NaPoWriMo PADI, Molly Fisk, poem prompts 2013 (not used)

4/1 PADI: write a new arrival poem. The new arrival could be a baby or a person. The new arrival might be a car or other piece of technology. Heck, the new arrival might be an idea or poem. (Btw, if you’re a new arrival to the site and this challenge, take a peak below about commenting.)

NaPoWriMo: write a poem in which each line except the last takes the form of a single, declarative sentence. Then, the final line should take the form of a question. With any luck, this will result in poems that have a sort of driving, reportorial tone, but with a powerful rhetorical finish.

Molly Fisk: April 1 prompt: Not another happy ending, I'm sick and tired of happy endings

30 Day Poetry Challenge: Write a short poem (less than 5 lines). Be sure to include at least two strong images. Don’t overthink it, just do it!

4/2   PADI:Two-for-Tuesday prompt. For those new to the challenge, you have the option of writing to the first prompt or the second prompt–or even both if you feel so inclined. Here they are:
Write a bright poem.
Write a dark poem.


NaPoWriMo: write a valediction. This is a poem of farewell. Perhaps the most famous one is John Donne’s A Valediction Forbidding Mourning, which turns the act of saying good-bye into a very tender love poem. But your poem could say “good-bye” (and maybe good riddance!) to anything or anyone. A good-bye to winter might be in order, for example. Or good-bye to the week-old easter eggs in your refrigerator. Light or serious, long or short, it’s up to you!


Molly Fisk: April 2 prompt: I still plan to write you a letter on growing up far from the desert.


30 Day Poetry Challenge: Write a poem on paper quickly without lifting your pen from the page. Post image if possible. No edits.



4/3  PADI: write a tentative poem. The poem could be about a tentative date, a tentative person, a tentative situation. The narrator could be tentative. The subject could be tentative.

NaPoWriMo: writing in ottava rima — an Italian form that, in English, usually takes the form of an eight-line stanza of iambic pentameter, with a rhyme scheme of a-b-a-b-a-b-c-c. The most famous poem in English that uses the ottava rima form is probably Byron’s Don Juan. If you haven’t read it, it’s wickedly funny! It’s really amazing how contemporary Byron’s language is — it’s like he’s your mean-girl friend just gossiping at you in verse. But unlike Byron, you don’t have to write an entire epic in ottava rima! Just eight lines will do for now. Happy writing! (I think this was the Day 8 poem... sigh)

Here's an orphan prompt instead: Seven Things I Will Not Think About in the Last Seconds of My Life.

Molly Fisk: April 3 prompt: That's not really happening is it?

30 Day Poetry Challenge: Write a poem to someone and share it with them.

4/4  PADI: take the phrase “Hold That (Blank),” replace the blank with a word or phrase, make the new phrase the title of your poem, and write the poem. Possible titles include “Hold That Thought,” “Hold That Space,” “Hold That Poem,” or whatever else holds your attention.

NaPoWriMo: write a poem with a title drawn from one of these spaceship names. Feel free to pick a genuine Banks, like the ones listed above, or to take one from the twitter. And if you think of your own Banks-like spaceship name title, feel free to use that! The poet Barbara Guest wrote an essay warning poets about starting from the title, but while I’ve found that a wonderful poem usually finds its right title, I’ve also found that the right title can easily lead to a wonderful poem!

Molly Fisk: April 4 prompt: "There is a knack to flying. You must throw yourself at the ground and miss." -- e.e. cummings

30 Day Poetry Challenge: Look to Craigslist, newspapers, Twitter, anywhere for unintentional poetry. Using the original text, punctuate and use line breaks to turn it into a poem.

4/6 PADI: Write a post poem. Post could be short for post office–or traditional mail. Post could be a wood or metal post. Or post could mean relate to words like postpone, post-punk, or whatever.

NaPoWriMo: write a sea shanty (or shantey, or chanty, or chantey — there’s a good deal of disagreement regarding the spelling!). Anyway, these are poems in the forms of songs, strongly rhymed and rhythmic, that sailors might sing while hauling on ropes and performing other sea-going labors. Probably the two most famous sea shanties are What Shall We Do With A Drunken Sailor? and Blow the Man Down. And what should your poem be about? Well, I suppose it could be about anything, although some nautical phrases tossed into the chorus would be good for keeping the sea in your shanty. Haul away, boys, haul away!

Molly Fisk: April 6 prompt: I never want to be too comfortable.

30 Day Poetry Challenge: Write a poem from Mars. Describe ordinary things in unfamiliar ways, as through the eyes of someone from another planet unfamiliar with our culture/objects/emotions.

4/7  PAD: write a comparison poem. The poem could compare one person with another, or it could compare one thing against itself. Or it could take a comparable direction

NaPoWriMo: take a walk. Make notes — mental or otherwise — on what you see on your walk, and incorporate these notes into your poem. A bit more serene and observational than yesterday, and hopefully a nice, calming poem to begin your weekend with.  They suggested using RhymeZone

Molly Fisk: April 13 prompt: Write an elegy for yourself.

And if that isn't enough check out 30 Day Poetry Challenge on Facebook

An Exquisite Corpse is a way of creating art from random pieces. Submit three words here: http://buff.ly/14XgQnD to be randomly drawn from a jumble and shared/posted by the 30dpc admins.  See this page for word list.

4/14PAD: write a sonnet. For those who are not familiar with the sonnet, it’s a 14-line poem that rhymes. Some contemporary sonnet-eers even ditch the rhymes and just write a 14-line poem. Go with whatever feels right.

NaPoWriMo: write a persona poem — that is, a poem in the voice of a particular person who isn’t you. But I’d like you to choose a very particular kind of person. How about a poem in the voice of a superhero (or a supervillain)? Comic book characters are very much like mythological characters — they tend to embody big-picture values or personality traits. Good or bad. Loyal or disloyal! (Heck — some comic book characters are mythologial characters — think of Thor). And like mythological characters, superheroes and supervillains let us tap into deep-seated cultural tropes. So go for it. Whether you identify with Batman, Robin or – gulp – the Joker, let’s hear your poems in another voice.

Molly Fisk: April 14 prompt: Waiting for inertia.

30 Day Poetry Challenge: Terza rima was created by Italian poet Dante in the late 13th century for his epic poem The Divine Comedy. It’s composed of “tercets woven into a rhyme scheme that requires the end-word of the second line in one tercet to supply the rhyme for the first and third lines in the following tercet.”

It’s sometimes considered too difficult to use this structure in English, but we're going to do it anyway! Today's challenge is to write a poem in terza rima. (You can read more about terza rima here: http://bit.ly/mzBCYi)

4/15  PAD: write an infested poem. There are many different infestations–from physical infestations to infestations of the heart and soul.

NaPoWriMo: write a pantun. Not a pantoum — though they are related. The pantun is a traditional Malay form, a style of which was later adapted into French and then English as the pantoum. A pantun consists of rhymed quatrains (abab), with 8-12 syllables per line. The first two lines of each quatrain aren’t meant to have a formal, logical link to the second two lines, although the two halves of each quatrain are supposed to have an imaginative or imagistic connection. Here’s an example:

I planted sweet-basil in mid-field.

