How about something zany and deranged for the Halloween holiday? I don’t think Sally Cruikshank has her own DSM category yet, but I think she might rate one. Here’s her “Face Like a Frog” featuring music by Danny Elfman and Oingo Boingo, including one of my faves, the segment “Don’t Go In the Basement”. And for something goofy but a little bit creepy, Screamin’ Jay Hawkins’ doing his screamin’ thing with “I Put a Spell On You”. Brrrr! [Read more…]
Perfect Storm in Puerto Rico
Day of the Dead Parade in Mexico City Honors Quake Victims and Rescuers | Video Worth Watching
The actual Day of the Dead (Día de Muertos) isn’t until October 31st, but this year on Saturday, October 28th, Mexico City held its second annual Day of the Dead parade. In addition to the typical Catrinas, Calaveras and Grim Reapers, leading this year’s parade was a contingent of aid workers in tribute to the rescuers of Mexico’s September 19th earthquake. They marched at times with upraised fists, the gesture that was used to call for quiet when attempting to listen for sounds of survivors in the rubble of collapsed buildings. [Read more…]
Morphing Into a Halloween Mood With Laurie Anderson’s ‘O Superman’ | Video Worth Watching
“Well you don’t know me, but I know you …” Creeping up on Halloween, and for some reason Laurie Anderson’s “O Superman” seeped into my consciousness with its juxtaposition of bland cliché (“Hi. I’m not home right now, but if you want to leave a message, just start talking at the sound of the tone.”) and the weirdly minatory (“This is the hand—the hand that takes.”). Combine that with the insistent, brilliant, scintillating and repetitive soundtrack and that sets a Halloween mood for me. [Read more…]
Blue Drag · Allen Toussaint | Video Worth Watching
I’m needing something sultry but sophisticated; laid back but toe-tapping. Django Reinhardt’s Blue Drag arranged by Allen Toussaint, from his album “The Bright Mississippi”. Just because … [Read more…]
Geo-Poetic Spaces : My Drowning Daughter
What do I say to the daughter
I’m leaving underwater?
“Forgive me,
For failing to stop the flood?”
I could tell her how
numbers were valued over words
and poetry lost
ears to mouths
mixing metaphors with facts
for larger figures [Read more…]
Finding Jewish Stories on Interstate 8
If you go to the website of the publication San Diego Jewish World you will see the motto: “There Is a Jewish Story Everywhere!” Owner and publisher, Don Harrison, delights in traveling, meeting people, and sniffing out that Jewish story.
You can read about his latest adventures in his third book, “77 Miles of Jewish Stories.” These stories take place on 77 miles of Interstate 8 in San Diego County, from Ocean Beach to the far ends of East County finishing at the boundary line with Imperial County. Harrison decided to see if he could find a Jewish story in the vicinity of every exit off the freeway/highway.
You would be surprised at the wide array of stories he found! [Read more…]
Mel Freilicher’s American Cream: Rewriting the Radical Past to Redeem the Future
Longtime San Diego resident, writer, educator, and activist Mel Freilicher was the editor of the regional literary journal Crawl Out Your Window for 15 years and taught at San Diego State and in UCSD’s literature department for several decades. In addition to this, Mel has published in a wide range of publications and anthologies including two chapbooks on Standing Stone Press and Obscure Publications.
His last two books on San Diego City Works Press, “The Unmaking of Americans: 7 Lives” and “The Encyclopedia of Rebels” engage radical American history in a way that brings together serious fiction, history, fantasy, memoir, humor, and political commentary in the service of excavating some of the lost stories of the American left and countercultures.
With “American Cream,” Freilicher gives us yet another unique window into the past as a way to cope with the dark present. As writer Stephen Paul Martin explains, “Within the nimble universe of Frelicher’s language, we see these people as we’ve never seen them—as people. But also as subversive signifiers in an unprecedented aesthetic design.” [Read more…]
¡Que Viva Changó! | Video Worth Watching
Time to fire up the Way Back Machine and set it for 1949. That’s when this recording of ¡Que Viva Changó! by Celina González and her partner Reutilio Domínguez was made. Pair it up with some smooth Rumba dance moves and that’s a winner for me! [Read more…]
Geo-Poetic Spaces : After the Fall
Steel reinforcements
prop up columns
to keep the Forum from falling again
The colosseum
remains a circus
where mobs of plebeians
stab each other with selfie sticks
or throw unfortunate outsiders to lions
dressed in the uniforms of bus drivers
and tour guides [Read more…]
Readers Write: It’s Time to Properly Interpret the Second Amendment
By Pete Beauregard
A few weeks ago, I saw a video advertising a firing mechanism capable of turning a semi-automatic rifle into a fully-automatic machine-gun. It was similar to a bump-stock, but smaller, and could fit onto the trigger guard. The speed at which those bullets were flying out of the barrel was frightening, and I felt compelled to share my anger that this kind of device was on the market.
I wrote a post on Facebook where I expressed my concerns about the amount of damage that could be done with this kind of device. Some of these devices are easily attained by mail order for less than $60 and are available in every state. Any one of these devices can really wreak havoc in the same manner committed by the Las Vegas mass murderer. [Read more…]
Geo-Poetic Spaces : Bridge of Sighs
I feel you
working three jobs
to pay for a house and car
bankers own
I feel you
pushing shopping carts uphill
against
gravity’s
downward momentum
I feel you
reaching for a sense of solvency
that can’t be found
until you are lost in a place like Venice: [Read more…]
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