Okay, today we have a sweet, sleeping baby grandson (held by my son-in-law), and my daughter's new tattoo.
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
I can't remember the last time I did not go to Ash Wednesday Mass. Can't remember. Must have been the 80s. Really.The photo is from last year, when I already didn't believe in what I was doing. Why was I there? Habit. The sublime order of the liturgical year, which is encoded in my DNA somewhere. My body even seems attuned to it. I have often complained (like in comments on this endless thread from 2009) that I find it impossible to leave the Church.
And of course it isn't impossible, but on some other level, of course it is. This is what I have trouble explaining to people.
Someone suggested that I replace the Christian rituals with Buddhist rituals. Alas, one of the things I am trying to expunge is clinging to ritual itself, which is exactly what I am trying to avoid. I have clung to rituals of some kind my whole life; rituals help me make sense of the passage of time, they help mark these passages in an introspective, moral fashion, examining my conscience. What, I would ask, have I done since last year? And the passage of time, these careful yearly markings, would cloak me in feelings of safety.
As one leaves the Church, this feeling evaporates. It is like you are exposed and naked; I get the unwelcome mental image of a naked woman (me) descending the steps of a huge and beautiful cathedral, completely defenseless and at the mercy of the elements. That is how it feels NOT to go to Ash Wednesday Mass, NOT to go to today's Fat Tuesday pancake suppers.
But I have a movie-series to tend to, I have other places I must be tomorrow. It is a lot like an old Twilight Zone episode--I know if I can go the entire 24 hours, I will have it in the bag. But this day, Ash Wednesday, is somehow even more compelling (to me) than Christmas or Easter, since it is about doing penance. Who will forgive me? And why am I so focused on forgiveness to the exclusion of other aspects of Christianity? These are questions it will take me years to answer... and I know the answers are not where I thought they were.
It is my task to answer them.
But first, must resist the hypnotic draw of the ashes.
Ashes, ashes, we all fall down.
~*~
And speaking of falling down, that made me think of Toad the Wet Sprocket, a band name that I immediately spotted as having been named after a Monty Python routine. At the time the song came out (1993), I was riveted by it. Years later, as it became something of an alt-rock staple, I decided it was about my daughter. Now, I realize that it was actually about me, stranded within Christianity (in what I now call my pseudo-Opus Dei period), trying so hard to conform and fit in with secular Carmelites and people like that. Who was I kidding?
And so, it is a perfect song for today, as well as today's blog title.
Toad the Wet Sprocket - Fall Down
Monday, February 20, 2012
At left, our Occupy film series is pretty well-attended for Republican Greenville! Last Wednesday we viewed the historical account, A Force More Powerful (Part 1). This coming Wednesday evening we will be featuring Part 2... be there or be square! These will be at the Hughes Library in downtown Greenville, SC.
Our Occupy Greenville meeting yesterday was endless. It was rainy and cold, so we went to the Coffee Underground and had one of those interminable "What Is To Be Done" meetings. (The Yippies, goofing on Lenin, used to name these meetings, What Is To Be Undone.) Although I feel that I must attend such meetings, I have never particularly enjoyed them. (Note: I described the meetings-glut period of my life in this post.) Why can't we just DO THINGS and come up with ideas as we go along? Damn, I miss the Yippies with every fiber of my being... we never had to have mountains of meetings.* We made shit up in the car, by the time we arrived someplace, we were ready. All this verbiage, all this dithering, all this arriving at consensus (sorta) and stuff, argh.
Just do it. (Apologies for stealing an advertising slogan, which by the way, they stole from ordinary basketball players and NASCAR drivers.)
Speaking personally: I would like to physically occupy foreclosed homes, something Occupy Atlanta has been doing. Others seem to eye this concept with skepticism, and would actually prefer to confront rich CEOs personally, as the Verizon strikers so memorably did. My consigliere confides in me that he is skeptical of that approach; he worries that the right-wing will successfully paint us as whiners, jealous of an individual's wealth, rather than successfully connecting-the-dots to an unfair system that denies workers the fruits of their/our labors (while making CEOs so untouchably rich). We would have to depend on the mass media to make that point. Can they do that? We have been surprised at how the media has used Occupy's talking points, for instance, the now-well-known "60 Minutes" piece on the robo-signing of mortgages would likely never have happened at all, without the force of Occupy Wall Street.
And the Beat Goes On. Please show up at the film series, we need you to get involved! (commercial) And what do you think we should be doing at this juncture? COMMENTS WELCOME!