Grown, it swarmed with ants,

I loved but am not loved,

I am all confused and helpless.*

The associative leap from the first couplet to the second allows for a great deal of surprise and also helps give the poems are very mysterious and lyrical quality. Try your hand at just one quatrain, or a bunch of them, and see how you do!

Molly Fisk: April 15 prompt: Hew paints crickets

30 Day Poetry Challenge Experiment with a poetic form. Break all the rules! Not sure where to start? Check out this list of forms:http://bit.ly/3JIt9K

4/16 take the phrase “Once Upon a (Blank),” replace the blank with a word or phrase, make the new phrase the title of your poem, and then, write your poem. Example titles could include: “Once Upon a Time,” “Once Upon a Moon,” or “Once Upon a Stage Accepting the Nobel Prize in Literature.” Hey, a poet can dream, right?

write a poem that reveals something. Maybe it’s something physical (like light revealing an intruder or pulling back a sheet to reveal a new car). Or maybe it’s something psychological, emotional, or spiritual. Today’s the day to reveal.

Lisa Cihlar thinks you should write an aubade (an aubade is a morning love song, or a song or poem about lovers separating at dawn) because she fell in love with this:

Verse Daily: Aubade with a Broken Neck by Traci Brimhall

4/17 write a “suspicious minds” poem. When I assembled these prompts more than a month ago, I considered this one of my more unusual (and more creative) prompts. Click here to see Elvis Presley perform this song. Anyway, I’m thinking there are a few ways to go with this prompt. One, write a poem in which the narrator is either suspicious of someone or is the actual one under suspicion. Two, write a poem that plays with repetition–as this song does. Three, write a poem that is a performance poem spectacular (as this song is here). Of course, you can always bend and blend the prompt as you see fit.

How to eavesdrop.

4/18   

PAD: take the phrase “I Am (blank),” replace the blank with a word or phrase, make the new phrase the title of your poem, and then, write your poem. Possible titles might include: “I Am Superman,” “I Am Wonder Woman,” “I Am Out of Nickels,” “I Am Running Low on Patience,” and so on

NaPoWriMo: write a poem that begins and ends with the same word. You could try for something in media res, that begins and ends with “and,” for example. Or maybe “if.” Or perhaps you could really challenge yourself and begin/end your poem with a six-dollar word like “antidisestablishmentarianism.” (Just kidding!) Whatever word you choose, I hope you have fun with it!

Molly Fisk: April 18 prompt: I've walked there picking mushrooms at the edge of dread" —from "What Kind of Times are These?" by Adrienne Rich

30 Day Poetry Challenge: What’s your favorite color? Jot down three adjectives that describe that color. What’s your favorite animal? Write three adjectives that describe that animal. What’s your favorite body of water (general or specific)? Jot down three adjectives that describe the feeling it evokes. Now, imagine yourself in a white room, no windows, no doors, no noise. Write down three adjectives that describe the feeling that evokes. Now, write a poem using all of your adjectives in any order

4/19 

PAD: write a burn poem. I actually wrote a poem titled “burn” earlier in this month’s challenge, so I’m going to have to think a little on this to avoid repeating what I’ve already written. However, burn can represent many things–from getting burned by a bad deal (or a friend) to feeling the burn when working out to physically burning from fires.

NaPoWriMo: Write a poem in the form of a personal ad!

Or, if you like, try any kind of want ad. Personal ads, though, do have a kind of poetry to them. The personal ads of the London Review of Books are particularly famous, and have even spawned a book. When I was younger, one of my favorite guilty pleasures was getting a copy of the local alternative newspaper and reading through the personal ads for (a) witty ones and (b) really horrible ones. One of my favorites was a witty one, which went something like this:

Antonymically Correct?

Ham-fisted, vindictive milquetoast seeks ineducable, filthy harridan to castigate, bore, and neglect.

Try and top that, if you like. (Oh, and by the way, the personal ad doesn’t actually have to be about you, of course. Feel free to invent every last thing about it).

Molly Fisk: April 19 prompt: How to control your dreams.

30 Day Poetry Challenge: Write a poem about something you hold sacred.

4/20  

PAD: write a beyond poem. The poem could be beyond human comprehension. It could be from the great beyond. It could be from beyond–another city, country, planet, solar system, dimension, etc. Don’t be afraid to go above and beyond with it.

NaPoWriMo: write a poem that uses at least five of the following words:

owl

generator

abscond

upwind

squander

clove

miraculous

dunderhead

cyclops

willowy

mercurial

seaweed

gutter

non-pareil

artillery

salt

curl

ego

rodomontade

elusive

twice

ghost

cheese

cowbird

truffle

svelte

quahog

bilious

Molly Fisk: April 20 prompt: Worth a Fortune Word of the Day: sibylline

30 Day Poetry Challenge: Write a short poem about change. (Please know that we'll be using these poems as part of tomorrow's prompt, so please consider this before posting them publicly.)

4/21  

PAD: write a senryu. A senryu is like a haiku with less restrictions and different subject matter. It’s a 3-line poem with a traditional 5/7/5 syllable (or sound) pattern, and the poem typically deals with the human condition. But that’s about all. No cutting words, seasonal words, or focus on nature. In fact, many people who claim to write haiku are already writing senryu.

NaPoWriMo: re-write Frank O’Hara’s Lines for the Fortune Cookies. When I was a kid, I found a fortune cookie recipe, and made the cookies, which were pretty good. But mostly I was attracted to the idea of writing the fortunes. Unfortunately (rimshot, here), I wrote such long ones that they were very difficult to fold up small enough to fit into the cookies! Hopefully, you won’t have that problem — after all, the ideal fortune is a one-liner, and one-liners thrive on a very poetic compactness of expression. This should be a good chance for all of us to practice that, and amusing to boot.

Molly Fisk: April 21 prompt: I gotta see a man about a chainsaw

30 Day Poetry Challenge: Modify someone else's poem posted from yesterday’s Creative Commons 2.0 part 1 prompt.

4/22 

PAD: write a complex poem. Complex is a complex word that can refer to mental state, apartments, difficulty of a situation, and so many other complex situations.

NaPoWriMo: Today is Earth Day. The first Earth Day was celebrated in 1970 and is now celebrated internationally. In honor of the occasion, I challenge you to write a poem in keeping with Earth Day — it could be a reflection on what’s growing in your garden, a modern pastoral, or a Marianne-Moore-style poem about an animal. Anything to do with the natural world is fair game. Happy writing!

Molly Fisk: April 22 prompt: 50 ways to cook a chicken

30 Day Poetry Challenge:“All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.” –Hemingway. Write a short poem that is also “truest sentence that you know.”

MORE POETRY PROMPTS

PAD poetry prompts 2016 (not used)

April Poetry Month prompts...2016

NaWriPoMo 2015  link
It's time for April Poem a Day! 2014 

November Poem a Day prompts 2013

APRIL POEM A DAY links 2013

NaPoWriMo PADI, Molly Fisk, poem prompts 2013 (not used)

NaPoWriMo poem prompts 2011 (not used) Nov

NaPoWriMo Prompts 2010 (not used)  Apr

APRIL POEM A DAY links

Most years I attempt to do the Poem a Day challenge, or, let's say, I have good intentions. The last solid April poetry writing month I had was in 2009! Otherwise, it's sporadic. 2010 wasn't bad. 2011 I boycotted, but made it up in Nov. Sort of.

