tag:lisamednickpowell.com,2005:/blogs/grumpy-hour-blogGrumpy Hour Blog2022-05-17T14:08:36-07:00Lisa Mednick Powellfalsetag:lisamednickpowell.com,2005:Post/60474082019-04-02T17:00:00-07:002019-04-04T05:36:57-07:00Finding the Azimuth (or F the A) is out.
<p>My book, <em>Finding the Azimuth, </em>or <em>F the A </em>for short, will be available soon on Bandcamp! So you don't have to use Amazon! I will donate $2 for every book sold to Cholla Needles!</p>
<p><em>F the A</em> is a memoir, of sorts. It is actually my master's thesis without the beginning academic-y part. If you WANT that part, let me know and I will send it to you in a pdf. It is about American literature and stuff.</p>
<p>However, if you want to have the complete works, and a sense of the total state of mind that I was in, back to school having recoiled from the music biz...you can enhance your understanding by reading the first chapter of the thesis which is called "Make it Move: Language as Transportation."</p>
Lisa Mednick Powelltag:lisamednickpowell.com,2005:Post/60474072019-03-31T17:00:00-07:002019-04-01T12:33:44-07:00I HAVE STOPPED BLOGGING
<p>BECAUSE NO ONE IS READING MY BLOG.</p>
<p>AND...</p>
<p>I FUCKING HATE GRAMMARLY AND THEIR FUCKING ADS.</p>
Lisa Mednick Powelltag:lisamednickpowell.com,2005:Post/60474062019-03-18T17:00:00-07:002019-03-19T04:22:18-07:00I'M NOT A ROBOT
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/392853/f0aec35a97891ea3a78010a5613c2f4317ad543c/original/assholes.jpg/!!/b%3AWyJyZXNpemU6NjM1eDU0OCJd.jpg" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="548" width="635" /></p>
Lisa Mednick Powelltag:lisamednickpowell.com,2005:Post/60474052019-03-12T17:00:00-07:002019-03-13T11:16:57-07:00Arroyo Rogers EP is here!
<p>I mean, maybe it doesn't warrant an exclamation point, but we have been working on it for a couple of years, and it is here now. Seven songs. It was nearly only six songs but I convinced Kip to put the seventh song on there and it is a doozy. You will have to listen to find out why. Here's the link: <strong><span style="text-decoration:underline"><a href="https://arroyorogers.bandcamp.com/releases" target="_blank" data-imported="1">https://arroyorogers.bandcamp.com/releases</a></span></strong></p>
<p>Now go get you one! Really, they are only $7 per download. Only $10 for the physical disc with pictures and all that. David Butterfield (RIP) took the photo of us.</p>
<p>We recorded in New Orleans at Blue Velvet Studio with Tom Stern at the helm and on guitars, Doug Garrison on drums, Dan Cooper on pedal steel, Kip on bass and lead vox, yours truly on piano and accordion, backing vox and such like, with Bruce MacDonald kicking it up several notches on the kind of cool guitar only he can twang--and Alison Young on guest vox.</p>
<p>Our record release for SINGLE WIDE will be at The Palms April 27th. We know plenty of songs so we're gonna play the whole night. Please join us and drink a whole real lot so you forget you already have the album and accidentally buy a few more. See you there.</p>
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Lisa Mednick Powelltag:lisamednickpowell.com,2005:Post/60474042019-03-06T16:00:00-08:002019-03-08T03:35:39-08:00Superbloom and Painted Ladies
<p>The Painted Ladies are fluttering through. All blowing the same direction, crossing the highway oblivious to the military transports which barrel into them and crush them on the fly. I don't have the fuzzy soft spot for veterans and active duty personnel that so many locals seem to have. Sorry about that. But if you are crushing painted ladies, you get no quarter from me.</p>
<p>The superbloom appears to be on as well. We have three different kinds of white flowers inside our fence. I saw some Desert Lily foliage, but have not seen an actual blossom yet. Outside the perimeter I have seen some yellow desert dandelions and some purple verbena.</p>
<p>Our mallow is sprouting a few red blooms too after appearing to be dead for a whole year. The desert plants are tricky that way. Just add water...</p>
<p>Joshua trees are blooming as well, though of course not at our low elevation. Today when we went to pick up the dogs, we saw blooming yucca brevifolia all over the place.</p>
<p>Today I found some volunteer arugula thriving in our cage planter. We had it for dinner. I am going to have to plant some fresh...</p>
<p>It will grow. It is chilly, but nothing compared to the ass-freezing temperatures of Honkchester, NY. Family time was fun, but I will wait until summer to go back again.</p>
<p>The sunshine lives out here. But it seems to be on life support these days. Still, in the daytime, you can get a little solar gain which mitigates the windy chill somewhat. Our cabin is just that: a cabin. If you are indoors, the temperature is the same as outdoors in any season until you heat it or cool it. Such is the life of the homestead dweller I suppose.</p>
<p>Still, I am going to turn on the electric heaters tonight...</p>
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Lisa Mednick Powelltag:lisamednickpowell.com,2005:Post/60474032019-02-23T16:00:00-08:002019-02-24T04:36:55-08:00Dancing Backwards
<p>Yesterday evening I played three of my songs and two covers for a larger audience than I have played my music to in quite some time. I know that sentence structure sucks, but I get lazy when I am filled with self-loathing. Ah well.</p>
<p>The audience was large (about ten people) because it was a captive audience. The people had been at the venue (which was most appropriately called Arttrap by the way) to see a play. The play was called "Revolt, She Said. Revolt, Again." It was quite fantastic.</p>
<p>My part came in when I was asked to play a few songs, solo, on accordion and singing sans mic, after the play. Chairs were placed in an orderly fashion in front of where I sat facing them and those who were still assembled in the gallery were commanded politely (I was glad!) to sit in these chairs. I started with "Aragon Mill," by Si Kahn. To my surprise and delight a man seated in the back row (which was the second row) was singing along! He knew the words to "Aragon Mill." Wow. More about that later, maybe.</p>
<p>Then I sang three (three for Legba) of my songs and since my friend who was piloting the evening had announced my songs as revolution songs, I sang "With a Dollar in Your Hand," "Give the Guns to the Girls," and "Smoke Over Carolina." Then the suggestion was made to sing something everyone knew. So we sang "This Land is Your Land." With the revolution verses included of course. That song is nothing without those verses and I noticed that Google does not include those verses if you just use the Google version--so beware.</p>
<p>It was an interesting and unexpectedly pleasant experience. I might do it again. The captive audience did not tip me or buy any CDs but a couple of people said they liked my songs. So there you have it. Another night of performing for a few people--only this time was different since my name was not on the bill and, as a result, more people heard my songs.</p>
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Lisa Mednick Powelltag:lisamednickpowell.com,2005:Post/60474022019-02-20T16:00:00-08:002019-02-21T04:07:30-08:00Artifact of an Artifact
<p>Fossils have come to light. Fossils of a fossil in fact. Fossils of a fossil created by a ghost. In 1993 some friends and I made an album called Artifacts of Love. None of us are the same people we were back then. Back then, we were all wonderful. Back then, there was magic afoot and I believed and followed its signs like a pilgrim.</p>
<p>I had the studio for a week and having that sonic space in which to dream uninterrupted was a special privilege I never really have had since. My ensuing dreams were cobbled together--still dreams, mind you, but never anything like what the Artifacts sessions became. To begin with, Kenneth Blevins said to me, maybe it's time for you to make your own record. In fact I think he said, maybe it's time for US to make YOU a record. Something like that. In any case, he was involved in the conception. I was living in Austin at the time, where Steve Wilkison was starting a label called Dejadisc. He offered to make an album with me. I called Kenneth. I called a few other people. Then I met Greg Leisz on stage sitting in with Rosie Flores. He offered to play on my album. I took him up on it and his telepathic guitar utterances became so much a part of the weaving of the sound of the album that I gave him some production credit here and there even though Artifacts was emphatically my baby. I really did have complete creative control. As much as one is ever allowed to have, that is.</p>
<p>Around the same time, my sister Amy was also having a baby. Her first child, Sam, is the human brother of Artifacts of Love. They are the same age: 25. His sister Sophie is 22. He might not see it this way, but in my mind he really has two sisters.</p>
<p>When we started the recording process, I brought food and flowers into the studio. I made sure everyone was comfortable and and the space was pleasant, though I did not have the budget to put everyone up in nice hotels. I had to get them rooms at the Rodeway Inn by the I35. Since all but two of the band lived in Austin, that was only two people I made suffer...and I am sorry. I thought that one day I would make it up to them when we toured with a Prevo and had rooms at the Omni. Ha.</p>
<p>When the recording was done and I had bent everyone to my will, making them play strange parts and push faders up and down in odd places and use backwards reverb and anything I thought of to my heart's and ears' delight...the two engineers and I went to L.A. and stayed in my father's house to get the tapes mastered by the great Joe Gastwirt. He was recommended by Greg Leisz, in whom I placed all of my musical trust. All of this was new to all of us. The engineer, Charles Reeves, had never used a Hammond B3 organ before. None of us even knew what the mastering process entailed. Every single day was like a door opening up to something that seemed to improve our work from the day before. You see, that cannot happen twice in one's life--it just can't. Never mind that my father's dog ate Charles's toothbrush, and then, when we bought him a new toothbrush, the dog ate that one too. Charles I owe you a toothbrush...</p>
<p>Twenty five years later, I hear from Steve Wilkison that he has 98 copies of Artifacts in shrinkwrapped condition and do I want them. Yes please. I am gonna paypal him the funds and should have the boxes sometime soon.</p>
<p>I have been playing songs from that album at gigs and giglets for two and a half decades and for most of that time I have not had any copies to sell. If people hear Harper's Ferry or Dollar, they sometimes want to have a copy of the song to hear again in their car or in their house...and I can't provide that. The internet can now provide that, but the people who like my music are not all internet people. They are fossils, like me. SO I am here to tell you that I am about to receive a box of fossils in the mail. If you want a copy of Artifacts, if you want a fossil of a fossil, let me know and I will sell you one. I'll put them on Bandcamp just as soon as I get the boxes open.</p>
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Lisa Mednick Powelltag:lisamednickpowell.com,2005:Post/60474012019-02-10T16:00:00-08:002019-12-27T06:30:11-08:00Desert Story on Cholla Needles Website
<p>Cholla Needles Literary Library has posted my Desert Story, Pastures of Plenty, on their website. You can read it <a title="Pastures of Plenty" href="https://www.chollaneedles.com/2019/02/lisa-mednick-powell-pastures-of-plenty.html" target="_blank" data-imported="1"><span style="text-decoration:underline">here.</span></a></p>
Lisa Mednick Powelltag:lisamednickpowell.com,2005:Post/60474002019-02-09T16:00:00-08:002019-02-10T06:54:23-08:00Biting the hand that feeds no one
<p><span style="text-decoration:underline"><a title="Washington Post article" href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/travel/forget-coachella-theres-a-vibrant-more-affordable-music-scene-around-joshua-tree/2019/02/07/cbfc2d24-2959-11e9-b2fc-721718903bfc_story.html?utm_term=.fe5972ded2fb" target="_blank" data-imported="1">Here's the link.</a></span> The article, titled, "Forget Coachella, there's a vibrant more affordable music scene around Joshua Tree. The article, with its misused comma in the header, is in The Post. Read it and then read the comments. Mine is the long one. Yes it is snarky (of course it is!) and it bites the hand that doesn't feed me.</p>
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Lisa Mednick Powelltag:lisamednickpowell.com,2005:Post/60473992019-02-08T16:00:00-08:002019-02-09T04:25:59-08:00A little help from my friends
<p>I would like to have the Song Patrol up and running. A friend asked in an email today, "What's your plan?" That is just it. I don't have any kind of plan. I only have a vision. I don't do too well with the plans. I don't know how to start. When we crossed back into the USA from Mexico I noticed the border line on the bridge. One moment you are in Mexico and the next moment you are in the U.S. So what would happen if a person just started playing a song while standing right on the line? If the Mexican authorities came to harass, couldn't a person just step to the side and be in the U.S.? And then the vice versa?</p>
<p>A plan. I wish I had a plan. I see it very clearly in my imagination but how will I make it happen? I cannot do it by myself. I guess that means I need advice and input from my friends--and maybe people who I haven't met yet. But there are major pitfalls there. When I tried floating it publicly (on FB) it veered away from the direction I wanted to take it. So it is hard to involve others at the planning stage because they don't see it the way you see it. And yet you need those others...so I am stuck I suppose. </p>
Lisa Mednick Powelltag:lisamednickpowell.com,2005:Post/60473982019-02-02T16:00:00-08:002019-02-03T15:12:37-08:00On the Border
<p>Kip and I are in McAllen, Texas. We are here visiting his parents. We are going to Nuevo Progreso, Mexico tomorrow. I feel so strange blithely crossing the checkpoint. We have done it so many times in the past but it seems to be so careless this time. I will buy my goat milk candy as usual, don't you worry....but still, it feels fraught. Like I will be on the lookout for children in cages and such like...I love it here. I love the Rio Grande Valley. We are happy to be back in the land of HEB and hats and boots. Never mind Austin. We might perhaps go back there one day but only if there's a payday waiting for us and I don't mean candy.</p>
<p>There is always an edge-of-the-world feeling here. And a sense of commerce and exploitation. Big business done in big ways. You get used to it after a couple of days. But I wonder. You know, about the wall. I don't think anyone here wants it. Maybe some of the republican MAGA winter Texan types? But then how will they get their cheap dental work? How will they go back and forth to get cheap glasses and Viagra and blood pressure meds?</p>
<p>There are families that commute across the border daily. They go to school and shop and work on one side or the other and now with the orange pigmonster threatening to slam shut the door between nations here, what will everyone do?</p>
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Lisa Mednick Powelltag:lisamednickpowell.com,2005:Post/60473972019-01-23T16:00:00-08:002019-01-24T15:38:56-08:00Don't Say Strike; Say Huelga!
<p>Federal workers are prohibited from going on strike. But they can huelga, can't they? Just wondering...When I worked at the college in Northern new Mexico we were prohibited from striking. But Ignacio Coronado said, "We can just say it's a Huelga!" I did not realize what he meant until I saw the Cesar Chavez movie...</p>
Lisa Mednick Powelltag:lisamednickpowell.com,2005:Post/60473962019-01-20T16:00:00-08:002019-03-08T03:38:30-08:00No No Ms. Kondo You Must Go
<p>You do not spark joy so please get the hell away from me. What part of Memento Mori do you not understand?? If I keep only what sparks joy I would never write another song. No, really. Think about it. Maybe if I make a list. An ex's shirt. Any number of photographs of course. A spoon. A single earring. Boots--mg if they could talk! A torn leather jacket. A book you have read already but it is signed to you by the author, a friend, who has died. A postcard from a friend you will never see again because you don't know what happened to him. Empty perfume bottles. Seashells from opposite sides of the world.</p>
<p>I am not really a total packrat. I got rid of a LOT of stuff when Kip and I moved from New Mexico to our 495 square foot cabin in the Mojave. I am not sorry I donated my Schwinn cruiser to the Santa Fe Boys and Girls' club. I don't regret the silk kimono I gave to Rosalia. Many things are still in New Mexico that I could still have with me. But there are two things that I will always regret letting go: My old Olivetti typewriter and my Conn Saxophone. They were living beings, not just stuff. To be continued...</p>
<p>But may I add? Screw you Marie Kondo. You who would snatch the madeleine from Proust. Go. Away.</p>
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Lisa Mednick Powelltag:lisamednickpowell.com,2005:Post/60473952019-01-18T16:00:00-08:002019-01-19T15:12:49-08:00our trigger-happy military does not stop blowing shit up while govt workers wait at food banks
<p>What does the Trump/ McConnell shut down sound like in 29 Palms? KABOOM! ZOOM! RATTLE! The helicopters , jets, and bombs have not stopped shaking our world The marines are spending freely, defending our freedom to work for free.</p>
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Lisa Mednick Powelltag:lisamednickpowell.com,2005:Post/60473942019-01-17T16:00:00-08:002020-10-01T17:12:59-07:00Working for free this week? Welcome to my world.
<p>Yes, I work for free most of the time. Logged about 36 hours rehearsing, gigging and driving to and from this week. Grossed $104. After gas net about $75. Not worth it. Can't carry that no ore. It isn't anyone's fault. Singer-songwriter person, if I don't playwith you again, please do not take it personally. When I adjunct, the money is no better but I know going in that it's a lousy payday.</p>
<p>As a chronic local failed musician who can't get arrested, I have been working for free, purt near all my miserable life. Logged 20 hours of rehearsal this week, not including gear hauling and travel. this week alone. BOOM! There went another $30K blast that shook the windows of our 495-square foot cabin. And rank and file government workers are going to food banks.</p>
<p>You will say that I have made a lifestyle choice and that these government workers are victims. Say what you want. I also went to graduate school and went through lots of hoops to get that advanced degree. Fat lot of good it did me. So again I say: Welcome to my world. You still feel worthless at the end of the day, don't you?</p>
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Lisa Mednick Powelltag:lisamednickpowell.com,2005:Post/60473932019-01-13T16:00:00-08:002019-01-14T13:13:55-08:00She asked for bacon...
<p>Just a little update on my Mom...she has been finally assigned to a room in a rehab place. No, not a drug rehab place, but a place where she can get some physical therapy and heal from her hip fracture--enough to be able to use her walker and maybe get to move back to her apartment at the assisted living place. It is hard to tell what is going to happen. Amt sent me a photo of Mom having a PT session. Her face was the picture of determination. Just her resting determination face. </p>
<p>So anyway, she is at The Jewish Home of Rochester, in case you want to send a card or some flowers. And, incidentally, the first morning she tried to order bacon for breakfast. At the Jewish Home. They just stared at her...and then she realized where she was and laughed. I take this as a good sign because, and you might not know this, but Martha Mednick is one of the original Grumps. If she is getting her snark back, I have high hopes I really do.</p>
Lisa Mednick Powelltag:lisamednickpowell.com,2005:Post/60473922019-01-12T16:00:00-08:002019-01-13T04:46:23-08:00Last night's no-show
<p>It never fails. So at least I can count on that. Besides the fact that no one NO ONE came to hear my songs (I am getting acclimated to the cold...) the two resident dogs at Landers brew walked out when we started the set with Harper's Ferry. I know that dogs don't do regret, so they could not relate, but still, there are graves and putrefaction references, you know, decay and such like....I thought dogs like that sorta thing?</p>
<p>At the very end we played HF again for Paul and Claudia who showed up like proverbial party saints--you know the ones who show up after all the liquor is gone and bring a fresh bottle...twas a comfort to hear Paul singing along from is first (and only) row seat...</p>
<p>My impression of the venue is that it is a place for White Guys. If a woman is to succeed there it can't be a cracking fossil-crone like yours truly, but rather a young 'un still a maid and refreshing to the eye. If you want the truth, come out to one of my sets. Otherwise, yeah, stay home.</p>
Lisa Mednick Powelltag:lisamednickpowell.com,2005:Post/60473912019-01-09T16:00:00-08:002019-01-13T12:10:13-08:00Deserted desert story
<p>Pastures Of Plenty<br> <br>In the fall of 2013 I took a job teaching two classes—one at eight a.m. and the other at 3 p.m. — twice a week at the College of the Desert's far-flung Mecca/Thermal campus.<br><br>It yielded me little pay but I gained this story I now share about adjunct teaching in Mecca and the long, strange, mostly silent commute from Twentynine Palms. The crossing between desert worlds began the first day when I started driving before sunup and had to stop for a coyote rolling around in some puddle of putrefaction just before the entrance to Joshua Tree Park. Without even looking up, the coyote stood, ambled over to the shoulder, let me pass, then resumed wallowing. <br> <br>As I made my slow-winding way through the Park, the dawn was misty and cool. At Cottonwood Springs junction I saw a desert tortoise enjoying the damp by the side of the road. I stopped, took a photo with my flip-phone, and moved on. <br> <br>But most mysterious was the third creature I saw that morning. At about seven a.m., as I came around what I hoped was one of the final curves in the road to Cottonwood Springs, a tall, two-legged figure emerged from behind an ocotillo and held up a stop sign. You know, I had hoped to see maybe a hawk, a road-runner or two, at least a lizard. But no. What creature, exotic to these environs indeed, did I encounter deep in the wilderness of JTNP? A dude with a ponytail. Holding a stopsign lollypop. I stopped. The dude shuffled over. He said, "pilot car will be here shortly to take you through the zone." The zone? <br><br>Just then I had the sense— as I had often had in New Mexico, driving to and from Española, which was bordered by the Santa Clara and Okeh Owingeh pueblos, borders which one routinely traversed while on the same stretch of highway just to go to work or Walmart—that I was preparing to cross one of those invisible, intangible, yet impossible-to-fully-permeate borders between cultures. For the moment, however, what it really came down to was orange cones and caution tape. So I had to stop. And wait. There was no one else around. Just me and ponytail dude. I paced by the car and drained my ever-thickening black coffee, trying to ignore the roaring panic in my skull, instead tuning in to the silence of the ages. I felt myself becoming a fossil. <br><br> After the time-warp in the Park I took a half-hour roller-coaster ride over the ten and through Box Canyon. Then I got lost in Mecca. The map I printed out had somehow made it look as if the campus would be waiting for me at the foot of Box Canyon Road. Nope. Box Canyon Road, which wound through shadowy ravines and around various uptilted pink and brown strata—evolution ham sandwiches—deposited me into a yawning plain of lush and sudden agriculture. Here, with the doomed, glittering Salton Sea as a backdrop, flourished grape vines, fig and citrus trees, cabbage rows--and date palms with paper bag ballerina skirts hiding their high, sweet secrets. <br>Only when I drove through a corridor of lemon trees did I get a break from the rotten fish smell that permeated the area. Where was the college? Outside the Mecca Boys and Girls' club, I pulled off the road and called for help. <br><br>An arrangement was made whereby a student named Norma would meet me and lead me to campus. Arriving to class a half-hour late, toting a huge bag of books and papers, hair flying, make-up missing, and my sandals trailing high desert dust, I asked myself: How the hell am I going to make anyone believe me about anything? at all?<br>But the students were there in rows, just waiting for me to show up. They were dressed nicely too, and I made a note of that. They laughed when I smiled and possibly even forgave me for being tardy. So I did my job: got their names down on day one, and became the part-time extrovert one must become in order to teach English 71.<br>During the course of that long day the rain gushed down across the Coachella Valley, muddy rivulets spilling into the parking lot from the adjacent cabbage fields. By quitting time I learned that Box Canyon Road had washed out and I'd have to find another way home. <br>Many of the Mecca students live in towns that ring the Salton Sea and are native Spanish speakers and speakers of tongues indigenous to whatever regions they pilgrimed from to get to Mecca. With their families, they probably harvest your fruit and work at the manicured resorts to the west. <br>That semester I learned about the stark contrast between the handling of environmental and water resource issues in the East Coachella Valley vis-avis in communities like Rancho Mirage and Palm Desert. <br>The two ends of the same valley are a world apart. Water is life. Water changes lives. Water divides lives. When you check in to that bougainvillea-draped hotel reception in Palm Desert, walk past the sparkling water feature, and toss your Lambo keys to the valet, you are the flip side of a dusty row of field hands, their faces wrapped in bandanas, working under a fierce sun in those Mecca grapes. <br>The stories of the students' journeys north flooded my folder when I assigned that first personal essay. "…we climbed out the hotel window into the cold morning..." "…they sent us back so the next day we tried again." "…my mother was pregnant and we didn't have food…" These are the dreamers. Remember them?<br>And when I asked them to write about something they knew how to do that I did not know how to do, and a student wrote about "working in the strawberries" and how at the end of her first day she vowed through a fog of pain to never do it again but then went back to work the next day because everyone else did—I recalled times I went strawberry picking just for fun. When another student, in her essay response to the Cesar Chavez film, wrote: "Why do we pick the fruit? Oh, that's right, it's because white people can't!" I said, "You know, there's another movie you should see. It's called The Grapes of Wrath..."<br>Box Canyon and Cottonwood Springs remained impassable for a couple of weeks, so I took various long ways home and often wandered off the highway, finding date ranches with Arabian Nights iconography, and produce stands selling fresh greens and Mexican pastries. Once the Park route reopened, I commuted home that way. No radio, no phone service, only a slow ride through sunset into dusk and moonrise with bats and nighthawks swooping through my headlight beams and, if I got lucky, a long-shadowed, high-heeled tarantula or two stalking across the warm asphalt.</p>
Lisa Mednick Powelltag:lisamednickpowell.com,2005:Post/60473902019-01-06T16:00:00-08:002019-01-09T10:47:53-08:00A Fresh Idea: Building Material for The Wall
<p>Who needs government? Who needs the nanny state to wipe our butts when we leave our waste by the roads in our national parks? Really. Well, this seems like a great time to make hay while the sun is shining. The motherfucker wants a wall?</p>
<p>He is gonna get one, all right.</p>
<p>It will not necessarily be made only BY Americans. But it will be made IN America. In fact, it will be all organic, made in nature, in our national parks, out in the open air and sunshine.</p>
<p>It will be a <em>small world after all</em> wall!! </p>
<p>Yup, travelers from all over creation are roaming all over the western U.S.A., industriously creating the perfect building material while the nanny state sleeps. Who the hell will come within five feet of a wall that is built from shite? I suppose it will distract the drug dogs...ah well. There's flaws in every plan.</p>
<p>You are welcome Mr. Trump. I have solved your problem. Get the shovels, bring the trucks, load them up, drive them to the border, and--oh wait--who's gonna do the dirty job no American wants to do? Just asking...</p>
<p> </p>
Lisa Mednick Powelltag:lisamednickpowell.com,2005:Post/60473892019-01-01T16:00:00-08:002020-10-31T11:47:17-07:00Getting on another plane...
<p>I am getting on another plane. Actually I got on one already and now I am waiting to get on the next one. The first one was held up because SOMEONE IN FIRST CLASS COULD NOT RECLINE THEIR SEAT. SO MAINTENANCE HAD TO FIX IT BEFORE WE COULD TAKE OFF. IT TOOK OVER HALF AN HOUR. Some of us in steerage had connections to make but who cares about that, right?</p>
<p>Hopefully this next flight will not be hosting a first-class passenger who can't fly until her nails dry or something.</p>
<p>We shall see.</p>
<p>If I don't make it home, Kip gets everything. Sophie gets my Steinway unless she doesn't want it, in which case, Kip gets it.</p>
<p>Love,</p>
<p>Lisa</p>
Lisa Mednick Powelltag:lisamednickpowell.com,2005:Post/60473882018-12-30T16:00:00-08:002018-12-31T03:20:41-08:00The Poem That Helped Me on Friday
<p>I was sitting by my mother's hospital bed exchanging messages with a friend far away. I remembered a poem he wrote decades ago about when his mother had fallen. My friend Dave Alvin wrote this and I am counting on him not to mind my sharing it here. Interestingly enough, when I took it down from the shelf, a package of Kachina stickers fell out of the book that contains this poem. <br></p>
<p>Dave has a beautiful collection of Kachinas--outside the Heard Museum's, it is the best I have ever seen. </p>
<p>Also, I am reminded that he included me in the acknowledgements and now it is my turn to thank him yet again for the perfect words--not just the timeless songs, but these great poems that he concocts. Happy New Year, Dave and everyone who stops by and reads this. See you down the road.<br></p>
<p>His book is called <em>Any Rough Times Are Now Behind You.</em> If you don't own it, you ought to.</p>
<p><strong>My Mother Fell</strong></p>
<p><strong>by Dave Alvin</strong></p>
<p><strong>My mother fell this afternoon</strong></p>
<p><strong>My mother fell</strong></p>
<p><strong>and hit her head on Grandmother's</strong></p>
<p><strong>jagged wooden table.</strong></p>
<p><strong>Strips of her flaky skin</strong></p>
<p><strong>clung to the table's sharp edge.</strong></p>
<p><strong>I let go of her.</strong></p>
<p><strong>I let go of her because</strong></p>
<p><strong>she said she was cold.</strong></p>
<p><strong>I left her standing alone</strong></p>
<p><strong>in her walker</strong></p>
<p><strong>as I went for her sweater.</strong></p>
<p><strong>But the drugs </strong></p>
<p><strong>or the chemotherapy</strong></p>
<p><strong>had taken away her coordination</strong></p>
<p><strong>and she lost her balance</strong></p>
<p><strong>in her walker </strong></p>
<p><strong>and she fell.</strong></p>
<p><strong>I let go of her.</strong></p>
<p><strong>My mother fell this afternoon</strong></p>
<p><strong>like she was a baby</strong></p>
<p><strong>taking her first steps.</strong></p>
<p><strong>The pink skin of her forehead</strong></p>
<p><strong>quickly turned purple.</strong></p>
<p><strong>A small slash of blood</strong></p>
<p><strong>dripped into her half-closed eyes.</strong></p>
<p><strong>My mother fell this afternoon</strong></p>
<p><strong>and my tears fell into her eyes</strong></p>
<p><strong>as I tried to lift her back up.</strong></p>
<p><strong>My mother fell this afternoon.</strong></p>
<p><strong>My tears with her blood.</strong></p>
<p><strong>My mother fell this afternoon.</strong></p>
<p><strong>My mother fell.</strong></p>
Lisa Mednick Powelltag:lisamednickpowell.com,2005:Post/60473872018-12-28T16:00:00-08:002018-12-29T11:17:55-08:00Song Patrol: Recruits Wanted
<p>If you are interested in joining the Song Patrol, please email me at lisa@lisamednickpowell.com</p>
<p>I don't have any money. I don't have a plan yet. I have a vision, that's all. Maybe we can make it work. I think it could be pretty cool, but not if we wait too long. Then it will be too hot. I figure if we start planning now, maybe we can do something in mid-February. Or even March. My guess is that we can try it out in California, and then maybe take it to Texas. Let's see what happens. Am I crazy?</p>
Lisa Mednick Powelltag:lisamednickpowell.com,2005:Post/60473862018-12-26T16:00:00-08:002018-12-27T05:04:49-08:00Greetings from Highland Hospital
<p>Hello from Rochester, New York. My mother fell again and she's here at Highland Hospital recovering. She will be moved to rehab soon, then, we hope, back to her apartment at the assisted living venue. But we don't know. Especially because she said to me today, "The ending seems so raggedy, doesn't it?" And when I asked "the ending of what?" she said, "the ending of me."</p>
<p>I don't think this is actually the ending of my mother. I think it is most certainly the ending of any semblance of control she has had over her own daily life. I give her that. And I told her that. She agreed. We talked about that for a little while. She is, for the most part, very confused about where she is. She does not agree that this is a hospital. She thinks it might be a restaurant, because they brought her food. She thinks it might be a museum, because everyone is looking at her. She thinks she might be in Maryland because that is where she went to rehab last time she broke her pelvis. But when I read her stories from the newspaper, she is completely alert and aware of what I am saying. I have to read slowly of course. And loudly, which might be the reason why they switched her to a private room. The lady on the other side of the curtain was occasionally vociferous, yelling things like, "you're lying!" as I was reading aloud. Of course I didn't take it personally, as i am not the one who is lying in the newspaper story.</p>
<p>Well, I have eaten the tepid broth in the bowl of stuff that was supposed to be chicken soup. I extracted the rubbery purple-tinged blob that was supposed to be a matzoh ball and left it to die on the table. Time to clean it all up and go back upstairs to check on Mom. I hope you all had a good boxing day yesterday. I flew across the country and watched <em>Moonlight.</em> You should watch that movie. It is really good. Don't watch <em>Lalaland. </em>Watch <em>Moonlight.</em></p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
Lisa Mednick Powelltag:lisamednickpowell.com,2005:Post/60473852018-12-24T16:00:00-08:002021-07-05T00:38:17-07:00Christmas With Moloch
<p>I hope everyone is having a great day. Children are dying at our border. It is a fucking holocaust. Trump is Moloch.</p>
<p>We did have us some fun last night playing for free at Pappy and Harriet's. It being a Monday, 'twas the open mic. Kip got roped into being the house bassist which added to the fun but not to the wallet of course. Still, I wrangled a free glass of champagne, and magic of all magicks, no migraine today. So that was nice. Thank you, Topomax, Benadryl, Astelin, and Singulair! I can live the Lush Life again. Not sure I can still play the tune, but ah well.</p>
<p>On another topic:</p>
<p>I have never really liked the color purple, actually, as it symbolizes royalty. Someone on Instagram mentioned "desert royalty," pointing at a few chosen special people on the scene out here. I don't want to live anywhere if I have to be a subject. No thank you, she said.</p>
<p>Why do I mention the color purple? Not because I am nostalgic for K & B, although I am sometimes...and even more so for Mardi Gras...no it is because of <strong><span style="text-decoration:underline"><a title="A Christmas Story?" href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/anti-semitism-is-not-just-another-opinion-the-new-york-times-should-know-better/2018/12/24/7531887a-07b9-11e9-a3f0-71c95106d96a_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.aff3dcd5c7bc" data-imported="1">this article my sister sent me.</a></span></strong></p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
Lisa Mednick Powelltag:lisamednickpowell.com,2005:Post/60473842018-12-22T16:00:00-08:002018-12-25T06:11:47-08:00My U.S. Government Skillcraft Pen Has Not Shut Down
<p>I still have a pen that I suppose I got from when I worked at the L.O.C. (for you non-D.C. types that is the Library of Congress). It was a retirement gift, actually. Everyone gets them. That was 1983 and the pen still works. That is to say, the government pen has not shut down. It is possible that it was not used for many years. It might have been shut away in a desk for a long time, so maybe no one used it. And maybe the desk was in a humid climate, that is to say not here where I live in the Mojave Desert, so the ink did not dry up. There was a period of time when I didn't have a place to live and I stayed at my mother's apartment in D.C. I was working at the L.O.C. I don't remember where my mother was, but she was not using her apartment. She was teaching elsewhere. And I was moving to New Orleans. It was a time of change in my life and in hers as well. So I guess I left the pen there when I went to New Orleans and only found it again when Amy and I packed up my mother's things so she could move into an assisted living facility in Rochester, New York.</p>
<p>Another thing that is not shut down is the Marine Base here in Twentynine Palms. Yesterday morning they were blowing shit up "out in the field" as usual. It reminded me of the Newt Gingrich shutdown, when I tried to show an Australian friend around a bit and we drove out from L.A. to Joshua Tree Park. Well of course it was closed. So we went to a nearby state park, Saddleback Butte State Park. I think I still have the photo I snapped of the stealth bomber that flew over while we were hiking around out there. It is so interesting to take note of what shuts down and what does not shut down. </p>
<p></p>
Lisa Mednick Powelltag:lisamednickpowell.com,2005:Post/60473832018-12-20T16:00:00-08:002018-12-25T11:52:10-08:00Interview that nails it.
