déjà vu

History is Here and Now: a politically incorrect comment on current events

EXHIBIT June 3rd – 30th

With the rise of nationalism in the USA and all over the globe, there is a sense of déjà vu. There is a shared anxiety among millions across the globe that history is repeating itself, that we are witnessing an epic process of dehumanization, that we are living in a world that not only tolerates hate, segregation, atrocities, and genocides, but rather promotes those things. 

Therefore it is essential to bring back the collective historical memory of our brutal past – to remind ourselves that the abyss is not just a vague paranoid delusion, it is happening here and now.

The show will take advantage of the very well-researched public domain photographs of warzones, deportations, mass killings, and other atrocities. 

The visitor experience, although a bit uncomfortable, will be engaging and informative. The images will be integrated into a collage of past and present. Together they will form a four-walled landscape that will transform the Atlantic Works Gallery to a solemn space for remembrance, discussion, and reflection.

Gallery Hours, Fridays and Saturdays, 2:00 – 6:00 pm
HERE

first 🦆🦆 jump

-First jump!! 😍🦆🦆🦆🦆🦆🦆🦆🦆🦆🦆🦆🦆🦆 pic.twitter.com/TaAVzWVPQH

— Awesome Planet™ (@Awesome_planet_) May 13, 2017

my book review: Prince Edward and school segregation @BetsyDeVos

By LT

There was a time in 1959 that hell broke loose in Virginia when Prince Edward public schools were replaced by "all white" academies and for almost five years the non-white children or poor children had no school or a place to study. For some kids, you might think they'd jump for joy... but when you are told you cannot study or learn, it makes you REALLY want to... (I was told I would not go to college, and man oh man, did I ever decide I WOULD get a college degree. ie, my BFA in 1978 and the school loans it took me years to pay off.)

ABOUT PRINCE EDWARD
A young boy's life-and that of the Southern town he lives in-is dramatically changed over the course of a single historic summer in this unforgettable novel

In August of 1959, Benjamin Rome is ten years old, and his hometown of Farmville, in Prince Edward County, Virginia, is immersed in a frenzy of activity. The Supreme Court has ordered the state to desegregate its public schools; on the heels of the failed "massive resistance" movement, the county has instead voted to close them. With only a few weeks in which to establish a private, whites-only system, most of Ben's family is involved in the effort: his grandfather, Daddy Cary, has the ringleaders making speeches at his sixty-fifth birthday party; his father and his older brother "borrow" Farmville High's lights for the new football field; his mother volunteers at the library book drive.

Come September, the Negro children will have no schools to attend, and that includes Ben's close friend Burghardt, the son of the hired hand who works on Daddy Cary's farm. Ben has always known that the lives of Negroes and whites are separated by a "color line," but none of what he has known seems to make sense anymore. When events lead to an explosive climax, Ben finds himself facing choices beyond his years; it will be a long time before he begins to understand all he learns that summer-  one of the hottest on record, and, for him, the longest and most important.
 

AUTHOR Dennis McFarland evokes, with his customary art and compassion, a wrenching chapter in our nation's history.
**** 
This troubling book is based on real events in 1959 when faced with court ordered school desegregation, Prince Edward County, Virginia, decided to close all of its schools and set up a whites-only private system. The story is told through the eyes of ten-year-old Ben who lives on his family's chicken farm.

I finished this book yesterday and just sat there silent, ready to cry. I cannot say I enjoyed this story of embedded racism in Ben's family, or in my own family. I don't have any answers on how to combat racism but this book is a very good start, and a conversation we need to have in 2017.

PS: I had read that the new Education Secretary Betsey DeVos is in favor of segregation and private academies. I find it disgusting and dangerous but not a surprise... Doesn't history repeat itself and come in waves?

This is @BetsyDeVos refusing to answer whether discrimination will be allowed in schools. This is truly disgusting.🖕pic.twitter.com/Kc4OtglmAo

— Ricky Davila (@TheRickyDavila) June 7, 2017


 

.@BetsyDeVosED endorsed states' rights to discriminate against children. We demand an answer. #ProtectOurStudents https://t.co/npnkMwaAFY

— Civil Rights (@civilrightsorg) June 6, 2017

did you know?

What Do You Know?

1. A just-released study found that ____________ percent of drivers had used a prescription drug within the past two days.

Scroll down for the answer, or find it here.

2. New archaeological evidence suggests that humans have been cultivating rice for roughly ____________ years.

Scroll down for the answer, or find it here.