Suddenly the month's half-gone (too many other deadlines—and taxes—and yes, I'm writing this in arrears, erm, advance), and I haven't put poems to paper, or cyber ink. This year I started on April 11th (I wrote a few bits in my head, then promptly forgot them). I got six poems done, It's a start.

OK, so I'm six poems behind. Thatcher's death took up a big chunk of my writing time—but I needed to banish that ghost, in case you're wondering what Thatcher is doing in the middle of this poetry run. Even if I fall off the wagon, I'll still kepp posting the poem prompts, in case you feel motivated. Meanwhile, it's a reminder to me to get back on the wagon.

With the best of intentions, I dutifully collected writing prompts from three sources. Then they got all jumbled up, so naturally, some of the prompts are out of order.  So much for that plan. I went with Molly's prompts as the guide, because she dates them. And they're mercifully short. But ultimately it doesn't matter because—however you choose to do it—the point is to write a poem a day. There is no test. Just the math = 30 poems.

So I'm lazy, but my eyeteeth are latched onto far horizons. I collect all three strains of prompts to either give myself three choices, or to write three poems a day. Not gonna happen—she said from experience.

However, I've found that the near impossible challenge of combining all three prompts, is so weird, so as to be of interest. Call it juxtaposition. Ultimately it'll be like Frank O'Hara's poem about oranges, Why I Am Not a Painter.

Everything here is really first draft. Make that 0.5 draft. Words to fill the assignment. The idea is to get it down in one to 5 minutes, and then endlessly revise some of them in May. So, feel free to use some of these prompts in any way you see fit.

I've posted four very different kinds of prompts, and yes, there are bound to be some overlaps, but interesting ones. That make 120 prompts total. I hope you'll join me. Tho I may be sporadic in my posting.

PAD: Robert Brewer's Writers' Digest a Poem a Day You can post your poems on his webpage. There's a chapbook contest at the end.

NaPoWriMo: National Poem Writing Month is an annual project where poets write a poem a day during April. NaPoWriMo, founded in 2003, is modeled after NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month. See the Wikipedia entry for NaPoWriMo!

Molly Fisk: as Herself, with Lisa Cihlar. If you're on Facebook, check out and Like Molly Fisk - Writer, Teacher, Speaker


See 30 Day Poetry Challenge on Facebook too. Robert Fontella provides most of the prompt ideas. You can post your poems there as well. Possible publication too. More info here on 30DPC.

Good luck!

STANDING SKY

When Babe Ruth stepped up to bat
It was as if the sky stood still
And the birds listened for the crack
And the ball flying among them
To distant solar horizons.

False CA Brown Recluse Spiders: they're Titotus, not Loxosceles

The soft squishy house spiders so common in Northern California, have a similar shape as true brown recluse spiders but they're fatter, their legs are also fatter, hairier, and they're more fragile. ergo, they're not brown recluses. But try and convince someone who's creamed the unfortunate spider to something resembling babyfood puree…

We used to call them violin spiders when we were kids. To go with the black widows who had little red violins on their tummies. We orchestrated stories that they were brown man widows. The male black widow is a stripy tan or gray‚ but also shiny like the lady spider who will eat him for post-coital lunch. So you don't see very many man widow spiders.

I don't know when we began to identify the faux brown recluses as true brown recluse spiders (Loxosceles reclusa) but it was sometime during the 1980s. Blame it on the hyperbole generated by the news media.

Black widows or Latrodectus—Wiki

What we tend to identify as brown recluses are not, in fact, brown recluses—though they have similar 6/2 eye structure. They're of the Titiotus persuasion. Actually these Titiotus bhoys have the 3 compound eyes plus one big hairy eyeball structure too. Hence the confusion.

A rather wan and pale Titiotus sp. from CA —Wiki

Grass Valley poet Molly Fisk posted a photo of a real brown recluse on her Facebook page. And I realized that what we've been ignorantly calling brown recluses are in fact, not. However, another name for brown recluse is—violin spider. This is one time I'm SO glad I was wrong about them. The things ya learn on FB. Unfortunately one woman took umbrage at my debunking of the brown recluse myth in California.

Brown Recluse spider, Loxosceles reclusa, has 6 eyes—Wiki

Let's say, when I suggested that it was a false ID, and provided links to many scientific papers on the false identification of brown recluses, her fangs came out. She lost her shit. I rarely defriend people on Facebook, or block them. But that's what was called for. Her vitriol was poisonous. What is is about social media where people can mouth off unsubstantiated drivel and expect NOT to be challenged?

Brown Recluse range—they don't spin webs or go outside. Spiderbytes

However, that said, apparently I am a delicious picnic for spiders: I've been chomped on by the best of them—many faux brown recluses, a black widow, possibly a woodbine spider—to dire results. So I don't stick around to ID them unless I have to. But I don't pulverize them on sight either.

That said, I did keep daddy-long-legs as pets. But they're not spiders, you knew that, right? Opiliones are an order of arachnids, aka harvestmen.

Here's a handy-dandy spider chart from Facebook (no one to credit). Note that the body shape seems to be a clue as to good spiders. Big butts are good. Rather than creaming or nuking that spider, take it outside. Please don't kill your house spiders. They're really beneficial creatures. Sadly, the harmless southern house spider, aka kukulcania, is often mistaken for a Brown recluse. They have hairy legs. None are in N. CA.

There are no populations of brown recluse spiders living in California. If you still don't believe me, read the highly entertaining  Myth of the Brown Recluse: Fact, Fear, and Loathing  by arachnologist Rick Vetter Department of Entomology, University of California, Riverside, CA.

Only a handful of specimens (less than 10) have ever been collected in California and usually there is some connection between the spider and a recent move or shipment from the Midwest...The brown recluse has been elevated to a major urban legend status very much like UFOs, Bigfoot and Elvis....I emphatically state THERE ARE NO BROWN RECLUSE SPIDERS LIVING IN CALIFORNIA.

Got that? Good.

Update 6/19: Just Googled Brown recluses, still no reports in CA! But maybe people are mislabeling our native SoCal desert recluse (Loxosceles deserta), as Brown recluses, but they only live in the eastern deserts and rarely bite.

There is a lost Chilean recluse colony in LA They can pack a wallop of a bite too, but they also rarely bite, you have to seriously threaten them. They're really big, and sometimes are called fiddleback spiders too. I guess that fiddle means don't mess with me!

Knee blues

Living the solitary life, icing the knee. Will there ever be light at the end of the tunnel? My knee is improving daily. Today is not one of those days. Neil is still in Scotland, so I’m going all this alone. Solitary confinement. Life striped down to the bare essentials. I had physical therapy on Tuesday and then did too much yesterday, too—though it wasn't all that much. But I was knackered. Been trying to sneak around w/o crutches or cane. I don’t get very far. And I’m not going to take up ballroom dancing any time soon. I did 2 miles on the stationery bike at #1 tension. Breakthrough. Weenie stats. Knee is now killing me. But it is improving. Ibuprofen is my friend. And ice. Especially ice.

