what you do is what you will do

that's a wynton marsalis quote. aaron was reading his autobiography when he was in town this week. did you know duke ellington kept his band on the road for forty years? you know how much style that takes? and suit cleanings? ;) that was one big band. anyway, we dropped in on the koop benefit on easter evening where they were having a songwriters in the round with carolyn, shelly, guy, dan, and put together by koop and that lovely yoga instructor rocker wendy. i hadnt heard guy or dan before, or shelly or wendy neither. so delicious, so helpful, to hear players playin it. in the round. koop: stronger than dirt. go here to help them rebuild the station.





we got to lay down some music while he was here and since i'm like a piece of paper at the moment that was enough. and he sang too- its been awhile since ive heard his songs live. good brother. we got to have that rare thing comparing notes at the kitchen table-the road, band breakups, boyfriends, girlfriends, music the unholy mistress who wont let you go no matter how many times you leave.

you are the sunshine of my life

spring is here, on a good friday full moon.





(artist to be found here)



there's nothing for it but to celebrate.

the pondicherry zoo

have you read the life of pi by jann martel? there's no better reason than it is one of the greatest books written. its scope is leviathon.

in the author's note at the start of the book, he thanks the canadian council for the arts like this: "if we citizens do not support our artists, then we sacrifice our imagination on the altar of crude reality and end up believing in nothing and having worthless dreams."

take note of that, national endowment for the restricted arts.

if you make it through, you will be rewarded by part 3, in which a brilliant interview will make you see stars and suddenly you will be better if you were worse before.

nut'n, honey

weather. it does a body good.

gold in the hills

former secretary of state madeleine albright said: "there's a special place in hell for women who dont help other women."





im sure she said it in capital letters using the proper punctuation. i didnt read that in the new york times either.




i read it at a red light in traffic on 5th st on the side of my starbucks cup along with the rest of the starbucks-buying public who get their news with coffee.

changeover

i cant remember where i heard it first but ive always remembered this description of how folks boil up frogs. or maybe it was lobsters, i dont know, something awful but what i remember is that if you turn up the heat slowly, starting with tepid water, and then let it come to a boil, they dont realize theyre being boiled until its too late.

thats how it has felt in a country so dependent on the media for truth and reality. or even just information.


(photo by alfred eisenstaedt, 1945)

i was reading something in the austin chronicle today about a film thats getting premiered at the film segment at south by. the editorial description, or the film bio that got submitted and reprinted, was about the town of crawford. it was a sleepy town, until bush moved there and then it began to enjoy a wakeup or something. but then when bush became unpopular "sometime after the invasion of iraq"- excuse me?

at what point does anyone fact check the revision of history? esp recent history? bush wasnt unpopular after the invasion of iraq. in fact, i heard nothing but reports of popularity polls up until a few minutes ago (ok a year, or around the time when someone else was introduced out of nowhere as a hopeful for the next election and he wasnt called a quack or had his family examined and he had apparently really deep pockets to run an unprecedented campaign in the most expensive competion yet-but who am i?)), when it became clear that a change was happening and then the mediamind got cleverer. really, like a cockroach.

do you remember when travel changed into what it is now, where you do everything but a pole dance to get through security? and anyone talking about what was happening looked fearful that theyd be considered unamerican? does anyone remember those tiny little dvds that were supposed to be the next big thing and if you just bought a dvd player in the bigger size well just forget it, you were goin to have to replace it and all your movie library? (just asking, that was just an alzeimer's quiz ;)

this happens with every changeup as far as i can see: a change is looming and the wheel that before was spinning endless popularity reports and cnn special editions of bush defending himself now instead find a way to absorb itself into an acceptable format in order to co-opt it and take it over.

did anyone else notice that suddenly the entire internet was owned by barack obama the week of primaries? who knew he had the cash? oh yeah, he didnt. so who did? im not even faulting obama; maybe his choice of who he does business with, but its damned sinister. and now to read that bush was unpopular after the invasion is really intolerable- like, um, hello?

if no one remembers what just happened, and we move quickly off into next things at this rate, nothing ever really happened or ever will. its all just fancy. reversible. collective fantasy. actually its a kind of drug to induce a pacifying stupor in place of thinking, which, if i were a cockroach, id patent.

that's entrainment!

entrain verb [ trans. ]

1 (of a current or fluid) incorporate and sweep along in its flow.

• cause or bring about as a consequence : the triumph of a revolution was measured in terms of the social revision it entrained.

2 Biology (of a rhythm or something that varies rhythmically) cause (another) gradually to fall into synchronism with it.

• [ intrans. ] ( entrain to) fall into synchronism with (something) in such a way.





DERIVATIVES
entrainment noun
ORIGIN mid 16th cent.(in the sense [bring on as a consequence] ): from French entraîner, from en- ‘in’ + traîner ‘to drag.’

