Rudolf’s Diner

Your hug touches me,
the meaning of skin on skin
comforts like the soft cyan sky.
Treeless sugarcane fields
hug the road while
the red-tailed hawk patrols.
He sweeps the air
in a mysterious circle.
Like this raptor, I wander the horizon
–searching.
The sacred call limited not by sky-
Its scraping scream echoes in the hollow
Of my heart.
You recognize
this pain
and join me.

©Margaret Simon, 2009

Mariana Xavier was born and raised in Brazil. She lives in Oakland, works with children and has been taking photographs for most of her life.

Technology is just technology. You make it work for you or you get out. Either way you need to get out, wiggle your toes in the grass, sit on a rock, find a stream, a creek, a dribble of hope. It is summer time.

I give you Rudolf’s Diner, Issue 22, the long awaited Soup Issue. As I have mentioned before, we had the digital rug pulled out from under us, briefly, as our host, Weblogger, jumped ship to WordPress, whatever that means. What it meant to us, here, behind the counter, was that some of our heavyduty cooking equipment began to wobble, groan and then flat-out died. We’ve got a new stove in there and all, and we’re learning how to use it, but you know it’s just never the same. They don’t make ‘em like they used to and your hand still reaches for where the griddle used to be, but you can’t fry an egg on the plane of a memory.

So, I give you a Diner in transition. Hopefully we’ll get a new paint job this year and build a sign (did you see the sign fell off?!). Meanwhile, the food is actually better than ever. I guess we’re being more deliberate (to deliver it). We’ve got insanity, tenderness, humor, love, the usual works. It’s good stuff, Maynard. Read, watch, listen and enjoy!

And then let’s get out there and write, draw, paint, snap and create, people! The time is now, or at least first thing in the morning (get up early tomorrow).

Your Loving Uncle,

Rudolf

If the ocean sees you…

When darkness falls, when the sky plays its farthest blues, my pleasure is to walk on past the bright yellow sign ~ END ~ and step off asphalt onto old-fashioned dirt. The place I enter has many names—Ellwood Shores, Goleta Wetlands Preserve, Mathilda Swale, Monarch Grove—as well as many graces

For more than 30 years in Santa Barbara County, these swales, vernal pools, beaches, cypress stands, and untamed fields, have inspired me more than I can sing or say.

North, behind me, the blue jagged heartline of Santa Ynez Mountains. Ravines and cordilleras give way to soft brown foothills unfolding into the valley below, where earth flattens out into cityscape and pavement.

West lies the Monarch Butterfly Reserve where fall through winter, tens of thousands of black and fire-orange butterflies cluster twilight to dawn, layers and layers of wings high in eucalyptus branches. As sunlight touches them they drop into swirling flight. I’ve spent hours lying under these slow-motion blizzards. They will eat nothing during this stop off on their long migration up from Mexico. They are urged by two imperatives—find a mate and rest. Can you do both

East beyond the wind-break trees, lie flat eroded fields and the Ocean Meadows golf range. The owners of the course have agreed to allow a reedy channel of “wetland” to wind through the center of the long greens, interrupted by no more than a few simple wood-plank footbridges. This small branch of a once enormous slough, irrigated with municipal water, helps thirsty Redwing Blackbirds, Great Egrets, Mallards, Marsh Wrens, Yellow-throats, and many others, to survive Southern California drought years.

South, directly in front of me, a rutted dirt path slopes up toward the sea where a stretch of Ellwood seashore is cordoned off for the protection of nesting plovers. From nearly a mile away it shakes you, the boom of surf.

If the ocean, when you are alone at night, speaks to you…

Streetlight and barbeque smoke left behind, I enter the sway of eucalyptus and oak , following the lay of the land into oncoming dark. Moon or no moon, I’m forced to let go of day-brain noise, make my way less by eye, more by tilt and slide, down through lakes of dense cold air, sulphur and mudbrown odors

Combustion engines, television-talk undetectable here, the slightest tick and flutter in bulrush or dockweed—raccoon, opossum, skunk, mouse?—triggers a burst of pure awareness, curiosity, wonder

Walking’s not just tonic for the body, but the spirit too. A steady rolling amble, one leg in front of the other, mind floating free—a slow-dance rhythm that attracts the muses

Little Brown Bats peel off branches into loopy flight. A Barn Owl streaks by less than a foot above me—I whirl and follow with my eye

Somewhere down in the grove where the owl vanishes, a pair of American Kestrels bicker like teenagers. Just off the footpath a Black-tailed Jackrabbit freezes at the sight of me—I freeze too and we play who’s going to disappear first.

At the top of the trail, trees give way to a wide-open mesa, a few sparse fountains of pampas grass, squat bush olive, poison oak. I drink in the sweep of land criss-crossed by animal and human foot-trails, and the sky where Orion’s three-starred belt appears…

…startled by uncanny voices —the whinny of horses?! They turn me in circles, trying to locate the source. Wild, joyful, shaking the darkness. I prick up my ears and listen harder. Mystified. Suddenly those neighing ponies metamorphose into a troupe of comic-opera tenors—falsetto, vibrato, tremolo, swoop…

…and night falls silent around me. A waning moon scuds over my shoulder, a two-legged shadow vibrates from the soles of my boots, ripples over the ground

The mystery-choir breaks up into yaps and yodels—a band of coyotes! I laugh out loud. They really had me going.

Coyotes are feared, even loathed, for their habit of moving into suburban neighborhoods, picking off cats and small dogs for their dinners. To some their cackling yips resemble taunts. Others hear threat or gloat in that night-music. As more and more of their habitat is taken over by human projects, they refuse to go quietly. Instead, like crows and raccoons and a few other hardy species, they’ve figured out how to thrive in our unwelcoming proximity. But long before showing up in suburban fields and devouring pets, Coyote carried the shadow of night and death. Like wolves, their canine cousins, coyotes have been relentlessly hunted, trapped and poisoned since the arrival of Europeans

A field mouse or vole is Coyote’s favorite meal —though like us they are capable of enjoying almost anything, including a little junkfood – a rotting berry, a half-eaten bagel, a snail. As I listen to their morphing chorus, the echoing silence of their departure, a disorienting reversal strikes me. I hear with coyote-ears— a handful of young people coming down from the beach, shouting into cell phones, gossiping through the trees swinging flashlights, blaring rap— and in my bones I know an animal dread

Something similar happened to me another evening, listening to “Borders”, an album by Lila Downs who usually sings in Spanish. Suddenly she switched into West Coast-English, and for a few instants I could actually hear my own native tongue as a foreign language— weird staccato sing-song, incomprehensible rattle

I savor such altering moments that like Ventura’s bi-directional senses—like night itself—reveal the alien inside the familiar

The familiar also hides heartbreak

I cross the mesa to the cliffs overlooking the Pacific and the Channel Islands, and stand among the old California Fan Palms guarding the edge. From yards above the breakers, the tumbling seascape at night is breathtaking. Even those oil platforms floating on inky seawater, rigging strung with lights, resemble fairy boats. But only my eye is fooled. And only for a moment.

“The sea is in almost every culture a realm belonging to the divine because it is absolutely beyond our power to predict or control.”

But not to harm

As I gaze down on the fanning tideline, I know the sea everywhere is groaning with losses—90% of large fish like tuna and cod gone. Three-quarters of kelp forests gone, along with most of the world’s pristine coral reefs. Almost half of all albatross chicks die from a belly-full of plastic trash. Fed by sewage, by chemical-runoff from lawns and farms, the fastest growing ocean-creatures now are the simple, angry forms—pathogenic bacteria, jelly fish, toxic “fireweed” and poisonous blooms of “algae”..

“Off the coast of Sweden each summer, blooms of cyanobacteria turn the Baltic Sea into a stinking, yellow-brown slush that locals call “rhubarb soup.” Dead fish bob in the surf. If people get too close, their eyes burn and they have trouble breathing.” *

I sit and brood a long time on the sea ruffling back and forth below. The ancient Greek philosopher Thales admired water as the mothering element giving rise to all the others because water has the power to exist in all phases at once, the power to turn the wheel of biological existence. Round and round she goes

Here in these salty waves, as far as anyone knows, Life first arose, spread out onto land and flourished—ginkgo, bonobo, pomegranate, honeybee, cougar, snake—until now— when the youngest of all, the ironically self-named homo sapiens, we ourselves, are rapidly, ungratefully, ruining this very sea

A Tibetan Buddhist teacher I know likes to say that when you are Awake, when you are fully present to a place, a being, a world, you don’t get to choose what you experience.

You get to choose how you respond

* from The Impossibility Of Dolphins, William Bryant Logan, in OAK: The Frame Of Civilizatio

** from the LA Times, Pulitzer Prize winning series, Altered Oceans, by Kenneth Weiss

Preview of Night, Part Three: I’ve been roaming fields and foothills alone since I was seven, but my night-studies began in earnest about twelve years ago, when I made a vow to sleep outside one or more nights of every month for an entire calendar year…

©Maia, 2008

text

I still remember the smell.

I was visiting my friends from college, helping with last minute organizing for a holiday party they were putting together. They lived in Brooklyn, and I was living in San Francisco and making a pit-stop on my way home to Vermont for the holidays. We were all one year out of college and hadn’t seen each other for months. We had started our jobs, gone to our corners. Now we were back together, for Christmas time in New York (which, while cheesy, truly is a magical time to be in the City).

The plan: let’s have a holiday party, have a spread of soup and sandwiches. And egg nog. We need to have egg nog.

My best friend Ulla made the egg nog. She had recently started bartending, and wanted to try a rather involved recipe where you mixed the yolks with the rum, heated that on the stove and then separately whipped the whites to a frothy mess and put that on top of the warm yolky alcohol like a cappuccino.

It sounded delicious. Problem was, we quickly grew impatient with the electric stove in the small Brooklyn apartment and the time it was taking the heat the yolk/rum concoction. So, we decided to take a short cut and turn up the heat.

Second problem:

“Oh my god, it’s starting to scramble,” I heard Ulla remark in horror.

We now had chunky nog which didn’t fit our vision of the warm and whipped mug we intended. You can’t have chunks of egg when you swallow a holiday drink.

We turned down the heat, but the damage was done. But, like any recent college grad on a limited budget would do, we decided to not throw out our revised recipe but instead try and fix it.

And that’s when we noticed it.

While we started working on a solution to the scrambled egg nog, we noticed a smell growing in the kitchen and down the hall. It smelled like ass.

It was the only way to describe it: like someone had done some serious damage in the bathroom, hadn’t wiped carefully, and then decided to walk around the apartment with their pants down and cheeks splayed. Worse, the smell was spreading fast.

“What’s that smell?” I whispered to Ulla.

“I think it’s the soup,” she whispered back.

We looked at each other and then the large covered cookpot on the stove that had been simmering for about an hour.

An early party-goer hanging in the kitchen drinking and watching us strain egg nog into mugs then confirmed our fear.

“Oh, is that the soup? I thought you were boiling your underwear on the stove,” he remarked.

He could smell it too. It was real. This wasn’t some flashback from too much of something in college.

To get a head start on the party planning, Jenny, Ulla’s current roommate and our friend from college, had decided to make leek soup the day before the event. She chopped and sautéed and pureed green stuff for hours and let it simmer. We now feared that that same green pot of liquid had turned into something else. We weren’t sure, as Jenny had been occasionally stirring and tasting the soup over the last hour while we scrambled the drinks.

Just then, Jenny put down her spoon and ran down the hall. We heard the bathroom door slam.

“Is she okay?” I asked.

Then our friend and the other roommate Paulo (the biochemist) said: “I think Jenny left the soup out overnight on the stove. She basically created a giant Petri dish and then heated it up and has been eating it the last hour.”

With less then 30 minutes before the guests were set to arrive, we needed a plan, and fast. My brain was fuzzy with visions of rum flavored eggs and pea-green ass soup.

What to serve?

The sandwiches. The New York deli around the corner had saved the day with platters of pre-made clubs that I had forgotten about until Paulo pulled them out of the fridge in desperation.

The rest of the evening the guests munched on layers of bacon and turkey, sipped their now-less-than-chunky-due-to-lots-of-straining cups of egg nog and mingled while occasionally catching faint wafts of what they kept wondering was a toilet overflowing, in between stronger scents of vanilla candles and lemon Lysol.

Jenny spent most of the night in the bathroom, but recovered.

©Kimberly Larson-Edwards, 2008

Kimberly Larson-Edwards lives in Seattle with her husband Scott and son Miles. In addition to writing and chasing her son, she spends her time organizing with Environment America and U.S. PIRG, growing cukes and killing slugs in the garden, and other many forms of mischief and outdoor play.

©Linda Hughes, 2008

A Bay Area native, and modern dancer at heart, Linda revels in finding new creative outlets. Having just completed the Developmental Teacher Education program at UC Berkeley, she will start her teaching career this fall with a 5th grade class in San Leandro.

Mariana Xavier was born and raised in Brazil. She lives in Oakland, works with children and has been taking photographs for most of her life. marianax@gmail.com

Comfort food for the soul,
medicine of mothers and grandmothers,
solace of sick children and weary
workers everywhere: Soup.
Flood the kitchen with color—
peppers red and green, celery and sage,
heirloom tomatoes, all the rage,
savory flavors bless the air.

Vegetable soup; eclectic, down-to-earth
as the streets we walk, people we meet.
Dice with your knife through stringy, tangy stalks,
add their pungent odor to the mix.
In the bubbling stock, round green peas trip and pop
like teenagers, while carrot sticks
in bright uniforms poke their way between
old men potato chunks and curling slices
of onion, pert cloves of garlic, to whack the peas
in a stovetop sport.

Some vegetables and fruits, bright to the eye
but acidic to the tongue, may be tempered in the blender,
transformed with cream,
into satin-smooth elixirs that glide
slickly over tongue and throat. Fresh herbs:
parsley, basil, rosemary and thyme,
mint, tarragon, oregano—and spices, too:
cumin and coriander, peppercorns and turmeric,
breathed through the steam of simmering pots,
heal by their very inhalation.

Seasonal soups, aware of the weather:
Gazpacho in summer, or cool Vichyssoise;
potato for winter, hearty green pea;
onion broth steaming, with grated cheese melting
on slices of French bread floated on top.

The sick and the poor and people of means,
princes and paupers, housemaid and queen—
all raise grateful spoons in honor of soup,
be it watercress, purslane, mushroom or bean.

©Vivienne Rowe, 2008

Vivienne Rowe lives and writes in San Francisco, and what more could anyone ask?

©Mariana Xavier, 2008

First, refuse all recipes.
Next, fetch a deep pot from the clutter of mismatched lids in the cupboard below.

Finally, take this empty pot out back to the dark lush grass. Find the power spot and lay pot upside down. Walk around it three times, singing Bob Marley’s “Stir It Up”.

Finally finally, lay down next to the pot, expecting nothing. Fall asleep to clothespins falling off the line.

When the sun has baked you fragrant and full, stand up and pray namaste over the pot until it rumbles and shakes. Continue with your prayers. The pot, when the timing is perfect, rolls over like a playful puppy and sits upright. Inside is a thick full orange soup made from singing bells and slow-rising suns.

You bend down. The fragrance knocks you backward.

©Judith Clarke, 2008

©Peg Gruenberg, 2008

They call it the soup. It can be thick or thin, grainy as sandpaper or soft and slushy as a snow cone. You wouldn’t want to eat this soup; though some of the jockeys I know have certainly swallowed a good deal of it. It is, quite simply, mud: thick, oozy, viscous mud.

When the racetrack turns to soup an entire range of possibilities rains down. Of course, some horses run well in the mud, and some don’t handle it at all. Most traditional dirt racing surfaces have a strong, solid cushion underneath, so running on a sloppy track is fairly safe. If the track is “sealed,” that is, compressed the night before an expected storm, then the water sits on the surface. That’s how it becomes soup.

Some horses love the soup. It really is in the blood. That’s why pedigree researchers know the good mud runners. A few trainers will tell you it has to do with the size of the individual’s feet. The bigger the feet, the better they come splashing home. Most students of horse breeding get a rush of adrenaline on rainy days. They crack open the Daily Racing Form and look for those pedigrees with off track sires and dams. (Moms and dads) If you can find one with “top and bottom” (mother’s and father’s pedigree) the heart beats a little faster. A few sires worthy of mention would be Staff Writer, Temperance Hill, and Silver Buck. If I see those names in the pedigree, it’s a slam-dunk.

When Jumron won the 1995 edition of the El Camino Real Derby, a major Kentucky Derby prep race, at Bay Meadows, his pedigree said it all. His sire and grandsire traced to Bold Ruler, a classic off track runner. The mud-stained goggles worn by jockey Goncalino Almeida are among my fondest turf writer’s mementos. Sitting on my bookshelf, the mud has turned to a dusty crust. Like any good soup though, just add water; instant soup.

If you want to get all mystical, however, go to the racetrack on a rainy day. Some of these mud lovers will come out of the clouds to win races at very long odds. In the soup, they seem to find new life. They glide over the gooey surface like speed skaters. Still, as in any horse race, wet or dry, there is danger and a horse or human life can change in a heartbeat. Given the right combination of variables, a run in the soup can produce once in a lifetime experiences.