Pi

PI

Pi r square.
Pi r not. Pi r round.
U r square...
Square root of Pi is cake.
Don't be so constantpated.
You can't square a circle.
Way too radius.
It's circumferenstantial evidence.
Don't be irrational.
Integeresting. Reductio ad absurdum.
Why yes, I'd like 3.14 pieces of Pi.
Let them eat random numbered cakes.

3/14/13

I injured my knee...

I did something to my knee. Other than uncontrollable copious tears, ice, ibuprofen, arnica and Topricin, what else to do? I ate some of my frozen peas (and corn—what was I thinking?) so I ziplocked the remainder of them and have the bag strapped to my elevated knee. Excruciating to put any weight on it. Only way I can hobble is with a patella strap. Meniscus damage? Dislocated patella?  Bursa is puffed on inside joint. Reading up on it now. Pain is unbelievable.

Funny ligament noises. Like knee trying to pop back into place. It's taken about a week to declare itself and to get to this state. I've been ignoring it. There was no specific pinpoint of pain. Now it's painful at the inner joint where the tibia and femur meet. Sounds like MCL sprain or tear along the inner joint line of the knee. Or it's a torn meniscus. I'm leaning toward that one.

Driving (clutch) is excruciating. Waiting until I can take more ibu. Called the clinic-closed for weekend. Urgent care in Fremont! Too far to go. Counting the minutes until the next round of ibuprofen. Someone wants to know why I’m not popping Vicodin. Then I'd be barfing on the far wall. I can't take synthetic opiates. Can you spell projectile vomiting? And that's just the floor show. It gets worse.

My knee improved in the shower, it seems to prefer heat, but I did ice it too. At first, it was excruciating. If I straighten my leg and flex my toes up, heel down, then I can walk on it. No bending allowed. Cane too. If it spasms, ditto. Contract toes up (no ballet moves!) I can bend it to 45* (almost). I can only hold toes flexed for so long. Getting rather good at odd isolated moves—those years of dance when I was young...good old psoas for lifting. Other leg to lift or reposition leg. Very glad to be limber right now. I look like an odd stork, when I move—everything is an economy of movement. Every move is premeditated. Pain is a quick teacher. I was terrified of being busted by my grannie, so I hid all my injuries.

What I've learned: brooms make good crutches—especially when you’ve left the crutches on the other side of the room.Dirt on the floor really bothers me when I can't move fast. Broom crutch is doubly useful. Canes need leashes—they tend to get away. Scrunchies make good leashes. With one hand, it's hard to carry plates, cups. Jamjar glasses, and an apron to stash gell icepack and food is good. In other words, I look ridiculous. I also need milk. Don't know if I can fathom trying to drive to the store. Clearly not working today. Or tomorrow. I’m doing this alone, Neil is still in Scotland.

I carefully plan all forays to the kitchen & loo. Scope of my limited world horizon. What I don't get is how easily I become tired. I guess I'm masking the pain so I don't feel it and it's a lot of work. Sh*ty, forgot to take ibuprofin this AM and it's time for round 2. Playing catch up with da meds. My knee feels like it's made of lead. Heavy, hard to bend.

I have to hobble into work & file a report, Will try & go to Dr tomorrow, and yes, I'd love to borrow some crutches, if they don't give me some. The locked knee with toe to ceiling trick is like a natural immobilizing splint. So that suggests meniscus. Phew! Doable. Shouldn't have ignored the pain Friday. We tomboys who grew up with the no pain, no gain attitude don't know when to say Uncle! When I was a child, I broke my left arm and never told anyone—nut until I was being X-rayed after an accident in 1997, that I knew about it. Stoic, stiff upper lip, and all that.

I hadn't counted on exhaustion from pain. Working up courage to go to Urgent Care Clinic. A two-hour wait. Reading opportunity! Nearly finished me off for the day to go to work & get the paperwork. Can only escape pain by keeping knee locked and toes up—as if to do leg lifts. Counter intuitive. Otherwise it's excruciating pain. Waiting for bu to kick in before I attempt to drive. Hard to bend leg to get into the car!

Catch-22. Morning chores made me nauseous (from pain), and I can't take any ibuprofin until I eat—and the thought of eating is—ugh. So the pain continues. First time ice has felt good on the knee. Today I can begin to use heat. Dr gave me cool icepack and heating pad with velcro! OK, that's done.

One week later...

Yup, Kevin McConnell was right. Torn meniscus. I'm in love with Polar Frost gel. Swelling is going down—knee looks almost normal. But I'm not supposed to put any weight on it. No can do. Too disorganized on two crutches. But one crutch is good, even better than the cane—which I favored until today.

I am now able to hobble around the house sans crutches, but need to bring them on outings. The PT taped my knee—amazingly simple process—an x around the kneecap on either side mimics the tendons/ligaments and adds stabilization to the knee. It looks like I'm wearing a bizarre form of painter's masking tape art! Just call me the Hobbl-it.

Facebook request for baseball terminology

I was in need of baseball metaphors, similes and prosaic sayings for a poetry class (funded by the SF Jr Giants). I'd been making baseball word cards all night but am running out of ideas. So I posted on Facebook and it was still garnering comments eleven days later. I kept some of the best comments.

Fire ants in my pants

When I was about five or six, I went for an afternoon hike Across the Way, that is, across the road to the neighbor's summer place, in Forest Knolls. We hiked  up the hill, with my grannie and my favorite cousin in the lead. We were standing admiring the view, looking out across the Stone's pasture, and Mt. Barnabe with its long shadows at dusk, when something began pinching me. I screamed and pulled my flannel plaid lined jeans off, my cousin Ricky sniggering away—I was standing on an anthill of angry red fire ants.

added, rev. 2/18

Facebook post about tapdancing in stores

 Facebook thread with Donna Champion:

Mo Hurley Remember when we tap danced in the Sebastopol Safeway and everyone looking around for all that clattering? A flamenco dancer came into the store the other day and danced in front of my cheese booth. It was a scream. Customers joined in, clapping, saying Olé. Do you remember the flamenco guitarist Enrique Sanchez? She is his blind musician friend Augustine's wife. I met them when I was producing the art/poetry events at the InterCultural Center at SSU. Didn't we book them for Garbo's too? RRWG?

Donna Champion Ah, yes, tap dancing in Safeway. I'd almost forgotten that. I think my most obscure tap experience was in a convalescent home. I think they enjoyed the show. One old man yelled out, "Look at the girlies!" I don't remember any flamenco dancers/musicians performing for the Guild, but anything was possible in those days--not too many restrictions on what we called "poetry & prose." 

Mo Hurley Great floor acoustics. Was it the bowling alley? No that was farther down Hwy 116.

Donna Champion Well, it was a DANCE floor! I thought it used to be a bowling alley and they converted it into Garbo's.Yeah, it wasn't a full-sized bowling alley, but it made a pretty good nightclub.

Mo Hurley Ninepins! Donna, did you give me those old school flamenco button-up boots with the hobnail heel taps? I was telling Augustine's wife I needed to be a contortionist to get them buttoned up. Didn't wear them often! I remember those too, Sistha! And the Guamanian slips that I wore as dresses and how your mother was so scandalized.

Donna Champion I think I gave you a pair of sexy black heels with ankle straps and buttons on the sides.I just donated all of my old dance costumes to the local thrift store. I gave my tap shoes to my great-nieces years ago. **sigh** Life goes on....

