Eleven

11 police have been killed
and 23 people wounded
in a car bomb
attack in the northern

Iraqi city of Kirkuk.
Those killed had been
protecting an oil installation.
They were travelling through

a southern neighbourhood of
the city when the
bomb, which was planted
in a parked car,

exploded. Many of the
injured were civilians. Kirkuk
is the centre of
northern Iraq's oil industry,

and home to a
volatile mix of Kurds,
Arabs and Turkmen. Survey
finds Iraqis more positive.


#


source: BBC News

One

In Kinde, Michigan a
41-year-old man
may have been mauled
to death by dogs.

A neighbor found the
man’s body inside a
small camper. The neighbor
also was severely bitten

by three dogs, which
had to be beaten
off by another neighbor.
Film fest schedule announced.


#


source: Associated Press/Chicago Tribune, April 14, 2009

One

An 18-year-old
man walked into the
Alcoholics Anonymous building at
2015 College St. in

Five Points about 10:48 p.m.
Saturday and demanded money.
“Gimme what you got,”
witnesses quoted the robber

as saying. As one
AA visitor dropped
something on the floor —
possibly his wallet — another

pulled out his own
pistol and shot the
robber “multiple times.” Kayson
Helms, 18, of Edison, New

Jersey, was pronounced dead
at Palmetto Health Richland
at 11:24 p.m. Saturday. An
autopsy showed bullets hit

Helms in the abdomen,
chest and neck. At
twilight Sunday, the center
was deserted. A sign

on the front read,
“No Money Left in
Club Overnight.” LeCorn's injury
sours offense’s strong day.


#


source: The State [New Jersey], April 13, 2009
John Monk, Rich Glickstein, reporting

Thirteen

Two ambushes, suspected to
have been carried out
by leftist rebels, left
13 soldiers dead in a

mountainous region of Peru,
Ayacucho Province, a coca-
growing area and the
birthplace of the Maoist

Shining Path guerrilla group.
The rebels used grenades
and dynamite to attack
army patrols as they

passed. One soldier was
killed in the first
attack, while 12 troops
died in the second.

Peru’s government says the
Shining Path has all
but abandoned its fight
from leftist ideological in

favor of running drugs.
Bringing troops home from
Iraq might require Obama
to be like Ike.


#


source: Reuters (via NYT)

Seven

A suicide bomber driving
a dump truck detonated
a load of explosives
at a police headquarters

in the northern city
of Mosul, killing
five American soldiers and
two Iraqi police officers.

Guards fired at the
vehicle when the driver
disobeyed orders to stop.
The American soldiers "were

just in the vicinity,
passing by" when the
truck detonated. The blast
wounded 22. Sunni insurgents

target Iraqi security forces,
seeing them as loyal to
a Shiite-led government
installed by an occupation

force. Some Mosul residents
felt fresh outrage watching
a video that shows
Shiite National Police officers

taunting a blindfolded and
handcuffed Sunni inmate. It
is on YouTube.
Yellow ribbon magnets personalized.


#


source: Washington Post, April 11, 2009
Ernesto Londoño, Dlovan Brwari, K.I. Ibrahim, Aziz Alwan and Qais Mizher, reporting

Three

The twister descended quickly
on Mena, Arkansas, shortly
after 8 p.m. Thurman
Allen, 79, said his

charitable group, the Order
of the Eastern Star,
had just sat down
for its twice-monthly

meeting at the Masonic
lodge when the last
siren sounded. Before the
19 attendees could take

cover, the tornado peeled
away the roof with
winds so strong that
some women had their

shoes ripped off their
feet. One woman was
killed by falling debris —
her body recovered after

emergency workers cut part
of the roof away.
A different roof collapse
killed a second person.

The body of the third
was found in her
own front yard. At
Mena Middle School one

portable classroom was destroyed
and part of the auditorium's
roof ripped away. Rick
Lanman, who manages the

Mena Airport, said darkness
fell quickly as the
tornado crossed the Oklahoma
border 10 miles away.

"Me and the dog
ran to the bathroom
when we saw it
on the TV," Lanman

said. "It was here
in less than a
minute." Morning showed century-
old pecan trees leaning --

some strung with pink
insulation. Sioux Falls man
has won National Meat-
Cutter of the Year.


#


source: Associated Press, April 10, 2009
Jon Gambrell, reporting

Three

A minivan ran a
red light in Fullerton,
California, striking two cars
and killing three people.

Angels pro-baseball player Nick
Adenhart was among the
dead. Adenhart, 22, had
pitched against the Oakland

A’s a few hours
earlier. The minivan driver
was caught on foot
and is being charged

with felony hit-and-
run. The three who
died were in a
gray Mitsubishi, which slammed

into a light pole
after being struck. Two
died instantly. Adenhart died
later at UC Irvine

Medical Center. A fourth
occupant is in critical
condition. Cindy Crawford on
a Bikini Beach binge.


#


source: FOX News, April 9, 2009

One

Virginia Montalvo, 71, was
pushing a shopping cart
full of empty bottles
and cans Monday morning

when a van headed
east on Jamaica Avenue
struck her and kept
going. Bags of bottles

and cans remain strewn
along Jamaica Avenue under
the elevated tracks of
the J and Z

trains. Paramedics took Ms
Montalvo to Jamaica Hospital
Medical Center, where she
was pronounced dead at

1:15 a.m. Said Esteban
Cobos, 44, her son-in-law,
“She went and did
her collections to keep

herself busy, so as
not to be bored
sitting at home.” Beatles
albums to be reissued.


#


source: The New York Times, April 8, 2009
Mathew R. Warren and Al Baker, reporting

Eight

A car bomb, parked
near a mosque in
a busy area of
the predominantly Shi'ite district

of Kadhimya, killed at
least 8. The explosion also
wounded 18. This is
only the latest in

a string of bombings
in Baghdad’s Shi’ite neighborhoods.
Microsoft delays Stirling to
Better develop behavioral detection.


#


Source: Middle East News, Apr 7, 2009

Ninety

Central Italy has been
rocked by a powerful
earthquake registering 5.8 on
the Richter scale. At

least 90 people were killed
and hundreds injured. Dozens
are still missing. The quake's
epicentre was in the

mountainous Abruzzo region, northeast
of the capital Rome.
Residents of the regional
capital L'Aquila and surrounding

villages ran into the
streets in panic. Thousands
of houses and other buildings
have collapsed or been

damaged, including a number
of old churches. Thousands
have been left homeless.
Communists win Moldovan election.


source: Radio Netherlands, April 6, 2009

Three

An ambush that resulted
in the shooting deaths
of three Pittsburgh policemen
was precipitated by an

emergency call from the
gunman's mother over a dog
urinating in the house.
Richard Poplawski and his

mother argued about his
dog's accident Saturday morning,
prompting her to threaten
to evict him and

to call police. When
his mother let the
police into the house,
her son, already armed

and wearing a bulletproof
vest, began firing. Currently
the 23-year-old
Poplawski is recovering in

a local hospital from
gunshot wounds to his
legs. Catholic hierarchy finds
flock not easily led.


#


source: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, April 5, 2009
Michael Fuoco, reporting

Two

Two men were killed
in Baghdad's Sadr City
slum after clerics urged
a crackdown on homosexuality.

Conditions are especially dangerous
for gays and lesbians
in Iraq since the U.S.
invasion empowered religious militias.

“Their tribes killed them
to restore family honor,"
said a Sadr City official.
At two Friday prayer

gatherings sermons condemning homosexuality
were proclaimed. Some who
shave their beards and
dress in a more

Western style are now
accused of being gay;
at least one coffee
shop’s a gay hangout.

"This (homosexuality) has spread
because of the absence
of the Mehdi Army,
the spread of satellite

television and a lack of
government surveillance," said Shi’ite
Sheikh Ibrahim al-Gharawi. At
G20 Queen shushes Berlusconi.


#


source: Reuters, April 4, 2009
Wisam Mohammed, Khalid al-Ansary, Ahmed Rasheed, reporting

One

Kevin Hernandez-Pinto, 17,
of Central Islip, was
driving a 1994 Toyota
Camry south on Church
Street when he hit

a taxi, a 1999
Ford Crown Victoria being
driven westbound on Suffolk
Avenue by Christopher Jackson,
33, of Central Islip.

A third car, a 2007
Mazda, being driven westbound
on Suffolk Avenue by
Marcia Ledwidge, 46, of
Central Islip, also hit

the Camry. Hernandez-Pinto
died shortly thereafter at
Southside Hospital where he
and his three passengers had

been transported by ambulance.
The three passengers suffered
non-life-threatening injuries. Two are
Central Islip High School

students. Jackson and a
passenger in the taxi
also were transported to
Southside Hospital and were

treated for neck and back
injuries. Ledwidge, however, was
taken to Good Samaritan.
Were you at Woodstock?