When apprentice jockey Nate Hubbard climbed aboard a filly named Sweetwater Oak at Golden Gate Fields on February 3, 1989, I’m sure trainer Lavar Larsen wished him luck. For most people, that would mean, I hope you win. For thoroughbred trainers, it means have a safe trip. Racing luck to those who ride or train is always about welfare. Come back safe and sound. Sometimes they say, “get the money,” but that always follows “good luck.” Sweetwater Oak was doing fine in the 6 furlong dash and was actually in a position to win in the final eighth of a mile. When Current Lady took the lead in deep stretch, it looked as if Hubbard’s filly would at least run second. Then destiny struck. Sweetwater Oak momentarily stumbled when another filly, slipping a bit in the slop, bumped into her. Just as jockey Hubbard was about to go head over riding boots, his instincts kicked in. He lunged back toward the stumbling filly and grabbed on to her neck. There he dangled like a Christmas ornament on a tree for the last hundred yards of the race. I remember jockey Ron Warren, on fifth place finisher Lystra easing his mount after the finish and turning around to see Hubbard’s display of strength and balance. Being the excellent horseman that he is, Warren helped slow Sweetwater Oak down so that Hubbard could let go and land safely in the comfort of the soft mud. “I pulled my filly up in front to try and help him,” said Warren, “ I galloped by and then back ed up to make her pull up.” Sweetwater Oak was unhurt, if not a little bemused by her jockey’s lengthy hug. “I’ve never seen anything like that,” said veteran jockey Tom Chapman, who rode the winner. “I stood up and looked back and there he was hanging on. Most of us would just try and fall off if that happened.”

Nate Hubbard saw it a little differently. “When she fell, I grabbed a handful of mane and held on. I was afraid I would get run over.”

Immediately the INQUIRY light flashed red. When jockeys are unseated during a race, the horse is still declared an official starter and everyone connected to that horse from owner to bettor is out of luck. This was different. Hubbard never came all the way off until the race was over. Consulting the exact language in the rulebook, the three Golden Gate Fields stewards, after viewing he head-on replay of the race and much deliberation, declared Sweetwater Oak the second place finisher in the race. Track announcer Larry Collmus explained the ruling. “Sweetwater Oak carried her assigned weight across the finish line and is therefore legally the second place finisher.” Nate Hubbard’s feet never touched the ground. Nowhere in the rules does it say the jockey must be seated at all times.

I could go to every racetrack in the country or watch hundreds of races televised daily for the rest of my life and never see a ride like Nate Hubbard’s cling on again. Most race trackers know that. In fact, it was just that knowledge that put a young photographer, Peg Gruenberg, in the right place to capture that improbable finish. Peg had learned from Golden Gate Fields photographer Steve de Vol, who learned from his father that track photographers must always carry two cameras. If one should run out of film or fail, another must be instantly ready. Peg was prepared and the image of Nate Hubbard’s wild ride circled the globe that night. The photo that resulted was the kind that wins awards. I’m sure it was runner-up for something that year.

Every thoroughbred gets a bath after every race. Unlike the jockeys, if they run in the soup, they get washed and walked and dried off and fed when the race is over. The riders usually have three to six mounts on a racing day. Their baths must wait until the day ends. On a stormy day they go through scores of goggles and maybe even a few pair of riding pants. Their silks change with each new mount, but each multicolored shirt will need a thorough washing before it returns to competition. When the sky opens on a race day, the jocks are thinking soup. They may not always eat it, but they certainly will wear it.

©Bruce Greene, 2008

Bruce Greene taught English and Social Science at El Cerrito High School in the Bay Area for 33 years.  He recently retired from full time teaching to devote more time to fly fishing, teacher mentoring, and writing a memoir of the late 1960s.  He is an active member of Leora, a writing group he adores in his new hometown, Portland, Oregon.

I lived down the street from the Soup Nazi “restaurant” in NYC, that beloved Seinfeld icon that actually does exist. It was more like a 3-sided kitchen open to the street when the gate went up. Savory smells drifted past the long line that formed every day at 11:00. A tall, dark, man from a country far away ran the joint, and he was somewhat of a terror. On a rainy day I was banished because I held an umbrella under his awning. Unlike the character in Seinfeld, I had no pride and kissed his ass. I put down my umbrella obediently. But I wasn’t a complete loser. “I’ll never come back!” I yelled while reaching for my bowl of bisque and chunk of challah. I tried to stay away; it lasted for 2 weeks. Thankfully, he didn’t recognize me and I got my split pea and bacon.

I loved NYC, food of all cultures – good food, soul food, spicy food, weird food, affordable food, and much of it vegetarian. Moving to Boulder, I aspired to turn the Boulderites on to the wonders of soup. In November, I bought a muffin cart from a depressed muffin maker. I furnished it with a steam oven, hosted a soup tasting with my new friends and, voila! I was cooking soup! Mostly organic, tasty as can be, and totally vegetarian, I waited for my soup line to form. In the meantime, I’d keep the cart spic and span, wiping down the counters ad nauseum only to have a sheet of ice form. By and by, I started to sell out of soup, but it was hard work pulling that cart on over patches of ice, snow banks, returning to the kitchen to pound out another 3 flavors every night.

Thank Goodness for the backup plan: shave ice. That’s right, the antithesis of organic vegetarian soup in every way. Artificle reds, blues and yellows, processed white sugar and frozen water. Boy, did it sell.

©Vicki Kurzban, 2008

Mateo Burtch, Mariko Yoshida, Ibrahim Adwallah, Milton Edwinger, F. Martin Krepske, et al.

Abstract

The exact origins of life on Earth remain a mystery. Although many theories, including those of an extra-terrestrial source for organic life, have been proposed, none has proven to answer all questions. For this experiment, a “primordial soup” of likely early-origin molecules was “reverse engineered” from existing organic substances–primarily a ham sandwich ordered by Professor Edwinger–and the resulting components studied and classified. Preliminary studies indicate that the early Earth (c. 4.2 billion years B.C.E.) consisted of an “organic plasma” made up of large amounts of methane, ammonia, carbon, and ham.

Hypothesis

According to Aldman (1998), the first organic particles appeared shortly after the emergence of continental shelves, around 10:30 AM, 4.2 billion years ago. These shelves provided a substrate onto which simple organic molecules could bind with each other, forming more complex molecules, and then even more complex molecules, and then, finally, about 100 years ago, cars. The early Earth would have been rich in argon, phosphorous, selenium, niobium, and ham (Williams, 2004).

Since ham is now present in significant amounts, it stands to reason that it would have been present in the early atmosphere. Indeed, Hoskins (2000) has speculated that the early atmosphere, like that of present-day Venus, was mostly ham and carbon dioxide, with trace elements of wool.

Methodology

A ham sandwich was procured by one of the researchers (Dr. Edwinger), who proposed using it for his lunch. However, his colleagues prevailed upon him to use the sandwich for research. This was achieved by throwing a coat over Dr. Edwinger’s head and stealing the sandwich. The coat was a beige camel’s hair knee-length garment bought in London, England.

A Phlemston chamber, consisting of six curved-glass sides measuring approximately 1.3 meters on each side, with one side open to a Thompson magnetic particle flux capacitor and another to a semi-darkened room full of ladies, was set up. A current of 58 volts was run through a wire. Two beavers were put in a box. A man stood on a bench, yelling.

Suddenly, a shot rang out. To the Phlemston chamber, a mix of argon, phosphorous, candy, molybdenum, and iridium was added at one end, and the ham sandwich to the other. The various elements were mixed together using a Barnsmith 3.8 Cathode Displacement Flange Diopter, and the results studied using a Wimkack 8-mm. Sponge Refractory Vibrating Table G-String Deflector.

Results

Repeated sampling showed a Ham Density (HD) of over 38 ppm, indicating that lots of ham was in there.

Adjusting for inflation, and rats, an average of 4.3 Ham Parts per square inch was observed. This works out to more than 4.2 Ham Parts per square inch.

Analysis

Those ham parts couldn’t have gotten in there by themselves. Either someone put them in there, or they were there all along.

The possibility that the ham parts could have been artificially (and intentionally) introduced into the Phlemston chamber was discounted for two reasons:

It’s extremely unlikely.

Ham reacts violently with anti-ham, which would have been present in the chamber in minute quantities, since the Plemston chamber had not been cleaned since the last experiment, which tested whether pigs explode at the speed of light. Had someone attempted to introduce ham into the Phlemston chamber (either by putting it in through the Bernoulli Hole, a 4×6″ hexagonal opening designed for very tiny, skiing mice, or by infusing it into the chamber by rubbing it on his or her breasts and then lying on top of the chamber), a highly explosive reaction would have followed, destroying everything.

Therefore, the likely conclusion is that the ham pre-existed the sampling.

Conclusion

This experiment conclusively proves that ham was most likely present in the “primordial soup” of the early Earth, although it may have been bound up in complex molecules with other elements, such as dirt or string. If ham exists now (as it does), then it follows that ham had to exist earlier and had to have been created by the will of an Intelligent Designer (Smith, 2005). Therefore, God exists, and God is ham.

©Mateo Burtch, 2008

Mateo Burtch recently received a Pulitzer Prize for Best American Novel.  Police later returned the prize to its rightful owner.
———–

Aldman, J. & Rex Tidbit. “Party at My House!” Journal of Applied Material Physics, June 1998, p. 212-224.

Hoskins, J., and R. Erdmann. “Notational Reflexology in Bi-Cubit Analysis,” Proceedings Nat. Soc. Amer. Jargon, Nov. 2000, p. 13-17.

Smith, J. “Because I Say So,” in More Tales of Creationist Idiocy, Retrograde Press, 2005.

Williams, J. “It’s All Right Now. Don’t Worry. The Monsters Have Gone Away. Okay? Don’t Cry,” Mathematics Today, April 2004, p. 101.

Last night I made my wife and kids chicken soup
I do this about once a week
Never the same as before
Never a recipe
Adding different starches to the aromatic browned onion-garlic broth
Sometimes noodles
Sometimes freshly cooked brown rice
Sometime old left-over take out
Toss in some just-cut chard from the backyard garden
Chard that was planted last fall and proudly pushed on through dark winter storms
And they love it
I love them
Sometimes it is just gobbled down with little notice
Sustaining life – pure and simple
Sometimes it is almost ritual
Consumed with wine and candles
Regardless, it makes us warm inside
And makes me wonder at times
What is happening, at that very moment, in another part of the world, or under an overpass, or in prison in Port-au-Prince
And then, the fleeting wonder passes and I return to the smile of my son and daughter and wife

And know for the grace of god

©Thomas S. Geiger, 2008

Thomas lives in Seattle with his wonderful wife Aiko and their children Isaiah and Naomi. Since his youth in northern NH and all the travels since, he has been involved in taking action for a better world – on issues of peace, environment, race and international relations. Schaefer-geiger@msn.com

I can see myself, sitting in the kitchen. Light is streaming in, kissing my back, filling the already yellow kitchen with buttery waves of heat. The big vinyl daisies on the wall are popping out of the paper. I believe that the linoleum is squishy. I do not touch it. My feet are tucked under me; they are falling asleep in their Keds, and my knees are almost touching my tummy, which is poking out from my t-shirt and pressing against the cool wood table.

This table is massive. It will never be moved, it is where all of the important things happen, like beer drinking and occasional cursing and my mother giving my dad looks to remind him that I am there and that his friends should watch their language. My little brother and I use this table as a hideout; underneath is safe, particularly with a tablecloth on top. We like the way it smells––like lemon floor cleaner and old wood and spilled spaghetti sauce and shoes.

Today my brother is nowhere in sight, which is good, because I am doing important things, grown-up things. Everything around me is melting. Blonde twists of hair press against my forehead, sticking with dampness. My crayons are deliciously soft; the wax is leaking through the ragged wrappers. The sourgrass bouquet in front of me, a gift to my mom, sags slightly. This near-drippiness, the uncertainty, somehow makes what I am doing even more urgent. I can’t hear a thing, not my dad singing in the hall, not the neighbor’s scary biting German shepherd, not the lawnmower across the street. I am working.

I press the pencil folded into my hand around and around, letting it glide across the paper. Because I am working so intently, am so sure of my purpose, I can see everything. My K’s are the edges of the tiny marigold butterflies I sometimes catch with my short fingers, the L’s are the bent branches of the cherry tree I climb. There are O’s like the moon and S’s like the trails left by the snails in the yard. I write miniature teepee A’s, my favorite, over and over and over and over until they parade, like a line of inchworms, right off the page. This startles me. I rub my eyes, unsuccessfully push my hair off my face, look straight up, take a breath, and then begin something new. I have decided on a funny-looking man. No arms, no legs, no clothes. Just a head. And as I begin this–P P P P P P P P–my mother walks up.

“What are you doing?” she says, curious. Can’t she tell?

“Words! See? I made them! Read!” I lean back, careful not to tip my chair over, because she doesn’t like that.

“What do you…hmmm. Let’s see. Well. These aren’t words,” she announces, after far too little consideration.

“How? Yes they are, mommy…like this. See?” I point frantically. It’s so obvious. I can’t let her leave just yet; she needs to understand this.

“I’m trying to think. Do you have enough letters…well, the S’s are backwards…oh, here’s one. You can spell ‘pal.’ Look,” she says, as she begins to write on my page, “P-A-L. PAL.”

This is very interesting. I stop and consider this option. Can’t I write anything else? PAL doesn’t seem like something I want to write.

“I like writing my name. Look!” I say, pointing again.

“You know what? Your name is very long. You have a hard name to spell! But you can write ‘pal’…look!” My mother is clearly pleased with this chance to improve me, make me do something the right way, the adult way, the way that involves a language I don’t even want to understand.

“Okay.” I take a deep breath, I choose a tiny corner of my paper. P-A-L. P-A-L. Go away, Mom. P-A-L. P-A-L.

“Look at you! Good job, pal! PAL! See?” my mother says. “Keep practicing!” She pats me on the head and then heads to the counter. She liberates a jar of peanut butter from the overstuffed cupboard, deftly avoiding an avalanche of crackers and tea, and begins to make my lunch.

While my mother chops carrots into perfect wedges, I examine my page, turning it sideways, then upside down. I hold it very close to my face, which tickles my nose, then as far away as my arms will allow. My mother is wrong, she seems a million miles away. My letters dance and sing and talk; they love the sun. As I watch my lines push up off the paper, the words keep growing, just slightly more slowly, towards places I have yet to imagine.

©Nathalie Parsons, 2008

Nathalie Parsons is a child of the 70s but thinks she might have been happier if she had been born 100 years earlier. Lamentably, her current kitchen does not have vinyl wallpaper. She would not mind hiding under a table every so often. She still likes to play with words.

My name is Kate Minogue—the first plucked off the tree for me by my father, Aidan Daniel, the second by my mother, Eileen Minogue Ahearn. O’Sullivan, the family name, translating to Eye of God and adding an inch to my father’s height, was trimmed to Sullivan when we came over in “48—too late for Mr. Roosevelt—on a little tide of a few thousand Irish. Da would have said when we came over the water. Over the sea, for which he had no affection. It stole a brother from him. Maybe two, he said. The rough grey beast. Over the sea to this country in love with tomorrow and getting there fast as possible. The O in our name disappeared because it took too long to pronounce in America.

Da was the youngest of 9—6 boys, 4 girls—the oldest boy drowned and the last one stillborn. Taken in the littlest sea— Mam’s belly. His were cheese and sausage people, with neighbors owning the herds. They sold honey too and eggs from a big coop of hens. A lucky raising, he liked to say. Mother, only half teasing, would toss back Got y’ free a the cheese and sausages, anyway! She meant going off like Uncle Terrence to train at the print house. But if Da was proud, it was of the Irish in his veins, Irish through and through, not a drop of anythin’ in the soup to dilute it.

My mother was not so pure. Her people were plain, they were crofters, she’d say. “Farmers, mother”, Da corrected, “we say farmers over here.” The Irish in her a mere three quarters. The nature of the fourth in some dispute. Her eyes went vague and I turned suspicious whenever the subject came up. Why couldn’t she come clear about the wayward ingredients or let the subject drop? Unless she harbored a spoonful of Brit? Now that would have ruined the soup in my veins as far as Da was concerned. But she held onto her secret, whatever it was. Maybe just to keep something separate from my father and me.

Da liked to set a person straight on what was what. Specially anything to do with roots. He’d brag on Irish this and Irish that. “Jail’s bulgin’ with Irishmen, Da” mother snapped once when it got too thick to bear. “An’ that’ll be drink, not poetry, got ‘em there”. He looked injured, going silent awhile. A relief to us. Tinged with guilt at his downcast face.

When mother got roiled, she’d brew up what she called her Irish Soup. Potatoes thick with greens and garlic and onions, not a fleck of pork or beef swimming in it—for Da, the savor and heart of any meal. No meat in a workin’ man’s sooper is a hurt on ‘im. At times, in his gloom, she’d take pity and fry him a cut on the side. But then he wouldn’t touch her soup at all – Leaves are for the ladies— making her madder than she started. Nor would she say what those leaves might be, we couldn’t identify them, though I was fairly sure there was a bit of the rough grey beast involved. Seaweed, I mean. Meat or no, to me it was delicious. I wheedled for it, crossing my father, especially if I was off my food.

When we came over, I was barely six . Cold wind and all of us retching , the rolling pitch of the deck beneath our feet. A stink of engine oil , wet wool, a clatter of talk I couldn’t understand. After that, queues and questions in the dockyard, and long long bus rides. We crowded in with the O’Byrnes, Da’s niece and her family. Our cousins. Who kept their O and caught us up with eccentricities of the American language until we got our own fourth-floor in Woodston, on the fraying skirt of Philadelphia. The Big War over. A lot of weedy cases after a fresh go, Da said of our neighbors from sundry parts of the globe. And fresh it was. Unless, I found out later, your tree bore the likes of Murasaki….