*Yes, admittedly, this is because we were all alike and thought the same, as I said in this old comment a couple of years ago.
**PODCAST of Saturday's radio show is up, have a listen.
~*~
Yesterday, driving down the street in the awful cold rain, I suddenly heard "Far East Mississippi" on WPCI, the most amazing radio station in the universe, and I was suddenly happy happy happy as the proverbial clam.
Last month's piece on the infamous Ohio Players album covers is here (CAUTION: they were something else). This incredible piece of music comes from Contradiction (1976) (warning: another naked lady on the album cover, feeding a horse this time).
If you listen, you can hear the Great God of Funk, who decided to come down from funk heaven (in George Clinton's Mothership, one assumes!) and consecrate this music, which is how it got to sound like this: Unbelievable!
Enjoy!
Far East Mississippi - Ohio Players
Friday, February 17, 2012
65 years ago, the last lynching in South Carolina took place about 10-15 miles from where I live. And last year, after a very long 64 years, a memorial was finally erected on the rural back road where it happened. I originally posted this in February of 2011, when the memorial was placed. [Caution: disturbing and violent content]
On February 16, 1947, Thomas Watson Brown, a white cab driver, picked up a black man on Markley Street in Greenville, South Carolina. Brown was later found half-dead, his taxi driven off the road in rural Pickens County. He had been beaten, robbed, and stabbed three times.
The Pickens County sheriff reported that muddy footprints at the crime scene led to the house of Willie Earle, about a mile away, where officers reportedly found cash, a blood-covered knife and bloody clothing. (Many of these facts have always been in dispute, but this is what was presented at trial.) Willie Earle, age 24, wasn't at his residence; he was in another cab, driven by a man who would later become one of the 31 defendants.
Earle was arrested and put in the Pickens County second-floor lock-up.
The news of Brown's stabbing traveled like wildfire, as did the news of Willie Earle's arrest. The nexus of unrest was the Yellow Cab office on West Court Street, where Greenville's taxi drivers had congregated in an angry pack, and started passing around a bottle of whiskey.
The Greenville News, recently granted access to some of the trial records and police reports, offers some chilling accounts:
The attitudes of the time are reflected in the casual manner in which one of the defendants, Hubert Carter, explained in his statement to police how he joined the mob.And so, in a tableau reminiscent of the famous scene in To Kill A Mockingbird (and perhaps it was an inspiration for it), the taxis all lined up in the early morning hours and drove in formation out to the Pickens County jail, maybe 20 miles away. It was February 17th.
The 33-year-old driver and father of four called for a ride home from the Cleveland Street taxi stand at 1 a.m. on the 17th, according to the Greenville Police Department file. He was picked up by another defendant, Paul Griggs, who "asked me if I wanted to go with the others to get the Negro being held for stabbing Mr. Brown.
"I told him I'd go along with the crowd," Carter said in his statement.
I have often re-imagined the striking sight of the line of yellow cabs driving down the old rural road I have traveled down so many times myself. Did other people see them? They must have. Did the onlookers know where they were going? Did they tell their wives or girlfriends first?
And there was, sadly, no Atticus Finch to stand by the door. Instead, there was a jailer named Gilstrap, who suddenly had two shotguns pointed in his face. He didn't argue.
The mob took Willie Earle from the jail.
A call to Greenville's black funeral home, notified authorities of where the body was.
Thomas Brown died six hours later.
~*~
The first lynching since 1912, the murder of Willie Earle became big news. The trial was biggest lynching trial the state had ever seen. Most lynchings had never even been investigated, while this one had then-Governor Strom Thurmond threatening to put the perpetrators away (yes, you read that right). Time magazine sent reporters, and The New Yorker sent no less than Dame Rebecca West to cover the event.
From Time magazine:
Somebody "pulled the Negro out of the car by his belt." The drivers ''hit him several times with their fists and knocked him to the ground." One of the drivers pulled out a knife. "Before you kill him," he said, "I want to put the same scars on him that he put on Brown." Said Jessie Lee Sammons: "I could hear the tearing of clothing and flesh."Of course, it was an all-white jury. Of course, they offered no defense at all. And of course, they were acquitted.
