The Blue Elephant

Live Oak Dancing in Golden Gate Park, August 1983

2012-01-27T22:52:00.000-08:00

Billie: Good Morning, Heartache

2012-01-26T18:15:00.000-08:00

Good Morning, Heartache

Good morning, heartache –

You old gloomy sight.

Good morning , heartache.

Thought we said goodbye last night.

I turned and tossed until it seemed you had gone.

But here you are with the dawn.

Wish I’d forget you, but you're here to stay.

It seems I met you

When my love went away.

Now every day I start by saying to you,

Good morning, heartache, what's new?

Stop haunting me now.

Can't shake you no how.

Just leave me alone.

I've got those Monday blues.

Straight through Sunday blues.

Good morning, heartache.

Here we go again.

Good morning, heartache.

You're the one

Who knew me well.

Might as well get used to you hanging around

Good morning, heartache.

Sit down.

[Identified with Billie Holiday, who reprises the second stanza, “Good Morning, Heartache” is the work of Irene Higginbotham, Ervin Drake, and Dan Fisher.]

Emily: "Good Morning, Midnight"

2012-01-26T18:12:00.000-08:00

Good Morning, Midnight

Good Morning – Midnight –

I’m coming Home –

Day – got tired of Me –

How could I – of Him?

Sunshine was a sweet place –

I liked to stay –

But Morn – didn’t want me – now –

So – Goodnight – Day!

I can look – can’t I –

When the East is Red?

The Hills – have a way – then –

That puts the Heart – abroad –

You – are not so fair – Midnight –

I chose – Day –
But – please take a little Girl –

He turned away!

– Emily Dickinson

Happy New Year, Dragons

2012-01-24T22:51:00.001-08:00

Norma Jeane - More "Art" from old Storage Boxes

2012-01-24T22:51:00.000-08:00

Click title above to a series of four of these "treatments" of Norma Jeane.

MarchForward.org

2012-01-24T22:50:00.000-08:00

The new-to-me organization MarchForward.org has a good poster with the words, WAR IS BUSINESS. (One might add, POLITICS IS ENTERTAINMENT, hoping that "government" might become something more than entertainment.) Above, on 18 January 1991, stocks soar with the beginning of the first Persian Gulf War (so one ought to mark the sequence of wars in that area as one war in that area, lasting 20 years.
Now the citizens do not see the wartime atrocities as they did during the American War in Vietnam (although one may see those horrors on the Internet, printed in European periodicals). Most Americans may not know that more G.I.s die from suicide than in battle, which I see as those who unconsciously want to dissent but don't have a community where they could find guidance for how to do that.
I recently attended intelligent presentations by two young veterans, Mike Prysner and Kevin Baker, from a group called MarchForward.org -- If you meet a depressed veteran or one who is still in service and utterly disillusioned, send him to that website! As an older member of the organization, Bill Hackwell, said: There is no longer a draft, but almost the same, there is an economic draft. An Army full of young men who cannot find jobs. Recalling the veteran rebellions of the American War in Vietname, described in the documentary YES SIR NO SIR, these young service men of today related stories about how soldiers and veterans are acquiring some political sophistication, whole units finding ways to refuse to be sent to battlefields in absurd wars waged for the benefit for them, the 99%. Describing this new resistance, their political analysis was great, of the sacrifice of one class in society for the greedy interests of another class.

Quilted Irene Harmon

2012-01-24T22:49:00.000-08:00

When my friend Rod Kiracofe participated in a show at the Berkeley Art Center, called "Paper Quilts," it made me think of a portrait I had done of Mrs. Irene Harmon many years before. I realized that if I added some stitches, this portrait of Irene Harmon might qualify as a paper quilt; so far, it remains a collage. At the time of my mother's death in Indiana, Paul Harmon's mother had a stroke, also in Indiana, and came to live with him, when his flat included the home office of his business ventures. I had a chance to talk to Irene, and, frankly, transferred my feelings for a lost mother to Irene, who was not at all like my blood mother, and that was curative.
I was at Paul's house in Inverness, expecting his family to arrive, when we got the call that Irene was terribly ill, probably dying, or dead. I sat at a metal shack down hill from the house, in front of me a tree that had been topped, near me, lay slices of parts of the upper part of that tree. (And wouldn't you know, I find, looking through old photos, a picture of that tree.)
I wrote out my own sadness, as one exiled from family latches on to someone else's family -- well, no, I truly liked Irene -- so much the opposite of my Zazu Pitts mother, "big as a horse," my mother would say of herself, but mentally fragile and seeming to be ever suffering in a way that exhausted everyone around her. Irene had been a basketball star in high school, and was lean, tough, independent, not sentimental. I looked at the tree that refused to die, and wrote out my sadness:

For Irene Harmon

Saturday, September 3, 1988, Inverness, California

I am sitting on my rolled-up sleeping bag in the metal

Sears and Roebuck shed. I am facing the window

where a moss-robed tree, trunk topped at about eight feet,

is not dead, has begun to grow a crown of young branches.

At my left, I see its former limbs and branches through

the open door, still sheathed in moss green; their ends,

still fresh and blond, reveal circular photographs of time –

the saw has left zigzag lightning across the peace of

concentric rings that no-one would see but for these slices.

We wait to hear the news. Is Irene dead or alive?

As I wait, I read an Updike story, “Journey to the Dead,”

about late middle age. Young Geoffrey in the house up

the hill is assigned to write a précis of the story, and I

have accepted that I will look it over for him. Geoff’s

stepgrandmother, Irene, had a stroke yesterday.

She is in a coma in the City. Or has she died?

Her sons, Paul and Bob, are with her there in the city,

while we here in Inverness stand between place and

place, time and time, holding memories of love that

might cry in our faces the moment we touch them –

moments with Irene in them. We know we must let go

of this woman who has made it clear that this is where

she wants her life to end. Each of us, like elephants

who nudge their fallen one, are kind enough to question

her decision one more time; and if she says the body

has won its right to return to matter, to be sent on,

then its always illusory spirit, too, will become

invisible, dropping down through the circles

in the trees still uncut: I want to visit Irene in

San Francisco, yet I am afraid she might mistake

it as a call to return. I might unkindly cause her

to forget her firm decision; she might respond

to a wrong voice, to someone appearing to carry

a lantern along a dark passage back to earth.

Had Eurydice not looked back? Had she rejoined

Orpheus in the lie of the everyday and a normal

lifespan, someday she would have returned down
the path to where her other lover, Hades, lived

sadly without her. If one lover – Life or Death –

is happy, the other one is weeping. Did Irene turn

to console her Hades, her dead husband?

If Orpheus went for Eurydice a second time, back

toward the light behind him, she might have been

condemned to a life she no longer cared to live.

The cut wood nearby seems projected toward me

like a slain dragon that stumbled to a halt and fell

into sections, preferring to turn up with thick cards

of its old invisible life, not tumble into life’s mayhem.

2. Sunday, September 4, 1988, Inverness

Last night, above dark pine boughs, the mass

of stars trembled; today, it is a constellation of gnats

that whirls between mossy trees. Late afternoon,

at Abbott’s Beach, under fog, the ocean is the first

choppy carvings on a jade sculpture. To look

at the sea is to feel the sky as cranial light,

sun softly penetrating a skin of fog, illuminating

a world under one great skull, immense and alone.

Standing behind me by the surf, James flies

his invisible kite, holding a string that disappears

into mist. “You have the Great White Rabbit

on a leash,” I say and turn away for just a moment

to look at seaweed’s wild hair rising and falling

in slow motion, and I turn back again, and James

and his rising white string are gone. Irene – you

trickster! I see her laughing on the beach.

Set that boy down again!

He’s found again

beyond a dune where Panayotis has fallen asleep.

Good-bye, Irene.

May the Great White Rabbit roll over us all.

The Funny Papers

2012-01-23T21:45:00.000-08:00

Black Crowned Night Heron

2012-01-19T18:17:00.000-08:00

Click on title above for slide show of Black Crowned Night Heron -- immature stage; mature; then at its usual night time vigil, hunting at water's edge.

Some Words I Like

2012-01-07T10:57:00.000-08:00

What the character Tito says in a story by Jim Breeden...

"All I ever wanted was to roam

through fields of imagination,

knowing that I could always return

home to someone who loved me."

The Interdependence of Individuals

2012-01-04T18:57:00.000-08:00

   "Believe me, we will not interfere with your individual freedom to be unemployed, starving, unable to find work, with you and family members succumbing to illness, living in your car now that you have lost your home to the banks. It might weaken you if we pampered you with aid in your distress." -- Mr. Right Wing.
   "Independence? That's middle class blasphemy. We are all dependent on one another, every soul of us on earth." -- George Bernard Shaw
   The yin/yang/tao of elephants hugging elephants (my rough sketch, perhaps a friend who is a good artist, will recreate this some day):

Happy Humanukkahmass

2011-12-27T17:04:00.000-08:00

Happy Humanukkahmass

James McColley Eilers

We do not celebrate our feast

to deny a Great Darkness,

winter, pain, or tribulation,

but to triumph at our own behest.

We rest inside, beneath green branches,

and dine with candle suns and ribbon

rainbows; no fields of snow in here
except on cakes that icing blanches.

