Break time!

hip kitties Occupying

Kick out the Jams! Finally got that sucker in the mail, to a small literary publisher out West somewhere. They publish Pulitzer writers, among others, no genre fiction at all, just Lit’rature, so I’m not all that hopeful, but hey, you don’t ask, you don’t get. I thought some feedback from them would be a good thing. It got there two days under the deadline, after three months of solid, 5 to 10 hours a day work at the desk, struggling with my ego and delving into the depths of my much abused and harried soul. Viggo Mortensen’s new publishing company is my next unwitting victim. So..

Let us pray...

My blessed daughter, the editor par excellence witout whom I could not have done it. A poet in her own right;  she read me something she dashed off late last night {after our three hour Sopranos marathon) in the style of Neruda that was simply gorgeous. Her recent 15 page essay delineating the motivation behind her choice of major, Global Violence Against Women,  moved me to tears with its eloquence and candor. When I read what she writes my usual response is, “I don’t know why I bother, dear.” She has a way of seeing the wrong word, putting it right, and WAALAA! Perfect. It’s invaluable in life to have someone who  really gets what your’re getting at.

THIS IS HOW HAPPY I FELT ON TUESDAY after hitting SEND SUBMISSION.

So, now it’s deflation time, after a happy evening of  celebration. The invitees included Johnny Walker Black, a nice Spanish Tempranillo, a bit of this and that, and Twistin round the Tindo singin, “I’m too sexy for my shirt, too sexy for my skirt, to sexy for the.. other.. things,” A good writer once told me then that the BEST moment isn’t the day they want to sign you, it’s the day you send a finished product OUT, and he was right.

So I’m a bit restless. Love life remains elusive, although a cute guy did ask me out this week. For the moment I've declined. Kind of stuck at home as daughter needs my car, hers died. New project? The sequel? (Need to via a mehico for that) . A short story? such a long list I have going. Nah, just chill a little, catch up on filing and clean up laptop trash. I’ve picked up a little pleasant part time work, which helps with survival, and have time to get in touch with friends again. Plan late summer adventures. Time for films and such, two worth noting are : A Dangerous Method (with Viggo, sigh), about Jung and Freud's relationship and others, Jung is pretty much of a hypocritical ass, but the film is gorgeous, extremely well done; and my fave of the month: One Day. A must see, it's great. Perfect, in fact. Both high quality films one rarely sees  ces jours.

The news? Blech! These days I rely on others to bring newsworthy things to my attention. I download scholarly analysesof the world econ crisis for fun instead. Don't even have television, haven't for most of the last two years. And too often I find myself glancing at headlines, thinking, blahblahblah, politics as usual, nothing new there, ever. Except, unbelievably, this –

"Barack Obama declared Mitt Romney’s allegation that he had unleashed a 'prairie fire of debt' to be a “cow pie of distortion,”   hahahahahahaha!

Quel wit! Now that’s calling a spade a spade. By all means gives us more of this frank talk and less Washington blather. 

(When I was in Spain the lovely people of its southern regions told me the same thing, via!)

I find myself drawn more to bizarre incidents that strike me as symptomatic of the state of the nation. It seems clear that the Zombie Revolution is upon us, the details somewhat goulish. To wit:

A guy in Hackensack, NJ, (where else?) was in his home in the process of stabbing himself multiple times when the police arrived and, in defiance of their order to put down the knife AND a dose of pepper spray, proceeded to disembowel himself in front of the cops and throw his entrails at them. He’s in critical condition in hospital. A commenter on Facebook, (in a quip that would do Dorothy Parker proud) noted: Just goes to show, it takes guts to stand up to the cops. (Shameless, these young'uns.)

A female Israeli activist threw herself between a young Palestinian boy and Border Cop trying to arrest him for, apparently, being Palestinian In Public on Jerusalem Day. Courageous young woman.

There’s been a spate of body part deliveries lately (hands, feet and the like), to the conservative members of congress, perhaps in an effort to “bring home” the true cost and dire effects of conservatives like Paul Ryan’s austerity agenda as they go about trying to crush what’s left of the poor and middle classes. Apparently torsos have been delivered elsewhere too. I can’t help but think these are all somehow representative of a national zeitgeist (not to say hunger, both carnal and spiritual) no one in DC is talking about.

If you’re still with me, let’s move on to Burgeoning Global Revolution Movements.