<p>There is this creepy cruel thread on the left that reminds me of the wish for women to be pure just like the virgin/whore obsession of the christianists on the <span class="text_exposed_show">right. If a woman has too much experience, has gotten her hands dirty with, say, compromise in congress, or the usual established U.S. complicity in a Central American coup, or given a speech at a dark money corporate entity--just as all male administrations have done forever in this country, then she's not good enough, not virginal enough to be ruler of this pure unvarnished land. Doesn't matter that she would at least try, with her reliable experience, and through ordered and established channels, to bring justice to those who need it most. <br></span></p>
<p><span class="text_exposed_show">Anyway, <span style="text-decoration:underline"><strong><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/20/podcasts/the-daily/senator-claire-mccaskill-missouri-interview.html" data-imported="1">this interview</a></strong></span> kinda nails it. I don't like that Claire McCaskill slings a bit of mud at our DiFi but otherwise this is right on the money. <br></span></p>
<p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/20/podcasts/the-daily/senator-claire-mccaskill-missouri-interview.html" data-imported="1"> </a></p>
Lisa Mednick Powelltag:lisamednickpowell.com,2005:Post/60473822018-12-19T16:00:00-08:002019-12-27T06:30:07-08:00#HERSTORY = #THEWHOLESTORY
<p>When you tell someone about a girlfriend's troubles with her husband or male partner. When the divorce is getting nasty. When the grabbing in the office made her quit. When the comments at the work site hurt yet she has to keep working to put food on the table. When the man has arranged it so he controls the assets. When a man comments that a woman can't lead. When...when these things are mentioned, does the person to whom you are mentioning these things say, "You are only getting half the story?" Tell them that is bullshit. #HERSTORY is the #WHOLESTORY. #ENDOFSTORY.</p>
Lisa Mednick Powelltag:lisamednickpowell.com,2005:Post/60473812018-12-17T16:00:00-08:002018-12-25T06:15:38-08:00drugstore cowgirl
<p>Okay I am not any different from any other 61 year old lady. I am freaked out by the aging process and I hate the sags and wrinkles. That is, let me clarify. The wrinkles are pretty much okay, you know like rings inside a tree trunk. They tell stories I suppose. But the SAGGING? OMG I can't take it. SO, being a girl of very little coin, I go to the drugstore and buy jars of stuff. I can't afford botox or any of that other stuff and besides I won't fucking do it. If I had the money I would donate it to SPLC and food banks and such like. Because let's get real. My face is going to go the way of all dust and mud. It is that simple. But if I had enough money to make a lot of oppressed women's lives better instead of make my face last longer, the choice would be a no-brainer. As it is, about twice a year, I donate the odd $50 to SPLC, $40 to the food bank, $25 to the Nature Conservancy...and about $50 to CVS and Clinique for face creams and sunscreens. Yes, I use a separate eye cream. Don't you?<br></p>
<p>What I don't want to do, ever, is contribute to the bland yet evil continuum, the mobius cash register strip, the slippery conveyor belt of pain, that is the fashion industry, the cosmetics industry, and so many other industries from whom we blithely consume on a daily basis, often without knowing we are doing so, who are in actuality industries that feed men with the blood of women. Men making money on the backs of women and children who suffer. Yes, that is what I mean. That just bugs me. How much research do I need to do to find out if my dollar is going to buy some rich man a Rolex watch (well, a molecule of a Rolex watch) while there is a woman freezing but too afraid (of him) to leave her tent to go look for firewood? I am just asking.</p>
<p>Anyhoo, back to the face creams for a moment. The coupons that were supposed to work did NOT work today. SO now I have to go back down the hill (and in the process burn a bunch of fossil fuel which will deposit money in the pockets of people who don't even believe in fossils...), return the face creams, and then re-buy them with the coupons that spurted out of the register today when I paid full fare. Oh and there was the cashier, who said "if you buy another jar, you get 40% off the second jar." To which I replied, "I cannot think that far ahead, and I only have the one face..." To give him a little credit, he actually laughed. Usually these remarks of mine are misunderstood. Like, when they say "do you have a rewards card with us?" and I say, "NO I ONLY HAVE A PUNISHMENT CARD." People just don't fucking get it, you know? Okay? So, yeah, I am grumpy. Have a nice evening. I am going to the gym now...for what it's worth.</p>
Lisa Mednick Powelltag:lisamednickpowell.com,2005:Post/60473802018-12-16T16:00:00-08:002018-12-25T06:14:15-08:00Update to Border Songs - Recruiting Song Patrol Agents
<p>A friend suggested that we create a new "songline" at the border (not the Canadian border; that's not what we're talking about here) by "patrolling" with songs. I don't wish to make light of or co-opt the aboriginal songline but I think in the sense that there is an intangible line that can be created and a border that then has to be crossed and negotiated with by anyone who travels across it--maybe it works.</p>
<p>My friend also suggested that we do not use the stretchy cloth, but rather that we all wear light blue. Not Scientology blue--more of a periwinkle blue...</p>
<p>And finally, she suggested that there be several small groups--or I think that was the idea--that can travel in sections and meet then disperse. Please email me at lisa@lisamednickpowell.com if you are interested. You can leave a comment here as well if you are even reading this.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
Lisa Mednick Powelltag:lisamednickpowell.com,2005:Post/60473792018-12-14T16:00:00-08:002018-12-25T06:15:03-08:00Vision: Freedom Efflorescence in Desert Blue
<p>I have a vision of some of us going down to a space near the border with an enormous piece of pale blue cloth. It should be the exact color of a Blue Phacelia wildflower. It should be stretchy. We stand in a circle or cluster, facing outwards, the cloth woven in and out among us, and begin singing our freedom songs and songs of redemption. Maybe we start with This Land is Your Land because we can be claiming the turf as we pace outward in evenly spaced steps from the center. This will echo a fossilized nautilus maybe or some other divinely proportioned natural form that moves out from a center point. I really don't know the physics of this. Come to think of it, it is probably more like a pineapple. But maybe you get the idea...</p>
<p>As we sing we are creating a bloom on the surface of the desert and crystallizing our ideas of what freedom should look like and sound like for the refugees who come to our borders. This will happen with our awareness that it might not be heard by any particular group of people or any person at all. That is not the point. The point is the surfacing and crystallizing of the concept into the air from within the desert--from underground. The underground is where all revolutionary ideas begin. I don't know what can happen once this little vision effloresces and encrusts on the desert's surface but I do not see how it would hurt anyone with its mere existence in time and space. It can just hang there like salt rimming an extinct tide pool.</p>
<p>If you want to participate in this please let me know via email. lisa@lisamednickpowell.com</p>
Lisa Mednick Powelltag:lisamednickpowell.com,2005:Post/60473782018-12-11T16:00:00-08:002019-12-27T06:30:07-08:00#TheStreetsInstead
<p>I am calling this entry #thestreetsinstead because I am starting to unravel myself from Facebook because I think not only is it unhelpful in terms of ending suffering in the world, but it is also actually causing harm in some cases. </p>
<p>Also, it kind of takes away the energy I *might* otherwise use for writing music or words or maybe even both...</p>
<p>Why #thestreetsinstead ? It seems like maybe the energy we put into sharing posts on FB could be better put to use going out into the streets and either protesting or creating some kind of kinetic art. There is nothing dada about Facebook. Everything is calculated, pixelated, formulated. It isn't art, anyway.</p>
<p>To tell you the truth, we don't even have streets where I live. None to speak of anyway. There are more dirt roads than paved avenues and very few people around to notice anything a person might be doing out on those roads or avenues...</p>
<p>Still, there'll be a Women's March come January at the corner of Old Woman Springs Road and Highway 62. Being that there's nowhere to march to, I suppose it'll just be a gathering of sorts. That is going to be organized via Facebook, no doubt.</p>
<p>I am going to leave a music page up for myself and for Arroyo Rogers if I can. But my presence as a cranky grump will be limited to this blog and maybe to a few email exchanges. Going on Facebook doesn't solve any of the problems that make the U.S. kind of a shithole country.</p>
<p>Nor will I solve those problems here. But I promise you I will be griping about them. And then we can all head out into the streets and ditches and see what sort of changes we can perhaps begin to stir up.</p>
<p> </p>
Lisa Mednick Powelltag:lisamednickpowell.com,2005:Post/60473772018-12-02T16:00:00-08:002018-12-12T15:33:41-08:00Bad Timing, Old Man
<p>I'm just thinking that if old man Bush had died BEFORE the 2016 "election," maybe it would have been clearer to the people who hate the Clintons that so many of the things they hate them for were actually the fault of Poppy Bush.</p>
<p>It's all right here: <a href="http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2018/12/bush-2?fbclid=IwAR1mqttm_qinSa4c9i3AfQp_AgPiGMSjPdPUiFkxSR1YLwIO9NdV8hKyQN0" data-imported="1">http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2018/12/bush-2?fbclid=IwAR1mqttm_qinSa4c9i3AfQp_AgPiGMSjPdPUiFkxSR1YLwIO9NdV8hKyQN0</a></p>
Lisa Mednick Powelltag:lisamednickpowell.com,2005:Post/60473762018-12-01T16:00:00-08:002018-12-02T02:47:40-08:00From a journal I dug up while engaging in home archaeology
<p>One night in early April, 199?</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Lucky called from Checotah, Oklahoma. All of his cows had calves. They're all red and there's 33 of them. His dog, Slick, is running around, beside himself, yipping and nipping at every hoof.</p>
<p>Robert called from Traverse City, Michigan. A big blizzard blew in off the Lake and he'd just got done plowing 8 inches of snow off his 1/4 mile driveway.</p>
<p>Andy called from West Virginia. He was having a couple of beers and watching the light change on the mountains.</p>
<p>Elizabeth called from Maryland. She just had a baby boy. She lives by the harbor and the air is clean.</p>
<p>Michael called from Chicago. He was taping Sean Tyrell's CD for me just as I was about to tape it for him. It's cold and windy and he's gonna start opening computer centers for underprivileged kids.</p>
<p>Paul called from New York. His film about politics in America ("Vote For ME") has run short of funds, but they are persevering.</p>
<p>My mother called from Hawaii. It's balmy but not quite warm enough to swim every day. She has to have surgery on her arm.</p>
<p>Linda called from New Orleans. She told me it was a rough Mardi Gras this year. Three people shot at the Bacchus parade, right in front of Houston's restaurant on St. Charles. Parade routes were changed, no one slept, many people stayed at her house.</p>
<p>Colleen called from Florida. She's moved there from Virginia. She can walk anywhere she needs to go, and the weather is consistently fine. She escaped from a roommate who was attacking her.</p>
<p>Melissa called form Eugene. She has a new man now and she might marry him because he is good to her and he can be happy outdoors in any kind of weather.</p>
<p>For the first time in many years--maybe the first time ever--I had trouble getting back into the U.S. The passport lady smiled and said "welcome back." But the gentleman who stood by the customs inspector was not so glad to see me. He asked, "are you visiting our country?" "no," I told him, "I live in our country." Then he proceeded to ask me many other questions presumably with the aim of forcing me to reveal all of my habits, good and evil. "what is that?" pointing to me tourmaiine crystal pendant. "what is that?" pointing to my new celtic knot pin. "why do you have bags under your eyes?" pointing at the bags under my eyes.. I took my hands out of the deep empty pockets of my worn leather coat. I smoothed my hair. I touched my face to see if there were tears...yes.</p>
<p>And again I felt it. Ah. when I was a kid we lived in Denmark. I knew it was wrong when we left.</p>
<p> </p>
Lisa Mednick Powelltag:lisamednickpowell.com,2005:Post/60473752018-11-18T01:13:25-08:002018-11-24T03:18:20-08:00An ending and a beginning
<p>Because Facebook (FB) is revealing itself as a republican entity, I am going to leave its confines. If you are reading this it is because i have directed you here from FB. I don't think I have to explain what I will miss about FB. Most of you are still on FB for the reasons why it took me so long to leave. So here we are. At my little blog. Welcome. I promise to do my best to keep this current, interesting, grumpy, and, of course, humorous. See you down the road.</p>
Lisa Mednick Powelltag:lisamednickpowell.com,2005:Post/60473742017-11-08T09:06:49-08:002018-11-24T03:18:20-08:00Keeping up with keeping up?
<p>Blue Book is about done. Discmakers has it, along with the photos and text. I am hoping they make it look good, because Joe Gastwirt sure made it sound good. Not to mention all the great players and studio professionals and singers who helped me along the way.
I am still pretty sure that no one reads this, so if you read this, send me a little sign that you did so. It would probably (no guarantees) encourage me to write more often.</p>
Lisa Mednick Powelltag:lisamednickpowell.com,2005:Post/60473732016-12-08T04:06:32-08:002018-11-24T03:18:20-08:00Winter in America
<p>Hello. This is a test to see if anyone is reading my site. If you are, find me on Facebook and let me know. I have the comments turned off so that I don't keep getting Latvian spam. Sorry about that. But a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do.
It is winter here, and the one cactus that blooms in the winter is doing its best to cough up a flower.
Got through the summer--somehow.
We have two dogs now and they take up most of the space in our house.
That is all for now until I hear from you, my potential readers.</p>
Lisa Mednick Powelltag:lisamednickpowell.com,2005:Post/60473722016-02-17T12:00:32-08:002018-11-24T03:18:19-08:00A Penny Saved?
<p>A Penny Saved
There is this little dog who comes around. Her ears are out of proportion to the rest of her. As if, as a friend put it, "That is a big dog with a small head and body." Actually I am pretty sure she is part Chihuahua. But she is about the size of a beagle. We don't know what her voice sounds like because we have only seen her use her mouth to eat, eat, eat. Her ribs protrude and so do her hipbones. She began wandering over to our yard a couple of months ago. Now she has been here and feasted a few times. Our encounters with her end when she turns and runs out the gate toward what we suspect, but hope is not, the place where her puppies wait. Her teats are hanging and the fur around them is matted. It could be because she grooms herself, but it could also be because she is nursing. Honestly? We hope she doesn't have puppies because if she does they are likely starving. A dog this thin can't possibly lactate.
She is a wild dog and only takes a step toward us if there is food on the ground she can reach without coming too close. She is beyond skittish, not anything close to friendly, but her expression says, "can I trust you? will you be nice to me? " She jumps back when we put the food bowl in front of her. She is nowhere near ready to join our pack, and still we wait for her like someone waits for a reluctant suitor to call on the phone. Today is Valentine's Day and we are too lovestruck to leave the house before dark. We've even named her: Penny. She is copper-colored. White blaze on the chest and white tips on her little paws.
She has coyote eyes. If you have been following this saga on Facebook then you know what she looks like. Anyway, here we are again, waiting to save Penny.
We have been advised by local dog rescuers to follow her but we have not yet had that opportunity. We have followed her footprints to an abandoned cabin nearby. But there is no indication that this is where she lives. I am guessing it's is a short shady stop on her long trajectory when she leaves to look for food. She shows up here about every other day. Yesterday she was here and ate two fried eggs, a can of dog food, some kibble, a few biscuits, and a huge hambone that she carried off with her when she went out the gate.
Would we do the same for a suffering human stranger who crawled in on all fours off the blank desert? I don't know. Kip might but I wouldn't. Humans can speak, and, when they speak, they say some pretty horrible stuff. And there's always a hidden agenda with humans. Sometimes not so hidden. As in, "Make America Great Again!" Or, "New York Values." And forget about what people do to animals. It is heartbreaking. This is what happened today. Valentine's Day.
Penny came over for lunch today and feasted as usual. She was eating some kibble when the scent of frying eggs made her stop, look up, and sniff the kitchen air. Kip was frying two eggs for her. She has had six eggs so far this week. Kip hand feeds them to her. I am sure she will be an insufferable table-beggar once she is our dog. Anyway, she gobbled her eggs and walked over to the stove to look for more. "Those are good. They come from over here somewhere." She seems to know that Kip is the wielder of fried eggs.
She hung around our yard for a while and then she was out the gate. We decided to follow her to wherever it is she runs off to every day after her feast. We started off after her but she was of course way too fast for us, weaving in and out among the creosote plants and leaving very little trace as she is so light. After she disappeared, we followed her tracks the best we could across the sand. Wherever the sand was soft, we could see her tracks. But we had to double back a few times to find her prints again when we lost them on the hard desert crust. At the bottom of the hill we followed the arroyo with its smoke trees and burrowed embankments. We inspected an old sofa and determined that this was not where she lived. Eventually the tracks in the sand led us to a typical Twentynine Palms Outback compound: rusty old 70s and 80s model Ford and GM trucks lined up in rows (no old Toyota trucks; they are still running...), three or four trailers in the final stages of decay, an old homestead cabin you can see right through, a water tank, nameless piles of junk, and a little pre-fab house with a shed where someone probably lived and was probably watching us with binoculars.
"We should get out of here," we both said. Suddenly, a pack of dogs came running full speed towards us. As they came closer, we saw that they all looked just like Penny. Almost exactly. Except they were not as thin and some had thicker fur. They stopped and sniffed and wagged, then a man stepped out of the cabin door and yelled, "DOGS!! DOGS!!" That was how he called them back?? They didn't have names? Well, one of them did because Penny was among that pack.
She is the smallest and the hungriest, and Kip says she is the runt. Her owner gets up in the morning and throws a bunch of food down for all the dogs and she probably doesn't get any of the food. So this little dog scrambles up through the chollas and chaparral to get some kibble and a fried egg or two from us.
"YOU JUST OUT TAKIN A WALK?" The man yelled at us. "Yes!" Then Kip said, "We've been feeding a stray dog; we're just looking for her..." "NOT HERE," yelled the man. Well, now we know where Penny hangs out at night. We know she has the protection of a pack and we know that the person who owns her does not care if she lives or dies.. We could hear him yelling and the dogs yelping as we walked away up the wash.
The last time I wandered out on the sand looking for a dog it was right after we moved here, and Luna had gotten out. I ran after her in the 100-degree heat and brought her home. What to do about little Penny? Maybe we'll keep feeding her until she decides to live with us. She might. Today she jumped up on the couch and sat there for a while, watching us. I wish we could get all of those dogs away from that man because he is not caring for them. But especially Penny. She is very resourceful, though, to have found saps like us. She would certainly be safe with us. At least I think she would. As I write this, coyotes are howling just beyond our fence.</p>
Lisa Mednick Powelltag:lisamednickpowell.com,2005:Post/60473712015-11-21T14:38:49-08:002018-11-24T03:18:19-08:00Spiders n Snakes, the Desert Eye
<p>The black widow spiders just hang in space like hookers in a doorway. Looks like each spider has her nightly post. I know there's the one that hangs by the water faucet (take care) and then there's one in each corner of the slab. It seems like they go to the same spot every night. I was killing them then I quit killing them. If they are that reliable, then I shouldn't kill them, I thought. I mean they aren't coming into the house looking for trouble, are they?
The other night I stood with my flashlight staring at a widow in her web. I would say "suddenly,the web began to tremble," but there is no sudden out here in the Mojave. The word doesn't apply. Maybe--if there's a big quake. Ok, a flash flood can be somewhat sudden, but you do see the clouds building a long way off. The web began to tremble. Just a little movement. The desert eye gets trained very quickly to swerve toward any movement. The creosote bushes are spaced just so. If anything stirs between them, you notice. As I watched this widow sort of gather herself and turn around to adjust to the new motion she sensed, I saw what looked like a small pebble moving just beneath her. No. It was a head. The head belonged to a baby sidewinder about the size of a pencil. If it were not creeping along against the slab of the house, and if it had not disturbed the widow, I am sure I would have never seen it. Well, I thought. It's time to follow the snake. The only reason a little snake was creeping around the perimeter of our cabin, I figured, would be to find a way in. There was a slight edge to the late summer night--you wouldn't feel it if you weren't a year-round resident here, but just a faint hint of cooling was indeed in the air.
I followed the snake. Sure enough he slithered up onto our porch.I wasn't sure what to do because it was tempting to just reach down and scoop the little guy up. But that would have been stupid. They say the babies are the most dangerous because they release all of their venom at once. I suppose the grownups only release enough to stun their prey. It takes a lifetime to learn how much venom to release and how much to hold back, given the situation in which one finds oneself. I took the broom and swept the snake off the porch, across the driveway, and underneath a creosote bush. Away from the house. If we'd still had Luna I would've killed it--or asked Kip to kill it. But that little snake was not dangerous unless it crept into our house, where it would blend in with the floor, or coil in a corner, or wait in a shoe. The next morning I checked under the creosote, but there was no sign of the baby snake. So that was that. And I thought maybe there were a dozen or so more in a nest nearby. But I never saw that snake again and I never saw any of its siblings.</p>
Lisa Mednick Powelltag:lisamednickpowell.com,2005:Post/60473702014-11-18T08:14:07-08:002018-11-24T03:18:19-08:00Pastures of Plenty?
<p>I do not know why I decided to take a flashlight with me this time, but last night I walked across the yard and nearly stepped on a teenaged rattler who was coiled in a perfect circle right in my path. Even with the light the snake was barely visible: kind of dug into the sand with its rattle tucked neatly under itself. Its tongue flicked in and out as it lay there waiting for some critter--one that did not have a flashlight.
I could tell you all about the snake and assorted vermin adventures we have had most recently, but I sense perhaps it is getting redundant in this venue. So I will save it for my memoir, which I will title: Running From Critters.
So, in that regard, I won't tell you about the rattlesnake that was lounging by our friend Victoria's pool, which Kip slaughtered and which Ryan skinned, and which was subsequently cut up and fried...much to my sorrow, partly because it is sad to kill animals, but mostly because I arrived at the scene thinking I was going to pick Kip up and bring him home, but got entwined in this snaky adventure instead. I have not been so grossed out, quite frankly, in years.
Um, no, I did not eat any of the meat. I tasted a tiny sliver and spit it out. It was like the yucky part of eating moules et frites; it was like chewing meat gum. And you will not read here all about the Mojave Shovel-Nosed Snake that somehow ended up in our kitchen and was as bewildered as we were about how it got there. Actually, that little guy was pretty cute.
Oh and also, I won't tell you about the black widow that was making its home in one of our houseplants. And I won't tell you about the pair of scorpion pincers the size of lobster claws that protruded from under our back step slab. (Scorpions probably taste like meat gum too.)
No, I would much rather write about (and ask you to read about) my commute to work at the Thermal/ Mecca campus of College of the Desert. I mean, in a way, it also involves a reptile or two. Not the two-legged variety like I encountered at my previous job, but the real thing. The first day I made my slow-motion winding way through Joshua Tree National Park (entering at the Oasis of Mara entrance and emerging at the Cottonwood Springs exit) I saw a desert tortoise off the side of the road. I stopped and snapped a photo, touched its shell, told it how much I loved it, and moved on. My declaration of love did not inspire the tortoise to come out of its shell, but then, as the wiser of us know, that kind of frankness rarely has such a result.
The other creature I saw in the park was more mysterious. At about seven a.m., as I came around what I hoped was one of the final curves in the road to Cottonwood, a tall, two-legged figure emerged from behind the chaparral and help up a stop sign. You know, I had hoped to see maybe some ravens, a road-runner or two, at least a coyote. But no. What creature did I encounter deep in the wilderness of JTNP? A dude with a ponytail. I stopped, and the dude shuffled over to my curious car window. He said, "pilot car will be here shortly to take you through the zone." Huh?
Oddly enough, it turned out that the roadwork that we all were assured would be completed by September first was, well, not completed. So I used the half hour wait to stretch my legs and finish my coffee, trying to respond to the hushed serenity of my geographical location rather than respond to the panic in my skull that was trying really hard to break the pretty silence.
After the delay in the Park and the half-hour roller-coaster ride through Box Canyon, I made things even worse by getting lost in Mecca. The online map had somehow made it look as if the campus would be right at the foot of Box Canyon Road. But that road leads you right into an area of lush and sudden agriculture. Grape vines, fig and citrus trees, and date palms with bags hanging from them that (as I learned from my students) protect the dates from the sun. After a tour of Mecca or Thermal (not sure which one it was), I pulled off the road at a small Taqueria and called the administration office.
The voice of panic was winning by now: I should never have taken this job. An eight a.m. call two hours from home? What an idiot! I'm not even ready for this! At least I was smart enough not to say any of that aloud to the administrative assistant at the other end of the line, who likely would not have had time to hear about my existential dilemma.
A student named Norma was in the office when I called. An arrangement was made whereby Norma would meet me in the parking lot of the Mecca Boys' and Girls' Club (which was the only landmark I could identify) and lead me to campus. So there I was, a half-hour late, toting a huge bag of books and papers, hair all messy, no make-up (I had planned to put make-up on in the parking lot once I arrived with twenty minutes to spare), and dusty sandals. How the hell am I going to make these kids believe that I know how to use a comma, and, moreover, that I can teach them once and for all when AND WHEN NOT TO use a comma? Sigh. But they were all there. Waiting for me.
So I pulled myself together (or at least provided the outward appearance of doing so) and smiled and became the reluctant extrovert that I must become for the two hours it takes to teach English 71. I really like the students so far. I also know that, by Thanksgiving, at least half of them will have disappeared. It has already started. Four students walked out of class inexplicably last Wednesday. I got the explanations for three of them later via email. One, it turned out, had to go with his parents to translate at the doctor's office. One had to be at a doctor's appointment with his wife and infant daughter. One, Norma in fact, had an oil leak and could not start her car.
You know what? I am a teacher the first three days of the week and I guess I am glad. I prefer the latter part of the week when I am a musician, of course. But my eyes are open to new things, which can sometimes be a good thing. And they are actually finished with the construction in the Park. Now, instead of the dude with the ponytail, I see bats swooping around my car and lizards scampering across the fresh, hot asphalt.
It's another world down there in the east Coachella Valley; it reminds me of the Rio Grande Valley in south Texas in some ways. The students are the people whose parents pick your fruit and work at the resorts in Palm Desert and Rancho Mirage. They are mostly native Spanish speakers. So I checked a Spanish language audio course out of the library. If you see me driving along through the Park at dawn or dusk, talking to myself in broken Spanish--I hope you will understand.
Here is a song and a poem combined—the very song that popped into my head as I first drove into Mecca. And yes, it's by a dead white guy. Deal with it.
Pastures of Plenty - Woody Guthrie
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Words and Music by Woody Guthrie
It's a mighty hard row that my poor hands have hoed
My poor feet have traveled a hot dusty road
Out of your Dust Bowl and Westward we rolled
And your deserts were hot and your mountains were cold
I worked in your orchards of peaches and prunes
I slept on the ground in the light of the moon
On the edge of the city you'll see us and then
We come with the dust and we go with the wind
California, Arizona, I harvest your crops
Well its North up to Oregon to gather your hops
Dig the beets from your ground, cut the grapes from your vine
To set on your table your light sparkling wine
Green pastures of plenty from dry desert ground
From the Grand Coulee Dam where the waters run down
Every state in the Union us migrants have been
We'll work in this fight and we'll fight till we win
It's always we rambled, that river and I
All along your green valley, I will work till I die
My land I'll defend with my life if it be
Cause my pastures of plenty must always be free</p>
Lisa Mednick Powelltag:lisamednickpowell.com,2005:Post/60473692014-09-16T09:14:26-07:002021-12-27T02:52:27-08:00you knew I was a snake when you took me in….
<p>I do not know why I decided to take a flashlight with me this time, but last night I walked across the yard and nearly stepped on a teenaged rattler who was coiled in a perfect circle right in my path. Even with the light the snake was barely visible: kind of dug into the sand with its rattle tucked neatly under itself. Its tongue flicked in and out as it lay there waiting for some critter--one that did not have a flashlight.
I could tell you all about the snake and assorted vermin adventures we have had most recently, but I sense perhaps it is getting redundant in this venue. So I will save it for my memoir, which I will title: Running From Critters.
So, in that regard, I won't tell you about the rattlesnake that was lounging by our friend Victoria's pool, which Kip slaughtered and which Ryan skinned, and which was subsequently cut up and fried...much to my sorrow, partly because it is sad to kill animals, but mostly because I arrived at the scene thinking I was going to pick Kip up and bring him home, but got entwined in this snaky adventure instead. I have not been so grossed out, quite frankly, in years.
Um, no, I did not eat any of the meat. I tasted a tiny sliver and spit it out. It was like the yucky part of eating moules et frites; it was like chewing meat gum. And you will not read here all about the Mojave Shovel-Nosed Snake that somehow ended up in our kitchen and was as bewildered as we were about how it got there. Actually, that little guy was pretty cute.
Oh and also, I won't tell you about the black widow that was making its home in one of our houseplants. And I won't tell you about the pair of scorpion pincers the size of lobster claws that protruded from under our back step slab. (Scorpions probably taste like meat gum too.)
No, I would much rather write about (and ask you to read about) my commute to work at the Thermal/ Mecca campus of College of the Desert. I mean, in a way, it also involves a reptile or two. Not the two-legged variety like I encountered at my previous job, but the real thing. The first day I made my slow-motion winding way through Joshua Tree National Park (entering at the Oasis of Mara entrance and emerging at the Cottonwood Springs exit) I saw a desert tortoise off the side of the road. I stopped and snapped a photo, touched its shell, told it how much I loved it, and moved on. My declaration of love did not inspire the tortoise to come out of its shell, but then, as the wiser of us know, that kind of frankness rarely has such a result.
