The Most Terrifying Thing I Can Think Of

Travelling With Children
Happy Halloween

Must be the Season of the Witch

It must be the season of the witch
     la bruja
     la llorona
she lost her children
     and she cries
en las barrancas of industry
     her children
devoured by computers
and the gears
must be the season of  the witch.
     I hear huesos crack
in pain
     y lloros
la bruja pangs
     sus hijos han olvidado
la magia de durango
     y la de moctezuma
    ilhuicamina
must be the season of the witch
la bruja llora
sus hijos sufren: sin ella

Alurista from "Fiesta en Aztlán"

bruja: witch
barrancas:  canyons
magia:   magic
sus hijos han olvidado:  her children have forgotten
sus hijos sufren sin ella:  her children suffer without her
moctezuma ilhuicamina: Aztec emperor at the time of the Spanish conquest (alternate spelling)
la llorona: a Medea-like figure in Mexican folklore, having lost, drowned or killed her children (several versions exist) she can be heard at night (especially around rivers) weeping and mourning for her children.
Most Latino children have heard the threat "be good or La Llorona will come get you"

picture from blog cosas bellas 4 U

"A sky as grey as a chipped nickel"

From "The Golem and the Jinni" by Abigail Nussbaum

"a gorgonation of dreadlocks"

from "Fluke" by Christopher Moore

picture from menshairforum dot com

Look at the Scenery

"There was the Columbia River
wide and beautiful and patient;
patient like an elderly gentleman,
who, tired of the rushing and gushing
of his tributary years,
was now content to stroll peacefully along
and look at the scenery
until he reached the ocean"

from Jill Alvarado

Assault Hospitality

"You don't hurry a thinker
and you don't talk to him when he's thinking;
it's just inconsiderate."

from "Fluke" by Christopher Moore

Garrison Keillor calls it "moodism"  where every one has to be the same mood.
"Come on', they say, 'lighten up, have fun'
"Well, it makes me uneasy"

I've heard it called "intimate thuggery" --when others invade our thoughts and feelings so agressively

"The tutor's cheeks swelling with anger, almost unhorsed the small spectacles saddling his nose."

from "The Whipping Boy" by Sid Fleischman

picture is of the young Leon Trotsky wearing the kind of glasses referred to.

"collectivism: ...farmers who have nothing, meet once a week to distribute it"

Collin Cotterill

Dia de los muertos

Renacen los huertos,

tambien los muertos.  

El dia de los muertos

Por siete minutos

 podemos platicar

con los seres queridos fallecidos.[1]

 

I remember

tagging along,

chasing my abuela,[2]

To el camposanto,[3]

to sell paper flowers

to make the somber tombs bright.

That was back in Mexico.  

I was only seven years old.  

Here in the U.S.,

los muertos[4] are

personas non gratas.[5]  

Here we do not wish

to hold dialogue with los muertos.  

They remind us

We too will eventually join them.  

Here there is no luto[6]

And there are no novenas[7]

Or puños de tierra[8]

 Here in the U.S.,

the idea is to hide,

to ignore the dead,

And even to avoid death

in our conversations.  

In Mexico la muerte

is well known.  

She’s a talaca, a feminine figure.  

Our Puerto Rican

brothers and sisters

call her “la flaca.”[9]

Talking with the dead is necessary

to remind ourselves

to enjoy our lives

And not go about

as if we had already died,

And no one said good-bye or cried.

Abelardo B Delgado  From “Cool Salsa  Bilingual poems about growing up Latino in the US”  Lori Carter, Editor

---

[1]   The orchards regenerate, and so do the dead.    On the Day of the Dead for seven minutes we can talk with our loved ones who have passed away.

[2]   grandmother

[3]  cemetery

[4]   the dead

[5]  (latin) unwelcome person

[6]   mourning or period of mourning

[7]   in this context, fervent prayer for the faithful dead

[8]   handfuls of earth

[9]   The skinny one

"They passed a magician with a bald head, a street fiddler, and an umbrella seller, his wares opened around his feel like black silken mushrooms"

from "The Whipping Boy" by Sid Fleischman

"In the morning when the sardine fleet has made a catch, the purse-seiners waddle heavily into the bay, blowing their whistles....

the deep laden boats pull in against the coast where the canneries dip their tails into the bay."

from "Cannery Row" by John Steinbeck

We lived here one year, This cannery is now a very nice (pricey) restaurant, 

What would Steinbeck have had to say about that, I wonder?

