This website, of course, does not ever explicity declare a preference for one political candidate over another, staying way above the grimy fray. That being said, we see no reason not to become a fan on facebook of California Attorney General Jerry Brown. And his website's color scheme is looking pretty stylish - do I detect a hint of Shepard Fairey-esque design? And what's that, look how easy they've made it to contribute to his campaign! - & what's ten or twenty-five dollars to the charismatic Democratic likely-nominee when his Republican likely-opponant in the general elec
tion has already spent almost fifty million dollars, mostly of her own money (more than two months before the primary), and he's spent "about ten dollars". It's a weird world when you're running for governor of a state as large & important as a medium-size first world country, (previous occupants include Leland Stanford, Ronald Reagan, & at least one other movie star), in a year with wind in the teabagging right's sails, against billionares and demon sheep, when you're as old as John McCain & a political history as wide-ranging and varied as Picasso. Governor Moonbeam! Pragmatic Mayor of Oakland! Who are you? Would you terribly mind running our fucked-up state again for a few years? If it's not inconvenient for you...
March 31, 2010
Politics: No reason to not yet declare neutrality in regards to Jerry Brown's gubernatorial candidacy
March 26, 2010
Ally Given, installment #5- yes! there's more! I haven't given up! et tu, Quill?
That summer, a black girl moves in next door and hangs purple curtains in her bedroom window. A couple years later Ally will think with wonder about those pale lilac curtains, after they've been replaced by (what she discovers through research at the public library to be) a large Jamaican flag.
That day in late June two black guys from a moving company with a neatly hand-painted truck unload the girl’s white bedroom furniture. The dresser, the pieces of her bedframe, the wardrobe are all inexpensive but clean and well cared-for. Girl furniture. At first, peeking down at the furniture from her own bedroom window as the men carry it in, joking, laughing, their muscled arms glistening with sweat, Ally thinks the girl must be younger than her- maybe 12, or even 11. A man who Ally supposes must be the girl’s father seems to be supervising the movers.
“Careful, man!”
he says when they scrape the arm of the sofa on the door-frame, pulling loose a piece of the clear plastic tarp that’s been taped almost entirely around each piece of furniture. The black girl’s father- the new neighbor- he has to have a name- is wearing khaki pants with a brown leather belt, gold buckle, and a black t-shirt, tucked in. Black sneakers and a gold wristwatch. The overall effect is of a man who likes his clothes to match and be clean, maybe especially when he is moves, or for any kind of special day.
At first Ally doesn’t see any woman, either the black girl or her mother, the new neighbor’s wife. Then she catches a glimpse of his wife, sitting in the cab of the moving truck. The pretty, tired face is alternately bored and wary.
“Baby, get out of the truck”
says the man, putting his face outside and below the window she has rolled down so she’ll have some air to breathe in there.
“Come see the house”
Even from so far away and up, Ally can see the woman roll her eyes towards the roof of the cab , then, unexpectedly, she turns those expertly lined eyes up to Ally’s window and fixes Ally in her gaze, without changing her facial expression at all, as if Ally doesn’t merit her exercising her facial muscles. Ally has no idea if her existence has really been registered in that moment, or what the woman might think about this white girl looking at her from a third floor window while the black man (her husband? Her daughter’s father?) also looks at her from outside the little fortress of the moving truck’s cab and asks her with increasing urgency and desire to please to open the door, to step down, to come inside, take her shoes off, and live here, in this house on a street where, as far as she can tell, no other black people live.
The woman says no, the man gives up with a defeated shrug and goes back to supervising the movers. Finally, after the last item has been carried inside, while the man is peeling off twenty-dollar bills from a roll he had in his back pocket to tip the movers, the woman opens the door of the moving truck cab and steps down. All by herself she walks slowly, behind the little huddle of men, up the steps and into her new home.
That night Ally hears Mom say “Murphy got pushed down the stairs again”. Dad says something Ally can’t hear. Murphy, she knows, is in his room next to hers. Dad has said things before about “those fuckin’ black kids” who beat Murphy up, and how he should just go to Catholic school. Why not Don Bosco? Or why not South Shore Vocational, since he’s gonna wind up a plumber or an electrician anyway. Or if he doesn’t want to make good money he can stay at Dorchester high, the only white kid in the whole place, and work at McDonalds. Who am I to tell him what to do.
Ally lies on her bed and listens to her parent’s voices coming from the heating vent in the floor . Murphy is 16 and everybody’s got plans for him. As for his plan for himself, who knows? He’s got a Puerto Rican girlfriend, she knows that, because Ashley saw him with her at Ashmont Station. She might not be Puerto Rican. She’s probably Dominican. What if Murphy married a Dominican girl, and they had a half-Dominican baby. Would Dad be mad about the half-Dominican baby? All babies are cute. It’s not like it’s the baby’s fault that its mother is some pretty Dominican girl from Blue Hill Ave. whose brothers are drug dealers and who probably has a tattoo of a giant crucifix on her back and doesn’t own any underwear except thongs. Ally rolls over on her stomach. She stares at the spot on the wall under the windowsill, and then out the window at the lilac-colored curtains, faintly lit from behind, as if by a nightlight.. It’s the last thing she really, truly looks at before she falls asleep.
