Memoirous

I’ve wanted to write about Pussy Riot for a long time. Actually I’ve just wanted to write the words Pussy Riot. And maybe a long time just means lately. Outside loving the name of this feminista-punk-activist band, I know very little about them or the controversy they caused when they stormed an orthodox church in Moscow. Anti-Putin feminist punks on trial in Moscow Which caused me to think about how our society ingests, devours its female artist. Think Amy Winehouse and Whitney Houston just lately. Which led me to thinking about artists in Weimar Germany. The fourteen years of the Weimar era were marked by crazy explosive intellectual and creative productivity. Found this at Wiki: Kirkus Reviews remarked upon how much Weimar art was political: fiercely experimental, iconoclastic and left-leaning, spiritually hostile to big business and bourgeois society and at daggers drawn with Prussian militarism and authoritarianism. Not surprisingly, the old autocratic Germa...

Good old Seamus , always there when you need him. Faithful to the end, a great one for a laugh. A boon companion. Like any good dog—you can trot him out to do tricks for the company, entertain your friends. Of course you don’t want him underfoot—just ever-present when you need him, when you’re in the mood. The only real problem is what to do with him until you’re ready. Board and feed—of course you already do that for your fancy-pant horses (to the tune of $77,000 tax credit for Rafalca the dressage show beast). The pets are like family until time to go home—and then they have to ride on top of the car. But what is a little temporary inconvenience, a bit of discomfort—when one is so well loved and appreciated—most of the time? From the Daily Kos: The FortuneBlog on CNN Money gives us a peak of an interview they did with Mitt Romney that will be published soon, in Fortune, where in he finally reveals some of the specific cuts he will make in his plan to balance the budget. ...

Since May I’ve been playing Solitaire. It started in the rain, in the blueberry fields. I was gifted with unlimited time during an artist residency in a small town in Michigan. I’d wake up and spend myself writing. From 7 a.m. until dinner with small breaks for exercise and meals I’d revise. The work went well. In the evenings I’d sit down to a light supper—either pancakes or lentils. I didn’t have many supplies and without a car, I’d have to bike to Coloma or Benton Harbor for groceries. Except it rained almost everyday for a week. It was just me and my laptop—since the TV hardly worked and I didn’t have Internet access. I decided to check out the games. Hard to believe I hadn’t done it sooner, but I’d never been this bored in my entire life. I finally learned how to play Solitaire. I loved the way the cards fanned out, even the sound effect of shuffling—you know, of stiff cards getting twacked at the corners—excited me, made me feel three-dimensional after a da...

 Someone say free and you see me jump. Someone shout free and see how high I go. Yeah, free is how I roll. And last night we had free tickets to a new film, Searching For Sugar Man. My husband is on an e-mail list, possibly because he writes the most in-depth, thought-provoking reviews of anyone I’ve ever read. He would slit his own wrists if he borrowed a tag line or copped a phrase from a press release. No, no, no. He has to watch something a couple of times and then see two or three more films almost like it then write a review that maybe a couple people in the world recognize as extreme fantastic and then they link to it. Like orchids. Last night’s movie was orchids sprouting in the weeds of Detroit—that good. Mike Hertenstein will probably write his own review, but for now I’ll give you mine. Imagine someone in the arts who works really hard and is objectively talented. A rare orchid. Now imagine that person actually gets recognition and lands A. r...

Let’s see if I can bring this together. As of late I’ve been pondering the future—and with the future comes the past, all that has gone on before. It’s hard not to worry. There is so much paralyzing news: mass shootings, Voter Suppression, Citizens United, climate change. None of these, absolutely none of them are anything I can do anything about. Sometimes I wonder what happened to hope. I’m not talking campaign slogans. Yes, Obama ran on hope, and IT WORKED. Four years ago. Notice how no one is chanting hope today? Now I know the world continues to turn—whether we have hope or not. But hope makes the heart lighter, lifts the spirit. Raises the possibility that people do matter, that we can change the way things are. I was nurtured in hope. Born into the 60s—never mind when—I was of a generation at the vanguard of change. How could we not—that whole, messy mass of Baby Boomers—leave its mark on mankind. Advertisers crafted their messages just for us; we were the...