“what about katrina??”

is a phrase i’m tired of hearing right about now.

when natural disasters strike people often come together, an act of solidarity, to give what they can to people in need. last night i went to a benefit concert for haiti. and the response i’ve gotten from some people has been wild.

it seems like half of my acquaintanceship is obsessed with not supporting Haiti Benefit efforts because “no one did anything when Katrina happened.”

now i feel like— if you don’t want to donate to efforts like these, that is your call. that’s fine. it’s your money, do what you feel is right. but to complain at every mention of a cause because some totally separate event years before was mishandled— something you obviously didn’t contribute or pay attention to at the time, if you cannot remember all the celebrity donation drives on tv all the time— i mean— Kanye West’s famous statement happened on one of these televised events— in a nation of celebrity news, this should at least be some incentive to remember that catastrophe.

“Ok… So there were benefits but they were– like– way later… Huge delay. People totally didn’t care for a long time.”

ok, now katrina was a few years ago. my memory might be misleading me. maybe there was a huge delay in response. maybe no one cared for a really long time. i turned to google for help. the hurricane hit on august 29, 2005. this article (published on monday sept 5) describes a benefit concert (aaron neville, harry connick, faith hill) that happened on friday. that would be sept 2, 2005. yes? that’s pretty fast to put together a large scale event like that— all for the purpose of asking for money for victims? wow. and people “didn’t care” so much that one week later another huge benefit was broadcast— performers included sheryl crow, alicia keys, dixie chicks, paul simon, neil young, etc.

along with this assertion that hurricane katrina did nothing to spur people to hold benefits and supply aid is a notion that the response for the Haiti earthquake has not been any disaster. And– no one’s trying to forget Katrina was a disaster. But the fact is that aid on the ground in Haiti has not been swift getting to the people.

i think people may be forgetting that Katrina had a death toll of under 2000 people. Estimates of the deathtoll in Haiti? Last week they were hovering around 150,000.

come on people. you don’t have to donate if that’s what you feel. but there’s no need to deny the facts just to feel justified in doing it.

 

trial date nears…

after nearly two years in prison and two previously postponed trial dates, seven Baha’i leaders in Iran are set to go on trial Tuesday.

CNN Story
Int’l Campaign for Human Rights in Iran
Muslim Network for Baha’i Rights
Bahai Int’l Community

 

neruda

this guy… this guy! i mean… he spends his whole life being a crazy good poet and he’s got this diplomat thing going on the side so that’s going well for him. he moves around a little and goes into exile for awhile and when he comes back to chile this pinochet guy is trying to get his conniving little hands in the whole government thing. so neruda decides to check out and everyone’s pretty worked up. but the pinochet guy’s sort of in charge now so he’s all, “hey, let’s keep this funereal stuff to a minimum. i’m still feeling pretty good about this coup i got going.” but a lot of these chilean cats are all “nuh-uh!” so they’re all skipping out on their curfews and bringing their copies of Veinte poemas de amor y una canción desesperada out on the streets and so… it was a pretty good party– for a funeral, what with it being the first big eff-ewe to mr. p.

but seriously.

POET’S OBLIGATION

To whomever is not listening to the sea
this Friday morning, to whomever is cooped up
in house or office, factory or woman
or street or mine or harsh prison cell:
to him I come, and, without speaking or looking,
I arrive and open the door of his prison,
and a vibration starts up, vague and insistent,
a great fragment of thunder sets in motion
the rumble of the planet and the foam,
the raucous rivers of the ocean flood,
the star vibrates swiftly in its corona,
and the sea is beating, dying and continuing.

So, drawn on by my destiny,
I endlessly must listen to and keep
the sea’s lamenting in my awareness,
I must feel the crash of the hard water
and gather it up in a perpetual cup
so that, wherever those in prison may be,
wherever they suffer the autumn’s castigation,
I may be there with an errant wave,
I may move, passing through windows,
and hearing me, eyes will glance upward
saying: how can I reach the sea?
And I shall broadcast, saying nothing,
the starry echoes of the wave,
a breaking up of foam and of quicksand,
a rustling of salt withdrawing,
the grey cry of sea-birds on the coast.

So, through me, freedom and the sea
will make their answer to the shuttered heart.

leer en español

Veinte poemas de amor y una canción desesperada)

 

overheard in lawrence…

outside henry’s coffeeshop:

Girl 1: I really thought my parents would buy me an Audi* for my sixteenth birthday cuz my name’s Audi**–

Girl 2: (nodding in agreement) Yeah?