#


source: Newsday, April 3, 2009
John Valenti & Sophia Chang, reporting

One

Exxxxx Hxxx Mxxxxx, 74,
was strangled by her
ex-husband, Wxxxxxx, 78. Mr
Mxxxxx had been at

the house to discuss
their daughter, 40. Neighbors
told the police they
heard screaming. Mr Mxxxxx

called his daughter who,
upon arrival, found Mrs
Mxxxxx dead.“The age
of the parties involved

makes it somewhat unusual,”
said Lt Chris Russ
of the Pasadena Police.
Women rescue unwanted bees.


#


source: LA Times, April 2, 2009
Jia-Rui Chong, reporting

Eleven

A group of suicide
bombers raided a provincial
council building in Kandahar
on Wednesday and killed 11.

One bomber blew himself
up at the gate,
killing the guard, while
three more got inside

and started firing. Police
swiftly moved into the
compound and shot dead
two of the would-be

bombers, but a third
succeeded in blowing up
the explosives attached to
his body. The attackers

were dressed in Afghan
army uniforms, witnesses said.
Sixteen people, including members
of the council, were

wounded. A Taliban leader
said, "Our aim was
to inflict maximum losses."
Crisis hits moon sales.


#


source: Reuters Wed Apr 1, 2009
Ismail Sameem, reporting from Afghanistan

cordite acts

I want to be loved, even at Christmas. The shapes suggested a nest. Lovers are leavers, aren't they, although we who stand at the intersections of beats, wait only for strings before raising our elective spirits.

Mother, did you remember the separator? Several august personages and a small packet were seen at the alphabet trough. Afterwards we heard things, carried things, and repeated our ideas with abandon on porches. Pop! Severally activated or lightly activated, action alerts, hack tactics. The rehearsals? We don't know if we can make them, other things interrupting our plates.

Tired in the pest's best. The lady's daughter called her other daughter and the answer was forthcoming. An agenda or a peacemaker, you never know. Despite a collection of promises, you never know. Never being the operative word. An electric shock where you expect a yellow facial tissue.

pobre me

Leave me to the bargains. Nobody looks in the door at the fratricidal envelopes. Even people whose ideas have been knotted for years are willing to forgo a sincere episode of the regular series, Mrs Edges has written in her column for the Sanguinal Section.

We don't know what rooms have let room in so we turn our heads to the left & to the right, repeatedly, in quick lunges slowed perceptibly by meager easements of the peripheral. A weary tear drags its gelatinous ass toward the maw of legends.

A new vigor was replaced before it had given a tenth its value. What can you do? You put your head back into the noose, but where is the gamekeeper's daughter? You crane your sympathetic nervous system but this time there is no attitude set to adjust.

circs to Austen

I made a rough estimate of the backlog of paperbacks I have stacked up on shelves in the workroom here at Claremont: 160

I'd say with 95% certainty that I have between 150 and 200 paperbacks waiting. But I'm not going to count them to find out how right I am. Cuz who cares.

I processed a batch earlier. Mostly general fiction, a few mass market-size mysteries, a romance. I can do 'em pretty fast these days. A barcode, an RFID tag, rubber stamp "Claremont Branch", a spine label with the first two letters of the author's last name, some tape covering stuff easily torn or rubbed off, and an item record in the computer. Then out onto the shelves to see if anybody wants to read 'em.

Saw a book had circ'd (that is, had been checked out) 30 times in the last three years. That's a lot. Standard circ period for a book is three weeks and renewals don't count as circs.

I can't remember what it was ...

Oh yeah. The Jane Austen Book Club by Karen Joy Fowler. Not quite three years, actually. I put it out there in August '06, so that's 2 1/2 years for 30 circs.

I was just scanning the list of paperbacks and I think it's the only one to have hit 30. In order to be sure I'd have to check through the stats on each individual title and I'm not that obsessive.

A few others that have more than 20 circs in 3 years:

Michael Cunningham's The Hours
Elmore Leonard's La Brava
Zadie Smith's White Teeth
Yann Martel's Life of Pi
Jeffrey Eugenides' Middlesex
Tom Perrotta's Little Children

At 27 circs Little Children is closest to catching The Jane Austen Book Club. And, no, at present I do not have any Austen-authored novels in the browsing paperbacks collection. On the other hand I do have latter day sequels:

Jane Fairfax: a companion to Emma by Joan Aiken (12 circs) and Elizabeth Aston's The Second Mrs Darcy (2 circs in the 4 months it's been on the racks).

Moments after writing the above a patron came up to the desk to check out Aiken's Jane Fairfax, so I suppose we should say that one's got 13 circs now.

Active Dimensions!

Quiet so far today at the Claremont branch. Have had a few reference questions -- a caller asked if we had Moo, a novel by Jane Smiley (I knew there was a copy among the browsing paperbacks and, yes, it was on the shelf, so I put it aside for the caller to pick up this afternoon); another patron, who had placed a hold on a book this morning but came in before we had a chance to fetch it from the shelf for him, came to the desk saying the book wasn't on hold for him and it wasn't out in the stacks, help?, so I said first I would doublecheck the regular shelf cuz things get out of order, and, yup, there it was (and it was in the right place -- they always apologize when they overlook an item, which is nice, but I'm just glad when it's easy to find); just now I was told Berkeley Library books were setting off alarms in other places (a bookstore, the Cal library) but we don't use the magnetic theft detection system anymore (with RFID it's all radio) so we no longer have equipment that will desensitize the magnetic strips that are in so many of our old books, no way I know of to prevent the setting off of foreign alarms, the patron was understandably irritated at having his bag pawed through at the bookstore.

One of the books I've added to the weeding truck, a 1983 book on frugal fashion for men, suggested, "Substituting for the traditional sweater and pants, a sweat suit adds an active dimension when worn under a blazer." This is a caption under a photo depicting a handsome 40ish man conservatively dressed, suit jacket, white shirt, tie -- and a rumply gray sweat shirt and sweat pants. Active dimensions!

Another book (1984) promises, "The uniforms of policemen, sailors, farmers, equestrians, doctors, sculptors, cooks, cheerleaders, etc., can function as the most practical comfortable, durable, strong and chic pieces of one's wardrobe." The book is dedicated to Mao Zedong -- a photo shows Mao in a light button up shirt and khakis held up with a dark belt; he's resting one hand on a shovel. The book has been checked out 5 times in the last 18 years (and not since 2003). Time for it to be discarded?

the new replacements

I want to. No. That's not what I want. If you've come for the high water, turn to it. If you've come for the higher, turn over.

A new perspicacity waits in the car, motor running, engine humming, future in gases.

I want to. But I am willing to change. I am willing to report what needs to be changed. If you've come to bear witness, bear it and smile. If you've come to the barrier, witless from beatings, cling to it deformed.

A new personality? What are you talking about? Where did you replace this?

from Einstein's Daughter to Hemingway's Death

I weeded some paperbacks today. I tend the browsing paperbacks collection at the Claremont Branch in Berkeley. Because there's no budget for paperbacks I choose from donations and good stuff does come in. The flip side of adding new books is deleting old ones. Today I went through the list of science fiction and nonfiction and removed from the spinning racks books that have been going around and around under book hungry eyes for two years yet have left the building four times or less -- in a few cases, not once. Hemingway's Death in the Afternoon, for instance. I'd thought we'd have a Hemingway die-hard or two passing through. But no. Either that or they long since pored over his every word. His fiction still does okay. I guess the bullfighting revival hasn't sparked yet. I wasn't familiar with any of the sci-fi/fantasy authors I was removing. I don't try very hard to keep up but I like a science fiction novel now & again. Oh yes, there was one -- Michael Crichton. His time has passed? His Jurassic Park sequel, The Lost World, turned under uninterested eyes.

Other nonfic that came off the shelves today: Michele Zackheim's Einstein's Daughter, Lars Eighner's Travels with Lizbeth, Cleveland Amory's Ranch of Dreams, a 2006 issue of the literary magazine West Branch. Those, anyway, are the ones I'm hanging onto for possible lunchtime reading. Others that I turned over to the Friends of the Library for their book sale include: Surviving Schizophrenia, a Rita Mae Brown book on writing (I forget the title), and Vision on Fire (this one chronicles Emma Goldman's efforts on behalf of the good guys during the Spanish Civil War back in the 30s).

the invisible book

We use RFID in the library. Patrons use self-checkout machines. An RFID chip in the book (or DVD or CD or whatever) is read by the machine, which then adds the item to the patron's checkout record.

The machines are temperamental. They seem to confuse themselves. This is one of the weirder quirks: Let's say you've stepped up to the machine. The machine features a helpful wide shelf for holding items for checkout. You lay your book there. You pass your library card under the laser scanner and the machine identifies you. Great! Now you watch the animation on the screen that demonstrates the proper method for checkout. The animation has disembodied hands laying a stack of books down on the nice convenient shelf on which you've already laid that one book you were planning to take home.

You wait.

Nothing happens.

You lift the book and lay it down again, imitating that animation that keeps repeating itself. Your book is not getting checked out. What's wrong?

What's wrong is that you placed the book on that helpful wide open shelf before you scanned your card. Anything that is sitting on that beckoning convenient shelf when you start the process seems to be invisible to the checkout machine. What you now have to do is remove your book, put it somewhere next to the machine or hold it in your hand out of the machine's RFID range, and restart the process. Now it works. Usually.