Mo Hurley But you've ballet dances in the family now. Didn't Galena dance in the SF Nutcracker?

Donna Champion How did this conversation go from ants to tap shoes? They do come in handy for killing ants, I suppose.

Mo Hurley Curiouser and curiouser. You'd think this thread would be under the Rita Moreno post.

Donna Champion Yes, several ballerinas. Galina has hung up her toe shoes and teaches at City Ballet, the studio that she and Kenny own in SF. They're all in Moscow now with several of their students who are doing an internship with the Bolshoi. Connie's with them.

Mo Hurley I remember standing outside the Bolshoi, mid-winter, snow falling in feathers. Valera Stupachenko (remember him) sang there when he was famous. Ah, memory. The man I didn't marry.

When we got off topic with dance and romance, was the best bit of the thread.

DEAD ANTS!

Ants! Ants in the bathroom sink.
Ants cirrcling the drain.
Ants clinging to the toilet paper.
Ants scaling the heights of the toilet tank.
Ants storming the toilet seat. Ants!
Are they trying to get in my pants?
Dead ants! DeadantsDeadantsDeadants!
Now I am giggling like zee Inspector Clousou
and seeing pink panthers in my panth. Yeth.  
Peckish little meat ants from the Argentine.
I wondered why they were biting my thighs. 
Should I cover them in chocolate? Dance the tango?
One friend says sprinkle cinnamon on their trail, 
another friend says to use orange oil spray
so that the ants will lose their way.
Another suggests little ant motels with boric acid.
But now it smells like Christmas. 
They're pulling out all their little party hats,
inviting the neighbors. It's an ant rave.
So I nuked them with bleach.
Forlorn ants cut off from the mother trail, 
circle the stone hearts on my toilet tank lid. 
Mystery solved. I dumped old food down the loo, 
so the meat ants came marching in two by two.
 
added, rev. 2/18 

 

Maybe Even Dance Again

      Elegance is the only beauty that never fades. —Audrey Hepburn

Rita Moreno walked over to say hello to me at my sample booth today. She always makes a point of coming over to say hello and to visit. It's not just about sampling the cheese of the day. It's about the connection. Community. Except today I had finished early and was serving raspberry almond tarts. I said I was the queen of tarts.

Rita laughed. Nibbled on her sweet. Nice to see you, nice to SEE you, she always says in her little Carmen Miranda lilt. And she means it. Putting her hand over her heart. We always gaze deep into each other's eyes for a moment as if to fathom something profound but the words never come. Her kohl-rimmed eyes are cinnamon brown with green flecks like mine. The makeup suits her.

Hard to believe that Rita's 82. She always wears interesting hats. A wisp of chestnut hair streaked with gold framed her face—she'd just come from the hair salon. Marvelous describes her. In a word: she is elegant. She has a beauty that never fades.

The first time I met Rita, she looked like she was at death's door. Her husband had recently passed away. She was frail, barely mobile. Shopping was an effort. But today she walked unaided. Sans walker. Today the red shopping cart was her surrogate walker. But it was banished to the far side of the aisle. She carefully walked over to me unaided.

She said: See, I am off my walker, but I keep it it in the car just in case. She's living dangerously. Wow! The hip replacement surgery was a success.

Rita, the Hollywood goddess of dance, did a halting little two-step and said Look, I can walk again—maybe even dance again! She said, smiling, her arm leading with a slow spin. Now those are immortal words to live by.

She said, But the balance is not so good. With a dismissive wave of the hand, she tottered off pushing the red cart like red Ferrari, but she was a frail hummingbird. My heart in my throat.

My cheese booth at Trader Joe’s is like a village well. The Regulars come to visit me, to share their stories. I tell them I am a stationary object. I am a lighthouse. I stand at this one spot five days a week greeting people, picking up dropped threads of conversation.

New friends tell me old stories. I give them recipes, wine and cheese. It is a civilized bastion, an outpost in the midst of commerce where the qualities of terroir are invoked daily. I have many Regulars who come to visit without fail.

Blind Augustine's wife, the flamenco dancer, took off the neckscarf I was admiring and then danced with it in front of my cheese booth. Customers clapped, said Olé as we twirled our hands like pigeon wings in unison. In that moment, we realized that we knew each other from long ago via Enrique Sánchez, the flamenco guitarist. A gig I produced at Sonoma State University in the 1980s. Small world.

And  any (in)famous old friends always stop by to say hello and chat: Earl Kingston and Maxine Hong Kingston, Camille Dungy, and her daughter,  Al Young, Alastair Johnson—even Jerry Brown and his retinue. I once gave him a standing ovation for all my CAC arts grants. He said Where's the salmon? But Rita Moreno, by far, is my favorite Regular.

In my CAC poetry workshop at Mark West School, an exuberant kindergartner once threw his arms open wide and told me: If I were king of the universe, I'd dance for a living. Pure poetry on the hoof.

Today we celebrate a small victory. I give Rita another piece of raspberry tart. We measure the progress of recovery in small, ordinary increments. Today the dancer can walk again. Maybe even dance because dancing is still in her heart.

That sterling moment more than made up for yesterday's sour customer from hell: a 20-something blonde who shrieked at me, Youfuckingbitch! and stomped off, because I said: Please do me a favor, use the serving tray next time instead of my cutting board as it's a health code violation. I never even got to finish my sentence. I was too shocked to respond as I dumped the tray-full of cheese in the trash.

Such displaced rage—a tantrum over what? A piece of cheese? Wow. Not the first time this has happened. Chalk it up to bad parenting. The young woman was too impatient to wait for an older woman to get her sample first. At that moment, the customer becomes my friend, she became a Regular. She vouches for me, tells the manager what happened, then calls the 20-something A real bitch.

I tell my Regular the story about Rita Moreno. She is thrilled. Says Bless her heart. Bless her heart.

May that tart young woman who cursed me, grow old and wrinkled too soon in her fallow heart and may she never find the joylines to dance at the cheese booth in a supermarket when she's old enough to know better. But does it anyway.

Saami vs. Norse notes

The Saami tribes have suffered terribly at the hands of the Norse Scandinavians and Finns for centuries because they have no "superior" claim to the land. For the most part, they've been forced off their territory, or Sápmi. If anything, they've been marginalized and forced to adapt to Norse and Finnish culture(s) to the point of losing their own cultural identity.

It's not a question of who arrived first in Scandinavia as it's "pretty slippery" to peg the arrival of the ethnic Saami, aka Sami, Suomi, Lappi (FWIW, Lappi a pejorative Norse term), as they didn't have a written (historic) culture, and were marginalized early on by the Norse Scandinavians. However, they do predate the Scandinavian period. Period.

Like the Euskaldunak (Basque), the Caucasians—the Vainakh/Kavkas and Ossetians (Georgian; also the kingdom of Pern—now that's an isolate group!), the Kvens (Sami-Finns, different than Finnish Finns), even the Samoyeds (sounds like Sami, doesn't it?—but they split off the linguistic family tree very early, like the Ainu—Altaic/Uralic); however, they are/were Uralic speakers, not Indo-European. (Uralic = Urals; generally includes many Siberian cultures.)