The why of coming over, like the wayward quarter of my mother’s soul, kept its unfinished flavor. What I remember of Ireland is running barefoot, never allowed on Lincoln Street. I remember digging in the dirt yard with the bright-eyed hens all round dusting lice from their feathers. I remember rain. Rain clinking into buckets under the roof. And my shoes that burned in the oven trying to dry them. We lived with my father’s people who didn’t get along with themselves.

Apart from my mother’s sick to death of stinginess and bickering—our sour milk poverty— there were the bloody casings, the pork-gut, washing and stuffing and tying ‘em off t’ hang in the rafters over the oakfire in the pit house. Da at his printing til dark with towny Uncle Terrence who’d got trained in Edinburgh and—how did she put it? looked me askance. Just 19, with Da nearly that many years older than she when they married. A strong young woman, too soon the workhorse in a clan of aging brothers and sisters, sons and daughters gone, one of the girls to Woodston. Mother must have yearned to separate her fate from the chicken-scratch and black sausage of the O’Sullivan place. In The States, it might be possible. She had reasons enough. But always something more I couldn’t name. What unearthly power of hers could have persuaded my father into giving up his island? Reborn a stranger, unwelcome from the beginning, and at a squinty-eyed 42, when men are going shifty about their age.

Ending in Woodston would have been Da’s part of the bargain —a twig of family there, and not far off, the Press Machine Manufacturing Company, first of its kind in the world, still going strong in Philadelphia. City Of Brootherly Love, he’d soon be quipping darkly.

Da knew his fine small presses, but the modern street shops in Philly turned him down for young bucks–yanks who knew their way round the dealers and the trends and the latest machines. In short, your father’s a hopeless case. He swallowed disappointment and went to work for the foundry at the back of Press Manufacturing.

The summer I turned ten , mother in County hospital with Scarlet Fever on quarantine, Da steered me by the cavernous shed where the Company built their presses on which whole pages of books and newsprint could be inked. Unbearable clatter pounded my brain. A blast of heat, a sour taste. One of the ear-duffed sweaty fellows lifted his face, tired eyes startled by a young girl. In the back of the yard, Da’s job was pouring moulds for type and frames, stacking the trundle. No artistry wanted. Steering to the warehouse, unloading the lot. Intact. Damages coming out of his pay. “A man’s always in dread of a docking, Kate” But that day, I understood my mother’s dread—fumes and burns and racket. A few of the best machiners hired on deaf already. “Not a word to mother ” Da said when he took me to supper at Traver’s that day, “ or it’ll be Irish Soup for a month!”

My father’s pay was enough for the needful. To give us the extras, mother cooked. She was terrific at it, all the rich ladies said so. When I turned twelve, I went along in the afternoons to the big gloomy houses and hired out to clean for half wage. For a time we took in three livings. And still we were short.

~~~

Grimy from the foundry, Da climbed the stairs at six to a long wash-up in the tub with its black smudge never wholly erased by my mother. Red-faced and quieted, waiting for his tea, he’d read aloud from finely printed books whose bindings he petted and adored. Like sleeping cats he lifted them tenderly murmuring their names, stroking the spines.. He’d go through them hundreds of times, the same few ones. Adventurers who came to sad ends. Ghost stories. An obscure tale by Yeats, just a pamphlet really, all the man could spare us—The Wild Swans At Coole gone to MacMillan. His lips worked as he read, a finger brushing the lines. And when his stomach was filled, he’d doze off with a book across his knees, refusing bed, until my mother nudged him a sharp one in the ribs.

Patrick Conlon— known as the Irish Burns—was Da’s favorite. The liltin’ genius of the man…. I asked him “ Da why don’t you get yourself a new one, you told us there’s a dozen you never got hold of back home”, but he waved me off claiming he was satisfied with what he owned, he could quote whole paragraphs of Conlon. Like the evergreen oak, you ne’er forsook me….and on like that. A few volumes, including the Yeats, printed himself at Gilverhan’s , dragged over in their own locked trunk with a clever little key kept in his shaving kit. .

“Except for his workboots and what he had on his back, your father tossed his breeches into the ditch to make room for the paper and glue!” mother blurted once while she took down a hem on the skirt of my uniform. I was at St. Anne’s by then.

“But there’s never surprises for you, Da” I protested, “you know exactly what’s going to come.”

“You’ve tooched it, right there”, he said, “never cared for surprises.” He tapped his Conlon. “I won’t be let down.” An irritating answer. Worse than my mother’s opinion that money was for saving, not piddling away on fripperies like beaded barrettes for my hair. I was

a piddler. And a lover of surprises.

What I liked best about school was the jaw-drop of a new idea. The constant small shocks of history, biology, astronomy. When I came home with a new word, a new bit of thinking to try out on mother, it was fierce disappointment. In no time my prize would be slapped down by her laughing skepticism. On Mr. Darwin’s theory she had this say. “ Anyone with half a brain can see the man doesn’t know what he’s on about! Apes changing to men? Rubbish. A million years?! The Almighty God is an artist, not a fumbler. If He wanted a man to be made, he would not go about it in such a meandering fashion. He’d go straight to it. And I’ll be more than happy to tell your Mr. Gordon so to his face.” She studied Da’s workshirt collar just scrubbed with bleach and a toothbrush, then clapped down the iron, twisting it over the blue cloth like a fish in shallow water.

Mother and father would mutter the tongue—Gaelic—when they spoke of things I wasn’t to know. Delving into one of my balky streaks. Skipping class. Or my campaigns against Mass on Sunday and on Thursday evenings, begging to stay on my own, then running the streets with Frances Cappione . Mother blamed my defections—Church, school, her— on Frannie,

my best friend. A swarthy muscular girl, a laughing-eyed girl, an untamable Catholic who’d dropped confession before she sailed from Italia.

One day, clearing up while my mother steamed the kitchen with custard tarts for Mrs. Lem, we were blathering on. “In Salerno”, Frannie said, “the aunts and the uncles squawk if you give it a try to change a hair. In America, who cares?”

My mother cocked her ear at this, disapproval twitching her lips as she tapped and let go, tapped and let go, with just the right pressure on the rolling pin to stretch her Crisco and icewater crust shining-thin without tearing. This deftness caught Frannie’s eye and she twirled away from me close to the breadboard.

“Mrs. Sullivan? You could do this?” Frannie pointed to a cookbook ad in the Herald my father’d left behind from breakfast. Mother did not look up. “You write down your pie and your soup and your bread, you make a lot of money!” She stole a pinch of dough, rolled a moustache and stuck it to her upper lip.

I snorted. Still my mother tap-tapped. But faster. “Maybe Frannie’s got a brainstorm, do you think?”

She threw back her head a little. “Me? Books?” She frowned and slid her grey eyes, her rough grey eyes, in my direction. “You must be thinking of your father.”

~~~

That year, two weaknesses came to light in my mother. Two as far as I know. And though she was passionate on the Church, both of them went against her religion. I was to blame for the flowers, true. But the oracle. That was Frannie’s doing.

It started with the rose. The white rose for her birthday like a ruffled moon with its own light inside . When she finally pried out of me where it came from, she surprised me by asking to be lead there. Just for a glance at the rooses. Rush Park in mid-May, about-to-fly-away green. A green that made your eyes burn. And the roses, white and coral and scarlet, all lushed and jewelly from a sprinkling. Bending down to them, her hands cupped one of the white ones, angel-faces, then went to her throat. Behind her back, I snapped off a twig with tiny blue flowers and a knock-out scent. I held it under her nose. She swooned a bit on her heels, then shook herself awake, upset with me.” These’re not ours, Kate! It’s stealing…”

“Whose are they, then? That Mayor Corrigan you’re so fond of says Rush Park belongs to the people who use it.” I turned a cartwheel on the grass. “That’s us!”

“Don’t be smart” she threw me a dark look, but took the branch from my hand.

And back home the blue flowers went into a jelly jar beside her dark-wood Mary from Burren, in County Clare.

That was the start of my mother’s fall into questionable behaviors. Afterward she’d often stray to Rush Park for loooks. But like as not she’d tuck a scissors into it’s holster and come back with Sweet William, or some nameless gem, for the glass beside Our Lady.

~~~

Frannie knew nothing of my mother’s history. What I was sure of was not much more. The three of us were kneading dough for half a dozen rosemary loaves, Mrs. Langley’s favorite . Da droning Conlon in the front room. Mother caught the tail of something Frannie said that riled her. What it was I can’t recall.

“Y’ don’t look to marry then, Fran? “ She twisted on the taps and the hot water steamed up into her face. The ease of the oil furnace still pleasured her ages after it finally went in.

“Oh no not me” Frannie blurted, “ I want to love too many. Too much!” Giggling, she pulled the wavy black hair off her hot neck, covering her mouth and nose so just her eyes showed. Then she caught my mother’s back going stiff. “Did you? Want a husband? I mean, when you …”

“Now that’s a pearsonal question, Frances…” a wound in my mother’s voice.

I stood on tip-toe, shook my head, teeth showing, in Frannie’s direction, my mother missing the show.

“But weren’t you in love?” Once Frannie got going she couldn’t be stopped. That might have been the heart of what my mother feared in her.

Mother turned around then, her arms wide on the counter behind. Nettled. She made a slit-eyed study of Frannie who was pressing her lips into a round smile I didn’t recognize— trying for innocence?

“That’ll be enough….. impertinence from you. Yooong lady” The words whispered til she got to the strange one we didn’t recognize, young lady a last minute swerve away from anger.

“Impertance. Da’d like that word.” I said to mother. Just as she turned her back I sealed my lips at Frannie who was gnawing a thumbnail and blinking too fast. Out of the need to touch her, I pretended her apron wanted doing up. I came to my mother and did the same. “Likes the fancy ones, Da does.” I jerked the bow tight. “What does it mean exactly?”

“Never you mind what it means, miss, just quit. Or I’ll do to y’ what Mam did t’ me when I talked back to ‘er”

“Your mam? What’d she do?” I leaned around to catch the words, greedy for a scrap of her bringing up.

“Stuck a clothes peg on my tongue, that’s what!” Her face could not decide—was such a thing cruel or amusing?

“Outh. Oooth!” with a finger and thumb, Frannie trapped her own tongue, making a painfully hilarious face.

I rolled my eyes and waved her down.

“Well,” mother said, definite now, “ it did make gabbling when you should be kneading a bit rare, I can tell you…” She shut off the taps. The tiniest smile flashed and vanished as she murmured a handful of Irish syllables I couldn’t grasp.

Not long after that, The Mystik Fan came into my mother’s life.

~~~

Out of a worn bag, Frannie slid a little black roller-box. It was painted inside to look like a lady’s fan, YES NO SOON ASK-AGAIN NEVER inscribed beside 5 painted-on eyes where a steel pellet could show you your answer. “For her” Frannie said, with a flirty tilt of her head at the kitchen. “She’ll have to make up with me…”

“You don’t know my mother, she’ll hate it. It’s so….pagan, look at those beasties and wheels on that fan! Look at those sickles—“ But I was wrong.

My mother’s eyes lit up, though she said not a word as Frannie announced her offering, swirled the box and demanded a question to test its powers. All in a single go. That was Frannie for you. The little steely already rolling, rolling, its oily rattle over the smooth cardboard, excited— trying to come to rest.

Mother fished out the sponge in the sinkful of dishes and got back to scrubbing jars, but her shoulders kept twitching with the up-and-down burrrr of that ball like a Sullivan bee. Then she startled us. “STOP!” Frannie did and the ball clicked into its slot..

“The Mystik Fan has your answer! Ask your ques-tion, lad-ies and gents, ask it now!” Frannie played her voice like a barker.

“I will not” said my mother. She shot me an accusing glance, then turned away from us again.

“Then I can ask for you” Frannie soothed with her usual volume.

No, Frannie!” I warned, and my hands reached out to take the box away.

“Leave ‘er alone” said my mother, arms crossing over her chest. “I’ll ask. But not for your ears”

“You can do that.” Frannie purred. “ No peeks until you say ready.” She covered the glass with her palm and grinned at me— so I don’t know your mother, uh?

Silence. My mother’s breath blown out like dousing a candle. “All right, then. What’s it say?”

Frannie lifted her hand. “ SOON”

My mother, stricken, squeezed her eyes shut.

~~~

Wherever his death first spawned or why, it multiplied, launched free into his blood, settled firmly in his lungs. Like a clan of barnacles, the boy-faced Dr. Bryant said— half in admiration. For which I hated him. One of the ladies was marrying off her daughter that day and couldn’t spare my mother, so I went along with Da to the Company physician’s exam on orders to see they didn’t try and cheat him. Da had “the cough and liver troubles” like a few other Company men. There were dozens of papers to sign so he’d get his sick-pay.

Months later, Frannie and I climbed the stairs, unstrapped our books in the front room . There was Da asleep on the sofa, his belly humped under a fresh white sheet. Such an ordinary sight, him napping in his undershirt on a weekday, I wasn’t much alarmed. Mother was leaning out of a chair pulled up close to him, her cheek on the cushioned arm, snoring faintly. That morning we’d had words, hard words, my mother and me. About Frannie as usual. At least that’s where it started. She’d been pulling and pushing on all my free hours, accusing me of shirking, it’s Frances, Frances, Frances, ev’ry chance y’ get! And it was true, after class, before homework, I wanted nothing more than to be flying down the street with Frannie, slices of stale bread under our arms for the swans at Rush Park, maybe splitting a coke at the soda fountain. “You’re right, Ma, I don’t want to be doing nothing but scrubbing the rich ladies’ toilets or following you around the kitchen! I want a breath of freedom!” I’d yelled up at her, slamming down three flights of stairs, banging my schoolbooks against the banister.

My mother turned 32 last May. But there with my father she looked old . I dreaded so to wake her, to yank her back to the ordeal of getting my father through his illness. Up close, his eyes pouched, his chin bristles grey, we could hear the noise deep in his chest. I squeezed Frannie’s hand so I wouldn’t cry. His poor skin bronzed as a Puerto Rican. Which would have alarmed him —he was never one to admire the darkskinned races. We’d battled on that point. Now my father was a dark man himself. Face swollen smooth. Younger than my mother’s. That’s when I knew what was coming.

~~~

Mother got a tiny widow’s pension out of The Company, took on more cooking and cleaning, and insisted I finish school. Frannie spent more and more time at our place, my mother hot and cold with her, you never knew. She didn’t take losing my father like the other foundry widows—eyes filling up at their husband’s name, repeating stories, sighing how they missed the old man. For a while my mother’s calm dug at me and in revenge I picked at her—Frannie taking her side —for the frayed slip sagging below her skirtline, her coat buttons missing, her habit of saying Do you, now? It never struck me she might be too shocked to grieve him, leaving her with a trunk of books and a hard-hearted daughter.

But one day after school I came into their bedroom to find her on her knees, polishing Da’s black loafers, the ones carried him through Harry Best’s and Jay Moynihan’s funerals. I waved Frannie back into the hall and promised to meet her later at Shorgen’s . I saw for the first time she had his special books lined up on the shelf next to their bed, the one that used to hold nothing more than the little mahogany Virgin and a glass of flowers nicked from Rush Park. She was no reader of Conlon or Yeats, my mother, no lover of books, not Da’s or anybody’s. On her beside table, The Mystik Fan. I picked it up. SOON, it said.

“Set that down” She said, so sharp my hand shook the pellet out of its place.

“Sorry, Ma, I messed it up. I’ll get it back though…” I nudged the little ball going.

“Don’t be saying messed up Kate, do you get those phrases from Frances?” She spit on her rag and polished the toe of Da’s loafer.

“No, Ma, it’s the way we talk here…”

“And who would we be?” She squinted sideways at me, the huge loafers gleaming side by side on an old double page from The Herald. She followed my puzzled stare at the shoes. “They …they were going a bit dim, is all” she said, tipping them over to inspect the soles. She set the shoes back down and wiped her forehead with the back of an arm.

I waited. Out on the stairs, Taji was smacking his rubber ball against the banister.

”Did I tell you… the night before your father passed…ah I know it’s America and they can’t cross water or the custom gates but …” Her voice trailed off. She pursed her lips and blew a long sliding-down note. “ I did hear ‘em. The ones that sing y’ loose from whatever y’ life might be clingin to…” She blew again. A drawn out breath like wind in trees. “The Whistling Ones, my granma called ‘em…” She clapped her hand over her mouth.

Was she going to cry? I patted her arm. “Your gramma?”

“Mother’s mam. Minogue Brennan. That’s what she called herself.” Not teary at all. Proud.

“She picked her own name?” My ears pricked up. The whole orchard to wander in, unbound to a birth-tree.

“I never told y’ father.” My mother sighed and sat cross-legged on the floor like a girl. She pulled up the locket from around her neck and pressed it to her chin.

I studied her. Gray-green eyes. Glints of blue and brown and golden in them. Black hair, crimped and let down from its pins, wild around her small face and over her shoulders.. Your mother’s no great beauty, but she’s good to look on. Da’s phrase had always embarrassed me “What’d you never tell?”

She looked away. “Minogue…came out of a foundling home in Wales. The kind that leave you hungry all y’ life. They doled her out a lackluster Mary Kent which she detested. Soon as she could, she lifted two names from Last Sailor On Earth and made ‘em her own.”

“So we don’t even know… …”

“…if she were Irish a tall,” my mother let out a laugh. Then her eyes slid to the shoes. “That was your father’s concern, not mine. I always loved Minogue…” She was a strange little thing. Her own daughter, my Mam said that about her.” Mother undid her locket and pried the round brassy halves apart. Her lips moved as she looked into it, then she turned it round and gave it to me.

A lock of salt-and-pepper hair. Minogue’s hair. I glanced at my mother, one finger poised before touching the relic. “Can I, Ma ?”