3. In the run-up to President Andrew Johnson’s impeachment, Congress experienced a bomb scare when two bottles of liquid—which later turned out to be ____________—were discovered. (what?)

Scroll down for the answer, or find it here.

Answers: 20, 10,000, bourbon

coming to boom ? curves ?

According to a study in Psychological Science, people prefer curved objects 😏to straight ones. Whether it’s the face of a watch, a couch, or a dental floss container, people consistently say the curvy one is more beautiful than the squared one. In fact, pleasure from curves is wired into our brains. When looking at a curved design, people had more activity in their anterior cingulate cortex, where emotion occurs. Looking at sharp angles activates the amygdala, the part of the brain that processes fear. VIA

yes, this is a real purse

have no clue #covfefe

#covfefe

J. Trump
(@realDonaldTrump)

Who can figure out the true meaning of "covfefe" ??? Enjoy!

(he doesn't know either)

 I think it's this clown guy (not Obama)

AshiAkira's HAIKU POEMS

Poetry Review BY LT

Wise words are snapshots.  In three-sentence-structures with five-seven-five syllables, in snippets of one man’s movement across the cosmos, Japanese elder AshiAkira shares 496 of these precious moments in his new collection HAIKU POEMS [ISBN: 978-1-4834-6846-4].

As Ashi explains in his introduction, “By catching a glimpse of nature’s work, only a momentary spark, and jotting it down in words as a reflection of our mind, we may get closer to knowing it.” 

Out of thousands he’s done, his first collection of haiku-style was randomly chosen by the 79-year-old poet, and each is as joyful as it is sacred.

34

Wherever you are,

You are watching this same moon

Together with me.

65

Hear sparrows chirping.

I can tell what’s going on.

They can’t keep secrets.

85

Weather forecasters—

Basically honest people,

So I forgive you.

128

Clouds flowing away

Bring my words with you to her.

Stars twinkle like her eyes.

221

A crow on a branch

Watches other birds away

Like a lonely king.

283

Humming of mother

Long ago, but it still sounds

In my gray-haired head.

333

Dragonflies move fast.

They hover from time to time.

They see the world well.

377

Evening subway train,

Many people busy texting.

A child smiled at me.

414

The middle of August,

Anniversary of war’s end.

Hunger remembered.

466

Crows on a tree branch

In black robes like Buddhist monks

In meditation.

He writes:
Since the haiku poems must be squeezed into such a small number of syllables, we need a special poetic license to write them: the license to kill, to kill the grammar. And, for now:

Whatever language

Say it in five-seven-five rhythm

My heart will follow

AshiAkira’s new book is a beauty, a ravishing art, pleasing and easy on the eyes, and lovely to the heart.

Visit Ashi and his writing at his blog: https://ashiakira.wordpress.com/

Birches

Birches:

From our August 1915 issue, Robert Frost’s “BIRCHES"

I’d like to get away from earth awhile
And then come back to it and begin over.
May no fate willfully misunderstand me
And half grant what I wish and snatch me away
Not to return. Earth’s the right place for love:
I don’t know where it’s likely to go better.
I’d like to go by climbing a birch tree,
And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk
Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more,
But dipped its top and set me down again.

I want you to know I'm not back yet but read this poem

may day may day

that was some rainbow last week

May Day May Day can mean many things - like we need HELP - SOS SOS

or it's May 1st and we're out collecting dew at dawn.

In our case, BIG BOOM is saying we love you all for reading and we'll be back - but not right away.

We have work to do. And it's not blogging. We were multi-tasking (way too much) and not getting done what needs to get done...(like being outdoors, walking, reading and taking long naps)...I'm wrapping up Two Ethels of Tillamook - edits soon.

Single Task is not as easy as it sounds.

See you around. Not sure when but soon.

Subscribe by email then you'll know when we're back

 we are doing one task at a time in MAY

i agree

“Writing poetry is a state of free float.” —Margaret Atwood https://t.co/M5FLeTHuhN

— The Paris Review (@parisreview) April 20, 2017

“Reading is the finest teacher of how to write.” —Annie Proulx https://t.co/zRfMzZMQb5

— The Paris Review (@parisreview) April 20, 2017

poetry is everywhere, even in photos

:self.migration: (poet's seat finalist 2017)

Here is the new unpublished poem that made me a finalist.

: self.migration :

I self.migrate here, from there

I drive unfettered multiple times to multiple states to multiple addresses

I cross unchecked boundaries, through invisible state lines, past fenced farms and gated communities

I am free so I self.relocate here, since I am free to relocate anywhere in America

I bring boxes filled with memories, with enough to rent a storage unit

I arrive unscathed, unhurt, but not exactly state-approved

Does Massachusetts care that I am here?