Then the drivers "beat the side of his head with a shotgun." Said Marvin H. Flemming's statement: "I could hear some licks like they were pounding on him with the butt end of a gun. I heard the Negro say, 'Lord, you done killed me.' " Finally, said Charlie Covington, he heard Roosevelt Carlos Hurd Sr., a Blue Bird cab driver, cry out: "Give me the gun and let's get this over with." Just then, "a tall, slender boy with bushy hair hit the Negro in the mouth and knocked him down. The Negro started to get up when Mr. Hurd took the shotgun. He shot the Negro in the head. He unloaded the gun and called for more shells. . . . Mr. Hurd shot the Negro two more times." The tissue of Willie Earle's brain was left hanging on the bushes. The lynchers went back to Greenville and drank coffee.
Of the acquittal, Dame Rebecca West wrote:
There could be no more pathetic scene than these taxi-drivers and their wives, the deprived children of difficult history, who were rejoicing at a salvation that was actually a deliverance to danger. For an hour or two, the trial had built up in them that sense of law which is as necessary to man as bread and water and a roof. They had known killing for what it is: a hideousness that begets hideousness. They had seen that the most generous impulse, not subjected to the law, may engender a shameful deed. For indeed they were sick at heart when what had happened at the slaughter-pen was described in open court. But they had been saved from the electric chair and from prison by men who had conducted their defense without taking a minute off to state or imply that even if a man is a murderer one must not murder him and that murder is foul. These people had been plunged back into chaos.Chaos is the word. Chaos was the state of race relations in the south until the Civil Rights movement, when the chaos was at last addressed.
Next week, after many long decades, the spot where Willie Earle was murdered will be officially and historically marked. Future generations will not be like me, driving by a rural place in the road without knowing whose blood was shed there. We will see, and we will know.
Tessie Robinson, Willie's mama, died 8 years ago. I am so sad she will never see the memorial to her son.
For black people, a memorial and a reminder of what they already know and do not have to be told. For us white people, a souvenir of our savagery, and the cover-up of that savagery. Which is why the memorial has taken 64 years.
Rest in Peace, Willie Earle.
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
Unfortunately, all the YouTube clips from the actual film, have "embedding disabled by request"--which means this one will probably get pulled eventually too. But I thought I'd try anyway... I played this on my radio show! I LOVE THIS!!!!
From the film Cabaret (1972)--here is a song we can all relate to in these harsh economic times.
Money - Liza Minelli and Joel Grey (from "Cabaret")
For the entire movie clip in context, featuring wonderful Bob Fosse-choreography and fabulous Weimar Republic-inspired fashions--go here.
From the film Cabaret (1972)--here is a song we can all relate to in these harsh economic times.
Money - Liza Minelli and Joel Grey (from "Cabaret")
For the entire movie clip in context, featuring wonderful Bob Fosse-choreography and fabulous Weimar Republic-inspired fashions--go here.
Saturday, February 11, 2012
Jeanne van den Hurk for Congress! GOOD LUCK, JEANNE!
~*~
Also see New York Times piece: Occupy Movement Regroups, Preparing for Its Next Phase
And our podcast is up. Yall have a listen.
~*~
Also see New York Times piece: Occupy Movement Regroups, Preparing for Its Next Phase
And our podcast is up. Yall have a listen.
Friday, February 10, 2012
Stray Cat Strut - The Stray Cats
As my late mother, the musician, would say (and did, the first time she ever heard this song), DO YOU HEAR the difference in a big-ass stand-up bass (as she called it) and a regular electric bass? Ka-thump, ka-thump, ka-THUMP.
Lovingly dedicated to one of the greatest cats of all time, Maurice. He was named after the old Steve Miller song, wherein Some people call me Maurice/Cause I speak of the pompitous of love. He sure did. But mostly he would "slink down the alley looking for a fight/Howling to the moonlight on a hot summer night." I owned Maurice at the time the song came out, and used to sing it to him. (He knew the song was all about him.)
Of course, cat people know that he really owned ME.
And I miss him.
I send him my most loving Deadhead vibes in his next lives and hope to someday meet him again.
As my late mother, the musician, would say (and did, the first time she ever heard this song), DO YOU HEAR the difference in a big-ass stand-up bass (as she called it) and a regular electric bass? Ka-thump, ka-thump, ka-THUMP.
Lovingly dedicated to one of the greatest cats of all time, Maurice. He was named after the old Steve Miller song, wherein Some people call me Maurice/Cause I speak of the pompitous of love. He sure did. But mostly he would "slink down the alley looking for a fight/Howling to the moonlight on a hot summer night." I owned Maurice at the time the song came out, and used to sing it to him. (He knew the song was all about him.)
Of course, cat people know that he really owned ME.
And I miss him.
I send him my most loving Deadhead vibes in his next lives and hope to someday meet him again.
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