The western Uralic branch, Finno-Urgic (toss in the Magyarok—the Hungarians) are different peoples—in many cases, they carry different genetic markers—literally—predominance of RH - factor. And revisionist thinking claiming that it's merely an "ethno-linguistic distinction" is not going to change that bloody fact.

An interesting aside, during the Plague/Black Death, many Norse died, the Sea Saami peoples did not—though they were living side by side.

Lost Particles of History

I am utterly enchanted with the intersection of archaeology, anthropology & linguistics. Blame it on my linguistics professor at Berkeley, or the fact that I studied Ancient, Early & Modern Irish (rather badly), as well as Medieval Welsh (also rather badly)—because I could. 

Or because I sat at the feet of the great folklorist-anthropologist, Dr. Alan Dundes. And of course, because, pots don't talk. 

On a more personal note, I am interested in the story of the underdog—not history written at the hands of the victor. Blame it on my well-read grannie who gave me a different, if not slanted, perspective of the world. 

Also, blame my high school biology teacher, Dr. Fatt, a Finnish marvel. And yes, se was also fat. She instilled in me, the quest for obscure biological tidbits. Ask me about stickelback fishes (her PhD thesis), or why Siamese cats have heat sensitive fur (and how to prove it.) Or the propensity of RH- bloodtypes in Finland. 

And why I see red when someone makes sweeping statements. My but-but-but button begins blinking. It's the lost particles of history that make the story go round. As to most favored wave-particle theory, well, I lean toward letting Schrodinger's cat out of the box! 

Indeed, how lovely it is to be (or not be) alive.

POST FEVER BABBLE

POST FEVER BABBLE

It's 12:24 AM. Can't sleep.
Do you know where your asteroid is? 
I want to know: What's its real name? 
and other meteorless questions 
like what famous lubricant did NASA invent?
No, Preparation H is not the right answer. 
Buzzz! Fail. It's WD-40! Yep. 40th time's a charm.
Chris Hadfield's singing on the final frontier again
and the asteroid's real name is 212DA14. 
Got that? Like I'll remember something that cozy.
NASA gave us Velcro and Postets. Not McGuyver.
I'm sure we can ductape something better together. 
Did you know that in space, tears don't fall? Yep.
Time to refund the space race. 
Who remembers Tang? Astronaut OJ.
We used to drink it mixed with Ripple. 
Don't mind me. Post-fever babble.
Again.

2/15/13

Watch as 2012 DA14 buzzes by

It's 11:24 AM. Do you know where your asteroid is? (What's its real name? and other less meteor questions like what famous lubricant did NASA invent?) No, Preparation H is not the right answer. Buzzz! Fail. It's WD-40! Yep. And the asteroid's name is 212DA14. I'm sure we can ductape something better together. NASA also brought us Tang, not McGuyver. Who remembers Tang? We used to drink it with Ripple. NASA also brought us Velcro and the stickiness of Postets. Time to refund the space race. Don't mind me. Post-fever babble.

Watch as 2012 DA14 buzzes by (that's not exactly a cuddly name.) http://goo.gl/cQ2fs


NASA also gave us Teflon and super-absorbant adult diapers.

 Tang - can you even still get that stuff?

I don't know about Tang, but an astronaut at MacExpo gave me frozen ice cream—Neopolitan, mind you. So very Italian. Or is it Spumoni. Who remembers spumoni? Who can even pronounce it? Think I'll have another Tang & Ripple.

That dread virus

That virus I've been beating back with a flyswatter the past couple of weeks finally got me. The 4-6 week plague that is going around surely is pl-ague-ing me! Whenever I was feeling a bit off color during the past month, I stayed in bed (when I could) for a day—it worked wonders—or it kept the virus more or less at bay. 

It nailed me once on Jan 20th, asserted conjugal visitation rights with an earache on the 30th. But now it's full-fledged headhold replete with nightsweats.
I manage to stave it off for so long—working too hard, no days off, & teaching. I gotta coach kids and emcee the POL event this afternoon.

"My candle burns at both ends, it will not last the night"...

Well, I made it through emceeing Poetry out Loud—Lawd know what I said during the filler moments between poems while being under the influence of double Sudafed and lattéd up into an adrenalin lather. I vaguely remember singing Frost's Whose woods these are I think I know (to the tune of Hernando's Hideaway)...to the audience.

Sneezing so hard, I'm leaving my tonsil on the ceiling. Now if only I had some tonsils. I think I sneezed them out ages ago. Had a rather unfortunate intersection with a sneeze and dinner.

You know you're sick when you fix a piece of salmon (favorite food) and only take two bites and pour the glass of wine back in the bottle. Funny how there's still room for the chocolate cake. Chocolate cake is medicinal.

Fever & sweats all night long. My grannie always said the sweats are good—means the fever's broken. Clammy days are here again. Didn't teach today–good call. Feel pretty run over by a mack truck. I hate to cancel work again, but I want to get over this one and not get a relapse. Wait, this is the relapse.

There are ten million times more viruses than stars in the universe.

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

Hamlet, scene v

Careful, Fortinbrtas is on his way.

MacExpo

I was so looking forward to going to MacExpo 2013. 

But my long day at the Social Media conference at Stanford the day before, wiped me out. It was a 12-hour day from door to door. I left before dawn, with the moon still up, and I arrived home well after sunset. First full moon of the year. 

Too much input. Too much time on the road, though Stanford's only 40 miles away. Commute home was classic. I hid out at Costco in Foster City for an hour.

The next day, I felt like I was run over by a tank—or maybe a Mack truck—so I stayed home thinking that at least I had two more days to attend MacExpo.

I won a coveted iFan pass from MacWorld, for tweeting—which meant I could attend all the MacExpo seminars and panels. I was pretty excited about attending MacExpo. I even took time off work to Make it So. Sore throat didn't help matters either. But hot tea did wonders.

Alas, Friday also had other plans for me. I awoke at 4:30 AM with the beginnings of an earache. Squeeze, twinge. Boom boom. Crackle crackle. It was nearly dawn before I fell back to sleep. So I didn't rush out the door until the crack of noon.

What I learned the hard way, was that when one has a budding earache, going down the 3.6 mile-long transbay BART tube at 135 feet below sea level, is a painful experience.

The lowest place in North America, Badwater, in Death Valley, is 282 feet below sea level. But you don't have the weight of the San Francisco Bay above your head and you're not whizzing along at 70 MPH down the rabbit hole.

Badwater

The idea of an underwater transbay tube along the bottom of San Francisco Bay was proposed in the 19th century by eccentric, some say he was mad as a hatter—Emperor Norton, the self-proclaimed "Emperor of these United States and Protector of Mexico." Norton, who abolished, congress, was literature's muse for many writers from Mark Twain, and Robert Louis Stevenson, to Neil Gaiman.

His Imperial Majesty Emperor Norton I, aka Joshua A Norton

The first transbay proposal was submitted by the builder of the Panama Canal in 1920—essentially the same plan BART used to build the world's longest and deepest sunken tunnel (in 1965-69, it opened in 1973). The tunnel withstood the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake which destroyed the Bay Bridge.

But I digress. Definitely canals were invoked. Perhaps not the palindrome: a man, a plan, a canal—Panama! I had to do careful snorkel snorts both descending to the bottom of the bay floor and ascending to the SF Embarcadero stop. The trick is to know when to pinch your nostrils and how hard to blow—too much pressure and you'll damage your eardrum.