The other creature I saw in the park was more mysterious. At about seven a.m., as I came around what I hoped was one of the final curves in the road to Cottonwood, a tall, two-legged figure emerged from behind the chaparral and help up a stop sign. You know, I had hoped to see maybe some ravens, a road-runner or two, at least a coyote. But no. What creature did I encounter deep in the wilderness of JTNP? A dude with a ponytail. I stopped, and the dude shuffled over to my curious car window. He said, "pilot car will be here shortly to take you through the zone." Huh?
Oddly enough, it turned out that the roadwork that we all were assured would be completed by September first was, well, not completed. So I used the half hour wait to stretch my legs and finish my coffee, trying to respond to the hushed serenity of my geographical location rather than respond to the panic in my skull that was trying really hard to break the pretty silence.
After the delay in the Park and the half-hour roller-coaster ride through Box Canyon, I made things even worse by getting lost in Mecca. The online map had somehow made it look as if the campus would be right at the foot of Box Canyon Road. But that road leads you right into an area of lush and sudden agriculture. Grape vines, fig and citrus trees, and date palms with bags hanging from them that (as I learned from my students) protect the dates from the sun. After a tour of Mecca or Thermal (not sure which one it was), I pulled off the road at a small Taqueria and called the administration office.
The voice of panic was winning by now: I should never have taken this job. An eight a.m. call two hours from home? What an idiot! I'm not even ready for this! At least I was smart enough not to say any of that aloud to the administrative assistant at the other end of the line, who likely would not have had time to hear about my existential dilemma.
A student named Norma was in the office when I called. An arrangement was made whereby Norma would meet me in the parking lot of the Mecca Boys' and Girls' Club (which was the only landmark I could identify) and lead me to campus. So there I was, a half-hour late, toting a huge bag of books and papers, hair all messy, no make-up (I had planned to put make-up on in the parking lot once I arrived with twenty minutes to spare), and dusty sandals. How the hell am I going to make these kids believe that I know how to use a comma, and, moreover, that I can teach them once and for all when AND WHEN NOT TO use a comma? Sigh. But they were all there. Waiting for me.
So I pulled myself together (or at least provided the outward appearance of doing so) and smiled and became the reluctant extrovert that I must become for the two hours it takes to teach English 71. I really like the students so far. I also know that, by Thanksgiving, at least half of them will have disappeared. It has already started. Four students walked out of class inexplicably last Wednesday. I got the explanations for three of them later via email. One, it turned out, had to go with his parents to translate at the doctor's office. One had to be at a doctor's appointment with his wife and infant daughter. One, Norma in fact, had an oil leak and could not start her car.
You know what? I am a teacher the first three days of the week and I guess I am glad. I prefer the latter part of the week when I am a musician, of course. But my eyes are open to new things, which can sometimes be a good thing. And they are actually finished with the construction in the Park. Now, instead of the dude with the ponytail, I see bats swooping around my car and lizards scampering across the fresh, hot asphalt.
It's another world down there in the east Coachella Valley; it reminds me of the Rio Grande Valley in south Texas in some ways. The students are the people whose parents pick your fruit and work at the resorts in Palm Desert and Rancho Mirage. They are mostly native Spanish speakers. So I checked a Spanish language audio course out of the library. If you see me driving along through the Park at dawn or dusk, talking to myself in broken Spanish--I hope you will understand.
Here is a song and a poem combined—the very song that popped into my head as I first drove into Mecca. And yes, it's by a dead white guy. Deal with it.
Pastures of Plenty
Words and Music by Woody Guthrie
"It's a mighty hard row that my poor hands have hoed
My poor feet have traveled a hot dusty road
Out of your Dust Bowl and Westward we rolled
And your deserts were hot and your mountains were cold
I worked in your orchards of peaches and prunes
I slept on the ground in the light of the moon
On the edge of the city you'll see us and then
We come with the dust and we go with the wind
California, Arizona, I harvest your crops
Well its North up to Oregon to gather your hops
Dig the beets from your ground, cut the grapes from your vine
To set on your table your light sparkling wine
Green pastures of plenty from dry desert ground
From the Grand Coulee Dam where the waters run down
Every state in the Union us migrants have been
We'll work in this fight and we'll fight till we win
It's always we rambled, that river and I
All along your green valley, I will work till I die
My land I'll defend with my life if it be
Cause my pastures of plenty must always be free"</p>
Lisa Mednick Powelltag:lisamednickpowell.com,2005:Post/60473672014-07-01T07:58:13-07:002018-11-24T03:18:18-08:00Farewell to Luna!!
<p>Yesterday Kip and his parents and I rode the tramway up from Palm Springs to a mountaintop overlooking the strange vastness of Palm Springs, the windmill farms by the freeway, the gray rocky ridge behind which we live, the casinos and the trailer parks, the lush lawns and bowers of the water-hogging golf culture--all of it in miniature of course. The tram ride itself was interesting because of the operator who was trying to be funny, the floor of the tram itself which spun slowly so you could see all aspects of the view, and the horrible radio station which spewed such awful crap interspersed with advertising for the gift shops that yawned at both the top and bottom of the small world inhabited by the private concern that runs the tramway.
The small adventure at the top was worth all the strangeness: cool and foresty and piny and shadowy. There was a waterfall and maybe even a creek. These sharp fresh altitudes always remind me that when I first went off to college (a resounding FAIL), I wanted to be a tree-rescuer and nature-studier. But the math classes got in the way. Then the music took over. Anyhoo, there I was yesterday, staring at a stand of deciduous-type trees when I suddenly blurted out: "Liquidambar Styriciflua!"
Kip raised his eyebrows (even higher), "huh?" "Sweetgum!" It is funny what sticks in your brain as you recede from your past lives; almost all of the Latin names I learned in my Woody Plants course nearly forty years ago in Ann Arbor are still readily available when I see the plant that bears the name.
I have said that the tram ride itself was odd, and the restaurant thing at the top, with its unnatural green carpet and musty restaurant gloom, was even weirder. Still, none of that strangeness overwhelmed the beauty of the mountainside and the chasms filled with flora, some of it spiky and some of it lime-jello-green and alluring.
And those greeny crevasses made me think of my favorite poet: Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Which poem? Must you ask? The one born from a fragmented gothic dream that STC only remembered part of, and which, it is alleged, Dorothy Wordsworth helped him reconstruct from his fog-drenched skull. (And, by the way, ahem, if that's a true story, then I have to wonder how many of her brother's poems Dorothy helped pen.)
This poem (to me) is all about the intrusion of the supernatural into the natural world. If you are any kind of artist, that border will be porous at all times and you can make a song out of anything—IF you can engage in "the willing suspension of disbelief...." That is, you gots to be ready.
Whether or not you might enjoy a taste academic puffery (forgive me, dear professors, if I make seem to light of the academy—I don't mean to!), here is Charles Patterson, Jr. quoting Plato, in a quote from a long-lost assignment I once had to complete: an analysis of Coleridge's Kubla Khan
"...all good poets...compose their beautiful poems not by art, but because they are inspired and possessed...The poets are only the
interpreters of the Gods by whom they are severally possessed."
What do you think? Doth it require a “self-obliterating empathy, when the subject of his song taketh control of a poet’s mind and he calleth up...a beauty untrammeled by the demands of the rational and analytical...?”
Oh to live untrammeled by those demands! At least we get to experience a sense of untrammeledness when we read Coleridge, though, don't we? Don't his poems take you places? Let's go to Xanadu.
Kubla Khan
Or, A Vision in a Dream, a Fragment
Prologue (where Coleridge describes having his dream interrupted by a caller):
Then all the charm
Is broken—all that phantom-world so fair
Vanishes, and a thousand circlets spread,
And each mis-shapes the other. Stay awhile,
Poor youth! who scarcely dar'st lift up thine eyes—
The stream will soon renew its smoothness, soon
The visions will return! And lo, he stays,
And soon the fragments dim of lovely forms
Come trembling back, unite, and now once more
The pool becomes a mirror.
Yet from the still surviving recollections in his mind, the Author has frequently purposed to finish for himself what had been originally, as it were, given to him. I'll sing you a sweeter song another day. [this was originally written in Greek according to my book....]
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.
So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and flowers were girdled round:
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.
But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted
Down the hill athwart a cedarn cover!
A savage place! as holy and enchanted
As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon lover!
And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
A mighty fountain momently was forced:
Amid whose half-intermitted burst
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail:
And mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
It flung up momently the sacred river.
Fiver miles meandering with a mazy motion
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
Then reached the caverns measureless to man,
And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean;
And ’mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war!
The shadow of the dome of pleasure
Floated midway on the waves;
Where was heard the mingled measure
From the fountain and the caves.
It was a miracle of rare device,
A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!
A damsel with a dulcimer
In a vision once I saw:
It was an Abyssinian maid
And on her dulcimer she played,
Singing of Mount Abora.
Could I revive within me
Her symphony and song,
To such a deep delight ’twould win me,
That with music loud and long,
I would build that dome in air,
That sunny dome! those caves of ice!
And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry, Beware! Beware!
His flashing eyes, his floating hair!
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.
(If that poem did not transport you, try "Rime of the Ancient Mariner." It is almost impossible to come back from that one...)
In the meantime, things have been busy here. I am frequently (and pleasantly) surprised by how busy one can keep oneself out here in "the middle of nowhere," or BFE as it is known by some lucky few. You think there's nothing out here in the desert until you stay awhile and give some respectful attention. Then things begin to sprout and scramble at your feet.
And Kip and I have now survived another June, and thereby we have survived our 57th birthdays. I never thought I would even make it to 30. Ha! Now, here we are: Seniors. The age of everyone's parents and, in many cases, grandparents. In the "old-enough-to-be" category. To me, at this point, someone who is 50 has their whole life ahead of them! Or at least a half-life!
(Some of you might remember our "Hawaii-5-0" 50th birthday party. "What a milestone; how did I get this old??" I thought at the time...) Our musician friends here vary in age, but I would wager that we are older than most of them.
Anyway, Kip did not have a happy birthday because it was the day we lost our Luna. She took ill the night before, and suffered in terrible pain through the night. We took turns getting up to check on her and it seemed to keep getting worse. Her tolerance for riding in the car was so bad by this time that we didn't dare take her on the two-plus hour drive to the all-night vet in Indio. She was already so far down that she might have perished on the way. They told us over the phone that she might have bloat and the only option was emergency surgery that "might save her." She would likely not have survived the surgery if she had made it to Indio.
We took her to our regular vet in Yucca Valley and they turned us away. So we went to the vet in 29 Palms, unfamiliar and terrible territory for Luna—and, as it turned out, for us. The paw prints were on the wall. Luna had always rallied, and there was a shot of hope as she wobbled to her feet and strode into the clinic. But then she huddled under the desk while the vet's assistant gave us the verdict. We wept and held her while they gave her a dose, and and then the vet said "her heart has stopped."
What a heart it was. Luna, whose footprints are now erased from our yard by the hard afternoon winds, who always came over and placed her head on your knee if you were sad, who had a charcoal smudge on her tail, who loved to lie next to the piano when we played and sang, who loved the snow, who we brought home from the shelter at age six, who was always a puppy, whose tail curled upward until arthritis got the better of it, who loved us so much that she lived until sixteen, who talked (almost in full sentences) when she wanted something, who tolerated so much from us—the kennel, medicines, curry combs, being banished when she pooped in the house--, who loved to graze on popcorn, who once stole a burrito off of our friend Heather's plate, who also snagged a bag of tortillas off the counter and dragged it to her bed (having eaten only half of the bag so she could save some for later), who understood everything all the time, who had several revolving silly nicknames as well as her own theme song, who maybe we could have saved by not putting her in the kennel that last time, who might have eaten rat poison when she dashed out the gate the last evening of her life and ran over to the abandoned house next door and somehow got in for just long enough to have eaten whatever poison pills were lying around on the rotten floor, who was a pain in the neck sometimes but mostly made our lives a lot more fun, and who was really the only child of our ten-year marriage, is gone.
Luna is gone, except we find the hairpin-wavy fibers of her undercoat everywhere, except her leash and bowls are still in the shed, except we are farming out what remains of her biscuit supply to our friends' dogs, except she is still in my heart all the time—is gone. We miss her. Sometimes I wish we had taken her ashes, but we decided in the blur of tears of the moment to let them sprinkle her ashes in the garden behind the vet's office. I hope they did that. Her photo is on our table with candles and roses, a painted pawprint I salvaged from a large piece of cardboard that had served as a dropcloth (she always stepped in the paint...), and a little piece of popcorn in case she gets hungry.
I am attaching my favorite photo of her. A Husky girl in her element. Ready to play, ready to protect her resources, ready to take all comers, especially if they were holdin' biscuits.
Maybe her happiest days when we lived in El Rito, New Mexico and she had her own yard-- though her desert days were happy ones too. She had the run of our sandbox and got to bark at tortoises and jackrabbits.</p>
Lisa Mednick Powelltag:lisamednickpowell.com,2005:Post/60473662014-06-01T07:57:01-07:002018-11-24T03:18:18-08:00Critters
<p>Last time I wrote I was waxing positive about the critters out here, wasn't I?
Well Imma tell you what. Seems like some of them critters have become VARMINTS! I mean we still feed the bunny. The tortoise has gone underground; however, other creatures have risen in its place. Loren Eiseley put it best: The cephalopods are very old, and they have slipped, protean, through many shapes. They are the wisest of the mollusks, and I have always felt it to be just as well for us that they never came ashore, but--there are other things that have. It is a true statement not without some foreboding...I mean did you get the creeps when you read that? I did.
Anyhoo....There I was outside the back door (which is located about ten feet from the front door), placing a dish of fresh water on the cool concrete slab for Luna. She likes to lounge there in the morning before the sun begins burning up the west. I bent down to place her dish on the cement. Then I stood up slowly and backed away on little cat feet.
There, in the corner where Luna always naps, coiled in perfect circles of brown and tan diamonds, looking like a nicely patterned throw pillow you might buy at Big Lots—or perhaps the kind that they display at cheap motels with "Southwestern" decor "inspired by" (which usually means "stolen from") Native American art, was a petite sidewinder. OK. OK. So what do I do? I walk around front and whisper to Kip "there's a rattlesnake." He doesn't believe me until I show it to him. It really was pretty small. But a snake that size could kill our dog. The baby rattlers don't know how to hold back their venom in one strike. So they are supposedly more dangerous than an adult snake. Of course I could say I have met some adult vipers and they never seemed to hold back....but I digress. Or maybe I don't.
Well we didn't LIKE to do it, but we killed the thing. To be specific Kip separated it from itself with a shovel, and we threw it over the fence. When we came home a few hours later there was no trace of it. When a friend asked us if she could have the head and the rattle we had to tell her that every part of the snake had been eaten—by something.
Speaking of reptiles and reptile-like species I have encountered on my sojourn(s), we have these so-called Desert Iguanas out here. When I first saw their spotted tails hanging down (and after the initial fright that it might be another snake) as they lounged in our potted plants, I thought "Oh that's cute!" But then I realized that they were after more than just a shady spot to rest and cool off. Every drought-tolerant leafy and/or flowering thing we have planted is, to the iguanas, a bountiful shelf in their pantry. The Hummingbird Mint, the Mallows, the squash plants, the cherry tomatoes, the less prickly prickly-pears—all of them are chomped down to the sticks by these marauding lizards. Yes, they stomped all over our little toy garden...Well, we did move in to their pantry I suppose. You know, we thought we might go see Godzilla last week when it was playing here at the local Drive-In Movie Theater. But it turned out we didn't have to.
And by the way we aren't stupid enough to plant tomatoes out here. It's just that, because we water the plants with our dishwater, we had some volunteer tomato plants in our potted jasmine. And, although it is not drought-tolerant, we have a potted jasmine on the front porch because (as you MIGHT know) I am super-sentimental about New Orleans and that smell—it is called Confederate Jasmine as a matter of fact—just takes me right back there. Kip associates the same fragrance with riding his motorcycle around L.A. in spring in the late nineteen eighties. Both of us like homegrown tomatoes. We got to eat two of these volunteers before the iguanas got all of them. Some people have to spray for bugs on their tomato plants. We have to try to keep the iguanas away. I hung windchimes in the jasmine plant, thinking the sound might startle the iguana into leaving. But I guess they like windchimes. Hey, who doesn't? Everyone likes watermelon too, right? We bought one from Walmart and (served us right for shopping there) it was rotten. So we chunked it up and threw it out over the fence. That ten-pounder was history within 36 hours. Not a trace of it left. This is the desert.
********
Many years ago, Kip and I visited New Orleans together. We were driving along Jackson Avenue (perhaps) and saw a mural that depicted a lady in a head-wrap and the words "Does my sassiness upset you? Why are you beset with gloom?" I am sure that mural is long gone. But it stayed put in my brain for a long time.
And, after Katrina I wrote a lot of New Orleans poems and most of them were drivel....but I did quote that wall in my poem, not knowing where the words came from.
It took the death of Maya Angelou, and the serendipity of my sister's having sent me one of her poems, for me to know the source of that quote. So, even though you have read it before, and if you were at Nelson Mandela's inauguration you would have heard it before, here's the poem:
Still I Rise
by Maya Angelou, 1928 – 2014
You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I’ll rise.
Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
‘Cause I walk like I’ve got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.
Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I’ll rise.
Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops,
Weakened by my soulful cries?
Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don’t you take it awful hard
‘Cause I laugh like I’ve got gold mines
Diggin’ in my own backyard.
You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I’ll rise.
Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I’ve got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?
Out of the huts of history’s shame
I rise
Up from a past that’s rooted in pain
I rise
I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.
And, also relating to New Orleans and the critters who ate our tomaters:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZA-bOdAZBc</p>
Lisa Mednick Powelltag:lisamednickpowell.com,2005:Post/60473652014-05-25T07:08:53-07:002018-11-24T03:18:17-08:00in which I dream of a swamp
<p>Yes I have been feeding the jackrabbit and the tortoise. Is that so wrong? Let me explain.
And, yes, I know. It has been a while since I wrote to you all. That is because I have not had much to say that seemed to be of interest to anyone but Kip and me. Just not much new going on here. I see my musician colleagues of the past and present creating new material constantly. Yet my pen seems to have run dry. I have a new song, one that I had started in Española, and finished after we moved away from there. Kip and I have been working on a song. That's all though. I guess we all have periods in our lives on which we look back as having been more or less productive. If I am lucky enough to live long enough into the future to look back on the present, it will be placed on the shelf marked "less productive."
Kip says I am still recovering from what they did to me at the little college in northern New Mexico. If you get a chance to read it, Rubén Martinez's book Desert America is worth checking out. He lived in Twentynine Palms, Velarde (just next door to Española), desert Arizona, and west Texas. The part about northern New Mexico was so spot-on that I could barely get through it. Still trying to figure out whether he got it right about the high desert (Joshua Tree, Twentynine Palms, Yucca Valley, Wonder Valley). It seems like he did. What's funny is we have been meeting many of the local characters he mentions in his book. And they are really cool people. Thanks for introducing us, Rubén.
Productive or not, we continue to enjoy our little piece o' the desert. Recently, we have had the honor of being visited by a desert tortoise. He/ she shows up for a little while in the morning or late afternoon and we are made aware of his/her presence by Luna's incessant barking. There ain't a whole lot for her to bark at around here, so we always check to see what it might be that has her so excited. Additionally, I might add that she can't see and she can't hear, so what the hell??
Somehow she knows there is something wandering around outside the fence that isn't us and isn't herself. I do believe this tortoise is, in fact, befuddled by our fence. Someone told me that these critters follow the same paths every spring when they come out of hibernation. And our fence is new since last June. There you have it. We have placed an obstacle in front of what I consider to be my totem animal. And I KNOW we aren't supposed to feed the wildlife. But when I handed over a wilted rose from our little container garden, the tortoise chomped it right down. Same with the beet greens. It was the least I could do after having barricaded it from its territory.
Photo of Tortoise is attached. We have named it Nick because of a nick on its shell.
Now, about the jackrabbit. We eat plenty of carrots. And we buy organic carrots. I don't believe in buying organic versus "conventional," as Whole Foods puts it (also known as Whole Paycheck, and, once upon a time, as The Food Hole). But carrots and potatoes seem to actually taste better if they've been raised organically. Whatever. This jackrabbit feasts fairly regularly on organic carrot peelings. Whenever I have veggie scraps I place them just outside our fence and wait for the rabbit, who usually shows up just at dusk. If you are watching a jackrabbit feed, you can't move a muscle. Any little twitch or wiggle will send it careening out across the flats in its zigzagging you-can't-catch-me trajectory. These rabbits do have an evasive way of traveling. They fake left with their heads and hop right, and vice-versa. They zip around, following the pattern (and yes it is a pattern) of the creosote bushes' placement on the sand. Kinda crazy, they are.
Kip has work now, which is great, and we are both still playing. I get to sub for the keyboard player in the Pappy and Harriet's Sunday Band every once in a while. I dig that. And Kip and I are beginning to play out as Arroyo Rogers. We are still playing the drinking songs that we played with Forty Miles of Bad Road, plus some originals.
I do admit I have a dream of making one more or maybe more than one more album—but I want to record in New Orleans. OK. Wanna hear my dream? My dream is for Kip and me to ride the Sunset Limited, which leaves Palm Springs at 12:30 a.m. and arrives in New Orleans at 9:40 p.m. the following evening. Just the right time to hit the clubs. I want to write songs on the way, record them in New Orleans, with Kip on bass and with my brilliant New Orleans musical soulmates on everything else...and, well, that's it. So that's my dream in a pecan shell. My New Orleans years were my MOST productive song-writing years ever, which should not come as a surprise. The muse is located there I guess.
Oh and I want to record the vocals outdoors, maybe on the levee near the Maple Leaf, with all the outdoor night sounds included on the tracks. We shall see if I can make it be so. I did apply for that Amtrak writer's residency, but I think that might be sort of a scam. If anyone has successfully used Kickstarter or some such like, please tell me how it went. I know one of you has used it—or at least I think so...I found their web-site to be very difficult to navigate, but then I am a tortoise...
I have been thinking of New Orleans because two old friends there have died recently, one old friend is now confined to a wheelchair, and because I always think of her (yes, I am assigning a gender to a city) anyway.
Jesse Winchester has moved on and maybe he is up in heaven singing with Steve Goodman. I can imagine that if I want to. So here is a song from Steve and a song of Jesse's performed by Allen Toussaint—just to keep company with my dream theme.
Ruby and Marty, these songs are for you:
Jesse: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXvBD5T9za4
City of New Orleans :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJ0JgqoF2W4&feature=kp
And a tortoise poem I found online (is that cheating?)
Chelonian Conservation and Biology, 1997, 2(4):635
[chelonian |kəˈlōnēən|Zoology
noun
a reptile of the order Testudines (formerly Chelonia); a turtle, terrapin, or tortoise.
adjective
relating to or denoting chelonians.]
Wake, Methuselah!
(Tortoise in Midwinter at the London Zoo)
AUTHOR UNKNOWN
Come from the hole where the dark days drew thee,
Wake, Methuselah! Wag thy tail!
Sniff the snare of the winds that woo thee,
Sun-kissed cabbage and sea-blown kale.
To the salted breath of the sea-bear’s grot
And the low sweet laugh of the hippopot
Wake, for thy devotees can’t undo thee
To see if thou really art live and hale.
Leap to life, as the leaping squirrel
Flies in fear of the squirming skink;
Gladden the heart of the keeper, Tyrrell;
Give Mr. Pocock a friendly wink!
Flap thy flippers, O thou most fleet
As once in joyance of things to eat;
Bid us note that thou still art virile
And not imbibing at Lethe’s brink.
Art thou sleeping, and wilt thou waken?
Hast thou passed to the Great Beyond,
Where the Great Auk and the cavernous Kraken
Frisk and footle with all things fond;
Where the Dodo fowl and the great Dinornis
Roost with the Roc and the Aepyornis,
Where the dew drips down from the fern tree shaken
As the pismire patters through flower and frond?
Art thou sleeping, adream of orgies
In sandy coves of the Seychelles isles,
Or where in warm Galapagos gorges
The ocean echoes for miles and miles?
Of sun-warmed wastes where the wind sonorous
Roared again to thy full-mouthed chorus,
Far from bibulous Bills and Georges
That smack thee rudely with ribald smiles.
Dost thou dream how, a trifling tortoise,
The hot sun hatched thee in shifting sand,
Before the wrongs that the Roundheads brought us
Set Oliver Cromwell to rule the land?
Of an early courtship, when Pym and his earls
Were making things lively for good King Charles?
Not one left of them! Exit sortis
(Horace), but thou art still on hand.
Grant, thou monarch of eld, a token
Of blood now fired with the breath of Spring;
For the crowbar’s bent and the pickaxe broken
With which we endeavored to “knock and ring.”
At the warm love-thrill of the Spring’s behest
That biddeth the mating bird to nest,
Wake to the word that the wind hath spoken,
Wake, old sportsman, and have thy fling!
Editorial Comment [Peter C.H. Pritchard]. – While cleaning out my attic, I found this poem that I laboriously copied out in the library of my boarding school in Ireland about 40 years ago. It came from a bound volume of Punch (the British humorous weekly magazine), decades old—probably from around the tum of the century. The poem consists of the thoughts of someone contemplating a cold, immobile, hibernating, or possibly dead giant tortoise seen in midwinter at the London Zoo, when Mr. Pocock and Mr. Tyrrell were in charge of the Reptile House. The poem has the form of a Mock Heroic worthy of Alexander Pope, and is remarkable not least for its unusual rhyming scheme. In each stanza of eight lines, lines 1, 3, and 7 rhyme, as do lines 2, 4, and 8. Lines 5 and 6 rhyme with each other (although with a classical asonance in the fifth stanza). In terms of literary devices, the poem is gloriously overdone. It is, for example, positively festooned with alliteration—dark days drew thee, sniff the snare, leap to life, flies in fear, squirming skink, flap thy flippers, frisk and footle, roost with the Roc, dew drips down, pismire patters, flower and frond, Galapagos gorges, trifling tortoise, shifting sand, wake to the word that the wind hath spoken. One can almost picture the now long-forgotten (and surely long-dead) author smiling to himself with glee as he crafted his clever composition. Parts of the poem suggest some uncertainty as to whether the animal in question was an Indian Ocean or a Galapagos tortoise. Indeed, up to about the mid-nineteenth century, it should be remembered that it was common to call all giant tortoises Testudo indica. Certain phrases (flap thy flippers, sandy coves of the Seychelle Isles, hot sun hatched thee in shifting sands) also suggest confusion between giant tortoises and sea turtles. But no matter, the poem is magnificent.
Published in Punch Magazine, ca. 1900, original title and author unknown
Submitted by Peter C.H. Pritchard</p>
Lisa Mednick Powelltag:lisamednickpowell.com,2005:Post/60473642013-12-19T06:07:18-08:002018-11-24T03:18:17-08:00Endings 2013
<p>They will never make another Ray Price; that is for sure. Nor will they stamp out another J.J. Cale or another Lou Reed or another Jean Stapleton or another Nelson Mandela--because there just is no mold for genius.
Speaking of breaking (or not having) molds...I interviewed someone for an article (yes I got some freelance writing work, thanks to my sister Amy) about 3-D printers and their various potential applications in the real world. This sparked a memory that I might not have otherwise encountered....and it also made me think about the kind of good 3-D printers might accomplish in the world if, along with toners, ceramics, metals, and plastics, materials such as foodstuffs or water could be used to create things that people really need.
Anyway, when I was about 8 years old, I had my first experience with a photocopier. We were in the Detroit airport and for some reason they had a Xerox copier in the terminal. My father, or other male relative I was with at the time, perhaps my uncle, said "if you put something on the screen, the machine will copy it." I immediately thought, well, I might lose one of my mittens. So if I put a mitten on that glass screen and push the button I will have an extra mitten on hand. Imagine my disappointment when all that emerged from the magic machine was a PICTURE of a mitten. And in black and white at that. It didn't match my green mittens at all! Well, times have changed and now we have 3D printers that can replicate any object, I suppose. So now we can make ourselves another mitten if we want to. Or a gun. Or an omelet. Or a bottle of gin. Do you think they will be used to create food for the hungry? Drinks for the dry? Mittens for the cold? Somehow I doubt it.
Oh wait. I have an idea: how about using a 3D printer to change people's minds? You know, like a new kind of transplant? Maybe we could get people to just accept the fact that we have a black president, for example. They seemed to adjust to it pretty well in South Africa, didn't they? Of course there were those who would not adjust to having a black leader and they fled to other countries. Like the U.S., for example. I wonder if they are still here.
***********************
The last time we went to L.A. we realized how difficult the restaurant experience can be. Never mind my usual gripes: waiters and bus personnel who grab your plate before you are finished eating, claiming that they are "getting it out of your way," or the dude at the next table with the Bluetooth, talking loudly about his assets....What got to us this time was the loudness of the place. Granted, we are AARP-aged citizens who spent most of our lives playing and listening to loud rock 'n' roll so we hear the chatter of thefamily at the next table much more clearly than we hear those seated with us. But it kept happening: everywhere we went we had to shout over loud piped-in music in order to carry on a conversation with our dining companions. Yeah, I know, conversation is dead. But some of us dinosaurs still like to try to have them.
When EVERYONE in the entire restaurant is shouting to be heard over the piped-in music, the din is raised to the level of flood-water that has reached just below a person's chin, thus inciting panic. The heartbeat increases, and on top of that one gets mighty thirsty and the toxic combination of panic and dry-mouth causes one to continuously order drinks. One also acquires the inclination to shovel in the food and get the hell out of there. Which is probably the point....get your eating, drinking, and shopping (because this also happens in shops and it is even worse because you can actually hear the crappy lyrics and auto-tuned vocals more clearly than you can in a dining room where some of it is, praise God, masked by other people shouting, the clang of flatware, and the clinking of wineful glasses) finished and get the hell out so we can sell more food/ drinks/ hip boots.
And, just to make a distinction for those of you who might not guess: I never mind, nor have I ever minded, nor will I ever mind, standing in a club, shouting back and forth to have a conversation when a good LIVE BAND is playing in the room. THAT, my friends, is just alright with me. Just wanted to make that perfectly clear, thanks.
By the way, that freelance writing job I got? Guess what I sent as a writing sample. Give up? The article (available upon request) I published in the Rio Grande Sun last December 19th about the college's hard-working maintenance staff (and farolitos) that got me in so much trouble. Or at least that's what I suspect it was that got me in trouble—other than the union organizing of course. Truth be told, I really have no idea, so I am avoiding further trouble by remaining mostly unemployed for the nonce. And yesterday was December 19, the one-year anniversary of my having been "disappeared" by the authorities. I gotta say that Kip and I are better off now. We are in California, for one thing. We own a house and have no mortgage payments. We can buy really good-looking-and-tasting produce at the regular grocery store. We are warm most of the time. We are playing music on a somewhat regular basis, albeit mostly for free (nothing new there...). We can see a National Park from our front window. We can also see/ hear/ and feel a military base from our front window (and you already know my opinion about that). And, even though we live in the desert, we can go to the beach sometimes.
So, on the anniversary of maybe the weirdest thing that ever happened to me, we happened to be hanging out in L.A. To commemorate the occasion of having been eviscerated from my job, Kip and I met our good friend Heather (who is visiting from New Mexico and who still teaches at the college) and her friend Jacqueline. We walked up and down the Santa Monica Pier in the sun that had been supposed to be rain, gazed at the sparkles in the water, and considered the Ferris wheel. At the foot of the pier, we discovered a bar called Rusty's. For those of you who don't know, Rusty is the self-adopted handle of the Northern New Mexico College President. Well nothing seemed more appropriate to us than stopping in at Rusty's for a refreshing beverage. We raised our glasses in a toast to the bygone year, and then we raised them again, along with our voices in a resounding general curse upon those who spent the year hurting others and an equally resounding general blessing upon those who have helped others.
It always comes down to the same old question: Have you been naughty? Or have you been nice?
Whatever you decide (since it is really up to you after all) I wish all of you a nice holiday time, and I certainly hope that we blessed you and didn't curse you yesterday. Not that we have that kind of power, but you know what I mean.
