About a dozen years ago, give or take a year or two, a friend called me and asked if I’d like to go camping. Now camping isn’t one of my favorite things to do, I’m prone to what I’ve come to call the “Wet Bag Syndrome”. I might be camping someplace where it hasn’t rained for weeks yet, for some reason, my sleeping bag is always wet. And wet, when camping, means miserable. But upon hearing this invitation I didn’t hesitate for a moment. I immediately said yes.
The reason being that the invitation came from my friend, Chaz, who was, at the time living in Moab, Utah and working as the botanist for all the National Parks in the area including Arches and Canyonlands. I knew this would be an extraordinary experience.
We ended up in Canyonlands–in a part of the where no tourist is allowed and Park personal rarely goes. We had it to ourselves.
We climbed down into the canyon and hiked for miles, getting deeper and deeper into it, finally stopping to set up camp by a large, low, flat rock. This would be our base for the next few days. Days we filled by exploring side canyons, finding the skulls of long dead wild animals and searching out the pictographs of ancient tribes that had long since disappeared. These were exactly the extraordinary experiences I was expecting but the thing I’ll never forget, the thing that will go with me to my grave, is how we spent our nights.
Each night, after dinner, we’d all get up on that flat rock–still warm from the sun’s heat that it had absorbed–and lie on our backs, heads together, and look up into the night sky. Being so far out from Moab there was no light pollution, yet I remember never needing to turn on my flashlight, the light from above being so bright. The night sky became our canvas. Chaz told us where and how to identify the constellations and I’d dig into the ancient past and tell the myths associated with each of them.
…then it would start. First one…then another. Shooting star after shooting star. And these weren’t the tiny golden smudges we see in the skies over our cities like here in New York. These were huge with long flowing tails trailing behind. A golden shower of sparkles. It reminded me of when I was a kid and would light one of those sparklers and a moment after it would catch–flaring up with a whoosh–I’d toss it up into the night sky and watch as it came back to earth.
Watching shooting stars in the night skies above Canyonlands is something I’ll never forget.
A wonderful memory, but I never feared it would become more than that. Not an obsession. Never that. Not like what happened to Harvey Nininger that night in November 1923 when he stood on the corner of Euclid and Maxwell Streets in McPherson, Kansas and saw a piece of the sky falling to the earth and became obsessed with meteors and meteorites. The story of Harvey Nininger and so many other collectors and dreamers and so much more is in Chris Cokinos’s book The Fallen Sky: An Intimate History of Shooting Stars.
Chris Cokinos
Tonight (Thursday, 12/17 at 7 pm on 91.5 fm or streaming on www.gaepis.org) I interviewed Christopher Cokinos, author of The Fallen Sky: An Intimate History of Shooting Stars. 
Click here to reach The International Meteorite Collectors Association (IMCA Inc.). If you heard the interview this is the organization Chris referred to tonight.
In a few days time I hope to have a link to that interview posted here so you can listen to it.
In the meantime why not visit my Holiday Decorations blog. It’s loads of fun.
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It’s tough keeping up with all my blogs. I have a hard time doing it so I’ve no doubt everyone else who’s interested in them must feel the same way. Many of you might not know that I’ve started a fourth blog that has the uninspiring title: Holiday Decorations. While some feel it’s my best blog yet, I, like all parents, love all my “children” equally, though this has the position, like the Pope, of being “first among equals”. It was the idea of commenting on all the different holiday displays that lead me to blogging. Check it out. Doing it is almost more fun than one person should be allowed to have–legally.
But onto what I really want to talk about which is art and its relevance in the “real” world. This coming Tuesday night, December 8, 2009, at 8 pm, a group of people, poets mostly, will gather in Columbus Park in Stamford to mark Human Rights Day. It is being billed as: Poetry by Candlelight Human Rights Day 2009.
My friend, the poet and educator, Ralph Nazareth, who organized the event writes the following:
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the most translated document in history, starts with the momentous words, “All humans are born free and equal in dignity and rights.”
Sixty years later, this declaration is observed mainly in the breach. Imperialist designs, corporate greed, nationalist and religious fanaticism fuel poverty, hunger, terror, torture, murder and rape.
Raise your voices—against oppression, for human decency.
PoemAlley will lead area writers in this resistance reading. Come with a passion for justice and fire in the belly.
Please spread the news.