In St. Mary's, Chinatown, San Francisco

2011-12-26T14:47:00.000-08:00

Click on title to see some of the stained glass windows in old St. Mary's in Chinatown, San Francisco. Famously, the shell of the church still exists, having survived the 1907 earthquake.

Spathiphyllum

2011-12-26T14:06:00.000-08:00

Autumn Abandoned Sofa

2011-12-26T14:01:00.000-08:00

Great Gas from the Past

2011-12-25T11:52:00.000-08:00

From one of my old storage boxes, the 1968 poster (I cannot find anyone who would like it) for a gathering of poets who supported the San Francisco State Strike:

Winter Solstice, Earth Solace

2011-12-20T17:14:00.000-08:00

On Bradley Manning's 24th Birthday

2011-12-18T17:06:00.000-08:00

On 17 December 2011, Bradley Manning's 24th birthday, we marched and rallied for Bradley. Where we paused for speeches, Scott Olson was recovered enough to be able to speak a few words, and I show two photos of him here. Although I feel I am being intrusive, it seems I should share his look -- worn but surviving -- with the many people who feel concern for him...and for Bradley Manning, the first day of the military's hearings having been the day before, Friday, 16 December 2011.

Peter Martyniak passed along the news that the Welsh are presenting a play about Bradley Manning's years in Wales: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/dec/15/bradley-manning-play-wales-wikileaks

I am sure I should not be surprised that there are still some people who don't know who Bradley Manning is, or that there are gay men who did not know he was gay until they read it on the placard I carried on my back:

Part TWO of MAKE DRAG NOT WAR

2011-12-13T18:14:00.000-08:00

CLICK ON THE TITLE ABOVE for a continuation of photos of this great show -- as described in "Part ONE of MAKE DRAG NOT WAR" -- sponsored by Veterans for Peace and Iraq Veterans Against the War, and directed by Stephen Funk, the first man to refuse to serve in the U.S. Occupation of Iraq. More of the program will appear later. Also, after viewing the slide show, check out their website: http://veteranartists.org/

Part THREE of MAKE DRAG, NOT WAR

2011-12-13T17:53:00.000-08:00

Click on title above for slide show.

Part FOUR of MAKE DRAG, NOT WAR

2011-12-13T17:30:00.000-08:00

Click on title above for slide show.

Outside "Make Drag, Not War"

2011-12-13T17:01:00.000-08:00

Click on title above for photos of some friends outside the production of "Make Drag, Not Love"

Occupy Tree, Occupy Raft

2011-12-13T16:41:00.000-08:00

Click on title above to see a slide show about:
The man who has constructed a tree house as part of Occupy Oakland has had his tree house pulled down a second time. But, in the meantime, there is an Occupy Raft now in Lake Merritt! Will they sink it?

Part One of MAKE DRAG, NOT WAR

2011-12-06T21:17:00.000-08:00

CLICK ON THE TITLE ABOVE so that you won't miss the first part of this great show, sponsored by Veterans for Peace and Iraq Veterans Against the War, and directed by Stephen Funk, the first man to refuse to serve in the U.S. Occupation of Iraq. More of the program will appear later. Also, after viewing the slide show, check out their website: http://veteranartists.org/

Stacking Rocks

2011-12-01T20:17:00.000-08:00

For a slide show, hit the title, "Stacking Rocks," above. Here are two of the photos of what an Oakland poet is creating in his yard. (I forgot to write down his name.)

The New Doxology

2011-11-30T20:13:00.000-08:00

Did you belong to a church where they sang the Common Doxology? For Catholics, it always came at the end, a good-bye song after the Mass -- a tune that, to my ear, sounds like the turning of a key in a lock, a ritual tune for passing from "sacred space" into everyday life. Do you remember the brief tune to the traditional words? "Praise God from whom all blessings flow;/Praise God, all creatures here below;/Praise God for all that love has done;/Creator, Christ, and Spirit, One." [In the Catholic church, the last line was "Father and Son and Holy Ghost."] A final "Amen" won't hurt. You might try singing the following words to that old tune (rewritten because I dream of the age when all churches or temples are temples to humanism and the health of the earth).

As I wandered on warm summer nights in my old Indiana small town, I would hear, from its many, plain Christian churches, the old church tunes. Singing them, with the rhythm of a lullaby, or hammock slowly rocking, surely must have brought a peaceful mood to their congregations. Some may want to rewrite the words of their favorite hymns. Others have written variants of the traditional wording for the Doxology tune. Curtis W. Reese’s version also avoids Deism, using an 18^th century paraphrase by Isaac Watts of Psalm 117:

From all that dwell below the skies

Let songs of hope and faith arise;

Let peace, goodwill on earth be sung

Through every land, by every tongue.

Latest Marquee, Oakland's Grand Lake Theatre

2011-11-30T19:56:00.000-08:00

The Phantom Knitters

2011-11-27T14:15:00.000-08:00

Around Oakland Museum, and showing up at various other spots in Oakland and San Francisco, someone is knitting sleeves over pipes:

Welcome to My Place

2011-11-25T14:32:00.000-08:00

High School Students Protest Education Cuts

2011-11-20T20:38:00.000-08:00

Click on the title above to see slide show.

I came upon this demonstration after it had been in progress for a while. It was in front of the State of California building that it is across from the old Federal Building. (After so many demonstrations during the 1960s on the wide flat space in front of the building, they turned the area into dunes of cement as if they were expect attacks by tanks: Government is paranoid, and their police only follow orders -- the orders of paranoids.)
Perhaps teachers had spoken earlier in this demonstration objecting to cuts in education, etc., but at this point it was only high school students or beginning college students who spoke.

FACES: After latest Expulsion of Occupy Oakland, 14 November 2011

2011-11-15T17:56:00.000-08:00

(Click on the title above to see other participants, besides the little boy to the right, in a slide show concentrating on FACES.)

As with the previous and very bloody expulsion of Occupy Oakland, those Occupiers who were not in jail, and their supporters, met outside the Oakland Main Library, and after a few speeches, all marched down 14th Street and back to Oscar Grant Plaza by City Hall.
In the stone amphitheater, they held that day's General Assembly as the helicoptors overhead sometimes swept a floodlight over the crowd.
Take a photo of the woman below, I could keep from blurting out, "You're gorgeous!"

At the Beginning of the Day of the Oakland General Strike, 11 November 2011

2011-11-14T21:56:00.000-08:00

Click on title above if you want to see a slide show.

Angela Davis at Oakland General Strike, 11 November 2011

2011-11-14T21:17:00.000-08:00

Click on the title above if you want to see a slide show of other photos of Angela Davis. The last time I saw Angela Davis was when we picketed outside Fort Ord against the American War in Vietnam, me looking in at the soldiers looking out, where I had once been a soldier myself. Then we drove into the dunes along the Monterey Bay where Angela gave one of her rousing speeches. Right wing thugs had driven up in their pickups, but atop all the dunes were men who were guarding Angela.

A holiday card

2011-11-14T13:26:00.000-08:00

Too Close to Death

2011-11-10T21:58:00.000-08:00

I am not sure I know how I feel yet about ending the day near where someone was being shot. I wrote this account for the Oakland police, intending to take it over to one of the multitude of policemen who descended on the scene, but my printer doesn’t function just now so I emailed it to a police email address and called and told them there where they could find it.

TO THE POLICE:

10 November 2011

I dropped by Occupy Oakland to see how it was going, but did not get near it. I noticed the City Hall clock was at 5 o’clock. I was standing next to the BART elevator entrance where a Asian-American man was standing. I could see along the line of shops opposite Occupy Oakland in that plaza, and very soon heard what sounded like several firecrackers but I feared they were gunshots. The Asian-American man felt convinced that they were gunshots, and that was obvious as people were scattered away from a spot about 30 feet from me.

I did not witness the shooting, but two men rushed right by me, and it seemed obvious that they were running from a crime. They were African-American, wearing dark clothes, but there is very little light there so I would not be able to identify them, except that I think they were about 5’8” or 5’9”. One or both of them seemed to shoving something into their pockets as if to conceal them. The two seemed very pleased with whatever they had done, had an air of triumph. They ran away from 14^th Street in the direction of 13^th Street, but I lost sight of them immediately with so many people in that intersection. Soon a man rushed up whom I supposed was a merchant. (The Asian-American man, for some reason, felt the shooter had something to do with a store along there.) The merchant was pointing and shouting in the direction the men had run. The Asian-American shouted that one of the men could be identified by some white garment – I think it was white trousers.

Many people surrounded the gunshot victim,and it was obvious that he was receiving artifical respiration.

Meanwhile masses of police cars and emergency vehicles were arriving, sirens blaring.

The police arrived, and a policeman continued the artificial respiration. The police asked the people there to disperse so I went home.

The streets around there were being blocked off by police cars, evidently imagining it was some mass violent incident.

At home I heard on the news that they mentioned just one man, but there was that second man with him as he ran away, perhaps a friend, and both pleased by what they had done.

The shooting clearly had nothing to do with Occupy Oakland, an empty and unoccupied space existed between the shooting incident and Occupy Oakland. That intersection was rough before Occupy Oakland arrived so that late at night I never get out at the 12^th Street BART station as it often seems that some tough is chasing another tough.

