is the same life that is rocked in the ocean-cradle of birth
and of death, in ebb and in flow.

I feel my limbs are made glorious by the touch of this world of life.
And my pride is from the life-throb of ages dancing in my blood this moment.

-- Rabindranath Tagore

It is another gloomy day: damp air, a chilly breeze, intermittent sprinkles--the FOURTH day in a row that it has rained. Looking at this dancing video--makes me happy for some strange reason.
And ... connected.

And now for that other aspect:

A "commercial for hope", Jim Walsh called it. Funded by Stride Gum, who provided Matt Harding with the funds to sponsore his journey. Nowhere in the video (except at the very end, in the credits) is there mention of Stride Gum. (Matt's not chewing gum as he's dancing, so far as I can tell, nor are the many dancers, so he probably wasn't passing out Stride Gum as part of his touring endeavor.) If it was, indeed, intended as a "commercial," it was remarkably understated and deliberately subtle. Why do you produce commercials? To get people to buy your product. I'm not a gum chewer but it did leave me with a favorable impression of the Stride Gum people and enticed me (out of curiosity) to go to their web site. So if that was their intent, they have succeeded.

Contrast that impression with the not-so-favorable one I experienced when I got there and viewed two of their recent commercials, where they have succumbed to the trend of using bullyism and intimidation to get someone to try their product. In the two of their TV commercials portrayed on their web site, the first one shows a large German-speaking brute accosting a fellow on his way out of a supermarket as he slams him against a soft drink vending machine. The message? "Spit out your Stride gum and chew another piece already--or we'll find you!" In the second one, a pedestrian talking on his cell phone gets slammed in the crotch by a charging ram, falls down on the pavement and as he's getting up, gets "rammed" again, forcing the gum out of his mouth onto the street. "Spit out your Stride gum and chew another piece already--or we'll find you!" A brown van suddenly appears with the logo "Stride" prominantly painted on its side. Two men in suits emerge, scoop up the gum wad from the road, then jump back into the van. "Leave the ram", one of them says, as they speed away. (This is supposed to be funny? Leave the ram to take the blame?) And in another one, which has made its way to You-Tube, a guy in a parking garage is suddenly surrounding by dancing Austrians [?] who suddenly begin punching and kicking him, to--you guessed it--spit out his gum. In their print ads, shown in the advertising section of their web site, Stride Gum encourages us to "spit at the CEO".

Punching, kicking, goring and spitting on people. Cool. THAT'LL show 'em we mean business, eh?. Yep. I don't know, but some people find this amusing, even hilarious. I guess it is that type of customer the ad people are looking to target. And our kids? When they see these ads, are they getting the message that it's okay to hit and spit at people, if it is meant in jest?

"Ah, lighten up!" (I will, I will. Just stop punching me.)

Seriously now, come on, guys (or gals) at Stride Gum. You can do better than that. You've got a good product. One of the reasons I don't chew gum is because it loses its flavor so fast. The other reason is, most of the gum today contains Aspertame. But if I did start again, I might buy your brand. Rethink your marketing. What the heck kind of a message are you really sending here? Video 1: A big German (why a German?) suddenly attacks someone -- because he's chewing his gum too long???!!! Its flavor is too long-lasting. Whose fault is that? You could have made it so the flavor disappears after, say, 10 chews; then he'd have to reach for another stick of Stride gum. But no, you take it out on the consumer, by punishing him for enjoying the long-lasting flavor you pride yourselves on providing. What's WRONG with this picture?!!!!

And the ram-busting commercial: more graphic violence. First your customer is bullied; now he's gored. All for simply enoying your product. This is somehow--his fault? Two men in suits, in a van, come to "rescue" (or abscond with) the wad of gum (like renditioners?), warning you, Don't let this happen again--WE WILL FIND YOU!" Hmmm. What does this remind you of? I think your ad people watch too many TV crime shows. How is this sort of behavior "entertaining"? What kind of message are you sending to children who watch this commercial? Plus you're sending conflicting messages. You're saying your product is so good, one need not continually replace it. (No planned obscellence here, that's good.) But then, oops, people might not be buying your gum often enough. Back to the drawing board. What to do. They already LIKE the gum. They're just chewing it too long. Damn. What'll we do? Hey, I know! Let's, uh, BULLY them.