I self.migrate with papers, with proof, without arrest

I raid my fiancé’s space, his territory, his living room

I marry him, and I marry his identity and my identity and take his name

I register my car, get my driver’s license, and register to vote

Would this happen if I was from Iran, Nigeria or Guatemala and not from Wisconsin?

Does Massachusetts care that I am here?

Does it matter that I am a Connecticut-transplant, a journalist, formerly employed by a tribe?

Cameras pointed at cars would be able to find me eventually

How long will it take for me to become a local? How long?

How many years?

Does Massachusetts care that I am here?

I find descendants here of many generations, of bloodlines not my own

How long before I am questioned?

Trace Lara Hentz, Greenfield ©2017

(written in the BigY parking lot)

and the Bardo Group's MAY 2017 BeZINE published me HERE 
May 2017, Vol.3, Issue 8, Honesty and Transparency the Post Truth Era



[...I finished Crime Machine by Giles Blunt (OMG, I love his entire crime series), finished Letter from Point Clear and Prince Edward by Dennis McFarland, then on to any book I can find by Wilson Roberts who I met at the Poet's Seat contest. And my friend AskiAkira published a new book HAIKU POEMS which I reviewed on this blog and on Amazon. I'm reading a pile of books at one time - it's my escape.]

One task at a time... I have to remind myself.

 

whistling pig farm (ah the places I have lived)

Groton, Connecticut

I had a ground hog (his other name: whistling pig, wood chuck) named Woody.  He wasn't afraid of me but he wasn't a pet.
I came home from work and found him sitting in front of the clothes dryer, which was in the garage. Apparently someone had gnawed and eaten a hole from the crawl space (maybe) into the garage behind the oil boiler/furnace.
The crawl space (dirt floor) was home to family of skunks, too.
Yes, I had a critter farm in the city of Groton, CT.
I didn't feed Woody, my grass did.  (Or the skunks ate the mice/rats in the crawl space, as I was told by the Skunk Lady (via email).
One night we heard little baby skunks having a squealing match under the floor. (Not good) Those little fuckers could spray as bad as their parents. (It was totally impossible to sleep with that smell.)
So I bought bobcat urine. Yes, there was a hardware store that sold it. (Don't ask how they harvest it. I have no clue.)
You dip toothpicks and cotton balls in that urine and put them around the yard and crawl space.
They told me a bigger predator would make the skunks rethink living under my 100+ year old cottage. Maybe it would scare off Woody, too.
No chance of that.

Groundhogs in the Garden

Woodchucks or Groundhogs

Here are tips for identifying and getting rid of groundhogs or woodchucks.

(I have a more of this story in the chapbook BECOMING as Laramie Harlow)

Read more

language virus

Every writer needs a hobby. When he isn’t writing bleak, bloody fiction or exploring the primal violence at the heart of the American experience, Cormac McCarthy likes to unwind with a little theoretical scientific research. Who doesn’t? His work at the Santa Fe Institute has led him to write a new treatise on the nature of the unconscious and the emergence of human language: “The sort of isolation that gave us tall and short and light and dark and other variations in our species was no protection against the advance of language.  It crossed mountains and oceans as if they weren’t there.  Did it meet some need?  No.  The other five thousand plus mammals among us do fine without it. But useful?  Oh yes.  We might further point out that when it arrived it had no place to go.  The brain was not expecting it and had made no plans for its arrival.  It simply invaded those areas of the brain that were the least dedicated.  I suggested once in conversation at the Santa Fe Institute that language had acted very much like a parasitic invasion … The difference between the history of a virus and that of language is that the virus has arrived by way of Darwinian selection and language has not. The virus comes nicely machined. Offer it up. Turn it slightly. Push it in. Click. Nice fit.”

VIA

Appreciation Friday: YOU

sometimes you need to sit and do nothing... YES, I'm talking to YOU   ---BOOM

and turn off your phone

I am

Art Appreciation: Nick Cave

VIA

For Cave’s MASS MoCA installation, Until — a double play on the phrase “innocent until proven guilty” or in this case “guilty until proven innocent” — Cave addresses issues of gun violence, gun control policy, race relations, and gender politics in America today.  Can't wait for MASS MoCA's expansion to open #intheberkshires.

Current installation UNTIL by Nick Cave at Mass Moca (until Sept.)

Download the Nick Cave: Until press release

Courtesy of James Prinz Photography

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