Later it was revealed on the news that it was a young African-American man who had been killed. It is sad that I still don't know his name or why he was killed as it seemed, so casually. Reminds me of yesterday when I was at the V.A. Hospital. So many veterans have "turned hippy" in their dress, but I sat next to a man thoroughly identified by cap and jacket as a Vietnam War veteran. I said, "Looks as if Israel and the U.S. are going to start a war with Iran." He replied, "Might as well." The casual habit of killing.

15 October 2011 Rally and March to "Occupy Oakland"

2011-10-16T23:33:00.000-07:00

Click on Title line above to watch slide show.

From CHARLIE CHAPLIN MEETS THE WAR IN VIETNAM (November 1970)

2011-10-14T23:21:00.000-07:00

XIV: Coda

Were you damaged in the Fall?

Weren’t we all? Weren’t we all?

Do I feel as good as new?

Yes, I do. Yes, I do.

And who would think to look at a violet’s face

that it had seen, some other place, all the bones

of hell. And what a great change in the leprous

carcass of one man’s dog to come back laughing

and wagging its tail as another man’s cat.

And to pull free of the earth of sorrow, hatred,

and the hungry dead – and, beginning Now,

any you of you and me of me, to pull ourselves

inside out, and then to step out completely

from what has been, and invite everyone you meet

by whatever means they will understand to walk

through the archways of their dear departed selves.

The final conspiracy is Open to All. That the Way

is straitened and a thousand voices wail along

the Way, unweaving our hearts, we shall endure.

That a shadow always falls across the Gate

makes the Gate less difficult to find.

And there is only one true lover for the heart –

the mind. It leads us ever out through hell

to whatever heaven falls like the grace of morning rain

on the blue beaches of the morning mind.

Everybody, come through here!

The Great “Who, me?” carefully trips

on its stumblingblocks and falls, glad to be caught.

And all the Who‑Done‑Its and the Let‑Me‑Be‑Its

are gathered in the tomb where there has been laid

to rest one late God, alias Jaweh, alias Allahu/Allah,

alias Odin, alias The One. And a great mechanical

gear raises up the stiff old corpse, and it says,

“You are all my children!

You are all my chosen people!”

And then wheels fly, a scaffolding sinks to its knees,

and a whole contraption dances itself to death,

And all the grimey shrouds fall from the crystal clearings

of Byzantium. The old way excuses itself for the burp

of its long grey ghost

drifting now like a scarf

down the

winding stairwell

of time.

XV: Envoi

This coin I have minted here from my dying

is but to buy bread for the living and not

to be swallowed but exchanged in the language

of fingertips and words, art, work, books, tools;

the language of finding still another reason to touch

and be new‑minted from the hand of the Human.

(November 1970)

7 October 2011 (Ten Years of Afghan War) and 9 October 2011 ("OccupySF")

2011-10-11T18:34:00.000-07:00

[For a slide show click on title above.]

Starting at the Federal Bulding on 7th Street, San
Francisco, we rallied and marched on the 10th
anniversary of the start of the Afghan War.

Susan Witka showed us the newspaper her son gave her that he had picked up at OccupyWallStreet, and here had traveled to participate on a march toward OccupySF.

On 9 October 2011, I stopped by OccupySF, an encampment in front of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. An instructor was teaching a class in Economics. It is good to see the return of a very apt word, often used in the early part of the 20th Century when our problems were just the same -- politicians who are married to money: Plutocrats.

One of the marvels of their encampment -- a stationery bicycle peddled to generate electricity.

With Leslie and Martha at Bakers Beach, San Francisco, 29 September 2011

2011-09-30T00:56:00.000-07:00

Click on title above for brief slide show.

A Vigil for Troy Davis

2011-09-27T22:01:00.000-07:00

We gathered in the plaza across the Embarcadero from San Francisco’s Ferry Building, and I did not know the names of all the individuals and groups that organized the vigil for Troy Davis –Amnesty International and others.

People recalled Troy Davis, and people spoke against the existence of a death penality.

As the time advanced closer to the time when Troy Davis was scheduled to be executed in Georgia, a man whose name I should know, as he often joins Code Pink in their political actions, sang, “We Shall Overcome,” but it came too unexpected, or people were too troubled and depressed to take up the song and interweave their arms as should happen when that song is sung. Then, with what always brings strength, an African-American woman with a good strong voice sang that Jesus had a place for all, and it was what was needed, and is always needed, a spiritual sung by a bright strong voice. In her there was no sense of despair or defeat.

As the time for Georgia’s murder of Troy Davis drew closer, the group, which seemed too small for the enormity of what was about to happen, drawn tight together, for comfort, in front of speakers and singers, joined hands in a circle that expanded like the wide ring expanding from a stone dropped in water until the circle was very large on Justin Herman Plaza, and we seemed many more than we had seemed before. From my side of the circle I could see the clock on the Ferry Building, and dreaded that I could see the minutes pass and knew that at 7 o’clock in Georgia, and at 4 o’clock by this clock, Troy Davis would be put to death.

Songs and speeches over, we all waited and watched, solemn and sad. Leslie counted 107 of us. I added that there were also 2 dogs and 2 babies. The clock struck 4. Seconds later the siren of a fire engine or ambulance wailed as if presaging grief. About 10 or 15 minutes later, the leaders picked up a megaphone, and the circle closed in toward him as he announced that there had been a stay. I said to those beside me, “But I don’t believe in miracles.”

Still waiting for news, listening to the streaming of news from Democracy Now as someone put a radio against the mouth of the megaphone, we heard that the stay might be of only a few minutes, and so we all were frozen in place, or interwove, pacing out our anxiety, as Amy Goodman was reporting from the prison, “We’re trying to verify.”

“I still don’t believe in miracles,” I said, but someone said, if it's not a miracle, at least it represents hope, and then it was reported that the U.S. Supreme Court had granted a stay of at least 7 days for reconsideration of the case. People still hung about, afraid to believe the good news was true.

Gradually the mood lightened somewhat, but we still waited for any snippets of fact. Martha and I decided we could move over to a spot that was out of the way, behind the immense Plaza Fountain, and we did tai chi where the water pouring down the outer edge of the fountain and the chattering of San Francisco's parrots in the nearby trees obscured all other sounds, and provided a haven of sorts.

I had a ticket to the San Francisco Symphony, and there was no reason not to go now. Michael Tilson Thomas conducted Mahler’s Third Symphony. A great box of musical bonbons, or a chest of jewels, however one might try to sum up in adequate words how Mahler tried every possible mood and combination of instruments. Toward the end, the mezzo-soprano, Katarina Karneus, was singing a verse by Friedrich Nietsche,

Lust tiefer noch als Herzeleid!

(Joy deeper still than heart’s sorrow!)

Weh spricht Vergeh!

(Pain says: Vanish!)

Doch alle Lust will Ewigkeit!

(Yet all joy aspires to eternity…”

The wide necklace of the girls’ chorus, in white blouses and bright red vests, rose as the black-garbed adult chorus rose behind them, for the final choral work, introduced by bells -- and, appropriately, and with a “klang” in the opening lines,

Es sungen drei Engel einen sussen Gesang

(Three angels sang a sweet song.)

Mit Freuden es selig im Himmel klang…

(It resounded throughout heaven…)

At the end the music broke out of exclamation and into a long serenity that became something you might call an even deeper serenity, long and bountiful, that enclosed audience and all, and finally the sun was luminous on a snow-capped mountain peak – and at the end the audience made clear that they had followed the music to that same peak.

I went home and turned on the news and found that Troy Davis had been executed at 11:08, Georgia time, and was sorry to have it confirmed that there are no miracles.

I dealt with grief about widespread inhumanity in the way that is available to me by staying up most of the night to make collage I call “Become Human. Ban Capital Punishment," knowing this is what the Davis family will fight for now.

In the morning, thanks to Linda Beaumont’s having placed his image in glass, looking out and looking in from my window was that compassionate human who is always there -- Martin Luther King, forever a witness of how we live. (For a slide show with more images, click on the title of this entry above.)

Become Human -- Ban the Death Penalty

2011-09-22T01:21:00.000-07:00

Israel and the Palestinians

2011-09-16T18:49:00.000-07:00

If the rest of the earth were more supportive and show better leadership and less indifference about the issue, the situation should have changed since Ben Gurion said, "Why should the Arabs make peace? If I were an Arab leader I would never make terms with Israel. That is natural: we have taken their country. Sure, God promised it to us, but what does that matter to them? Our God is not theirs. We come from Israel, it's true, but two thousand years ago, and what is that to them? There has been antisemitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault? They only see one thing: we have come here and stolen their country. Why should they accept that? They may perhaps forget in one or two generations' time, but for the moment there is no chance. So, it's simple: we have to stay strong and maintain a powerful army. Our whole policy is there. Otherwise the Arabs will wipe us out.
o As quoted in The Jewish Paradox : A Personal Memoir (1978) by Nahum Goldmann, as translated by Steve Cox, p. 99 ISBN 0-448-15166-9

Letter to the New York Times

2011-09-11T16:31:00.000-07:00

I am sure that the New York Times will not publish my Letter to the Editor in response to today's article by Bill Keller (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/06/us/sept-11-reckoning/keller.html?pagewanted=all) where he describes his disillusionment with his original enthusiastic support of the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq, etc.