The year is ending, so I thought I would send a couple of my favorite endings in literature. One is the final paragraph of James Joyce's short story "The Dead."
A few light taps upon the pane made him turn to the window. It had begun to snow again. He watched sleepily the flakes, silver and dark, falling obliquely against the lamplight. The time had come for him to set out on his journey westward. Yes, the newspapers were right: snow was general all over Ireland. It was falling on every part of the dark central plain, on the treeless hills, on the Bog of Allen and, farther westward, softly falling into the dark mutinous Shannon waves. It was falling, too, upon every part of the lonely churchyard on the hill where Michael Furey lay buried. It lay thickly drifted on the crooked crosses and headstones, on the spears of the little gate, on the barren thorns. His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead.
The other is the final paragraph of Herman Melville's Moby Dick.
Now small fowls flew screaming over the yet yawning gulf; a sullen white surf beat against its steep sides; then all collapsed, and the great shroud of the sea rolled on as it rolled five thousand years ago.</p>
Lisa Mednick Powelltag:lisamednickpowell.com,2005:Post/60473682013-11-23T04:55:01-08:002018-11-24T03:18:18-08:00Fifty years on and what do we know?
<p>Yesterday was the fiftieth anniversary of the assassination of President Kennedy.
Now ask not what this blog can do for you, but what you can do for this blog.
I think it is your turn to write. So send me your memory of November 22, 1963.
I can tell you what I remember. I was 6 and sitting on the floor in our living room in Gentofte, outside Copenhagen. My father was away and my mother was home. The radio blared, "Kennedy er skud!" That is my memory. It does not mean that is what happened! But then you knew that. The other thing that happened that day in 1963 is that Lyndon Baines Johnson became president. I love me some LBJ. Say what you will but he damn sure got 'er done.
Anyhoo....If you remember that day (and only if you remember your own experience. So I know that cuts out a few people on this list, but not many. And if you feel like writing to me anyway, you are certainly welcome to do so; I will write back I promise!) write down what you remember and send me the results! Were any of you at the ASK convention in Dallas in (what year was it again? 1993?) and saw the guy with the manhole theory, I can't remember exactly how it went, but it was my favorite theory. It explained the hole in the throat. I also remember we came away from the conference with no more puzzle pieces than we had when we went in, but we all agreed that we could not rely on what the Warren Commission produced. I think maybe Arlen Spector knows what happened, but he ain't talking.
And, when I was in college the first time, which was 1975 in Ann Arbor, they ran the Zapruder film (look it up; it's the one with the umbrella man) constantly in the atrium between Mason and Haven Halls. There were teach-ins on the assassination, lettuce boycotts, protests asking the U of M to divest from South Africa---and all kinds of stuff. You try that shit at a college these days and you get cuffed, disappeared, and delivered to the puppet authorities.
The other day we were in the library, and this guy with a buzz cut and Hawaiian shirt about 65 years old approaches a young lady with wings tattooed on her back and earbuds firmly in place..."say, can you open a document for me?" He hands her a flashdrive. "Have you ever heard of the John F Kennedy assassination? Well, this has the whole thing with all the players." So she agrees to open it, never answering his history question. "Thanks. It's pretty hot stuff. Be careful who you talk to," says the guy. Maybe he knows?</p>
Lisa Mednick Powelltag:lisamednickpowell.com,2005:Post/60473632013-11-21T06:10:13-08:002018-11-24T03:18:17-08:00Obamacare? BRING IT ON!!
<p>We had to go to the doctor. So we went to the local county clinic. The place was filthy and the receptionist was mean as a copperhead snake. Not just rude, but Mean. The nurse was equally vicious. The room where you wait for the doctor was, well, disgusting. The exam table had moldy squares of shag carpet (vintage maybe 1974) under the feet. Why? So the feet wouldn't scratch the nice linoleum? Please. A few cheerios lay scattered about and there were two torn posters telling me that I don't have to take abuse and that I can stop drinking if I want to (I don't want to). The one fluorescent bulb flickered menacingly above my head. For some reason I thought about earthquakes. The place reeked and the smell was beyond sour; more like rotten flesh. Didn't they ever clean this place? It was vile, sorry to say. But none of these qualities compared with the awfulness of the doctor himself. He came into the exam room and at first I thought he was a deranged patient wandering loose around the joint. But no, this yahoo appeared to be The Doctor. He barely lifted his eyelids to acknowledge a patient's [my] presence in the room. His glasses hung crooked off his pasty white nose and you could have greased an entire fleet of FedEx trucks with his hair.
Also, in spite of the fact that there wasn't anyone waiting, this individual was in such a rush he couldn't finish a sentence. He made it painfully obvious that he gave not one shit about anyone. He mumbled something at me and left the room with no explanation. At least not one that I could translate into English. (No, he was not from another country. He was American.) I thought, "what if I HAD to come to this clinic ALL the time. I mean, what if I had two little kids and no husband and I HAD to use this place just to get my kids' noses wiped?" So I sat there feeling lucky. Counting my blessings. I knew I didn't have to come back if I didn't want to.
In fact, I thought, I could just get up and walk out. So I started to leave. I was afraid of this grubby man who had half his belly exposed because his shirt wasn't properly tucked into his trousers. Crisp white lab coat with a name tag? Forget about it. I did not like the fact that there were no diplomas on the wall. I did not like it, Sam I Am. So I made for the open. But this [alleged] doctor was too fast for me. "Get back in there," he groused. So I did. And I have now been referred to someplace else. I dread the experience, but I will go of course. It can't be worse.....can it?????????
Every other encounter we have had with Municipal, State, and County offices has been civil if not pleasant—from the Library to the High Desert Water District to the Department of Motor Vehicles. People seem professional and friendly at the same time. It's neat not to be hated for being an outsider! In any event, this clinic was clearly an aberration and an experience to be survived and never repeated. I am just glad that we have the option to not ever go back. We can find a different doctor. But there are plenty of people around here who don't have a choice and HAVE to entrust their health to this clinic and that doctor. It makes me sad.</p>
Lisa Mednick Powelltag:lisamednickpowell.com,2005:Post/60473622013-11-20T06:10:33-08:002018-11-24T03:18:16-08:00Hello, Harrow
<p>Halloween was always my favorite holiday--until October 31, 2012. Last Halloween, I experienced some fun, but I also experienced quite a bit of fear and loathing (with me on the short end of the loathing stick...) The fun part was when the three- and four-year olds came through the office in their costumes and I gave them chocolate eyeballs. The fear and loathing part came when I was interrogated about my union activities.
And, in the spirit of Halloween fun, I was dressed as "The Witch of the West." I wore my lizard-print dress from Aotearoa, black leggings, cowboy boots, black fishnet sweater, green make-up, and a witch hat I purchased at the CVS on Park Avenue in Rochester one rainy Halloween. People said I looked good—for a witch. And that hat was a great hat, useful for both sun and rain with its wide brim and lightweight texture. But the hat is gone now. My friend Rob Tomlinson helped me get rid of it. We threw it into the wind after the last 40 Miles gig in Rinconada. He said, "Let it go." You see, the hat had become bad now. It had a "tail."( If you aren't familiar with the concept of something having a "tail," watch the film Genghis Blues.)
During the interrogation (the first of many to come), where I was hung like a fly in a black widow's web, I suddenly felt exposed, battered, and just plain stupid with my witch hat and green-streaked face...so I removed the hat for the duration and did not put it on my head again. When it was over I wandered down the hall to the friendly confines of the Humanities office where I sat, shaking in my boots. I was consoled by a lady in pajamas and a guy in a Frankenstein monster mask. I didn't put that witch hat on my head again until June third. And then it felt wrong. So into the wind it went. And there was plenty of wind to carry it away. Plenty of wind.
The winds were fierce in El Rito, they were fierce in Española, and they are fierce here. I suppose it goes with the high desert territory. A couple of weeks ago we experienced gale-force winds here. On the Beaufort wind scale, 40 mph is number 8: fresh gale or gale wind speed 39-46 mph; twigs break off trees; moving cars veer. To that list I would add the following: involuntary exfoliating facial; natural sand-blasted look for freshly painted toenails; sand in teeth.
Wind coursing across the mostly bare sand at such speeds results in a "brown-out," otherwise known as a DUST STORM. Driving through that is like driving through the blowing snow in western New York. And northern New Mexico. You know that snaky pattern that blowing snow makes on the highway in front of you? That happened both places. But it shouldn't happen here. It shouldn't.
Anyway, we had some cleaning to do when the wind finally dwindled down to something more like a breeze.
Now. Breezes occupy three positions on the Beaufort Wind Scale: number 2 is a light breeze: wind speed 4-7 mph; wind felt on face; leaves rustle; wind vane moves. Number 3 is a gentle breeze: wind speed 8-12 mph; leaves and small twigs in constant motion; wind extends light flag.
And number 4 is a moderate breeze: wind speed 13-18 mph; wind raises dust and
loose paper; small branches move.
We celebrated the holiday by going to the local drive-in movie theatre and saw GRAVITY. It was pretty cool because the space scenery glowing on the movie screen was floating in a sea of real stars.
Well...like I said, I wrote all of that last week. And Halloween is important to me. It is also important to one of my favorite people, Ms. Ava Kay Jones, Voodoo and Yoruba Priestess. Her birthday is October 31, in fact, so here is a clip from The Moth Radio Hour with Ava Kay telling the story of how she saved the Saints' game.
http://themoth.org/posts/storytellers/ava-kay-jones
and just to put some harrow in your hallow....here's the DOCTOR. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kWvdO3l4_P8
And a poem of course. Were you scared I wouldn't send one??
Old Bones
by Gary Snyder:
Out there walking round, looking out for food,
a rootstock, a birdcall, a seed that you can crack
plucking, digging, snaring, snagging,
barely getting by,
no food out there on dusty slopes of scree—
carry some—look for some,
go for a hungry dream.
Deer bone, Dall sheep,
bones hunger home.
Out there somewhere
a shrine for the old ones,
the dust of the old bones,
old songs and tales.
What we ate—who ate what—
how we all prevailed.</p>
Lisa Mednick Powelltag:lisamednickpowell.com,2005:Post/60473612013-11-15T06:32:30-08:002021-07-05T00:37:15-07:00another day another bird
<p>We drove back from L.A. Wednesday and did not make it home in time to spring Luna from the kennel. I was sad about that, but then I cheered up when we opened the shutters on our picture window and I saw the sky turning pink, a large contingent of Ravens flying across the nearly full moon coming up, and the brown mountains turning gold and pink. Postcard, anyone? We can even see Joshua Tree National Park from our living room/ dining room/ kitchen/ study/ music studio window.
I watched the tiny hummingbird hovering at the lavender blooms on the porch, zipping up to the Texas sage blossoms, and then moving on up to the feeder for dessert. I mean, why mess around with nectar when you can just go for pure sucrose? Our scruffy little friend fed herself (we have decided that this bird is a female) happily until the newly-arrived and somewhat more robust ruby-throated hummingbird chased it away. Again, I am pretty sure these beautiful critters are capitalists. Nicely dressed, bejeweled, and guarding their puny resources while fighting off all suspected intruders.
My friend Dave A. informed me recently that Aztec warriors used to pray that they would be reincarnated as hummingbirds because "they are so feisty" Thanks for that, Dave.
Tuesday we took my father to a doctor's appointment and they administered some tests. (and the tests all turned out ok) We spent a good deal of time at the USC Health Sciences Center. Now, for whatever it's worth, I know that place like the back of my hand. I know where to get water and where to get coffee, at least. In the main lobby there are three water coolers. One of them has orange slices floating in it. The other contains water with lemon slices and mint leaves. The third one contains plain ice water. We all want ice water, que no? Upstairs there is a coffee machine and on the top floor there's a candy machine.
When they gave my dad a break and ordered him to eat a fatty lunch, we sat outside on the patio, and I was lucky enough to sit within earshot of this dude who was talking to someone on a Bluetooth device. Other than the bluetooth device affized to his ear, almost everything about him: a battered brown leather briefcase full of fluttering papers, greasy greying combover, and he had made the choice to buckle his belt ABOVE the protruding belly instead of below. He seemed to be experiencing various forms of fear and loathing, and Kip and I were quite entertained. I will now share some snippets of [his side of] the conversation.
YEAH WELL WHEN I WENT TO THE CLINIC I GOT MY INFUSION. NO I WILL FIX IT BUT--YEAH I GOT MY INFUSION AT THE CLINIC—AND—JEEEZUSS!! WILL YOU JUST LISTEN PLEASE?? THAT BATTERY SHOULD STILL BE GOOD BUT WE CAN GET A NEW ONE AND PUT IT IN YOUR CAR ANYTIME YOU WANT. I HAVE THE TOOLS AND I CAN BRING THEM OVER
WELL YOU KNOW I CAN ONLY TALK TO YOU WHEN I WALK THE DOG. I CAN'T ANSWER THE PHONE WHEN MY WIFE IS HOME. I CAN'T TALK TO YOU AT HOME. NO I CAN'T. WELL I'M GONNA GO IN AND SEE THE DOCTOR IN ABOUT AN HOUR. I CAN'T SAY WHEN THEY WILL LET ME OUT.
NO I DON'T KNOW BECAUSE I DON'T KNOW WHEN I WILL BE FINISHED. IT DEPENDS ON WHAT THEY, YOU KNOW, DO TO ME. I'LL CALL YOU AFTER THEY DO WHATEVER.
And there you have it.
This afternoon we did some laundry. This entails washing the clothes in the lavadora we just purchased at the used appliance place in town. The grey water rushes out of the machine through a hose into a thirty-two gallon plastic barrel which Kip has outfitted with a brass spigot. When the wash has gone through all of its cycles, the barrel is just about full. We turn on the spigot and fill bucket after bucket and carry the buckets around watering the plants, each to each. We water all the stuff we planted and then we water the creosote bushes and yucca plants. This laundry soap is designed to biodegrade into chemicals that nourish the plants. So we are washing our clothes with plant food. The clothes, sheets, and towels dry on the clothesline in less than ten minutes.
The moon came up a little fuller this evening and the sky looked as if Mark Rothko had painted it on a rainy sidewalk with lavender and seashell-pink chalk and then let it fade. Except the moon was very bright and the ravens flew by again, croaking and swishing their wings. Most of the time it is that quiet here; you can hear their wings. The ravens were not around during the summer; I suppose they came down from the higher elevations since the weather has cooled. Then again maybe they were hanging out in our neighborhood because JTNP has been closed due to the Cruz-Ryan-Boehner shutdown of our government. In any case, we are glad they're here.
And, since we've noticed a couple of small falcons floating, swooping, and diving off the telephone poles down our dirt road, I will send you a poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins. I have typed it faithfully as it is set in the book, so please forgive formatting shifts that may occur during flight. You know this one; you love this one, and it goes a little something like this:
The Windhover
I caught this morning morning's minion, king-
dom of daylight's dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his
riding
Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding
High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing
In his ecstasy! then off, off forth on swing,
As a skate's heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: the hurl and
gliding
Rebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding
Stirred for a bird, -- the achieve of, the mastery of the thing!
Brute beauty and valour and act, oh, air, pride, plume, here
Buckle! AND the fire that breaks from thee then, a billion
Times told lovelier, more dangerous. O my chevalier!
No wonder of it: shéer plód make makes plough down sillion
Shine, and blue-beak embers, ah my dear,
Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermillion.
and another of his (for which I am writing a melody, tra-la):
Heaven-Haven
A nun takes the veil
I have desired to go
Where springs not fail,
To the fields where flies no sharp and sided hail
And a few lilies blow.
And I have asked to be
Where no storms come,
Where the green swell is in the havens dumb,
And out of the swing of the sea.</p>
Lisa Mednick Powelltag:lisamednickpowell.com,2005:Post/60473602013-11-15T06:30:38-08:002018-11-24T03:18:16-08:00Urns, Lavender, hummingbirds...
<p>Yesterday afternoon I was planting a lavender plant in a clay urn on our porch and when I stood up there was this hummingbird at the feeder. The bird was inches from my head and I didn't dare move because I was afraid I would scare it away. I could see every feather. The feathers are gray, but they have a greenish shine to them in the sun. There are about four hummers who seem to live within the perimeter of our fenced bit of desert. Of course we can't tell them all apart, but this was the one we call "the skinny one." The bigger birds always chase it away from the feeder, so I definitely didn't want to interrupt snack time. I was surprised that it just let me stand there and gawk. Kip thought maybe it has hired me as a bodyguard. That is pretty funny. I think it is a bird with a tiny brain and therefore not smart enough to make such judgments upon observing what's going on within its diminutive purview.
It was our tenth anniversary Saturday, so we celebrated by going to "take the waters" in Desert Hot Springs. The temps have cooled off quite a bit, so if you get into a pool with 100 degree mineral water, it does feel hotter than the air.
The Desert Hot Springs Spa Hotel is, well, vintage. It must have been built around 1960. Everything appears to be original, even the concrete deck and the turquoise, pink, and white tiles that line the pools, of which there are seven, each one containing a different temperature of bubbling water.
The water comes out of the aquifer pretty hot, so it is mixed with various amounts of cool water that come from another part of the aquifer. Desert Hot Springs claims to be the "only place in the world" where there are naturally occurring springs that deliver both hot and cold water. In any case, the water is indeed miraculous. The facility that houses these wonderful waters is a bit less miraculous—in fact it was downright seedy and crumbling, with cigarette butts and a few beer cans laying about....but overall it was seedy in a good way. You know, colored lights on the palm trees and so forth. And we loved it. It was a tremendously perfect example of Pop Decay (and I am afraid some of you have known me long enough to understand that concept...). I was glad of two things though. We did not eat there and we did not entrust our heads to their pillows. 'Nuff said. We had a great time and I felt very good after soaking in all the various pools.
I really hope that some rich developer does NOT swoop in, buy the place, and "clean it up." There would go access to the healing waters for the very diverse crowd that takes advantage of the seven-dollar day pass. People were speaking Spanish, Vietnamese, Russian, French, and all forms of 'Merican. Plus some other languages I could not identify. Mostly Russian though. Later, walking around Palm Springs, another bastion of mid-century glamour gone to seed (more Pop Decay), we heard a lot more Russian being spoken. So I am going to share with you a song from a CD we have been listening to lately. It consists of ten James Bond theme songs, and this one is especially good:"From Russia With Love." Played by a REAL ORCHESTRA, and a reall bellydancer with the titles projected on her person...so I am saying this is not (as Dr. John would say) "tricknology," thank you.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58Y_U4XZupY
I just have another song today—by Van the Man.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hX8nAZftZL4
So....if you know any good poems about water, then please send me one. We are thirsty out here!!
Oh, and one other thing. A disclaimer of sorts. Some people seem to think I am overly melancholy and nostalgic about my life. I can clear that up for you right now; I am not a sad person. I have some bitterness about my failure to hang on in the music business but I feel that my recorded work is out there, albeit in quantities small enough to be stored in a Grecian urn the size of a hummingbird's brain—still, no one else can say they wrote my songs.
Yes, I do tend to traffic in memoir; it is my real job whether I do it musically or in poetry or prose. Also, I am not a Lamed Vovnik, but I do feel a lot of the pain of the world, and I do remember plenty of things I wish I could forget. And perhaps I do both of those things more than a person should, but those are the cards I was dealt and if you are my friend then you deal with those cards when you deal with me. You can always be removed from this list if you feel you are stuck in the traffic...just let me know. K? Otherwise, no whining. Remember, complaining is one way to get things done; think sit-ins, protests, and muckraking. Somebody's gotta do it. End of story. Ask to be added to my secret group Grumpy Hour on Facebook for some good-humored grumping.
Oh, well, here's a poem after all, written by one who was quite familiar with Melancholy: John Keats. I have sent it before, I am sure, but too much of this one ain't enough if you ask me...and let's hear it for Slow Time.
Ode on a Grecian Urn
THOU still unravish'd bride of quietness,
Thou foster-child of Silence and slow Time,
Sylvan historian, who canst thus express
A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:
What leaf-fringed legend haunts about thy shape
Of deities or mortals, or of both,
In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?
What men or gods are these? What maidens loth?
What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?
What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?
Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard
Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;
Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear'd,
Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone:
Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave
Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare;
Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss,
Though winning near the goal—yet, do not grieve;
She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,
For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!
Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed
Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu;
And, happy melodist, unwearièd,
For ever piping songs for ever new;
More happy love! more happy, happy love!
For ever warm and still to be enjoy'd,
For ever panting, and for ever young;
All breathing human passion far above,
That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy'd,
A burning forehead, and a parching tongue.
Who are these coming to the sacrifice?
To what green altar, O mysterious priest,
Lead'st thou that heifer lowing at the skies,
And all her silken flanks with garlands drest?
What little town by river or sea-shore,
Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel,
Is emptied of its folk, this pious morn?
And, little town, thy streets for evermore
Will silent be; and not a soul, to tell
Why thou art desolate, can e'er return.
O Attic shape! fair attitude! with brede
Of marble men and maidens overwrought,
With forest branches and the trodden weed;
Thou, silent form! dost tease us out of thought
As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral!
When old age shall this generation waste,
Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe
Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st,
'Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.'</p>
Lisa Mednick Powelltag:lisamednickpowell.com,2005:Post/60473592013-11-15T06:29:17-08:002018-11-24T03:18:16-08:00SPIKES
<p>To live out here, you have to have spikes. Our "spineless" prickly pear has been attacked by some sort of toothy critter, perhaps a packrat. I have attached a photo to this message so you can see how cartoon-y it looks. We are planning to surround it with chollas. Chollas are the cacti with barbed spikes that embed themselves pretty much permanently in whatever has the misfortune or stupidity to brush against them. We will either surround our spineless friend with Chollas (a possible cure for spinelessness in humans as well...especially those who insert themselves into high positions and have the power to do good but refuse to act...), or we'll bring it back to the nursery and exchange it for something with spikes. I can see why Snoopy's brother was called Spike. They say he lives around here somewhere. (I say "lives" deliberately because cartoons always outlive the cartoonist.)
Anyway, to live out here, you must have spikes and, as some of you know, I do have those. I am a prickly person. I am cranky. I have nightmares. Especially since I was "disappeared" by "Pinochet." I have been thinking about Victor Jara, in fact, so one of his songs is attached, along with poems by, yes, Pablo Neruda and also William Blake. People with imagination are often buried alive by those who lack it. Here's another way of saying the same thing: People who prohibit Freedom of Association are not capable of Free Association and that capability is an essential director of the creative process. If you understand Blake as I think I do, you know that's what his poem The Human Abstract is about. I don't know if I understand Neruda because I don't read Spanish. The translations are nice, though.
And I must say I have not had to surround myself with extra spikes since December 19 because Kip was my protector and advocate throughout my "confinement," and actually he has put up with me and my grumpy self for nearly ten years now. Our ten-year wedding anniversary is coming up and I want to publicly (as public as this is) thank him for all of those years. He's the greatest and I adore him. It took until age 44 for me to find my true love but I found him.
It has been cooling off here; yesterday it was only 90 degrees. I cannot fully express how happy I am to be living in a place where summer extends not only until the proper calendar date (September 21) but also beyond that date. One thing I missed about Austin after we moved away. Last night we went for a walk in our "neighborhood." The full moon colored everything silver and blue. My two favorite colors. I will have critter updates next time—I have bored you enough for this dispatch.
By the way, I have taken part in a small book e-published by a friend from New Mexico. The book contains photographs taken and developed by Dr. Meredith Garcia, and corresponding grumpy haiku (I declare a new genre: a complaint confined to 17 syllables)by yours truly. The photos are of decaying signage in and around Española. I think you can find it on Blurb.com. The book is called Leaving Ohkay Owingeh.
Here is a Victor Jara song for you:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8lO2u_2Cum8&list=ALBTKoXRg38BDmLHdTcDT5EfkbMzmAfjzr
and a link to a reading of "Little Devils" by Pablo Neruda:
http://www.ovguide.com/video/little-devils-by-pablo-neruda-922ca39ce10036ba0e1151820a2703a2
The Human Abstract
by William Blake
PITY would be no more
If we did not make somebody poor;
And Mercy no more could be
If all were as happy as we.
And mutual fear brings peace,
Till the selfish loves increase;
Then Cruelty knits a snare,
And spreads his baits with care.
He sits down with holy fears,
And waters the ground with tears;
Then Humility takes its root
Underneath his foot.
Soon spreads the dismal shade
Of Mystery over his head;
And the caterpillar and fly
Feed on the Mystery.
And it bears the fruit of Deceit,
Ruddy and sweet to eat;
And the raven his nest has made
In its thickest shade.
The Gods of the earth and sea
Sought thro’ Nature to find this tree;
But their search was all in vain:
There grows one in the Human brain.</p>
Lisa Mednick Powelltag:lisamednickpowell.com,2005:Post/60473582013-11-15T06:28:37-08:002018-11-24T03:18:16-08:00don't eat the paint!
<p>I hate to bug you, but...
"Dogs who paint" update: Miss Luna now has a patch of pale blue paint on the tip of her right ear. And I have a swatch of white hi-gloss on the end of my braid.
Nasty flying-ant type critters (they look like termites but I am told they aren't) have been swarming due to the recent rain. Luckily it doesn't rain much here. They are not really a problem unless you provide a landing strip for them and they get stuck there. I'll explain.
We were getting ready to put a new floor in, so a few days ago I painted the baseboards. Kip had pried them loose and laid them out on the porch. I used some delicious creamy hi-gloss white paint. The first coat looked like frosting--but you could still see the puke green through it. Puke green (after taxi yellow and international distress orange) is one of the hardest colors to cover up. Damn that cover-up.
So I applied a second coat right about the time the sun was setting and the porch light came on. We went inside and had some fruit for dinner. When I came back there were dozens of these exoskeletal bugs mired in the paint like mammoths in a tar-pit. We decided to let them sizzle in the sun then sand them off once they were fully crisped and fused with the paint. Then we applied another coat of shellac and then the paint again. I told Kip it's OK, it's just like we made our own fossils and they are now trapped in amber.
About shellac: Kip told me that shellac is actually made from bugs, by the way. A secretion is collected from Lac beetles; the beetles reside in India. Here's the definition from the dictionary stored in my computer:
lac insect |ˈlak ˈinˌsekt|
noun
an Asian scale insect that lives on trees and produces secretions that are used in the production of shellac.
[Laccifer lacca, family Lacciferidae, suborder Homoptera.]
So. If you are one of those vegetarians who are upset about the cochineal bugs used to color that Starbucks strawberry drink, you had better think twice before you start that decoupage project...
Another gross thing I learned while painting is that location is important: the baseboards were laid out on the porch under the hummingbird feeder. For some reason the rain has revved up the hummers to the point where they don't even stop to eat. They just buzz around and guard the feeder so that others can't eat. Capitalists. Anyway, I probably should have been wearing a helmet but I was feeling reckless. So I just kept painting as the hummers swooped and dive-bombed above me. Suddenly, something fell right where I was painting. A tiny brown speck the size of a pinhead (by "pinhead" I mean the actual head of an actual pin—not a person who is a pinhead). It was disgusting, but ONLY A TINY BIT disgusting.
Last evening we took a break from putting in our new floor to take a "beachcombing" stroll through the desert outside of our fence. (As opposed to the desert inside of our fence.) We found some old furniture that had been washed down an arroyo. It looked like it had once been a nice glider with curlicues carved in the wood. Now it is driftwood and I am thinking of somehow using it in our garden. Don't laugh; we planted something called Hummingbird Mint and Mallow, which is a yellowy flowery shrub—and the hummers, butterflies, and bees provide plenty of entertainment and encouragement. We'll plant more drought-tolerant flower things.
Other things we saw out in the sand were less appealing. Lots of stripped wires and rusted springs...broken windows and battered siding, taillights from trailers, and unidentifiable plastic shards in all the wrong colors (see above), and probably toxic.
Today I contributed to the overall toxicity of the environment. Kip asked me to hand him a little strip of the vinyl flooring. This stuff has a glue strip along the side of it. I found a scrap that looked to be the correct size and shape. But there was something light brown stuck to the glue strip. I reached to pull it off, and then thought better of it. It raised its pincers and waved them at me. Its curved tail was stuck to the vinyl and there was nothing it could do but stay there and look ugly. I took the whole mess outside and threw it over the fence. " You can't live with us!! Go DIE!" I said, not quietly.
"So...what did you do with it?" asked Kip. "I threw it over the fence," I said. "What? You threw the vinyl over the fence??" Yes I did. Sorry about that, environment. But my personal space is more important to me just now. In the eloquent words of Chandler Travis (one of my favorite songwriters): "Don't talk to me about the great outdoors! I wanna hear about ceilings and floors!"
This morning there were several large explosions just east of the mountains. I thought about people who live with that every day, with gunship helicopters and fighter jets flying low and plumes of smoke interrupting their picnics and outdoor weddings. Why shouldn't we see what that feels like since much of that weaponry and powder and smoke probably originates right here in the Mojave desert?
So anyway, getting a piece of the floor done meant that I could unpack some boxes and load books into the pine cabinet. First thing I did was look for a nice poem to send out to you people. So here it is. I got it from the New Orleans Review, Volume 20, Numbers 3 & 4. It's the one that features Everette Maddox, but this poem is by someone else.
ANOTHER COUNTRY
by Shannon Mark Smith
I want to go to Pujilakria,
where I'm well aquainted with the wind.
If I could get to Pujilakria,
it would be alright—
they would wrap me in linen,
apply a poultice of garlic and the root
of the wandering Yamo tree.
They would bear me sweetly.
They've had a war there;
the Marble Palace, I've heard,
is in ruins, the Obelisk is cracked.
The morning market-women
sell soft melons and hard words.
The scholars are writing tracts
about the failure of the government,
how the General mustered,
how it didn't work.
I left a woman there; I hope
she wept for me. I hope
she cried for a day at least.</p>
Lisa Mednick Powelltag:lisamednickpowell.com,2005:Post/60473572013-11-15T06:27:26-08:002018-11-24T03:18:15-08:00It's the night people's job...
<p>Luna (our dog) has white paint on her head, on her back, and on the tip of her tail. I leave it to you to imagine how she managed to get paint in all those separate spots on her corpus. We are back in "dirty deuce nine" and the heat is on. The white candles I left on my altar are melted and bent over because we left the swamp cooler off while we were gone. I can put them out on the porch and bend them back into shape—or not.
Our trip to Rochester and Wellfleet was real nice. Family, friends, swimming at our favorite places, and of course ice cream, fried clams—now it is back to our regular diet of beans and rice, veggie burgers, tofurkey, salad, yogurt, and California fruit which (did I mention?) totally rocks. Those fried clam and ice cream pounds should melt right off, que no? Well probably not so quickly: family members who traveled to Denmark brought us some real chocolate and salt licorice. But the appetite dwindles in the heat and so does the waistline. It just happens. The chocolate sits in the fridge...Of course we DID invent a new desert drink: Tecate over crushed ice with lime juice. It's our version of the Panaché I suppose. Kip named it "the Pinochet" for about five minutes. But I told him "I have had enough of those types for a lifetime, thank you, so please call it something else!"
We are (with the help of Luna's tail) painting the interior of the cabin. Trim is white; walls will be an icy blue. And we ordered new flooring. Vinyl tiles, since, ahem, Luna is not getting any younger. Easy clean-up; I will leave it at that. She is a happy girl these days, for someone her age. After three weeks in the kennel, she is very glad to be back in her domain: our fenced sandbox. But she loves it! She trots around, patrolling the perimeter over and over again, thinking to herself, "I am ruler of all I survey." She doesn't get yard privileges without our supervision because, well, you know, blah blah, there's snakes and stuff. Speaking of which, this morning, Kip did that thing that you shouldn't do: he put on his boots without looking in them first. Felt something crawling on his leg. It was (luckily) a Sun Spider. Harmless but ugly as sin and look as if they crawled out of time. Sort of the Horseshoe Crab of the desert...They are interesting critters who like to hide in the shadows. If one is following you, it is not because they are coming to get you. It is because they want to hide from the light. It gets that way here.