The Maple Spring! Be still my heart! This generation of social consciences are everywhere on the globe in the streets, having taken their cue from the Arab spring they are stunning in their commitment and ardor and courage. Amazingly well organized, well-informed, wireless savvy par excellence, artful, and just plain good. It’s all on the web if you’re not a devotee of Democracy Now, check out the Occupy site. Smart, savvy and heartfelt. Powerful combination. And more power to ‘em.

The NATO summit demonstrations in Chicago blew me away, thousands out there standing up for what’s right, for a fairer and more moral society. One of the most moving sights was the war vets’ speeches before throwing their medals in the street in the direction of the well-cordoned NATO meeting spot. Heartbreaking video, one can’t help but admire their courage. 

And what of the courageous Afghan granny Terminator? See here. Some cojones. You go, Gran.

If the more fortunate women in the world tuned into to the suffering of their global family of sisters and brothers, including in our own country, there would finally be hell to pay for all the corporate warlords. The Taliban’s got nothing on these guys.

I’ve made a stab at doing my part with my book. Plan on doing more though, we’ll all have to if things are gonna change for the better, find our courage, that is.

On occasion, a picture is worth about 400,000 words, voices anyway. This is what Democracy looked like in Quebec last week. Cowards and fools will be those on the losing side of this one. Absolutely mindblowing photo of collective courage.. Pulitzer anyone?

Happy Mother's Day, ya'll.

     I woke up this morning and the first thing I did was wish my gorgeous, late mater a Happy Mother's Day. Thanks for bringin me into this world so I could get lost the blue sky and the glimmer of sunlight on the river yesterday. So I could know what it is to love with your whole being. Her favorite flowers were daisies, which says a lot about the kind of woman she was.

I recalled one May weekend eons ago (early 70s my best guess). My late sister Patti and I hitchhiked from exit 8A on the Jersey Turnpike (back then it was where you got on the TP from Princeton if you were headed south) to Washington, DC to surprise my mom with a visit on Mother's Day. Had Mom known in advance what her girls were up to, and by that I mean how two of her usually fairly broke, intrepid daughters were traveling, she would most definitely have objected, so of course we didn't say a word.

Anyway, Patti'd never hitched before, and I was a veteran of late 60s hitchhiking on the West coast, so she sort of sat on the sidelines while I stood there looking cocky,  "thumbling" a ride. I flagged down a tractor trailer and we spent a few minutes trying to get in the thing. P ended up in the awkward spot in the middle behind the two front seats, and I rode shotgun. Poor kid was hunched over the whole time. The guy was nice enough, not a crazy rapist or anything, and we attempted to chat him up about wife, kids, and all that. It's limited material for those with weak imaginations (no interesting family stories, for example). He was nice enough (enough for what?), but a full-blooded redneck when it came to politics. He would have been a Tea Party guy today, would later be FOB.

I can't recall which of us was signaling the other to keep her mouth shut (probably P as I was the radical in the family) as they guy went on about hippies and dope and all that. I remember P looking scared at me. We were both certainly feeling "cautious" about what we said. His rap was hard to listen to as it was majorly FOS, but we bit our tongues.. Like I said, nice enough. By the time we crossed into Pennsylvania, silence reined all the way to DC. He probably liked having some company though. I didn't ask about his mother, maybe I should have. He liked that we were going to see ours.

I can't imagine he let us off anywhere near Mom's in Arlington. This was before that snake pit of highways around DC that now exists. My guess is we took a bus from downtown somewhere. (I knew the DC buses like the back of my hand from my "collage" days). Of course Mom was horrified we'd hitchhiked, there we are insisting "nothing to it" while she's remembering some awful rape and mutilation she read about in the paper. But she was overjoyed to see us, and we loved her so. We had no gifts (early twenties, give us a break), we WERE the gift, and she appreciated that. God, we loved her so. My mother was the most forgiving person on the planet, next to maybe the Dalai Lama. The only person she had trouble forgiving was herself, and the one or two fellas who broke her heart. Even them she was kind to in action if not in thought. My folks were both like that.

I didn't have her for a lot of my life, but I adored my mother. We were good friends in the end. She was a beautiful soul, she taught me what love was, unconditional love. It's what moms are for. Ask the Dalai Lama.
                                                                   
                                                      Requiescat in pace

 Donald Dunn, the ultimate bass man, died in Japan at 70 years of age, in his sleep yesterday. Amazing player, perhaps the greatest R and B bassist of all time. Played bass on Soul Man, Respect and Green Onions for starters. Da funk don't git no bettah dan dat. RIP, fella. We'll see you at that big concert in the sky.