There you have it, guys. In one fell swoop, I've gone from admiring the Stride Gum people, to lumping them in the yuck bin with all the other advertisers who stoop to anything, no matter how ridiculous or repulsive, to convince people to buy their products. Sorry, Stride Gum. You blew it this time (no pun intended). (No, seriously. That was accidental. )

Alas, after 3 million viewers have seen and are passing around the video of Matt Harding's happy dance, he has become enormously popular--so much so that he's quit his IT job and gone on to other pursuits--like signing on with Visa, who has decided to get in on the action, by making him--or more specifically his dance style--their new on-line ad campaign focus.

"Win attractive prizes when you convince Visa merchants to dance for you," they beckon. "Convince Visa merchants to dance for you." (Good luck with that one, ha ha.)

"Persuade them to dance like Matt or do a jig in their own style with a Visa card or next to a Visa logo." (Musn't forget the logo, folks.)

"If you're a Visa merchant, you can also join in the fun by casting your staff or even your mascot in your dance video." (My Visa merchant has a mascot?)

"The world over ... No card is more happily accepted."

The operative word here... is "happy". We are to accept credit cards--especially this one--"happily." Visa wants you to be happy. Let me think about that for a minute. A major credit card company... wants me to be happy. If I were a credit card holder (which I no longer am, thank goodness), what would really make me happy, would be to not have to pay a 25% interest rate, not be charged $30 for a payment late by a single day, not spend three years trying to pay off the balance after voluntarily cancelling my account and being informed if I ever wanted to have a credit card with them again I must reapply but acceptance is not guaranteed, only to find out when my balance is approaching zero that they've automatically given me $2,000+ more in credit, to entice me back into debt. So Visa is now using images of Matt Harding, and telling merchants to "dance" for me? This is going to put me in a happy, receptive move so they can sell me credit cards? hahahaha. WRONG.

I've responded to a few marketing surveys from time to time and am at a loss sometimes how to answer some of the ridiculous questions. Who writes these things anyway? More and more, companies want to know how you "feel" about a product, and they want you to describe it by choosing one of their pre-selected, target-the-customer adjectives. Does it make you feel "confident" (shampoo), "conservative" (beer), "adventureous" (car), "sexy" (credit card, believe it or not). There is never any option to say "None of the above". So you check off the least ridiculous one because the survey won't let you continue unless you check SOMETHING. This of course results in responses that are not entirely honest. I sometimes think that many surveys are specifically constructed to give the client (who paid for the survey) exactly what they want to hear.

How many times have you seen a cute commercial, that has you singing along, with a tune you can't get out of your head? It's catchy. It's recognizable. You like it. But do you go buy the product because of that? Or a really really well-done commercial (there are some, actually) where you're not assaulted with noise and nonsense, artistically or cinematically creative ones you actually look forward to seeing again. You like the commercial--as entertainment--but does it result in your trying the product? If that's the end goal, they've failed.

All this to say, that the original Stride Gum-sponsored video of Matt Harding doing his Happy Dance with random people all over the world--despite its subsequent knock-offs for commercialization--remains uplifting. Silly, goofy maybe (what the heck kind of a dance IS that, ha ha), but definitely uplifting. They don't look like paid performers, all those crowds of adults and kids jumping in to join him. Compare that footage to the ones in the Visa videos, with paid actors, where the implied purpose is to "have fun" but the REAL purpose is to get you to apply for or keep using your Visa credit card. World of difference.

Which brings me back to the words of Tagore. When I dance, "I feel my limbs are made glorious by the touch of this world of life. And my pride is from the life-throb of ages dancing in my blood this moment." He has written, in words, what I "feel" when I dance. This is not something you can tap into by assigning emotional adjectives to a commercial product in the hopes it will resonate with an individual feeling, in order to get someone to buy something. (Ad people, are you listening?).

And the weird thing is, you can recognize it, this feeling, in others. It's what happens when one person starts dancing, and another joins in, and then another, and another. It's the look on their faces, the rhythm in the air. You forget where you are, sometimes even Who you are. You just dance.