While the sun meant "time to go to the beach" in Wellfleet, and we enjoyed every ray of it, the sun here can be harsh and cruel. Time to go inside the big box store. The night, on the other hand, is calm and soothing. If one is unemployed, it works to stay up late and get up early, then sleep in the middle of the day.
Night before last, Luna woke us up and wanted to go out. So I got up and opened the door. What a treat! While I was standing out in our yard at 4:30 a.m. I realized that all desert dwellers really should turn our days around in the summer months. The air was cool and breezy. Lots of stars and planets and Perseid (I think) meteors. Not much sound except for the stupid rooster that lives about a quarter mile away and yet somehow is still ear-drum-piercingly loud...But shortly after my realization I thought about how nice it would be to go back to sleep—so I did.
Besides, if and when I finally muster the courage to search for another job (already been turned down for one), and when Kip finds work, we will have to be in synch with all the normal people again. How annoying. It has been good to have a break, even if it wasn't my idea to begin with. Funny how academia turned out to be not so different from the music business! The quote that is attributed to Henry Kissinger wasn't his, but came from someone named Sayre: "Academic politics is the most vicious and bitter form of politics, because the stakes are so low."
Maybe you can substitute the words "rock band" for "academic," up to you. I see little distinction, except that the music business is conducted (pun intended) more in line with the evening hours.
So, in that spirit, here is Allen Toussaint's "Night People" and a poem to match.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJZXg3fQkUo
Mother Night
by James Weldon Johnson
Eternities before the first-born day,
Or ere the first sun fledged his wings of flame,
Calm Night, the everlasting and the same,
A brooding mother over chaos lay.
And whirling suns shall blaze and then decay,
Shall run their fiery courses and then claim
The haven of the darkness whence they came;
Back to Nirvanic peace shall grope their way.
So when my feeble sun of life burns out,
And sounded is the hour for my long sleep,
I shall, full weary of the feverish light,
Welcome the darkness without fear or doubt,
And heavy-lidded, I shall softly creep
Into the quiet bosom of the Night.</p>
Lisa Mednick Powelltag:lisamednickpowell.com,2005:Post/60473562013-11-15T06:26:25-08:002018-11-24T03:18:15-08:00Lights in the sky
<p>Last night we saw strange lights in the sky. As far as I was concerned we were seeing a UFO. Seven UFOs, to be exact. They descended slowly, illuminating the mountains underneath them leaving long tails of smoke, Kip said the Marines were shooting up these gigantic flares. It sounded like a workable solution to the "what the hell is that?!" question. As they lowered themselves down by their strings of smoke, they winked out one at a time like monster fireflies. Then they started up again. or maybe these were different ones. Of whatever they were. There had also been a small earthquake earlier in the evening...so of course I figured the two phenomena were related somehow.
Also in the category of unusual phenomena: it has been raining here. The rain makes the desert smell sort of sweet. Kip says it's the smell of the creosote bushes, which have suddenly started blooming here and there. This is not something about which I can be grumpy. After years of living in places where rain meant cold...I am back to anticipating and enjoying the rain. Like the old days in Texas and the even older days in New Orleans. There, one August when I was working at a sunglasses booth on Decatur street in a huge shed with an open front, the rain often fell on one side of the street and not on the other. So, to catch the drops, you had to cross the street. But it was pretty hot there, and sometimes the rain didn't make it all the way to the ground. When that happened in New Mexico, this phenomenon was called "walking rain."
Yesterday we were at a coffee shop in Yucca Valley. Across the street, a woman in hot pink shorts and a black T-shirt stretched out her arms and hollered at the sky—sort of corny, but she appeared to be happy in the rain. You know, dancing in the rain. Good for her.
But that is something to consider: being in a place where one can be happy when it rains. You go outside and watch the front come in, and then stand on the porch and watch the rain.
Last night we walked around the green-lawned municipal park, where people play basketball on a well-lit court, kids skateboard on ramps built especially for that purpose, and families, or portions thereof, walk the perimeter either fast or slow. Meanwhile , lightning flashed inside huge thunderclouds off to the west and bats and night-hawks swooped all around us, eating the insects attracted by the grass. It's kind of like summer in a suburb in the midwest. There are even some elm trees there. (And no sign of beetles or chainsaws; if you spent time in the midwest in the sixties you know what I am referring to.)
This park was built in tribute to a Dr. Luckie who, according to the large wooden sign at the park's border, "motivated and assisted veterans of World War I in moving to 29 Palms, thus establishing the core of this community." The story that isn't written on the sign says that these were troops brought here to recover from having inhaled mustard gas...and no, I don't think I will include the famous Wilfred Owen poem here; you can look that up yourself. Most of my books are still in boxes as a matter of fact. The only poetry book I have that is NOT packed away is B.H. Fairchild's book, Early Occult Memory Systems of the Lower Midwest. So that's what you get today. That, Billy Joe Shaver, and Joni Mitchell.
By the way, I should mention here that we do not have internet service at our cabin. It's much too pricey. So my email and other internet-spawned activities are minimal—just like everything else out here. When we get to a watering hole, than we log on and drink up. I suppose the big news yesterday was that a princess in a far-off land gave birth to an heir. Doesn't it make you wonder how many regular babies were also born yesterday? Imma tell you what though. Billy Joe Shaver wadn't born no yesterday...
The Potato Eaters
by B.H. Fairchild
They are gathered there, as I recall, in the descending light
of Kansas autumn—the welder, the machinist, the foreman,
the apprentice—with their homemade dinners
in brown sacks lying before them on the broken rotary table.
The shop lights have not yet come on. The sun ruffling
the horizon of wheat fields lifts their gigantic shadows
up over the lathes that stand momentarily still and immense,
sleeping gray animals released from the turmoil,
the grind of iron and steel, these past two days.
There's something in the droop of the men's sleeves
and heavy underwater movements of their arms and hands
that suggests they are a dream and I am the dreamer,
even though I am there, too. I have just delivered the dinners
and wait in a pool of shadows, unsure of what to do next.
They unwrap the potatoes from the aluminum foil
with an odd delicacy, and I notice their still blackened hands
as they halve and butter them. The coffee sends up steam
like lathe smoke, and their bodies slowly relax
as they give themselves to the pleasure of the food
and the shop's strange silence after hours of noise,
the clang of iron and the burst and hiss of the cutting torch.
Without looking up, the machinist says something
to anyone who will listen, says it into the great cave
of the darkening shop, and I hear the words, life,
my life. I am a boy, so I do not know true weariness,
but I can sense what these words mean, these gestures,
when I stare at the half-eaten potatoes, the men,
the shadows that will pale and vanish as the lights come on.</p>
Lisa Mednick Powelltag:lisamednickpowell.com,2005:Post/60473552013-11-15T06:24:53-08:002018-11-24T03:18:15-08:00Chapter 3, Desert Arrival
<p>Because I don't want to bore you with the list of fanged, multi-legged, prickly, stinger-equipped, bug-eyed, slithering, creeping, crawling, venomous varmints we encounter pretty much every day and/or night around here, I have decided to simply provide a "VARMINT LIST UPON REQUEST." Just let me know if you want the list, and I will send it to you personally. Oh and I can also provide lists of yucky humans I have encountered; just give a holler if you are interested in that sort of thing.
Meanwhile, back at the homestead, Kip and I continue to work on our cabin. We are not giving the almighty swamp cooler any breaks. It runs and runs. If it stops, then we run...to the coast. You might be aware of the recent trend? The one the weather services have dubbed a "Heat Wave?" In L.A., a reading of 95 is hotter than usual for this time of year. Here, they say a reading of 110 degrees at 11 a.m. is unusually hot. I thought, when I heard of this looming Heat Wave, how could five or ten degrees make much of a difference? It has been going up to at least 100 by 10 a.m. pretty much every day anyhow. Well, the big difference seems to manifest itself at night.
Before the Heat Wave we sat on our porch of an evening and watched the lights of the marine base twinkle in the breeze. Sometimes we saw heat lightning or a shard of cosmic debris (AKA a falling star). Now it is more like sitting in a dry sauna. And the formerly tepid breeze is a hot wind--like when you open the oven in the middle of baking cookies and you get that blast of heat?Only this wind doesn't smell like cookies. It's not bad, but it's not cookies.
We spent three and a half years in northern New Mexico having this hazy idea about what might or might not go on up at the national laboratory in Los Alamos. Here, they "tell it like it is. We don't have to wonder what is going on because we see and hear on a regular basis that which goes on in and around the "Marine Combat Center" int he vicinity of "Dirty Deuce Nine." (That is what the high school kids here call their hometown.) Flashes in the sky at night, loud hill-shaking booms and blasts in the morning, puffs of smoke (or is it dust?) in the distance...and, judging from the way the town is riddled with "Combat Barber," "Marine Stylings by Judi," and "Stud Haircut" places, the explosions work best when EVERYONE in the vicinity has short hair. (Oh and nicely groomed nails. Can't swing a cat without hitting a nail parlor. You will not be at a loss if you are hiking around Joshua Tree National Park and you break a nail.)
As it happened, we met one of these short-haired Marines at the bar the other night. He and another fellow were enjoying their martinis, and, because the bar is pretty small and they had never seen us in there before, they started chatting with us. The martini-sipping Marine had a European accent that I could not place. Was it German? Swiss? Turns out the fella is Dutch. His name is Aslan, "like the lion." At some point Aslan began explaining the gun laws in the Netherlands. I think it was after we had finished discussing the pot laws. "Two things are never gonna go away. That is drugs and prostitution. Might as well legalize both and make some money for the state." He switched his martini for a beer.
The Netherlands' gun laws are so strict that if you have a gun and you also have ammunition, they have to be stored separately in your home and they have to be locked in safes. It all made a lot of sense to us. Then the Marine's buddy said, gesturing toward Aslan with his thumb,"this cat was a Royal Dutch Marine for seven years. Then he came here and he's been a U.S. Marine for 17 years." We mentioned the explosions and how we were um, aware of the presence of the military here. "yeah, this cat (Army guy again) is in charge of all that. He's a Gunnery Sergeant." What was fascinating was that every time he was referred to as "this cat," Aslan would let out a little high-pitched "meow!"
You have to understand that this was not a small person. Not someone you'd saunter up to and say "hey, you have something on your shirt!" and then flick them on the chin when they looked. By this time he had moved on to red wine and gave no indication that the alcohol was having any effect whatsoever. I mean, Kip and I were wondering. The guy was big, yes, but he had to be getting a little tipsy. No sign of one iota of intoxication. Was he going to go out to the testing range and blow some shit up the next morning to clear his head? Smart money would be on YES.
And now I have a question for you: do you think it's good policy for the U.S. Marines to give control over all the gunpowder and explosive weaponry to someone who comes from a European country where they VERY strictly control the use, possession, and storage of guns?
And, by the way, you might not be surprised to learn that the local July 4th fireworks display was one of the finest and most elaborate I have ever seen. (And I grew up in D.C.)
LATE-BREAKING P.S. WITH WHICH SOME OF YOU MIGHT DISAGREE AND I AM SORRY IF YOU ARE OFFENDED BY PROFANITY BUT SOMETIMES NOTHING ELSE WORKS.
I am, as I hope all of you are, disgusted by the verdict in The Trayvon Martin case. It has changed everything because it is clear that EVEN THOUGH (get over it tea-baggers) THE PRESIDENT IS BLACK—nothing has changed. This verdict is a summation of the hate that has been brewing in folks who can't handle the fact that an African American was elected and, in fact, re-elected. So quit saying that we are post-racial. This white man (yes I said white) Zimmerman got away with murdering a black child. For now.
Are people UPSET? Why, yes they are. Last night we went to the grocery store. Two African-American "youths" were walking to their car. One of them yelled "FUCK ZIMMERMAN! YES! I
SAID IT! FUCK ZIMMERMAN!" Kip and I yelled back: Yes. Fuck Zimmerman. And his mama.
It is not just a bad verdict—it is a prison sentence to free young black men. Those guys walking out of the grocery store are now shackled prey, not only to insane racists with guns, but also they are (STILL) prey-for-the-picking to the cops and the courts.
OK, I am done—for the moment. Here's a damn poem and a damn song. I copied this poem from a website so the formatting might be off, but the message is on.
JIM CROW CARS
If within the cruel Southland you have chanced to take a ride,
You the Jim Crow cars have noticed, how they crush a Negro's pride,
How he pays a first class passage and a second class receives,
Gets the worst accommodations ev'ry friend of truth believes.
'Tis the rule that all conductors, in the service of the train,
Practice gross discriminations on the Negro—such is plain—
If a drunkard is a white man, at his mercy Negroes are,
Legalized humiliation is the Negro Jim Crow car.
'Tis a license given white men, they may go just where they please,
In the white man's car or Negro's will they move with perfect ease,
If complaint is made by Negroes the conductor will go out
Till the whites are through carousing, then he shows himself about.
They will often raise a riot, butcher up the Negroes there,
Unmolested will they quarrel, use their pistols,rant and swear,
They will smoke among the ladies though offensive the cigar;
'Tis the place to drink their whiskey, in the Negro Jim Crow car.
If a Negro shows resistance to his treatment by a tough,
At some station he's arrested for the same, though not enough,
He is thrashed or lynched or tortured as will please the demon's rage,
Mobbed, of course, by 'unknown parties,' thus is closed the darkened page.
If a lunatic is carried, white or black, it is the same,
Or a criminal is taken to the prison-house in shame,
In the Negro car he's ushered with the sheriff at his side,
Out of deference for white men in their car he scorns to ride.
We despise a Negro's manhood, says the Southland, and expect,
All supremacy for white men—black men's rights we'll not protect,
This the Negro bears with patience for the nation bows to might,
Wrong has borne aloft its colors disregarding what is right.
This is called a Christian nation, but we fail to understand,
How the teachings of the Bible can with such a system band;
Purest love that knows no evil can alone the story tell,
How to banish such abuses, how to treat a neighbor well.
Lizelia Augusta Jenkins Moorer</p>
Lisa Mednick Powelltag:lisamednickpowell.com,2005:Post/60473542013-11-15T06:23:05-08:002018-11-24T03:18:15-08:00Arrival to Desert, Part II
<p>Circles, Squiggles, and a Line in the Sand
I need to back up a bit and tell you about Highway 62. Highway 62 takes you from the Parker Dam in Arizona to Twentynine Palms California. Actually you can take 62 all the way down to the 10. You pass through Wonder Valley, Twentynine Palms, Joshua Tree, Yucca Valley, Morongo Valley, you skirt Desert Hot Springs, and then you meet up with the 10, AKA the Santa Monica Freeway.
To take the 10 all the way to the Santa Monica Pier, you make a right at the windmills. I really love those windmills. Since my father moved to Hollywood in the late 70s, I have been watching those windmills going around...so I guess that's how long California has been engaging in green energy collection and consumption. I suppose we will go off the grid one day—but probably not on purpose. Yes, we are looking for jobs. I used to have one of those, didn't I. In fact I must say it is taking some creative thinking to figure out what to say to prospective employers about the way in which my previous engagement--ended itself.
But that's old news. Let's go back to Highway 62.
It's a hundred miles from the Parker Dam to Twentynine Palms. And at this time of year it is like God's Anvil as seen in the film Lawrence of Arabia. It's a pan made just for frying pilgrims who lose their way.
So before you start down that highway you need to make sure you have some water or one of those sports drinks with ice in it, some salty snacks, and maybe some gum in case you get sleepy. And, you have to make sure to empty your bladder because there...is....nothing...out...there. For one hundred miles.
Nothing except some ruins of old gas stations and cafés, their signs all twisted and strange...at about mile fifty you pass a fence that is covered with old sneakers. People passing through stop and leave their Chuck Taylors and P.F. Flyers and so forth....tied by the shoelaces to this fence. They want to let you know that they have passed through here.
There are many ways in which human travelers mark the territory they pass through. All along the railroad tracks that run parallel to 62, people have inscribed their names and initials and other messages using the black and white stones. Some names are spelled in white stones with each letter outlined in black stones. Others are more ambitious: huge initials formed by railroad ties line the embankment. Last time through I noticed that those had been gathered up and placed back in their piles along the tracks. Mostly, people seem to prefer writing with the rocks.
(For sure the strangest message I have seen reads as follows: "U R A DOUCHE." I mean, how do they know who is reading that stuff??)
By now you might be wondering "what about the circles and squiggles?" Well...the other day we got a visit from Tess who lives down the road. She stopped by to warn us about some of the other critters (besides us) who inhabit this region. She told us that we need to be on the lookout for "circles" and "squiggles" in the sand .
What was strange is that I had just seen a squiggle in the sand. The phrase "tube of venom" from some nature essay I read about a hundred years ago (Barry Lopez? William Least Heat Moon?) just kind of popped into my head when I saw this squiggle in the sand...so I steered the dog in another direction and forgot all about it—until Tess came by.
The rattlesnakes, she informed us, like to bury themselves in the sand to cool off and to do that they circle round and round until they are "dug in." They also squiggle themselves under the sand and lie there until sunset, "Oh, they'll warn you, they won't just strike. But you gotta be aware," said Tess. "Don't be afraid, just be aware." Hmmmm. What is fear but a heightened form of awareness?
Tess also identified the haphazard web in the crook of our saguaro cactus. She confirmed that this funnel-shaped mess was indeed the home of a large black widow spider. There also appeared to be a tiny egg lodged in that same crook. Tess said that sometimes hummingbirds lay their eggs and then abandon the nest. My guess? The spider came by and let the hummingbird know who was in charge around there...
We have our hummingbird feeders out, and Tess said that we wouldn't get any action there until the fall. But the other day, we heard that familiar buzz-bombing sound and the chirping of the hummers. And sure enough, a little gray bird hovered and lit on the edge of the red plastic cup. That little bird must have been tipsy when it was done...it drank half the sugar water we'd made and then came back for more.</p>
Lisa Mednick Powelltag:lisamednickpowell.com,2005:Post/60473532013-11-15T06:22:14-08:002018-11-24T03:18:15-08:00Desert Arrival June, 2013
<p>"The Desert provides," said Rocky Moore. I'll get back to that in a minute.
Other than the fact that we bunked at the beautiful Twentynine Palms Inn for the first three nights of our stay, I will admit that we had a somewhat rocky start here. But then, what is the desert, if not rocky? You see, it is damn hot. Yesterday it was a chilly 98 degrees, but the norm is about 105 or so during the daylight hours.
After a nice evening in the old adobe bungalow at the Inn, and some time spent in their cool poolside bar, and coffee and baguette the next morning, also by the pool with artificial mist blowing all around us...we began to face reality: it was time to unload the truck into the AA Bunker Storage Facility and also into our old/new cabin. Most treacherously, we had to unload the piano. On the New Mexico end, we entrusted our little Steinway upright to the care of a real piano mover. On the 29 Palms end Kip had the assistance of the owner of AA Bunker Storage and his two grandsons. Unfortunately Kip and the other three gentlemen did not have my assistance. That was due to the fact that I got heat stroke, or something like it.
We spent a couple of hours unloading the truck into the storage space and suddenly I stopped thinking clearly, if I had been thinking clearly at all that day. I sat in the front seat of our Corolla and aimed the AC vents right at my head while my hero Kip unloaded more of our stuff from the truck all by himself. I watched through the windshield but I was so dizzy I didn't dare move. When we got back to our motel room I hit the pillow until dark when I was once again able to get up and help unload the rest. I realized that living in the Mojave is all about learning to be a vampire. Guess I can live with that.
After a couple of nights in the cabin with a USELESS portable swamp cooler from Home Depot, we realized we needed something a tad stronger. This baby was only a gateway drug. We went to the local hardware store (it's called "Desert Hardware," oddly enough..) and got a monster swamp cooler. Now all we had to do was remove the old, stripped-bare-of-any-useful parts shell of a cooler that hung in the living room window.
Enter Rocky Moore. Lynn told us about Rocky when we were opening our P.O. box at her store. After she told us about her divorce from a marine who "solicited prostitutes," (there are a disproportionately high number of massage parlors, "marine haircut," and nail parlors here, all open late into the night. I don't know anything about marine life, so maybe they have odd hours, maybe there are a WHOLE LOT of them at this base, or maybe they just go off-base for needed pampering and grooming and...whatever else...) she took over the business she had built for him and the rest is herstory.
While Rocky helped Kip install the swamp cooler, he talked pretty much without taking a breath. He told us all kinds of stuff about living here. He told us to "get to know our neighbors" so they won't steal from us.
Nodding his head at the pile of trailers about a quarter mile away from our place, he said "How about that rat's nest?" We told him how we could tell that, after we'd turned off the water to our house last time we were here, someone had turned it back on and had been helping himself—but only to 35 gallons. That is not an amount worth talking about. And it is certainly not worth it to make an enemy over 35 gallons...
Rocky recommended a certain Chinese restaurant. "They're the best restaurant in town. When you get a take-out order they fill that styro-foam thing all the way up with food." Everyone has his own criteria for what makes a restaurant special.
Rocky also told us about taking his 4-wheeler out on an old lakebed and finding all sorts of useful stuff. He looked up at the grill on the TV antenna buckled to the siding and said, "see? That there's yer barbecue grill. I'll tell you, the desert provides..."
The very next morning I found out how the desert can provide—even in one's own neighborhood. Luna ran past me out the kitchen door while Kip was in the shower. For a 14-year-old girl, she is pretty spry. She ran down the road, toward the highway of course. With only two legs, I tried to keep up in the heat. I had not yet put on the hat, sunscreen, and long-sleeved shirt that I have adopted as my new costume...but luckily I had running shoes on my feet. Half a mile from our place, I finally cornered her in someone's yard (hoping that I would not get shot at) and started to yank her home by the collar. "If only I had a piece of rope," I thought. Then I spotted something orange hanging from a creosote bush. I dragged Luna over for a closer look. The desert seemed to be providing me at that moment with a bit of nylon rope. So Rocky was right. (Now I just have to think about whatever I want and look around for the nearest creosote bush, right?) I got home with Luna in tow just as Kip was pulling out of the driveway with water and the leash to come look for us.
Anyway, we are here now. We have 2.5 acres of stinkin' desert, USA and so far we love it. A fence is going up around our cabin. We are pretty sure this cabin was built by someone named G.A. Trevino in 1955. There is a hand-carved wooden name over the kitchen door. The homesteading history here is pretty interesting and we plan to find out what we can about the provenance of our little wood-frame abode. We can see it was built with care and the builder was proud of his work.
64. Mending Wall
SOMETHING there is that doesn't love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun;
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing: 5
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made, 10
But at spring mending-time we find them there.
I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go. 15
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
"Stay where you are until our backs are turned!"
We wear our fingers rough with handling them. 20
Oh, just another kind of outdoor game,
One on a side. It comes to little more:
He is all pine and I am apple-orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him. 25
He only says, "Good fences make good neighbors."
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
"Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it
Where there are cows? But here there are no cows. 30
Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offence.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That wants it down!" I could say "Elves" to him, 35
But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather
He said it for himself. I see him there,
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me, 40
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father's saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, "Good fences make good neighbors."</p>
Lisa Mednick Powelltag:lisamednickpowell.com,2005:Post/60473522013-05-26T02:32:51-07:002018-11-24T03:18:15-08:00Packing up--again
<p>We are packing up our little household once again. I won't be sad to leave Espanola, although I will be sad to leave our friends.
But we are focused on what lies ahead. Which is of course some degree of uncertainty, but one thing is certain: it will be different. We won't have mortgage or rent, so perhaps there will be less pressure to work in an office setting. Educational institutions, which one provided a sanctuary for me from corporate office mentality and atmosphere, have gone pretty much corporate. I am traumatized by what happened at the college here in NM, and do no wish to get in a situation where I could be snatched away from doing a good job and not told why.
SO...I will be posting photos of our move and blogging about our little house project in the Mojave,,,stay tuned.</p>
Lisa Mednick Powelltag:lisamednickpowell.com,2005:Post/60473502012-08-12T03:00:02-07:002018-11-24T03:18:14-08:00That time of year...
<p>I have been finding long blonde hairs in my house. About the same length as my hair. Hmmmmm...oh wait a minute--they aren't blonde--they are white. And they are from my head. We are not getting any younger around here.
We turned 55 this summer. Which is, as I said, not any younger. Kip is nine days older than me, though, which makes me a younger woman. So I got that going for me.
Anyway, when I discovered those long pale locks around the house and wondered "what the...," this poem came back to me and I know many of you have probably memorized it, but that doesn't stop it from being Shakespeare, which doesn't stop it from being great.
Sonnet LXXIII
By William Shakespeare
That time of year thou may'st in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
In me thou see'st the twilight of such day
As after sunset fadeth in the west,
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death's second self, that seals up all in rest.
In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the death-bed whereon it must expire,
Consum'd with that which it was nourish'd by.
This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well which thou must leave ere long.
And, since it is not unrelated to the above verse, I am also sending the great classic by Rod Stewart, "Maggie May." (You might have to cut 'n' paste the link, but it is worth the effort, believe me. Remember typewriters, mimeograph machines, and postage stamps? Just sayin'...)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fD_6KqP7K0g&feature=related
And, while we are visiting the Faces in their youth, let's listen to this one, too--from the most soulful, late great Ronnie Lane (the video cuts off at the end, but Ronnie Lane's just so cool in this one and I couldn't find another one of him doing Ooh La La. These dadgum newfangled computers....Anyway, if any of you have access to such a video, please feel free to share it with me.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYPTX12L5Uw
Finally, last--and not by any means least, here's one for the ladies. "Invisible" by the great Amy Rigby with Wreckless Eric. (sound quality is a little muddy on this particular vid but that just means you have to go and buy the record. Do it now.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9dhXfU9_IE
"I know it hurts to disappear/ But you've got lots of company here--we're invisible..." --A.R.
Lisa Mednick Powell
http://www.lisamednickpowell.com</p>
Lisa Mednick Powelltag:lisamednickpowell.com,2005:Post/60473512012-07-31T03:03:45-07:002021-10-01T23:27:05-07:00Anne and Sixto
<p>Because insanity is still out there with its itchy finger on the trigger, here is an Anne Sexton poem I have been thinking about lately:
Ringing the Bells
And this is the way they ring
the bells in Bedlam
and this is the bell-lady
who comes each Tuesday morning
to give us a music lesson
and because the attendants make you go
and because we mind by instinct,
like bees caught in the wrong hive,
we are the circle of crazy ladies
who sit in the lounge of the mental house
and smile at the smiling woman
who passes us each a bell,
who points at my hand
that holds my bell, E flat,
and this is the gray dress next to me
who grumbles as if it were special
to be old, to be old,
and this is the small hunched squirrel girl
on the other side of me
who picks at the hairs over her lip,
who picks at the hairs over her lip all day,
and this is how the bells really sound,
as untroubled and clean
as a workable kitchen,
and this is always my bell responding
to my hand that responds to the lady
who points at me, E flat;
and although we are not better for it,
they tell you to go. And you do.
And now for some Music:
You might have heard about this guy before. They had a feature on NPR yesterday and a friend told us about it. We looked it up & listened. Got blown away. Now the stunning Sixto Rodriguez is permanently installed in my mental jukebox. I have to say, I think I have heard some of this before, maybe when I was at Michigan--that first college career that didn't take; it was 1975, you know. I am looking forward to seeing the documentary Searching for Sugar Man. It probably won't show in New Mexico, but maybe we can deserve it...
Check it out: this is called "Crucify Your Mind.
"...and you assume you got something to offer/ secret shiny and new/ but how much of you is repetition/ that you didn't whisper to him too..." (You might have to cut and paste this url:)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVdWXqtk484&feature=related
This one really got to me. It's called "Rich Folks Hoax." And, may I just say...Money is the reason why we still can't seem to talk about gun control. That's the real insanity right there. IMHO.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1WKCPLoDwe8&NR=1&feature=fvwp</p>
Lisa Mednick Powelltag:lisamednickpowell.com,2005:Post/60473482012-07-26T02:05:09-07:002019-12-27T06:30:03-08:00Feu Follet del Norte
<p>Kip and I walk most evenings at the Black Mesa golf course which is pretty much a desert landscape. It has a sort of nature trail around it with cacti and sage and twisty trees.There are these black beetles who have what looks like a defense mechanism where they freeze and stick their rear ends straight up in the air. Lizards run around all over the place and we see snake tracks across the path.
There's an irrigation ditch running around the place. The golf course also has a pond. It's an artificial pond but it still has all kinds of magic qualities. For example, there are carp in the pond. Fancy people say "koi." But they are carp. And right now there are babies. So we are talking about goldfish. There are about seven different colors of dragonflies, blue and purple damselflies, bullfrogs that jump in just as we approach, yellow and white water lilies, butterflies, a heron, an occasional kingfisher, and some sort of purple flower that grows along the edge that looks like an orchid. There are diving ducks, and once we saw Canada geese. Give me a break.
I told Kip the other day that this pond is one of my favorite places to stop and stare (I do that a lot) and that, for me, it all goes back to my childhood when we lived in Copenhagen and visited Tivoli. (AKA Tivoli Gardens) There was a lake in Tivoli that had dragonflies and flowers and arches around the perimeter--all made of colored lights. It really was a magic place to me and it was the only reality I cared for--and I could never figure out why a person like me was required to spend most of her time anywhere else.
So the other night when we were out walking, a little later and darker than usual, we saw fireflies hovering around over the ditch, and I got that Tivoli vibe again. Two nights in a row we saw them, and then we stopped seeing them.It seemed unusual to see them here in the high desert--but they were there, I promise. The majority of the bugs we encounter around here are pretty disgusting, you know, so that was refreshing...
(Take, for example, the gigantic BLACK WIDOW that I discovered this evening an inch from the faucet handle that you have to turn to get water on the tomatoes. I was glad I had a flashlight. Creeepy!)
So, anyway, here's a poem about fireflies. I love this poem; still, there are a couple of words that I actually don't like in this poem, that is I don't approve of the way they are applied to the poem's subject. One of them was pointed out to me by Kip. But I won't trouble you by saying what they are. They just defy my personal logic. But you already know that I thought fairyland was the only logical place to be when I was a kid. So I'll let you all guess.
Fireflies
by Linda Pastan
here come
the fireflies
with their staccato
lights
their tiny headlamps
blinking
in silence
through the tall grass
like constellations
cut loose
from the night
sky
(see how desire
transforms
the plainest
of us)
or flashes of insight
that flare
for a moment
then flicker out</p>
Lisa Mednick Powelltag:lisamednickpowell.com,2005:Post/60473492012-07-15T02:13:08-07:002018-11-24T03:18:14-08:00got mud??
<p>First of all, Happy 19th birthday today (7/15) to my wonderful nephew Sam!!
In addition to being Bastille Day (and if they ever build a new Bastille, it should be made of adobe...), yesterday was Woody Guthrie's 100th birthday. In honor of that occasion, Kip's friends on the Adobe Group email list sent a message out containing an article from the New York Times about Woody Guthrie's fascination with adobe. He actually wrote a novel called House of Earth. He traveled in the southwest and became a True Believer in building with mud.
Here are *FOUR* paragraphs from the article about Guthrie's earthbound conversion:
“House of Earth” was written as a direct response to the Dust Bowl. In December 1936 the rambling troubadour had an epiphany while busking for tips in New Mexico. He’d traveled there after a treacherous duster whacked the Texas Panhandle town of Pampa, where he’d been living in poverty. While in New Mexico, Guthrie became transfixed by an adobe hacienda’s sturdy rain spouts and soil-straw bricks, a simple yet solid weatherproof structure unlike most of his Texan friends’ homes, which were poorly constructed with flimsy wooden boards and cheap nails.
An immediate convert, Guthrie purchased a nickel pamphlet, “Adobe or Sun-Dried Brick for Farm Buildings,” from the United States Department of Agriculture. The manual instructed poor rural folk on building adobe homes from the cellar up. All an amateur needed was a home-brew of clay loam, straw and water. Guthrie promoted this U.S.D.A. guide with wild-eyed zeal. Adobes, he boasted, would endure the Dust Bowl better than wooden aboveground structures that were vulnerable to wind, snow, dust and termites. If sharecroppers and tenant farmers could only own a piece of land — even the uncultivable territory of arroyos and red rocks — they could build a “house of earth” that would protect them from dirt blowing in through cracks in the walls.
