March 3, 2003 B
"Listening"
Julia spent a good hour haggling with some service representative only to be told they must have the code # on the disk. But the disk is at the repair shop. Aiiii-i-i-i-i!
But grateful I am for the comforts of music. Karen Matheson is entertaining me with her Dreaming Sea. It's been awhile since I've listened to this one, and all its freshness has returned while still retaining the depth learned from the earlier listenings.
I am not greatly driven this evening. I've mostly surfed favorite spots not visited in a while and wrote some email. I noted with curiousity this quote at a favorite site:
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Diverting the internal traffic between the Writer as Angel of Light and the Writer as Hustler is that scribbling child in a grown-up body wondering if anybody is listening. ----Herbert Gold |
He has it right, he does. It rings true with this 'scribbler'.
His eloquence with that statement made me wonder who this Herbert Gold was. It took several clicks to find out. He was born in 1924, in Cleveland, Ohio. He spent some time in Haiti in the 50's and now lives in San Franscisco. He was friends for awhile with Allen Ginsberg. He's written twenty novels, as well as innumerable short stories, essays, memoirs, and magazine articles. He won the Cleveland Arts Prize for Literature in 1987.
I gather people have been 'listening' to him, even though I have not heard of him until now.
March 5, 2003
"Heady Brew"
Mardi Gras is the last opportunity for revelry and indulgence in food and drink before the forty day abstinence of Lent. The term 'Mardi Gras' is French for Fat Tuesday.
''The date of Mardi Gras varies from year to year, always falling between February 3 and March 9. Although Mardi Gras refers to a specific day, the term often encompasses a much longer period of celebrations leading up to Mardi Gras Day. The Carnival season is marked by spectacular parades featuring floats, pageants, elaborate costumes, masked balls, and dancing in the streets.The New Orleans traditions grew in an additive fashion. ''In 1857 a group calling itself The Mystik Krewe of Comus staged the first modern Mardi Gras parade, a torchlit nighttime procession of floats illustrating themes from classical mythology and literature.''''Some scholars have noted similarities between modern Mardi Gras celebrations and Lupercalia, a fertility festival held each February in ancient Rome. However, modern Carnival traditions developed in Europe during the Middle Ages (5th century to the 15th century) as part of the ritual calendar of the Roman Catholic Church.''
After a brief interruption of the American Civil War (1861-1865), the festivals expanded. ''The Krewe of Rex, organized in 1872, pioneered many innovations that became defining features of New Orleans Mardi Gras. Rex established the tradition of crowning a King of Carnival, selected the Carnival colors, and adopted the song ''If Ever I Cease to Love'' as a Mardi Gras anthem.''
Just when and why the colors were chosen isn't known, but two decades after they began,''the 1892 Rex parade, entitled "Symbolism of Colors", assigned the meanings ''justice, faith and power'' to PURPLE, GREEN AND GOLD, respectively.''
The song is an interesting one, too. Sample tid bits of the silly lyrics are:
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It was relatively late in the chronology, in Mardi Gras 1921, when Rex began the idea of all maskers tossing the beads and trinkets that became expected features of every parade. At first the beads were made of Czechoslovakian glass, but the beads got to be expensive and difficult to get after this country was invaded in 1968, so afterwards inexpensive plastic beads have been used.
(Much of this information came from "Mardi Gras," Microsoft® Encarta® Online Encyclopedia 2003 [http://encarta.msn.com © 1997-2003 Microsoft Corporation.] and from the Rex Organization's website.)
All of this new knowledge gives an added background flavor to the environment from which I understand produced not just one Romantic Gothic novelist, Anne Rice, but another named Poppy Z. Brite, whose works I am not yet familiar with. It has to be an incredibly heady brew for developing and impressionable young minds.
Even Yuma held a small Mardi Gras celebration 'invoking the spirit of the New Orleans festivities' in Old Town last Friday, and from what I've read of those who went, they did have a merry and spirited time. Seems some had some 'spirits' within 'em, too, to warm them on that chilly night.
Now today is Wednesday, and I'll likely see a few foreheads with ash on them.
March 6, 2003
"Frustrated"
I trudged through my email, not answering anything much. I glanced through the lists, not answering anything much. I hate frustration. I love it when the words flow fast and easy. And I hate it when they don't.
I feel 'tuned in', 'plugged in', 'on', when I am the conduit for the poems, the stories, the mandalas, the drawings. But I feel flat, empty and bored when nothing is happening. It is this miserable state that keeps me always searching for the tiniest hint that might prove inspiring.
Thus, I went to a quote site in search of sage advice. I get the idea some aggressiveness and muscular effort might be necessary:
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So I should roll up my sleeves macho-style, go out there in the mind-field and kick ass?
I shall at least wear short sleeves, and carry a good set of binoculars. If I see something, I'll aim good.
March 7, 2003
"Shooting The Computer?"
So we have it on a different power strip, placing non-essential items on the bad one. Maybe it's the electrical outlet into which the whole thing is plugged that is the source of inconsistent signal. At any rate, the computer has been turned off, and we will only use it as necessary for scanning, downloading photos and making back up disks. Maybe we can keep it from further harm.
Yesterday afternoon I heard with amusement on the radio about the man who shot his computer. It had crashed once too often. George Doughty of Lafayette, Colorado set his Dell laptop on the floor four to six feet away from him and warned the customers of his Sportsman's Inn Bar and Restaurant to cover their ears.
The forty eight year old Doughty shot it four times, all bullets entered the computer, harming no one else. But he was still arrested anyway for 'felony menacing, reckless endangerment and the prohibited use of weapons'.
I laughed, wondering if that's what we should have done with our computer! We may yet think so!
I did, however, get all four scans finished before I went to bed last night.
There is Seb's aquiline profile:
Seb's schnozz
Sonya
Michael eyes you suspiciously
Goldie, Sebby, Michael, Livia, Sonya and Gwen
