Now that was a real Verdun chit chatter. People leaving Christmas stuff up all year round. I can see the staircase and not the feeling of a corridor. I could stand here all day looking in this faded blast of old time glory.
Where’s my proud Captain? We could take this birdhouse boat up and all over the mighty river. Nothing to stop us. Just keep going until we find the sceret cave where we could make it as birds exchange ideas.
Memories. The school is gone. I have no proof it ever existed except that doorway which is only a memory. We used to always try to beat the boys there. They were to scared to approach us in groups. We’d gather around smoking cigarets and making sex jokes. Segregation was alright at Saint Willibrord’s Motherly school. There were so many little evil things a girl could do. Is that an air raid thing on the pole?
It’s like seeing someone after so many years. Somehow they look exactly the same but you can see how they’ve aged. There used to be so many people in Verdun. The place seems empty for some reason. I wonder what I look like. They’d probably say get a load of the crazy old bag.
Wal Mart needs to stock rice so it can feed it’s workers in Asia. Is anyone listening? Is anyone paying attention? Perhaps the craziest thing about this song is that it came out in 1983. Maybe we are all just fucked!?!
Union Sundown
by Bob Dylan
Well, my shoes, they come from Singapore,
My flashlight’s from Taiwan,
My tablecloth’s from Malaysia,
My belt buckle’s from the Amazon.
You know, this shirt I wear comes from the Philippines
And the car I drive is a Chevrolet,
It was put together down in Argentina
By a guy makin’ thirty cents a day.
Well, it’s sundown on the union
And what’s made in the U.S.A.
Sure was a good idea
‘Til greed got in the way.
Well, this silk dress is from Hong Kong
And the pearls are from Japan.
Well, the dog collar’s from India
And the flower pot’s from Pakistan.
All the furniture, it says “Made in Brazil”
Where a woman, she slaved for sure
Bringin’ home thirty cents a day to a family of twelve,
You know, that’s a lot of money to her.
Well, it’s sundown on the union
And what’s made in the U.S.A.
Sure was a good idea
‘Til greed got in the way.
Well, you know, lots of people complainin’ that there is no work.
I say, “Why you say that for
When nothin’ you got is U.S.-made?”
They don’t make nothin’ here no more,
You know, capitalism is above the law.
It say, “It don’t count ‘less it sells.”
When it costs too much to build it at home
You just build it cheaper someplace else.
Well, it’s sundown on the union
And what’s made in the U.S.A.
Sure was a good idea
‘Til greed got in the way.
Well, the job that you used to have,
They gave it to somebody down in El Salvador.
The unions are big business, friend,
And they’re goin’ out like a dinosaur.
They used to grow food in Kansas
Now they want to grow it on the moon and eat it raw.
I can see the day coming when even your home garden
Is gonna be against the law.
Well, it’s sundown on the union
And what’s made in the U.S.A.
Sure was a good idea
‘Til greed got in the way.
Democracy don’t rule the world,
You’d better get that in your head.
This world is ruled by violence
But I guess that’s better left unsaid.
From Broadway to the Milky Way,
That’s a lot of territory indeed
And a man’s gonna do what he has to do
When he’s got a hungry mouth to feed.
Well, it’s sundown on the union
And what’s made in the U.S.A.
Sure was a good idea
‘Til greed got in the way.
Artist Dulce Pinzon has created a series, The Real Story Of The Superheroes, that looks at how, “after September 11, the notion of the “hero” began to rear its head in the public consciousness more and more frequently. The notion served a necessity in a time of national and global crisis to acknowledge those who showed extraordinary courage or determination in the face of danger, sometimes even sacrificing their lives in an attempt to save others. However, in the whirlwind of journalism surrounding these deservedly front-page disasters and emergencies, it is easy to take for granted the heroes who sacrifice immeasurable life and labor in their day to day lives for the good of others, but do so in a somewhat less spectacular setting.”
MINERVA VALENCIA from Puebla works as a nanny in New York.
She Sends 400 dollars a week
It’s been so long since I’ve had to make a fast decision. Always hated it anyway. A thing like my parents who could at least stop being dead for awhile to telephone me to tell me which way is urgent. I’d go the other way. This is fun!
Lecavalier was born and raised in Montreal, Canada. She began her professional dance career at the age of eighteen when she joined Le Groupe Nouvelle Aire. It was there that she met Édouard Lock.