My eustachian tubes were truly plugged so it was touch and go. I was constantly yawning and rotating my lower jaw like a donkey to keep them open.

When you equalize the pressure between the middle ear eustachian tubes and the atmosphere, whether by yawning or blowing your nose, there is an audible pop, or click, which can be heard by others. But then, everything sounds loud—including your own voice—until the canal closes again.

Nothing was as bad as the time I had a head cold in Cuzco and when the bus descended from the Andean pass above Cuzco into the Urubamba Valley, I was screaming in pain, and John had to coax the busdriver to stop at the overlook.

I took so many Sudafeds to relieve the pressure, my heart was beating fast as a hummingbird's. I took so many Sudafeds I would've tested positive for drugs. Hell, I wanted drugs, to obliterate the pain.

Of course I was already technically on Andean drugs on account of the high altitude. Coca leaves and rock lime weren't cutting it. But my teeth didn't hurt. I couldn't even feel them or my gums.

My left eardrum blew—there was blood on the pillow the next morning. Things sounded weird for a long time. Sometimes when I get into a noisy space, my eardrum beats its tympanum with every noise.

My right eardrum is scarred from when I was a child and had double earaches on Christmas Eve. It must've been pretty bad because the doctor came all the way from Point Reyes Station on Christmas Day replete with his little black doctor bag. That's the only time my grannie ever called the doctor to make a house call.

Now, the problem is, that I've cleared my passages—that I can hear everything far too well. And I do mean everything. Rustling paper is excruciating. Other people's iPod earbuds are too loud. People thoughtlessly rustling their swag bags during a seminar had me moving seats early and often just to escape the noise.

MacExpo staff gave me a Ricola to suck on—which helped a bit. But the ambient noise in the hall was wearing my reserves down. Then there were all the Mac fans meandering in thundering herds and droves to negotiate around. 

I managed to make two passes around the exhibit floor to see if I had missed anything. I got some great technical advice on SSD hard drives from OWC, my go-to online store. But they didn't have anything for sale.

Aside from the maddening crowds, on the show floor there were a whole lot of guitarists, vague, blurred incarnations of Jimi Hendrix trapped in bowels of a bad Xerox machine, licking their so-called chops at every intersection—ostensibly showing off the latest music app or interface. ERG! 

Certainly the music toys were amazing—the musicians, not so much.

Of course I was looking forward to going to MacExpo on the final day as well, but today I feel so rotten, I think I'll pass. The only things I really wanted were a tiny iPhone speaker, and a bluetooth keyboard—and the prices weren't great. And I'm in no mood to actually listen to mini speaker performance, let alone, make a rational decision. I'm afraid I'd have at it with a flyswatter.

The swag was almost nonexistent. I would've liked getting my New York Times word portrait done but the line was too long yesterday and I'm not one for standing in line. Besides, it's not the same as back in the good old days, when Apple was part of the MacExpo matrix.

What happened to the delicious madness of MacExpo? Those magical Alice in Wonderland moments?

Most of the vendors were selling iPhone or iPad apps. I don't own either one. I played with some iPad drawing styluses, and a painting app. I prefer the real thing—pen, pencil. or pastel on paper. I drew a galaxy of star lilies as onlookers champed at the bit for their turn. Still, there was some amazing iPad and digital art at the art show.

There was very little software or hardware at MacExpo for the traditional Mac user to play with—other than offers from scanner and printer vendors who were touting their iOS compatibility horns. 

Yet the audience was jammed-packed with MacBook users. And no, they weren't just 50+ somethings. There were quite a few even older geezers present too. So much for the snide comment of one twenny-something to another about iOS apps, intended target audience—if you hafta ask—and rampant ageism. 

One young vendor asked why I was even attending the show since I didn't have iPhone or iPad—as if I was a Luddite. Other than the urge to smack him one, I too wondered why I was there. 

I'm not particularly interesting in owning an iPhone, or at least, not the hefty contract. I like my dumbphone's annual T-Mobile pay-as-you-go bill which costs me all of $200 a year. Can you say, hey big spender?

Besides, I can't even begin to read anything on the iPhone's tiny screen without going cross-eyed. Why would I want to surf on that? What I've noticed is that everyone's playing solitaire on their smartphones and tablets on BART. Wow. Think I'll stick to my Kindle for a while longer.

And I'm waiting for the iPad Retina to become available under Apple Refurbs before taking the plunge. Just because I keep elderly Macs up and running long past their expiration date, and I don't have an iOS gadget, doesn't mean I can't be savvy about the software. I was irritated, to say the least.

Swag levels are next to nil. The John Lennon Bus wasn't there either—they always had serious swag. Besides, they really put on a good show. Most of the vendors have tiny kiosks and stand around like it's a cocktail party. But no booze. No entertaining floor shows, not like in the good old days. 

Roxio wasn't there with their contests and funny prizes. I didn't see one of my favorite software developers, Roger Wagner who created the first graphic paint programs for Apple, and developed HyperStudio, used to run a mean Mac "pretzel bar" booth. The amazing conversations we'd have, and the people we'd meet, while hanging out with Roger as co-pilot.

Roger Wagner didn’t just read the first book on programming the Apple computer - he wrote it. —Steve Wozniak

The seminars I had access to were mostly focused around iOS apps. This year's MacExpo star was the iPhone. My other cellphone is a dumbphone. One seminar on iBook (iPad) authorship was geared toward the traditional Mac user—lots of great tips on both platforms. 

The travel panel was good too. The Hollywood director/author who kitted up his iPad with a monopod, a wide-angle lens and a camera light to take videos of the show, was enthusiastically vouching the merits of the iPad and iPhone for big filming projects. 

I attend MacExpo to see the innovation. MacExpo is a bit like a Maker Fair. There were a couple of cool projects in various stages of development. Many solar panels and even a water battery recharger. Myriad iPhone skins and kooky iPad cases—my favorite kickstarter project, from the guy whose booth was a green teardrop trailer‚ was a bungee cord with four clown noses attached to the corners of an iPad. Wavy Gravy on a trampoline came to mind.

I did manage to get to the iFixit seminar, which I liked so much I attended it twice. Few women in the repair panel audience. I got some technical advice on fixing my MacBookPro inverter light. They said, piecaecake! I'd already replaced the hard drive with an Other World Computing SSD Seagate hybrid drive and got fantastic boot times—17 seconds.

MacWorld senior editor Chris Breen was moderator of the second iFixit panel. There was a lot of discussion on keeping older technology alive as it's next to impossible to truly recycle them—whether dumbphone or iPod. 

The trace rare elements used to make smartphones are lost, and the sheer amount of "upstream" elements needed to make our toys and gadgets was enormous. The latest MacBooks and the iPads, with throwaway technology, are not good for recycling—you can't separate the batteries from the frame—they blow up! 

So, we were of a like mind, in keeping our components alive for a s long as possible. The iFixit guys were impressed that I kept my PPC iMac alive for so long, and said the power supply was suspect in those old iMacs. It was replaceable as long as the capacitors weren't bad. 