She didn’t answer. Straight into my eyes she leapt, I’ll never forget it, as though delivering the strength of her heart by pure force. Her voice startled me. “You…you’ll make no terms…” unfamiliar, quavering between speech and song ” …with the spirits of fire and earth and air and water.”

“Minogue?” I whispered the name.

She shook her head and went on. “You have made the Darkness your enemy. We…we exchange civilities with the world beyond.”

I waited. “Who then?” And handed the woman in the locket, my great grandmother, back to her.

“Yeats” my mother sighed. “There’s the ones who hear and the ones …who refuse to. I haven’t known which … which of the two I were…” She snapped the locket shut and squeezed it tight inside her fist. “Minogue…was always sure a that.” She lowered her eyes. “ Kate the things she told me… every day in that place was…she stole bits of bread and hid them under her pillow for when she couldn’t bear her hungers. Some night the whistlers sang through the walls. Next day one of the children would die. She was a woman… unafraid of her own mind.”

She stopped. And in that silence I saw the blood in her throat pulse hard. “Anyway. I got ‘er name, made-up or no. And …” she said, with a little of Minogue in the thrust of her chin, “ I passed it on t’ you.”

A hot wakefulness flooded me and spread out into the air encompassing everything—my mother, the ironwork of their bed, the dusty window with its bit of sky.

Then she broke the spell. ”But Da…! “ She addressed the shoes as though he stood there in them. Then she spoke in my direction. “ Oh now, he’d say, Minogue is a pearfectly respectable Irish name!” Her eyebrows rose. “ To comfort me.” First she laughed and then her eyes spilled. She bent her hands into her face.

I rolled the pellet —it slipped away, then rocked straight in to YES.

~~ ~

When I got to my own bed behind the curtain, a package waited in the middle of the blankets. My birthday months away. Wrapped in butcher paper cut with her pinking shears. Inked all over with five-pointed stars, the kind I’d seen her draw so many times— a quick flourish without lifting pen from paper. She’d covered the newspapers with them, dreamily listening to Mrs. Moynihan or Mrs. Hampton recalling some habit of their husbands they hated at the time but missed now. The string that bound the gift, my mother had saved and dyed . Rit Lavender, Number Three— left over from brightening a blouse she’d worn since before I was born.

On the edge of my bed, I cradled her package . A minute passed. Another. I thought about Da’s black loafers. I thought about The Whistlers. Voices melted into the twilight and mixed with the trees. A line from Wild Swans I’d heard a thousand times—it had taken root in my brain. I tore into the paper, regretting my carelessness halfway through, salvaging the scraps, pressing them smooth, saving the twine for another use.

Recipes From County Clare. My mother’s careful letters leaned across the book’s cloth cover glued to sewn pages. I opened to theTable Of Contents, ran my finger slowly down like Da, to the line I wanted. There it was. Among the mildness of milk and butter and potatoes, the tangy brace of bladderwrack and garlic, a tonic of bitterness.

3 Cups of greens. In the spring, I prefer the stinging nettle, wilted, to take the sting from it. In the old days, nettles were known as Devil’s Clover. But nettle is nourishing to every part of the body and the soul—especially during illness. Put on gloves, fill a large cloth bag, scissor the tops no more than halfway down, leaving the roots to resurrect after the next rain. If nettles do not grow nearby, chard or kale will do very nicely…

Irish Soup. My mother’s peace offering. To books themselves— my father’s first and greatest love. To death and change and America. To Frannie and me.

©Maia, 2008
My first word was not mother or milk, but bird. I fell in love with language, ie the English and Spanish syllables flying around my ears, because I did not understand most of them, and was therefore free to make up meanings and weave them into stories. At 13, I stayed up all night composing my first real poem To A Sunflower . My first published poem (a sonnet about the sea) appeared in the Edgewood High School newspaper, chosen by Mrs. Clegg my tenth grade English teacher. The Spirit-Life Of Birds, a manuscript of poems inspired by Charlie, my life-partner who died in 2005, will be published next year.

©Linda Hughes, 2008

Let us now praise Ray Davies. He never acquired mass-media celebrity status like his contemporaries Mick and Keith, or Pete Townshend and Roger Daltrey, but they all recognize that Davies’ Kinks provided some of the most memorable songs of the British Invasion. From the guttural growling riffs of early hits “You Really Got Me” and “All Day and All of the Night” to the social commentary of “Dedicated Follower of Fashion” (yes, Juno fans, that song is over 40 years old) and melodic odes to laziness like “Waterloo Sunset,” Davies’ songs have stood the test of time. I can remember one stretch in college when I felt the need to play “I’m in Disgrace” at least once a day.

But Ray Davies is much more than just an oldies act that you’d expect to see during a PBS fundraiser. He has toured in recent years, and actually released his first real solo album of new material, “Other People’s Lives,” in 2006, and followed it in ’07 with “Working Man’s Café.” It’s not “Celluloid Heroes,” but a lot of the material is well worth a listen.

©Bill Magavern, 2008

Bill Magavern met Ray Davies over 30 years ago, at the old Record Theatre store at the corner of Main and Lafayette, in Buffalo, NY.

–

I WILL FOLLOW

Why everyone needs to see U2 3D

The Edge is Welsh. Not Irish. Welsh. I know this because I just visited a fan website that tracks all things related to U2, the great Irish rock band.

A little background. U2 was my favorite band in high school, in college, and through part of my 20s. I loved them unreservedly, like some kids loved The Who or Joni Mitchell or Curt Cobain. It was a love affair with an affiliation: these boys were Irish (I was Irish-American). They were young and beautiful. They made loud, grand music about things that mattered: war and peace, Martin Luther King, faith. And I adored the guitar parts and the guy who played them. That guy would be The Edge. Who, to my surprise, is not exactly Irish. Anyway.

You probably think it’s a little nerdy to visit a fan website, and I agree with you. But I felt compelled to do it, having just seen a concert movie called U2 3D.

Other reviews will tell you the movie, which films part of U2’s recent concert tour in South America, is 3D technocool. And they’re right. But here’s what I want to tell you. Get up. Drag yourself away from your desk, your armchair, your dirty kitchen floor, your cell phone, your re-runs of Law & Order, and all your everyday dailies and go see this movie RIGHT NOW. At an IMAX theatre, if you can.

Now, it’s true that I loved U2 and that this movie review is probably biased. But you should know that I had let my love slide. I hadn’t even heard about the movie before my friend Stacey invited me to go.  And so, when we followed the cheery yellow ramp down to the entrance of the IMAX theatre, I had only pleasant and moderate expectations. We donned the plastic 3D glasses. I set out the ritual bag of M&Ms. I sat back. I was ready to watch a movie.

But it wasn’t just a movie. It was also as close as I’ll ever get to a religious experience.

The visuals were good. The music was clear and loud and faithful. The band was wonderful. And because it was 3D—big, IMAX 3D—I was right there. I was next to Bono as he worked the crowd. I hovered above The Edge as he shifted between piano and guitar in New Year’s Day. I saw the tissue box near Larry’s drum set and wondered if he had a cold. I admired Adam’s red shirt. And I was nose to nose with an audience member who sang along with every last word to One. By the time U2 had driven their way through Sunday Bloody Sunday early in the set, I had been transported a little bit outside my body. Seeing that movie was pure joy.

So I went to see it again. This time with my sister, the jazz fan, who likes U2 well enough in a low-key sort of way. And I worried a little—the way you worry when you’re sharing something precious and wonderful and you’re not sure how it’ll be received. She turned to me at the end of the movie. That was AMAZING, she said.

There you have it: amazing, even if you’re not a U2 fan. But if you are a fan, you will follow. By the end of the movie, you’ll be ready to follow Bono and the band to Ireland. Or maybe Wales. Wherever. Just go.

©Delia Ward, 2008

You have been selected for an important mission. Together we will launch a ‘zine. We all know people worth knowing. We all are worth knowing. We all know people who keep their creative genius in a box in the closet. We will encourage them to take it out, dust it off, give a puppet show on 4th and Broadway, send us a report.

We will find the stories trapped in fearful clutches, stuffed up in closet shelves, locked away in metal boxes. The ‘zine I have in mind will be a kind of catcher in the rye. It will help us/others from going over the cliff, of living our lives too quickly, too normally, and then waking up one day with a closet full of dusty boxes and our last breath a sneeze.

This ‘zine will be subversive, of course, but it will also be constructive. One overarching theme will be “Create Reality.” By hearing from and looking at those who live creatively, we will offer models for change, as well as the tools. This ‘zine of which I speak, will be “a forum for the rest of us,” meaning those of us who have lots to say but are still figuring out what it is, for those of us who have creativity fluttering around in our mad little hearts, but keep slamming up against lightbulbs instead of breaking free under the sun.

This is an example of a WordPress page, you could edit this to put information about yourself or your site so readers know where you are coming from. You can create as many pages like this one or sub-pages as you like and manage all of your content inside of WordPress.

test

In an effort to create a CD of the best kids’ songs out there for my new nephew, I polled a few of my parent friends for their favorite kids songs. They gave me way more than a CD’s worth!  I list all recommendations below.

———————————————————————————

Any song by Justin Roberts. We like
Yellow Bus, Little Raindrop and Willy was a Whale

- Rhea

———————————————————————————

We are big fans of Dan Zanes and I would
say Smile Smile Smile off his album Nighttime is one of my favorite kid
songs.  His music is great for parents and kids alike. Here’s a link:
http://www.danzanes.com/main/lryics_chords.shtml

I also like Woody
Guthrie’s “I want my milk and I want it now”  This is on Songs
to Grow On for Mother and Child.

-
Meredith

———————————————————————————

Bare Naked Ladies
version of La La La Lemon

Philadelphia Chickens

- Amy B.

———————————————————————————

*St. Judy’s Comet - Paul Simon
*, There Goes Rhymin’ Simon

*Born At The Right Time - Paul Simon, Rhythm of the Saints

Boy With The Moon and Star on His Head - Cat Stevens, Catch
Bull at Four?

*Boomerang Pancakes - Bob Franke

Ready or Not - Jackson Browne

Stay up Late - Talking Heads, Little Creatures

- Andy and Jeanne

———————————————————————————

Isadora (and we!) really like the For the Kids CD - they’re compilation

Of old and new kid faves by current bands - very cool. I also like “I am a Child” by Neil Young - I haven’t listened closely to all the lyrics, but what I know really fits.

ñ Maggie and Nick and Isadora

———————————————————————————

Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, Jingle Bells, I Saw Mommy, Kissing Santa Claus, Happy Birthday, John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt, John Denver’s Rocky Mt High and Grandma’s Feather Bed, Ta Ra Ra Boom De Ray.

- Julia B.

———————————————————————————

ìSheep,î by Zoe Lewis on the Folk Playground CD
produced by Putumayo Kids. Itís hilarious.

- Ann S.

———————————————————————————

1.
Free to Be You and Me: all/most songs great (you know this already)

2. For the Children (or is it For Our Children): a little hard to find (but I
have it), AIDS benefit album, best song is “Chicken Lips and Lizard
Hips” sung by Bruce Springsteen, but also includes
“Golden Slumbers” with Jackson Browne, “Itsy Bitsy
Spider” by Little Richard, “This Old Man,” by
Bob
Dylan and a couple other really good ones.

3. Philadelphia
Chickens: my favorite song is Kevin Kline singing “BusyBusyBusy”
plus the Cows song, the love song “Chocolate chip cookies
so high on the shelf” oh and “Fifteen Animals” where all the
animals are named Bob.

4. Many Dan Zanes albums: on “Rocket Ship Beach” Suzanne Vega joins
in for Eerie Canal song, Cheryl Crow and Dan do a mean Pollywolly Doodle, plus
on “Catch that Train” you have “I Don’t Want Your Millions
Mister” and “Welcome Table” plus some other good ones.

5. “Papa Bois” by Asheba (”My name is Papa Bois, I am the forest
protector???”)

6. There’s at least one great CD by Bert & Ernie that I didn’t expect to
like so much, but it’s really great. I forget the title but it has “La La
La La Lemon” on it and much more.

-
Evan

———————————————————————————

As far as songs are concerned, I’m sure we don’t sing much that is out of the ordinary, but, for what it’s worth, here’s some of what our 2.5-year-old loves:

Muppet Show Theme

Rubber Duckie (Ernie’s song)

I Love Trash (Oscar the Grouch’s song)

Tomorrow (from Annie)

Over the Rainbow (Wizard of Oz)

Do-Re-Mi (Sound of Music)

How Much is that Doggie in the Window

Old McDonald

I’m a Little Teapot

A-Tisket A-Tasket

B-I-N-G-O

I Know an Old Lady (who swallowed a fly)

On Top of Spaghetti

Camptown Races

I’ve Been Working on the Railroad

Puff the Magic Dragon

Clementine

If You’re Happy and you Know it (clap your hands)

She’ll Be Coming Round the Mountain

Hush Little Baby (don’t say a word)

Dear Someone (this one is a bit off the beaten track; it’s sung by

Gillian Welch on  her Time the Revelator album)

Pop! Goes the Weasel

This Land is Your Land

Twinkle Twinkle Little Star

Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush

This Old Man (he played one)

Frosty the Snowman

Peter Cottontail

Happy Birthday to You

Row Row Row Your Boat

- Pete and Marta

©Salal Moon Rinaldo, 2007

“Amids the raging storms of life

Never flinch, o heart of man-

No more than the wind-tossed pine

Deep rooted in the rock.”

-Emperor Meiji

Poem or good luck drawings called Omikuji are common at many shrines
in Japan.
The visitor pays a donation to the shrine and receives a tightly rolled piece
of paper, usually by shaking it out of a large cylindrical wooden box. After the paper is
read it can be kept or, in the case of a bad fortune, folded tightly and tied
to a young tree branch.

©Stacey Laumann, 2007

About
the artist: Salal Moon Rinaldo is a printmaker and landscape artist
based in Santa Cruz, California. More of her work may be seen at http://salalmoon.com. The title of her drawing:”Gazos Rocks,” pencil on paper.

©Tiadashi, 2007

But don’t throw a rock. I was about 8 years old, having some
fun throwing and dodging rocks with my good friend, Jackie Barochas. The occasional
direct hit eliciting the occasional “ouch” was getting boring. Fast
forward a bit; I pick up a perfectly symmetric ”boulder,”
hurl it with all my innocent might across the street, and BOOM - it hits Jackie
square in the forehead. She goes down like a lead balloon, and I go into hiding
in my friend, Gino Quintalino’s basement, thinking I’ve killed Jackie. Well,
twenty-five stitches later and a lot of overreacting by my parents, I’m made to
wear my Sunday best, knock on her door and apologize to her, her entire family,
and the universe at, large, for my miserable existence.

©Steve Kurzban, 2007

About the artist: Tiadashi is an artist living in Carpinteria, California, who has been drawing since he could hold a crayon. He has taken a wide variety of art classes, including silk-screening—in one class, he did a re-design of the American Flag which includes the profile of a Native American woman

Flickr, Jeff Werner

“In
the daytime, everything shines with the light of the sun. But in the evening,
things shine with their own light.”    

©Maia,
2007
  
Maia
is a
writer, gardener, meditation facilitator/spiritual director, aspiring
to an ever-fuller understanding of Friendship, a perpetual enthusiastic
student of everything from music to quantum physics, dedicated to
celebrating and caretaking Life on this beautiful
planet. This piece is the first in a series.

David Keuter, untitled, mixed media on paper

David Keuter, untitled, mixed media on paper

Paintings ©David Keuter, 2007

David Keuter is a painter based in Santa Cruz, California. He works primarily in oils out in the landscape, and is
also an accomplished abstract painter. More of his work may be seen at http://davidkeuter.com.

©Chris Jane Fry, flickr

I went to the stream one morning. To breathe. To sit
in my old wild sanctuary. To become quiet in the company of water, trees
and stones. And to see my friend, one special rock there - a spirit
wearing rock - who met me when I found this place almost twenty years ago.

© Amanda Foulger, 2007

As usual, Rudolf’s Diner contributors have come up with a smashing list of recommendations. You’ve got your reading list for 2008!