And so that is why I liked this little video (of Matt Harding), and am passing it along. Maybe it'll brighten someone's day, if only in evoking a reluctant smile, or an involuntary toe tap or two. They really do seem like they are all having fun, don't they?

The sky is not happy today. This afternoon it will storm (they say).
Ah, Tagore. How can anyone think of rain when there's Tagore!

Caption This

What it's like to "lose your marbles" [1]
A sneeze gone bad
Poetic explosion
All of the above

Illustration by Rob Sheridan.

I'm a new citizen!!

This morning I became a citizen of Canada, along with 93 other immigrants from 21 different countries. (I was the only one from the U.S.) There was another group scheduled for the afternoon, of similar size.

The whole thing lasted about 2-1/2 hours. We were all given laminated citizenship cards; a large, glossy booklet on the Symbols of Canada detailing Canada's history (with a huge, folded poster of the provinces' and territories' flags and flowers and birds), an official Certificate of Citizenship, and a framable, bilingual printout of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedom.

Everyone emerged from the premises, smiling. All in all a very interesting, and heartwarming--yes, they really make you feel that way--day.

Of the hundreds of times the judge must have presided at these citizenship swearing-in ceremonies, it must get to be pretty routine. Yet there was nothing pedestrian about his obvious enthusiasm, exemplified by his hearty handshake, beaming smile, and kind wishes. You cannot fake that kind of genuineness. He made time for every single new citizen to have a picture taken with him and two Royal Canadian Mounted Police in full uniform, personally greeting and shaking the hand of each and every one of us as if we were old friends.

My certificate says:

"As a Canadian, you must uphold the principles of democracy, freedom and compassion which are the foundation of a strong and united Canada.

Welcome to the Canadian family."

Uphold the principles of Compassion. A country as a Family. As new immigrants we were invited to contribute to "help make Canada a Great country." It already is a great country. Greatness is not measured by how big you are, or how rich you are, or the size of your military arsenal. It is measured by how well you take care of your citizens, how tolerant you are of their individual and cultural differences, how compassionate you are.

Canada has been that kind of home for me.

And now I have two countries, each of which I hold close to my heart--one by birth, the other by choice and circumstance. My grandmother came to the U.S. from Slovakia as a young girl. She never became a citizen. Somewhere along the generations, her native language disappeared. None of us, her many grandchildren, can speak it today. As to nationalism, I feel strangely alien in that regard. I understand the importance of history and the sense of pride in one's "home" land, in one's own culture. I have gone to utterly different countries from my own and felt immediately at home there; I've felt a stranger sometimes within my own culture. But I also cherish what seems to me the best of where and who I came from. Not everyone has the option of staying or leaving their homeland, or perhaps even spends a lot of time thinking about such matters.

I love that cultures can be shared, though, if not entirely understood. We're all citizens of the world, of the planet, and yet we still can't seem to all get along. Why is that?

I went today expecting it to be -- well, like every other official ceremony: a mite too long, too many speeches, too many people. Bring all your documents, two forms of identification, stand in line and get processed, sit and wait for the judge to arrive. Prepare to spend three hours, the notification said. Groan. Instead, I found myself entirely caught up in it, in the excitement of the moment, in the words of the judge welcoming us as new citizens, in the happiness eminating from the faces around me. I was absolutely ... impressed, and it was contagious, this feeling that arises when another country--wholeheartedly invites you to "belong" to it.

I'm now a Canadian!!

.... and still American.

Ameriquebeckian.

*Photo by my mate, who stood up in the aisle to get this snapshot.

On Mourning

Michael Jackson, an icon in the music world, died yesterday and the news coverage of this event has been enormous. Footage of sobbing fans at candlelight vigils, making shrines to St. Michael, King of Pop; interviews with a rabbi in Finland (his spiritual advisor), fellow musicians, acquaintances, record producers, his lawyer, his neighbors, random people on the sidewalks of New York and Paris and London. Did he leave a will? Who will take custody of his children? Did his 'enablers' contribute to his suspected abuse of prescription drugs? How much was he in debt? They want to do an autopsy. Oh my God I can't Be-LIEVE it. Were you shocked? How does it make you FEEL? What are your thoughts about it? How are you coping? Play old clips over and over and over and over, 24/7. Let's take a short break now for some news: North Korea threatens to annihilate America. Now back to Los Angeles, we're awaiting a press conference. Stay tuned for more on the Michael Jackson "story."

