Genocide of the mind

New native American Writing

This book is a must read for people who want to hear authentic voices reflecting about the contemporary position of Native Americans in the USA. It is still a sad state of affairs, yet it is also a book that will give strength by the examples these authors give in their conduct and their writing. The book is edited by MariJo Moore and has a foreword by Vine Deloria, Jr. Thirty four authors, some I knew and admired already and many authors new to me, writing with a depth and honesty and humor and also with anger. The words are being revolutionized. David Seals message was serious, yet I smiled because of the mastery of the language. Leonard Peltier is mentioned a few times in the book. It was a joy to discover poems by Maurice Kenny, poems I didn’t know. Vine Deloria, Jr reminds us that the villages always are the center of ceremony and that the people living in town live among the representation of the values of the dominant culture. The book offers us a collective memory of these authors. I was moved by the description of the feeling of leading a discontinuous life, the sense of not belonging. I also admire the essay by Paula Gunn Allen. She seems to suggest that openness and honesty will help to explore the similarities and differences in perceiving the world. Lesly Marmon Silko, another favorite author of mine, reminds us that identity is always in flux. Wonderful to see it stated this way. The book consists of five chapters: One: Keeping the home fires burning in urban circles. Two: Young American Indians: The need to reclaim identity. Three: Native Languages: Where will they go from here? Four: Indians as mascots: An issue to be resolved. Five: Who we are, Who we are not: Memories, misconceptions, and modifications.

I do apologize for not mentioning each and every one of the authors. They are discoveries and I’ll watch out for more of their work.

The Heart of Darkness - Dark Heart - Duister Hart

 I love the theater, I love monologues and Josse De Pauw is one of the real good ones. Guy Cassiers is a formidable director who with seemingly meager means visible on the stage manages to evoque an array of moods and situations. If you have a chance to go and listen and watch and feel, don't miss 'Duister Hart'.

 I also love this particular theater, the Bourla, with its ornate interior: the sciences and the continents are represented on the ceiling. This monologue is written by De Pauw based on the excellent Dutch translation by Bas Heijne of the novel Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad and deals with the Congo and a trading post where Kurtz gathers the most ivory of all the agents. The language is rich and at times chilling.

 A good crowd showed up to listen to this monologue dealing with colonialism and the effects of greed and loneliness, the loss of a moral compass when one has nobody to talk to and the horror, the horror when looking inward at the state of ones soul. One will recognize the final scene as used by Francis Ford Coppola in Apocalypse now. 

Kurtz has plundered the region, has been a violent and cruel representative of the firm, yet he is remarkable, intriguing, imposing, awe inspiring violent and even lovable man. The story is told by Marlow the Captain of a ship sailing up the Congo River in Africa for a Belgian Company. His goal is meeting Kurtz, who has been member of an international society to abolish rude manners and customs. Yet in Kurtz he meets a dark heart, without moral references or control. Josse De Pauw plays all roles thanks to a state of the arts technical approach, projecting the roles that have been  'taped' before and sometimes in the dialog, the actor on the stage is filmed and projected on the projected screen. Thus the meeting with Kurtz, becomes also explicitly a meeting with himself. One wonders why the company never intervened when they knew about about the plunder of the land and the violence against the indigenous inhabitants. The only reason would be greed, in other words capitalism and colonialism. Yet the play leaves one wondering whether one could lose one's own compass.  Great art is food for the soul and food for thought. When the thin gilded layer of civilization is scratched away all that remains is a dark heart.

Troy Davis

For Troy Davis a thought by Albert Camus:
But what then is capital punishment but the most premeditated of murders, to which no criminal's deed, however calculated it may be, can be compared? For there to be equivalence, the death penalty would have to punish a criminal who had warned his victim of the date at which he would inflict a horrible death on him and who, from that moment onward, had confined him at his mercy for months. Such a monster is not encountered in private life. -Albert Camus, writer, philosopher, Nobel laureate (1913-1960)

Music and Jack Kerouac alley

After a congenial meal of Fish and Chips - no not wrapped in newspapers, just served on a plate - at the O'Reilley's a down town evening stroll brought street musicians with wonderful rhythms and Jazz sung by Lisa and the band. That is one of the many gifts of San Francisco one finds in one of the bars and watering holes.