	In the spirit of the Holiday season, I have drifted back to Edmund Wilson’s, Patriotic Gore, a gem that’s been collecting dust on my shelf far too long.  Wilson takes a sobering view of the North’s declaration of war - inviting comparisons with histories worst regimes and tyrants.  His politics aside, we get a look at some brilliant 19th century literature at a time begging to be articulated.  Enjoy. ñ Steve Kurzban
	I read The Road, by Cormac McCarthy, in 2 days.  That is a record for a mom with job, boys, husband, dog, mother, etcÖ..one who canít stomach tv, violent films, disturbing imagery without meaning. But this has it.  Deep meaning, humanity, horror, hope amidst utter and complete destruction.  Beauty brought forth against the grimmest, grayest background imaginable.  I could not, and can not, get this book out of my head.  Proceed with caution.  This is the possible reality no one wants to imagine, the road no one wants to go down.  And yet still thereís love. ñ Vicki Kurzban
	Peace Like a River. It’s told from the perspective of a kid, midwest setting, really likeable characters, and so well written. ñ Carol Studier
	Where Rivers Change Direction, by Mark Spragg, is a collection of essays  based on his childhood spent living and working on a dude ranch in Wyoming.  There is a visceral power to these essays, as Spragg writes with unflinching honesty and not a trace of sentimentality about his relationships: relationships with his family and the cowboys that work the ranch, but even more poignantly, his relationships with the unforgiving and inhospitable landscape of the American West and the animals, both domestic and wild, that share this landscape.  Although a  gifted novelist and screenwriter, it is in his nonfiction work where Spragg truly shines.  Read this book. - Lauryn Shapter
	Water for Elephants, by Sara Gruen. It is a fun story about an old man stuck in an old folks home. He is crotchety and frustrated, but in his daydreams he is the young hero of a traveling circus during the 1920s.  Enjoy the animals, acrobats, tales of illegal alcohol, and of course the sweet love story. - Stacey Laumann
	Escaping Plato’s Cave: How America’s Blindness to the Rest of the World Threatens Our Survival, by Mort Rosenblum. The author is a well-seasoned journalist with deep experience reporting from trouble-spots around the world, and increasing experience in seeing his stories killed or buried by back-home editors whose top priority is to avoid offending the government or the corporations that have taken ownership of almost all newspapers. I’ve not finished reading the book yet, but I did peek ahead to make sure the last couple of chapters offer some good and hopeful perspective for undoing the horrible disinformation mess that is documented quite effectively in the earlier chapters. ñ Ernie Tamminga
	Between Thanksgiving guests this year, I enjoyed the bite-size essays served up in Mike Madison’s Blithe Tomato. His stories about the personalities of organic farmers (as varied as vegetables themselves) and meditations on a life connected to the earth (and the rodents who live in it) kept me smiling, wanting to share these stories with friends, and turning the pages for another serving. ñ Kristen Craven
	Blindness, by Jose Saramago. Nothing like a little parable to state the case of human strengths and weaknesses.  When an epidemic of “white blindness” strikes a city, nobody is immune save one  who serves as witness and guide.  Saramago powerfully depicts the greed, lust, violence, and hypocrisy of 20th century life in this universal indictment.  Yet, he shows the ability of the human spirit to survive, even in the worst disorientation and horror. He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1998. ñ Bruce Greene
	501 Minutes to Christ: Personal Essays by Poe Ballantine. A wonderful new collection of reputedly true tales from the author of Things I like about America.  Ballantine has been compared to a modern-day Kerouac.  His prose is straightforward, funny, thought-provoking.  He collects people and situations like trading cards and then deal them out with insight and humor.  Ballantine’s work is great to jumpstart your own desire to write a memoir. ñ Bruce Greene
	A brief History of Everything, by Ken Wilbur. This book would be better titled, a Brief Theory of Everything, because it is not a history, in any way, it’s a theory.  This is the most accessible of Wilbur’s ever evolving work.  Wilbur dropped out of like 3 Ph.D. programs pre dissertation.  Why?  Because he didn’t want to write about any one discipline.  He wanted to write about how all disciplines, all human theories fit together.  He created a multidimensional framework in which all human systems of knowledge or religion or anything really fit.  It is clear, cogent, and affects you for life.  Mandatory reading for anyone the least bit curious about how it all fits together. - Sara Nichols
	Eat Pray Love, by Elizabeth Gilbert.  Yes, everyone is reading it, but so should you.  Gilbert’s nonfiction account of her move around the world from Italy (eat), to India (pray), to Indonesia (love) is funny, disarming and inspiring.  Reads more like a novel than a memoir. - Sara Nichols
	The Spontaneous Fulfillment of Desire: Harnessing the Infinite Power of Coincidence, by Deepak Chopra. This amazing book gives you step by step the compelling reasons to track coincidence in your life.   Coincidence, far from being arranged by an unseen hand, is a clue to your life’s deepest purpose, a clue to what YOU think is most important.  When you follow it, it is like you are finding portals to your life’s destiny.  Without this book you’ll still get there, but it’ll take MUCH longer!  Recommend it on tape too–although my kids refer to Chopra with his unmistakeable south Asian (Indian) accent as “that Swedish guy.” - Sara Nichols
	Theodore Rex, by Edmund Morris.  If you’ve got any taste for biographies at all read this gripping account of Theodore Roosevelt’s presidency.  This was an odd man.  I particularly liked his brisk naked swims in Rock Creek Park–hard to picture today!  Although Morris is (unlike the amazing LBJ biographer Robert Caro) a bit hagiographic in his descriptions of Roosevelt, this book presents a more multidimensional figure than The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt–Morris’ biography of TR from birth to White House (which is awesome too by the way). - Sara Nichols
	If you haven’t read any of Robert Caro’s biographies of Lyndon B. Johnson, start now.  The first one, Rise to Power (birth through Congress) may be my favorite, but Means of Ascent (on LBJ’s amazing race for Senate) is phenomenal.  In the third, Master of the Senate, Caro subjects us to long (100 page or more) history of the Senate and the use of the filibuster which even I (who have lobbied filibusters) had trouble sustaining interest, but the account of how it came to be that a Southern segregationist with ambitions to be president became the necessary architect of breaking the Dixiecrat block on civil rights legislation is awe-inspiring.  Caro is now hard at work on volume 4 in which we’ll finally see LBJ as President. - Sara Nichols

<p style=”font-family: Arial;”><font size=”2″>As usual, Rudolf’s Diner contributors have come up with a smashing list of recommendations. You’ve got your reading list for 2008! Also, the html on this page is behaving very badly, so please scroll down to get the full list. (And anybody who wants to help fix the html on this page, just let me know and I’d be happy to have you dive in!</font></p><table border=”0″ cellpadding=”2″ cellspacing=”8″> <tbody>&nbsp;<tr> <td style=”vertical-align: top; text-align: center;”><img style=”border: 1px solid ;” src=”http://www.ereader.com/files/products/000/01/91/17/cover/medium.jpg” border=”0″ height=”140″ width=”96″></td>
<td style=”vertical-align: top; font-family: Arial;”><font size=”2″><span class=”style1″><font size=”3″><span style=”font-weight: bold;”>
In the spirit of the Holiday season, I have drifted back to Edmund Wilson’s, Patriotic Gore, a gem that’s
been collecting dust on my shelf&nbsp;far too long.&nbsp;&nbsp;Wilson takes a sobering
view of the North’s declaration of war - inviting comparisons with histories
worst regimes and tyrants.&nbsp; His politics aside, we get a look at some
brilliant 19th century literature&nbsp;at a time begging to
be&nbsp;articulated.&nbsp;&nbsp;
Enjoy ñ Steve Kurzban
</span></font></span></font></td></tr><br><br>&nbsp;<br><br><tr> <td style=”vertical-align: top; text-align: center;”><img style=”border: 1px solid ;” src=”http://images.barnesandnoble.com/images/13690000/13697051.JPG” border=”0″ height=”193″ width=”117″></td> <td style=”vertical-align: top; font-family: Arial;”><font size=”2″><br><span class=”style1″><font size=”3″><br><br><span style=”font-weight: bold;”> I read The Road by Cormac
McCarthy in 2 days.&nbsp; That is a record for a mom with job, boys,
husband, dog, mother, etcÖ..one who canít stomach tv, violent films, disturbing
imagery without meaning. But this has it.&nbsp; Deep meaning, humanity, horror,
hope amidst utter and complete destruction.&nbsp; Beauty brought forth against
the grimmest, grayest background imaginable.&nbsp; I could not, and can not,
get this book out of my head.&nbsp; Proceed with caution.&nbsp; This is the
possible reality no one wants to imagine, the road no one wants to go down.&nbsp;
And yet still thereís love. ñ Vicki Kurzban
</span></font></span></font></td></tr><br><br>&nbsp;<br><br><tr> <td style=”vertical-align: top; text-align: center;”><img style=”border: 1px solid ;” src=”http://images-eu.amazon.com/images/P/0385602421.02.MZZZZZZZ.jpg” border=”0″ height=”140″ width=”92″></td>
<td style=”vertical-align: top; font-family: Arial;”><font size=”2″><br><span class=”style1″><font size=”3″><br><br><span style=”font-weight: bold;”>
Peace Like a River.&nbsp; Have you read that?&nbsp; I wish I had a great pithy
blurb, but it’s told from the perspective of a kid, midwest setting, really
likeable characters, and so well written.&nbsp;ñ Carol Studier<br>
</span></font></span></font></td></tr><br><br>&nbsp;<br><br><tr> <td style=”vertical-align: top; text-align: center;”><img style=”border: 1px solid ;” src=”http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/11GY392X10L.jpg” border=”0″ height=”140″ width=”89″></td> <td style=”vertical-align: top; font-family: Arial;”><font size=”2″><br><span class=”style1″><font size=”3″><br><br><span style=”font-weight: bold;”> Where Rivers Change Direction, by Mark Spragg is a collection of essays&nbsp; based on his childhood spent living and working on a dude ranch in Wyoming.&nbsp; There is a visceral power to these essays, as Spragg writes with unflinching honesty and not a trace of sentimentality about his relationships: relationships with his family and the cowboys that work the ranch, but even more poignantly, his relationships with the unforgiving and inhospitable landscape of the American West and the animals, both domestic and wild, that share this landscape.&nbsp; Although a&nbsp; gifted novelist and screenwriter, it is in his nonfiction work where Spragg truly shines.&nbsp; Read this book. - Lauryn Shapter<br>
</span></font></span></font></td></tr><br><br>&nbsp;<br><br><tr> <td style=”vertical-align: top; text-align: center;”><img style=”border: 1px solid ;” src=”http://www.bookmovement.com/bookImages/w/waterForElephantsANovel_1664.jpg” border=”0″ height=”176″ width=”116″></td>
<td style=”vertical-align: top; font-family: Arial;”><font size=”2″><br><span class=”style1″><font size=”3″><br><br><span style=”font-weight: bold;”> Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen. It is a fun story about an
old man stuck in an old folks home. He is crotchety and frustrated, but in his
daydreams he is the young hero of a traveling circus during the 1920s.&nbsp; Enjoy
the animals, acrobats, tales of illegal alcohol, and of course the sweet love
story.- Stacey Laumann<br>
</span></font></span></font></td></tr><br><br>&nbsp;<br><br><tr> <td style=”vertical-align: top; text-align: center;”><img style=”border: 1px solid ;” src=”http://www.holtzbrinckpublishers.com/images/Books/M/0312364407M.jpg” border=”0″ height=”150″ width=”100″></td>
<td style=”vertical-align: top; font-family: Arial;”><font size=”2″><br><span class=”style1″><font size=”3″><br><br><span style=”font-weight: bold;”>
“Escaping Plato’s Cave: How America’s Blindness to the Rest of the World
Threatens Our Survival”, by Mort Rosenblum. The author is a well-seasoned
journalist with deep experience reporting from trouble-spots around the
world, and increasing experience in seeing his stories killed or buried by
back-home editors whose top priority is to avoid offending the government or
the corporations that have taken ownership of almost all newspapers. I’ve
not finished reading the book yet, but I did peek ahead to make sure the
last couple of chapters offer some good and hopeful perspective for undoing
the horrible disinformation mess that is documented quite effectively in the
earlier chapters. ñ Ernie Tamminga
</span></font></span></font></td></tr><br><br>&nbsp;<br><br><tr> <td style=”vertical-align: top; text-align: center;”><img style=”border: 1px solid ;” src=”http://www.heydaybooks.com/public/images/covers/bt.jpg” border=”0″ height=”150″ width=”100″></td> <td style=”vertical-align: top; font-family: Arial;”><font size=”2″><br><span class=”style1″><font size=”3″><br><br><span style=”font-weight: bold;”> “Between Thanksgiving guests this year, I enjoyed the
bite-size essays
served up in Mike Madison’s Blithe Tomato. His stories about the
personalities of organic farmers (as varied as vegetables themselves)
and meditations on a life connected to the earth (and the rodents who
live in it) kept me smiling, wanting to share these stories with
friends, and turning the pages for another serving. ñ Kristen
Craven
</span></font></span></font></td></tr><br><br>&nbsp;<tr>
<td style=”vertical-align: top; text-align: center;”><img style=”border: 1px solid ;” src=”http://www.standforjustice.com/images/blindness.gif” border=”0″ height=”151″ width=”100″></td> <td style=”vertical-align: top; font-family: Arial;”><font size=”2″><br><span class=”style1″><font size=”3″><br><br><span style=”font-weight: bold;”> ” Blindness by Jose Saramago
Nothing like a little parable to state the case of human strengths and
weaknesses. &nbsp;When an epidemic of “white blindness” strikes a
city,
nobody is immune save one &nbsp;who serves as witness and guide. &nbsp;Saramago
powerfully depicts the greed, lust, violence, and hypocrisy of 20th
century life in this universal indictment. &nbsp;Yet, he shows the ability
of the human spirit to survive, even in the worst disorientation and
horror. He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1998. ñ Bruce Greene<br><br></span></font></span></font></td></tr><br><br>&nbsp;<tr> <td style=”vertical-align: top; text-align: center;”><img style=”border: 1px solid ;” src=”http://www.lookingglassbookstore.com/Active%20Images/5031MinutestoChrist.jpg” border=”0″ height=”160″ width=”100″></td> <td style=”vertical-align: top; font-family: Arial;”><font size=”2″><br><span class=”style1″><font size=”3″><br><br><span style=”font-weight: bold;”> “501 Minutes to Christ-Personal
Essays by Poe Ballantine
A wonderful new collection of reputedly true tales from the author of
Things I like about America. &nbsp;Ballantine has been compared to a
modern-day Kerouac. &nbsp;His prose is straightforward, funny,
thought-provoking. &nbsp;He collects people and situations like trading
cards and then deal them out with insight and humor. &nbsp;Ballantine’s work
is great to jumpstart your own desire to write a memoir. ñ Bruce Greene
<br><br>
</span></font></span></font></td></tr></tbody></table>

©flickr

It seems the world has spaces
you could slip through,
blinking the right eye
at the wrong time,
or forgetting your bus schedule
or to be good.
 
Your Mom
sprouted avocado pits
on the kitchen sill
in a cup
commemorating
the Apollo landing.
An avocado pit
hard
ball of wood
yet cracks form
and spaces you could slip
through
or a sprout of green
seen through
the red, white, and blue
of lunar module on glass.
A spacesuit man
planting a flag
in the airless gloom
of the moonó
that rock all pocked,
a pearl.
But what would an avocado
pit
sprouting to watery life
have to do with such a
place?

©Stacey Panek, 2007

Stacey Panek has been dabbling in the art of poetry lately, and thanks
her poetry group and friend Delia for their encouragement and insights
into this poem.

The photo illustrating the poem was by Flickr photographer Patrick T. Power.

©Mariana Xavier, 2007

©Mariana Xavier, 2007

©Mariana Xavier, 2007

©Mariana Xavier, 2007

See the
new Slideshow option!

Mariana Xavier was born and raised in Brazil. She lives in Oakland,
works with children and has been taking photographs for most of her
life.

Rock #1:  Well, here we are.

Rock #2:  The Pleistocene.

Rock #1:  Yeah, the Pleistocene ??? what do you think?

Rock #2:  It’s okay.

Rock #1:  Just okay?

Rock #2:  It’s okay.  Nothing special.

Rock #1:  Hey, it beats the Eocene.

Rock #2:  I thought the Eocene would never end.

Rock #1:  Went on forever, didn’t it?

Rock #2:  Endless.

Rock #1:  This is much better.

Rock #2:  Yeah.  Much.

Rock #1:  Although.  Feels like a bit of a glacier coming on.

Rock #2: Really? Crap. Summer glaciation is always the worst.

[pause]

Rock #1:  There goes a fern.

Rock #2:  Where?

Rock #1:  Over there.

Rock #2:  I hate ferns.

Rock #1:  Tell me about it.  Always so green.  Enough already!

Rock #2: I think the flora’s been getting kind up uppity, youask me.

Rock #1:  Flowers make me sick.

Rock #2:  Bastards.

Rock #1:  Jerks.  ”Oh, look at me.  I’m just blooming awaylike mad here.”

Rock #2:  I’d like to punch them right in the stamen.

Rock #1:  It’s like, oh, I can attract bees.

Rock #2: Disgusting.

[pause]

Rock #1:  So ??? you doing anything these days?

Rock #2:  Ah, you know, the usual.  A little erosion here andthere.

Rock #1:  I hear there’s a basaltic upthrust coming up.  Yougonna go?

Rock #2:  I dunno.  I’m too old for plate tectonics.

Rock #1:  Nonsense.  Listen, I hear this is going to be good.

Rock #2:  You go.

Rock #1:  I just might.

Rock #2:  Knock yourself out.  When’s the upthrust?

Rock #1:  In about 10,000 years.  I should probably get going.

Rock #2:  Yeah.  Well, good to see you.

Rock #1: Yeah, you too.

[pause]

Rock #1:  I just remembered something.  I can’t go.

Rock #2:  Why not?

Rock #1:  I’m immobile.  I haven’t moved in a half-million years.

Rock #2:  Oh, right.

Rock #1:  Mind if I just hang out?

Rock #2:  Please–be my guest.

Rock #1: Yeah, thanks, I guess I will.

[very long pause]

Rock #2:  I hate ferns.

©Mateo Burtch, 2007

©Jon
Davis Rasula, 2007

On the third
or fourth day of our walk across England, my husband caught me
stuffing a pebble into the suitcase. 
ìYouíre NOT taking that rock home, are you?î asked Jed in disbelief and
dismay.   ìYou know, thereís a weight
limit on our bags,î he added sternly. ìDonít worry,î I assured him.  ìIím throwing out dirty socks and using up
sunscreen and shampoo every day.î

Our coast to coast walk had begun with a local
ritual: one goes down to the shore to dip oneís boot in the sea and to pluck a
single pebble out of the Irish Sea to carry all the way to the North Sea. 
According to tradition, this rock would bring the walker good luck.

©Suzi Wong, 2007

Suzi lives in Athens, GA and writes to reflect, remember, and recreate.

