June 3 2020 - Unfinished "The Dead Are Notoriously Hard to Organize"

This is a  poem under construction ... written in response to the prompt "The dead are notoriously hard to satisfy" a line from the introduction to Jack Spicer's book After Lorca. 

I admit, that this was from a Zoom session and I either misheard or mis-remembered the prompt, as you'll see from the first line. I suspect Jack Spicer wouldn't mind.

* * * * * *. * * * * * * * * * * *

The dead are notoriously hard to organize - even if they are regimented into rectangular

boxes, oriented in mostly the same direction, all at about the same six-foot depth.

The dead are notoriously hard to organize; they no longer listen to any moral

authority.  They are the moral authority, fixed in time, immutable now.

The dead are notoriously hard to satisfy, too -- what gifts appease them, what songs mollify them?

Escapees of the vibrational world stuck on the other side of the veil, no longer bound by space-time, no longer in need of quarks or boson-particles.

The dead are notoriously hard to pacify: they are always hungry. They rattle cages we can't feel; they roll down stairs for the hell of it; they cavort and caper in defiance of all the laws of gravity, of science, of belief.

The dead are notoriously hard to reach. Do they no longer want the attentions of this world or do they crave them too much?

June 2, 2020 - Protests continue - from Flint Michigan

My friend Barry sent me this email and the link below.

tue   2 jun 2020   12:27pm

i am listening to here and now on pbs, an interview with the police chief of flint, michigan, chris swanson, who, with his officers, put down their batons and joined the protest march there and calmed it all down.  he said he wished it had been a strategic decision but it was not, it was in the moment, from his heart, with the fear mounting.  he put down his baton, went into the crowd and grabbed one of the leaders and gave him a big hug, saying in reference to derek chauvin in minneapolis, "that is not us."  he asked the leader to call that with his loudspeaker.  then he asked the crowd what was next.  they said, "Walk with us.," and that's what the police did.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/31/us/flint-sheriff-protestors-camden-police-ferguson.html?auth=login-email&login=email

Michigan Sheriff Walks with Protestors

June 1st, 2020 - Monday.

Doesn't even feel like June. It feels like different territory.

The country is coming apart at the seams again, like 1968 -- and we're not confident that it can be knitted back together, this time. The work to be done to repair the damage is overwhelming. But we have to do it.

Drumpf took a call from Putin last week and then came out with all that "dominate them" verbiage re the protestors to the governors. And then that ridiculous, disgusting photo-op ploy walking over to the Episcopal Church, waving the Bible like a box of cereal. Having peaceful protestors shoved out of the way with tear gas and orders.  What a frigging jerk. Can't wait to vote him and his cronies O.U.T.

Parks in Marin will begin to open this week, Pt Reyes, included!!! YAY!!  Social Distancing rules, masks, not all trails open, some loop trails are going one-way, for now. One person at a time in the bathrooms. Wow.  Eager to go, though! Scheduling a hike out at Drake's Estero as we speak... a week from Friday, maybe? yes yes yes yes yes yes.

May 31, 2020 - Interlude: Bird's Nest and RadioLab; Dispatch 6: Strange Times

So, we took a walk around the levee and I found this nest, lying on the ground under a bush, coyote mint bush, I think. For some reason, I didn't carry it with me but left it on one of the larger bushes, thinking to pick it up in the afternoon. But it was gone. Someone else prized it more than I did, another walker, maybe a coyote, maybe raven's tore it apart.  It's certainly a prize. A prize that got away.

Don't know what kind of nest it is -- oriole? flycatcher? vireo? I have a post up on iNaturalist in hopes some kind soul will ID it.

But if you're looking for a writing prompt, write about nests. What's in them, who loves them, how they are made. As part of a story, a poem, a lyric essay, a short-short essay.  Or use the word nest in three different ways or forms  (noun, verb, etc) in a freewrite of about 250 - 500 words.

Meanwhile, here's this  fascinating discussion:

RadioLab: Dispatch 6: Strange Times 

It's about time we talked about our changed perceptions of time in the Era of the Coronavirus. Why it is both fast and slow at the very same time?  Jad Abumrad talks with resesarch scientist Mark Denison who has been studying coronaviruses for 30 years -- and the world is finally taking big interest in his work. And then Jad speaks with Andrea Prouser what it's like to work in a BSL3 lab and how time functions when working with viruses.

