Wednesday, January 03, 2018

RUSSIA i see you

I just had 141 visits to my blog yesterday. All from Russia. #yikes

Wednesday, December 20, 2017

I Hear You

Theme for English B

The instructor said,

      Go home and write
      a page tonight.
      And let that page come out of you—
      Then, it will be true.

I wonder if it’s that simple?
I am twenty-two, colored, born in Winston-Salem.   
I went to school there, then Durham, then here   
to this college on the hill above Harlem.   
I am the only colored student in my class.   
The steps from the hill lead down into Harlem,   
through a park, then I cross St. Nicholas,   
Eighth Avenue, Seventh, and I come to the Y,   
the Harlem Branch Y, where I take the elevator   
up to my room, sit down, and write this page:

It’s not easy to know what is true for you or me   
at twenty-two, my age. But I guess I’m what
I feel and see and hear, Harlem, I hear you.
hear you, hear me—we two—you, me, talk on this page.   
(I hear New York, too.) Me—who?

Well, I like to eat, sleep, drink, and be in love.   
I like to work, read, learn, and understand life.   
I like a pipe for a Christmas present,
or records—Bessie, bop, or Bach.
I guess being colored doesn’t make me not like
the same things other folks like who are other races.   
So will my page be colored that I write?   
Being me, it will not be white.
But it will be
a part of you, instructor.
You are white—
yet a part of me, as I am a part of you.
That’s American.
Sometimes perhaps you don’t want to be a part of me.   
Nor do I often want to be a part of you.
But we are, that’s true!
As I learn from you,
I guess you learn from me—
although you’re older—and white—
and somewhat more free.

This is my page for English B.

Langston Hughes, “Theme for English B” from Collected Poems. Copyright © 1994 by The Estate of Langston Hughes. Reprinted with the permission of Harold Ober Associates Incorporated.
Source: Selected Poems (Vintage Books, 1959)

Gilded Snow



Middle-Aged: A Study in an Emotion

A STUDY IN AN EMOTION
"'Tis but a vague, invarious delight. 
As gold that rains about some buried king. 

As the fine flakes, 
When tourists frolicking 
Stamp on his roof or in the glazing light 
Try photographs, wolf down their ale and cakes 
And start to inspect some further pyramid; 

As the fine dust, in the hid cell beneath 
Their transitory step and merriment, 
Drifts through the air, and the sarcophagus 
Gains yet another crust 
Of useless riches for the occupant, 
So I, the fires that lit once dreams 
Now over and spent, 
Lie dead within four walls 
And so now love 
Rains down and so enriches some stiff case, 
And strews a mind with precious metaphors, 

And so the space 
Of my still consciousness 
Is full of gilded snow, 

The which, no cat has eyes enough 
To see the brightness of."

Thursday, November 16, 2017

Mother

#amandapalmer #mother #trump #breastisbest


https://vimeo.com/242575536

Tuesday, November 07, 2017

To Spin on Command



The Movements of Mechanical Objects

by Rebecca Morgan Frank


Someone keeps opening the music box
in the middle of the night.

It used to play "Clair de lune," now
plays Muzak versions of the latest pop song.

I sleep with one eye open.
The figurine has surely been pushing

her way out. Her toes are so slender
she can pry open the lock.

Her sleek limbs bunch their muscles
as she lifts the lid, and

for seconds, she looks
like a sumo wrestler in her tutu.

If you asked her, she'd tell you
what it's like to be buried alive.

To spin on command.
She's been studying to be a DJ.

There are lots of classes on the internet,
she'll say. A girl can be anything.

But the dark trope only lets
her rise into a sea of pink

with plush dolphins.
Maybe I'll grow up,

she says, looking around,
to be a veterinarian.

You don't tell her that her veneer
is wrinkling and her belly

bulges like a squeezed tube.
Her eyes chip

away without her notice.
It won't be long until

she's retired. The body
junked and thrown

from the box. Separated
from everything that moves.