©Eva Guillot

The suggestion of a “rock” theme for the current issue of “Rudolf’s Diner” reminded me of a subtle
difference in the use of this word between British and American English. What
Yanks refer to as rocks would often be called stones by Brits, though it
seems to be mostly a matter of size. To a Brit, a very small one is a pebble, a
small one is a stone and has to reach certain proportions–say, the size of a
loaf of bread–before it becomes a rock. I believe any size is a rock to an
American.

©Vivienne Rowe, 2007

Vivienne Rowe lives and writes in San Francisco
having been trained to do so late in life by means of excellent programs at the
University of San Francisco, the Djerassi Resident Artists Program, and
several influential poets leading workshops from time to time. 

Flickr Image

Rock-two-three, roll-two-three, listening to a waltz-time  Mark Knopfler song as we drive north on Thanksgiving Day, tipsy on language and  rhyme.

Above Paso Robles, on the open freeway, in the  horizon-spanning spaciousness that used to be a metaphor for America. Here,  today, for now, the sky is not closing in, the dream is not crying in its  sleep.

Now on the iPod: Mary Chapin Carpenter: ìWe believe in  things we cannot see ñ why shouldnít we? Why shouldnít we?î And a moment later  in the same song: ìWe had heroes once, and we will again, Why shouldnít we?î

The hills are all around us, shallow, curved, near-naked,  and brown. On our left, now, a National Guard base. No Guardsmen or Guardswomen  here, of course, in this time of overseas war. And a freight train rolling on  our right, as the music in the car now pulses synchronistically with a rhythm  that matches the anthem of the rails.

ì$1,000 fine for littering,î says a sign. And not far away,  a few cows graze in the brown scrub, exempt from being fined if they litter the  ground with their twice-digested droppings.

ìSpeed enforced by aircraft,î warns another sign, and I have  visions of fighter planes with machine-guns blazing, strafing scofflaw speeders  like us and like all the cars ahead of and behind us.

Now the hills by the sides of the road, undulating with  almost no elevation, are yellow and green, planted in some thousands of acres of  what Iím guessing are young grapevines. And beyond them, the Salinas Valley  stretches into the omnidirectional distance. And Salinas Creek meanders  underneath a freeway bridge that we approach and cross within a few seconds.

Periodically, a rusty mission-style bell mounted on a  hook-shaped pole reminds us that this Highway 101 was once, long ago, El Camino  Real ñ the Royal Highway, traveled by Spanish men out to change the religions  and cultures of the local native peoples.

ìWild Horse Road,î announces a green freeway sign, causing  my mind to sing a line from a bittersweet John Stewart song, to sing: ìThere  ainít no wild horses, out on Wild Horse Road.î

I would have referred to that as ìone of my favorite John  Stewart songs,î except that most of John Stewartís songs are my favorite John  Stewart songs.

Still a few hours ahead of us are daughters and sons-in-law  and grandchildren. They are the purpose of this freeway, this day, and the  occasion of this reverie.

This is Thanksgiving. It is.

©Your Great-Uncle Ernie, 2007

Flickr Image

Click Here for Audio!

Yosemite’s granite dudes don’t flip green ties over shoulders for lunch

ties fall flapping into the valley

goosebumpin’ gapers and gawkers

loosening perky curls

chillin’ old bones

and short-circuiting swollen-thumbed teentexters


granite dudes stand shoulder to shoulder to shoulder

slicking back remaining strands over half domes

scratching at bobcats and marmots

and flicking climbers

at slow weaving rooftops of winnebagos


granite dudes stand tall

look stonily at fine sisters

spit boulders

and say

whassup Èsa?

you can call me El Capitán!

©Evan Nichols, 2007

Evan is a happy papa and a public school teacher in Oakland, California. He enjoys Black Out Tuesdays with his family: no lights, just candles, no computers, just stories. Why not turn out the lights this Tuesday, unplug/turn off the phones, turn around the clocks, sit on the floor, get past the cold-sweats of no screen-time (make sure to print out your favorite Diner pieces first, of course), and talk, play music (with real instruments), and hang out?

©flickr, squarewithin

Meteor Showers (August 1998)

The first night,

we moved the old couch out onto the porch,

the task complicated by the fact of having more than enough help

each of us placing a hand,

maybe a finger or two,

on the nubby blue upholstery and lifting slightly

with the assumption that the others would push it across the threshold

and into place on the snow-weathered wood outside.

We sat in a row,

our collective weight sinking the dusty cushions,

our bodies pressed together at the edges.

Thighs and shoulders joined along their lines

like a chain of paper dolls not cut properly.

Looking up, through the trees,

at the light

falling downward across the sky.

Glowing streaks of cosmic conclusion.

We watched casually,

with the assumption of those days

that life would always provide such displays,

simply because we expected them.

©Annie Riechmann, 2007

Annie Riechmann wears knee-high striped socks almost every day and is, for the most part, a very good speller. 

©Maia,
2007

Itís 1995, an
overcast day after a night of storms, and I am crying on my
way to The French School Of Ballet . Along the wet sidewalks of Cyrus
Road, I kick
at pebbles, aiming them into lush beds of ivy.


Iím crying  because the ozone
hole is twice as wide now, the
newsman  said, then sequed chirpily to the current spike in
stock
prices.

Crying too because I
just lost one of my favorite jobsósprouting
wheat berries in restaurant-size soaking-jars, pressing them into flats
of
composted soil, hand-juicing sheaves of emerald blades, packing
12  tiny
lidded-cups into egg cartons for delivery to health-food stores.
Noreen, who
owns the big backyard where this enterpriseó Green Elixiró flourishes,
fired me
this morning because, she said, ì I need somebody ambitiousóyou just
arenít willing to chuck your other little jobs and work for me full
time.î Little jobs? 

Crying because my father died last week of
cancer.

Rory, a 
chemist-friend of mine, paralyzed from the shoulders
down in a car wreck on a mountain road, who hired me to cook for him a
few
times a weekóone of my ìlittle jobsîótold me the  tears I was
shedding
just then, slicing onions for his potato salad, were chemically
distinct from
tears shed in grief. 

I glance into the snaky tangle of oak branches above Cyrus
Road, wipe my
eyes and wonder just how many kinds of tears there are. And how in the
world do
you get a person to cry real sorrow-tears into a lab vial? Iím struck
by the
strangeness of the entire subject. Why does pain behind the heart start
a flow of saltwater? The heart aches. But doesnít know how
to weep. The
eyes do it for us. 

As I punt-kick gravel down Cyrus, thick clouds overhead,
pendulous
and glowering, look ready to spill. I stop walking, study their
voluptuous yet
muscular shapes, remember a dream from the previous summer in which a
misty
presence, a voice in a cloud, a sea goddess, spoke to me. She was angry
with
humansóbecause, among other things, theyíd been trying hard for decades
to
reproduce the chemistry of saltwateróand for some reason she wanted to
tell me
about it. “Why waste  energy recreating what is already created?
she demanded.  “Can’t you  seeóall you have to do to
create saltwater is sit down  and cry?”  

©Maia,
2007

Maia
is a
writer, gardener, meditation facilitator/spiritual director, aspiring
to an ever-fuller understanding of Friendship, a perpetual enthusiastic
student of everything from music to quantum physics, dedicated to
celebrating and caretaking Life on this beautiful
planet.

©flickr, paul moody

To travel on a boat,

©2007, Filiberto de Cacahuate

de Cacahuate was born by a river in a little tent.  He raised himself
upon elbows by harnessing energy from a peanut and looked upwards to
the rim of the valley decorated with stars and delineated by a moon,
and howled “Whaaaaat?”.

Magic, Bruce Springsteen; Revival, John Fogerty: Two of the season’s most interesting
releases come from guys usually cast into the “Classic Rock”
category. Turns out Bruce Springsteen and John Fogerty are as relevant as the
latest bad news from Baghdad.

“Magic” is the Boss’ best since
1987’s superb (and underrated) “Tunnel of Love.” While that album
chronicled the deterioration of his first marriage, this one shows, on
“Last to Die,” Springsteen’s disillusionment with the politicians who
send young Americans off to die senselessly. Back with the E Street Band, he
creates a number of memorable tunes, from the wistful “GIrls in Their
Summer Clothes” to the dynamic “Radio Nowhere.”

Back when he led Creedence Clearwater
Revival to a series of hits that helped define the soundtrack of the late ’60s
and early ’70s, John Fogerty wrote a song, “Fortunate Son,” that
eerily presaged the presidency we’re now suffering through. All these years
later, his new album, “Revival,” again brings the power to comfort
the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. A lot of Fogerty’s solo stuff has
recalled the Creedence swamp-rock sound, but now he returns to those roots more
explicitly than ever, even including a track titled “Creedence Song.”

Both Springsteen and Fogerty have the
ability to cut through the facade of psuedo-patriotism sold so persistently to
the American people and tell some hard truths about a country that has lost its
way. But they both continue to hold out the hope of redemption, or
“revival. ” We’re lucky that these two are still touring their rockin’
consciences around the country.

©Bill Magavern, 2007

—————————————————————–

RadioheadóIN RAINBOWS ****Ω (Four and a Half Stars)

©Evan Greenwald, 2007

Evan Greenwald has been called a robot, Hell Inabasket, an emo, a
Martian, and five minutes late, on various accounts, sometimes within
the same sentence. He has no comment about the part about Mars.

©flickr, brent and marilynne

I am walking
the paths of
this holy hill
planting my soul
among the rolling
pines and rocks

The horizon sits
just above
the water
flowing between
two lakes surrounded

This is my path

©Eva Guillot, 2007

Known to her students as Ms. G, Eva
is an English and Creative Writing teacher at Comeaux High School in
Lafayette, Louisiana.  When she’s not torturing her seniors with Blake
and Coleridge, she loves to buy and read more books than she can
shelve.  Check out other writing and some student writing at http://gswriters.blogspot.com

yeah, it works!

©Mariana Xavier, 2007

Unfinished Story #1: I Was Dumped by Mary Kay

ìMay I get you some tea?î  

I was just inside the door, barely with my coat off of my shoulder.  

ìUh, sure.  Anything without caffeine.î

ìHow about Simply Sumptuous?î

ìSure,î I replied, not actually sure what I was accepting, but not wanting to explore the herbal options of this womanís tea collection, given that we had just met.
 
I already was out of my element.  I never got facials, never was into products or make-up.  But, I had accepted a gift from a friendís mother, who, claiming I looked awful and was in desperate need ìof some work.î  

Sondra invited me to sit down on the couch, next to my seeping tea.  I watched her as she spread all the bottles and tubes on the table with ease.

ìNow, what are you thinking you want for treatment?î

ìI really have no idea.  Iím a Mary Kay virgin.î  

Sondra looked at me with either I-donít-get-your-virgin comment or a Iím-choosing-to-ignore-your-virgin-comment look.  She was hard to read.  

ìWeíll do the basic treatment then.  Itíll give you a sense of the products and your skin will feel like a babyís bottom!î  

Did I want that?  Arenít babies bottoms usually red and rashy?  

But, I let Sondra go to work on my face for the next hour, applying lotions and scrubs and tonics, and not really following anything she said about the properties of the zinc exfoliant flakes or the qualities of the age-defying cream.  By the end of the hour, I have to admit, I was bright and shiny (and a bit red) but not rashy, and my skin was quite smooth.  I hadnít touched any babies butts lately, but maybe she was singing the truth.

Maybe Sondra slipped something more than honey into my mug of Simply Sumptuous, but I left her house a few hundred dollars lighter and carrying bright pink shopping bag of facial products.

Greg, my husband was shocked when I came home.

ìJoan, you never wear make-up.î  

ìI know.   I think she drugged me.î

And from there our relationship grew:  Sondra my pusher and me the first tentative and then hungry addict.  The gateway cleansers and moisturizers led to eye liner and lip gloss.  Every few weeks I was calling her up and swinging by her apartment stocked with hot pink boxes of sweet smelling products.  I got the sense that Sondra didnít like my drug-dealer analogy.

ìMake-up isnít a drug.  Itís an aid in giving a woman confidence and bringing out her inner beauty.î

I would sort of snort a laugh as a grabbed my bag of products and made my way down her apartment building stairs.  

Greg mostly just observed from the sidelines, keeping the checking account in check and quietly clearing space in the medicine cabinet.   He did provide the occasional compliment about my wearing lipstick on our way out to dinner.

But then a strange thing started happening.  Sondra wasnít returning my calls or emails as promptly.  She was harder to track down when I needed my new supply of nighttime facial magic or super foundation.  

Unfinished Story #2:  No Running in the Cemetery

ìYouíve got to be joking, right?  Who would I disturb?î  I looked at the cop at the entrance to the cemetery.

ìThatís the rule.  No running.  No recreating.î

Unfinished Story #3

The three kids huddled around the table for the picture.  

Unfinished Story #4

The couple sat across from each other, not speaking.  Every time the bell on the door chimed to greet a new customer, the couple would look up into the window next to their table ñ assessing the person entering the diner in the reflection of the glass.

It was quiet.  Their eyes were quiet, and the bad soft-rock station played quietly over the diner’s stereo speakers, drifting around the coffee cups and spoons. The waitress murmured in Spanish to the new customer now sitting at the counter and the ice cream machine steadily hummed under the lyrics of the Simply Red hit. Suddenly, as if being hit from behind by an invisible hand (like a hand swatting a fly), the woman started jabbering to her husband–and wouldn’t stop.  It was verbal diarrhea.

“I told her that if she wore that dress to the company picnic that people would talk.  You could just see her breasts–full on.  Just hanging there like ripe fruit on a tree,” she rambled.  “It’s too bad.  She was damn good, you know.  It reminds me of that time that Wandaóremember that whore?óthat Wanda showed up at the holiday party all wasted and. . .ugh.  I canít even bare to talk about it,î the woman finished, while putting her cigarette up to her dark, pursed lips and inhaling.    

Unfinished Story #5  The Paddling Isnít Difficult
 
It wasnít the paddling that was hard.  It was the endless commentary on how to do and not do things that she found difficult.  

ìYou should try and cut through the water more cleanly.î

ìUh-huh,î she responded, while she gazed at the kayak paddle slicing through the salt.  

Why had she agreed to take the vacation?  At the time, it seemed intriguing:  paddling along the coast in double kayak, camp fires and stars at night and lazily making their way along island to island during the day.

Then first it started to rain.

ìThis will pass,î Dean claimed. ìLook at the cloud formations,î he added, feigning that he knew what he was talking about while Kat knew he hadnít a clue.  

That was one of the things she started to notice about him more and more:  he almost always acted like he knew more than the other person.  He could be talking to a surgeon and would want to give him tips about incisions, despite having never stepped into an OR.

Then there was the double kayak issue.  It meant they were always together.  She couldnít paddle off for a while to catch a break.  He was there, right behind her, commenting on her too-slow, too-sloppy strokes.  

ìIf you turn your wrist that will help,î he added.

Kat looked out at the horizon and the island in front of them.  It seemed like eons of strokes and they were not any closer.  The current was wicked with the tide change.  She had voiced this concern when they started out.  Shouldnít they wait until after lunch to try for the next island, given that the tide was turning?  That suggestion was shot down.  Now Kat pulled with fruitless force.

She bit her tongue — literally and figuratively.  

She jumped into to relationships too deep too fast.  As a child she was drawn towards the deep end of their backyard pool.  She wanted the diving board, not the ladder as her way in.  She wanted to lose touch with the bottom, struggling a bit to bob and still feel the rough surface.  

ìBig mac, fillet-o-fish, cheeseburger, French fries, ice-y Coke, thick shake, sundaes and appl-ì  she would shout as she jumped off the diving board.  She would compete with Kelly to see how much of the McDonalds jingle should could get out before hitting the water.  

ìApple pies,î she said under her breath as she pointed the kayak paddle toward the wave ahead.

ìWhat?î Dean asked.  ìWhat did you say?î

ìSundaes and apple pies,î Kat replied.  ìRemember that old ad on TV for McDonalds?î

ìI hate McDonalds.  Didnít you see Super Size Me?  Theyíre evil.î

ìOf course,î she answered, not surprised at his response, but still annoyed at its predictability.

They spent the rest of the afternoon paddling in the rain mostly in silence save for the occasional instructional call-out by Dean.   They got to the island just before dinner-time.

As they ate their rice and beans that night, Kat studied Dean out of the corner of her eye, wondering how it had come to this.  At one point she likes his tendency to show her how to do things.  No one ever had taken the time to care before, or to notice if she was doing something right or wrong.  Now it only drove her crazy.  

Possible ending:  

She stepped out of the kayak onto the beach landing. Without Dean seeing, she pushed one edge of the boat with the paddle, making it tip.  Dean was stepping out of his seat at the same time, and was thrown off balance.  He hit the water, momentarily becoming half-submerged before leaping up, swearing and looking up at Kat.

ìYou should really be more careful getting out of the kayak,î she said and walked away from the water, laying her paddle in the sand.  

©Kimberly Larson, 2007

Kimberly
Larson lives in Seattle, WA with her husband Scott and son Miles.  She
enjoys cheese, good margaritas, killing slugs in the garden, and
outdoor things like triathlons and biking–but not necessarily in that
order.

“You’re asking for a bunch of fives!” That was the line that brought me here. My best friend, Trout, and I were listening to Monty Python in high school and BINGO it caught our attention. A bunch of fives?! We shook our fists at each other and repeated the line in our best Monty Python.

The next day in math class I turned my attention towards a girl I was trying to impress with a string of nonsensical words, and when I returned my eyes to my notebook, there it was: fives all over my notebook. I had been, to use our new verb, “fived.” It went from there for a while.