“Please spread the news”. So that’s what I’m doing. But…. But…I wonder…what is the poet’s voice worth against so many bombs, so much hate and greed and self interest and sheer exhaustion from the effort made in trying to be heard? Does it matter? Are we…are poets…relevant? I want to give a resounding “YES!” but hesitate. Didn’t Gandhi, though not a poet, but one man, make a difference? Didn’t he change the course of history? Yes, and there’s Martin Luther King, Jr. and countless others, including, more recently: Mr. Mandela. So why do I continue to hesitate? Why do I have such grave doubts in the “voice of the people”, the “voice of the poet”?
The Many Faces of Josh Harris
Maybe I hesitate because I’ve witnessed such over indulgence in the obsession displayed by so many artists. The “my art above all else” attitude is so destructive, so arrogant, so full of greed and self interest (am I repeating myself?). The best example of exposing this obsessiveness that I’ve seen lately is the masterful movie, a true gem of storytelling: “We Live in Public”. I saw it months ago and it’s haunted me ever since. Ondi Timoner, the film’s director/producer is a master storyteller and here she has two great stories to tell. The first story is the rise and fall and rise and fall of Josh Harris one of the early and true creative geniuses of the internet. Since his story coincides with the rise of the internet Ms. Timoner documents that as well. Brilliant. What angers me about Mr. Harris is how once his genius turns dark he doesn’t do anything to stop it from dragging all those around him down.
As I said I saw it months ago and it’s haunted me ever since but, strangely, I haven’t been able to write about it. Too many connections. Too many tree roots to stumble over if I’d launch into the deep forest of my own artistic obsessions. My own obsessions–period. Too many questions about the meaning and use of art. Hell, of life. I’ll stop here today but I’ll be re-visiting this theme over and over and over again. It’s too close to the bone right now.
So–three things: First, do come and raise your voice in support of Human Rights, this Tuesday night at 8 PM at Columbus Park (in front of Curley’s Diner, 62 West Park Place, Stamford, CT–where, if the weather is inclement we will convene), in Stamford, CT. Second, visit my newest blog: Holiday Decorations (Hell–visit ALL my blogs: Besides this one and the Holiday one, there’s also my goofy blog: “Things We Need (to Make it Thru the Day)” and “Just So…”, my photo blog). Finally, it is criminal that “We Live in Public” was not listed (along with “It Might Get Loud”) for Academy Award consideration; it might have made it easier to see if it had; but it is out there but, as with “It Might Get Loud”, you need to track it down.
And finally…really…I saw two very interesting, bordering on “Great”, films in the past three days. First, I saw the French movie: Il y a longtemps que je t’aime (I’ve Loved You so Long) directed by Philippe Claudel and starring Kristin Scott Thomas. Though there are some huge plot holes in the film, her performance is wonderful. And speaking of wonderful performances, the ones that director So Yong Kim gets out of then 7 year-old, Hee-yeon Kim, and 5 year-old, Song-hee Kim in Treeless Mountain are nothing less than brilliant. I watched this on DVD and it is worth watching two extras contained on it–the two little girls sitting in a park in Turkey talking to the director two years after the movie’s filming and the Q&A at New York’s Film Forum.
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Yiannis Ritsos was proposed for the Nobel Prize for Literature nine times–he never won. His great poem Epitaphios was burned at the foot of the Acropolis by the Metaxas regime. Tuberculosis and repressive regimes were his bêtes noires. Exile and confinement in prison camps or the hospital marked a large portion of his life. The tuberculosis that took away his mother and eldest brother when he was a child haunted his health for years. He spent many years in institutions getting it under control. His poetry and his lifelong relationship with the Communist party (he joined in 1931) resulted in confinement of another sort in 1948-52 and parts of 1967 through 1970. Some of that time was broken by more time spent in the hospital.
He’s been considered by many to be one of the great Greek poets of the 20th Century (along with Kostis Palamas, Giorgos Seferis, Odysseus Elytis and Cavafy); while others, like the French poet, Louis Aragon, thought him “one of the greatest, one of the most remarkable poets of our time”.
Despite the persecution, the illness, the hardship Ritsos published 117 books, including numerous plays and essays by the time he died on November 11, 1990.
Born, May 1, 1909, if still alive Yiannis Ritsos would have celebrated his 100th birthday this year. Since he’s not here to share this moment with us, I’ve invited Professor Peter Bien to speak about the poet and his work.
Professor Bien is a Professor of English and Comparative Literature, Emeritus, at Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire. He’s translated three of Kazantzakis’s novels plus Myrivilis’s LIFE IN THE TOMB.