Girl 1: –and they didn’t..! (disgusted sigh of entitlement)

*german-brand luxury car
**teenage girl with apparently reasonable parents

more overheards from lawrence?
just the facts
punctual inflation

 

leonard is a lost grace

leonard is a sad name… is how i began the last poem. no one could be more sad than our man cohen.

so with the wind out of my sails and the sun to my back, i am drawn to his lyrical demons.

learn a leonard by his cover:

jeff buckley.. hallelujah..

deathly beautiful, filmed with a wicked shadow across the glowing white of his face. buckley earned posthumous fame for this recording and its sound and substance does seem truly ethereal, and articulated with the pain of a life cut short. “maybe there’s a God above but all i’ve ever learnt from love was how to shoot somebody who outdrew ya…”

elizabeth & the catapult.. everybody knows..

this version is lovely for how triumphant it sounds for a cohen song. sure, the lyrics could chill your bones but that steady “con con” of the drums and the swell of the strings give it a shred more hope than the original. released on the spring 2009 album, taller children, it is a cohen for today for sure. “everybody knows that the boat is leaking. everybody knows that the captain lied. everybody got this broken feeling like their daddy or their dog just died…”

if you’d like to recommend a cohen cover, please do.

 

a mysterious paper

i am infinitely fond of people who leave interesting papers lying around.

as a child, i often collected small scraps of papers i found torn and tossed on lawns or playgrounds. they were usually mundane: grocery lists, to-do reminders, business cards. occasionally i would find something really interesting: a personal letter, an old postcard, a 1950s photograph.

now i work in a restaurant and people leave papers lying around all the time. they’re generally receipts, movie ticket stubs or gum wrappers. in the ever-more-evangelical overland park, diners often left “business cards for christ”– little pocket size pamphlets about jesus, or a particular church, damnation or salvation. this is not popular in lawrence.

what is favored instead is the gifting or “tipping” of small tokens. it might be a postage stamp sized sticker, a photobooth picture featuring an unrecognizable man in 3D glasses, or a card from an obscure boardgame (“your navigational experience is needed– move to the head of the fleet”).

sometimes people leave more substantial papers as well. today a couple left behind a 2-page photocopied document written in a wiry little script. i believe it is a poem, although the writing on the original document is quite large, making the line breaks seem very prose-like. nevertheless… this little piece of work was the most exciting thing i’ve found in a while.

here it is…

The Chef Baker
(c) 2009, Mr. James William Miller

Alive as the air became in
the kitchen, the wonderful loaves
of bread, hot as fresh pancakes
with the smell of maple syrup,
the chef baker left the hot water
faucet water running. At midnight
the loaves floated above the
bread pans as the water
ran out of the windows and
doors. Made you think that
a submarine was submerging
emptying the ballasts for
submersion. It all happened
on Massachusetts Street.
A police officer couldn’t
spell Massachusetts in his
police report, so he had
a hitch on the building
with rollers beneath
the building, and pulled
and rolled the building
to New Jersey Street.

 

lawrence in a light rain

under awnings and streetlamps
the weary-written signs
godblessed and begged us our dimes
we held our breath and tiptoed
over the sidewalk cracks
past the alley, out of sight

we bought two coffees and a book
on charity from the christian store
which we never read
or gave to the poor

 

socialism scary!

oh, that i could have lived in a time when socialism was feared… um…? what…?

if you sense a bit of nostalgia, it’s due to a certain television series, The Prisoner! The Prisoner has everything i want in a tv drama… and more. subtle british accents, the shocking color of late-sixties film, orwellian devices, mind control, dated line delivery, thrilling score, incredible special effects and a hero so smug and self-assured he just might beat his pinko/double agent-ish rivals.

please refer to this brilliant trailer:

if that does nothing for you, please be assured Patrick McGoohan is a man of business and drives one of the smallest cars in all of britain. and he’s not a number, yo. he’s a free man. here’s the intro to the show… stick around for the compelling dialog at the end..!

 

Lawrence: Music Edition, Holy War

mammoth life is due to release their sophomore album, An American Movement, in early 2010. What to expect? “It is a romantic and introspective account about the author, but also a passionate and fanciful doctrine that asserts individuality, creativity, freedom acquired from knowledge, ego, critical thinking, perseverance and drive, and attainment… for this is to be an American movement.”

we are within a holy war

this song immediately hit me. the concept of “holy war” is an interesting one to me because i feel as though our daily struggles are spiritual in nature. at the same time there are powerful systems that operate on fear and oppression. some of these forces claim to work in the favor of the people they seek to exploit. “every dark power… must take its fall from grace,” says the song. i expect the other songs on An American Movement to be similarly thought provoking.

the full album might not be available for a while but you can pick up their 7″ vinyl at Love Garden or buy online. check out their myspace for music, video, upcoming concerts..

 

i am a rock

how cute is that simon kid in this video? look at that scarf and that balance beam walk! and how sweet “it’s laughing and it’s loving [he] disdain[s].” and bless his heart he thinks “a rock feels no pain.”

i have my books

and my poetry to protect me

i am shielded in my armor

hiding in my room, safe within my womb

i touch no one and no one touches me.”

oh… how dear… in that scarf he almost makes me think of this guy.

i’d rather be a rose than a rock.