Except when it doesn't. Then you have to take the book to your helpful human who will use his or her staff checkout machine.

Most people are good at using the self-checkout machines. And most the time the self-checkout machines do their job the way they are supposed to. Once in awhile someone gets a techno-gee-whiz glow from the thrill of interfacing with the 21st century. Other times we see crinkly faces & curses. But mostly it's okay. We all get through it - patrons, library workers, and RFID machines.

reply from Hawaii

I got a reply to the email I sent yesterday:

Aloha:

Thank you for your e-mail regarding this bill. I am very sensitive to the arguments on both sides of this issue.

I will give your comments serious consideration before making a decision on HB444.

Senator Donna Mercado Kim
Chair, Ways and Means Committee
Hawaii State Capitol, Room 210
Honolulu, Hawaii 96813
Phone: 808-587-7200
Fax: 808-587-7205
email: senkim@capitol.hawaii.gov

**

Both sides? The good side and the bad side? Very sensitive!

aloha

There's an action alert at DailyKos, the Demo political site, asking people to email Hawaii state senators. It seems there's a civil unions bill bottled up in committee. If moved to the full senate it could pass and civil unions may become law in Hawaii. That would be good.

So I sent the following epistle to sens@Capitol.hawaii.gov:

Aloha Hawaiian Senators,

Hawaii was one of the first big trips my dad took us on when I was a kid. Despite my terrible sunburn I had a great time and have been back four times since I grew up.

When the Hawaii Supreme Court ruled in favor of marriage equality for same sex couples, I thought it couldn't happen to a greater place -- except maybe California, where I live. Perhaps my partner & I would marry there? I thought. So I was, of course, disappointed when the voters of Hawaii chose to keep marriage rights restricted to double-sex couples.

After 14 years together we married last fall. It was deeply meaningful to us and to our friends & family and I am so grateful we had the opportunity. Was I hurt by the Prop 8 vote, the one that had voters choosing to de-recognize my family? I was torn up about it. Still am.

These marriage restriction ballot measures do nothing to protect anyone's marriage. They do nothing to help anyone's family. They bring joy to no one and support no one. What are they for?

I'm told the Senate of the state of Hawaii has no power to overrule the marriage exclusionary rule, but that you can create a parallel non-marriage, marriage-like, second-class, better-than-nothing, at-least-it-helps-a-few-people status called civil unions. I hope you will do this. I'm told the bill is HB 444, HD 1, and that it is stuck in committee. Please get it to where a vote of the full Senate can be effected.

My husband & I love to travel and enjoy Hawaii -- had a great experience a couple years ago walking the floor of Kilauea Iki -- and we look forward to returning to Hawaii. But it sure is nice to feel welcomed, not just tolerated, not just pickpocketed by people who begrudge our existence in order to pay for their own families' upkeep. So I hope you will say to us, despite the intolerance of so many Hawaiian voters, that you are willing to treat us in a somewhat equal manner, when you have opportunity. The California legislature has been supportive of gay couples, even since Prop 8 passed.

yours sincerely,
Glenn Ingersoll
Berkeley, California

I think so. I don't think so.

Stop celebrating. Your head, carved slowly from events, costs double the suit sitting on a hanger like a frog made of frogs. Your creeps were similarly expensive, shakes talking for their own security. We lie, some of us, and we wish ill upon others. We seek a hole to plug with a cork that someone older and more ignorant passed to us with a kiss.

Such kisses close on potions. The tension pleases a never-ending collapse which has been civilized except when longer. The walk, the walk. Touching down on a silence constructed from bodies, the bodies we carried out ourselves and put into new circumstances that, still, refuse to clatter.

I wanted to hear it. So I put both my ears on. Those clothes, suitable but not alive, can only go so far, so far as you know. A tear in the collar, weeping all day but not once falling. The air between songs thins until hitting tin. What breath caught on a thorn? Did you want it back? Again, it goes too far, far as the end of the line drawn by dark monkeys taking turns with a stick. Love in a package? If you say so. Stop celebrating the end of the world, the means aren't yet out. They need a likable accent, a frog's pity. What they need, not what they were given.

I think so. I don't think so.

I believe, leaving, that the mole is two-thirds done. An elevator of bronze and those toes, whatever costs two of those and three of these. You sit down, spitting and speculating, having taken medication.

A newspaper, spurious but well-behaved, escaped our notification, we suppose, otherwise what? You'd think they'd have heard. Their ears! And eyes, too. Some people crawl with obvious direction, you know? A little tucker, the spent wastrel explains, has cost too much -- rooms of virtue, rooms of guts, rooms set aside for heart and dreams and toothaches. Father, where is your battery!

You, too, are slowly exposing a sexual extension. Slowly, as though close to removal. In the days we were eating a variety of circumstances, you'd remember, but an extenuation, wrapped in rice paper, is made up and replaced. Cruel boys. Standing is not absolute; you keep having to come up with another blossom. Weren't you going to dance the elephant requiem? Dirges ripple over barges during the evening of the president's first victory.

It ought to be over and settled, like a cloud of means. The ropes belay their image. What are you looking at? The kneepad reified by the atmospherics of the rumor. Quit trying to be like me, feeling, feeling. It's not the thing recommended, even by cats. You pay out for a new thought and get hair. There, there. You who are repaired are also mentioned for singular awards in the nighttime, especially come August. You are paid up, aren't you?

Stronger things have been spared. A nice spat. If you must smoke, think of my holy soak in a holy pond in a holy clearing sale on a holy oldies station. Then banish the drums. Call them what you've always been dying to call them. New people, friends drowning. Dip into the tusks. Walk all the way to the can of place.

listening to six songs from U2's "All That You Can't Leave Behind"

KNBC in kahoots with Mormon Church

I just read that KNBC refused to show that scarily innocuous ad featuring the AfAm gay couple and their kids. So I sent them the same email I sent KABC.

KNBC claims they wouldn't run any "advocacy" ads during the Super Bowl, but, as we know, they are full of shit:

"Despite this policy, other advocacy ads aired multiple times throughout the day's NFL-controlled programming. Among the advocacy ads which did air were PSAs for TobaccoFreeCA.org and DontBeAnAsterisk.org, an anti-steroids advocacy campaign."

What's with L.A.? Is this why Prop 8 passed in that otherwise liberal bastion? The TV stations?

I think so. I don't think so.

If the head had been replaced a new situation would be returned forthwith to the thin edge of the thinner. Here we supplicate that. On the other side? A new amphibian list. Don't expect a failure. What succeeds is dusk. Whose task is purposed by the next parsnip? We put on our little hats and confer. Oh no. Or oh yes. Such things are put in pretty chests and sealed with a tabulation of apples. When newspapers burn, a new voice emerges from the pendulous quips and assaults fogs. That is the last song on the record, isn't it? No, I don't think so. I think what it meant was mean, a failure of will, a willful wheel, a flurry of rituals. I think so. So I put my ear to one side and the whale calls back from her honey's real home. The rings open several times, too many times to count. It doesn't count now. Not tonight. No more colors. Your receipt remained sincerely secured to a lanyard all morning and the people saw it twirl in response to wings. Stairs. A new historical marker on the road to the sea. Water, put yourself to use. Come down here and put down a night master so we know what touches your burning lids. What broke is also what made my happiness list. The wind blew down the wad. Look to that awful act once more.

Get to Know Us First

I like these. You can learn more at Get to Know Us First.

KABC-TV supports the elimination of civil rights

I read today that a So-Cal TV station refused to air a new ad. As Tips-Q has it: “The ABC affiliate reportedly said the ad – featuring two black men who are raising five children – was too controversial to air during the inauguration, when ‘many families will be watching’.”

I went to the KABC-TV website and filled in their comment form with the following:

Dears Sirs & Madams:

I read the news today that KABC refused to air an ad that featured an African-American family headed by a gay male couple. I am disgusted that your station is colluding with the enemies of civil rights to prevent the achievement of equality & justice in this state. The ad you refused to show is only controversial because you & your anti-gay agenda need to hide images of authentic gay people living boring, ordinary lives in order to prop up the fantasy image of us as weird, non-normal freaks. You will only succeed by lying and lying and lying. Prop 8 passed only because of a Yes campaign based on lies, a campaign, it seems evident now, that you materially assisted. It is pathetic and egregious that you, who squat on the public airwaves, are censoring the truth and backing up the lie.

sincerely,
Glenn Ingersoll

I first saw the ad (& a few others) in a diary at DailyKos. As Nazakhstan, the diarist, said, “I was very disappointed in the lack of actual gay people in the No on Prop 8 campaign ads. I have attended town hall meetings in the Sacramento area and the Bay Area and this theme keeps coming up over and over again... where were the gay families?”

The excuse the No on 8 campaign used for hiding gay families was that their focus groups told them they found gay families yucky and weird and actually looking at them made them less likely to vote in a friendly way. My DailyKos handle is LuvSet. I left this comment:

“These ads look good, they have a positive message, and they treat the participants & the viewers with respect. Wow. … If I'd seen this sort of ad proposed in spring of last year I would have been much more confident about the value being gotten from my contributions because, no matter the outcome of a particular election, these messages make progress.”