He’s also translated Ritsos’s MOONLIGHT SONATA, PHILOCTETES, and the short poem “Peace.” He wrote the introduction to the Penguin collection of Ritsos’s poetry, plus critical studies of “Philoctetes” and “Moonlight Sonata.”
Besides translating Ritsos’s work he was a colleague–having visited Ritsos several times in Athens.
Professor Bien is also one of the author/editors for the book: A Century of Greek Poetry. This is an essential volume for anyone interested in modern Greek literature. The anthology is unique in its breadth– encompassing 109 poets and 456 poems. The original poem in Greek is on one side and the English translation on opposite pages.
Don’t forget to check out my photo blog: “Just So” and my other blog: “Things We Need (to make it thru the day)“
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I watched my mother die. Slowly. My mother died from lung cancer. My mother died from smoking.
It’s ten years ago now yet those last six months are as clear, as fresh in my mind, as if it was only ten months or ten days ago. I only bring it up because a friend of mine is a smoker and I want to do an intervention…of sorts. I won’t use her real name so let’s call her Elsie. Good, old-fashioned name. Rock solid name. Rock solid like my friend.
I was a bit shocked when I found out she smoked. When together at functions and she’d duck out from time to time I didn’t think much of it. A tiny bladder I figured, no big deal, I have a tiny bladder. Once in a while I’d catch a hint of cigarette smoke wafting off her, but it never set off the alarms. It should have. How many nights did my mother have to bribe me with the promise of a lamb dinner to get me to stop by for a visit? After dinner and a hand or two of cards, I’d leave and, as soon as I walked into my apartment, strip down, putting every stitch of clothing into plastic bags left by the door for this purpose, then I’d climb into the shower and scrub. And scrub.
The amazing thing is that both of my parents were heavy smokers and yet neither my sister or I ever smoked. You’d think after nearly 20 years of growing up in a smoke-filled house that I wouldn’t mind it. The opposite was true. Once I was out of the house the smell became repulsive. My sister was even more rabid about it than I.
As I grew up I watched as the tide turned. In the fifties and sixties you’d see people smoking everywhere. I watched an early James Bond movie the other night. Sean Connery so young, so lean, so debonair, so…smoking. Everyone in the movie’s smoking. I remember my parents going on bus trips with my father’s business colleagues and every one smoking. The few non-smokers were the distinct minority. Years later, in the eighties, after my parents retired, they began to travel for pleasure. It was a struggle for them. It wasn’t their age, nor was it the fact that they hadn’t travelled much when they were younger and this was all new to them–no, it was that they had suddenly become “the distinct minority”.
I always stood up for their rights as smokers. Though I was personally glad when restrictions on smoking made it easier for me to breath clean air, I never thought it was right that my parents, people who had been smoking since they were kids, who when they celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary probably had been smoking for nearly a decade more than that, were suddenly pariahs. I don’t like tyranny of any stripe. Even the tyranny of the greater good.
My mother was as tough as nails. When I was old enough that I didn’t need constant adult supervision she went back to work. I don’t remember making a fuss about it but I must have said something because in the back of my mind, to this very day, I know I learned how to cook, sew, wash my clothes–how to become self-reliant–because somewhere along the line she told me: If you’re hungry, learn how to cook; if you need your clothes clean before I can do a wash, learn how to wash them. Sewing was just something I picked up. I still thank her for that lesson. So it was particularly hard to watch as her toughness, her personality, her life slowly drained away during those last months. Hard to watch the chemo rip into her. To watch pain make her draw inward. To watch her, when heavily dosed with pain killers, do bizarre things that, after the drugs thinned, she denied, wondering why would make up such stories. It was hard to watch her deteriorate. To watch her die.
I wasn’t there for the final minutes. My father had all but pushed me out the door that night. There was an opening I needed to attend. I left my father the number of where I would be. “Call me…for any reason,” I’d said. As soon as I got to the gallery, forty minutes later, I stopped at the reception desk; “Oh, yes, Mr. Buschel, there was a call from your father. Let’s see…where did I put that note…?” By then I had turned and was heading toward the door, “Yes! …Mr. Buschel?”, he called after me, “Ah, it says…’It’s time to come home’.”
By the time I got back she was gone. I walked into my parent’s room and found her on her bed, curled nearly into the fetal position. There was nothing grand here. Nothing glorious. She was shriveled. Her body diminished. She was…dead.
I know smoking is harder to stop than quitting heroin. I know this. But Elsie now you know this. It is time to stop.