In the late 1930s, a winter sleet crippled the Dust Bowl region; The New York Times called it “a blizzard of frozen mud,” the color of “cocoa.” Visibility was often less than 200 feet. “Well Howdy,” Guthrie wrote to his actor friend Eddie Albert in Hollywood in a letter from Pampa written during that period. “We didn’t have no trouble finding the dust bowl, and are about as covered up as one family can get. Only trouble is the dust is so froze up it cain’t blow, so it just scrapes around.”
Stuck in his Pampa shack, trying to protect his baby girl from a fever, Guthrie dreamed about insulating his family from the cold. “You dig you a cellar and mix the mud and straw right in there, sorta with your feet, you know, and you get the mud just the right thickness, and you put in a mould, and you mould out around 20 bricks a day,” Guthrie wrote, “and in a reasonable length of time you have got enough to build your house.”
Article says the book will be out next year. Something to look forward to...
Sometimes I wonder what WG would write if he were around today. I am sure my Okie friends had themselves a time out in Okemah this weekend at the Centennial Woodyfest! (http://www.woodyguthrie.com/)
And what would a discussion of Woody Guthrie be if it didn't include a couple of songs, right?
This version has ALL the verses:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxiMrvDbq3s
I been thinkin' about this one lately too:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VwcKwGS7OSQ
Finally, I would like to share my favorite Woody Guthrie quote:
"Some will rob you with a six-gun and some with a fountain pen." How true that is.</p>
Lisa Mednick Powelltag:lisamednickpowell.com,2005:Post/60473472012-07-04T02:13:24-07:002018-11-24T03:18:14-08:00Sing what belongs to you and none else....
<p>This is a patriotic message, since today is the Fourth of July. Even though I think daily of expatriating to Denmark or England or France, and Kip thinks maybe Spain would be nice, I must acknowledge that it is the birthday, so to speak, of the USA (would that be BOTUS?), and it is also the birthday my paternal grandfather assigned to himself, since he did not know his real birthday. My other grandparents also hitched their "birthdays" to holidays, because, well, they just had no way to find out their actual birthdates. But from what I know, they were better off once they got away from their birthplaces, because they came to the U.S. and lived relatively freely here. Free of certain things--my maternal grandparents sewed clothing in sweatshops, but they also helped build the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union. At that time, no one shot them for trying. That is a measure of freedom, innit?
So I am going to talk about freedom. Not for people, but for lizards and bugs and plants.
The other day I was out in the yard and trying to water the alleged plants that we are growing, when I heard this scuttling, scrambling noise. I can't describe the sound any other way. Of course I thought "oh no...more baby birds..." The sound came from this big cardboard box on our porch collecting empty bottles for recycling. (Yes, it is in front of the house next to the old couch, broken appliances, and camper shell. What. You got a problem with that?)
Inside the box, struggling to climb up the sides and being very unsuccessful, was one of these big black desert beetles. It reminded me of the sound of a palmetto bug trying to escape up the sides of a trash can. The sound is always bigger than the critter. You can hear the desperation in the frantically scrambling legs. And there are six legs per insect, so think about that. That's a lot of noise.
Anyway, I fished the animal out of the box and went about my watering the dead lavender plants that I put in last month. Yep, the lavender plants are dead alright but the canteloupe seeds that were in the compost pile (in which I so carefully nestled the plants) volunteered (very patriotic), so I started watering those instead. So the lavender is free of this world, and the genetic information coiled in the melon seeds freed itself and waves hello at me every day. Free melon is a good thing, right?
So I was, you know, happily puttering around in the yard, and a little while later, I heard that scrambling noise again.
So back I went, to see could I find out what was in that box. A New Mexican Whiptail Lizard! Running around in circles--well, squares actually--trying like crazy to get free of the box. So I tried to catch him but he was too fast for me. So I took the glass bottles out of the box one by one, then turned the box on its side. The lizard scurried out and disappeared while I blinked. That was it. So about this clichéed notion of "thinking outside the box..." Well, thinking outside the damn box doesn't actually get you out of the damn box. Taking your freedom is a deliberate act. Making a little noise also helps. Sometimes you even need a little help from your friends. (No, I am not sending you the Beatles because it's the Fourth, and even though the British Invasion was a good thing in many ways, we'll just talk about that another day.)
So with that in mind, here is a Poem About America (not just because it has America in the title but because is Whitman which automatically makes it About America--and please don't complain to me about sex-role stereotypes, thank you, just use your imagination and "sing what belongs to you and to none else"...oh and BTW I think my grandpa Harry worked as a hat-cutter once so this is for him...) and a Freedom Song:
I Hear America Singing
by Walt Whitman
I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear,
Those of mechanics, each one singing his as it should be
blithe and strong,
The carpenter singing his as he measures his plank or
beam,
The mason singing his as he makes ready for work, or
leaves off work,
The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat, the
deckhand singing on the steamboat deck,
The shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench, the hatter
singing as he stands,
The wood-cutter's song, the ploughboy's on his way in
the morning, or at noon intermission or at sundown,
The delicious singing of the mother, or of the young wife
at work, or of the girl sewing or washing,
Each singing what belongs to him or her and to none else,
The day what belongs to the day—at night the party of
young fellows,robust, friendly,
Singing with open mouths their strong melodious songs.
Staple Singers 1971. Mavis is just gettin' warmed up...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25Fudv9bT3I</p>
Lisa Mednick Powelltag:lisamednickpowell.com,2005:Post/60473432012-06-16T03:44:48-07:002019-12-27T06:30:02-08:00Alienation, Love, Words, and Music
<p>If only Greece would begin charging us royalties for all of the words derived from their language...Wouldn't that alleviate their financial CRISIS?
(cha-ching! Look it up.)
As someone pointed out on facebook when I suggested this earlier (yes, I am repeating a joke, so sue me...) CHAOS would also be a word that could probably fetch the Greeks a tidy sum.
In other news...I had a wonderful phone conversation with a dear friend the other day. We began talking about Richard Manuel. Of the band. And how excruciatingly soulful he was. We agreed that 'soulful' is not enough of a word to describe the sheer human-ness of that man. I say human-ness because he had a whole lot of whatever it is that makes us different from, say, puppies. Wondering why we are here. Why we are ultimately Alone in the world. What to do with all of these weighted feelings that we are born with other than "I want a biscuit; play with me; I smell something funny, do you?"
Maybe the Greeks of yore would have had a word to describe the fragile depths of Richard's soul. I certainly don't have that word and if I found one I could probably not afford the royalties that went with it. Now, I didn't know the guy personally, but I know that what he gave the world--and didn't get enough back of--was this raw musical lonely love. And during our conversation I said to my friend, "the world was too much for him..." And my friend said, "It wasn't enough!" And he was right as rain. So here is Richard giving the world what he didn't get enough of in return.
Richard Manuel
You Don't Know Me
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EpmNMLmSaDk
(And here is one that actually starts at the beginning of the song but has some rattling distortion in the mix...with the Cate bros. I think--for my fellow music nerds. But I like the previous one better, me)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGrucjh971k&feature=related
And poetry to go with it, of course, from another poet who was *alone* in the world, and who didn't get enough back from the world. (that is my opinion and if you want to know more I can send you my 22-page paper about her...ha ha):
The Loneliness One Dare Not Sound (AKA 777)
by Emily Dickinson
The Loneliness One dare not sound--
And would as soon surmise
As in its grave go plumbing
To ascertain the size--
The Loneliness whose worst alarm
Is lest itself should see--
And perish from before itself
For just a scrutiny
The Horror not to be surveyed--
But skirted in the Dark--
With consciousness suspended--
And Being under Lock--
I fear me this--is Loneliness--
The Maker of the soul
Its Caverns and its Corridors
Illuminate--or seal--
I Many Times Thought Peace had Come (AKA 739)
by Emily Dickinson
I many times thought Peace had come
When Peace was far away--
As Wrecked Men--deem they sight the land--
At Centre of the Sea--
And struggle slacker--but to prove
As hopelessly as I--
How many times the fictitious Shores
Before the harbor be--
(yeah, I know I promised I would be my usual warm fuzzy self after last week's rant...well, you know, let's just say that Emily and Richard are there so that all of us can whistle along our merry way to the mall--and not ponder those big heavy questions all day long. Hey, at least I mentioned puppies...)
Lisa Mednick Powell
http://www.lisamednickpowell.com</p>
Lisa Mednick Powelltag:lisamednickpowell.com,2005:Post/60473442012-06-16T03:41:58-07:002019-12-27T06:30:02-08:00Ring them Bells; Knock Over them Statues
<p>Bear with me. This will be a long one. And I am in a curmudgeonly mood. I have for you a poem and three songs.
But you don't have to read all of this message or read the poem or listen to all three songs. You have some freedom here.
Not much to tell in the way of a story, except that all week I have been thinking of the smashing of idols, sacred cattle, what have you. Thinking about fealty and ambition and all the attending consequences of being asked to march alongside those who are only concerned with the destination and never with the journey.
Etcetera. I promise next week I will be back to my old bubbly self with talk of baby birds and butterflies.
But for now...
Sycophants and acolytes wake up and answer me this:
What happens when you knock down a statue, but the shadow of the statue remains all stretched out in the dirt?
Here is another question: I have had it with the battle over the dead white guys. If they are indeed dead, why are they such a threat? They do cast a long shadow but there is room to play in that shadow; the borders are porous, and anyone who wants to get in can get in.
First, a somewhat disturbing poem by T.S. Eliot. At least it bugs me, but then what doesn't??
The Journey of the Magi
'A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the year
For a journey, and such a long journey:
The ways deep and the weather sharp,
The very dead of winter.'
And the camels galled, sore-footed, refractory,
Lying down in the melting snow.
There were times we regretted
The summer palaces on slopes, the terraces,
And the silken girls bringing sherbet.
Then the camel men cursing and grumbling
and running away, and wanting their liquor and
women,
And the night-fires going out, and the lack of shelters,
And the cities hostile and the towns unfriendly
And the villages dirty and charging high prices:
A hard time we had of it.
At the end we preferred to travel all night,
Sleeping in snatches,
With the voices singing in our ears, saying
That this was all folly.
Then at dawn we came down to a temperate valley,
Wet, below the snow line, smelling of vegetation;
With a running stream and a water-mill beating the darkness,
And three trees on the low sky,
And an old white horse galloped away in the meadow.
Then we came to a tavern with vine-leaves over the
lintel,
Six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver,
And feet kicking the empty wine-skins.
But there was no information, and so we continued
And arriving at evening, not a moment too soon
Finding the place; it was (you might say) satisfactory.
All this was a long time ago, I remember,
And I would do it again, but set down
This set down
This: were we led all that way for
Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly
We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and
death,
But had thought they were different; this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.
We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.
I should be glad of another death.
A chill-bump-inducing performance by Bob Dylan of "Ring Them Bells:"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54taTUzLdp8
Finally, sending two versions of this next song, "The Heathen." One of my favorite Bob Marley songs of all time. And, if I remember right, this recording is from the tour that I saw in 1978, with my friend Juliet. We sat in the second row and had the full-on Marley experience. Stanley Clarke opened up so we saw two of the greatest bass players of all time in one night. By the way, if you get a chance to see the new Marley documentary, go see it. Kip was, of course, in bass-player nirvana every time Aston Family Man Barret crossed the screen.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xtwewby5EM&feature=watch_response
Here is another version with film footage:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EMvzBfa1Y9I</p>
Lisa Mednick Powelltag:lisamednickpowell.com,2005:Post/60473452012-06-15T03:45:16-07:002019-12-27T06:30:03-08:00For the Birds
<p>We had a little fledgling sparrow stuck under the vinyl cover of our grill. You know, one of those round-topped Weber grills. (Thanks for the grill, Hollis!!) We found this little bird when we were sitting outside last night and heard this fluttering. When I lifted the cover off of the grill (because the sound seemed to come from under there...) there were two young sparrows on the ground. One was dead on its back, and the other was blinking up at us. So I picked the live one up (it isn't true that the parents won't feed a baby bird after a human has touched it, though I would not blame them at all, were that the case...) and looked at him. He wasn't hurt. He just didn't know how to fly yet. So I put him in a pot and covered it with a towel. In case of snakes, or cats, or dogs. Kip (who grew up on a farm and therefore is not as sentimental as I am about critters of any kind..) said, "I will be surprised if that bird makes it through the night."
So when I got up this morning and went outside, I figured I would be dealing with a dead bird. But not only was the little guy alive, he had climbed out of the pot, out from under the towel, and was wide awake, looking up expectantly. So I extended my little finger towards him and he began trying to eat my pinky. No, I said, I am not your mommy. He (or she) chirped a few times and looked up again. So I found a dead bug and fed it to him. Then I placed him on the bench under the portal. Our porch is a bird village. I mean they are nesting throughout the eaves and the gutters--you can hear them chirping and scrambling pretty much constantly, so I thought maybe the parents would find this bird. But it didn't seem like anyone was claiming him.
After a while, he hopped out onto the lawn. Well, that which passes for a lawn. It's just dirt and stickers, really...
I waited for about twenty minutes until a few adult sparrows began tag-teaming and feeding him. So I thought he'd be OK. Like, you know, he'd get adopted. But after I watched the feeding taking place (I sat very still for about an hour watching this scene...), he hopped back onto the porch and eventually made his way over to the grill and tucked himself under the vinyl cover again. I wondered if he was committing suicide. I mean, his sibling had died right there...and there was no sign of a nest under there either.
Kip thought maybe we should put him up under the eaves. So we did that, and he hopped right up into an old nest. But no matter how much he chirped, he could not get the attention of anyone but us humans. Still, we left him there for a while. It seemed like a safe spot for a little bird.
We went out for the afternoon to see the Lowrider car show at the plaza (yes, it was badass...but that is another story...). When we came back, he was on the ground and scurried under the grill cover again.
And he hid under there until Kip suggested that I put him in a box with a screen over it for the night--so he wouldn't be "an hors d'oeuvre for some wandering cat." So our little bird is out there in a box and we will take him to the wildlife center in the morning. If he makes it through the night. According to the nice lady with whom I spoke this morning, this is a fledgling who is trying to learn to take care of himself. She said they usually come down from the nest and then climb back up the tree trunk at the end of the day. Only in this case, the nest is not in any place that a bird could climb to. There is nothing to grip onto except metal drainpipes and smooth wooden posts. So on the ground he sat. And, by evening, it seemed this bird had been abandoned. The sparrows did not tend to him during the evening feeding frenzy. So I guess maybe he needs a little help. Or...maybe I am the one who needs a little help.
The Need of Being Versed in Country Things
by Robert Frost
The house had gone to bring again
To the midnight sky a sunset glow.
Now the chimney was all of the house that stood,
Like a pistil after the petals go.
The barn opposed across the way,
That would have joined the house in flame
Had it been the will of the wind, was left
To bear forsaken the place's name.
No more it opened with all one end
For teams that came by the stony road
To drum on the floor with scurrying hoofs
And brush the mow with the summer load.
The birds that came to it through the air
At broken windows flew out and in,
Their murmur more like the sigh we sigh
From too much dwelling on what has been.
Yet for them the lilac renewed its leaf,
And the aged elm, though touched with fire;
And the dry pump flung up an awkward arm;
And the fence post carried a strand of wire.
For them there was really nothing sad.
But though they rejoiced in the nest they kept,
One had to be versed in country things
Not to believe the phoebes wept.</p>
Lisa Mednick Powelltag:lisamednickpowell.com,2005:Post/60473462012-06-14T03:45:02-07:002019-12-27T06:30:03-08:00and another thing...and another...and another...
<p>Just thought I would send a little update on our feathered friends...I got home from work yesterday evening at about 6 p.m. I heard some chirping coming from the direction of that Weber grill..."he's back!" I thought. So I glanced over at the ground and peering up from under the vinyl cover was this fluffy little squadron of eyes and beaks...Yes, there were FIVE tiny birds. They really were standing on the porch, in a row, at attention, and they all looked EXACTLY the same...
So I thought of this song:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mACqcZZwG0k</p>
Lisa Mednick Powelltag:lisamednickpowell.com,2005:Post/60473422012-03-03T13:45:32-08:002019-12-27T06:30:02-08:00Guestbook turned off & this week's poem
<p>I had to turn off the guest book because it appears there are many individuals, particularly from mother Russia, who are attempting to hack...
Meanwhile here is this week's poem:
So here's what happened. We were out doing errands and listening to Dan Penn. I thought,"Hmmm...I didn't send any poetry out last week. Maybe this week I will send "Memphis Women and Chicken." Or "Dark End of the Street." But then, on our way home, we heard a speech by Bobby Seale on the Alternative Radio Show. We sat in the driveway after we got home, shivering (it's too cold here!!) and listening until the program was over. And when we got inside I looked up Bobby Seale. This led me to Mumia Abu Jamal's Prison Radio. OK, stay with me. I was planning, last week, to send another poem for Black History Month. I had not planned to send another Rita Dove, but after hearing Mumia Abu Jamal speak about Benjamin Banneker and his Department of Peace concept, I remembered this poem. So you get Rita Dove twice in one month, and Prison Radio once, and a Dan Penn song too. (I thought about including "Chicago" by CSNY, but that's easy enough to find if you need to hear it.)
Banneker
by Rita Dove
What did he do except lie
under a pear tree, wrapped in
a great cloak, and meditate
on the heavenly bodies?
Venerable, the good people of Baltimore
whispered, shocked and more than
a little afraid. After all it was said
he took to strong drink.
Why else would he stay out
under the stars all night
and why hadn’t he married?
But who would want him! Neither
Ethiopian nor English, neither
lucky nor crazy, a capacious bird
humming as he penned in his mind
another enflamed letter
to President Jefferson—he imagined
the reply, polite and rhetorical.
Those who had been to Philadelphia
reported the statue
of Benjamin Franklin
before the library
his very size and likeness.
A wife? No, thank you.
At dawn he milked
the cows, then went inside
and put on a pot to stew
while he slept. The clock
he whittled as a boy
still ran. Neighbors
woke him up
with warm bread and quilts.
At nightfall he took out
his rifle—a white-maned
figure stalking the darkened
breast of the Union—and
shot at the stars, and by chance
one went out. Had he killed?
I assure thee, my dear Sir!
Lowering his eyes to fields
sweet with the rot of spring, he could see
a government’s domed city
rising from the morass and spreading
in a spiral of lights....
NOTES: Benjamin Banneker (1731-1806), first black man to devise an almanac and predict a solar eclipse accurately, was also appointed to the commission that surveyed and laid out what is now Washington, D.C.
This is from Mumia Abu Jamal's Prison Radio. It is also about Benjamin Banneker.
http://hw.libsyn.com/p/7/f/0/7f00a499677b2e56/Banneker_long.mp3?sid=ef4d160c558fef84d58bb1ff0dee2918&l_sid=18813&l_eid=&l_mid=2928895&expiration=1330830006&hwt=f4907b42d0a4699de03a7a3514382dfc
And, here is your Dan Penn fix (sung for you today by Etta James:"they say that it's a man's world but you can't prove that by me.")
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dh4v1-QcAzE&feature=related</p>
Lisa Mednick Powelltag:lisamednickpowell.com,2005:Post/60473412012-02-19T01:36:00-08:002019-12-27T06:30:02-08:00Ten years ago...
<p>Ten years ago, Kip and I went to New Orleans for Mardi Gras. It was his first time.
I said, "Hey, let's go to Mardi Gras."
He said, "What's that?"
I am not sure he knew what he was getting into but I know we had a great time.
We drove first to Lafayette and stayed there to see Li'l Band of Gold at Grant Street Dance Hall. They played this song:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tiR8oFy_xUA
We went to Bacchus that Sunday. Nicholas Cage was King of Bacchus and sitting up there on his float drinking bottled water.
I got clocked with a pair of Bacchus beads right in the eye socket. Of course it was the medallion that hit. But you know when those beads hit this head, they broke right in half. So I didn't keep them. Later, I had a K&B purple shiner that matched the beads.
I had no choice but to keep that souvenir.
The Mardi Gras Indians have been working on their new suits and sewing all year long, and now look how pretty they are on Fat Tuesday. They sound good, too.
We did see them Mardi Gras morning, after I made Kip get up early and go to Zulu...he says it was worth only sleeping three hours after hanging out late at the Howlin' Wolf the night before.
Kip caught me a ZULU bracelet which I still wear every year on Mardi Gras. Not that anyone has any idea what it is...it's a shibboleth of sorts.
But you have not seen Mardi Gras until you have seen the Indians.
So--get out the way--here come The Wild Magnolias!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8DU28DiuZBk&feature=related
The Indian gangs were pretty much the coolest thing about Mardi Gras in New Orleans.
One of the things that drew me down there in 1984, in fact.
I hope you will let it draw you in, too. Look around online and find out about their history.
It is a topic in concordance with Black History Month and pretty fascinating if you are new to the subject.
Lagniappe: Here are a couple of extra Indian videos so you can see them in action:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYef9JOeB1g
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYBOf4EMpVo&feature=related</p>
Lisa Mednick Powelltag:lisamednickpowell.com,2005:Post/60473402012-01-05T14:18:23-08:002019-12-27T06:30:02-08:00what Mark Twain said...
<p>If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and a man.
- Pudd'nhead Wilson
yeah you rite. Funny thing, isn't it? You try to help people and they turn around and help themselves to whatever they see that isn't tied down...</p>
Lisa Mednick Powelltag:lisamednickpowell.com,2005:Post/60473392012-01-01T13:56:03-08:002019-12-27T06:30:02-08:00Last Night at the Rat Pack Revue
<p>The Camel Rock Casino show room was decked out for New Year's... we got there just as they cancelled the cover charge. All the chairs were wrapped with ribbons, therer were balloons hanging from the acoustical tiles, big firework-shaped fake flower arrangements at every table, and oddly, glass champagne flutes inscribed with "Camel Rock Casino New Year's Celebration 2012." I say oddly because the champagne never flowed, not even after midnight, and the bar was not serving champagne. I had a shot of tequila.
The Rat Pack Revue entertained, just as it was meant to. We dug it, and the jokes were pretty funny. We are old enough to get the jokes. what was really funny, and Kip pointed this out this morning, was that the performers kept saying how glad they were to be in "Santa Fe." And each time they said that, they got a deeper silence from the audience. Because we were not in Santa Fe. and, if anyone in that crowd had been able to afford New Year's Eve in Santa Fe, I am guessing they would have been there instead of in Tesuque. But it goes deeper than that. This was on tribal land of course, we crossed what amounts to an international border to go to the Casino last night. These Rat Pack tributaries were not aware of course. If they would only install check points at the Pueblo borders, perhaps people would get a clearer picture. So, on many levels, the entertainers were flying blind when they said how great a city Santa Fe is. At least they tried. Happy New Year!</p>
Lisa Mednick Powelltag:lisamednickpowell.com,2005:Post/60473382011-11-03T13:44:13-07:002019-12-27T06:30:01-08:00Sitting in at the Cowgirl Last night
<p>Last night we went down to Santa Fe to hear Eric Hisaw. I brought my accordion. Played on a few of his songs, then he invited Kip up to sing one. We did "Pick Me Up on Your Way Down." It was fun, Eric's songs are good and true--and I loved hearing news about old Austin friends. Plus, Chrissy Flatt is a super-cool chick and I got her new cd.
That Cowgirl place is OK, but it ain't Threadgill's on a Wednesday in 1991...</p>
Lisa Mednick Powelltag:lisamednickpowell.com,2005:Post/60473372011-10-22T15:30:45-07:002019-12-27T06:30:01-08:00A Dream of Deeper Snow
<p>The dreams I had last night can only be explained by the handful of peanuts I ate before ending my day. There was snow--lots of it. Three feet deep and me trudging through it. I was supposed to be somewhere, and I was late. But instead of worrying about that, I fell backwards into the snow and it sort of covered me up, like quicksand. Quicksnow. It became difficult to breathe. I could only see this diffused, white/gray light coming through the snow over my face.
That is all I remember. Except for the two snowy owls I saw and the lamb that was the size of a kitten. They wanted to get into my house. Oh, and some sort of scruffy terrier dog that also wanted to get in. I brought the kitten-sized lamd into the house because I thought the owls might eat it. It turned gray after I brought it inside. Perhaps gold would turn to copper in my presence too?</p>
Lisa Mednick Powelltag:lisamednickpowell.com,2005:Post/60473362011-10-21T14:19:16-07:002019-12-27T06:30:01-08:00Coyote Family
<p>The other night we went walking at our usual place, the Black Mesa Golf Course. About halfway around the loop, we realized it was getting pretty dark. All of a sudden Kip stopped and pointed. Of course I can't see very well...especially in low light...but finally I saw a group of coyotes trotting along, about to cross our path--about forty feet ahead. We just stood there and watched them...Two adults and three juveniles. The last one, who was one of the adults, stood in our path for a while and stared at us. Finally that last coyote trotted up the ridge. We could still see them and the one kept looking back at us, like making sure we weren't going to follow. So cool.
I love those animals.
Wasn't it horrific to hear about this man who let all of those tigers and lions and bears loose and then shot himself? Why are people so stupid? Did he know they would all get shot by cops?? Such a waste.</p>
Lisa Mednick Powelltag:lisamednickpowell.com,2005:Post/60473352011-10-17T14:00:40-07:002019-12-27T06:30:01-08:00The flyovers
<p>OK, I just want to say, for the record, that I don't care much about the flyovers. I understand that they're bad. Maybe even horrifying. Low altitude training. I know it will be scary and it will traumatize the beasts. And I do care about the four-legged beasts. But isn't this what we do to other people all over the world all the time?? Why should we be so precious? let us get a taste of our own medicine. Are we more valuable as a lot than a kid in an Afghan village? Maybe we are, but probably not.
Of course, my husband and other loved ones are more valuable to me than a stranger across the world. But that's not the point. We shouldn't be exempt from our own horror show that we perform daily for others.</p>
Lisa Mednick Powelltag:lisamednickpowell.com,2005:Post/60473342011-10-17T13:55:48-07:002019-12-27T06:30:01-08:00Other Horses, Other Hearts
<p>The lot next door to us is a long field where they exercise race horses. It isn't really a field; its a dirt strip. We are at the end of a long driveway that runs parallel to this field. Today when I left for work, there were three brown horses with black manes and tails and one of them had black knee socks. Not really, but that's the way it looked.
They have a little merry-go-round for the horses. Not the kind with painted ponies...they tether the horses to it and they can walk around and around. There is also a starting gate. One morning as I left for work, I was lucky enough to see one of the horses burst out of the gate and gallop past me.
The most beautiful horse though was this one I only saw one time. It looked like it was made of silver and pewter. There was a jockey riding it up and down the length of the field. I was out walking the dog and she barked at the horse. The sound of the hooves really got to me for some reason. Don't know why, it just did.</p>
Lisa Mednick Powelltag:lisamednickpowell.com,2005:Post/60473332011-10-12T13:26:36-07:002019-12-27T06:30:01-08:00It is a new year: 5772
<p>Tonight I tutored three students. Last night it was four. One had tattoos up and down his burly arms and a cross tattooed in the corner of each eye. He is a firefighter and is studying Wildland Fire Science.
One had his last name tattooed across his throat. One was a woman about 65 years old coming back to school after who knows how long.
Essays and stories told to me are about drugs, trials, parole, and prison, young sisters who go out at night and don't come home, and more. A young lady who is 25 came for tutoring because she could not get in to see a tutor at SFCC, though she is a student there.
Was I supposed to turn her away?
They all need help, and MLA citations are the least of their worries.
I hope I helped someone even if it was just a little bit...mostly I hope to make them realize that they can actually do something they don't think they can do.
You never know. Now and then a sentence just shines out and more often you get strangely spelled words, tense disagreements, and pronoun-antecedent conflicts.</p>
Lisa Mednick Powelltag:lisamednickpowell.com,2005:Post/60473322011-07-22T17:29:30-07:002018-11-24T03:18:12-08:00The Heartbreak Horse
<p>Concerned about a black horse I pass by in someone's corral on my way to work who is rib-sticking-out thin you can see his hipbones I can't tell if this horse has shade or water...just can tell that he is not getting fed enough. Should I report his to humane Society or what? I mean I don't want he horse's "owners" to come and kill me...
I don't know anything about horses, but, since they exercise racehorses in the long narrow field next to our place, I do know what a healthy horse looks like: Beautiful.</p>
Lisa Mednick Powelltag:lisamednickpowell.com,2005:Post/60473312011-07-12T13:34:47-07:002019-12-27T06:30:00-08:00Victory is mine
<p>I bought those shoes--and I'm not sorry!!</p>
Lisa Mednick Powelltag:lisamednickpowell.com,2005:Post/60473302011-07-09T02:37:12-07:002022-05-17T14:08:04-07:00James McMurtry at the Railyard
<p>It's funny to go out and hear bands you used to play with. it would be weird enough if you were still playing in bands, but when you've quit playing for 6 or 7 years it is decidedly eerie.I mean, I never quit playing music, but took myself out of the game so to speak. So going to hear James was special and fun and all that, but a bit spooky as well. My fingers sort of move involuntarily if I know the song. I sing along here and there. But I don't know I'm doing it.
The more time that passes since I left the Austin music scene, the fewer songs are familiar to me. Same thing when we went to hear Ray Wylie. But the sounds all still sound familiar. And there is still some comfort in that I suppose.
And just in case anyone wonders, the band sounded good. James sounded great.</p>
Lisa Mednick Powelltag:lisamednickpowell.com,2005:Post/60473292011-07-04T05:35:04-07:002019-12-27T06:30:00-08:00Leapfrogging Lizards
<p>Well, this really has nothing to do with frogs or lizards. But we heard frogs the other night after it rained, and of course we see lizards quite often in this neck of the desert.
Today is the fourth of July and I feel absolutely zero patriotism. Would rather live in Europe, in fact. Watched The Shock Doctrine last night in honor of the Fourth. I remember the assassination of Orlando Atelier as if it happened in my opwn backyard last week. Wait. It DID happen in my vicinity. We lived in Bethesda and regularly drove past Embassy Row. Are we headed for a Pinochet-style dictatorship? If the Teabaggers could attempt a coup, would they? I cannot discern any distinction between the members of that movement, leaders and followers alike, and Timothy McVeigh. Can people be so blind?
I have had plenty of time lately to think about blind ambition and blind faith...joining groups and causes...I have no ambition and no faith. I do not join causes. I support some justice-related causes, but I never jump all the way in. It seems so childish to me to throw oneself in wholesale. Yet I see full-grown individuals diving headfirst into all kinds of cliques and causes--even in the workplace. These fools expect loyalty, fealty, and perfection from their followers and see perfection in their leaders. Yet no one or thing is perfect, except the shell of a Nautilus...So I see childishness everywhere, and it makes me wonder:
Why, as a country, have we not grown up yet?</p>
Lisa Mednick Powelltag:lisamednickpowell.com,2005:Post/60473282011-06-15T13:44:25-07:002019-12-27T06:30:00-08:00Today at work--even stranger things
<p>Well, not really. It don't get much weirder than some weirdo tryin' to sell you beef jerk in the hallway...but still..
I missed another union meeting because there was no notification. Wonder how we are supposed to organize? Oh...wait...I get it...we are not supposed to organize. Can that be true? I don't blame the current management/ administration. I blame whoever set up the bargaining agreement that said that the union can't use the college email to let people know when there is a meeting. Who agreed to that?? Must have been a long time ago, when people relied more on phones that had wires connected to the wall...</p>
Lisa Mednick Powelltag:lisamednickpowell.com,2005:Post/60473272011-06-14T13:10:10-07:002019-12-27T06:30:00-08:00Tom Jones is my new hero
<p>Last Friday I sent two Emily Dickinson poems and two of my favorite Dylan songs. What Good Am I as performed by Tom Jones makes the song even more of a masterpiece than it already was. And it was, for doggone shore.</p>
Lisa Mednick Powelltag:lisamednickpowell.com,2005:Post/60473262011-06-08T13:47:44-07:002019-12-27T06:30:00-08:00Discombobulation hit 11 today
<p>As I mentioned, it is a distinct possibility that someone or something put the whammy on me when I went to New Orleans. Today was the pinnacle of said discombobulation...I fell today just like a clumsy old witch. Somehow tripped into the bathroom and hit the vanity with my head and the floor with everything else. A wise young man I graduated from Whitman with once sang, "I fought the floor and the floor won."