The ads were produced by Get to Know Us First, a group that formed “in the wake of California’s passage of Proposition 8.” Five ads/public service announcements are posted on the Get to Know Us First homepage.

Music

In December I subscribed to Paste, a magazine of new music. I used one of the Amazon.com gift certificates sent me by my stepmother. I bought an issue at a local bookstore last year and liked a number of the songs on the sampler CD that came with. Then I found out the library has a subscription and -- delightful surprise -- most of the backissues they had on the shelf still had their CDs. (The library also has a subscription to Mojo but only one issue in five has managed to keep its CD.) I ripped a buncha songs from the copies owned by the library. The first issue of my own subscription is supposed to arrive next month.

When CMJ: new music monthly was in good health -- ten years ago? -- I liked being up on new music without having to listen to the radio. I got a lot of songs off their CDs. By the time I let my subscription lapse, however, CMJ's CDs were repeating songs (each month featured at least one song that had appeared previously), there were fewer songs, and what they offered too often didn't impress.

I read writing about music but it's hard to figure out what the music actually sounds like. The writer's personal enthusiasm or critical cred seldom seems to translate into my own enjoyment, when I've followed up. The internet has been very helpful when I've read somebody's effusing -- a MySpace page or a 30 second snippet on iTunes and I have some idea whether I share the opinion. But I do like giving a song the opportunity to play all the way out. A 30 second snippet can turn me off but it usually can't turn me on.

Kent pushes me to visit The Hype Machine, which is a music blog that consolidates a bunch of songs from other music blogs. I've spent a little time there. But it hasn't yet fit the way I listen; I like to only pay half my attention until the song hooks me. If I've got a CD playing then I can make note of which track is piquing my interest and revisit it later. That was the method I got going when I was working at the desk job at the library. While working I couldn't devote my full attention to the music even if I wanted to. For the first few months (working full time) I didn't have anything to distract me but the banging of my own thoughts; when I got my own cubicle I was given permission to bring in a portable CD player. The music perked my brain up. Then we got a new Mac and I could save songs and burn them to CDs.

a political history of American poetry

I started to weigh in on one of the discussions about what "School of Quietude" versus "post-avant" mean aesthetically &/or politically, but as I wrote my comment I watched it wander away from the terms supposedly at issue. So I canceled out and came here.

Poetry is not one thing. Lots of different kinds of things are called Poetry. I've made that point before and it needs to made frequently, I guess. Still, I have to say I'm losing interest in the aesthetic arguments. I'm finding myself more interested in the politics of poetry. "School of Quietude" attempts to name a political as well as aesthetic group -- the people who win the prizes, the people who get tenure, the people who shack up at the swanky artist retreats, the people who cast their shadows onto the slick white pages of the prestige publications.

Are the most socially linked also the most frequently published? I know frequently-publishing poets like lyn lifshin and Sheila Murphy don't get the critical notice that much-less-frequently publishing poets like ... oh, who? ... Mark Strand? Robert Hass? ... seem to be able to take for granted. It's not quantity, it's quality! Yeah, well, I get ever more suspicious about the quality-wins-out argument. The tides of history will swirl away leaving the Best standing on their sea-weedy hillocks, eh? At present we really don't know which of us (them!) are giants?

The two giants-in-retrospect of 19th century American poetry seem to be: Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman. Would either have boasted enough connection to be called a political force in the American poetry scene of their time? Though I've now read a biography of each, I can't say as I know. I'd hazard a no. Emily is easiest -- she hid out. She did have a handful of literary correspondents but she doled out her work in tantalizing dribs & drabs -- the mystery of Dickinson gave the publication of posthumous books an extra-literary excitement. Whitman, on the other hand, was a self-promoter. And he had in his corner (at least at times) the Colossus of American lit, Ralph Waldo Emerson. But one doesn't get the sense that he was part of the "in" crowd, politically speaking.

A political history of American poetry would be a different history of American poetry. Who influenced who -- not aesthetically but career-wise? Who got the most pages in the anthologies? Who racked up the most awards? Who sold the most books? Who got written about? Leaving aside the aesthetic programs, who got the goods?

The giants of a political history of American poetry -- who would they be?

We did this today

It's birthday month for Kent and he's gotten excited about the idea of the climbing wall thing; a couple weeks ago he even showed me the website for the Berkeley Ironworks which is pretty new, I think. So we went today, a birthday present. We learned how to belay (that's what the guy on the ground does so if the climber falls he doesn't fall) and to climb (use your legs to push yourself up, not your hands to pull yourself up).

What next? Kent asks.

Indoor skydiving? I said.

andrew topel

That's one of the many images posted at Andrew Topel's vviissiioonnss blog. A great gallery.

It was neat having a Follower

but he turned out to be a spam blogger, so I had to block him.

fear and pain and anger

After the blow of the passage of Prop 8 on November 4th, writing on my blogs seemed frivolous. The Mormon Church had marched its jackboots into my garden and attacked my family, a deeply, purely personal attack intended to cause fear and pain. It did. It also brought a fierce flare of white anger. That also might have been intended, I don’t know. Likely they would prefer servile acquiescence, groveling and guilt-sticky. Anger can be dangerous.

I was going to write about poetry then? Books? I was going to write about my shopping or a migraine? I caught a flu shortly after the bad news came down and, yes, a migraine. The flu hung on, a longer loiter than any recent flu, even now a tension in my throat urges me to cough.

Timid mouse used to nibbling on wood pulp I’m not equipped with the confident claws of the cat. My imagination can be a tiger but I am no tiger. I have to think up mouse strategies.

comments on "Mom"

A portrait of Mom. Supposed to be simple and light. It amused her, I think.

Mom

Mom


63
she doesn’t jog
does walk briskly
swinging her arms
crunches over the gravel
by the RR tracks
talks about health
(raw fruits and vegetables)
beach, redwoods, state parks
sure she takes the easy walks
she has a slow stroll uphill
but she’s got a ruddy face from the sun
she hops, she bounces, jounces
on her home trampoline
she plays a banjo
doesn’t write poetry
but she sings

*

another poem from February 1985

another poem from February 1985

Car After Discovering That the Lights Have Been Left On


RUBRUBRUBRUBRUBRUBRUBRUB
phootitit

RUBRUBRUBRUBreedlereedlereedle
reedlereedlereedlerrumbrumhu—
boompoophititit…it…i

RUBRUBRUBRUBRUBreedlereedle
boomboomroom
BUBARUDDATOOOOMMMMMM
rumblerumblerumble
brrrr

*

another poem from February 1985
I’m not expecting any further versions of this one.

comments on two poems combined, version 2

I rearranged the lines. It struck me that most of the poem breaks into couplets – “I dry my hand again. Look, pie! / The crust will hold guests,” for example. I tried couplets as stanzas but after a couple readings decided the space was asking each couplet to stand on its own in a way they just wouldn’t do.

That coupleting is a sort of halfway place between the single-line statements of the first of the two source poems and the sentences that wind down through multiple lines in the second source poem. I prefer sinuousness in sentences; yet the stiffness of version 2 here appeals to me for its insistent strangeness. That line – “Ugh, that uncut handkerchief – yuck!” – has a particularly unnatural quality.

two poems combined, version 2

The handle comes unglued
while being dusted damply.
Starting to hear the window,
I draw spirals out of the glass’s ring.
In the lather over the dish dinge
the shape of my remaining hand.
Nothing in the cupboard looks like water
or like food, nothing on the counter adds up.
I dry my hand again. Look, pie!
The crust will hold guests.
In the easy chair in the living room
I press the guest book. Of five pens,
four are long gone.
The ceiling has done shadows,
the ice also a suggestion.
Weakness in fingers like flowers.
Haven’t eaten the evening black.
Went shopping hungry,
scrubbed kettles.
Sprouts and bread, peas and milk.
Ugh, that uncut handkerchief – yuck!
Small glass of water sipped slowly
to make it last until blue.

comments on two poems combined

OK. Here it is. You didn’t think those two poems could be combined?

Dave King in a comment said he preferred the second of those two, the one that starts, “I have no fingers like flowers.” I have to say that line is my favorite line. Yet in this version I’ve turned it around; rather than having “no fingers like flowers”, the fingers are “like flowers.” Kent told me he preferred the first of the two, the one that starts, “Weakness in limbs.”

two poems combined

Weakness in fingers like flowers.
Haven’t eaten the evening black.
Went shopping hungry,
scrubbed kettles.
Sprouts and bread, peas and milk.
Ugh, that uncut handkerchief – yuck!
Small glass of water sipped slowly
to make it last until blue.
The handle comes unglued
while being dusted damply.
Starting to hear the window,
I draw spirals out of the glass’s ring.
In the lather over the dish dinge
the shape of my remaining hand.
Nothing in the cupboard looks like water
or like food, nothing on the counter adds up.
I dry my hand again. Look, pie!
The crust will hold guests.
In the easy chair in the living room
I press the guest book. Of five pens,
four are long gone.
The ceiling has done shadows,
the ice just a suggestion.

comments on two poems

More poems from the 1985 notebook – I could spend the rest of my life there! The two poems have a similar look, don’t they? And a similar feel, though “Uneaten” attempts to be straight reportage while “I have no fingers like flowers” tries some imaginative flourishes.