We’re still having fun FUN-raising! Get used to it. We’re doing it until the 15th. Tonight, though we don’t have anyone in the studio with us,
Amalia Goros and I will be featuring the music of Tereza. The big song from this disk is “Fly me to the Moon”. Written by Bart Howard in 1954 the song was first recorded by Kaye Ballard then covered by many other great artists including Johnny Mathis, Nat King Cole, Julie London, Patti Page, Doris Day. In 1969 (forgive me–a pun this good just can’t be ignored) it reached dizzying heights when astronaut Buzz Aldrin of Apollo 11 played the Frank Sinatra version as he walked on the moon. On July 20th of this year the 40th anniversary of the moon walk was celebrated at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum and to commemorate this historic event Diana Krall serenaded the three Apollo 11 astronauts with her version of the song.
In May 2003 Tereza released her version of this classic on the aptly titled Double cd: Fly Me To The Moon. It was catapulted into the public arena when Cutty Sark picked it for their TV ad campaign that year.
The disk we’re offering at the $100.00 pledge level has this and many other great songs by Tereza in both Greek and English. Though she grew up in New York her roots are Greek.
Click here to check out her video for “Akouse Me”.
So, while they last, call (718.204.8900) and pledge $100.00. Not only will you get this great disk you will also be supporting HPR (Hellenic Public Radio).
This is a veritable quickie! Tonight on Graffiti you will be confronted by the joys of fund-raising or as I call it: FUN-raising. But we also have in the studio with us (Anthoula Katsimatides from “Color Your Life” will be co-hosting tonight) Sergio Salvatore and Christos Rafalides.
They will be talking about their concert tomorrow night (Friday, October 30) at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall at 8 pm–and their new disk, “Dark Sand”.
Click here for a sample of what you can expect.
After the interview Sergio and Christos signed a copy of “Dark Sand” for Anthoula.
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One of the comments I got from a friend after he read my last entry was that I was beginning to sound old. I know this was written with at least part of his tongue stuck in his cheek…but not entirely. Let me assure him and everyone else that I am far from ready to pass the baton. In fact I can guarantee that when the time comes you’ll need to pry it from dead, cold fingers. As Winston Churchill wrote so eloquently long ago: Never give up, never, never give up.
Here’s just another example of something great that’s tucked in the “pipeline”. This one you’ll have to search for…or you can read the book, as I am.
This is one of those movies that the trailer made me want to see the film. In fact, it was due to the trailer that I picked up the book.
As a society we’ve, so often, hidden our problems from sight. Problems like the severely autistic. The children who for no reason throw violent, head-banging, screaming, tantrums; children who foul themselves; children who will not make contact with us and our world. Rowan Isaacson was one such child. Maybe not as bad as some, but bad enough to make his parents feel like outcasts because they chose to have their son live with them rather then be institutionalized.
As I watched the trailer for the film, it was revealed that the plan was to take Rowan to the only place in the world where Shamanism is still widely practiced: Mongolia.
You’re probably asking: Why Shamanism? Why “Horse Boy”? For those answers you’ll need to either visit the website, read the book or track down the movie.
When I saw the trailer I was plagued by two questions: Could I love someone so much that I’d drop everything and go on a quest that, no matter how irrational it seems, in my heart I know it might lead to them being healed? Is that madness or real love? There were no guarantees. No way of knowing the outcome.
There were two other things I wanted to know: When was the movie being released and does the library have the book on its shelves?
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10/21/09
You, who are on the road must have a code that you can live by.
And so become yourself because the past is just a good bye.
Teach your children well, their father’s hell did slowly go by,
And feed them on your dreams, the one they fix, the one you’ll know by.
Don’t you ever ask them why, if they told you, you would cry,
So just look at them and sigh and know they love you.
And you, of the tender years can’t know the fears that your elders grew by,
And so please help them with your youth, they seek the truth before they can die.
Teach your parents well, their children’s hell will slowly go by,
And feed them on your dreams, the one they fix,the one you’ll know by.
Don’t you ever ask them why, if they told you, you would cry,
So just look at them and sigh and know they love you.
Teach Your Children
Graham Nash
I’m feeling incredibly optimistic about the future today. I’m fortunate to have many friends who are in their 20‘s and when I think about the future in their hands I’m thrilled. As I said to one friend (my age) earlier today I’d give my left (choose an appropriate–or even, inappropriate–body part) to be around when the “20 somethings” turn 60, as I will at the end of February, 2010.