"slow as the hands of a schoolroom clock"

From "Lobsters in the Window" a poem by W.D Snodgrass

Thanks to cartoonstock  dot com

"The beam cut a smoky purple groove through the dark."
From "Nature Girl" by Carl Hiaasen

"Flashlight beams sabered through the curtains."
from "Slash and Burn" by Colin Cotterill

"It is important that there should be places where not a great deal happens because such places remind us that life is not entirely and exclusively made up

of exciting or significant events."

From : The Limpopo Academy of Private Detection." by Alexander McCall Smith

pictures of Michael's visit to China, where we alternated between high energy adventures and exhaustion.

"She glanced around the park which was now being gathered into the clutches of darkness."

from "So Long, and Thanks for all the Fish"  by Douglas Adams
picture from Amy

Happy Thanksgiving Canada

Even after all this time
The sun never says
to the earth:
"You owe me."

Look what happens
with a love like that:
It lights
the whole sky.

Hafez of Shiraz
Persian poet 1325-1389 C.E

Excerpts from "David" by Earle Birney

David and I that summer cut trails on the Survey, 

All week in the valley for wages, in air that was steeped 

in the wail of mosquitoes, but over the sunalive week-ends 

we climbed, to get from the ruck of the camp, the surly 

Poker, the wrangling, the snoring under the fetid 

Tents, and because we had joy in our lengthening coltish 

Muscles, and mountains for David were made to see over, 

Stairs from the valleys and steps to the sun's retreats.

...................

In August, the second attempt, we ascended The Fortress. 

By the Forks of the Spray we caught five trout and fried them 

Over a balsam fire. The woods were alive 

With the vaulting of mule-deer and drenched with clouds all the morning, 

Till we burst at noon to the flashing and floating round 

Of the peaks. Coming down we picked in our hats the bright 

And sunhot raspberries, eating them under a mighty 

Spruce, while marten moving like quicksilver scouted us.

...........................

Somehow I worked down the fifty impossible feet 

To the ledge, calling and getting no answer but echoes 

Released in the cirque, and trying not to reflect on 

What an answer would mean. He lay still, with his lean 

Young face upturned and strangely unmarred, but his legs 

Splayed beneath him, beside the final drop, 

Six hundred feet sheer to the ice. My throat stopped 

When I reached him, for he was alive......

..........................

I said that he fell straight to the ice where they found him, 

And none but the sun and incurious clouds have lingered 

Around the marks of that day on the ledge of the Finger, 

That day, the last of my youth, on the last of our mountains. 

Earle Birney ,1942.

"David" is too long a poem to post here, but is well liked by Canadians for its Rocky Mountain setting,  metaphor, and imagery.  English teachers enjoy the theme of balance and beauty of nature vs loss.

The argument of whether this poem is based on a real incident (plus a short bio of Birney) is found here:

 http://www.tru.ca/arts/e_birney/english/level3/level4/doc00701.htm

More Earle Birney

In “Canada Case History” Earle Birney compares Canada to a pre-adolescent.  Later, Birney wrote these lines for a more grown-up Canada

“too busy bridging loneliness 

to be alone

we hacked in railway ties 

what Emily[1] etched in bone

we French and English never lost our civil war 

endure it still

a bloody civil bore”  

