Before I begin this, my first post to the Upper Left Edge, let me say that I am honored if somewhat confused by ending up writing for such a great endeavor. I unlike some of the more serious authors on this site hope only to share some stories and if all goes well entertain you a little. I promise no revelations or enlightenment but rather to give you other worlds to consider that I have had the luck to encounter in my own life and enjoyed. As I hope you enjoy my telling of them. So with that said I take the plunge.
Surfing Pop Culture: Rosie’s Back!
The curtain has not only risen on the new Rosie O’Donnell talk show on OWN – it’s disappeared. And now there’s no better source of cheer, community and astounding good will on daytime TV. Allow me to explain.
On the first show, Rosie came out from behind a curtain and did some standup comedy before taking questions from the audience and interviewing her guests. That format has stayed the same, but the curtain hasn’t been seen since.
Occupy the Future
Occupy Portland is in its very uniquely Portland end game and it’s time to think a little. Because of some family health issues I have only been marginally attached to the flow of Occupy events, so my reflections are… pure. Something that the Occupy Movement is not. Occupy is made up of wildly diverse groups […]
Surfing Pop Culture: Fairy Tales and Hope
Can stories help us remember who we really are? Can they offer fresh hope for our lives? ABC’s new series Once Upon A Time thinks so, agreeing with some of my favorite storytellers: Jesus, Charles Dickens, and Walter Brueggemann.
It was Jesus who once said, ‘Suffer the little children to come unto me, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.’ That came to mind while watching Once Upon A Time last week because the whole premise of that series hinges on a child.
Chopping carrots at Occupy Vancouver BC
Today is cool and crisp, with a peek of sunshine, and there’s probably 300 people in the park surrounding the Vancouver Art Gallery(VAG), where Occupy Vancouver has existed since October 15. There are about a hundred small tents, from one-to six person size, mostly distributed around the periphery of the encampment, with a so-called “gated community”(not really, of course) of tents in a sheltered area behind the Food Not Bombs(FNB) kitchen tent, which puts out meals fifteen hours a day. There are larger tents for “information”, “media”, “medical assistance”, “peacekeeping”, a”tea house”, and a very well-stocked lending library with comfy sofa and chairs, where I borrowed a copy of Manda Scott’s Boudacia–to take back on Saturday, of course. Hand-written posters everywhere remind us of the shenanigans of the banksters and the governments, the evil and waste of the illegal wars being waged against poor people all over the world, and how these crimes are impacting every one of us.
What’s going to happen?
I’ve been reading books, articles and e-mails about complexity, the economic and political situation, and technology for years now, trying to get a handle on what is going to happen to life on earth in the near future (while I might be alive). I get all kinds of mixed signals, and I seem to change my mind almost daily about what it all means.
The tortoise and the euro
Near the center of Athens you can walk through large tracts of public land covered in rocks, ruins, wooded areas, and dry-land vegetation. Go in one direction and you’ll find the Hill of the Muses. It’s a cool place to take a break from news of global economic decay.
My family wandered there one afternoon during a recent trip to Europe. On the hillside facing the Parthenon we could hear the roar of 100,000 citizens outside the parliament building, protesting cuts in worker pensions, reductions in the minimum wage, increases in taxes, and other bloodletting demanded by eurozone financiers.
Skype the wedding?
This piece was originally published in The Chinook Observer during October 2011.
One of my nieces was getting married. Yes, we got a “save the date” postcard with the young couple’s photo on it, but no, there was no formal invitation with details. We had to go to a website. At a family get together beforehand, however, it turned out that none of us had taken the time to go to the site to get directions to the farm near Mt. Angel where the wedding would be held—and “us” included the bride’s mother and older sister. And, Google maps (as usual) was pretty vague when providing directions to a rural location.
Keep Calm and Carry On
First published in The Daily Astorian 10/25/2011.
The title of this column comes from a poster I was given by a friend from the British Commonwealth. The words were a civic maxim during World War II. If fascists had crossed the English Channel, posters like the one that now hangs in my shop would have graced windows throughout the U.K.
The essence of this maxim was repeated recently while I was in Rome and Athens. It was shouted when panic spread beside the Colosseum during a demonstration with tens of thousands of people. It was spoken near the foot of the Acropolis during a protest with 100,000 participants, when violence erupted between policemen and provocateurs.
Sometimes a Great Notion
Living statues everywhere
mime the mighty act.
Pilgrims, smiling for posterity,
uphold the old tree of stone.
We almost didn’t come here
on this shiny day in Pisa.
Too cool for clichés,
we’ve seen zombie kitsch before.