I post them both here because I decided to combine them for the new version.

two poems

Uneaten


Weakness in limbs
Haven’t eaten yet at 4:40
went shopping hungry
sprouts and bread and peas and milk
drink a small glass of water
sipping slowly to make it more
starting to hear things
harsh breathing at the window
I draw wet spirals on the table in the glass’ ring
nothing in the cupboard looks like food
nothing in the icebox looks like food
pour another glass of water
leave it undrunk on the kitchen counter
sit in the easy chair in the living room
can’t read
nothing on TV
can’t close my eyes
can’t open my mouth
can do nothing but look at the ceiling
the ceiling empty of shadows


*


I have no fingers like flowers
and can’t imagine the evening as black as
unscrubbed kettles. I fry an egg.
I despise uncut handkerchiefs,
shaped clay unbaked
make a ceramic pot, glaze it blue
in years hardly used the handle comes unglued
while being dusted with a damp rag.
I dip my hand in dishwater,
the handprint still visible in the lather
not even the pie dough
has to be remarked upon
or the filling
I station myself at the door
with the guest book and five pens
which disappear in succession
I close the book gently
still reading the names.

-- 3/5/85

life in Berkeley

I'm sitting on the couch, a blanket over my legs, cat nestled between my shins. Listening to CDs. Moe Tucker's solo work is reminiscent of the Velvet Underground -- Tucker was their drummer so no surprise there. She even has a vocal delivery about like Lou Reed.

I've been fighting a flu. Had a fever dream night last night, which might or might not have been better than the night before -- at least I slept! Dreams too frequently were wrapped up with evil of Prop 8. Fighting, fighting.

We have Chinese food leftover from dinner last night. Will watch America's Next Top Model at eight.

YES TO LOVE, NO TO 8

Yes, this is a parody of YES ON PROP 8 commercials. I'm not going to link to their evil. But I think you can figure out their arguments from the parody version.

receipt

Mormons are bad people

All their marriages should be destroyed!

Poetry & Pizza video

I asked Kent to bring his digital camera to Poetry & Pizza last Friday, the camera that took the great whale movies, and use it to capture me reading a short poem or two. I'd intended to bring a tape recorder but forgot. I wish we had a nice digital audio recorder ...

So Kent set up and got some video of me telling people to settle down we're just about to start, then several exciting seconds of my back as I fiddled with the amp trying to rid it of that weird waah it often adds to the vocal. I'm the only one of our technologically challenged crew who has the courage to twist a few dials -- courage but little understanding.

Of the three short clips Kent captured before the camera decided it was full (no reason for it to be) the one of my announcing the readers (Glenn Ingersoll, Mel C. Thompson, and H.D. Moe) is the only one I'm going to post. No, there's no substance to it, but it's short.

Glenn Ingersoll at Poetry & Pizza

7:30pm Friday, October 3, 2008

GLENN INGERSOLL
H.D. MOE
MEL C. THOMPSON

POETRY & PIZZA meets the first Friday of each month
at Escape from New York Pizza, 333 Bush at Montgomery
(Montgomery BART or Sutter/Stockton Parking Garage)
in downtown San Francisco and offers free pizza to all comers.

http://popizza.white.prohosting.com
poetryandpizza@yahoo.com

Donations of $5 benefit an organization of the poets’ choice.
This reading benefits SAN FRANCISCO FREE CLINIC.

GLENN INGERSOLL’s poems have been seen in Exquisite Corpse, Prairie Schooner, and Snow Monkey, and online at 3rd Muse, Siren, and Tryst, work is forthcoming in Shampoo. He maintains two blogs, LoveSettlement and Dare I Read. Ingersoll lives in Berkeley and works for the Berkeley Public Library. He is one of the coordinators of Poetry & Pizza.

H. D. MOE is an experimental Poet/Philosopher, who has over 30 books published, including "Plug In The Electric Dictionary" - Community Press; "Muse News" - City Lights; "Bean Trip" - Canterbury Press; "Only A Cage Should Be In A Cage"- We Press; "Jazz Pajamas" - Mother's Hen Press; "Blackwidow Vitamins" - Coo-Coo Clock TV Press; "Wingéd Wows" is his latest book. Some of Moe’s Poems have been translated (an almost impossible adventure) into French, Portuguese & Russian.
For 13 years H.D. Moe published “Love Lights, The Erotic Poetry/Art Newspaper of San Francisco”. Currently, H.D. Moe edits "The Berkeley Review Of Books", and gives talks on women Philosophers at Humanist Hall in Oakland. He also coordinates the "Living Philosophers Forum" at The North Berkeley Senior Center in Berkeley. Be sure to check out his website: www.hdmoe.com

MEL C. THOMPSON was born in 1959 in Los Angeles County. He was raised in the suburbs of North Orange County, California. Thompson began as a songwriter but switched to poetry, then he moved to the Bay Area and founded Cyborg Productions, a well-known underground press of the early 1990s. His own work has been published in mainstream and small press magazines such as the SF Bay Guardian, The Chiron Review, The Haight Ashbury Literary Journal and Lynx Eye.
Thompson’s civil rights work for free speech and his legal work for California workers has been noticed by USA Today, The Los Angeles Times, NPR Radio, Canadian Public Broadcasting and KRON Television. For a time he was a radio personality and musical performer on KMEL.

SAN FRANCISCO FREE CLINIC, 4900 California Street, provides comprehensive medical services at no charge. It is a training site for medical students and residents from programs throughout the country. The SF Free Clinic exists because over 150 physicians pool time, medications, supplies, equipment, and funds. Services include cancer and heart disease screening, diabetes care, childhood and adult vaccinations, and family planning and contraceptive counseling.

Pizza is Free, Poetry is Priceless

Sarah Palin

That's why I say I, like every American I'm speaking with, we’re ill about this position that we have been put in where it is the taxpayers looking to bail out. But ultimately, what the bailout does is help those who are concerned about the health-care reform that is needed to help shore up our economy, helping the—it's got to be all about job creation, too, shoring up our economy and putting it back on the right track. So health-care reform and reducing taxes and reining in spending has got to accompany tax reductions and tax relief for Americans. And trade, we've got to see trade as opportunity, not as a competitive, scary thing. But one in five jobs being created in the trade sector today, we've got to look at that as more opportunity. All those things under the umbrella of job creation. This bailout is a part of that.

Hong

My last post featured a video of an elephant painting. It is watermarked with the website of Exotic World Gifts.

In various places on their site Mark Fangue & Liz Allen talk about how the video came about. Here are a few excerpts:

“While looking for beautiful products handmade by artisans in villages needing sustainable income, we came across this refuge camp for elephants in Northern Thailand. With camcorder in hand we began to witness an elephant painting an ‘Oh my God’ image of an elephant.

"The owner/operator is a very tender hearted woman who loves the animals and feels pain when her elephant camp is unjustifiably grouped with other camps and/or individuals where animal abuse is tolerated (it does exist and our goal is to educate and help stop cruel practices). We have done research and investigation into the camp’s training techniques and we have not observed any abuse. The elephants seem happy and well cared for.”

The painter featured in the video was given the name “Hong.”

“’Hong’ and her mahout (trainer) … collaborate[d] to produce a wonderful image of an elephant holding a flower. It was amazing to see her retrace lines and add her playful personality to her work of art. She draws one or two flowers depending on her mood and when finished painting her flower, she presented [sic] a flower to a person of her choice.

“Hong is an 8 year old female who has a very curious nature and loves to investigate everything and once managed to use her trunk to open the door of a truck. This kind of curiosity made Hong a natural candidate for artistic instruction. She has so much control and dexterity with her trunk which allows her to create more advanced realistic paintings ... and only started painting 2 years ago. [ellipsis in original] I had the pleasure of rewarding Hong with many bananas and sugar cane after she finished her painting that appeared in our video.”

This barely begins to answer my questions. More posts to come.

the elephant artist

This video of an elephant painting a representative figure - a self-portrait? – is beyond amazing. It is a beautifully choreographed performance, never boring, often suspenseful, playing itself out over the course of the 8 1/2 minute video (there are some edits, it looks like) in a way that holds the attention all the way to the end, the end providing both surprise and satisfaction. I have watched it a few times, captivated each time.

I would like to know much more about the context of this elephant painting.

Who is this elephant?

UPDATE: Her name is Hong. She is 8 years old.

(More in my next post.)

comments on another way of looking at "Green Spree"

Kent went to a lot of work to put together this version of "Green Spree". It's supposed to show the greens all stacked up, like a trunk or spine, as I said Friday. The rest of each line is supposed to jut out from the central green to the left or right.