After the break,  Jad  takes a walk with his son in the woods and they end up talking about Cow Time. No spoilers nere - go check it out. But if you know RadioLab, you'll understand why I am still thinking about this particular walk in the woods. 

May 30 2020 Saturday Pandemic In Place: Trevor Noah on Broken Contract.

Every day feels like Saturday in quarantine, so why should this Saturday be special?

Maybe only so we can mark the weeks that whoosh past us -- at half-speed. It's a contradictory sense of time.  So few ways to measure it, without the usual M-F work schedule, without the 9-5 work pattern to the day. And yet, time marches on ceaselessly, each moment another degree that the earth rotates on its axis, towards the night side, towards the dawn.

Things happening so fast, it's difficult to keep track of it all. So these posts might resemble notes with links to important voices more than anything else, as the protests continue, as the anger and rage seek to find a way forward, while the leadership from the White House seeks only to blame. But why expect anything else from this failed presidency? Drumpf occupies the White House but he is far from a leader. He's in it for himself and himself only, imho. He's not even concerned with the Republican Party, except that they be loyal to him. Can't wait to Vote. Him. Out.  And his damn cronies, the denizens of the swamp of his own creation.

This is a good synopsis by Heather Cox Richardson (May 30 2020) of the chaos and confusion roiled up by Barr and Dumpfity, amidst the rise of protests.

Trevor Noah's piece about the broken social contract for black Americans. An important piece of the puzzle.

https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/may-30-2020?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&utm_source=copy

May 29, Friday SIP Chronicles - BLM

--- under construction.  Looking for some lost links.

May 28, 2020 Thursday SIP Journals - Rumble Strip, Voices of the Pandemic & BLM, Minneapolis Burning

....  from the podcast RumbleStrip

Our Show Seven, Voices of the Pandemic.

I find this podcast to be so well-crafted,  with compelling stories of a specific place and time in Vermont. Her seven stories titled Voices from the Pandemic, a compilation of audio-diaries of what it's been like during the quarantine, draw upon her audience from around the world, pulling us into what is already memory.  We hear from France and Spain and New York and Toronto and Scotland and South Africa and Texas and California and Vermont, too, of course; we hear pots and pans and clapping, the heartbreak of loss and loneliness, the triumph of getting through another day in an apartment with young children. I listen to them for the sounds, the stories, the moments captured of this time we all share.

And from there, we step right into the upheaval and protests stemming from the George Floyd murder in Minneapolis on Monday, Memorial Day, May 25th. The video of the death shot from a bystander and posted on social media showed stark contradictions with the report the officers filed - and sparked horrified outrage around the world. The utter callousness of police officer Derek Chauvin when Floyd could no longer be a threat, even as the onlookers urge the officer to ease up. The lack of intervention by the fellow officers as Floyd repeatedly says "I can't breathe." And the still body of George Floyd, who had called for his mother as he lay dying. Who will ever forget that? 

Tonight, a police station in Minneapolis is burning. Black Lives Matter protests are everywhere today. I step further back into memory, to the riots of the sixties, the burning of downtowns, the frustrations and anger with our nation's  racism  spilling out everywhere. The callous disregard for its consequences that spills over into today.

https://www.rumblestripvermont.com/episodes/

May 27, Weds - Shelter in Place Journals.

Oikology on Display

Indulging in the practice of oikology* and tidying up my office, I created this small tableaux of random objects. It sure looks like a gathering of friends, from back in the day of the Time Before.

*The science of oikology, according to Alie Ward of my favorite podcast Ologies, is the science of the home, of house-keeping, or tidying up. See the episode here.

The heat broke this afternoon; we could feel the fog-kissed air rolling over from the water.

The Day.

Birds warble outside the open window,  air breathing in and out through a thin white curtain. The extreme heat has fled, leaving us bruised and gasping, grateful for each puff of air, each tiny breezelet, each set of trills from the exuberant mockingbird running though its repeating notes, wheeka wheeeka weaka whheek; whee whooeee whooee whoeee, chittering in-between. Sun glazes the back wall of the house, bouncing off sliding glass doors. Overhead, Canada geese honk their way back to the marsh. A grace has suffused the evening, a blessing of survival, an exultation of breath.