 Of course, since poetry was on the agenda in San Francisco we walked as a last tribute Jack Karouac Alley, reading the moral or literary thoughts one finds there. No it is not poetry but interesting none the less. 

San Francisco Mime Troupe

       In the Dolores park the San Francisco Mime Troupe  offered a free play in the park. The Troupe has been performing their old style type political theater for 53 years: Death to the pigs! The fascist capitalist conglomerates, accepting money from the 'wrong side' is being a whore of the corporations. The singing and dancing is professional. The audience consists of colorful and happy people and pets. Pick nicks and wine and water, chairs and pillows, make shift  blankets, music and fun. Here two flower-children discuss  the task of the mayor to come.

View of the fog drifting into the bay as seen from Twin Peaks

Knowledge is power- The Monty-Antwerp

A fun evening in The Monty in Antwerp was conceived as a training, an encounter and a series of conversations after the internet has collapsed, the libraries have burned. 60 experts who have kissed the blarney stone, have the gift to simply explain what they are about or ask questions that make one look  with a fresh eye to what one thought a bygone conclusion.  60 experts from all walks of life could be 'bought for a date': that was a 25 minute private conversation: Karel De Gucht, commissioner of the European commision, Patrick Jansen, the mayor of Antwerp, Patsy Sörensen fighting human trafficking, a fisherman from Ostend, a cosmologist explaining the string theory, a future researcher Maya Van Leemput, Bo Coolsaeet, the love doctor and a lady who came collared and runs a SM café... a soldier who had fought in Afganistan, an evolutionary linguist, a philosopher.... As stated before: 60 experts.

One could listen in to each time 8 conversations, chosen by the organisers.  Interesting, yet one could not listen to the 22 other conversations which thus became private, yet public because they were held on a stage. Interesting yet one  left  the evening still hungry... because one could not meet them all.

Outer Dark - Comac Mc Charty II

Cormac McCarthy made me think  through Outer Dark about blindness, propriety, avenging angles or devils, namelessness and about fear. The word apocalyptic has been used concerning McCarthy’s novels, the triple devastating disasters in Japan. I think of the death who because nobody recognized them are buried nameless, like the unknown soldiers in Der Englisher Friedhof  near Kamp Lintfort in Germany.

© sms:foto duisburg/rhein 2010

I think of the grief of  the survivors of family members with a name. McCarthy’s themes are woven through the stream of information, through the extent of death and suffering in the now and wonder about my own fears. I see the old lady with a woolen vest and hat in the snow, cold and all alone: everything and everyone lost. How will she go on? How does one maintain one’s humanity and dignity under such extreme circumstances and maybe it is even harder to maintain in every day life.

The last image of Rhinty in Outer Dark is her coming upon the deserted fated place where she finds a small ribcage among the ashes of a recent fire. McCarthy’s mastery is that he says no more referring us all to our own emotional meltdowns.

Yoga

Yoga never has been in my comfort zone. I do it more in my head than in my body. Practicing alone, doesn’t feel right because I make to many mistakes even if I and my body try to remember the exercise I did while being guided. I trust the teacher, and hope not to be in the way for the other practitioners. I feel not safe with a different teacher.
When I come in and sit down on the bolster, after no more than 3 minutes my back aches. Most positions actually hurt. Not because of strain or effort in trying to do what is going on. I keep, however, going back to yoga, because when at the end of the class I sit on the bolster, my back doesn’t hurt after three minutes. So I know immediately that it works for me. I wonder what kind of ‘hurt’ the others feel, whether everything hurts or nothing. The passive poses are usually ok, for a while. Some exercises will break out hidden emotions. It happened with the tailbone exercises, when a dark sorrow pervaded me and in a different way also with the sitting bones exercises. Sometimes the physical reaction is extreme. After the tailbone exercises I was cold, chilled too the bone, feeling as if my eyes were brimming with tears. Then suddenly it seemed as if a switch was flipped about 5 and a half hours after I came home and slowly I warmed up.
My body in turmoil, my mind reflective, I wasn’t sure I could do the integration of the two sessions, so I integrate them here for you.