---

[1] Emily Carr, Canadian artist, a great deal of her art is of nature

Painting "The Edge of Nowhere" by Emily Carr

Canada: Case History:1

This is the case of a high-school land,                                                                   deadset in adolescence;                                                                                                  loud treble laughs and sudden fists,                                                                   bright cheeks, the gangling presence.                                                                   This boy is wonderful at sports                                                                              and physically quite healthy;                                                                                 he's taken to church on Sunday still                                                                       and keeps his prurience stealthy.                                                                             He doesn't like books, except about bears,                                                      collects new coins and model planes,                                                                    and never refuses a dare.                                                                                          His Uncle[1] spoils him with candy, of course,                                                         yet shouts him down when he talks at table.                                                         You will note he's got some of his French mother's[2] looks,                             though he's not so witty and no more stable.                                                        He's really much more like his father[3] and yet                                                          if you say so he'll pull a great face.                                                                         He wants to be different from everyone else                                                         and daydreams of winning the global race.                                                      Parents unmarried and living abroad,[4]                                                          relatives[5] keen to bag the estate,                                                             schizophrenia not excluded,                                                                                  will he learn to grow up before it's too late?

---

[1] The United States

[2] French mother:  refers to French roots, French is one of two official languages in Canada

[3] Father: England

[4] Parents unmarried: England and France

[5] E.g. the uncle

by Earle Birney (1904-1995) from “Fifteen Winds; a Selection of Modern Canadian Poets”

Can.Hist. by Earle Birney

As a people, we have not been concerned until very recently with teaching Canadian literature to Canadian students, though some teachers make an effort to include short stories like "The Wedding Gift" by Thomas Raddell, or poems like "M. Joliat" by Wilson MacDonald.  For the next 3 days I will post poems by Earle Birney for you

Can. Hist.

Once upon a colony

there was a land that was

almost a real

country called Canada. 

But people began to

Feel

different

and no longer Acadien

or French

and rational but

Canadién

and Mensch

and passional. 

Also no longer English

but Canadian

and national

(though some were less specific

-ally Canadian

Pacific)

After that it was fashionable

for a time to be International. 

But now we are all quite

grown up & fir

mly agreed to assert our right

not to be Amer

-icans,   perhaps

though on the other hand

not ever to be

unamerican

(except for the French

who still want to be Mensch)

Earle Birney, Canadian Poet, 1904-1995

written while the poet was in New Orleans in 1962

"Bloody Hot" or "Cold" and Nothing In Between

"This place seems to switch from the 'cool season' to the 'bloody hot season' without passing through a 'tepid' or 'lukewarm season' on the way." could be describing Las Vegas as well.

The Merry Misogynist" by Colin Cotterill (whose books have led me to learn more about
Laos and Thailand)

And Yes, I Actually Read the Books I Quote on this Blog

"It's a colorful scene, a full palette of skin tones and an Epcot of clothing and language."
from "They Poured Fire on Us From the Sky" by Judy A Bernstein
picture from New York Times November 5, 2008

Flying the B-24

"A Pilot once wrote that the first time he got into a B-24 cockpit 'it was like sitting on the front porch and flying the house"

From "Unbroken" by Laura Hillenbrand

As Inert as Dirt

"dumber than a plate of cold macaroni."
From "The Girl Who Married an Eagle" by Tamar Meyers

"Dull as a stack of pillows"
From "Disco for the Departed"  by Colin Cotterill

An Economist's View of the World

"The world is a bed of nails and we are all hammers"
says Rico Moretti who just wants to know
how the nails got there and what they're made of.

From "Do Baby Girls Cause Divorce?"
Freakonomics Podcast August 2013

"From the port hatch, Derek spied a full moon, pale as the petals of a spider lily, in the tropical sky."

From "Chomp" by Carl Hiaasen

When is a Law Actually a Law?

"One faction of a party doesn't get to shut down the government to fight the results of an election"
President Obama as quoted by CNN 30 September, 2013

So they're basically arguing about Obamacare.  Forty million people in the United States have NO health care.  That's about the population of a small country.
Nothing will change for people who already have health care through employers.  The government-backed initiative will provide a health care option for people who have none.
The law was
1) approved by congress
2) ratified (found constitutional) by the supreme court
3) tested politically in an election
4) the house has voted 45 times to repeal it but was not successful
So when will our elected leaders call it a law?

"I'm standing on the fundamental right of every American, and that is the right to be left alone."
John Colberson, Republican-Texas, as heard on CNN 30 September 2013