I think formatting the poem this way prevents it from fitting into the space available in the blogger template I'm using. Thus the lines get broken up even more than intended. But you can get a somewhat better idea visually of the green stack than in the earlier posts of "Green Spree".

another way of looking at "Green Spree"

                               The green story is the only story.

   Or maybe it's the second story, green

                                or greener, step by step to a

                                   greener top. It's waiting. It won't

                     go a bit more green, already

comments on “Green Spree” version 4

I like it. Surprising myself. I’ve been having so much difficulty with poetry lately. I write something and I hate it. I hate writing it. The writing isn’t fun. The writing used to be fun.

The first line came to me and excited me so I wrote it down. I still like it. “The green story is the only story.” And the writing after that was fun. It felt like it knew where to go, and the good parts from earlier versions seemed happy to abandon their old contexts and come aboard.

I presented it to my little writing group and they liked it, too. Ah, I remember that! The praise of the peers. It was always so warming (then the praised poem got rejected again & again by the magazine editors).

I have a version of “Green Spree” formatted so “green” appears like a trunk or spine down the middle of the page, the rest of each line poking out to the left or right. I don’t know how to set that up on blogger …

Speaking of sending out to magazines: I got response from two ezines this week. One a yes: Shampoo. The poem will appear soon, editor Del Ray Cross says, in a “sneaky previoo” of the next issue. The other was a no. After getting the Shampoo response I wondered about the other to which I’d sent poems at the same time. In response to my status query the other’s editor wrote back: We said no on 6/22/08. Maybe it got caught in your spam filter? If so, I suppose my spam filter meant well, wanting to save my feelings.

“Green Spree,” version 4

The green story is the only story.
Or maybe it’s the second story, green
or greener, step by step to a
green top. It’s waiting. It won’t
go a bit more green, already
green, you know,
green to the tips, the very
green top, fantastic banners
of unpleasant green snapping
out breezes that goad green
clouds toward green mountains,
their greens the skills they’ve
practiced for green years.
Even today when your thumb, still green
after years of thumb-sucking, green
stubborness clinging, green as
a pendant of grief, greasy green listening
while the rash breakage of evens goes greenly
on, odds on, favorite son, green
on a green hill, where the
steps dragged their planes, green faces
cut into green slopes, a wet flat
old blue through which green shows,
younger than you but green too,
greening to get that way. On a shy
tongue a green drop, on a long delay
a steady green fuzz. What cups
sat in the sun bearing green
waters to the future? Green ones.
Green, the price of entry,
shuttered citadel on green hill,
spires tangled with sagging green
that the wind ties up with green
string stolen from the red talus green
gave way to, one slender green
blade laid next to a frail fork, green
face turned down, hypothetically, her green
heir to the green-wet synthesis that
puts green to hunger and
green to sleep, the coming
green not so green as you expect, a horizon
lined up for the sun’s trick drop, the green
sparkle snapped up by green-vacant violet, if you’re lucky
and who isn’t lucky, the green under fingers
absently plucking, the shine of nap greening
toward black, sheen after sheen sanded by green
ridges. What green knows
green learns late – too late? – some say so,
but isn’t it green to say so? doesn’t it reveal,
green under white stone, that black
has green in its road, the road, moreover,
cutting through green already pass-tangled,
green-fangled, speckled with eye,
green-dyed claw, a green the jaw grinds.
Green built in law of jungle courthouses
a green justice,
green script illuminating brown
muds and black muds, green
fighting back green-yellow and
yellow-green and blue-
green and
green
far greener. Poor kid,
green as he’ll ever get, already breaking
out in other colors. A sugar green needle,
the hour not green either, the stutter
green suffers, hue gone to cry, gone
to whimper, the rarer green raised
to a new position over vulgar green,
green all the same? all the same!
Green meat, meet
green fly. The happy gallows’ good
green creak, the long shadow
you miss as much as mother, her green
felt hat and the green feeling
you returned to to stain green
blond feet, to green the knee
and green the sea that never
looked green, did it, except when
it broke and spilled your bruised green
dream, hissing over seagrapes, green
until they dry on a green-papered shelf
in a green room painted with pictures.
You stored a green kiss for years.
How many green years?

comments on “Green Spree”, version 3

When last I read version 2 I hated it, its beginning. After it got going, maybe a third the way down – somewhere around the clouds? – I started to like things. I started version 3 thinking I would just cut off the beginning of version 2, cut to what I liked. I didn’t do that. That may have been the right idea. I don’t know.

“Green Spree”, version 3

Up old green steps,
up steps, green and older
than green and
greener than maybe you’d like
green to be, ever, even today
when your thumb, still green
after years of thumb-sucking, green
stubborness sticking to its green
guns, the drop that clings to a green
leaf or falls or doesn’t fall or, green as
a pendant of grass, listens
to the rash breakage of evens, greens
into burdens, odds on green, favorite
of the other, the mother in a green blouse
on a green hill, where the
green steps dragged their planes,
cutting slopes into green faces, flat
and wet, especially when green puddles
set up in green middles, the old blue
older than you but green
younger and younger and greening
toward birth or away from, green come
not to stay but to stray, green in travel,
all the green gravel passed
through a green mouth,
a green trembling on a tongue
no longer looking green except
to a justice in uniform, green issue
fitting native green

comments on “Green Spree”, version 2

In thinking about this form – green having to appear in every line, providing the poem its spine – I’ve been torn. Do I make it make sense? Is this a narrative, a proposition I’m arguing? Over time and a lot of poem-reading I’ve grown less interested in the proposition poem. It tends to take a wisdom pose, as though modeling for a statue, stiff and important and cold. It wants that Ah! from the reader – O, how wise, what authority it bespeaks. I’ve never felt particularly wise and the wiser I’ve become the sillier the wisdom pose of other poets has come to seem. Phonies! As far as narrative goes, I’ve become more interested in the dream version. Everything seems to be connected, but when you try to explain those connections, they turn out to be strange, they turn out to rush down convoluted paths, sometimes they turn out to run right past or around each other and don’t connect at all.

“Green Spree”, version 2

Up the old green steps to
the green pension, an older thumb
still green as the tongue
pressing a green drop that fell
from some mother, some green gumdrop’s
other wuther, the green of a nice ice,
the green of a bride’s pretty price,
her yet-unentered citadel on a green hill,
spires green with pennants flapping
or greenly sagging or slapping
the red-tinged green of their gay
tatters on new clouds and old clouds greened
by brushes with green peaks,
that which green seeks being only
one drawer away, one slender green
blade laid next to the fork, the green
lace and the green face turned
down toward an earth, hypotethically, her green
heir to the green-wet synthesis of drop
and hunger, the coming green on a horizon
lined up next to a green flash the sun,
escaping the day, tricks into that green leap,
that green sparkle you get if you’re lucky
and who isn’t lucky, green felt by fingers
absently plucking, the nap greening toward
black, shine after shine lost as green catches
ridges and green knows
what green learns is learned
late, too late? -- some say so – but isn’t it green
to say so? doesn’t it reveal, green under
white stone, that black has green in its road,
the road, moreover, cutting through green
already pass-tangled, green-fangled,
speckled with eye, green-dyed claw,
a green leaf and a jaw grinding
a nip of it, what green built in law
of jungle courthouses and wrote in green
script across ill-lit muds, green competing
with green-yellow and yellow-
green and blue-
green and
greener
green
than what you see splashed, green
by green,
over and under the wander some sucker, green
as ever a kid’ll be, got sent on, the green
beans already in his pocket cuddled by a green
foul of threads and furze, evergreen
as ever was green and ever will be
(she said, plucking her lute under a green
bower), the hour not green, brown
rather or browning, green shifting,
hue a cry gone to whimper,

comments on “Green Spree”

I’ve had this one in my mind since I wrote it (& it failed to satisfy me). The version you see here is already an edit of the long list poem that appeared in my 1985 notebook. I want to use and reuse one word. Why green? Not sure. It’s a nice enough word. Has more than one meaning to start with. In a way – because I’ve been thinking about how to do it perfectly for so long? – I’m feeling more than the usual trepidation about working on it. Suppose it turns out crap? Well. Suppose it does?

GREEN SPREE

green freeze sneaks into me
green release

green eyes
green cries
green surprise
green flies in the face
green lashes and tongues
green lips
green lids

green meat
green fruit
green buds
green break
green made too bright

green flecks
green fingers
green trembling in bushes

green track
green attack of
green tension
green suspension
green gallows
green grass

green to kiss
green to list
green to miss as much as mother
green to love another
green to fuss
green ability
green tranquility
green seizure
green pension
green retention of old
green steps

blame the cat

poem from 1985 notebook

Quit staring at the apple
as though it would jump, screaming
from the fruitbowl, bound
across the table and attack your unprotected throat.

894 out of 899

John McCain was ranked 894th out of 899 in his class at the Naval Academy.

Hahaha! Isn't that hilarious! Presidential material, all right!

tip of the hat to Americablog.

comments on "cake the walk" version 6

When last we left our intrepid poem it had no title. Now it does. Like it?