Dr Scarpone

Dr Scarpone send me following very inspiring Thanksgiving thought: I came to a realization this morning that I though I'd share with you...and I sincerely hope the same is true for you. I spent the past hour wandering around in a light rain, appreciating the view and my humble home, and when I came back in I noticed my lottery ticket hanging on the shelf. And I laughed. Because there's nothing I need that I don't have. There's not even anything I want that I can't get, or can't do. I'd really be hard pressed to figure out what to do with a hundred million dollars, or even a million dollars. It would, in a way, become a burden, to think of something useful to do with it. It would distract from what I'm doing, which is enjoying thinking, and learning.
The conclusion I've come to is that I'm content, but interested. I'm satisfied, but curious as to what comes next, and welcoming it without even knowing what it may be. I think that's a pleasant way to start a Thanksgiving morning. And just like Christmas, every day should be Thanksgiving.
I am still learning...

60 years of Universal declaration of human rights

This 60 year old Universal declaration of human rights "has become the yardstick by which we measure respect for what we know,, or should know, as right and wrong". Ban Ki-moon.



A New York artist staged this procession to commemorate this anniversary. Eleanor Roosevelt was instrumental in promoting the original idea.



And yes torture is unacceptable.











Wherever and whenever, for whatever reason.

Tex Talk

Last night while reading, under my lamp outside, about 'frames', metaphors and neural mapping I had a visitor. The conversation started about cars: Chevys from 1955 and 1957 (he had over the years each model), Cadillacs, Plymouth, the first Ford Mustang. Wonderful cars with chrome and seven layers of black lacquer, Ivory and rd upholstery. Then he poke about his training and education, all army and rangers. When I stated that I was probably right to assume that he would vote republican, he said : Hell yes!
Then he started talking about his bible study (' Though shalt not kill', should be 'Thou shall not murder', that is not kill with premeditation) and his time in Korea were he did guard duty at the border. One night a young man comes over the border and starts pointing his riffle at him, so he 'stitched' him with 5 shots with a 45 and killed the young man. He said what got at me is that he was about 16-17 years... He was court Marshalled - to keep North Korea from reacting -What and was fined 10 cents per bullet shot, received a carton of cigarettes and congratulations from the court. He said that for a while he had a problem with what he had done, but then he turned his anger and hate to who had send him, making him do what he did.
I finally understand how selfhate can be turned toward others... I finally understand the mechanism of the Vietnam veterans still hating Jane Fonda and I understand why some people still don't speak to me because of my resistance to war...

Know they self

Solitude and loneliness in the masses, Dr Scarpone is right of course in his comment on yesterday's post. Luigi Pirandello said in his novel Uno, nessuno, centomila... that you are either one, nobody or a hundred thousand since we reflect in our behavior the expectations of others, we fulfill the roles we are assigned. I was married twice, and not making the same mistake twice, my two husbands were very different. Their view of me was totally opposite. The gift of being on my own now is that I have the chance to figure out who I am, how I view myself and hold my own. It is here that the other author comes in: Fernando Pessoa. He in his whole oeuvre states that we are nobody and thus can choose to be whom or what we want... And that works for me except when a dark blue spleen immobilizes all of me, then I need a friend...

Words

Some phrases just graft themselves in my mind until they have a life and meaning of their own.
My current guiding stars are:
Degrees of separation: which will tell you what you have in common with others
Radical naivety: where you hold on to dreams and visions, with only realism things won't work
Creative non-violence: resistance and change by non-violent means