Is it just me, or does this excessive detailing of Every. Possible. Angle. on celebrity and/or crime events eventually reach a saturation point? There IS other news out there today ... isn't there?

I was remembering a funeral I once attended. And that at my father's funeral, it didn't rain. In keeping with the mood, I thought that it should have. You're all sad and weeping and there's the sun, shining away, birds singing, a beautiful day. The scene doesn't fit the mood. The sun, it seemed to me, was a little too, well, "sunny." My mother's funeral took place in the middle of a blinding snowstorm and half the people couldn't get there. Again, nature seemed to intervene, as if to say, hey, the ceremony is just a ceremony, a dreaded performance where you dress up and play a part, act out your final goodbye, read lines that barely touch the surface of what you really feel, a devastating rendez-vous everyone has to go through, then you go home and succomb to the overwhelming emptiness: Your loved one is no longer THERE.

Even when you expect it, the actual event still comes as a shock. Everyone mourns differently. The dead, I think, somehow understand this. Daydreaming, I imagined this scenario: a woman mourning her husband--a soldier or firefighter or bricklayer or accountant or musician or writer, it's not important--she's present physically but absent emotionally, numb with grief and completely Alone, despite the outpouring of sympathy and support--when she suddenly senses him there, beside her.

One That Didn’t Come Back

I’m sorry for your loss
the officer said.
I’m so sorry for your loss.
My sympathies.
Accept my
condolences

I thought it would rain but it didn’t.
It should have rained today
like it does in the movies, at funerals.
Sombre skies, chilling winds …
but no,
we have full sun.
Blazing, burning, blinding, brilliant
intrusive
sun.
People wipe the sweat from their faces,
squirm, all sticky
in their plastic chairs,
wishing they were back
in their air conditioned homes.

I’m sorry for your loss
I didn’t know him, but …
The flowers wilt.
The priest drones on.
I can imagine you rolling your eyes,
a small smile slowly sliding across your mouth
"Oh for Pete’s sake
Get on with it."
Grin.
I’d forgotten how much I loved
your laughter.

Loved.
Past tense.
I miss you, dammit

I’m sorry for your loss,
the officer repeats.

-- awyn

Bonne Fête Nationale du Québec!

[For a history of the St. Jean Baptiste national holiday in Quebec,
click here. Et en francais, allez ici.]

Lost Way

Photo by awyn

A being
wandering the wood
enters fear
and the mind can't help
lions and tigers coming forth
and those hungry ghosts
of childhood's hell mirrored
as if alive now, parading out of the past.
At first he walks slow
Pretense of the benign and no worry in
One step and another and then the stalking
rushing rustle from behind,
as if pursued, so dare not
turn the face back to see it.
The wood darkening,
tigers, lions, and these ghosts of the heart
more vivacious, movie-like.
Alas, fleeing
one foot eastward
one westward,
and then suddenly where is
the road after all.
The real tiger may have ravaged him,
or was it his own fear.
The wood remains as its usual self
radiating in a gold-rimmed dusk.
The way clear enough
a vivid light—
only few recognize
and walk out on it.

-- Yang Jian

Translated by John High and Kokho. From: Talisman Anthology of Contemporary Chinese Poetry, edited by Zhang Er and Chen Dongdong. This poem appeared as one of several "New Poems from China," in Fascicle Two /Winter '06-'07.

Yang Jian [杨键] was born in 1967 in An Hui province. He started to write poetry in 1986 and won the first Li-An Liu poetry prize in 1995. His poetry collection, Dusk, was published in 2003. He is a Buddhist monk living in seclusion.

[John A. Crespi met with Yang Jian at the First China Poetry Festival in 2005 and discusses his poetry here.]

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.