My letter:

Re: “My Unfinished 9/11 Business” by Bill Keller

For all of us not in the information-glutted NYC to DC beltway, yet were informed irrefutably by our internal bullshit detectors that government lies and news media hype were going to lead us into the tragedy of the last ten years, Mr. Keller owes us more than the record of his change of mind. We suffered the knowledge of the mass bloodshed even before it began, then lived, maddened, waiting for people like him to wake up. Anticipate your next insular arrogance. Lead a declaration by all news media – especially the supposed rubberstamp of truth, the NYT – that you will always anticipate each lying excuse for war. And learn what journalism is, for example, by watching the daily hour of Amy Goodman’s DEMOCRACY NOW (www.democracynow.org). But I know these remarks will be too raw for the “polite” club that thrives on self-delusion.

Him

2011-09-04T21:12:00.000-07:00

Cannabis Comes Out

2011-09-03T16:28:00.000-07:00

In a large area in downtown Oakland, including City Hall and the Police Station, the massive Cannabis & Hemp Expo is taking place on 3 and 4 September 2011.

Windmill and Crows, San Francisco

2011-08-20T22:25:00.000-07:00

Click on title above, "Windmill and Crows, San Francisco"

Meditation on Moses

2011-08-14T17:02:00.000-07:00

It is damn near a Full Moon (99% and gibbous). Before today, I inhabited Martha and Thom's house and courted their cats while they went for a few days to Mt. Shasta. I guess the mountain must have been in my subconscious as I had this meditation on Moses (him again -- must be the Hierophant in my last Tarot reading):

Another Meditation on Moses

After his anger subsided, Moses went back up the mountain for another long while and returned with the ten commandments. Words from the tablets he had broken the previous time sometimes troubled him and tumbled through his mind with the sound they made in their breaking; sometimes, certain words pressed into his mouth like little pebbles rolling at the sea’s edge, begging to be spoken, but he could not speak them. This was the broken language resting among the broken rocks at the base of the mountain where he had received a great inspiration.

Some clever ones thought there might have been something else written on the original tablets, but, having given the people the list of ten moral precepts, Moses never answered if anyone asked what the other words had been. Of course, he remembered the words the Wonder of the Plenum had hammered out of his soul, but he would never repeat them.

His throat often ached to speak them, but his sorrow over the people’s stupidity forced him to embrace the broken pieces as his own disillusionment. No use to offer to any others an understanding they would lose or betray. Just give them some rules.

His only hope was that if any searched for the deepest meanings they might find a wholeness that would cause them to see the words from the lost sentences little by little fitting together -- the breaks and confused loss of that clear vision healed, pieces of the old, broken compact falling into a new vision of wholeness.

That was his great and private loneliness and vanity, his waiting for someone to reach the peak of understanding he had reached, able to hear not only the ten moral precepts, but also the language of the lost tablets that he had broken (was it truly by accident?) that might free them from static precepts -- words of origin that would allow them to flow free -- but he saw those meanings could not be given or spoken, had to be earned, could only be self-taught.

Each of you must be a Moses, he thought, which even he was not.

The Cure for Creative Panic

2011-07-31T16:16:00.000-07:00

I suddenly recognized that a particular state I was in had to be called "creative panic." I wondered what to do about it. It seemed such a ready term that I wondered if it wouldn't show up on Google -- Google serving as one of those fortune telling balls you shake where the answer you seek floats up and appears under glass.
The top of the list of possible sites was "creative pancakes." Then
creative pancake ideas
creative pancake recipes
creative pancakes out of sight.
And I had already eaten biscuits earlier.

CHANTING IN MOVIE THEATERS APPROVED

2011-07-31T15:29:00.000-07:00

I doubt if the New York Times will publish this letter I sent them in favor of a sane personal environment:
Thinking thrives in silence, while we are assaulted by continuous noise. Hoping for silence before sinking into Herzog’s CAVE OF FORGOTTEN DREAMS, instead I heard 25 commercials. Let it not be forgotten that there was a time when movies were not preceded by commercials. In every public place, you are undermined by some monotonous beat. Even your doctor’s office has an undercurrent of music that no-one can hear clearly, yet it never ceases. There are now twice as many loud television commercials in spite of the efforts of Representative Anna Eschoo. Have people’s brains been so deadened by continuous noise that they are unable to defend themselves against psychological damage? Why am I unable to get friends to join me at the movies to generate a chant of “No more commercials!”? Is there no sound citizen left alive to defend against this danger, among others, from greedy exploiters -- in this case, sound pollution? CHANT WHEN THEY PLAY COMMERCIALS IN YOUR LOCAL THEATER!

(1) The Greatest Vice (2) Military Suicides

2011-07-28T10:51:00.000-07:00

THE GREATEST VICE

At first, Muslims were blamed by the mob for the mass murders actually commited by those clean-cut young native sons of the U.S.A. and Norway, Timothy McVeigh and Andrew Behring Breivik. As McVeigh was murdered by the state we will never have the opportunity to see if in the future he would have comprehended his own actions, or how society might have learned from observing him how to prevent future McVeighs. Fortunately, the Norwegians are not so murderous, and Breivik will not be killed by the State, while he has stated that he knows he will serve life in prison. We will have a chance to see if he ever wakes up to the reality of what he has done, or tell us how he got there.

One thing that these two young men have in common is what is universally considered a “virtue,” but what is actually the worst vice on the planet: self-righteousness. In simple old common sense language, they were “so right they were wrong.” Beside the factors in their personal psychology histories – which are as important as anything – they were clear in their statements about what had aroused their righteous indignation, which, for them, justified the most extreme reaction.

Even those not directly harmed by their acts are apt to be seized by the vice of self-righteousness and will call for their murder by the state, a state of mind no different from the state of the mind of the murderers they want to murder. But will the people who call for their deaths recognize that they are the same as those they wish to murder? How many people possessed by the vice of self-righteous will openly celebrate or smile in private when they hear of the murder of a doctor who provides abortions. While in other parts of their lives they may be loving citizens who personally would never murder, when it comes to whatever makes them feel full of a supposed virtue of self-righteousness, they will feel justified to celebrate a murder. Bless Norway that seems to know the poisonous nature of feeling righteous. Look at every sick situation on the earth, in the nation, and in our personal lives, and you will see that the root of the conflict is this vice of self-righteousness. The robber feels that, compared with others, he is not getting the share he deserves, and feels righteous about a rough achievement of equality. Some will react negatively if I say that resentment and envy justifies in the rapist’s mind his violent act.

Does anyone do wrong? Or, rather, is the wrong they do not done with a sense of self-righteousness that empowers? I have certainly in my life not been free of this so-called virtue which is the worst vice, and I always hope I can face up to my fear of examining how it exists in my life, past and present, but I do know that enjoying a sense of self-righteousness is the opposite of being one who helps create a world of peace and love.

Postscript: I have to add this about another matter – military suicides. It is heartbreaking to hear the “sleepy” reaction of relatives of service people or veterans who commit suicide: “I don’t understand. He seemed O.K.” Will the time ever come when they will understand the decency of their child being troubled by murdering people (let alone if they awaken to the fact that they have been manipulated by the sordid motives of nations and war profiteers). Here is a human with a conscience reacting with horror at murders he or she has been forced to commit. Around them, there is no one to celebrate them as the true heroes, and they are far from people who might have told them the thoughts that lead to their suicides proved their greater humanity, not that they were failing some primitive definition of manhood or spurious patriotism.

Impression of Werner Herzog's CAVE OF FORGOTTEN DREAMS

2011-07-23T18:24:00.000-07:00

IN Werner Herzog’s film CAVE OF FORGOTTEN DREAMS, the caves in themselves are incredibly beautiful, crystalline with rock like folded meringue, surfaces like crystallized sugar, and old bones seeming turned into enamel.

Perhaps, like me, you have many special feelings about caves, from many connections, real and metaphorical, but my strongest feelings derive from reading anthropologist, Geza Roheim’s writings about the significance of caves to aborigines of Australia as the residence of The Eternal Ones of the Dream, central to their myths and rituals. (http://www.amazon.com/Eternal-Ones-Dream-Psychoanalytic-Interpretation/dp/1417977132) . Except for one significant story he tells about the caves in Australia Werner Herzog does not seem aware of Roheim’s wonderful, but obscure book, The Eternal Ones of the Dream, and it is perhaps just a common feeling about caves that caused him to name his film, CAVE OF THE FORGOTTEN DREAMS.

The meaning Geza Roheim gathered from how the aborigines felt about their cave of the Eternal Ones of the Dream is sublimely rich: a cave that is both womb and tomb, end and origin, where the bones of the ancestral past feed the present what it needs to sustain its soul.

Perhaps intending to allow us to have that experience of the cave where real and myth are at last fused, toward the end of his documentary Herzog allows us a time of wordless meditation as our eyes travel over the images in the Chavet cave, and our own thoughts wander and wonder. What is the power celebrated in these big-chested animals? Why the panache of their curling horns? The amazing artists of that time, almost 32,000 years ago, lived with more powerful antecedents of the current descendants of those animals, as drawn on the cave walls. And the trick that hits home is that a recurring pair in human history and myth are joined here “at the beginning,” a figure that is the head and torso of a bull blending with the lower torso of a female human.

In the case of this movie, the 3D adds immeasurably.