I came to appreciate the power of the five. Fives showed up in my phone numbers (OK, I chose them), my social security number (I’ve said too much already), my name, my classroom groups. It became a number of comfort for me.

When we started Rudolf’s Diner five years ago, Henrietta and I didn’t know where we were going with it. We just knew that we loved to write and we knew people who loved to write. Five years and twenty issues later, Rudolf’s Diner has taken on a rich body of diners, squeezing in and out of the red vinyl booths, sharing a poem, a story, an anecdote, laughing together over a nice waldorf salad. We love the diner and we hope you do too.

We also need your help. We can’t keep the diner open another five years by ourselves. We need a couple more chefs to help out. We’re hanging up the Help Wanted sign here at the diner.  The job requires a certain comfort with technology and experience in or a willingness to learn online publishing. The job requires a love for writing and the desire to inspire others to write. Please send all inquiries to the usual address: rudolfsdiner@gmail.com.

Meanwhile, we have a wonderful new issue for you to read! We asked for a bunch of fives and we got ‘em! They rolled in from many parts of the country, from many corners of the creative brain. Read, enjoy, write! I give you the Five Issue!

Say Uncle,
Rudolf

©Josh Krieg, 2007

It had poured the whole weekend, leaving them cold and wet as they
entered their sanctuary. She stood laughing at him, drenched, as he
created tiny puddles where he stood. Her laughter filled the room,
giving it warmth, depth. He stared into her ever-changing eyes, falling
in love with her all over again. She smelled like rain, he thought as
he kissed her, moving her wet hair aside. That night and for many to
come, he would hold her in his arms, his Blue Moon, and feel her faint
breath caress his skin. Jonathan awoke gasping for air, his face damp
from tears. It was the third night this week he had dreamed about their
first encounter behind Red Door # 5.

Thereís a fine new edge to
grief, it severs nerves, disconnects realityóthere is mercy in a sharp
blade. Only with time, as the edge wears, does the real ache begin.
After two dismal weeks of wandering about his life blind with grief,
Jonathanís ache was just beginning. Eileen was his whole world, his
muse, why he woke up every morning, the reason he always wore that
goofy smile. She was the reason he lived. Now she was gone, and all
that was left was an empty shell, hollow of the happy life he once
lived. Jonathan was at a stalemate. He didnít want to leave the
apartment and venture into the cruel world, which was obviously out to
get him, but he couldnít stay home either. She was everywhere, in
everything, constantly taunting him. Jonathan hated the kitchen the
most– it was the epitome of Eileen. The cabinets, the kitchen sink,
the plates and silverware, down to the hardware on the drawers, it all
reeked of her. Yet he slept there each night, embracing her fleeting
warmth.

The Friday morning light snuck around the corners of the
kitchen flooding his eyes with brilliant rays. Jonathan turned
abruptly, smashing his head into the dishwasher. ìShit! Alright, Iím up
damn it.î Groggily rousing off the hardwood floor, Jonathan stared at
his life. His brown eyes darting around the house, which was littered
with dirty clothes, unpaid bills, and unwashed dishes among other
things. ìAnother day,î he murmured.

After a long hot shower,
Jonathan prepared for the mundane day ahead of him. Clanging open the
refrigerator door, he searched for any remnant of food, but alas, the
endless supply of cold cuts was now empty. Regretfully, Jonathan would
emerge into the world that conspired against him and stock up on food.
Nemain Street Market was only a block away from the apartment, but the
walk seemed so much longer alone. The metal building greeted him with
cold, harsh eyes, resenting him for coming without her.

Jonathan
hated shopping. It didnít hurt that he wasnít very good at it to begin
with, but mostly he hated it even more because it reminded him of
Eileen. It was here, at the Nemain Street Market, that he met the love
of his life. It was aisle thirteen to be exact. He remembered it
clearly, the way she analyzed each label. There was something so
beautiful about the way she timidly bit her lip, it drove him wild.
Mustering up all his courage, he spoke to her. Unfortunately, his
testosterone levels got the best of him. ìIíll warm you up in ways
Campbell soup never dreamed of.î Realizing what he had said, he turned
as red as the tomato soup can hurled at his head. An ambulance ride,
two hours, and three stitches later, Jonathan somehow in his own unique
way secured a date with Eileen.

The first date was just as much
of a disaster as their first encounter, only this time they left out
the visit to the hospital. There was just something about Jonathan;
Eileen could not put her finger on. Perhaps it was his innocent charm,
or that dumb-founded look he had every time she entered in the room,
but she knew that he was the one. After two years of bliss, Jonathan
married the girl of his dreams. He wasnít sure why she loved him, but
was thankful that she did.

Trudging wearily down each aisle,
Jonathan stocked up on random items that would last him a week,
hurrying to avoid the countless looks of pity beat down on him, along
with the pointless sayings committed to memory. ìIf there is anything I
can do,î the store clerk began. ìThere is, bring Eileen back.î Jonathan
retorted. For Jonathan the trip lasted a record-breaking five minutes,
but grief has a way of stretching time, making it seem to last a
decade. He didnít know what he bought, but he would make it work. Tired
he made his way down the block to his apartment complex.

Collecting
the mail, Jonathan once again locked himself up in his apartment,
shielding himself from the cold harsh reality outside of the door.
Setting the groceries on the counter, Jonathan began sorting through
the stack of mail. It had been a little over a week since he made his
way to the first floor to gather the now four-inch stack of mail.
Popping open a cold beer, he began the tedious task of sorting through
the mass of mail he, no, the massive stack he and Eileen had received.
Each envelope addressed to them was another lash at his heart. She was
slipping away from him slowly.

He organized the letters in
different stacks, bills, crap, condolences, and personal. After a
mind-numbing twenty minutes, the task was complete. Throwing away the
crap mail, and setting the bills aside, the stack of personal mail
called to him, urging him to read it. Shuffling through the pile, he
stumbled upon a letter addressed to him. There was no stamp, no return
address, just his name written in an elaborate script.

The
letter felt awkward in his hands. Grabbing the small silver letter
opener, Jonathan sliced through the white prison revealing hints of red
trapped inside. The content of the envelope was a small card in a
brilliant Ferrari red. Jonathanís pulse quickened as he stared at the
gleaming red beacon. Its edges were trimmed in a fine, ornate, black
pattern. The words read:

ìRendezvous 3 p.m.
Behind Red Door # 5.
Love, Blue Moon.î

Flashes
of her crescent shaped freckle on her right shoulder filled his mind.
It was her favorite. He started there, brushing off wisps of her
brunette hair, and slowly kissing his way to her neck. Hints of
sandalwood incense penetrated his nostrils infusing with her distinct
smell of rain, intoxicating him all the same. In the dark of the room,
her eyes transformed to a lucid blue-gray, like that of the moon. Locks
of her hair fell onto his face, as he felt her weight on his hips. He
remained fixated on her eyes, falling deeper and deeper into them. In
pure exhilaration, they released to the sky, and she collapsed in his
warm arms.

Jonathan felt his face go flush, as the card sliced through the air, crashing to the floor.

ìWhat
a sick joke,î he said through gritted teeth. His eyes were swollen and
bloodshot, from tears forcing their way out. That was their spot, their
escape from reality. And now some sick freak was mocking them. As if
the mourning and grief were not torment enough, the world was now
officially out to get him. His anger overtook him, blinding his
judgment. Then he felt it, hanging around his neck, searing cold into
his skin. It was heavy against his chest, the pressure of the ocean
beating down on his lungs. Dangling around his neck on a thin chain,
hung a small barrel key. It was silver with a few blemishes upon its
two and half inch surface. Engraved on the geometric pattern created to
fit the lock, was the number five.

The key and chain sat cupped
in his hand, cold, heavy. Jonathanís heart began to race, palpitating
faster and faster. Trying to rationalize the situation, he wondered
where the letter had come from, each scenario playing through his mind
as illogical as the first. Jonathanís hands shook. This was all too
surreal. He glanced down at his watch; it read 1:30 p.m. His gaze then
shifted to the key, staring at him from his trembling hand, pulsating,
calling to him. It would take him an hour or so to get there. He had to
know. Rushing out the apartment, and down the two flights of stairs,
Jonathan climbed into his black Ford Explorer. Turning the ignition, he
hesitated, and the sweet pangs resumed. Throwing his car into drive,
Jonathan sped out the parking lot.

His destination lay over two
towns. Staring down at the orange line of the speedometer rising, the
scenery blurred by Jonathan, melding telephone poles and trees into a
vague distortion of brown and green. He was driving yes, but his mind
was elsewhere.
*       *       *       *

Their sanctuary
consisted of a small bathroom, kitchen, and one large room, with a
queen size bed in the middle. An elegant chandelier hung in the center
of the nine-foot ceiling. Light reflected off the hundreds of faux
crystals, spraying dim rays along the beige walls. The sheets were an
exact match to the enormous red door. Sparsely decorated, the house was
perfect for them. After the first few encounters behind the lucid red
door, it was clear to Jonathan just how much they needed to escape.
Things had been troubled, but somehow everything changed once they
passed through that door.

The couple had discovered the quaint
home on one of their Sunday drives. It was in a small town located off
the main highway. Eileenís reaction was that of a typical female. ìWhat
a cute town Jonathan.î The small homes looked like they had crawled
straight out of a Nora Roberts novel. He spotted the whopping ten
houses littered about the gravel road. They were older homes, but
Eileen was right, there was a certain cuteness about them. After her
constant pleading, Jonathan gave into his wifeís whim and stopped the
car.

The crisp fall air was refreshing. Skipping down the road,
Jonathan stared at his wife in awe, as he often did. Jonathan laughed.
She was so beautiful, the way her hair whirled about in the breeze, her
smile flashing in between the waves of brunette tresses. Her vibrant
blue eyes beckoned him forth. Strolling leisurely, the couple absorbed
the simple tranquility of the small town. Then she saw it, swinging in
the wind, creaking ever so slightly. Eileen scribbled down the
information in lipstick on Jonathanís arm. ìFor Sale. Villa #5. Contact
Gladys 555-6453.î

By Thursday, the couple proudly owned Villa
#5. Taking a long weekend, Eileen and Jonathan transformed the house
into their private refuge. Jonathan embraced his masculinity, repairing
random odds and ends outside, while Eileen added a much-needed romantic
touch inside. Several paint cans were lined up along the porch, as
Jonathan stood admiring his work. Eileen kissed her husband long and
hard, just as the rain started to resume.

*       *       *       *

He
arrived with ten minutes to spare. The house looked just like they had
left it. Sitting in the car, the massive oak door haunted him, watching
him intently. The clock flashed 2:52, eight more minutes. Jonathan
thought about going in early, giving into the doorís desire. He grabbed
the key and held it in his hand. The key surged, longing for the door,
as Jonathan longed for Eileen. Five more minutes, he couldnít take it.
Eileen was so close, he could hear her voice echo through his heart,
taste her smooth skin, and feel her warmth. Getting out the car, he
briskly crossed the small gravel road and ran up the wooden stairs. Red
Door # 5 towered over him, the bronze number five reflecting the
gathering clouds, looming above. Jonathan felt inferior to the giant
door, the ominous red looking down on him. Placing the key into the
small lock, he heard the familiar clicking sound, as he turned the key.
All that was left to do was open the door.

Drops of rain pelted
against his skin. They were warm, soothing, reminding him of the first
time he entered that faithful door. He looked at his watch, 3:00 p.m.
The rain poured down even harder, soaking Jonathan. The knob twisted
beneath the weight of his hand, unsealing his destination. Jonathan
walked in, his dark brown eyes surveying the room, and his heart
sensing her sweet smell of rain.

©Josh Krieg, 2007

This is the first installation Josh is working on. This is his second publication here at the Diner and he is
overjoyed. Josh would like to thank his family and wonderful editor
[Eva Marie] to avoid being chastised this second go round. This is
Joshís second semester at the University of Lafayette at Louisiana
where he continues to read and write constantly.

©A.E.  Nichols, 2007

Here is a framed photo of five fifth-grade girls grinning up at the camera. The slanting summer afternoon sun turns the ditch water greenish gold, makes halos on the hair of the blond ones, and freckles the noses of this perfect birthday afternoon in the days before sun block. I am perched in my half-wet t-shirt, on the rim of the man-sized aluminum pipe that spills into the swimming hole. The four other girls are Tina, my best friend from my neighborhood, Katie and Lolly, from both the grade-schools Iíve been to, and Robin, from church. They hardly know each other, but are sharing the inner-tubes politely, and laughing at each othersí jokes.

The next photo is in an album labeled ìHigh School.î The pictures are tilting behind the yellowing acetate, which no longer sticks to the adhesive background. Witness me, on several occasions, in various groups of five. On a piece of purple vellum is my pre-art-school attempt at calligraphy: ìFive Furry Friends, Freely Frolicking on a Friday Afffffternoon.î The largest photo, taped at the top shows me with four different girlfriends, all of whom are also best friends with each other, sitting in a circle around a linen tablecloth. We are all wearing white dresses and holding up wine glasses filled with sparkling cider, toasting to our clever fabulousness and the triumph of the statement we are making. This is the final meeting of the ìSenior Ladiesí Lawn Society,î a club we have formed with the purpose of ìbringing elegance to our school.î We are invoking an aesthetic more steeped in tradition than the one our hippie/redneck Midwest town offers; our picnic pageant transports us to a life more sophisticated. Sitting with us (amidst annoyed boys trying to play football on the lawn) is our club sponsor, the band director who usually yells at us to keep in step or play in tune. Today he is wearing a tuxedo and holding up a tiny cracker spread with brie. Within a few years our lives will indeed take us to different places: Beth and Shari will become peripatetic military wives; Leslie will start as a dental assistant and end up a dentist; Rhonda will go to the big leagues as a drum corps performer, and I will expand my horizons as a liberal artist.

Rhonda is with me again in the next photo of five best friends, which used to be stuck to my refrigerator but now has a pinhole through it on the kitchen bulletin board. She and I found each other again in a later phase of life, and with our new best friends we are building a snow woman in this photo, with a crown of holly leaves on her head, and missile-cone breasts tipped with the red berries. Two things are odd about this photo: that these young women are together alone in the great outdoors, away from civilization, and that they are wearing many layers of clothing. The five of us belong to a group of performersóthe DecoBellesówho in turn belong to a greater society of bohemians. We wear lipstick everywhere, to the shops and parties and clubs. We dance on stage with gold beach balls and pose in vintage clothing and picnic in a style more elaborate and anachronistic than the Senior Ladies could ever have imagined. But within this society, so enamored of glamour, the five of us have created a circle of laughter and affection that gives us a strength below the powdered surfaces. Each of us has four best friends with whom we can take off our makeup and tell the truth. We bonded as single, troubled women in our twenties, entered our prime years together, and married each other off. We celebrated each otherís differences, originality, and style at our weddings: Rhonda wore a peach-colored gown when she said her vows at the Palace of Fine Arts; Alexa designed a magical, Snow White princess ballgown that morphed into a sleek dancing dress; Margie wore a simple white shift with embroidered white kid gloves; I wore a cocktail frock from another era, covered with spirals, and Gina re-created a gauzy evening dress from our favorite movie, The Women, in daring black taffeta.

The fourth photo opens from an email attachment. There are nineteen people in this photo, all crowded around a barely-visible couch in a vacation cabin, not twenty miles from where the third picture was taken. There are ten parents here, their nine boys dressed for sledding, their colorful snowsuits as bright as their sunburned faces. The youngest is a kindergartener, and the oldest two are the age of the girls in the first photo we saw. And yes, this is my new group of five best friends, all mothers of various numbers of boys. Our families get together regularly for potlucks, parties, and home-made summer camps (each family hosting one day per week). We parent each otherís children, having all been trained in the same techniques at a cooperative preschool. The boys named this group of families ìThe Spicy Tacos.î Once a year, during our snow trip, the mommies take a walk together and talk about men and careers and boys, of course, and the stuff of being in our prime, and I love that I can turn to any of them for anything: Lisa, who is challenging the status quo by pregnant with a girl in this picture; Gail, the queen of arts and crafts, who is now exploring Physics; easy-going Nancy, who gets us to sing together; and Mommy Liz, for whom the others used to mistake me when we enrolled our twin-like blond toddlers in the school.

Five girls in the swimming hole was a coincidence, but in hindsight I realize I created each of the subsequent circles of women myself. Each of them started with one best friend, and together the two of us invited new friends to hang out. The four furry friends would grow to like each other, seeing more and more similarities, but only when the group made a conscious decision to invite the fifth to join in its activities did it start feeling like a special club. The fifth personógentle Beth of the Senior Ladies, dazzling Alexa of the Decobelles, strong-minded Lisa of the Spicy Tacosóchanged each constellation from a square to a circle of friends.

What is it about five? The right number of friends in a group is not a universal rule. Iíve been lucky enough to belong a ìgangî of nine, a few different trios, and the odd cluster of four-to-seven pals, but these three groups of five girlfriends have grounded me. Perhaps this number means more to me because five was the number of my original family (three kids to slightly outnumber the parents), which dissolved between the first and second photos. Shari bought rings for the Senior Ladies to wear in solidarity, each sporting a small silver foot with five toes on it. There is a mathematical resonance to five that I find soothing, perhaps for no other reason than Iíve been looking at my hands since I could focus my eyes.No one feels excluded with five, like they do with three; you donít get stuck in pairs, like you do with four. When there are five friends, each one can walk in the center a while, with a friend at each corner, like I did up the aisle at my wedding. Five is a rare number of balance and beauty found in pointed stars and buttercups, a number of unity as symbolized by the Olympic rings.