Other than that, if you don’t want to bother reading the darn thing through one more time, is the placement of the chings. They’ve moved down a few lines so that the hand is more directly patting them out.

I think that's it.

“cake the walk”, version 6

Cake


in hedges gusts rat
from lonesome scatter leaves
scurry to clump under that

just beyond the diamond
a stone bench waits for the cloud

which straggles from the splintery bleachers
trails along fences
touches bases

at the far end of the outfield swarms
the sponsors’
painted boards and tumbles over
into bushes

forgive the cold
its hold

who wouldn’t want
my hand

there’s cloud enough left in the oaks
to drop a drop on my sleeve
two, you say, for you

I appreciate this dark
on that shoulder

all the way up
link by link by link
to the backstop’s eave

the ringing I pat out
ching ching
ching
of the hand you warmed for me

in the crowded pocket
of the jacket you put on
not wanting to

prospective titles for "cake the walk"

Not Wanting To
Not Wanting
For the Cloud
Cake
Beyond the Diamond
Cloud Enough
Who Wouldn’t Want
Forgive the Cold
Ching
I Appreciate That Dark
Appreciate That Dark
Under This
All the Way Up
A Stone Bench Waits for the Cloud
The Park
The Town Park
Near the Duckpond
A Cold Wind
Two For You
The Crowd

*

I don't always have trouble titling a poem. There are occasions the perfect title has seemed to me a line that otherwise didn't fit in the poem. Other times I've used the poem's first line, sometimes going for the repetition, sometimes displacing the first line into the title position so the poem & title start at the same place.

When Gordon Lish expressed interest in poems I sent him (this was 16 ... 17 years ago?) he didn't like the titles I'd given them. I filled up sheets of paper brainstorming new titles and finally found ones that were acceptable to him (and to me). In giving "cake the walk" a title I decided that rather than just going with the first thought that seemed OK I would brainstorm at least 20 different titles.

Some of the above I don't like at all. Others seem almost maybe. None jumps out as just right. Not right now anyway.

Any preferences out there?

comments on "cake the walk" version 5

The two couplets beginning "forgive the cold" now occupy a pivot point for the poem. I'm quite fond of these two couplets. Following the Kill Your Babies advice I suppose these would be the obvious ones to eliminate.

I haven't worked on a title yet. "cake the walk" was never a title, just a name for the Word document.

"cake the walk" version 5

in hedges gusts rat
from lonesome scatter leaves
scurry to clump under that

just beyond the diamond
a stone bench waits for the cloud

which straggles from the splintery bleachers
trails along fences
touches bases

at the far end of the outfield swarms
the sponsors’
painted boards and tumbles over
into bushes

forgive the cold
its hold

who wouldn’t want
my hand

there’s cloud enough left in the oaks
to drop a drop on my sleeve
two, you say, for you

I appreciate this dark
on that shoulder

all the way up
link by link by link
ching ching
ching
to the backstop’s eave

the ringing I pat out
of the hand you warmed for me
in the crowded pocket
of the jacket you put on
not wanting to

YES TO LOVE, NO TO 8

Watch videos of weddings at SF City Hall

comments on “cake the walk”, version four

The stanza I’m closest to excising is the duck one. While I like the way the pond places the baseball diamond in a town park, thus helping prevent the reader from seeing some gigantic sports complex, the duck isn’t doing anything much. Not that he’s gotta exactly. I’m still thinking.

“cake the walk”, version four

forgive the cold
its hold

who wouldn’t want
my hand

just beyond the diamond
a stone bench waits for the cloud

which straggles from the splintery bleachers
trails along fences
even bases

at the end of the outfield swarms
the sponsors’
painted boards and tumbles over
into bushes

we passed the mallard
making his quiet circle in the pond
while among reeds his mate
tucked yellow bill under dun wing

in hedges gusts rat
from lonesome scatter leaves
scurry to clump under that

there’s cloud enough left in the oaks
to drop a drop on my sleeve
two, you say, for you

I appreciate this dark
on that shoulder

all the way up
link by link by link
ching ching
ching
to the backstop’s eave

the ringing I pat out
of the hand you warmed for me
in the crowded pocket
of the jacket you put on
not wanting to

comments on “cake the walk”, version three

No longer sticking to couplets. Trying out a cloud/crowd relation. The persons (“you” and “me”) in this version vaguer.

“cake the walk”, version three

forgive my hand
its cold

the stone bench waits for a cloud

and here the cloud straggles
from the splintery bleachers

the backstop’s eave
a game lost yesterday or last season

and goes to dampen the ducks
one is turning the wet pebble green of its head
in a circle and another circle and a whole new circle

the pond’s face sending these turns
off to the cattail reeds

in hedges gusts rat
these leaves leave a lonesome rest
for more company

ching ching ching
all the way up
link to link to link

the backstop ringing from the slap of the hand
you warmed for me

there is no rain falling but what the live oaks
clawed out of a cloud

one drop for you
three for me?

comments on “cake the walk”, version two

This is a rough cut. Nearly every thing seen in version one appears in version two. The inconsistent punctuation is dropped altogether. The poem is now in couplets.

“cake the walk”, version two

bits of leaves cake the walk
in darkening layers

take my trembling hand
forgive its cold

in hedges gusts rat
just before us leaves leave one rest for another

the stone bench waits for a cloud
which straggles down from splintery bleachers

a mallard soundlessly circles the pond
his mate in the reeds, head tucked deep in dun feathers

the gravel gnashes dankly under a shoe
my unheld hand rattles the fencing

it rings its links, faintly distracted
all the way up to the backstop’s eave

a squirrel is gone by the time I look up
apart, arms folded, we read to each other

the names of the team sponsors
some loyalty older and peeling

under the dripping knuckles of live oaks
at the top of the stairs

we embrace
and let each other go

comments on “cake the walk” version one

Haven’t versioned a poem on LuvSet in months. Time? “cake the walk” was written in February 1985.

I don’t remember who my companion was. Maybe Becky, a friend who I was sort of dating. Could be the companion was imagined.

I like the poem’s atmosphere, the drawing of the scene. I like the standing apart followed by the embrace.

“cake the walk,” version one

Little bits of leaves
cake the walk
stroll with me hand-in-hand
my hand trembles
a cold wind
rattles the bones of the trees
gust rats in hedges
dead leaves scurry across our feet
across concrete

sit with me
on a stone bench
a cloud drops earthward
straggles through the park
envelopes the duck pond
one mallard circles soundlessly
in the reeds his mate sleeps
head tucked deep in dull feathers

We stroll across the baseball diamond
you kick a clump of grass
the gravel patches crunch wetly
tepid red
I brush my unheld hand against the fence
the metal rattles
ringing faintly to the tip of the backstop

You point to a squirrel
in the overhanging oak
it’s gone, scampered out of sight
when I look up
I wrap my coat tighter
we stand apart, arms folded
read the little league sponsors’ painted advertisements
to one another

At the top of the concrete stairs
we embrace

the first wedding in Sonoma County

Smash the Egg

This is a delightful kinetic sculpture built by Joseph Herscher as "an entry in Cadbury's 'Unleash The Goo' competition, in which entrants must find the most creative way to break a creme egg."

Land and People and Chez Panisse

People stop by LoveSettlement from all around the world. Of the last hundred visitors (as of writing, 6/8/08) most are, of course, from the lower 48. But there’s a significant cluster in Europe. Britain mostly. One from Germany, one from Italy. Of the rest of the great world: Two Argentinians stopped by. One Malaysian, two Australians, and a New Zealander. It would be nice if they were all faithful LuvSet readers, but even if all they did was swing by and fail to find what brought them here it’s still kinda cool that somebody in Argentina or Malaysia could drive past the LuvSet cornershop for a glance at the lettering on the sign.

I would like to spend more time at blogs based outside the U.S. In my pile of reading I try to make sure I’ve got some literature in translation. But I don’t comfortably read any language other than English so that does limit things somewhat. I do get in my ruts and find myself in the same old places, almost all of them U.S.-based.

I originally came across Rami Zurayk’s Land and People blog because he writes in Beirut, Lebanon, which, as we know, can sometimes be hazardous. (Even more so than Oakland, I suppose.) I think there was some fighting going on at the time I captured the link, and the Zurayk family were sheltering from arms fire. Things seem to have quieted down.

Zurayk mainly writes about food politics. In today’s post he gives a tongue-in-cheek version of the argument that improvements for poor people are to blame for, well, the problems in the world: “Too many hard-working Chinese and Indians … think they should be able to eat pizza, meat and coffee and aspire to a reservation at Chez Panisse. They get blamed for raising global prices so much that poor Africans and Asians can't afford porridge and rice.”

I’ve seen that formula given for why we have global warming, extinctions, environmental degradation of all kinds … It’s the dangerous aspirations of Third World people.

The philosophy of Chez Panisse (hey, Chez Panisse is right around the corner from my house!) might be right up Rami Zurayk’s alley, actually. From the Chez Panisse website: “A good kitchen respects its sources, chooses ingredients that are sound, seasonal, local when possible, and appropriate to the event. … Chez Panisse gathers its material from known and trusted purveyors, known to be committed themselves to sound and sustainable practices … We seek farmers who know their seeds and soil, ranchers who care about the food their livestock eats, winemakers who know what their grapes have known, fish merchants who are concerned about the health of the seas.”