(also the name of a song on van morrison's record which comes out soon....)

photo here

texas town hall, austin

hillary wins texas

so, are we glad about the outcome? is it what you were hoping for? ;) wonder what shep would say....

addendum, 9:02 pm

i went down the street to the caucus. ;) man, that's cool to write. so ok, i went down the street to the caucus and had to get a slice of pizza because i didnt know how long it would be, this caucus. never been to a caucus before.

across the street from the pizza place, cars were gathering and driving slowly up the street looking for parking spots. there was a man holding up a sign which i didnt read because i could hear him just fine. he was shouting: the time has come! the time for barack is now! over and over. it was nice. he didnt look at me; he assumed i was on the other side: i was a white woman, he a black man.

inside there were a number of older black folks who needed to have chairs for the wait. there was a young white mom with a year-old on her back. why am i mentioning colors? and ages? 'cause thats what was there, at the caucus. i cant tell you how nice it was to be in such a mix of neighborhood: the older, delicate folks, man! now they know how to vote ;)

the rep came in and announced to the very calm but at the end of a workday crowd that he'd been rep for 5 years and never seen a turnout like this. apparently the line just for the caucus not the vote, now snaked around the corner. they were guestimating about 500 people or so.

all i can tell you, world-europe, asia, everywhere- if you think americans are made of one thing, that our officials represent us completely, you are a-fooled. just like if i said all germans are nazis, every white south african racist, and all one kind only for it's "own", ridiculous. i showed people the same lines, where to write down first and last names, and street address and zip, and that long number thing, certification #, and candidate. i showed those same lines to older black women and men, young hispanic women with their moms, white middle aged men, young guys black, white, asian hispanic, and white women. in fact, the person who handed me a leaflet when i arrived for hillary (dont forget to vote for hillary, he said) was a young black man. they all forgave me what i was, same as i did them. ifyouknowwhatimean.

i had stood in line while waiting to write down my name and cast my second vote and then roped myself into the empty chair next to a wild-eyed woman who looked panicked at her solo gig at the only hillary table in the room. there was a young black girl who put her hands to her face and said quietly, just dont crucify me, as she looked over at the enormous crowd of obama supporters. dont be silly, i told her, you are a voter. but we all knew how she felt. pariah is how, like when you do anything without the populace on your side. like voting for hillary clinton in that room tonight.

in fact, what i mainly felt was: happy to be in the endless bosom of endless family of human beings. thats right, i said bosom. urgent just to be counted and happy just to be there.

afterwards the crowd moved outside to wait for the delegate nominations, and me and wild-eyes stayed inside to count up our table's votes. i left after that, but the feeling was high, and the tv was reporting in increments while the counties were phoning in.

have you read sleep of prisoners by christopher fry? there's a quote i kept thinking of:

"thank god our time is now!"

actually it goes like this:

"dark and cold we may be,
but this is no winter now.
the frozen misery of centuries
breaks, cracks, begins to move;
the thunder is the thunder of the floes,
the thaw, the flood, the upstart Spring.
thank god our time is now
when wrong comes up to face us everywhere,
never to leave us till we take
the longest stride of soul men ever took.
affairs are now soul size.
the enterprise is
exploration into god.
where are you making for?
it takes so many years to wake,
but will you wake, for pity's sake?"

tonight i was proud of this country. im not a nationalist, or a party affiliate, or really any kind of ist at all. i dont like the coercion of freedoms, subtle or not, and most of all, i dont like the cynical manipulation of human feelings to rouse or cause people to act in what they think is freedom until the feeling subsides and whats left is confusion and a feeling of being manipulated. i dont like that. like the goddamned war that weve all just lived through, even if we never were in iraq. any war, or most.

shep of course would disapprove:

um, hello?

oh, hey shep. i see youre speaking in italics now too.

jenn. this is serious. you have completely lost your sense of humor.

oh i know. i have. its gone. thats your fault.

come again?

really. ever since you died nothings funny anymore and i dont know how to laugh.

??

oh whatever snoopy.

??!

ok, scooby-doo.

better. look, i dont care what you do, but get a sense of humor. you look awful. so serious.

look. dont you die and then think you can walk back in and criticize me and steal my whole italics thing. its your damn fault anyway! why did you do it? dont you see whats happened? everythings a fucking mess, and its your fault.

look. im sorry. i didnt mean to die i just did. and now you have to figure it out. PLEASE youre scaring me. and, jenn? BOR-ing.

shep, just shut up. shut up. i dont care.

come with me. come here, step outside.

but-

come on.

o god.

[brb]

austin votes

the polling place around the corner from my place was packed with people trying to jam themselves into this tiny i-dont-know-what, but they were voting. big time. obama picthas everywhere. he takes a good photograph, that fella.



apparently the polling places are under-staffed so are at risk for shut-downs, if they dont find people to staff em. i got asked to 'judge' the voting (i think that means you sit and take the crowd through it all or something), only they asked me to sit in on the republican side-which i thought was very democratic of them. if the place gets shut down for primaries, it gets shut down for both sides alike; nobody wins. very groovy proposition, it had fair play all over it.





early votes closed on friday, and i went over to the county courthouse just so i could pass the capitol building (im hugely in love with it, its very sexy) and put my 2 cents in. did you know there are only two sides in this primary? all the independents jumped on too late to get on the ballot so it was only this or that. i thought it would be a good thing to do on leap year day.





funny thing, democracy. funny funny thing. simple good idea, if it works out. i noticed that the machines we were voting on came from this company i forgot the name of but it was straight out of like that man of the year movie. hopefully without the glitch.





i like our country. i like how excited people are about having choice and saying something, being asked. it was a great idea. (ps downlow, the last above pic is juliet's favorite bldg in town. she thinks its hot. i think its not as hot as the capitol.)

in like lion

non carborundum illigitimati, part 2

reading mary oliver's dream work again. its just poetry so its different everytime.



opening old boxes this week i came across remnants of an old life, apparently mine. things i havent seen in a couple years or so, nothing so critical but the sort of stuff i keep: the t-shirt tag from running the los angeles marathon (#2449), an old metro card, postcards, photobooth pictures (the real kind), chinese fortunes that i agreed with, ticket stubs, handwritten notes. little evidences.







weird. really weird, time and all.