Keeping up with the Klansmen

Nu and the puppies stayed home, but the other half of of the family, went to various showings of Spike Lee's BlacKkKlansman. It is a thing of beauty from the way the title is spelled to the tongue-in-cheek super troll move of having Topher Grace play David Duke.

At went with his old H.S. newspaper editor/boss/prom date in the afternoon, and Big A and I headed out later in the day where I had a brief moment of "if someone was going to shoot up a movie theater this weekend, this would be a the one." I did have to take a 15-minute break in the bathroom because it's tough to watch the banality of racism up-close and uninterrupted, but the end was sweetly satisfying.

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"One whale mom/ did all our crying for us"

Paul E. Nelson: Elegy for Tahlequah's Calf

These are the stories the children of our
children will tell if there are storytellers
in their time. How we slept at the switch
ignored the clear signs of doom, how we
were scholars of war & good tweeters

had nice dinner photographs and saved ourselves
from Muslims, immigrants and every vague
threat the cruel majority could conjure
while the world burned and one whale mom
did all our crying for us.

Paul E Nelson
9:24am – 7.28.2018

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Muse

I imagine entering bodies:
kissy     wormy     secret
tendrils bloody, tender,
cobwebbed.

Rejection gathered like:
skirts  breezes  friends
smiling achily, saying
farewell.

Still until creation erupts:
caves      calls      papers
becomes melody, menace,
practice.

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Election Day

At went into the day with a lot of hugs, hopes,

and in his orange "Abolish I.C.E." sweatshirt.

I can see him in Abdul's thank-you video

looking earnest, focussed... grownup.

This is the small satisfaction 

I grab from the day.

Festival Ready

"I like to race through the shrubs

and festoon myself with vines

I call it hippie chic(k),
Mama!!"

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Social Justice Playlist

At had a playlist full of Gil Scott Heron and Rage Against the Machine, so we collaborated a bit and came up with some additions.

Janelle Monae                            Hell You Talmbout          Prince                                         Baltimore                                                   When Will We Be Paid?                              Billie Holiday                             Strange Fruit                Sam Cooke                                 A Change is Gonna Come          John Lennon                               Imagine                Bob Marley                                 Redemption Song                                                    Get Up, Stand Up  Joan Baez                                   We Shall Overcome         Dolly Parton                                9 to 5           Green Day                                  American Idiot        The Sex Pistols                          Anarchy in the U.K.  Ani DiFranco                              Boys in Blue             Buffy Sainte Marie                      Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee             P!nk                                             Dear Mr. President             Curtis Mayfield                            (Don't Worry) If There's a Hell Below Us We're Already Going           Peter Tosh                                    Equal Rights                Sweet Honey in the Rock            Give the People the Right to Vote        Anne Feeney                                Have You Been to Jail for Justice?                 Mary Chapin Carpenter               Houston             Dixie Chicks                                I Hope            2Pac                                              Keep Ya Head Up                 Nina Simone                                Mississippi Goddam        Tracy Chapman                           Rape of the World                                                      Paper and Ink                                                     Talkin' Bout a Revolution                Cat Stevens                                  Peace Train            Patti Smith                                   People Have the Power               Dead Prez                                    Police State         Nelly Furtado                               Powerless (Say What You Want)          Common                                      A Song for Assata                   Pearl Jam                                      World Wide Suicide                                                      Better Man                     Edwin Starr                                  War What’s it Good For? (Absolutely Nothing)                   Jens Lekman                                  I saw Her in the Anti_War Demonstration                  Bikini Kill                                      Rebel Girl             Helen Reddy                                   I am Woman                                                                  Nirvana                                           Come As You Are                                                        Polly

                                                        Rape Me

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#InadvertentMusicCloud

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After Hours

The strange demands of the day die
leaving the way a sigh does,
the breath never to return

This pumpkin moon follows
peeping at us at every turn--
part eye, part bullseye

I pull down the book of myself
skimming--I know I should
be farther along by now

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