Monday, November 06, 2017

26 Dead, Again

I think it is a mistake to reduce this repeated public health/safety issue to EVIL. It is not pure evil. What is evil? A classic definition is that it is the absence of what is good, from Aquinas. So, in that sense there is evil in this equation. Our public policy does not support the mentally ill, does not address the issue of domestic violence AND provides easy/legal access to firearms. This means we have created a culture that allows these shootings.

EVIL is not a force out of nowhere, a big bad devil. It is when there is a good--civic life and even perhaps the right to own guns--that is flawed. The shooters are wrong, they are criminal, they are mentally ill, they are domestic abusers, or all of the above. But the shooter is not evil, the culture that has given him access to guns is. 

Don't call the shooter's acts evil. If you do, it means that there is NOTHING that can be done to prevent this symptom of evil (a lack of public policy regarding mental health/domestic violence/guns). This is not true. If the society cannot see this, they lack insight--a technical psychological term. It means you are not able to know that you are sick, as in the case of schizophrenia. 

I don't know the way out of this conundrum. Except to teach my kids that access to mental health care and health care are essential, that domestic abuse is unacceptable, and that access to firearms should be regulated as part of our national security. 

There is no pure evil. Pure evil is a slogan, an excuse, a smokescreen. It cripples us. It prevents insight.

Sunday, November 05, 2017

Top Ten

turkish delight

wide-brimmed straw hats in summer

jasmine pearl tea

eyewear

outdoor fruit and vegetable markets

tepertős pogácsa

freshly ground peanut butter

peanut butter on toast with tabasco and cucumber slices

baking bread

being in my body

whiskey, neat

pockets

Széchenyi Fürdő

my mother's dumplings

rocking chairs

scarves

giving books I love to people I think might love them too

The Girl of the Limberlost by Gene Stratton-Porter

diners

grandma Kelley's rice casserole

Le Mans Hall

midwives

baking muffins

Spencer Tunick

wool socks, knee-high, with stripes in the winter

clowns

"In My Mind" by Amanda Palmer

bread and butter

pumpkin

cooking split-pea soup

democracy

church bells

Gellért Fürdő

African chicken and peanut soup from the New England Soup Factory

martini with blue cheese stuffed olives

1059 Riverside

gesztenyepüré

Greek yogurt with honey, in Greece

listening to my kids giggle and play after the lights are out at bedtime

bodza

Book Club

Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins

Rome

sunflowers

Indigo Girls

dandelions

sleep

Warren Dunes State Park

french fries

Ted Kooser

blue

the fact that baking bread is so simple

clean pressed sheets

One Billion Rising

walking by a lilac bush in bloom

holding hands

playgrounds

NPR

PBS

hard wood floors

handmade afghans

coffee

Jeune Homme Nu Assis au Bord de la Mer, by Jean- Hippolyte Flandrin

marching bands

HONK! festival of activist street bands

my clever, funny friend

roasted chestnuts

Rachel flodnija

birdie sing in the tree, woo woo woo, wee wee wee, I love you and you love me

Henszlmann Imre utca, 5

cuckoo clocks

handwritten letters

potluck dinners

Kelet Kávézó

Pad Thai in Budapest

tabasco sauce

massage

Amanda Palmer

marathons, watching them

hiking, with the right shoes

chocolate chip cookies, baking them

snorkling

public schools

neighbors

pie crust

yellow roses

the truth

Friday, November 03, 2017

#MeToo Research Questionnaire

Please contribute your answers (10 minutes) for this research project. The survey is available in English and Hungarian.

https://elteppk.eu.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_eS6m6FJIsC89ojz?Q_Language=HU

#MeToo
#Hungary
#OBRHungary
#onebillionrising

Wednesday, October 18, 2017

Found To-Do List


Lost near Brookline Village. Found by me.
Love, love the this person not only planned "nap" but also checked it off. 

Friday, October 06, 2017

Kids are More Powerful than Guns

If this populace believes that the 2nd amendment teaches unrestrained access to guns, then I am going to teach my kids that they are more powerful than guns. I will raise the next generation to think politically about what is best for our citizenship. Who is with me to develop lesson plans for kids regarding gun control? #education #lifelonglearner #longview