DO SEE See a short, incredible interview with Herzog where he speaks about the film’s postscript about radioactive albino crocodiles: http://www.wernerherzog.com/index.php?id=64

The only thing not answered for me is how they painted the figures: Was if from the charcoal on the burned end of a stick? Were their earth dyes? The drawings are done with an easy swing of the arms, but where a hand-print was made, I guess all the people who did that thought up the same thing: To chew some material until it was pulp, then, through puckered lips, spray at the hand outstretched on a rock.

I guess it was all done with “charcoal,” but I need to go and check that out. The movie should have told.

SOME DAYS IT FEELS LIKE (...a rough-hewn sort-of-sonnet)

2011-07-16T20:47:00.000-07:00

The following was a private venting of the bad feelings of the times -- a means for catharsis, but someone urged me to place it on my blog:

SOME DAYS IT FEELS LIKE...

My heart is more than broken.

It is pierced by shards

Of human toil and turmoil.

All that may be spoken

About all the broken accords

Cannot redeem our soil.

But dirt is just where it ends

And where it all begins again,

Trucking through this bloody muck.

From somewhere something sends --

When you decide to begin again --

Something as strong as the word Fuck,

Stronger than the idea of God,

Something inside you -- Call it pluck.

6 July 2011 -- Clarion Alley, San Francisco

2011-07-07T08:19:00.000-07:00

Walking with Leslie Angeline and Martha Hubert to have lunch at PicaPica (serving variants on maize) we passed Clarion Alley, and stopped to look at the art -- more and more, alleys and buildings are covered with murals, art, graffiti as art. Click on title above if you would like to see what we saw.

5 July 2011-- J and J Create a Drawing

2011-07-06T22:19:00.000-07:00

Jim Breeden came over from San Francisco with the plan that he and I, Jim Eilers, should make a drawing together, trading stroke by stroke. What should we name our first attempt?

4 July 2011, with S.F. Mime Troupe

2011-07-06T21:29:00.000-07:00

Lloyd Stensrud suggested seeing the San Francisco Mime Troupe in Dolores Park on the 4th of July. The Mime Troupe always skewer the ills of the system, an antidote to the blind patriotism that sentimentalizes the blood sacrifice of America's youth for leaders who are little more than the pimps who whore us all -- and that was the theme of their little musical -- how to survive capitalism with any sense of integrity. Consider how their audience can sometimes be 50 to 100 people sitting on the grass before the stage, this 4th of July, the attendance was EPIC (as shown on the slide show you may watch by clicking on the title of this section). Afterward, on my way to the 24th Street BART station, for my return to Oakland, I walked down Osage Alley, which is becoming another of the many alleys devoted to graffiti art.

Code Pink Tags the Israeli Embassy, 30 June 2011

2011-06-30T19:16:00.000-07:00

In front of the building in San Francisco that holds the Israeli Embassy, Code Pink left messages about the impending peace flotilla to sail to help the people in Gaza.
Click on title above to see a brief slide show of the messages they left.

Gay Pride 2011 -- For Bradley Manning

2011-06-28T16:47:00.001-07:00

Click on title above if you want to see a short slide show of Gay Pride 2011 in San Francisco.

In the mass of humans at the 2011 Gay Pride Parade in San Francisco, it seemed that every 5th person had a camera, meaning that a hundred thousand photos were taken of people and elements in a parade that lasted many hours. Mine are from a very tiny niche: The photos are mainly from when I was waiting for our contingent -- in support of Bradley Manning -- to begin marching.
Also, I was wearing my collage poster for Manning so it made it rather difficult to take any photos.
Also, I like best taking pictures of children at such events, and, in this case, beautiful women.

Check out James Day's dynamic use of watercolor

2011-06-13T21:08:00.000-07:00

Click on Title Line

Take Time Out for a Quiet Moment

2011-06-09T17:55:00.000-07:00

Click on "Take Time Out for a Quiet Moment" and have a minute or two of peace with a very brief video.

What Is It?

2011-06-09T17:51:00.000-07:00

Click on "What is it?" for a short enough video on which I ask, "What is it?" -- Comments welcome, no matter how scathing.

Rain on Palm Leaves

2011-06-09T17:47:00.000-07:00

There is a central court where I live, full of palms, and I love to hear the rain fall on the palm leaves: Click on "Rain Palm Leaves" above for a very brief video -- maybe just long enough for you to sink into a moment of peace -- and I hope you have sound.

Pardon -- a Sunday Sermon

2011-05-29T17:29:00.000-07:00

Slain Elephant:

Coming out into the general nature of the earth, each of us is free to conceive and attempt to embody our individual definition of “human nature” – It is ours to choose, and the more valuable and beautiful the longer we search to understand and define it. We are free to choose a better or worse definition, as revealed by our actions and attitudes. For some of us, the imagination that we wish all humans would favor and attempt to demonstrate is centered on Compassion – the sense of empathy and justice present in the first rule learned by every child: “Treat others as you would have them treat you.” Simple, but clearly not easily realized in our world, and, by many, rejected.

Many are familiar with the concept of “the vital lie.” While we live in a factual reality of the senses – now, in the past, and in the future – through language, thought, and creativity we create an overlay that we may call The Word, and we live under that imaginary dome as well. Ideas, dreams, goals might be called illusions in comparison with our finding ways to survive as physical beings in a physical world. You may choose to call this metaphysical world a vital lie, but we are not about to live without that other, symbolic reality.

Remembering how we are almost ghostly or fictional or spirit-beings as we play with thought, art, and invention, beyond meeting our daily needs, we might hope to escape self-delusion and self-division if we let Doubt be our guardian spirit, ever questioning our pleasant fictions and conjectures, and reminding us that they are human projections.

It is not likely that humans can live very harmoniously without some mythos of a general human unity – the challenge is to create a sane and wholesome imagination of a “human nature.”

The dominant mythos so far in human history has been of there being some parent reality looking over the human race. It is a comfort for humans to turn to that fiction when feeling overwhelmed. But sanity requires that we move on. With tragic consequences world-wide as we shift from one world view to another, God is taking a long time dying; notions of an afterlife are blighting the only life we shall ever have. Most of the present population will miss the chance to embrace truly the only life they will ever know. If they do not find the riches of the mind and imagination and humane values, they are not likely to make the transition out of the God delusion into an awakened life.

The transition from that mythos of God and eternal life is stalled, and until that change is complete we cannot know a new general sense of balance that might happen through a new imagination, in which Doubt and Questioning are central, not Faith and Obedience.

“In God we trust” makes no more sense than “In the Easter Bunny (or Santa Claus) we trust.” As in the tale of the Emperor With the Invisible Clothes, we must listen to those people turn to as leaders who weave that delusionary reality around everything they say, invalidating everything they say, using a delusion to delude others into actions destructive to the human race. The comforts found in religion can be found in human metaphor, and all the trappings and stories and comforts of religion would be made less dangerous if seen as metaphors. Time for the human race to grow up, awaken, and learn to be self-parenting. All is possible with the jewel of Compassion.

There are probably innumerable sites on the Internet and in any library where voices urge this same change. A quick glance finds

http://www.johnkaminski.info/

John Kaminski offers this quotations by Johnny Barzakh: “A society that denies death winds up killing all that it loves.”

Kaminski urges a “new consciousness that mandates transcendence of the pathological aspects of belief while keeping all those old wonderful values that we all love.”

“We’re all trapped in a complex web of mistranslated myths that have been used to anesthetize the populations for purposes of commercial exploitation. This is the pattern of all history. Keeping the peace means getting people to agree upon a pleasurable lie. And always, the local God is turned into a hammer with which to slam the neighbor.”

Becker:

“The killing of others anesthetizes our fear of death.”

“War is a sociological safety valve that cleverly diverts popular hatred of the ruling classes into a happy occasion to mutilate or kill foreign enemies.”

“Killing others lessens our own fear of dying, although it is own sense of animality and inferiority we try to kill — and never succeed.”

“There is nothing in man or in nature which would prevent us from taking some control of our destiny and making the world a safer place for our children.”

Others addressing the matter of “the vital lie":

http://www.lowenkopf.com/2007/04/vital-lie.html

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/self-deception/

Circo Poetico 22 May 2011

2011-05-27T22:29:00.000-07:00

Click on title line above to see slide show.

Joan Howard of the Main Street Theatre, 915 Cayuga Avenue, San Francisco, and Alice Elizabeth Rogoff of the Haight Ashbury Literary Journal -- in collaboraiton with Carlos Ramirez, Cesar Love, Genie Cartier, Indigo Hotchkiss, and Stephen Kopel -- produced this charming and delightful combination of poets and circus performers -- CIRCO POETICO.

What an Easy and Mellow Way to Turn 74

2011-05-26T11:04:00.000-07:00

Witness the wonderful "personalized" chocolate cake Jim Breeden made for my birthday along with one of his gourmet meals: to say it was Caesar Salad with chicken does not convey the rich taste, with home-made croutons, and all.
It was the climax of my eating my way through my turning 74, with kind and sweet friends helping me slip through this happy pause in what Gary Gach wished will be my "Happy Continuation."
For the subliminal level that was connected with food: Thank you, Martha and Carrie, for the candle stuck on a pint of hard-to-find Three Twins Cardamon ice cream. Thank you, Dana, Bud, and Doris, for brunch at the restaurant at the south end of the Ferry Building: artichoke, chard, and gruyere cheese omelet. Thank you to the two Pauls for dinner at the Pacific Cafe: salmon bisque, halibut parmesan, and Mitchell's strawberry ice cream. Thank you, Fred, for dinner at that French restaurant near Laguna Honda Hospital: onion soup, flounder with capers, and floating island (meringue). And in all those places, with all those meals, wonderful conversation.

