Saturday, August 11, 2018

How Full is Your Basket?


I know about toddlers + laundry baskets 
but these two much older ones
thought this was the height of hilarity
for nearly half-an-hour this morning.

I was giggling most of the time too, 
but who knows if I was just relieved 
that they could dress in their rooms
rather than by the washing machine.

(Kidding; it was awesome.
The title is from when Kindergarten Nu
told us to consider: "How Full is Your Basket on Kids"
her misremembering of this thing she'd heard at school.)

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Friday, August 10, 2018

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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Thursday, August 09, 2018

"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

Wednesday, August 08, 2018

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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Tuesday, August 07, 2018

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.


Monday, August 06, 2018

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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Sunday, August 05, 2018

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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we're worth it

Already unthinkably wild things have been done and said (by my mom, natch) and wilder things have been said in support (by Big A who is her ...