The Road Corman Mc Carthy

As it happened I read The Road, by Corman McCarthy on the road in heavy weather, finishing it late at night in solitude at home. These are almost the ideal circumstances to read this dark tale of a post apocalyptic world. It is dark beyond darkness, the sun and moon can bring no light, ash covers everything in a burned America. It is a post-climate change, a post-nuclear war… Whatever, it doesn’t matter. Emptiness, bareness, fear of others, the bad guys who do eat humans since there is nothing else to eat and the good guys… well they break your heart. Stark and unsentimental McCarthy writes the fatigue, the caring of the father and the child, the tenderness, the categories of our moral compass shifted and some holding on to a course of goodness. The long Walk, the Trail of Tears, the Concentration camps all are precursors to the horrors that the pilgrims over the blackened roads of America have seen. Barren burned silence reigns. And the smallest incident is time and again a deep moral choice on how to survive without loosing the goodness in this world. It is a bleak but not hopeless future vision, a haunting, compelling read which makes me look at the world again, because in some regions this harrowing trek is already going on. Think Darfur, think East Congo… The Road is a masterpiece, read it in Borrowed time and a borrowed world and borrowed eyes with which to sorrow it. (page 138)
Other quotes: P168: Being from a planet that no longer existed. The tales were suspect. He could not construct for the child’s pleasure the world he’d lost without the loss as well and he thought perhaps the child had known this better than he.
P179: People were always getting ready for tomorrow. I didn’t believe in that. Tomorrow wasn’t getting ready for them. It didn’t even know they were there.

Ben Okri

from Mental Fight by Ben Okri one of the best African writers.

An illusion by which we can become
more real.
A moment unremarked by the universe,
By nature, the seasons, or stars.
Moment we have marked out
In timelessness.
Human moment.
Making a ritual, a drama, a tear
or eternity.
Domesticating the infinite.
Contemplating the quantum questions,
Time, death, new beginnings,
Regeneration, cycles, the unknown.

The funeral

The church was pretty and cold. Pretty because of the definite byzantine influences in the mosaics and general lay out and iconography. Cold because of the frost and windy sleet outside. The old lady was given a grand and warm adieu. Beautiful classical music, 4 singers from the choir where the granddaughter sings and text more worldly than religious chosen by her caring daughter. The beauty of it all was moving.
Interestingly in the Dutch translation the word charity in the English version is 'love', so I am changing the official translation to show you how worldly love of an old, frail mother can be.

Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels,
and have no love,
I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.
And though I have the gift of prophecy,
and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge;
and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains,
and have no love, I am nothing.
And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor,
and though I give my body to be burned,
and have no love, it profiteth me nothing.
Love suffereth long, and is kind;
love envieth not;
love vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up,
Doth not behave itself unseemly,
seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil;
Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth;
Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.
Love never ends.

Free Tibet

Next to a bar two monks worked from Tuesday till Thursday night to create a mandala. Next to the noise and the high charged energy of a political world, was a heaven of meditation and tranquility. At the end, ceremoniously the sand painting is destroyed, effaced and the sand is distributed in tiny bags. It is beautiful and serene to watch the creation, to accept the ephemerity of things and to receive some of the sand on the top of one's head. Some of us were blessed with the reminder of tranquility, ahimsa and mindfulness. Buddhism as a path of life requires practice and rituals, reminding us of Dharma, the wheel of life and non-violence. These monks reminded us of the need of Tibet to be free so that this culture and teaching is not lost to the world. Free Tibet. Ahimsa.

The code

Are we really living the end of an empire? We witness the wickedness of men and corporations. The humanity and honor they may have had, seem to have been lost. The code is breaking down. Everyday the news shows more killings, brothers with their brothers’ blood on their hands in wars, fights started frivolously. Catullus, a Roman poet wrote that Fides (trust in fate) and Amor (love) only flourish if accompanied by Pietas. Pietas is not piety in old Rome; it is the compassionate code leading to harmony. As soon as a society forgets this, it starts to disintegrate by greed and “men who banished justice from their greedy souls” in Catullus’ words about Ceasar.
This is where we are at in the US. Many of our leaders moreover are Perfidus (you all got that, isn’t it?) and Immemor, forgetful of things said and promised and what is more indifferent. So promise after promise is broken en dignity and ahimsa immaterial in their eyes. Not in mine, but then for me Fides and Pietas never had the meaning of blind belief and piety that it acquired through religion.