However, with that said, they all agreed that trying to resurrect my 2005 PPC iMac probably wasn't worth it as I can't upgrade the software past Tiger. Chris Breen said it had a good run. Catch and release.

It was good to catch up with Chris after the panel. I reminded him of how he once beaned me with a little MacWorld office kit—back in the day when MacExpo swag was good. He laughed and said, I was lucky—he broke some other guy's tooth. Maybe Chris wanted to be a baseball pitcher in another lifetime.

I'm not much of a starstruck fan, though I was wearing an iFan pass. I admire Chris's wit and his intellect as a writer. He always writes back when I have a technical question. We had a sweet good old days moment. Dite. Angels dancing on a pinhead.

A spontaneous Steve Jobs shrine appeared last night. Flowers, Weird Mac thingies, candles. Something I would've like to have seen. So at least Steve was invoked.

Today, the MacExpo event is closing with a drumming circle.

Think I'll pass on that one too.



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BLESS THE POETS

BLESS THE POETS

The coffee shop sent a double order by mistake. 

Wouldn't take it back, said to throw it away.
Since it was Sunday, we fed the homeless 
sleeping in Market Street doorways.
We gave them an abundance of bagels & coffee.
May I have some cream and sugar?
Perhaps a napkin, and a knife for the schmear? 
Those on the street kept asking us why.
Because we're poets! we said. That's why. 
That's when they said Bless the poets.
And truly we were blessed.

1/27/13

St. Peet’s and the homeless in Market St doorways

This morning we fed the homeless on Market St. extra doses of Noah's Bagels & Peet's coffee—they sent us an extra order for our poetry workshop by mistake. We were an early gathering of poets for Poetry in translation training workshop for PIO—Poetry Inside Out. Those living on the street kept asking why. Because we're poets! That's why, we said. They said Bless the poets. I was a coffee wench until we ran out of cups. We found a shopping cart chef— he had an entire kitchen on wheels— and gave a gallon of hot coffee, bagels and schmear to him to distribute. It was a near religious experience all round. We traded names.  Michael, who had severe palsy, nearly wept with joy. I spread cream cheese on his bagel and wrapped it for him as he couldn't do it himself. Poet-angels, they called us. But they were the ones shedding light. Was a time when my own mother was one of the fallen ones sleeping in Market Street doorways. When I recounted the story, my friend Lin Marie de Vincent said, Bess the poets. and those who share when they have extra. There’s enough to go around. Once again "Noah" made room on the ark. And St Peet(er) warmed the souls of the poor. Shalom.

My Science & nature writing

This must've been for a job query. No letter, just the links. I suppose I could add onto it.

Oystergate: Drake's Bay Oyster Farm loses lease

Hiking up Big Rock Ridge

Marin's Pastures of Plenty

STREAMSONG

Lagunitas Vernal Pools

Edgewood Preserve

Living Between Faultlines

WALKING ONION

Bobcat in Ojai backcounty

Save Baja's Cabo Pulmo Reef from Developers

Chilean Miners

RIP Chris Caswell, Bard

Chris Caswell's Facebook album, At the Gypsy Glen

Tuesday morning, I had a nagging feeling that someone I knew, a friend had died. I had a purple ribbon, a lost streamer from someone's funeral wreath I found blowing across a lawn, in my car for ages. I'm partial to purple. I had tossed it into the recycle box weeks ago, but it kept finding its way back out onto the floor.

So I picked the ribbon up off the floor and washed the mud off of it, trying not to think of graveyards, and hung it to dry on my Celtic music CD rack. it's just a ribbon, I said. Maybe I can reuse it. I felt a shock. Death wants it back. Stupid. Don't be superstitious, I said to myself. Someone walking on a grave, my inner voice said. It's just a purple satin ribbon, I said aloud. Nothing more. I will repurpose it, I said.

The day before, while at work, I felt suddenly and inexplicably sad. Body blows. Like a freight train had hit me. I was weak-kneed. I could barely get through my shift. I looked at the clock: 3 PM. 4 PM. I blamed a virus.

I remembered the dead: Boschka Layton came to mind. I told a co-worker how we shared the hospice and right before she died, and how I got so sick, so fast—bronchitis. Death can do that. Something about the past was haunting me. I didn't feel good, I went home early and cancelled my Tuesday morning class.

A restless night. I slept in late—something I never do. I was haunted by dreams I couldn't remember. I didn't get the news until Tuesday that Chris Caswell died at his home on Monday, during the same time I was feeling the weight of death upon me, wondering who had died.

My grandmother always heard knocks at the door when someone died. Not me. Mercifully. Don't let birds come into the house, she said. It invites death in.

Old Tunes, New Licks

Because my partner, Neil O'Neill is a Celtic folksinger, my ad-hoc job is to sleuth out the provenance of traditional Scottish and Irish folksongs, collect variants, and to write the liner notes. What I've learned is that new song lyrics are often set to old tunes or melodies, and updated every generation, and that the song is a compilation of melody or tune, and lyrics (words). 

The ballad our family traditionally sings at every funeral, Danny Boy, is a melody from an old Irish air "discovered" by a sister-in-law in the goldmines of Colorado [what was she doing in the mines?], Londonderry Air (AKA "Air from County Derry" or "Derry Air"), with words written by a London barrister and lyricist in 1910—a prime example of melodic borrowing.

Frederic Weatherly gave the ancient Irish tune, updated with his new lyrics to Elsie Griffin, who made it one of the most popular songs in the new century (first record was made in 1915). So we tend to think of him as the author and composer of Danny Boy. But he didn't compose the melody of the song, just the lyrics. 

The story goes that the original air was collected from a blind fiddler by Jane Ross of Limavady in Northern Ireland, and published by musicologist and antiquarian, George Petrie in 1855, The Ancient Music of Ireland, by the Society for the Preservation and Publication of the Melodies of Ireland.

World famous song Danny Boy is taken from a melody composed by O’Cahan bard Rory Dall O’Cahan. The original version concerns the passing of the Chief Cooey-na-Gall whose death brought an end to a long line of O’Cahan chiefs in Northern Ireland. —Wiki

Folksingers have been swapping tunes and lyrics for eons—sometimes, in their travels, the bits get separated from each other—a muffled line becomes a mondegreen, oftentimes new songs arise from the ashes of the old.

Ye Highlands and ye Lowlands,
Oh, where hae ye been?
They hae slain the Earl O' Moray
And Lady Mondegreen.

So much for laying the poor old dead Earl of Moray down on the green. And what about Lady Mondegreen? She had some melons. A Cuban favorite: José can you see by the dawn's early light? Imagine a rainbow Hendrix: 'S'cuse me while I kiss this guy. Who knew that Kumbaya is really Come by Here—oh Lord.

Our family simply slaughters the lyrics to Háva Nagíla at weddings. Gawd only know what we're boisterously singing while mangling the Grapevine. (Mondegreens in Hebrew are called watermelons.) Malachy McCourt thought The Hail Mary rosary phrase "amongst women" was "a monk swimming", which became the title of his book. Neil, who was an altar boy in Scotland, thought the Latin mea culpea was "Mexican cowboy." OK, so maybe he was stretching it a bit.

Many Irish songs and melodies that traveled to the New World morphed into what we think of as American songs—sometimes with watermelon mondegreens intact.