If life is as perfect as pointed stars and buttercups might lead us to believe, then perhaps someday I will be fortunate enough to have another group or two of five best pals with whom to make the most of new phases of life. Lately Iíve found myself longing for a group of vital, world-changing conspirators, perhaps a literary circle, perhaps professionals, possibly even the board of a creative corporation. And farther down the road, I hope there will be a photo to display on my nanoplasma viewportal of five little old ladies with teacups, wearing gaudy jewelry, laughing, perhaps, at a heroic story of of beating a foul-mouthed young man with a weather-repelling device. I will look back at this old lady photo years after thatówhen Iím old beyond old and the image can be projected directly onto my retinasóand remember there was brandy in our teacups, and realize that this last circle of do-it-our-own-way friends had defined itself that day. My four old-lady pals and I, or whatís left of them, will still go to matinees together, speak our minds, perhaps even chain ourselves to the last three remaining redwood trees. We will laugh at our baggy ankles, complain about our diverticulitis, and hold each other close when it is time to mourn. And weíll listen to each otherís stories of the circles of friends weíve enjoyed along the way.

©Kristen Caven, 2007

©Mariana Xavier, 2007

“I am three, four, FIVE! Oh, and then go to kinda-garten!”
jars me out my radio reverie
And my quick grin catches yours
in the rearview mirror.
Chin propped on wrist,
covered in sunscreen and chocolate
You gaze thoughtful and proud out the window
towards this new horizon.
I am still until the weight of the day’s play
finally pushes your eyelids together,
then slowly and carefully reach my arm behind me
Softly I touch your limp fingers,
counting them like years,
feeling the whole of your imagined life
still fitting small and damp
into the palm of my hand.

©Marit Appeldoorn, 2007

Marit is a social worker, therapist, and
some other stuff tooóshe lives in south Minneapolis with her husband and son.

©Dan J T Molina, 2007

Morning. White wimples, black gowns, sweep silently up and down the shining checkerboard floors of Saint Francis Community Hospital. Every five hours, a shooshing machine rolls inóa cold-steam delivery system for a powerful bronchodilator. But the oxygen levels in my blood keep fallingÖ

A shockwave travels through meóthrill, fear, gratitude. Saint Francis in the rain. Sister Warrenís hands around that can of nectar. Mikiís blue smoke, braids tied with bright red cottonÖ
ìMy guess? î   he says.  ìThat new drug finally kicked in.î

©Maia, 2007

Maia is a writer, gardener, meditation facilitator/spiritual director, aspiring to an ever-fuller understanding of Friendship, a perpetual enthusiastic student of everything from music to quantum physics, dedicated to celebrating and caretaking Life on this beautiful planet.

Dan J T Molina, the artist, has been doing mainly pencil drawing for 18 years and recently started experimenting with digital art. He likes to hike, lift weights, run, put computers together from scratch, dance. He has AAs in Studio Art and Mutimedia, has studied Computer Aided Drafting, Sculpture, 3-D Design, Silk Screening, and more.

©Mariana Xavier, 2007

Five Questions

Click HERE to HEAR the poet read her poem!

I asked the rainbow why
   there is no fuchsia in its wave.
            –be satisfied with purple.
I asked the diamond why its
   hardness is so cold and blue.
            –making sparkles that last forever.
I asked the bayou what it was
  like to be brown and slow.
            –soothing seduction, it replied.
I asked the breeze if it ever felt lonely,
    a forgotten child on a playground.
            –not when I can talk to the trees.
I asked the poet if I could borrow
   his words, cradle them in my heart.
            –only if you give them back to the world.

–

Writers Among Us

Click HERE to HEAR the poet read her poem!

            ìImmature poets imitate; mature poets steal.î  T.S. Eliot
 
A poet I know wears shirts with pockets,
pockets for his notebooks, notebooks for his
words painting prairie and Pacific coast.
He wears his curls long, speckled with gray,
dances a good two-step and loves his family.

A writer I know, a sophisticated
Southern lady, wears elegant,
yet sensible shoes.  She claims
to only write prose, but we know she spins
beautiful lyrics with lines that others willingly take.

I know a vibrant young writer who slings a curse or two
does not steal othersí words.  She twirls
her hidden anger into beauty,
respects Native Americans
and demands death for all oompaloompas.

One writer I know surges like a poet,
her fiery soul and hair burning each
word into the air, carving an unknown path,
howling for us to listen to the intelligent
creature she desires to be.

I know a young man born a poet
who wields words of pure essence with every
breath in his soul, spreading a riot of faith
through our bones, who will one day stand before
his muse and simply, wholeheartedly smile.

–

Five Things I Know about Students

Click HERE to HEAR the poet read her poem!

Number 1:  Students lie.  They tell the most ridiculous stories just to amuse themselves. Beyond the ìmy dog ate my homeworkî, we encounter such gothic stories of ìthe dog ate my book so I couldnít read the story.î No teacher ever believes them, but we listen and laugh later.  

Number 2:  Students need love.  They seek comfort in others, even if the love they seek is deadly.  They cannot tolerate silence, or being alone.  They have so much to learn about life.  They are human regardless of what the other teachers say about them in the Lounge.  They have hearts and they cry bitter, huge tears when they are lost, hurt or in need of love.

Number 3:  Students like to gossip.  Talkers they are.  They will say vile, ugly words against their best friend and then lie to cover it up.  Such silliness should have ceased in elementary school, but it persists even into college. And not just girls like to gossip.  Some of my worst gossipers were guys, especially athletes.

Number 4:  Students like to eat.  Sharing food with students is always a sure way of getting them to do what I want them to do.  Sort of like dangling that carrot in front of the rabbit, they are suckers for a treat.  Candy treats at the beginning of school gets them hooked.  Apples, peaches and peanuts command attention all year long.

Number 5:  Students like to learn.  No matter what they say, if we teach them something new and get them to accept that knowledge, they will be grateful.  Teaching about daring to eat a peach and wenis are the way to go.  Ever see a student who didnít want to learn some forbidden tidbit of information like how Romantic poets Blake and Coleridge did drugs and their poetry rocks.

©Eva Guillote, 2007

Known to her students as Ms. G, Eva
is an English and Creative Writing teacher at Comeaux High School in
Lafayette, Louisiana.  When she’s not torturing her seniors with Blake
and Coleridge, she loves to buy and read more books than she can
shelve.  Check out other writing and some student writing at http://gswriters.blogspot.com

©Shawn Covell, 2007

Watching my 8 year old son stand in the steady flow of the
Deschutes River, resisting the current that his older and more seasoned swimmer
friends were giving into and plunging forth with loud boy shouts of joy to the
almost out of sight bend ending in a mini log jam left over from last
Novemberís floods, I couldnít help but remember the tragedy which began the
first of 5 memorials I attended this past year.

#1 Jasmine, an 11 year old girl in my
community, wise beyond years, talent overflowing, a golden heart, sucked into
and trapped under a log jam while rafting with mom, dad and best friend.

#2 Marianne, my 46 year old cousin,
everyoneís favorite, battling with metastasized breast cancer for the past 6
years, her strong spirit keeping her alive longer than thought possible.

#3 Irene, another 46 year old, battling
ovarian cancer, mother extraordinaire of 5 fabulous children ranging from age
11 to 30, close neighbor and wife of a good friend in the community.

#4 Mary Jo, a healthy and vivacious woman
in her mid forties, mother of 4, one of whom is my student, keeled over in the
car with family on the way to a ski vacation in Oregon, first a heart attack and then a coma
before passing.

#5 Jacques, age 84, my motherís oldest
brother, writer and father of two remarkable sons, died of blood clot
complications on his fatherís birthday at his same age of death.

I was beginning to think I was a memorial
junkie as I was drawn to attend and engage in each one of these ceremonies and
loving every minute of it. Having only been to 2 other memorials in my 42
years, I felt like now I was an expert on memorials, could write a short story
about each one and its magical, mystical moments and could write a how to. What
fed my spirit on these occasions?

1. There was something about the absolute
appreciation I had (wish I could hold it that intensely at all times! But even
5 seconds of that is worth it!) for my kids, family and friends in the face of
these losses.

2. There was something
about knowing a person more compositely after hearing the stories from the
different strands of these peopleís lives. ìI never knew that about my mom!î ìI
didnít know that part of my brother.î

3. There was something
about realizing how a person can touch many people in different ways. The bus
driver spoke at Jasmineís memorial, as did several adults who had never met her
but knew of her abundant spirit. A high school friend of Ireneís called several
days after her memorial and although I didnít know her, nor did the rest of
Ireneís family, she recounted her vivid memories of the high school days with
Irene like they were yesterday.

4. There was something
about communal sadness and love so intensely present amongst the family and
friends in their stories, memories, photos, poems, tears, songs.

5. There was something
about taking my children to get a glimpse of community creation, of our
impermanence, of who these great people were.

©Anne Weldon, 2007

I always thought we were five.  Even though four people were on stage, Woody was constantly with us.  Iíd hear his words and music, of course, but he occupied the rooms, small bars, makeshift theaters, and outdoor stages we played.  Iíd see him on the farm workers faces in the San Joaquin Valley, the smiles of recognition on the ageing dust bowl refugees still living in California, in the landscape of small gold country towns, and in the despair of the urban poor.  Woody accompanied our little group; his wit and wisdom inspired and entertained most everyone.  People loved Woody Guthrie.

For five years, as part of a show entitled ìAn Evening with Woody Guthrie,î I had my dream job. Never mind that the pay wasnít much, the benefits were exceptional. Five years of traveling up and down the Pacific coast bringing the music and politics of the great American folk poet to hardcore fans and uninitiated generations.  As Woody would say, ìleft wing, right wing, chicken wing, it donít make any difference to me.î  We began as a duo around 1979, just Lenny Anderson and me in the first version.  When Lenny had a gig at La Pena, a Berkeley cultural center, heíd often call and urge me to show up and bring some harmonicas.  Lenny knew Woodyís music well having done a stint in a stage play about him and in various incarnations that followed.  Somehow, when the response to our little set of Guthrie tunes, accompanied by my narration from Woodyís writings, was particularly pleasing one night, we decided to walk down that old dusty road just a little bit farther.  Within a month, we unveiled ìAn Evening with Woody Guthrie.î  The first half of the show featured Lennyís renditions of Woodyís Dust Bowl Ballads interspersed with my narration from Woodyís writing.  By the second half of the program, we got Woody from Oklahoma to California singing and commenting on the fate of his fellow migrants.  It was uncanny how the music and text worked together.  After the first six months we honed our material down to a fast-paced performance.  I added some harmonica on  ì66 Highway Bluesî and a few other tunes.  The show always ended with the audience joining in on either So Long Itís Been Good to Know Ya or This Land is Your Land.

One night during intermission at one of our local performances, a rather distinctive looking man approached us.  In his 70s, with thick silver hair stuffed into a navy blue seamanís cap, Ed Robbin proceeded to tell us about his friend Woody Guthrie.  ìI helped put Woody on the radio back in the 30s,î he glibly announced.  ìI could tell you guys a few stories about him.î  Ever the promoter, Lenny stopped Ed in his tracks and fired back, ìDonít tell just us, tell them.î  He pointed to our modest audience now filing back in the auditorium for the second half of the show.  Ed obliged with the timing and charm of the veteran performer that he was.  He told how he met Woody in the hallway of radio station KFVD and asked him where he got those songs heíd heard on a 15 minute weekly broadcast.  ìOh, I write those,î Woody replied.  ìI got two notebooks full, I had another one but I lost it on the road.î   We can only wonder what the author of This Land and Pastures of Plenty might have left behind on Route 66.  

Our duo was now a trio and for every show that followed, Ed Robbin opened the second half of the program with personal accounts of his friendship with Woody Guthrie.  He threw in a few tales of his own Depression adventures as well.  It was during a stint at the Santa Rosa Folk Festival that we heard Art Peterson sing Woodyís kidís songs.  ìDo you know what sets Woodyís childrenís songs apart from all others,î Ed asked Lenny and me that afternoon.  We thought for a minute and offered no reply.  ìThink about the lines and the wording,î he continued.  ìWoody writes kidís songs like kids talk.  Theyíre not fancy or filled with clever rhymes.  Kids donít talk like that.  Sure enough when Art sang Donít you push me down, Take you Ridiní in my Car, or Mail Myself to You, we saw the difference.  Art soon joined our group and we were now four.  Four, plus Woody, always.

Of all the coffeehouses, clubs and outdoor festivals we played, one weekend stands out as most memorable.  We crammed Lennyís little í73 BMW full of guitars, a banjo, and enough harmonicas, in all keys, to make Muddy Waters flash a smile. We had 3 gigs in three days.  The final performance was scheduled for Sunday afternoon at Bob Dewittís Feedback Theater. We knew only that DeWitt was an old friend old Woodyís and that heíd moved from Topanga Canyon to the Yosemite foothills sometime in the early 60s.  Heíd made a killing selling land in Topanga Canyon heíd bought dirt cheap in the early 30s.  With his wife Doie, Bob Dewitt owned Red Mountain Ranch as well as few thousand acres in a canyon near Mariposa, California.

Dewittís eccentricity cannot be overstated.  Originally a dairy farmer, heíd moved west in the late 20s, bought land in remote areas, kept a few animals, and honed his skills as a potter and creator of  ìoriginal sculptures.î  His works, aside from earthy red pots, cups, and plates, consisted of anatomically correct jester like figures.  Often, smiling widely, De Wittís little men were scattered everywhere on his property.  Some were sexually aroused. They might stare out at you from behind an oak tree in an isolated meadow, or hang down off a branch providing shade from the summer heat.

After negotiating about 14 miles of dusty, rut infested private road, we came to a hand painted sign hanging on a rusted pickup truck skeleton announcing Red Mt. Ranch.  Doie DeWitt, barefoot, her long salt and pepper hair piled high, greeted us.  Looking like the archetypal grandmother of hip, she told us Bob was eagerly awaiting our arrival and that weíd find him down by the lake.  We walked about half a mile over a slight rise and easily found the lake.  No sign of Bob until a scrawny bronze body surfaced and swam toward the bank.  Exiting the lake, a naked Bob DeWitt cackled and coughed his way forward.  ìGo on, go for a swim,î he commanded.  ìYou guys been on that hot road all day, take a swim, cool off and Iíll meet you in the house.î  Then with a grin that mirrored one of the frisky gnomes Iíd spotted on the way to the lake, DeWitt added, ìAnd watch those little fish in there, theyíll bite your pecker.î  We enjoyed a refreshing dip in the lake hassle free.

Rather than go to the nearest urban center, Fresno, DeWitt had built an open air theater out of an old barn, invited his friends and neighbors, and anyone who listened to his only contact with the outside world, KFCF, a listener-sponsored station in Fresno.

Shows at the Feedback were well attended and featured one other distinction.  If so moved, Bob Dewitt would join in the performance.  Like someone with adult ADD he was constantly moving.  It was not unusual for him to pick up an old set of bongos lying on the barn floor and jump in with the musicians.  Even on ballads, Bob might play along.  During our performance, this was the case.  But no matter, everything about this show was different.  I was exceedingly aware as I spoke my lines that Bob knew Woody. He knew the sound of his voice, his inflection, and his timing.  While I never tried to sound like Woody, I did think a good deal about how I spoke his words.  I guess the best endorsement came when Bob chose a nickname for me.  He loved making up names for people and my new moniker was ìDeep Throat.î  It was his way of saying youíve got the chops to do this.

Before that weekend was over, a slew of unforgettable moments transpired.  As I sat at a large, rough hewn wooden table in the DeWittís kitchen reading Seeds of Man, the least known of Woodyís four books, Bob walked by and caught my attention.  ìHey, Deep Throat, did you know that Woody book yer readiní was written right at that table yer sittiní at?î  I marked my place and spent the next few minutes looking at the table.  After imagining Woody pounding an old typewriter, my eyes returned to the contents of the table.  I noticed a few letters that Bob had ready to post.  All were in plain white standard envelopes but each had distinctive original ink or colored pencil drawing heíd made on it.  In the next few years Iíd get my share of DeWitt letters.  Postmarked Raymond, California, theyíd stand out from all other letters often featuring a detailed train from end to end.  ìThis Train is Bound for Gloryî would sometimes be scrawled across the front.  All are suitable for framing.  He didnít make phone calls and except for electricity, and his radio tuned to the only station heíd listen to, that was as far as technology was going to go.
 
Before we departed the ranch, Ed, Art, Lenny, and I went for a hike in the foothills.  It was mid-morning and the dew still remained on the wild buckwheat. Calling a halt, Lenny abruptly took us aside.  ìYou guys, I just want to say something,î Lenny continued.  We all gathered around him.  ìI want you to know how good it feels to do this thing together.  Itís become important to me and I know it is to each of you too.  I guess what I am trying to say is that I love it and you too.  Thatís all, I felt I had to say it.î

We all mumbled something between embarrassment and agreement and shielded our eyes from the sun.

By the mid 1980s the seductive pull of a solo career got to Lenny.  Art returned to his day job at the San Francisco Sewage Treatment Plant and I retreated to the demands of my classroom.  Ed, slowed by encroaching complications from diabetes and the toll taken by age, retired to his study.  Bob Dewittís Feedback Theater went on for another decade or so and before his death in 1986, Ed Robbin managed to write a loving memoir called Woody Guthrie and Me. The book details their unlikely friendship, the dust bowl Okie and East coast radical, and contains some rare photos from Edís collection as well.  There is also a chapter called La Pena where Ed recalls how we all met and some of our most enjoyable times together.  There is an official press release photo of the four