Robert Bly at Hillside Club, Berkeley, 20 May 2011

2011-05-23T11:32:00.000-07:00

Click on title above if you would like to see a slide show of Robert Bly reading in Berkeley on 20 May 2011. I was happy to hear him say that for him poetry begins with sounds, even before meanings. He read in The Hillside Club. From their brochure: "The Hillside Club was founded in 1898 by a group of Berkeley women who wanted to preserve the rocky contours, live oaks, and waterways of the environment and protect the hills of their city by ensuring that buildings be designed to blend with the natural landscape.

The original 1906 club house, designed by architect and member Bernard Maybeck, was destroyed in the Berkeley fire of 1923. The current Hillside Club was built the next year by Maybeck's partner and brother-in-law John White in the character of the original building. The club grew into a venue for cultural activities."

Teachers Demonstration, Sacramento, 13 May 2011

2011-05-22T13:06:00.000-07:00

Click on subject title to see 10-photo slide show from "Teachers Demonstration, Sacramento, 13 May2011."

Photos, Recent Collage, Drawing

2011-05-21T22:59:00.000-07:00

Stephen Snyder, Translator

2011-05-21T21:32:00.000-07:00

Stephen Snyder, translator of Japanese literature, such as the surreal novels of Yoko Ogawa, speaks at the Center for the Art of Translation on 10 May 2011.

For more about his presentation:

http://catranslation.org/blogpost/stephen-snyder-yoko-ogawa-haruki-murakami

For Sale: Posters of Nocturnal Dream (& Cockettes) Shows, Early 1970s

2011-04-25T20:09:00.001-07:00

If you live in the Bay Area, you may know that the unique stage phenomenon, the Cockettes, that came to life at the Palace Theater in North Beach, San Francisco (during the showing of great and unique films, the Nocturnal Dream Show) at midnight on Saturday nights, in the early 1970s had a miraculous renaissance recently, with their resurrected PEARLS OVER SHANGHAI just ending a 2 year+ run.
Before that resurgence I had written a nostalgic photo-essay about them in

the May June 2008 issue of the Gay & Lesbian Review.
I am told that the posters I have, that I picked up at the time of the shows, are worth at least $200 a piece. To survey them, check on the title above to see a slide show. Most of them are full size posters, but some are smaller and more rare, and there is a postcard and a sheet on Secret Cinema, a theater in the Mission, where the troupe moved after the Palace Theater. If you are interested in purchasing any, you can leave a note in the comment section on this entry with your email address, which I will keep secret, but I will contact you via email.

Maxine Hong Kingston's new book

2011-04-22T21:40:00.000-07:00

I had a mid-afternoon snack in the cafe at 30th and Church; if I ate later, I might be sleepy at the 6 o’clock event at Mechanics Library where I was to meet up with Martha and Leslie to see Maxine Hong Kingston. I took the 24 Divisadero to go to the Castro, to then take a Muni train downtown, and, while I was on the 24, Martha got on; she was on her way to sing with 2 other women, members of the Threshhold Choir, going from room to room, in the Coming Home Hospice. We kidded around, of course, and acted silly, and as she got off the bus she said, “See ya later, alligator,” which made me groan, but made other people on the bus laugh.

I went downtown and read under the dome at Bloomingdale’s until it was time to go to the Mechanics Library. The event was packed. I sat in front of my sweet Code Pink sisters, who work so hard for peace and justice, Leslie and Martha, and before the program had started, they, of course, lay a hand on my shoulder, gave me a sip of wine, placed one of their hats on my head, but they soon settled down. To begin with, the head of the Asian Foundation gave Kingston an "Asian heroine” award.

Kingston read from her new book about how she feels about aging (she is only 65!), I Love a Broad Margin to My Life (from a quote from Thoreau), then she was interviewed by Andrew Lam, and they made their conversation political, and progressive, as well as literary. The audience at Mechanics Library is neatly Middle Class, well groomed, not likely to balk at the inexpensive membership, and I guess none were alarmed to hear her speak openly about being the child of illegal immigrants; she mentioned how that had affected her style where she kept everything relative, for example, in one story, confusing the reader with three versions of her father, in order to conceal the truth about the real one. I cannot cover everything talked about, all very interesting, but it is interesting that her first novel, WARRIOR WOMAN, is used very extensively in classes in China.

In spite of heads always blocking my view, I photographed Ms. Kingston precisely at the moment when she was talking about her work for peace. I have seen her speak before the Veterans for Peace, and she has done extensive work, helping veterans recover from war (reflected in her last book). She addressed the feeling people may have that demonstrating for peace seems hopeless, recalling how she and Alice Walker were arrested in protest of the planned invasion of Iraq, and, of course, that did not stop that horror. My answer would have been that the saying, "Faith can move mountains," is quite literal; it means the patience and stubborn will to move a mountain, if necessary, quite literally, one grain of sand at a time, as if one had centuries of time. She had her own way of expressing that, reading from a passage in her book that our work for peace here would not save anyone in our time, but would save someone from death on a battlefield far in the future just as some unknown person centuries ago did something that helped her be now where and who she is – Her dream-like view of reality and a Chinese sense of the long span of time.

It turned out that Leslie and her guy were to be married many years before, with a ceremony ministered or administered by Ms. Kingston's husband, Earl; Kingston’s hair, now a silver waterfall, dramatically white, "was still black," said Leslie. But they were still acquainted.

Martha gave Ms. Kingston some peace symbol earings.

As usual with peace activists, they all knew people in common, and compared the work being done for peace.

I photographed Leslie with her old friends.

I ended up with Martha, Leslie, and Thom. Thom ordered some Chinese food from Alice’s Restaurant, and he soon went down the street and picked it up. Martha made some green tea with something roasted in it, so that it tasted very Japanese. Martha said that, earlier in the evening, when she and the other two women from Threshold Choir were singing, going from room to room at Coming Home Hospice, they came to two rooms where the patients had visitors. The visitors asked them to go ahead and sing, and some of the visitors joined in so that they became seven singers.
That's about 10 precent of what happened, but I don't feel free to speak about other people present without their permission -- and, of course, the focus here was on wonderful Maxine Hong Kingston. Ms. Kingston knows that reality, dream, and fiction are the same thing, with many mysterious lacunae in the mix. It's like the quotation from Marcel Proust at the beginning of the Alchemist's Pillow blog: "If a little dreaming is dangerous, the cure for it is not to dream less, but to dream more, to dream all the time."

Blood Poem Number Two

2011-03-27T14:06:00.000-07:00

....Blood Poem Number One having been destroyed by the person who received it....

CYRUS CASSELLS, POET AND TRANSLATOR

2011-03-22T16:37:00.000-07:00

Cyrus Cassells read today, 22 March 2011, at the luncheon gathering of the Center for the Art of Translation in San Francisco. He spoke about and read his translations from the Catalan language of poet Franscec Parcerisas, and from his own poetry. I do not like much contemporary poetry, but at first glance knew that I was going to love his poetry.

Cyrus read most of the Parcerisas verses in Catalan after reading his English translations.

With a wealth of experience around the globe, Cassells is also currently working on a book with various Europeans about youths in World War II. Then, as now, some of the young can be touched by idealism and incredible courage. The book will be called THE CROSSED-OUT SWASTIKA, in honor of Hans Scholl who went about in World War II, crossing out any swastikas he saw posted on public walls. You may know that Hans and his sister Sophie, and others involved in non-violent action against the Nazis, at the University of Munich were part of a group called The White Rose. Eventually all were executed by the Nazis. At least one film has been made about them, which is probably accessible for viewing on the Internet, SOPHIE SCHOLL: THE FINAL DAYS.

In a very circular fashion, The Center for the Art of Translation has directed people to this entry on my blog, and I, in turn, now provide you a link where you may hear Mr. Cassells' presentation at CAT -- low volume for those introducing him, but you can hear Mr. Cassells speak of and recite his translations and some of his own poetry: http://www.catranslation.org/blogpost/cyrus-cassells-on-francesc-parcerisas

Finding an Old Valentine

2011-03-20T01:26:00.000-07:00

I came across this. A long while ago a local San Francisco station ran a contest in which 4 or 6 people might win a competition for writing about their valentines. Each of the winners would have a segment on their station, with video of the writer and his or her valentine, as the writer read the text that had won. I was chosen as one among the six, and I had to prepare for a camera to intrude on a certain still shy person -- In my place I created Tiger Face which I posted on my wall to safeguard me and my valentine.

My Valentine

"Our love story began fourteen years ago when she left the person she was living with and came to my house. We were both very strung‑out – not a good place to begin to learn how to love, but we taught each other; it would require a very long book to describe the ups and downs by which we have come to the place we are now; it’s much less dramatic, but this is where the greater love story begins.

"You would hardly think it romantic that she is dying of leukemia. Dying heroines excite love in movies and operas, but in our everyday lives we don’t think of sickness and dying as attractive.