Homes and Happiness

If by accident you fall in love with a place or a view, an atmosphere and you think seriously of moving around your perfectly sheltered life to pursue this vision, then ask yourself what the new place represents for you. Our homes tend to reflect our personalities, even our values. I live in two totally different environments, the Arizona drought-ridden desert and a European bustling city… Each place represents part of me. So when I fall hard and consider a change from the not so leafy suburb to the modernity of an older high-rise flat with a view, ten minutes away from the theater, the big Saturday and Sunday market, then I need to ask myself Whom is it I am trying to become? And also will the place help me do that, will the place remind me of what it is I want to strive for and will the windswept corner with morning sun and view of the sunset shelter me, will my vision of possible happiness sustain itself? I have learned with my late husband that it is not about ‘happiness as a state’ but at the possibility of everything falling into place once in while and the rare moments of pure perfection. It is all about beauty, creativity and the promise of possible happiness. Leaving behind the old house, the physical prompting of memories, of habits, drama’s and joys would stop. I see the new place as sparsely furnished, light, room for guests, books and Tony’s paintings. I guess I am longing for an uncluttered life, having sorted it all out by moving and leaving behind what is superfluous, being connected through the view to the jumbled chaos of the houses I can overview from there and the grander story of culture and politics that is told by panorama of the city. Would the change express that I have confidence in the future now that I am contemplating my different paths and possible and desirable futures, letting go of pains of past? Tony’s paintings would remind me of vibrancy and creativity, of balance and honesty, beauty or at least the striving for those ideas we shared. Yet the space would be totally defined by its place in the weft and warp of the city, the myths and invisible writing and rhythms of it and my writing, translations I hope to bring forth: a balance between discipline and temptation, the community of Jazz lovers on Sunday afternoons, urbanites walking their dogs versus the concrete tower that would be my nest far from the maddening crowd… yet being part of a condominium where the individual might easily be crushed by the community. Inviting friends over would be like inviting them to a skyline restaurant, a quiet backdrop of clouds, twinkling citylights.
The building expressed a belief in progress, betterment of humanity, democracy, (one of the mayors of the city lived in it, amongst a happy few fellow citizens) equality, individuality and a sense of worldliness. Now 43 years old it has gathered a patina of imperfection that is endearing, that has softened its attitude. The grime of the city has stained the façade, yet I would be literally ‘above’ the dust, reminded of how things, people can be dignified by aging. Although looking like a squat, gentle giant, the age upon it also reminds us that all is ephemeral… All is vanity. Maybe the transient in me identifies with the reconciliation symbolized in a home, a stronghold cradled near the clouds in the impermanence of the eternal cycle of day and night.

Place de la République

It is a sultry hot summer’s day, when walking the moisture sticks to you and it isn’t even late April. The abnormality of it makes me weary and lets me forget for a while the beauty outside of green leaves lining dark grey canals, wild chestnut candles burning white touched by pink and sensuous sweet reds. Spring flowers past their bloom brave the freakishness of 30°C. A little park beckons. Hear the birds and the noise of the city going on all around it. See the kids, people laying in the grass, dogs, strollers and a perfect bench in the shade. So I choose the small safe heaven in this pretty but unliked town that drags me down. I am reading The Painted Drum written by Louise Erdrich.
A man comes and sits himself down on he bench between the lady with a pram and myself. I nod, acknowledge his existence and read on. He starts talking, general things first and there is a kind of distress. I ask him are you all right: he lost his wife two years ago, so he had to move and now lives here with his son and daughter in law. That is no good, so whenever he can he leaves the house and walks and looks for a woman to rent a place with or to move in with. All he wants is a kind woman, then he would be content, share food with her and go out together… just be with her. Having listened to his longing I seem to fit the bill. I tell him I live far away as a kind warning. He holds his ground and tells me he is a Greek Cypriot, 67, in good health, a bit of money but not enough to be able to live alone, in good health, just had his cataracts removed… All this despair in 10 minutes sharp. On a good day he’ll find you at the Place de la République