Earlier,  I had seen pelicans high in the morning sky, a long wheeling flock of them large, black chevrons on the wingtips, stark against brilliant white bodies. Twenty or thirty, a kaleidoscope of pelicans, in a twirl against blue. And then they straightened out, some flying off in small groups to the east and north, seeking the water treatment ponds, but most, the majority, falling into a stately line and flying due west, toward the coast, over the shoulder of  Mt Tam, onward to where we yearn to go, the ocean, stiff briny breezes, gritty sand, the pound of the waves rising and breaking along the shore.  Not yet, not yet. We hold our peace, we hold our breath, waiting, still.

May 26, 2020 - Tuesday Mail-In Ballots & Tracking. SIP Chronicles.

From Politico.org:

Alex PADILLA, ON MSNBC, noted that California is "rapidly expanding" its ballot tracking system — called "Where's My Ballot?" — to allow voters to see their ballot through the mail delivery process. Voters can receive text, email or phone calls when the ballot has been received and counted. The idea is "transparency, accountability and confidence in the process." Up to 31 counties now have the system, and more are on the way for the November election, his office said. Padilla tweeted: "The president is intentionally spreading false information about vote by mail and blatantly trying to suppress the vote."

quoted from Politico.org

So  I signed up for this BallotTrax thing. I LIKE it. Can't wait to track my ballot this November!

It is so obvious that Drumf is trying to lay the groundwork to declare any election fraudulent in which he loses.  But we're watching him and his cronies like a hawk.

I mean, the race in California District 25 where the Democrat Christy Smith lost to Republican Mike Garcia used mail-in ballots, was that fraudulent? Should it be recounted? I thought not. 

There is no guarantee that one candidate over another is favored with mail-in ballots. A more honest way to address this would be for Republicans to invest in getting Republicans to use mail-in ballots.

There is no reason to discount mail-in ballots -- unless you are already trying to cast doubt on the process and the future result. Which strikes me as tantamount to admitting the deck is stacked against you?

***************

Yesterday, on Memorial Day, in Minneapolis, George Floyd was murdered by a cop kneeling on his neck for 8 minutes. WTF? Video posted on Facebook sparks outrage. 

May 25, 2020 - SIP Chronicles - An Incalculable Loss

An Incalculable Loss

from Sunday's NYT -- 1,000 names of the U.S. fallen in this wave of the pandemic, which is only about 1/10 of the lost lives so far. We honor them on this Memorial, when we can not gather to memorialize any of our dead, whether soldier or civilian.  ~ LK

Remembering the 100,000 Lives Lost to Coronavirus in America

As the U.S. reached a grim milestone in the outbreak, The New York Times gathered names of the dead and memories of their lives from obituaries across the country.

Meanwhile, Trump went golfing.

Link to Front page of New York Times, May 24 2020

May 24, Sunday SIP Chronicles - Great Reading! Stanely Tucci's Life in Quarantine

Stanely Tucci's Life In Quarantine 
https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2020/05/stanley-tuccis-life-quarantine/611557/

Cooking Your Way Through the Pandemic

An hour-by-hour account—with recipes

Stanley Tucci

May 15, 2020

May 23, 2020 - Saturday - a few captured thoughts. SIP Chroncles.

We emerge from of our half-hibernation,  to find the national scene as screwy as ever - if not more so. Drumpf's delay and refusal to address the pandemic in timely fashion has cost, at a conservative estimate, 36,000 lives.  Out of the almost 100,000 deaths so far, that's about a third of the deaths that could have been prevented.  A third. He has blood on his hands. And now he's trying to blame the WHO. Give me a friggin' break.

Drumpf is such a big baby that he can't wear a mask?  - Pelosi's "petulant child" is far too kind. I see that there's been some more calling out  among politicians on both sides of the aisle lately - which makes me wonder if the folks in DC can smell his fear, his weakness; they know he's going down, going to lose. Dear Goddess, I sure hope so.

For a solid take on the Vote By Mail kerfluffle, see Heather Cox Richardson's Letter to An American My name is Jocelyn Benson,from May 20, 2020.  That man can't get one thing right, can't even  use a woman's name. It's all smoke and mirrors with him, manipulation of thought and facts.

So obvious that Drumpf is planning to dispute the election if he loses, contending voter fraud and using these baseless accusations to s]defend himself. But we'd suspect it was voter fraud if he wins. So either way, November is going to be one ugly month.