"Yet it has been affection that has grown, not any feeling of dread or disgust. Draped in my arms, her body growing lighter and lighter, it’s as if she were not dying but turning into a silk scarf. This is the end that should be terrible, but it’s like a long last act of La Traviata with brave Violetta singing her last song over and over,

but never really letting go. I will go on being suspended in her song even when she is gone.

"A greyness and a whiteness is being cast over her color as if she will disappear under snow. But the love she has given me will remain, better than words, a big red rose like a cardinal jumping down a snowbank. You wouldn’t think this was romantic either, but I know I will always smile, after I cry, when I remember the brush of her whiskers against the corner of my mouth. She does that when she’s hungry for petting, affection, or food. Love is love, you know, no matter who teaches you, even someone like my dear cat Cirrus."

I suppose you found "the hook" in this piece, that probably assured its acceptance, by the second paragraph, if not right away. It was a sweet video, I think, but the video played on what I had counted would also cause it to win: the image of the pathetic old gay guy, lonely, with no friend but his "great love," his cat. Well, it was not all cunning and ego, and I DID learn to love from my cat, as all cat lovers know.

Sophia Shows You How to Ice a Bruised Cheek, as She Happens to Have One

2011-03-19T21:16:00.000-07:00

A Verse by Victor Gonzalez Perez (AKA Victor Gonzalez)

2011-03-03T12:17:00.001-08:00

Victor Gonzalez Perez was born in Aibonito, Puerto Rico. His parents immigrated to San Francisco, California when he was a child. His family later moved to Brooklyn, New York. From New York they moved back to Puerto Rico, and then back to San Francisco, California where he spent the major part of his life. He is now retired and resides permanently in Merida, Yucatan, Mexico. He wrote this verse in San Francisco in 1971.

Right Now Boxed Into Walls

by Victor Gonzalez Perez

A thin veil bars

-- mine and theirs --

And yet miniscule glimpses

-- eyes blinking

Gasping for an answer beyond now.

Recuerdos (memories)

Upon the tiny plaza where

sleep the dead heroes

the fountain stands

eternal vigil.

Fire tree leaves

-- el flamboyan --

carpet the promenade

a lovers' nest.

Recuerdos (memories)

red faced roofs and balconies like embroidered

mouths where grandma sat on her sugarcane

throne counting the seasons

her eyes of spanish tiles watching green mountains

dangling from the clouds

while the tiny insect troubadors lulled the night

to sleep in its satin hammock

Ahora (& now)

The day swallows

the rainbow garden's

frail butterfly

The arch of thorns

crumbles on its halo

-- and you and i struggle on

perched on the brink

of yesterdays.

[November 1971]

Sarah Patten's work

2011-02-28T22:53:00.000-08:00

You might look at Sarah Patten's collages -- her website added to my "Links to Friends" section at the lower right: http://www.sarahpatten.com/collages.html

Out of the Old Boxes: Lot Two

2011-02-22T20:37:00.000-08:00

Opening old storage boxes, more fragile butteflies fly up and into the ether. On the way, they often go through transformation as they pass through Photoshop. Click on the title above if you care to see a slide show of Lot Two from the old Boxes.

With apologies to all architects, my fantasy plan...

2011-02-22T19:43:00.000-08:00

I had this notion -- a pyramid ziggurat form. Whether an earthen pyramid or a building in a pyramid shape, people could walk up and down the outer ramp.

But it could also be a sluice for water to irrigate a green cover or gardens along the pyramid.

But I also imagine (represented by plastic tubing) a walkway where people could walk through the sky. Or it could be a water chute. Or...

...perhaps this could just be a format for a variety of structures. Needless to say my "model" is primitive and not professional, but then it is just a fantasy not an actual building plan.

Click on the title of this entry if you want to see a slide show of the stages of making this model.

Doing Tai Chi in a Picture Postcard

2011-02-17T17:39:00.000-08:00

Some friends and I do tai chi in what is equivalent to a picture postcard, on a pier next to San Francisco's Ferry Building, with the Bay Bridge in sight, with our rhythms and motions in tandem with the rhythms of nature, the ever-changing waters and weather by the Bay. Sometimes all six of us are present, but sometimes we are as few as two, such as here with Dana Weisshaar and Martha Hubert. At this ideal location we do tai chi, then one or the other may have a chai tea, and should anyone sneeze while doing the form, we do not speak aloud, but we may be thinking, "tai chooo!"

Jo Ann Mischler

2011-02-17T17:21:00.000-08:00

When I was about 13, with money saved from orchard and bakery work (60 cents an hour, as I recall), I bought my Kokak Panda camera that took square photos, and you looked down into a square viewfinder before taking the photo. I felt compelled to make "portraits" of a little neighbor girl, Jo Ann Mischler. I see that in one of the photos I requested that she wear some "cape" over her Hopalong Cassidy sweatshirt. Her mother lived somewhere else, and she was living two houses away with a Mennonite woman who wore a plain dress, of course, probably fastened with pins, buttons being forbidden, and wearing the standard gauzy white cotton bonnet, strings dangling free. She was undoubtedly one of the Mennonites whose labors small town citizens could enjoy at minimal wages. Many years later, I met Jo Ann when she had become a young adult, and she was beautiful and chic, retaining a quick spirit that had appealed to me. She remembered how being photographed had affected her in some way. Sadly, I believe she did not live long after that, struck down by some illness. Click on the photo to expand it -- Isn't that a Mona Lisa smile?:

Haiku for the Egyptians

2011-02-11T14:03:00.000-08:00

A Peaceable Kingom

2011-02-11T14:00:00.000-08:00

Paul Heidt sent me a sweet example of interspecies harmony. It felt in accord with a verse (whether good or bad) that I was working on presently (below). The video from Paul probably easier to access by clicking on the title line above, "A Peaceable Kingdom" (the name over time for portraits of all animals lying in peaceful harmony), but here is the link also: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d79ArrL8VRg

Gail Horvath's Nexus Gateway to Others' Blogs

2011-02-11T11:05:00.000-08:00

Gail has created a site that is a gateway to blogs she follows. I suppose she will continue to add sites as time passes. I have added her site to my "Links to Friend's Sites" on my opening page(s):
http://eyesoftheheart.squarespace.com/other-peoples-blogs/

Sophia and Eduardo Have Turned Three...It's Written in Chocolate on Their Faces

2011-02-09T22:03:00.001-08:00

Louise Nayer Reads at the Cafe Royale, San Francisco, in January 2011

2011-02-09T22:03:00.000-08:00

Louise Nayer reading from her great book, BURNED, at the Cafe Royale, Post and Leavenworth, San Francisco, in January 2011.

Happy 3rd Birthday, Sophia and Eduardo

2011-01-29T22:30:00.000-08:00

Anti Mubarak Demonstration, San Francisco, 29 January 2011

2011-01-29T20:30:00.000-08:00

To see a slide show of this demonstration, click the title above.

Father Roy: Inside the School of Assassins

2011-01-29T15:08:00.000-08:00

Click on the title above to see a documentary on the insidious SOA (School of the America), the U.S. government's school to train assassins.

Fred Goldsmith's Photography Website Launched

2011-01-29T00:25:00.000-08:00

To see Fred Goldsmith's newly launched photography website, click on the title above -- but it will also join other friend's websites, ever available in the list to the right on my blog page -- and I hope I gave proper fanfare introduction for each of them.
Fred's design for his website, you will find, is very restrained and elegant.

Fifty Nests and the Birds That Built Them

2011-01-26T18:05:00.000-08:00

For lovers of art and nature photography -- and for the photographers I know who ought to publish a book of their work -- have a look at Sharon Beal's new book -- Click on the title above, NESTS: Fifty Nests and the Birds That Built Them

The Chinese Character for Tao (Dao), "the Way"

2011-01-24T20:05:00.000-08:00

I suppose there may be copyrights on the three representations of the Chinese character for Tao (the Way) shown at right of this text, but I simply want to show them as examples before presenting my new version of the character: I am prepared for anyone who wishes to call my new version the "comic book" version!

In "The Spirit of the Chinese Character" (Barbara Aria with Russell Eng Gon), the character, "tao," is said to have originally meant a "course of action," perhaps a military one, as the character combines "foot" or "to follow" with "the leader" -- a "head" topped with two plumes (in ancient days signifying the rank of general." To Confucius (the law-giver type), tao is the "way" of life rules and moral rectitude, while to Lao-tzu (the intuitive type) "Tao" is the fluid truth of the universe.

Just as its meanings were being transformed in the beginning, friends and I see still other images in the character. For instance, it is a ladder to one; to me, a ladder with broken rungs, suggesting how the Way is not straight and narrow and easy -- One sometimes goes into cul-de-sacs (one rung may break under foot), and one must take a leap or back out, having lost the main way (as Dante says in the first lines of his Divine Comedy) and continue the search to find the true Way, the search, constantly refined, that IS the Way -- Don't you think? Two ways of coloring my version -- just for the fun of it:

Finding the Origin of Names

2011-01-22T20:02:00.001-08:00

Paul Harmon has provided me a website you can access by clicking on "Finding the Origin of Names," above, where the meanings of names can be found, and where they originated on earth.

What follows will be of no interested except to my relatives:

It has verified what I had always heard in my father's family, that the Eilers came from a part of northern Germany that borders with the Netherlands. I could not find the name "Niehaves" (a variation of Neuhaus or Newhouse, perhaps), which was the name of my great grandfather, whose widowed wife and sons were taken in by the Eilers in Michigan and given that family's lat name. According to this site, the Eilers outside Germany settled mostly in the U.S. and Canada.