Oh well.</p>
Lisa Mednick Powelltag:lisamednickpowell.com,2005:Post/60473252011-05-25T14:11:46-07:002018-11-24T03:18:12-08:00Discombobulated
<p>Thinking back to an evening in Rochester, when Kip and I went to Water Street Music Hall to hear the Flatlanders. They were sublime, and we spent some time on the bus with them after the show. Most of the talk was nonsense and revolved around some lyrics Joe Ely had started about a discombobulator and "Sooner or later you have to pay the alligator."
I am thinking of this because I have been somehow discombobulated since I got back from new orleans. Somebody or something put the whammy on me. I keep dropping stuff and walking into things. I don't know what it is. It isn't all bad, but I am not sure it's all good either.
Could it be the severe change in altitude? Those extreme lows and those extreme highs? Just more of the roller coaster ride?</p>
Lisa Mednick Powelltag:lisamednickpowell.com,2005:Post/60473242011-05-23T12:50:50-07:002019-12-27T06:29:59-08:00Found a postcard from ages ago
<p>Here is what I wrote to Kenneth Blevins, but I suppose I never found his address because I never sent the card, which is a picture of the New River Gorge bridge. Perhaps I crossed that bridge on my journey back to Austin that summer. I think that was the summer I went to Ireland and England and then played piano at Napi's in Provincetown.
"Howdy! Hope you're doing good...'You left town," Robert told me,'the way you always leave town--without telling anybody.' Yep, I did it again. Except this time I left the entire Northeastern part of the U.S. Oh well. It's not out of rudeness; it's just because I can't think of who might care!! Anyway, I'm back here in Texas where men are men and women are governor. I got a gig in Gnashville and had to fly. But I'll be back. I'm moving again. Had to get out of the mess I was in, you know. Well, I'll talk to you one day.--Lisa M."
That was a girl I used to know: Lisa M. All that on a little postcard out of West Virginia or maybe Arkansas.</p>
Lisa Mednick Powelltag:lisamednickpowell.com,2005:Post/60473232011-05-20T14:43:11-07:002019-12-27T06:29:59-08:00Birds, Horses
<p>Today on the NNMC campus, as I was heading to my car and a doctor's appointment, I caught a fast-moving object scuttling across the ground near me. It was a roadrunner. a second fast-moving object was right on its tail...a hummingbird. Maybe that roadrunner was trying to steal eggs. Though i doubt a hummingbird egg would make much of a meal for a high velocity individual such as he was...
The horses across the road from us, next to the post office, are not being treated well. There are four of them on a big dirt patch. They can't find anything to eat and they get hay thrown at them once a day...and it is gone in a flash. This evening i watched from an upstairs window as someone pulled a horse trailer up and toll away one of the horses. The others looked like they wanted to go. The horse that was leaving had an arrowhead brand on its flank and bent to eat some green grass before it was herded into the trailer. One other horse, the one with white patches on its legs, came running full speed across the dirt when the other horse was being taken away.</p>
Lisa Mednick Powelltag:lisamednickpowell.com,2005:Post/60473222011-05-07T12:51:17-07:002019-12-27T06:29:59-08:00A Pilgrimage Home to New Orleans--in plain English
<p>When in April the sweet showers fall
That pierce March's drought to the root and all
And bathed every vein in liquor that has power
To generate therein and sire the flower;
When Zephyr also has with his sweet breath,
Filled again, in every holt and heath,
The tender shoots and leaves, and the young sun
His half-course in the sign of the Ram has run,
And many little birds make melody
That sleep through all the night with open eye
(So Nature pricks them on to ramp and rage)
Then folk do long to go on pilgrimage,
And palmers to go seeking out strange strands,
To distant shrines well known in distant lands.</p>
Lisa Mednick Powelltag:lisamednickpowell.com,2005:Post/60473212011-04-26T13:03:00-07:002019-12-27T06:29:59-08:00Flying to New Orleans tomorrow
<p>I don't know if anyone will read this. But after having had so many dreams about New Orleans and the people I love there...i am finally taking a short trip back. This is also my first trip back since Katrina. I am grateful and not without some trepidation...
But here I go.</p>
Lisa Mednick Powelltag:lisamednickpowell.com,2005:Post/60473202011-01-19T11:50:20-08:002022-01-18T22:55:32-08:00today at work - 2 strange things
<p>1."well yeah, we broke up. If he wants to keep sucking on his mama's titty, he can go ahead. But me and that bitch was never gonna get along."
2. A young man stopped me in the hallway and asked me how to spell "Hor-hay." I had to turn the other way for a second because he smelled like roadkill. He was holding a Walmart bag. "J-O-R-G-E," I said. "OK, thanks." He programmed something into his phone. As I started to edge away, he said: "You don't wanna buy no beef jerky?"</p>
Lisa Mednick Powelltag:lisamednickpowell.com,2005:Post/60473192011-01-13T11:58:07-08:002019-12-27T06:29:59-08:00outside forces...
<p>such as...government health care? that is no miracle, baby.
why is it easier to buy a gun than to get health care in this country?
if i could convince Kip, we would move to europe.</p>
Lisa Mednick Powelltag:lisamednickpowell.com,2005:Post/60473182011-01-08T13:50:17-08:002019-12-27T06:29:59-08:00We are sliding...
<p>The shooting today in Arizona is a direct result of Sarah Palin's nasty target map. Don't let her get away with this or back away from it. If there is any good to come of this, which I cannot imagine, perhaps the likes of Boehner and Cantor will back away just a bit from the tea-partiers and stop inciting violence. Their brutish combination of vitriol and gun-waving (and flag-waving) signals the end of our society if we ever had one. France seems nice...</p>
Lisa Mednick Powelltag:lisamednickpowell.com,2005:Post/60473172010-12-31T06:36:46-08:002019-12-27T06:29:58-08:00Last year and this year
<p>Last year we left a snowy, grey, blowy rochester and headed south and west. This year we are settled in a snowy, grey, blowy new mexico and it is 52 degrees F in rochester!
21F here. Wow. Luna likes it of course!
But we did get a couple of warm days in Texas and that was super-nice.
Christmas dinner at the trailer park, where I found out to my surprise that if only everyone in the world would accept the "free gift of salvation," there would be no more wars, and "our young men and women in uniform could finally come home."See, I foolishly thought that the wars were to spread democracy. Or at least commandeer the world's oil supply. But no. The U.S. population in its multiplicity and kaleidoscopic diversity is represented by a craven military machine whose ultimate mission is to convert the world to Christianist ways and bring on the damn rapture. Cool. Can I have a tank?</p>
Lisa Mednick Powelltag:lisamednickpowell.com,2005:Post/60473162010-12-18T03:35:14-08:002019-12-27T06:29:58-08:00You are either on the bus or off the bus.
<p>Bus ride December 17, 2010:
A discussion with driver Bob about his work at the shamanic studies foundation as we were skidding over the mountain down towards Ojo.
Gail got on at Ojo. We talked about dreams and I told the story about dreaming that the brother of a friend had died, and then being misled by a stupid facebook page into thinking that it was true. Then Gail told of a dream in which she found her lost dog but there was no outcome she knew of that confirmed what she saw in her dream, whci washer dog happily chasing a dark green pickup.
We talked about New year’s Day food traditions and I said I always ate black-eyed peas. She asked me if I was from the South. I suppose, I said, I am…grew up in D.C. and then spent the bulk of my adult life in the south or deep south. When I told her I had once upon a time lived in NOLA, she said oh… she had lived in Morgan City. I asked how did she come to live in Morgan City. She said that she and a girlfriend were driving to NOLA and broke down by Morgan City. So they ended up staying nine months.
“I love those coonasses!” she said, sort of punching me on the shoulder (she was sitting behind me). I laughed and she said, “you know what I am talking about!” Then she said she moved to Alexandria for a while. Coonasses isn't really the right word, I thought, and I thought of Michael Doucet and wondered if I should correct her, and say "they are Acadians." But she was on to something else.
And here I had thought she was an Española dyed-in-the-wool native (and she might be) but she has been around. You can hear the cigarettes in her voice. And the second hand smoke.
I told her I might come and help out at the flower shop on Valentine’s Day.
Then the talk turned to the Rio Grande Sun police blotter. About the cows that got ticketed for walking on the main highway through town, Paseo de Oñate. She reminded Bob of the time a dead cow was stretched across his driveway when he left the house to start his morning rounds. I told them about the small dead horse I saw by the side of the road one morning on my commute. It shocked me so that I swerved nearly into the ditch. I mean, it kills me every time I see a dog that's been hit. Why? Dogs don't do any harm. But...A little horse got hit by a truck and no one stopped? This can be cruel country...like Yeats said no country for old men--make that women.
I asked about Shorty? She is locked up again. I wonder if I should go check on her grandmother. I would probably get shot if I approached...but still...maybe not.</p>
Lisa Mednick Powelltag:lisamednickpowell.com,2005:Post/60473152010-12-16T12:51:23-08:002019-12-27T06:29:58-08:00Kip is finished with the Adobe Construction program...
<p>...and mud will soon be flung in all directions.
The certificate is complete! yay.
Kip accomplished what we came here for and now we can move on, but since I still have a dayjob, I bet we won't go anywhere for a while.
Quote:
"When you build a mud brick wall, you know that [s]ucker is gonna be around a hell of a lot longer than you are." -Kip Powell, Adobero.</p>
Lisa Mednick Powelltag:lisamednickpowell.com,2005:Post/60473142010-12-12T13:29:55-08:002019-12-27T06:29:58-08:00Breakfast of Champions: Imitrex and Coffee...
<p>Well, it works. I should have stopped at the one Guiness and turned down the tequila shot, but i was in good company and it was Herradura silver.</p>
Lisa Mednick Powelltag:lisamednickpowell.com,2005:Post/60473132010-12-05T10:34:43-08:002019-12-27T06:29:58-08:00national forest back road
<p>We walked out behind the campus today, past Sueki's place, across the acequia, and over a low place in the barbed wire fence, past two enormous black steer, through sage and cactus, and onto a dirt road that leads out into the valley. The ridge hides the Jemez mountains but Sangre de Cristos and the Rockies beyond were in clear view. They were snow-capped and purplish. We saw a trash pile and a cow carcass as well as a rusted barrel someone had used for target practice. We walked for a couple of hours out there where you can hear the crows' wings (or maybe they were ravens) swooshing as they fly over. Plenty of jet trails, too and pinkish rocks in the distance. Very quiet--a friend once remarked "you have to go really far away into the wilderness to not hear cars." Well, there are moments out here when you don't hear cars. Which also means no department stores, but never mind that...it's purty.</p>
Lisa Mednick Powelltag:lisamednickpowell.com,2005:Post/60473122010-11-29T13:22:28-08:002019-12-27T06:29:58-08:00I served faithfully
<p>Served my muse for over thirty years...where is she now?
She comes back hauntingly in dreams of place and people. Memory struggling up from the muck. I wave it away, not sure why. Perhaps it is because there is pain involved in creation. Mistakes I made ten, fifteen, or twenty years ago seem trivial now but then again they loom large. For we, if we are the sum total of our experience, in some sense, are made of our mistakes, aren't we?</p>
Lisa Mednick Powelltag:lisamednickpowell.com,2005:Post/60473112010-11-22T12:14:40-08:002019-12-27T06:29:58-08:00Old songs
<p>They have this way of coming back. The ones that didn't make the cut. OK, so I put out two albums in ten years. Many of my friends are more prolific. Like they put an album out every year.
Anyway, that means that I have this backlog...and not sure what to do with it. The days of hoping for and trying for a record deal (whatever that means now) are over. So what does one do? No I am seriously asking here. My songs are OK, my voice is what it is...but the creations are mine--from my haunted self. The question is, was, and will remain: Does anyone want to hear these songs? And if so, WHY?</p>
Lisa Mednick Powelltag:lisamednickpowell.com,2005:Post/60473102010-11-21T10:58:20-08:002019-12-27T06:29:58-08:00Songs I forgot about for up to 20 years...
<p>This past week I dug up some old demos, and today I compiled a cassette of ten songs I had completely forgotten about, some of them for good reason.
The titles and stories are:
1. He Listens to His Heart ~
Probably written in New Orleans but recorded in Austin sometime after 1994 and before 1996. Just a straight-ahead country song.
2. Highway Prayer ~
Recorded in a big house on Bayou St. John where I lived with Red Priest. Paul Henehan played drums, I am not sure but I think I played the bass line on the keyboard, and Tommy Malone played guitar and sang ethereal harmony. I'd like to record it again since my voice doesn't sound very good--but it would have to be with the same people and a real bass player. Probably the one I married :D.
3. Take Time to Know Her Way ~
All I remember is that I wrote this for a dear friend who was musing aloud about how his daughter would eventually feel about him since he was in the process of divorcing her mother. So the song is my advice since I was once that little girl.
4. Go and Tell Your Woman ~ Um,absolutely no idea where this came from. A country blues in three. It is perhaps worth working up with the country band.
5. Forget about Annabelle ~ More advice to a male friend who was very confused. How unusual.
6. This is Your Time ~ I barely remember this but I seems to be about drinking and playing loud music in the face of a tragic world and personal situation. Are my songs ever about anything else??
7. Tell me What You See ~ Just really too sad to talk about. It brought everything back about someone I will always miss. Life is really really long,no? But life is good now.
8. Love is a Lonely Thing ~ ca. 1989. Apparently this one is about David Duke.
9. Like A Diamond ~ Country Western; must've been in my Joe Ely imitation period. And...maybe Butch Hancock too. Because it's long and has a swagger.</p>
Lisa Mednick Powelltag:lisamednickpowell.com,2005:Post/60473092010-11-18T07:29:42-08:002019-12-27T06:29:57-08:00reve du jour
<p>...lays flat in the bad with the only working muscles left being my vocal cords and mouth. So i would lay there singing songs from old musicals like Oklahaoma and South Pacific.
Gruesome, buthilarious...
Anyway, I have been in a TV series made up of my own wacky dreams. They are always about old music people I know. I mean not old people, people from the past--from New Orleans mostly. We are always singing and laughing and then of course I can't remember any of the songs when I wake up.
Alison and I have a nascent scheme to perhaps have some sort of musical reunion in New Orleans next spring. It would be us and the SubDudes, stray dogs, whoever else we can think of and whoever is willing. (some might not be.)
It would be enough fun to break yer heart from laffin'.</p>
Lisa Mednick Powelltag:lisamednickpowell.com,2005:Post/60473082010-11-10T11:42:02-08:002019-12-27T06:29:57-08:00An answer to the question about the song?
<p>@ Danskbogman: I think you must mean "Filling the Gaps With Gold."</p>
Lisa Mednick Powelltag:lisamednickpowell.com,2005:Post/60473072010-08-06T15:16:28-07:002022-02-24T23:45:01-08:00Whack-a-Mole
<p>Sometimes you're the hammer, but most times you're the mole.
This is how I view life in my office cubicle.</p>
Lisa Mednick Powelltag:lisamednickpowell.com,2005:Post/60473062010-03-28T03:11:22-07:002019-12-27T06:29:57-08:00Curiouser and curiouser
<p>Last night I dreamed I found a bunny. Out shopping in an exclusive neighborhood in NYC, searching for some comfy yet stylish trousers in which I could both play a gig AND sleep on a tour bus, I spied a rabbit running across the street. The rabbit was long-haired, white with large charcoal-gray spots. Like a pinto horse. I picked the rabbit up and it bit me. But I carried it around for a while and it stopped biting. I knew it would stop, because it had a collar and a white bandana around its neck. Clearly this was someone's pet.
I began strolling up and down the avenue, yelling, "ANYONE LOSE A BUNNY?? I FOUND A BUNNY!!" Of course by now the exclusive shopping district had transformed itself into a neat suburban neighborhood. It was dusk, and no one responded to my cries. After a while I found myself in a seating area where there were some business types in suites and ties. "Maybe these suits will help me find the bunny's owner," I thought. [The thing is, these types will help you for a short time and then they stop. They can then say they helped someone (charity)--but without wasting valuable company time (efficiency).]
I found a stool and sat at a lunch counter-type construction. That's where all the suits were sitting. But it was not a food service establishment. I don't know what it was. There was a planter box next to me and the bunny began nibbling on the leaves. At first, he was interested in the cacti which grew out of the floor nearby. But he soon realized that there was more sustenance to be discovered in the herb garden planter. He ate the lobelia, the thyme, and the parsley, eschewing the anise and the oregano, which was flowering in purple. After a few minutes, the planter was full of dandelion leaves and nothing else. So he ate those. Ah, the transformative effect rabbits can have on one's garden...
As you might notice, the rabbit turned out to be male. How did I know that? On his collar, was etched the name "Earl." Actually, it wasn't etched. It was stamped, along with numbers and letters galore, on one of those old-fashioned label makers. The numbers and letters on the collar began transforming. Every time I thought I saw a phone number next to the word "rescue," and begin to dial it, digits would miraculously add themselves next to the phone number.
After trying several combinations of ten numbers, how does one decide which, out of fourteen or fifteen, are the correct ten one should dial?? Sigh. This was getting to feel akin to safe-cracking. (Which I totally suck at,) Finally someone answered. She said, "Wow, this is sooooo weird!" "What?" I answered. "Well I am just sitting here selling stuff out of my car, and you called!!"
"Oh. Isn't this anmal rescue?" I was beginning to despair. I knew I couldn't bring this bunny home, because our dog Luna would, with one twist of her mighty jaws, break its neck forever. Meanwhile, it was getting late. Kip was waiting for me to go....somewhere. And, as usual, I was taking too long to get ready.
Suddenly, I noticed a laminated fold-out map of New Orleans attached to the rabbit's collar. There were circles and arrows, just like in Alice's restaurant. When I flipped the map over, I saw a land mass shaped like a boot. It was a map of Italy. At first I thought, "Oh this is the state map of Louisiana," but the boot was pointing west, not east. So it had to be Italy. Also, it had a three-and-a-half inch heel. This was no low-slung cowboy boot. Silent, skinny, and high-falutin, this map yielded no clues.
Here the dream begins to fade. You have read enough at this point to wonder whether I ate something to make me smaller--or larger (the answer to that is yes: I have gained a few pounds since October...) before hitting the hay last night.
No. Nothing unusual, not even a cocktail. But the dream left me with the sense that I must somehow become larger; I have neglected my artistic nature in favor of a more suit-like pursuit and perhaps this adjunct teaching persona must go. Time for a change. Again. My other recent dreams have featured strolling couples who sing in perfect harmony. (And cars, for some reason. Well, the Low Riders have begun to emerge from their winter slumber. They make quite an impression.) So Kip and I have started talking about playing, perhaps recording the rest of that one song we started last month....or maybe start working on a Low Rider of our own...with shiny paint and hydraulics...
Being in survival mode takes its toll on inspiration. But it doesn't have to. William Blake did OK. He never lost touch with his "genius." Perhaps mine is a rabbit named Earl?</p>
Lisa Mednick Powelltag:lisamednickpowell.com,2005:Post/60473052010-03-23T05:44:26-07:002019-12-27T06:29:56-08:00If I could really write well about politics, this is what I would publish here:
<p>http://www.nytimes.com//2010/03/23/opinion/23herbert.html</p>
Lisa Mednick Powelltag:lisamednickpowell.com,2005:Post/60473042010-03-16T03:25:04-07:002019-12-27T06:29:56-08:00Earthquake Weather
<p>We are in sunny Southern California. Rode the Southwest Chief, which winds from Chicago to L.A. we boarded in Albuquerque and stopped at Gallup, New Mexico, [Flagstaff] Arizona, (skipped Winona), Kingman, Barstow, San Bernardino...we got our kicks. martinis in the lounge car and a nice brown rice and grilled vegetable salad we'd packed along. Not to mention homemade cookies. I think I have a fetish for not buying food on the road (or rails.) It's an intake control thing. I just like us to know what we are eating. Drinking...well that's another matter, for that is all about losing control in some sense.
We stepped off at Union Station in L.A. and stood blinking in the sunlight like a couple of road-weary iguanas. I thought, hmmm...warm for this time of year. Even for So Cal. Could it be...
Yes, it was. About 4:15 a.m., we awoke to that freight-train-from-hell feeling. Terramoto. It turned out to be only about ten seconds and registered 4.4. Flashbacks of the Northridge quake (which also happened around 4:30 a.m.); I was frantic. "Kip! did you feel that? Earthquake! Get up! Get dressed! We gotta go outside! Why are you still sitting there?!!" After about five minutes, Kip decided there weren't going to be any more tremors and that I was delirious. So he went right back to sleep. Well, SOMEBODY had to stay awake and make sure there would be no more shakin' going on.
We'll see what happens today. I have the ocean, ferris wheel, ice cream, and whack-a-mole on my mind...we're heading for the coast.</p>
Lisa Mednick Powelltag:lisamednickpowell.com,2005:Post/60473032010-03-12T03:02:38-08:002019-12-27T06:29:56-08:00Last time I rode the blue bus...
<p>John Berryman boarded the bus. I am sure it was him or a reincarnation thereof. Passenger number one was already seated, and chatting with the driver. Eddie likes classic rock. "You know that album, 'White Trash?' I got that album. You want me to make you a copy? You got a cassette player?"
John Berryman: "You seen Brenda lately? Man, she's lookin' bad, no?"
Passenger number one: "She's my cousin. Brenda from El Duende?"
John Berryman: "No. From over there." [points out the window at a cluster of trailers]
Passenger number one: "Too much partyin', no?"
John Berryman: "F*%K, I'm 74 years old. I can't do that s*#t no more.[To Eddie] Can you stop at a store or something? I gotta cash my check."
Eddie: "I can't make no stops that aren't on my route, man."
Passenger one: "Helen won't cash it for you in Ojo?"
John Berryman: "She won't do nothin' for me. She's on some kinda power trip."
Passenger one: "Oh yeah, she cards me every time, que no?" [this guy is at least 49 years old] "Listen, bro, I'm stopping off in El Rito. Gonna hang out and wait till the next bus to go back. I got friends there, you could wait with me and cash your check at the Llano [Bar]."
John Berryman:"Yeah, I gotta get a pint [makes drinking motion with hand near mouth]."
Don [who has been sitting silently in the seat across the aisle from me since we both boarded at the park 'n' ride--he turns to me suddenly--out of the gray--]: SO, YOUR FOLKS BACK EAST OK WITH ALL THAT SNOW?"</p>
Lisa Mednick Powelltag:lisamednickpowell.com,2005:Post/60473022010-03-04T07:12:49-08:002019-12-27T06:29:56-08:00"all sides of the evidence??" confusing syntax. awkward phrasing. etc.
<p>From the NYT:
Last year, the Texas Board of Education adopted language requiring that teachers present all sides of the evidence on evolution and global warming.
All sides of the evidence? Since when does evidence have sides? I think that evidence is just evidence.
Here's a little haiku for the road:
Excuse me, pilgrim,
when the rapture happens, can I
have your hummer??</p>
Lisa Mednick Powelltag:lisamednickpowell.com,2005:Post/60473012010-03-01T09:54:25-08:002019-12-27T06:29:56-08:00Georgia O'Keefe museum
<p>We went on Friday, after dinner at the "historic" Plaza Cafe. Route 66 went through Santa Fe prior to 1934 and this was apparently a destination. But the museum. O'Keefe's paintings and pastels sort of glow from the inside. There was this one pastel? Of bleeding hearts. I could just see Georgia wandering around her studio with a cup of coffee, getting pink fingerprints everywhere.</p>
Lisa Mednick Powelltag:lisamednickpowell.com,2005:Post/60473002010-02-25T08:09:49-08:002019-12-27T06:29:56-08:00For the bus driver who used to work in the labs
<p>--and all us passengers who ride along...
At the Bomb Testing Site
by William Stafford
At noon in the desert a panting lizard
waited for history, its elbows tense,
watching the curve of a particular road
as if something might happen.
It was looking for something farther off
than people could see, an important scene
acted in stone for little selves
at the flute end of consequences.
There was just a continent without much on it
under a sky that never cared less.
Ready for a change, the elbows waited.
The hands gripped hard on the desert.</p>
Lisa Mednick Powelltag:lisamednickpowell.com,2005:Post/60472992010-02-22T11:45:06-08:002019-12-27T06:29:55-08:00Today on the bus
<p>I met a young lady who attends NNMC at Espanola, where I teach.
She told me she was taking prerequisite courses in preparation for studying to be a nurse. She said that she had worked at a nursing home. "After my parents passed, I needed to get a job--just anything. So I went to work at this nursing home and I really liked it, no?" [I will interject here that the local New Mexican dialect is almost a patois, sort of a sing-song combination of Spanish and English. It is nice-sounding, especially when compared to the honk-honk accent we never did get used to up yonder...]
So anyway--this young lady took a piece of peppermint gum when I offered it "yeah, thanks. So much snow, que no?" The radio was intoning its daily (hourly, it seems to me) mortuary-sponsored obits. Suddenly the young lady yelled, "Eddie [our driver], that's Jessie T______--he was a really good friend of mine--he overdosed! I couldn't even go to the funeral..." Funerals come up fairly often. We had to wait for one to pass by before exiting the Espanola Park 'n' Ride, in fact. This is one of several ways in which this area reminds me of New Orleans--along with the smudged foreheads everywhere on Ash Wednesday....
We had to turn around in Ojo Caliente because the driver forgot to pick someone up--on the way back I spotted a couple of coyotes trotting across a snowy field, a fat hawk in a tree, and a nearly invisible white horse facing out of the wind.
Once we got to the campus, my co-passenger shadowed me to the writing center. She was familiar with it, and wanted some help with her essay. Once I opened the place up, she asked for some scissors. She proceeded to snip a letter to the editor that appeared in the Rio Grande Sun (it's a great weekly rag; we subscribe...). The letter was a well- written defense of a young man who had been shot by police after being released from prison to the custody of his grandparents.
Because it is published in a newspaper, I feel comfortable telling you that her name is Julianna. "It's bad here, no, the kids get into gangs and drugs...they are proud to go to prison...they're all like, 'I'm gonna go to jail like my uncle...' there's nothing to do here. The kids start at the college here and then they quit when they get their checks. I was into gangs, I got tattoos on my hands [I had noticed those...] and then got into drinking real bad, that was after my father killed himself. Then my mother died about ten months later. someone ran her off the road and killed her because they thought I was in the car, but it was a friend of hers in the car with her. But they were after me."
I'm glad this young lady can write. She dispatched an essay on the writing center computer in about half an hour, printed it out, asked for a stapler, and was gone. "I'll be seeing you!" If I get the chance I might tell her to write the story she told me. But maybe she already has.</p>
Lisa Mednick Powelltag:lisamednickpowell.com,2005:Post/60472982010-02-16T08:12:54-08:002019-12-27T06:29:55-08:00Just another mardi gras in the outside world....
<p>...handing back quizzes, taking phone calls, and grading essays...
For what it's worth, I wore my Zulu bracelet and said Happy Mardi Gras to a few people, who looked at me as if I was nuts. But they just don't get it...and I don't care that they don't get it.
It's 5 p.m. here. In NOLA it's time for Comus. Except I don't think they roll anymore...
Tant pis pour luis.</p>
Lisa Mednick Powelltag:lisamednickpowell.com,2005:Post/60472972010-02-15T08:10:16-08:002019-12-27T06:29:55-08:00Another day on the bus...
<p>You just never know who's gonna get on the bus, and today's ride was no exception. When I stepped into the blue van, the driver (Ed) asked, "You moved from New york, right? And were you guys downtown the other day? I thought I saw you guys." That was after two weeks of NOT riding the bus, and before that two weeks, I had only ridden twice. But this driver knows every rider and waves at the people who don't ride the bus.
As we hurtled around the curves and past the red rocks, Ed said, "you know, I used to see a lot of deer around here. I don't see them anymore." Just then, a gigantic mule deer materialized in the road ahead. Ed stopped the van, and waited a while after the deer ran into the brush. "That's a doe. There's probably a buck coming after her." Sure enough, five more deer ran across the road. Ed explained that the males send the females out first. Not because they want to watch them walk. Not because they are guarding them from the rear. It is because the males want to protect themselves. I guess the doe is like the spybooy for the Mardi Gras Indians...
When the old man boarded the bus, looking like Father Time with his wispy beard and beat up barn coat and muddy boots...Ed greeted him like an old friend. "Hey Don."
Here are a few quotes from Don/ Father Time:
"I raised my daughter in the woods, no electricity, and we carried our own water, did everything by candlelight..."
"People out here live their religion."
"I wanted to be a firefighter, but when I took the physical, the EKG indicated that my religious experience was actually a heart attack."
And here's a snippet of conversation between Ed and Don:
Ed: You know I worked up on the hill in the labs [Los Alamos] for 35 years...in the plutonium section. That's why I glow in the dark.
Don: And retired to hard labor driving the bus? Ever wear a dosimeter?
Ed: Wore one every day for 35 years.
Don: Ever max it out?
Ed: No, if anything ever happened, it was always on the other side, not on ours. (??)
Let's see what happens tomorrow! I am going to wear a lead suit from now on.</p>
Lisa Mednick Powelltag:lisamednickpowell.com,2005:Post/60472962010-01-29T12:17:20-08:002019-12-27T06:29:55-08:00Abiquiu mudpies
<p>Got some hands-on adobe experience today at architect Mark Chalom's house in Abiquiu.
He has some adobe veneer going on. These were narrow half-bricks planted on the inner walls to give it the adobe look. We smeared and smoothed the mud mortar. It looks good and I suppose adds insulation.
The house is situated on a cliff directly across from Ghost Ranch, and above the dam. A stunning view. The Army Corps of Engineers happened to get this right--as opposed to other projects for which they are known...but, still, looking at the lake, I had to think of Ed Abbey.
Saw a bald eagle cruise across the lake channel and light on the red rocks across the way. That's the third one I've seen since we got here.
This morning in El Rito it had frosted with the snow and everywhere was that crystally, pointy kind of frost poking out from every grass blade and making things look furry. You know, that "secret ministry unhelped by any wind..."
Also, when we walked Luna there seemed to be evidence dropped here and there around the campus that Kip has some, um, bovine classmates in the adobe program. What I am saying is there is apparently more than one way to make a mud brick with straw in it...
"You want adobe? I got yer adobe right here! Moo."</p>
Lisa Mednick Powelltag:lisamednickpowell.com,2005:Post/60472952010-01-28T11:57:35-08:002019-12-27T06:29:55-08:00Here now.
<p>Yesterday I took the blue bus again. (the little bus...) At a remote crossroads, the driver stopped and a car pulled up next to the bus. A lanky man with ponytailed white hair, about 65 years old, and a strong resemblance to Gene Hackman got out of the car and onto the bus. He smelled of wood smoke and whiskey. Another mountain man, I thought. "You passed me by, Henry." "Well, I saw some bags sitting out by the gate and I thought maybe it was trash day." "It is..."
This mountain man did not sound like a local. He sounded Irish--and looked it as well. So when he sat in the seat behind me I knew it would only be moments until he started talking to me. Turns out he's restoring an old fort near El Rito and the ancient firetruck we have noticed parked next to the highway belongs to him. "That's where we're gonna serve the food!" he has big plans for this restoration. Wants to bring Irish musicians over to play in the barn on the property and help him build. He also wanted to meet Kip once I told him about the adobe program--and the piano restoration that Kip used to do.
"I gotta meet this guy. Tell him to call me. Name's Ray O'Hare. Like O'Hare's airport." Anything you mentioned, he had done or was planning to do. Just before debarking in Espanola he pointed at a bearded fellow on the street. "he's a right crook that one. Cleaned me out. Took all my groceries..." Like a few other people I have run across here, he warned me that one has to be very careful. And of course he thought I was Irish. I suppose there is that possibility--who knows. More likely our red hair is Viking-driven. They plundered through the Pale of Settlement at some point, no?</p>
Lisa Mednick Powelltag:lisamednickpowell.com,2005:Post/60472942010-01-26T23:54:20-08:002019-12-27T06:29:55-08:00Today is Sarnoff's birthday.