Lecavalier became Lock’s muse in his company La La La Human Steps. With her mane of platinum dreadlocks, her physical power and her mastery of the full-body barrel jump, which looks like a horizontal pirouette, her image was a signature for the company. She was the perfect embodiment of Lock’s frenetic and technically punishing androgynous aesthetic in works such as Human Sex (1985) and Infante, c’est destroy (1991).
She joined La La La Human Steps in 1981 for its production of Oranges and went on to perform in each of the company’s productions up until Salt in 1998. More here.
And you can watch the mesmerizing “Human Sex” here.
“It’s a peculiar apparatus,” said the Officer to the Traveler, gazing with a certain admiration at the device, with which he was, of course, thoroughly familiar. It appeared that the Traveler had responded to the invitation of the Commandant only out of politeness, when he had been invited to attend the execution of a soldier condemned for disobeying and insulting his superior. Of course, interest in the execution was not very high, not even in the penal colony itself. At least, here in the small, deep, sandy valley, closed in on all sides by barren slopes, apart from the Officer and the Traveler there were present only the Condemned, a vacant-looking man with a broad mouth and dilapidated hair and face, and the Soldier, who held the heavy chain to which were connected the small chains which bound the Condemned Man by his feet and wrist bones, as well as by his neck, and which were also linked to each other by connecting chains. The Condemned Man had an expression of such dog-like resignation that it looked as if one could set him free to roam around the slopes and would only have to whistle at the start of the execution for him to return.
And so begins, In The Penal Colony. To continue reading please visit The Kafka Project at this page. And a special Thank You to Ian Johnston for the translation.
Here is a narrative series I did around 1989. Will post one or two a week.
Grey day again. Grey pill, grey egg, grey nurse, grey wall. A beautiful Elizabeth day to sit and read and not be moved around too much.
I can’t believe after all this I simply could have walked out anytime. Maybe I just got lucky. We’re not insane, maybe very dumb, but not insane. Goodbye loonies. Fuck you holier than normal. I guess I am probably a missing person now. A crazy one at that!
Ever started a project that felt like some kind of peculiar obsession? Or is it just the process part of making art?
Jeff Youngstrom at Mad Times photographed lost gloves. “I took a picture of a lost glove on January 9th 2003 almost by accident. Then I saw another one in almost the same spot so I shot it too. Then things kind of got out of control.” Maybe, but in May of 2007, “yours truly will be showing photographs of lost gloves at the Kung Fu Club at 185 Front Street North. Please do introduce yourself to the nice long-haired bearded man with the strange pictures should you happen to come by.” Not. Too. Shabby.
A map of the locations of lost gloves becomes essential.
And just when you think that you really have gone crazy, you get “an email a couple days ago from a woman from Dortmund who spent 3-1/2 months in Denmark and took 150 lost glove pictures while she was there! Amazing variety both in setting and style of glove. Thanks, Anita!” Ah, the awesome power of peer support!
Horrifying news indeed. Perhaps the general lack of concern over the effects of climate change has been the underlying feeling that somehow, no matter what happens, there will always be plenty of booze to go around. Well, even that comforting notion is now proving to be merely wishful thinking.
We used to make just about all of our own stuff in North America. No matter where you lived, you probably knew someone whose job was making something. Our towns have changed with the advent of the Big Boxes, Wal Mart blazing the trails, as the quality of our world gets bulldozed over. Deep psychological scarring has occurred as a result - denial, misplaced anger, frustration, the reduced abundance of our dreams and potential. People simply don’t want to believe that we have allowed ourselves to be treated this way, so we blame ourselves for not being better, and continue to trust blindly in the powers that have brought this upon us. Has it come that we have given up, that we love big brother?
There were times after the factories closed when the local economy wasn’t so great and the empty storefronts and the hookers sometimes bold and desperate enough to work the streets in broad daylight were surely enough to sound some kind of alarms. But these things happen very slowly. You walk along the main streets one day and someone mentions crime and another one laughs like that’s old news, and you find out it is. Many people move away, others stay, but all adapt to new things, new ways of doing, acting, and striving for something better.
Time goes by and and some of the dynamics change.
But everywhere on the Earth someone is moving in while the locals are moving out.
We are all striving for a resolution, a moment of absolute redemption.
Grab your ticket and your suitcase
Thunder’s rolling down the tracks
You don’t know where you’re goin’
But you know you won’t be back
Darlin’ if you’re weary
Lay your head upon my chest
We’ll take what we can carry
And we’ll leave the rest
Big Wheels rolling through fields
Where sunlight streams
Meet me in a land of hope and dreams