Other people, researching my mother's family, the McColleys, have established that they were in the U.S. before the Revolutionary War -- I have wondered if they came as bonded servants, but there is no reason to think so. They were among the Scots who came down to northern Ireland, coming to be known as the Scots-Irish -- some say, an immigration arranged by the English to dilute Irish national identity -- that too I cannot verify. But the odd thing is that any connection with Ireland, or even Scotland, is not indicated on their map; whatever McColleys are still in the British Isles seem to be almost entirely in the lower and mid part of England.
But most McColleys are in the U.S.A., and, according to those who researched the family, were first in New England, but now are concentrated in about ten states, especially Montana and Minnesota. In my native Indiana, the largest concentration is in Wabash and Owen Counties; next, in level of concentration of McColleys, and where my mother's people lived, was Lake County, and Porter County next to it. McColleys were also in the counties St. Joseph, Kosciusko, Tippecanoe, Shelby, Rush, and Henry.

Newly Published Translations

2011-01-18T11:09:00.000-08:00

If you would like to read my translations of four German verses, plus the biographical texts they require on the translated poets, they have just been published on-line, where you may find them by clicking on the title above, "Newly Published Translations." It does not show the Synopsis they elicited from me as it is on their webpage introducing the new translations being featured. The Synopsis, below, is the context in which Strauss chose these verses for his last work:

FOUR LAST SONGS: the poems that comprise the final song cycle by Richard Strauss

Written by Hermann Hesse and Joseph Freiherr von Eichendorff

Translated from the German by James McColley Eilers

January 2011

SYNOPSIS:

In October 1947, Richard Strauss (1864-1949) went to London where Sir Thomas Beecham had organized a festival of his music. The British, so soon after World War II, were still suspicious of this German who had remained silent about Nazis while surviving in the Third Reich. A young reporter asked the 83-year-old composer his plans for the future. “Oh,” said Strauss, “to die.”

In this end-of-life state of mind, Strauss began work on his last work, the Four Last Songs (Vier letzte Lieder). He set the song cycle, which premiered only after his death, to verses written by two poets at a similar twilight stage of their respective lives, Mermann Hesse and Joseph Freiherr von Eichendorff. Strauss’ inspiration began with his discovery of Eichendorff’s poem, Im Abendrot (At Sunset). Perhaps it was because Strauss and his wife had lived through a grim period of history over their fifty-four years of marriage that Strauss was moved by the Eichendorff verse, which describes an old couple who have survived a life’s journey through sorrow and joy. At around the same time, Strauss received a copy of the complete poems of Hermann Hesse, and Four Last Songs cycle includes three of them – Frühling (Spring), September, and Beim Schlafengehen (When I Go to Sleep).

Strauss composed the Four Last Songs with Kirsten Flagstad in mind, and she sang the first performance on May 22, 1950, in the Royal Festival Hall, London, with Wilhelm Furtwängler conducting the Philharmonia Orchestra.

"The Child" In Honor of Christina Taylor Green

2011-01-14T08:53:00.000-08:00

KEEP THE TOUCHSTONE OF THAT CHILD’S IMAGINATION

Is there anyone who did not cry at the murder of the victims in Tucson, most particularly at the death of Christina Taylor Green? Obama, in his speech commemorating these citizens, found the greatest touchstone for political behavior: Would your next act be worthy of that child’s imagination of how great the U.S could be? There is a longstanding “spiritual” map for the human race: The original Age of the Matriarchy was supplanted by the Age of the Patriarchy, and, finally, we may hope the gender war will end, and the Patriarchy be replaced by the Age of the Child. It is a common notion that every child represents our hope for the future. For many reasons, there is no better guide than to ask, as President Obama did, “Would this act be worthy of the vision of America in the imagination of Christina Taylor Green?” While using That Child's name makes the most effective rhetorical flourish, for the sake of her family, I would not want to use her name like a picket sign. Perhaps we could say, “Would this act be worthy of the vision of That Child [or a general and universal “The Child”]?”

And we might hope that all political figures, including President Obama, would daily, hourly, keep that touchstone in mind. Shall we address the President and all politicians with “Would the use of drone bombers be worthy of The Child? Would The Child approve of people without jobs and money having to do without proper health care, food to eat, a place to live? Would causing the American people to live in a perpetual state of fear and insecurity be worthy of The Child? Would The Child approve of concealing the thousands of tragic scenes where people are turned out of their homes? Would The Child be pleased with the food lines outside churches? Would The Child approve of the government announcing a hit list on various people around the globe? Would The Child approve of continued military adventures based on U.S. notions of exceptionalism and entitlement, pressed on by messianic notions of being the purveyors of a particular notion of truth? Would The Child want us to restore, or find ourselves, a national democracy, or would she want us to be an empire attempting to control all on earth? Would The Child consider it worthy for the nation, through capital punishment, to be the murderer of murderers?

If this sounds right to you, please add your own questions. (Watching Amy Goodman daily will provide you many, many more such questions: http:/www.democracynow.org)
I intend to send this to the White House (comments@whitehouse.gov). Perhaps you will send your own enhanced list there, and if they receive enough of the messages, perhaps one of them will be heard.

Publication of the verse "Father"

2011-01-13T22:01:00.000-08:00

My verse, "Father," will be published fairly soon on the 2010 on-line collection of 100 verses called "The Poetry Ark." It is very likely that you have read it before, but, if not, you can see it by clicking on the title line.

Women Muralists in 1980

2010-12-26T01:13:00.000-08:00

I want to share with the muralists at Precita Eyes in the Mission these images from 1980. Click on the subject line above "Women Muralists in 1980" to see a brief slide show of images women artists painted on the side of the Galleria de la Raza in 1980.

Veterans For Peace

2010-12-17T15:57:00.000-08:00

Photographers captured the passion of the die-in staged by Veterans For Peace/Veterans Against War at the U.S. Federal Building in San Francisco on Thursday, 16 December 2010, the bodies of veterans and their supporters blocking doorways. On the milder side, for a few photos of people, and a review of the wonderful signs at the preliminary demonstration, click on the title above "Veterans For Peace."

In Washington, D.C. (as reported on the Democracy Now website), "an estimated 135 people were arrested outside the White House in an antiwar protest led by the group Veterans for Peace. The protesters were detained after chaining themselves to the White House fence. Iraq War veteran Mike Prysner urged continued civil disobedience to end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Mike Prysner: "They’re not going to end the wars. And they’re not going to do it because it’s not our government. It’s their government. It’s the government of the rich. It’s the government of Wall Street, of the oil giants, of the defense contractors. It’s their government. And the only language that they understand is shutting down business as usual. And that’s what we’re doing here today, and we’re going to continue to do until these wars are over. We’re going to fight until there’s not one more bomb dropped, not one more bullet fired, not one more soldier coming home in a wheelchair, not one more family slaughtered, not one more day of U.S. imperialism."

"Among those arrested were the Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg and FBI whistleblower Colleen Rowley."

EAT -- or TAX THE RICH

2010-12-15T18:50:00.000-08:00

I joined some friends -- and strangers with signs -- outside the S.F. Federal Building on Seventh Street, San Francisco, waiting to see if the U.S. House would follow the U.S. Senate's approving of giving tax breaks to the rich. A Homeland Security man found some way to scold us, but we were grateful then to have his vehicle to hold up one of the signs:

Happy Autumn

2010-12-07T12:01:00.001-08:00

December 2010

Happy Autumn: Anthem for an Altar to the Seeming Dead

This year the falling of leaves is a celebration –
swatches in burgundy, amber, umber, yellow,
scarlet – the warm colors of antique tapestries.
These leaf shapes, everyday and ancient, are each
a vowel or word in the deeper text we live.

In this happy time, Sherrill, Michael, the two
Roberts, and the one Bobby – my beloved dead
never truly departed – hunger for reviving speech.
The falling leaves are not notes from the dead.
The only language we share now is in a place
beyond sadness where bright leaves laugh.

Random Thoughts, and Pictures from the Oakland Museum

2010-12-06T11:41:00.000-08:00

While too much energy is being absorbed by the issues of establishing civil rights for gay men and lesbians in regard to marriage and service in the military, it may be fully warranted by the positive effect this "distraction" would have on all those more life-threatening issues, by causing one more change in those rigid, strangling defintions that are nonsense venerated only because they are ancient. Any clear mind would see through these unquestioned habits of thought. Even those who mouth those prejudices stumble in trying to make the irrational sound rational. If the state really lived by their definitions of heterosexual marriage, most heterosexual marriages would be declared illegal. According to their definition, men and women only marry to propagate the herd, not for any feelings of intellectual rapport or emotional attachment.

In a negative form of the Golden Rule -- the more common Leaden Rule -- they did Saddam Hussein as he would have done. He understood death by hanging, having known the world as cruel form his birth. The U.S. showed him nothing new while they pretended to be different from him. And via film, the population was able to gather at his gallows as a sick entertainment. Where vengeance rules, the most heinous villain begins to seem pathetic; his conquerors, seem, in their own right (wrong), butchers of the butcher. As my old college mentor used to say in farewell greeting: "Onward and downward."