I marvel as I watch their fingers fly over the computer keyboard as they bring up interesting videos for me to watch, or bits of information that would have taken me HOURS in a library to find (if it was available at all) when I was their age.
Ah, “their age”. I think part of the problem my generation has with the future, at least those of my generation that harp on the fact that “their generation” can’t write, can’t sit still for more than 10 minutes (except in front of a computer screen), doesn’t know anything about WWII, or, heaven forbid, the “dark ages” before WWII, rests in the fact that like our parents (you remember those people we said we couldn’t trust because they were over 35) we’ve become “those people over 35”. Well over 35, I might add. I’m sure our parents thought we’d be a disaster because WE did dope, WE slept around, WE didn’t have the benefit of their years. Their experiences. Their trials and tribulations. And you know, maybe they were right. How have we, our generation, made the world better? Don’t get me wrong. IT IS BETTER! We’ve elected a black President. An utter impossibility only 20 years ago (and honestly, though I’ve been tracking Obama’s career for many years, I didn’t think America–or more accurately–Middle America–was ready to accept a black man for at least another four years). We have women in positions of authority something that would have been impossible 50 years ago. We also have a record number of people hungry. We can’t feed the world’s population–something we should easily be able to do. Well, maybe not “easily”, but something we were certainly capable of doing.
Maybe the two best things we’ve produced are the computer and the “20 something” generation that will make it “fly” so the world will be an even better place tomorrow.
By the by, I haven’t given up on my generation.
People try to put us d-down (Talkin’ ’bout my generation)
Just because we get around (Talkin’ ’bout my generation)
Things they do look awful c-c-cold (Talkin’ ’bout my generation)
I hope I die before I get old (Talkin’ ’bout my generation)
This is my generation
This is my generation, baby
Why don’t you all f-fade away (Talkin’ ’bout my generation)
And don’t try to dig what we all s-s-say (Talkin’ ’bout my generation)
I’m not trying to cause a big s-s-sensation (Talkin’ ’bout my generation)
I’m just talkin’ ’bout my g-g-g-generation (Talkin’ ’bout my generation)
This is my generation
This is my generation, baby
Why don’t you all f-fade away (Talkin’ ’bout my generation)
And don’t try to d-dig what we all s-s-say (Talkin’ ’bout my generation)
I’m not trying to cause a b-big s-s-sensation (Talkin’ ’bout my generation)
I’m just talkin’ ’bout my g-g-generation (Talkin’ ’bout my generation)
This is my generation
This is my generation, baby
People try to put us d-down (Talkin’ ’bout my generation)
Just because we g-g-get around (Talkin’ ’bout my generation)
Things they do look awful c-c-cold (Talkin’ ’bout my generation)
Yeah, I hope I die before I get old (Talkin’ ’bout my generation)
This is my generation
This is my generation, baby
My Generation
Pete Townshend
Here’s an example of our bright future: The Solar Decathlon.
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10/19/09
Folks,
I’m back. I haven’t disappeared off the face of the earth; I’ve been working on other projects including my two other blogs. “Just So”, my visual blog, you’ll find lots of my photos posted there, and “Things We Need (to make it thru the day)”--a quirky look at the world I live in.
FLASH!!!
I just got breaking news about the Handcart Ensemble’s production of The Odyssey. Here is the press release:
NEW YORK, October 18 — Due to sustained audience interest and enthusiastic reviews, Handcart Ensemble, in cooperation with THEATRES AT 45 BLEECKER STREET, will extend the off-Broadway run of ”Homer’s Odyssey: a Retelling by Simon Armitage” until October 25.
After October 25, the play may resume after a week’s hiatus, but a decision on this is pending as of this writing.
Hey, it’s not going to run forever. Before it eventually closes for good make sure you get down to see this incredible production of The Odyssey.
For more information check out the Handcart Ensemble’s website. Before the show opened I did an interview with the show’s director, Scott Reynolds. If you want to hear that interview click here.
My most recent “Graffiti” was a repeat of an interview I did with Gail Holst-Warhaft concerning her book of poetry “Penelope’s Confession”. It originally aired on November 22, 2007. November 22. Ring a bell?
I’ll be posting the audio of that repeat in the next few days.
10/18/09
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Beth Bernobich and “Medusa at Morning”
On Graffiti tonight Beth Bernobich and I talked about writing, Medusa, inspiration and many other things. For more about the program and Beth click here.
Also–don’t forget to check out my new Photo Blog.
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