Rami Zurayk characterizes American food giving as, "Let them eat subsidized American corn shipped over in American ships." Sounds like the opposite of the Chez Panisse ideal.

Of course, Chez Panisse is darn expensive. But delicious. And, you know, if you’re going to lay out a wad on dinner at least you won’t be fucking up the planet.

a blog about farming in Oakland

I don’t remember how I found my way to Your City Farmer, a blog about farming in Oakland (SFGate.com?). I copied the url to the Word doc where I work on LuvSet posts. That was back in April. Since then the blogger has changed it. Just found that out when I put the old url into the browser and got whipped around to the new one.

Looks like the name has changed to Meaningful Pursuit. Hm. Better title? I don’t know. I think … no. But whatever.

Right now our backyard is at its farmingest, what with cherries ripening and lush tomato plants considering whether to turn their yellow flowers into tight green fruits.

The May 12th post starts out with a picture of weeds. Novella (yes, that’s the blogger’s name) says, “Weeding can be satisfying work. Passers-by say hello, chew the fat, ask me for a quarter. Because remember, I'm not living some rural lifestyle with baby goats and rabbits. I'm living some urban lifestyle with baby goats and rabbits. A reminder of my urban farm: gun fire. Two shots, very close. Somehow muffled. Now, it IS firework season, but I knew those were bullets.”

Police cars appear. She overhears one of the officers say a man was shot in the apartment across the street, not killed though.

She went back to weeding. Now & then a neighbor would stop and ask what happened. “I grew tired of telling the news,” Novella says.

maybe I should

Maybe I should write something on my blog. I haven't written anything on my blog in two weeks. My blog must be hungry. Or lonely. Maybe I should do something about the needs of my blog. It needs freshening. Blog posts climb onto it and age and age.

Of the six March posts one should get an update -- the Supreme Court of California has ruled that marriage cannot be denied to same-sex couples without a compelling reason. And they looked around and didn't find one, et voila -- Marry, you gays! I've been thinking about various ways to talk about it, actually. From the fear of a November ballot initiative to reading through the text of the decision to speculating about how this changes society. All of that would require a lot of thought and writing, wouldn't it?

I could review our last two trips -- the one to Orlando & environs, the one to Baja & Copper Canyon. After all, one of the ways I researched those trips was reading the blogs of travellers. So I could offer up what I've learned for the use of others.

I could write about daily things, what's doing at work, the weather, what piles we've dusted and what piles we've sorted.

I have several posts in the works, you know. Links to this or that, videos I found fascinating. Come back and check those out.

Info Desk Blogging

Hm. It's some kind of warm today. 85 degrees F.

I walked to work. And that was okay. Rather wish I'd worn shorts but I don't quite feel comfortable wearing shorts to work. Forecast says room temp tomorrow (72 degrees).

It is cooler in the building than outside 'cept outside the air does move a little bit.

Quiet in here. Only two people at the internet stations. I see two people in the magazine lounge. One person just passed talking on his cell phone, but he was on his way out the door. Yeah, I hear ringtones a few times a day, but most people are good about taking their conversations outdoors. I've only had to ask 4 or 5 people to hush or exit. That's over the course of a year or so. You know how people talk LOUD on cell phones.

This Monday I stopped in at North Branch to view the Quilt Show. Some really handsome work. As a tribute one quilter is represented by 10 quilts. Dorothy Vance's quilts are "witty takes on presidents, political activists, doctors and others," says the press release about the show. Here at Claremont I helped Ms Vance find images she could use in her quilt creations, especially a quilt of odd couples -- Harpo & Karl Marx, Bette & Jefferson Davis, etc. Sorry to learn she is no longer with us.

Info Desk Blogging

I'm in charge of the browsing paperbacks collection here at Claremont. The collection consists mainly of books that come to us as donations. Whenever someone drops off a bag of books I hop over and paw through it. Usually there's a book or two worth adding to my to-be-processed stack in the workroom.

It's simple processing. A barcode and radio frequency ID tag (RFID), a label to indicate genre (nonfic, fic, sf/fantasy, romance, mystery), a little plastic to reinforce the cover. Unlike the majority of the items owned by the library the browsing collection doesn't have to go through our cataloging librarians; you can't look them up in the catalog; what you see is what you get.

General fiction is popular. Nonfiction does fine. Mysteries? Yes, more or less.

But romance and sf/fantasy? Not so much. There are some name romance authors who go out but many paperbacks on the spinny racks go round and round and round, year after year. I've long had fewer sf/fantasy but the rate at which they go out is about the same. The other problem is that people just don't donate romances and sf/fantasy, so it's hard to keep the collection from getting tired. Maybe readers tend to resell the genre stuff at Berkeley's used bookstores. Dunno.

Anyway, I finally got a bagful of goodlooking romances so decided to refresh the collection. I reviewed everything that'd been swinging about the carousel and found many that hadn't been checked out in 2 or 3 years. I threw those away. I've reduced the romance collection by about a third. As I also obtained some more sf I'm going to equalize the romance and sf collections. See if they really do have about the same size audience.

I'll let you know.

the foot measure

Berkeley's been rather cold lately. I judge temperature by how cold my feet are. They are cold right now. Even though I'm wearing socks with a snowflake pattern on the sole. (I should wear socks with flames?)

But it's not just how cold they are, it's how quickly/easily they can be warmed up. I expect once I get up from the computer and walk around my feet will warm up. It's really cold when I have on thick socks, big shoes and go walking around and my feet refuse to warm up. It's never that bad in Berkeley. We don't have ice or snow.

The big test is at bedtime. Will socks and blankets be enough to warm my feet? In winter the answer is no. Sometimes a foot massage will warm them enough. But when it's really unpleasantly cold I have to soak my feet in hot water, stuff them in warmed socks, then dive into bed before they cool off again. It's been like that once or twice since we got back from Mexico.

And I don't like it.

Baby Gray Whale at San Ignacio Lagoon, Baja California

photo by KLM

More at our new Flickr account.

Friendly Whales of San Ignacio Lagoon

That's me in the brown hat. Kent was standing behind manning a camera. That's Baby you see mostly, but note when Mama slides in between Baby and boat. She's the one with barnacles.

More videos are now up at youtube/kentmannis.

I miss that hair

It's a frame from the Touch of a Poet series videotapes. Unfortunately the tapes are not online. Yet? Oddly, there are a lot of typos in the names. That's Amy Kashiwabara (not Kashiwabar) who read with me on June 20, 1997. And my name is missing an L and an N.

Fun to note on the same page one of my coworkers at Claremont also read for the Touch series. Love the sideburns, Tom!

home again

Berkeley Public Library

Yes, I know these people. And the video? ‘Tis rather droll. I might’ve even popped up in the video if I still worked at Central. But Central seems so far away these days.

gay marriage is for the kids

So the California Supreme Court had oral arguments (which, unlike oral sex, involves no bodily contact) in a case that will determine whether gay marrieds get to be "marrieds" under the law. The three hours of backnforth boiled down to, according to the articles I saw, a few whiny bits from the judges like this: "Why now! Why not in ten years! Then my mom'll be dead & my grandkids will be old enough to contribute to my reelection fund!" Don't forget, folks, California Supreme Courtiers have to face the voters! Rose Bird got tossed just for deciding against killing people. Naughty girl.

In his column at SFGate Jon Carroll makes the Duh argument that seems to be missed most the time: "The state can and does compel the people who did the procreating to support the upbringing of the children. Sometimes [the parents] can't or won't, but still, it's a system and a legitimate function of government. The marriage license is a way of saying 'These people are responsible for that kid.' Not perfect, but extremely useful all the same.

"Which means, of course, that formal marriages between gay people are necessary. Not just desirable; necessary. Gay people have kids too, increasingly so, and those kids require equal protection under the law. To create two classes of marriage is to create two classes of children, and that is both morally and legally unacceptable."

Restricting marriage does not protect children, it actively harms them. Little things didn't ask to be born and the state oughtn't go around swatting them according to whether the state likes their parents.

dinner

tofu in lettuce roll

chicken with green bean

kung pao fish fillet

vegetable chow fun

How funny.

Last night I lay in bed thinking up things to say on LuvSet.

Game for a Sunday Morning

Here’s a game. How long a train of celebrity/prominent persons’ names can you make?

The one I came up with this morning lying in bed:

Eddie Albert Gore Vidal Sassoon

That’s from Eddie Albert / Albert Gore / Gore Vidal / Vidal Sassoon

Kent came up with this one:

Olivia Newton-John Dean Martin Landau

That’s from Olivia Newton-John / John Dean / Dean Martin / Martin Landau

OK, I provided Olivia Newton-John. Was Kent going to produce Olivia Newton-John? What’s a celebrity with the last name John? he said.

Happy To Day!

Don’t put off to Fro Day what you can do on a day like To Day!