March 16, 2010
"He's not the Messiah! He's a very naughty boy!"
From the Huffington Post:Raj Patel, the author of the recent book "The Value of Nothing," has experienced a bizarre incarnation of the "Colbert Bump" after appearing on "The Colbert Report" in January.
That cult was definitely unwise to make Stephen Colbert into their John the Baptist. As a side note, I accidentally wandered into a venue where Benjamin Creme was speaking a few years ago, and I found him to be one of the most boring cult leaders I can imagine. This whole situation eerily reminds me of Monty Python's The Life of Brian, including similarities between the advice that Brian gives after he's chosen & Raj Patel's message.
Patel has apparently been discovered by a religious group called "Share International" which awaits the second coming of Buddha in the form of a Messiah they call "Maitreya." The group's religious leader, Benjamin Creme, identified the Maitreya as having been born in 1972, traveled to London from India in 1977, being dark-skinned, and having a stutter. After Raj Patel came on "The Colbert Report," and was described in an article as having briefly stuttered, Creme officially declared that Patel was the group's Messiah.
Patel spoke with Stephen Colbert last night over the phone about his recent Messiah-hood. He called the whole idea "entirely bogus," especially considering his strongly-held belief that we shouldn't rely on religious leaders to make decisions for us, but to think for ourselves. In "The Value of Nothing," Patel urges people to think about the true costs of the things we purchase, and take concrete steps towards changing the world.Brian: Look, you've got it all wrong. You don't need to follow me. You don't need to follow anybody! You've got to think for yourselves! You're all individuals!
The Crowd (in unision): Yes! We are all individuals!
| The Colbert Report | Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c | |||
| I Can't Believe It's Not Buddha - Raj Patel | ||||
| ||||
And further similarities:
Brian: I'm not the Messiah! Will you please listen? I am not the Messiah, do you understand? Honestly!
Girl: Only the true Messiah denies His divinity.
Brian: What? Well, what sort of chance does that give me? All right! I am the Messiah!
Followers: He is! He is the Messiah!
Brian: Now, fuck off!
[silence]
Arthur: How shall we fuck off, O Lord?
Apologies: Explanation for the Furlough
Sorry again for the occasional furlough of this blog - - - between a newly busy work schedule, a slow-as-Exodus computer, and working with the Lewis Carroll Society of North America, I haven't been able to post anything here. But we'll return on an ass with palm branches soon!
Speaking of the LCSNA, our "Far-Flung" blogging efforts therein have MOVED to be fully integrated to their main website: www.lewiscarroll.org/blog. Add this feed to your blog readers, &c: www.lewiscarroll.org/feed. And please follow the Far-Flung twitter @AliceAmerica.
Yesterday, I conducted Twitter interview with the illustrator of the stick figure version of Alice's Adventure's in Wonderland. (I recommend it as a medium for public conversations, keeping the questions & answers short, and possible for everyone to follow it live.) Here are some excerpts:
AliceAmerica We're about to have a Twitter conversation with@JamisonOdone, creator of Stickfiguratively Speaking.#AliceinWonderland #LewisCarroll
about 11 hours ago from web
jamisonodone @AliceAmerica ahoy!
about 11 hours ago from webAliceAmerica Hello @JamisonOdone This is the Lewis Carroll Society of North America's first ever interview conducted in 140 characters.
about 11 hours ago from web jamisonodone @AliceAmerica This is The Jamison Odone Society's first 140 character interview ever as well! Glad to take part:)
about 11 hours ago from webAliceAmerica @JamisonOdone WHO ARE YOU?
about 11 hours ago from webjamisonodone @AliceAmerica HI! I'm jamison odone. author and illustrator of children's books, raconteur and all around funny guy. Redsox fan, new dad...
about 11 hours ago from webAliceAmerica @JamisonOdone It looks a bit to us like your Caterpillar resembles your own drawings of yourself. Is he a deliberate self-portrait?
about 11 hours ago from webjamisonodone @AliceAmerica Yes he is. No reason exactly why I did that. Perhaps his glib wisdom is just something that I aspire to.
about 10 hours ago from web
March 03, 2010
Recent Mushroom Drawings
Blewits
Amanita pantherina
Not sure what these are...perhaps the gilled bolete?
freak mushroom with another mushroom growing out of it
and, for good measure, an ambiguously naughty picture
March 02, 2010
Department of Five Word Poems: xviii.
-F. Keith Wahle
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