<p>Happy birthday, Dad!
The elevation here in El Rito is not 5500' as previously stated, but 6870 feet!!
The mountains and light are stunning. Not much else to say. Twice a week I get up at 6:30 to take the shuttle down to the Espanola campus and there is always this pink strip across the sky just before sunrise.
On Mondays and Wednesdays I take the FREE public transportation down for my tutoring hours. The blue van shows up at the post office (I can walk there) and makes a circle through Ojo Caliente, then down into Espanola. People stand along the highway waiting to be picked up, and the driver knows all of them. Snippets:
"where you goin' today?" "Dollar Store then SuperSave." "You going back at 1:30?"
"How's your son?" "I'm goin down to visit him now at that rehab place." "You heard _____got shot?" "Oh yeah I heard about that..." "Morning, _____, how's it going?" "moving, that's about it." "To where?" "Just up the road..."
Of course the driver knows them all by name. He drives like a bat on those mountain curves, too, so I don't bother with breakfast until I get where I'm going.
Another storm is coming through tonight. I guess it was hubris to leave our snow shovel behind. It is actually colder here than in Honkchester. At least in the a.m. but then the sun warms things up. So it doesn't hurt quite as much.
High desert I suppose. Really the only problem is the persistent nosebleed...</p>
Lisa Mednick Powelltag:lisamednickpowell.com,2005:Post/60472932010-01-22T08:44:19-08:002019-12-27T06:29:55-08:00Snow Days
<p>Where we live: In a house on the Northern New Mexico College El Rito Campus, which is situated in a park built by the Civilian Conservation Corps in Kit Carson National Forest.
Snow and fog today. Thick fog so you could hardly see the closed shop across the road.
Cold, but not as bitter as the blasts of frozen wind on Ridge Road.
Mountains at sunset look different every day. Yesterday they had a gauze curtain across them which looked like the "Sunrise, Sunset" scene in the Broadway stage set of Fiddler on the Roof we went to see when I was a kid.</p>
Lisa Mednick Powelltag:lisamednickpowell.com,2005:Post/60472922010-01-21T08:02:33-08:002019-12-27T06:29:55-08:00Mountain effect? Valley effect?
<p>OK, so for those of you who thought that Kip and I were escaping the winter? ya thought wrong. We got snow. A lotta snow. The college closed early today (at least they had the sense to do that), but when, after teaching my morning class, I emerged from the High Tech Building (which sports a pyramid on its roof),the white stuff was coming down hard.
Only it was not blowing sideways like when I used to walk from Hartwell to Tuttle. It fell straight down and was even sort of pleasant. We are in the Rio Grande Valley, so I am wondering if there is a calming effect on the prevailing winds or what have you.
I received an email this morning from a young lady in my comp class saying that she had to attend "traditional doings" at San Ildefonso Pueblo and would not be in class today. This caused me to wonder whether other Feast Days and Traditional holidays were coming up and did I need to know. Hmmm. When I checked in my guide book for "The Eight Northern Pueblos, " I saw that San Ildefonso Pueblo has "Vespers and Firelight Procession" January 22 & 23. OK, yeah, I would rather go to a firelight procession than a composition class--any day. I wonder how they carry the fire?
BUT...the most interesting part of the day was the shuttle ride from El Rito to Espanola. There I was, jammed into a Dodge Caravan with a bunch of guys making crude jokes. I used to get paid a lot more for this, I thought. AND the vans were bigger...
Actually it was very entertaining. But you had to be there.
Especially when they were going on and on about Pat Benatar in spandex.</p>
Lisa Mednick Powelltag:lisamednickpowell.com,2005:Post/60472912010-01-19T14:15:53-08:002019-12-27T06:29:54-08:00Walmartians no more...and Snow!
<p>OK, Walmart sucks. We went in there yesterday and immediately turned around and left. It is cheap for some things (a toaster was cheap but the bread was expensive), but not everything--and the place is gross, I am sorry. We went instead to a little market called "Paisanos," where we bought nutmeg in one of those little Fiesta spice bags and a calabeza empanada and a cookie shaped like a pig. This market also sported a wide array of meat cuts.
Today we woke up to a white blur. Everything was covered in snow. We couldn't see the mountains. Waited to see if there were closures and delays--and there were, but not Northern New Mexico College. So off I went to teach, and off Kip went to learn.
My students seem very nice. I have about 19 students in the Tech Writing class and only about 9 in the Comp class. (I do wish I could teach something interesting...like the stuff I studied! Oh well. It pays half the rent.) They assigned me some hours at the writing center and I am looking forward to tutoring again.
This evening we finally returned the rental car (unscathed thank god) and bought provisions in Santa Fe at Target and Trader Joe's. You know what? It felt strangely comforting to walk the aisles of Target again and find all the familiar stuff. Then, the fact that it comforted me made me uncomfortable. In any case, this is rural living I suppose. You crave contact and commerce and vapor lights but then you want to get away and get back to the stars and listen to the coyotes.</p>
Lisa Mednick Powelltag:lisamednickpowell.com,2005:Post/60472902010-01-18T12:53:51-08:002019-12-27T06:29:54-08:00MLK Day & dry sparkly snow
<p>It is snowing (on Raton?) here in El Rito and the snow looks decidedly different from the lake effect variety we saw in Rochester. It looks like glitter--the flakes are tiny. But it is just as cold...and school starts tomorrow. I will teach Tech writing (stop giggling) and Comp. This will probably be my last semester adjuncting. The whole system stinks like rotten crawfish and I'd just as soon not be part of it anymore. But for now I feel lucky to have a part time job. I am actually looking forward to teaching Tech writing. My idea is to have the students teach me, through their writing, what they are learning in their other classes. More on that later. For now let's think about our good friend Martin.
In April of 2008, on the 40th anniversary of King's assassination, I asked some friends to write their memories of April 4, 1968. The collective memoir that follows is the result of my request. If you would like to add your memories of the King assassination to this collection, write something in the comment section and I will add it.
(This is part of a larger project which is called "'fused memoir." Let me know if you want to be part of my grand experiment...)
OK, here goes. These anecdotes are from a variety of people across the country, north south east and west.
The Martins,I was over there across the fence -- it was getting late and I was supposed
to be home for 6:00. Daddy was not coming home tonight and my brother
went to a basketball game ,so there was no pressure to get back early.
Brett Martin and I were playing baseball.I throwing,he batting. We were hot, so we
went inside to get some water. Brett’s parents were hovering around the
television. The screen door slammed after us. Mr. Martin looked at us and said
"Martin Luther King is Dead".
FXP
I was eight. I was probably watching Gilligan's Island. I have no memory of hearing news of MLK's death, though I'm sure my parents were plenty shaken up. Sounds like a good project. Good luck with it.
R. Black
My family was gathered in front of the TV (in the manner of all good
families in the 1960s) watching _Bewitched_ when the news came. It was a
fantasy or dream episode in which Samantha 'fessed up to being a witch and
she, Darren, and Tabitha were subsequently interned in a Gitmo-style
military camp. The network (ABC?) broke in with a special report (by the
end of 1968, I had learned to dread those special reports), announcing Dr.
King had been slain in Memphis. My older sister, who had been dividing her
attention between _Bewitched_ and a magazine (_Look_, I think), looked up
and said simply "This is Armageddon." Nearby DC quickly went up in flames.
In the years to come, I would waste far too much time watching reruns of
_Bewitched_, but I can't remember ever seeing how that episode ended.
Pat Williams
I grew up a Diplomatic brat in Bonn, West Germany between 1964 and 1970. I didn’t watch German television news as a kid, because I couldn’t grasp the sophisticated and serious language. Instead, I experienced the era’s historical events through photography’s lens....
...I remember feeling empty when I saw the now famous shot. Several well-dressed men stand on a balcony. Arms and index fingers extended, they point frantically to the opposite building. Their suit jackets freeze in unbuttoned panic. Dr. Martin Luther King reclines in a pool of blood at their feet. Grainy white curtains across the way part ominously, revealing a pitch-black gash that seethes violence. The sky is a flat emotionless grey of taut, still heat, like the barely contained foreboding just before a thunderstorm explodes. Without color to differentiate one form from the next, the heavens merge with the scene it contains. The spatial compression amplifies the photo’s stifling claustrophobia. That same oppressive shroud hovered above the year’s subsequent tragedies in photo after black, relentless photo. (Maureen Clyne)
I remember Dr. King very well, in fact was privileged to hear him
give the sermon at Temple Israel in my hometown in Connecticut. I
also saw him give speeches and watched news reports about him on TV
when I was in high school. I wanted to go to the March on Washington
but was underage and not allowed to go.
I heard of Dr. King's assassination by word of mouth, since I had
just dropped out of college and was living on the streets at the
time. Of course I remember immediately seeking out radios and
friends (and store windows) with televisions to learn more. I
remember the riots that followed, despite Robert Kennedy's speech
asking for calmness, which I also remember hearing played over the news.
Personally I remember feeling horrified, yet somehow numb and
resigned, after the assassination of President Kennedy, which still
felt very recent at that time. Then soon after came the death of
Robert Kennedy, so of course all three are linked in my emotions and
memory, as I'm sure is true for many others.
(submitted by Mandy Mercier)
From Rob K:
I went to my storage space and looked for but could not find the poem
I wrote that very day about Dr King's assassination. It was published
by our school newspaper. I was in eighth grade in a 99.99% white
suburban New Jersey Jr High at the time. The dismal announcement was
made over our school PA system. Disingenuously the administration
added after announcing the tragic news that we would not have classes
the next day. I still hope to this day that that was the reason that
Dr Kings death was met with cheers and applause by my fellow
students. I can still hear it ringing through those prison hallways
today. On the other hand my reaction was more to my classmates'
callousness and indifference. I realized then and there that I never
could or would be like them. I also remember thinking a few weeks
later when Bobby was murdered that there was no going back, that
America would never be innocent again. (I guess meaning I would never
be innocent again.) Knowing more about Dr King's murder now, I curse
the FBI for their complicity. I think the FBI's harassment of Dr King
is one of the most shameful aspects of our recent past.
Aloha
Dear Lisa,
When I heard the news, we were in the old Esso service station off Ridge
Road in Greenbelt, Maryland (I was eight years old and fascinated with the
green dinosaur on the sign). We must have been getting our '57 Chevy
repaired, since at that time my father wouldn't buy a new used car until
the old one was well past 10 years old. I can picture the cluttered
service station office. There was a transistor radio with the news on.
There were some crackely words about somebody named King, and my parents'
faces suddenly turned ashen. I asked what was wrong, and my father said
that Martin Luther King had been assassinated. I'm sure I had no idea who
he was, and I probably didn't know what "assassinated" meant -- though
I
do remember how just 2(?) months later, when Robert Kennedy was killed,
the concept seemed terribly familiar to me already. Anyway I'm sure many,
many questions followed in that service station office. But I don't
remember the answers so much as the looks on my parents' faces as they
tried to explain things to me. And what I remember best was the scary
feeling of entering into a weird, eerie new world in which great people
could be shot dead -- just like that.
(I'm looking forward to seeing the compilation of responses...!)
Joel
I don't remember where I was. I was 9 or 10. It wasn't until I moved to the south that I started feeling the power of that event. Civil Rights Leaders like Rep. John Lewis and Andrew Young were known to drink their beers at the same tavern as me. They had known Martin Luther King personally. His legacy is so strong here.
(Juliet Charney)
Patty Sauer:
I was twelve when Martin Luther King was assassinated. The house my family lived in was literally being built around us when I was growing up. Most of the men building it were black. Some of the best brick layers in the area lived in Gum Springs which is only 3 or 4 miles away from where I grew up. Gum Springs is the oldest African American Community in Fairfax County, formally established in 1833. The foreman of my dad’s crew was from Gum Springs and his name was Mr. Williams. Mr. Williams was a quiet extremely disciplined African American who laid brick like no other man. His work was art. He and my dad were very close. Unfortunately for us, Mr. Williams’ crew members weren’t as talented, consistent and/or as trustworthy. Imagine about an acre and a half of land on a dirt road in rural Alexandria in 1968. Then imagine a very lovely german woman attempting to supervise a group of 5 or 6 black men whom may or may not have been drunk at the time all by herself. Even though Mr. Williams was the foreman he could not be there all the time and my father had a 9 to 5 job Monday through Friday! Perhaps Mom and Dad were nervous about the situation but they never spoke of it. If they ever did speak of it, I never heard a thing. Sometimes I would feel a lot of tension, but at that time I had an older sister that wanted to kill me and a younger brother that tortured animals. I was too stressed to know one stress from the other. One thing I do know, no one in my family ever used the "N" word and we were taught to respect all fellow human beings.
On the evening it happened, my father was late coming home from work. Mom attempted to hug him but dad turned away. He was crying which caused mommy to cry too. I ran to hug both of them and to bring them together and I felt warm hugs back from them both. I remember thinking why do bad things have to happen before good things happen? Dad didn’t hug me often and someone important dies and he hugs me. It seemed really really sad to me on so many levels. Even though I felt so loved at that second I don’t think I ever cried as hard. When my mother asked me why I was crying I said that’s what life will be all about over and over. She asked me what I meant. I said great people dying.
Hi Lis,
I was in Copenhagen at that time. I recall many Danish friends stopping by to deliver their expressions of sympathy.
The news was a shock but we were 3000 miles away which buffeted the shock.
Love
Dad
hey lisa- nice to hear from you.
your request for memories of 4-4-68 really made me think about where i was. but more than that, it reminded me of where i come from, and it's not pretty. i had just turned 10 years old. my family "didn't follow" politics or even current events. this was something that upitty (smart) people did. i wasn't aware of a civil rights movement, let alone a war in southeast asia. in my house it was referred to as " the n----r problem". or sometimes "the hippie problem". i used to hang out in the den and watch t.v. while my mother and stepfather played this board game called "WA-HOO" with their friends. needless to say, there was drinking and loud talking involved. i remember the broadcast being interrupted for the special report that king was dead. i didn't know who he was, but could sense that it was big. so many people in tears. this was obviously a man who was loved and respected by many. i went in the dining room and told the grown-ups what i had just heard and seen on t.v. they hardly looked up from their game and i remember what they each said like it was yesterday. i will not repeat it. this still breaks my heart. this was my family. these were my role models. i was their little kid. fuck.
Ralph Adamo:
Funny -- I guess it's the 40-year part that got me
thinking about this, which I have not on most of the
past King assasination anniversaries -- but I was
sitting in a room in Loyola's Danna Center, upstairs,
part of a small gathering for one of Loyola's
'Consortium' events, featuring a half dozen visiting
writers. The writer for the evening was a black man
from an island nation, who spoke with a deeply British
baratone, and during his remarks, someone (the chair
of English I believe) burst into the room, sweating
profusely and looking awful, and told us he had very
bad news...The program did not continue. We all sat
stunned for a long time. The speaker (I'm sorry, can't
get his name back, a novelist then in his early 40s)
finally said some things, quietly, as if talking to
himself.
That's about it. My memories of RFK's assasination are
actually much more vivid and continuous, if you decide
to continue with this line of recollection. I can tell
you the whole thing was easily the beginning of the
end of my belief in politics and almost in words
themselves.
(Dr. King stuff was on NBC news just now, and my son,
who has been taught about him in 1st grade said hey
what's he doing in color. Then later Brian
whatshisname the anchor said isn't that something,
seeing him in color after all these years of thinking
about him in black and white.
Notice though, these days nobody stands up and says
stuff like that. Nobody talks at all really except for
fools, and then the occasional politician.)
I was on a vacation with my family in a Corvair station wagon traveling through the South. I remember we'd visited Lookout Mountain, and bought souvenirs, my next eldest brother Jim insisting I get the rebel cap because he got the Union one, and we couldn't have the same one. We continued on to Alabama to visit friends of my parents and it must have happened then, because the trip was cut short and we hurriedly drove back home to Ohio with reports of sniper fire on Interstate overpasses and my souvenir packed away somewhere out of sight. I didn't really like it anyway.
( Mark Patterson)</p>
Lisa Mednick Powelltag:lisamednickpowell.com,2005:Post/60472892010-01-17T14:07:39-08:002019-12-27T06:29:54-08:00We got a truck. It's purple as a Keatsian grape.
<p>You can see pictures of our new truck in the photo gallery. Yesterday, when we bought it, I thought the truck was blue. But this morning when we went out and looked at it again, we could see that it was indeed purple. Perhaps we will festoon it in green and yellow for carnival...
perhaps not.
It came fully loaded with an Obama sticker. We bought it from a writer who is also an organic garlic farmer. Fortunately, the truck is odorless (well it has that "old truck smell...") and vampire-free as far as we can tell. It runs great. A 1995 Ford F150 with 91.5K miles on it. It is NOT Eco-friendly, but we will leave that to the rich folks and their hybrid fleet.
It is nice to have our own vehicle, super-nice to drive a truck again--and even nicer to be able to return the rental car.
Our piano got delivered today and all went smoothly until the piano movers knocked a big limb off a pine tree backing up their semi--and they did not apologize...Kip had to saw it the rest of the way off of the tree and then into smaller pieces. Hope we don't get in trouble...it is awfully nice to have my piano again after 2 months.
My Haitian friends say people should donate to the Red Cross. So dig into your pockets, people. And to close, as always, on a negative note, the irony of George W. Bush even pretending to care about this disaster after what he put the citizens of New Orleans through when the levees failed...is more than I can handle.</p>
Lisa Mednick Powelltag:lisamednickpowell.com,2005:Post/60472882010-01-15T14:37:31-08:002019-12-27T06:29:54-08:00Borientation
<p>Today was adjunct orientation day. They served chips with guacamole and salsa. Also cookies--you know, the big round kind that are actually the size of four normal cookies.
The people at this college seem really nice. There was quite an assortment of individuals at this orientation. A woman with a turban and also a man with a turban. Hers was white and his was orange. They were not there together. There was also a man with a very red face.
The registrar was very helpful, and she was sort of half sitting, half leaning on a desk which was really a long table. Then a man with a gray ponytail and beard walked over to her and pulled her plate of food away from her coat which was soaking in the guacamole. She said "Oh! Thank you!" He said,"Well...you did get some on you." And she went right back to her presentation about midterm grades and IIW (instructor initiated Withdrawal). I was more in the mood for IWW after the provost thanked all of us adjuncts profusely for our "service," explaining that we teach about 60 percent of the classes and "generate 60 percent of the credits..." he told us how much they appreciated us. He said they wanted to do all they could to help us and someone (pas moi) muttered "how about some more money."
I met another adjunct today who was very young and seemed quite nice. She just finished her dissertation on "middle voice." I asked her, "Does that have anything to so with the Middle Passage?" I am not sure she will speak to me again. Oh well.
Seriously, folks, I am looking forward to meeting the students here. I will be teaching technical writing and composition. My aim is to simplify the tech writing class and complicate the composition class. There go flukes!</p>
Lisa Mednick Powelltag:lisamednickpowell.com,2005:Post/60472872010-01-14T13:29:56-08:002019-12-27T06:29:54-08:00It is hard to
<p>think about much besides Haiti right now. Please help any way you can.</p>
Lisa Mednick Powelltag:lisamednickpowell.com,2005:Post/60472862010-01-12T06:29:04-08:002019-12-27T06:29:54-08:00woops! Fergot the possible blues band story.
<p>Well, we went to Bode's store in Abiquiu and bought pinto beans, kale, and carrots for our dinner. The beans are from somewhere nearby, maybe Colorado they told us. Well, the beans didn't tell us, the cashier told us. Which is different from the apple juice we bought the other day. It contains apple concentrate from Argentina, Mexico, Chile, Argentina, and China. I hope there is no such thing as Mad Apple Disease. Oh and the Great Value 'olive oil' contains "high quality oils" from Greece, Italy, Spain and Tunisia.
Back to Bode's. The fella behind the counter struck up a conversation with us. When we outed ourselves as musicians, he told us he was a drummer. The blues band he plays with needs bass and keys. So he scribbled his number down and wrote "Possible Blues Band" above it. Other than "Adobe Robots," I can't think of a better band name. Or I don't feel like thinking about band names. EVER AGAIN!</p>
Lisa Mednick Powelltag:lisamednickpowell.com,2005:Post/60472852010-01-12T06:20:29-08:002019-12-27T06:29:54-08:00Dumpstaphunk & Martin's General Store & Possible Blues Band
<p>We finally took a break from moving, packing, cleaning, moving, packing, cleaning, driving, packing, cleaning, unpacking...and went down to Santa Fe to hear Dumstaphunk. The 90-minute drive each way was more than worth it. Ivan Neville's band has some New Orleans funk dynastic stalwarts: Nick Daniels, Tony Hall (yep, two bass players. Kip liked it a whole real lot.), and Art's son Ian Neville on guitar.
(Ivan looks more like Art and Ian looks more like Charles.)
This was bonebreaking funk, stanky to the core and not for the novice. There were moments during the show when I felt like I was back on the Riverboat President watching the Neville Brothers just before Mardi Gras. I can't believe there are assholes out there (I have tried to teach them...) who would prefer that New Orleans be left to rot.
Without NOLA this country would have a big fat zero where its soul is supposed to be.
Took ANOTHER break (shame on us) to walk around our new neighborhood in El Rito, NM.
So different from Western New York; everyone waves--instead of tailgating and passing on the right with a growling, testosterone-induced acceleration. Hey, they have somewhere important to go--NOW!! And YOU ARE IN THE WAY!!! (My green energy/economic solution for W. New York drivers was to invent a car that could run on RAGE...but I never got around to it.)
So...did I mention we live in the Carson National Forest? I am going to try to post some pictures to the photo gallery, but it takes me a while because I ate the paint & rust off our turquoise Ford station wagon when I was a little kid. So I am slow at some things. I like turquoise.
This valley is between the Jemez and Sangre de Cristo mountains. I don't get my usual mountain claustrophobia here, perhaps because of the altitude. It is very shimmery and bright. Until sundown when it is orange and pink, then all of a sudden purple and dark.
We passed by a historic church that had been restored. The yard on the side featured a grotto with "Nuestra Senora" statues and plastic roses and glittery blue paint. I might donate our cross-shaped piece of driftwood. Kip says we should donate it at Chimayo. That might be better since we could maybe get healed while we are there. We both have colds. On the other paw, it might be best to go soak ourselves in the hot springs at Ojo Caliente. Anyone know Spanish? Does that mean "Hot Eye?"
Martin's General Store closed in August. You can peer in the window and see dusty jars of Salsa and kites that used to be for sale. Mostly empty shelves with a can of Prestone or two and some old bags of peanuts. The price on the gas pump out front is $2.79 per gallon. The place is for rent. At the post office, Marabella told us that they could not compete with Walmart once the economy tanked. So people were more willing to drive half an hour south to get their canned beans and tires. That thing about Walmart ruining small-town America by killing Mom & Pop stores? Republicans will tell you that those stores would have closed anyway. But that is a lie. It happened here and we saw it. Still we must go to Walmart this afternoon. No longer snooty boycotters, we have circled the wagon (well we used to have a wagon) around our dog who wants biscuits--NOW.
But...I can see the potential: someone needs to rent Martin's and open a joint that sells TEXAS HOTS and DUMSPSTA PLATES.
Oh and excuse me by the way, we have been through Espanola every day for about a week and all we've seen is ONE lousy low-rider. This is supposed to be the low rider capital. (Cue cowbell and harmonica...)
Ride on, fair northern friends. Other than missing her kin and compadres, yer gal is happy to be back in the South.</p>
Lisa Mednick Powelltag:lisamednickpowell.com,2005:Post/60472842010-01-06T14:29:03-08:002019-12-27T06:29:54-08:00A human dwelling...
<p>We think we found a home. It is near the campus where Kip will be studying and also not far from Espanola campus, where I will be performing "teacher theater."
On the drive from Santa Fe to Espanola, Kip commented on the view:
"Another sunny day? SHIT! not again! Beautiful mountains, red rocks, blue sky, patches of snow, yucca plants--DAMMIT!"
But it is super gorgeous here and the other night a friend put it this way: "If you get depressed, just look out the window." It makes up for the somewhat higher cost of living. Pictures are on the way in the Photo Gallery.
We have been eating dinner at Whole Foods, which is next door to our motel. I had a Quinoa sundae. Not really. We had Hatch green chili quesadillas.
We also got a few groceries at Albertson's and the prices are about a dollar higher for everything than in Rochester, where we were shocked by the high prices when we moved there from Texas. But you can count on Whole Foods to have the most expensive everything anywhere!
Still, it is a decent restaurant substitute. We had some pretty good snack today.
Yes, I am guessing that after a long time boycotting, we will most likely become "People of Walmart." Check it out:
http://www.peopleofwalmart.com</p>
Lisa Mednick Powelltag:lisamednickpowell.com,2005:Post/60472832010-01-05T13:30:58-08:002019-12-27T06:29:54-08:00Nous sommes arrivees...sort of.
<p>Well if you have ONE margarita at 3,000 feet, it feels like THREE or FOUR margaritas depending on your tolerance. Amarillo is about 3K feet.
OK.
Yesterday we passed the Cadillac Ranch in I40 west of Amarillo. We passed through Tucumcari and sang "Willin'." I will be posting photos of a bunch of old drive-inn and motel signs from that strip. These places are all left over from the old Route 66.
The day before we drove along the old Route 66 through Clinton, OK. There are spots where the old roadbed is visible from the interstate near the western edge of OK and into Texas. We cheered at the"Welcome to Texas sign." The next sign said "Welcome Center, 100 miles ahead." Things are bigger in Texas.
I was sorry not to be able to stop in OKC to see friends. But it is a neighboring state, so perhaps we'll visit one of these days. (Yes, OK and NM share a border...don't blink or you'll miss it!)
We are perched at a motel in Santa Fe while we look for a dwelling. It is also located along the old Route 66. Santa Fe has several of the old motor courts.
Today we drive up to Espanola and El Rito. We looked at one casita that was on a small ranch property. But it was a REALLY small ranch property complete with goats, a group of 5 dogs who had only 19 legs, turkeys, and sheep. It seemed awfully crowded so we decided against it.
At the library in El Rito, the librarian, whose name was Rita, told me that her wife was coming in shortly and might know of some places to rent. When her wife came in, Rita introduced us. "Lisa, this is Space." (No, it is not Space; it is Earth, I wanted to say...) But Space and Rita were kind and helpful and i left the place with a list of phone numbers to call. Hey, wait a minute. Do you think she might have said "Grace?"</p>
Lisa Mednick Powelltag:lisamednickpowell.com,2005:Post/60472822010-01-03T09:17:19-08:002019-12-27T06:29:53-08:00New Year's Day
<p>Well, I am playing catch-up here in Amarillo...where helium is king...and the hotel gives out free bevvies until 7 p.m. We checked in at 6 and are busy checking out. Do they give tickets for B.W.I.? (Figure it out.)
We crossed the OHIO River on Friday and were immediately graced with several degrees of solar gain as the rays poured down from the heavens. Ah, Dixie. As you can see from my photos, our New Year's Day lunch was perfect: Pimento Cheese sandwiches and Moon pies, washed down with Nehi Grape. As a sort of nod to our middle-aged semi-consciousness, we did indulge in a side of baked Lay's potato crisps.
And do not fear for the sanctity of our superstitions...we had our black-eyed peas warmed from the can in the hotel micro-wave for New Year's Eve.
Yesterday morning in Gnashville we had cheese grits and biscuits with cream gravy.
Dammit I am chicken-fried! I love you people! gah!</p>
Lisa Mednick Powelltag:lisamednickpowell.com,2005:Post/60472812009-12-31T13:31:27-08:002019-12-27T06:29:48-08:00New Year's Eve in (way-to-go) OHIO.
<p>We're spending New Year's Eve in what was once enemy territory for me: Columbus, Ohio, home of the Buckeyes. You see, a few lifetimes ago, I was a Wolverine. I refer to the intense football rivalry between Ohio State and U of Michigan--my Almost mater. But tonight I am a traveler, or in the words of Fela Kuti--a "beast of no nation." So, it's more like Hardly Matters. We are in a decent hotel bar, drinking a couple of pints, and listening to salsa music from the party in the ballroom next door.
Then we'll go microwave some popcorn and throw it to the dog. Luna loves her some popcorn.</p>
Lisa Mednick Powelltag:lisamednickpowell.com,2005:Post/60472802009-12-29T10:33:22-08:002019-12-27T06:29:48-08:00SOLD!
<p>After taking the feathers, beads and lace off of our rearview mirror--oh and the fishing lure we kept hanging there--we said Adios to our car. You can say goodbye, too. We posted a photo of her in the PHOTO GALLERY!</p>
Lisa Mednick Powelltag:lisamednickpowell.com,2005:Post/60472792009-12-28T12:22:08-08:002019-12-27T06:29:48-08:00Nope, we have not left Honkchester yet.
<p>Yesterday we went to the National Museum of Play. We saw the Lego sculptures--tres amusant.
But it was the butterfly garden that made me extra happy. First off, you walk in and it is about 85 degrees in there. Nice. (Why is it that I can adapt to sudden increases in temperature and not to sudden (or gradual) decreases in temperature?) Then there are all these gorgeous winged critters and flitters. There are cute birds called "button quails." And some finches. Plus tropical flora. So the flora and fauna together create an environment where you might wish you could live all the time.
OK, so can we talk about our car? Kip says...well, it might make it to Alburquerque. But then we both say..."and then again it might not." So we are going with the "might not" possibility. I can't forget the mechanic's grim diagnosis..."I'm not seeing any external leaks. Which means it's internal. Uh...that's not good." Still, we are driving it around town (in circles) and a regular person (me) can't tell there's anything wrong. It's like seeing someone who looks just fine, you know? And then a week later you find out they have some terminal illness that's eating them from within. It sucks. But, hey, it's just a car, right? No. For us, it's a good pal, a dependable pack mule--and our intended means of Escape.</p>
Lisa Mednick Powelltag:lisamednickpowell.com,2005:Post/60472782009-12-25T03:21:53-08:002019-12-27T06:29:48-08:00Sherlock Holmes and Curry
<p>Merry Christmas from Rochester. Yes. We are still in Rochester.</p>
Lisa Mednick Powelltag:lisamednickpowell.com,2005:Post/60472772009-12-24T00:07:00-08:002019-12-27T06:29:48-08:00Snow way
<p>http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20091223/sc_livescience/snowflakesonchristmascardsdrawnwrong
THEY'RE KILLING CHRISTMAS AGAIN!!</p>
Lisa Mednick Powelltag:lisamednickpowell.com,2005:Post/60472762009-12-22T01:15:20-08:002019-12-27T06:29:48-08:00Escape From New York?--HA! Not so fast!!
<p>Yep, we're still here. It doesn't look like I can post pictures in this section, so they will be posted under--'photos.'
Meanwhile: grading, grading, grading.
On the creative front, I have invented a new form of poetry though. I invented it yesterday while I had a migraine. It is a seventeen-syllable insult. Kinda like a Haiku. What's it called?
F*#K-U.
Please don't take these personally, they are simply innocuous little messages I send out to the universe, sort of like affirmations.
I am going to go for one a day.
F*#K-U Number One:
A vinyl LP left in the summer sun:
Your mind is just as warped.</p>
Lisa Mednick Powelltag:lisamednickpowell.com,2005:Post/60472752009-12-20T11:17:28-08:002019-12-27T06:29:48-08:00A Tisket a Tasket
<p>A stupid little gasket...
We were supposed to leave Rochester today. But our car decided it did not want to leave Rochester today. So we are still here. We still plan to move, and in fact we have to move...we sold our house. Kip is enrolled at NNMC and I am scheduled to teach there starting January 18.
I suppose at 234K miles, even after being pampered like a spoiled child, our valiant little Camry LE wagon with the V6 engine has every right to call it quits.
Time for a new ride.
via con diesel.</p>
Lisa Mednick Powell