Bird park - 2 weeks later

It's cold now and still no bird park. This has gone on too long. The descendants of the dinosaurs are getting pissed.

The critique

I finally got the critique of the poems I entered in the Nevada Arts Council Artist Fellowship Program last spring. It took long enough. If you are one of the rare regular readers here you perhaps remember I was not awarded the $5000 grant but you may have been on the edge of your keyboard waiting for the judge's commentary to arrive. Well, probably not. I'd forgotten all about it myself. At any rate, in keeping with my dedication to truth and transparency here at the language barrier, I'm posting the panels comments (there were two judges), as is (including typos) just as I did last year. If nothing else, it's another item for the alien's data bank who cleverly gave us this technology knowing we will freely pour our hearts out into the void.

ARTISTS FELLOWSHIP FY07
LITERARY ARTS APPLICATIONS

Application Number 331
Discipline / Category Literary Art - Poetry


Panel Comments

Found these poems intriguing, mysterious. Especially liked "Skin Trade"


Some strong imagistic details: "an old man...gulping like a fish," the synesthesia of "leathery squeak," "dusty clods of petals and wax." These poems are strongest when centered in image; where rhetoric outweighs image, they become slightly less so. The poems are consistent in tone: ominous, detached. The poet should trust in his/her image making to convey this surreal landscape without the need for flatter discursive passages such as the opening lines of "Road's Eye View" and "Skin Trade."


Interesting since (their misuse of word) of mystery remind me of some surrealist French poems. The musically did not work for me. There was not much effort to create a song pattern that work as part of the package.


Stunning images very surreal, but at the heart surreal there is a process of uncovering a deeper reality, a deeper meaning. I'm not quite sure what the poems were cohesively adding up to. The language was inventive and creative thematically but not quite there.

"Discursive passages"? Okay. But "not much effort to create a song pattern that work as part of the package"? Package? As in word product? I'm glad these guys don't get it.

Nothing to hide, everything to protect

Excerpt from "The Grave"

"Oft in the lone church yard at night I've seen,
By glimpse of moonshine chequering thro' the trees,
The school boy, with his satchel in his hand,
Whistling aloud to bear his courage up,
And lightly tripping o'er the long flat stones,
(With nettles skirted, and with moss o'ergrown,)
That tell in homely phrase who lie below."

by Robert Blair

"I have nothing to hide."

This is the standard answer when someone defends Republicans spying on us without a proper warrant. Otherwise intelligent people totally miss the point thinking it doesn't matter as long as the person spied on is innocent. I marvel at their ignorance. Their passivity stuns me. Either these people are whistling past the graveyard or they are as clueless as animals chew their cuds in the slaughterhouse.

Our Constitutional guarantee of privacy is violated when the government spies on us without a warrant and that, my friend, is a Big Deal. It should be a clue that the conservatives do not want anyone monitoring them when they spy on us. This is because they want secret, full, unrestricted access to all our phone conversations, emails, downloads, credit and banking records. They want to know what we buy, what books we check out at the library, the groups we belong to, and the people with whom we spend personal time. They want to be able to imprison anyone, at any time, for no stated reason, deny the accused access to the evidence held against them and even deny the defendant the right to attend their own trial. Far fetched? You bet it is. It's totalitarianism, baby. Fascism.

Bush & Co are bringing America Fascism on the installment plan. Their illegal actions and our passiveness have created an environment toxic to democracy and freedom. When we stand on the sidelines and let the Republicans disassemble our Constitution we are letting them destroy the very thing that defines and protects us as free people.

"What does it matter? I have nothing to hide." We may have nothing to hide but we sure as hell have something to protect.










fascism Bush republicans NSA warrentless spying constitution

Countdown 9/11 Special Commentary

Keith Olbermann blasts Bush calling him and his supporters "grasping, opportunistic dilettantes at best and at worst idiots." I say screw the either/or because they're all that.People are so mesmerized by the Republican spin machine but the fact is emperor has no brain and he's driving the bus off the cliff. Check out CrooksandLiars.com for the link. The complete transcript of speech is also available at crooksandliars.

Bush, our pet goat

September 11, 2006

2666: current US death toll in Iraq
20000 - 48100: estimated US wounded in Iraq
41650-46318: Iraqi civilian death toll

9/11: Why did Bush sit reading "My Pet Goat" and ignore the news that the country was under attack? And why did he mire us in this trumped-up war on Iraq instead of going after Osama bin Laden who was the master mind behind 9/11?

Watch our pet goat read as America burns.

bush 9/11 my pet goat osama bin laden

Bird Park blues

The Bird Park is a sad place these days. The trailer is taking much longer than expected. It shouldn't surprise me how long a do-it-yourself project ends up taking but it always does. The bed liner is on. It looks great and now the only thing left is to paint the outside and Mr. Lee is doing the prep for that today.

At this point the bird feeders have been down for over a week but every morning a little band of pigeons continue to gather just after day break on the roof of Dick's house to see if their world has been restored. I guess all pigeons are homing pigeons. When the feeders are up the finches gobble away at them from dawn to dusk and spew seed chips on the ground for everybody else. Mr. Lee assures me that it should only a few more days before the trailer is done and my little artifical environment can return to it's own form of normal. I hope so. Otherwise it's pretty quiet here in suburblandia.

Tonopah Nevada, one more time

Here are a few photos from my weekend in Tonopah.


Proud home of the Tonopah Muckers


World weary lama
downtown Saturday afternoon "petting zoo"



Main Street, downtown Tonopah

"The Last Picture Show"
Th film was supposed to be about a desperate little town
in Texas but many of the scenes were filmed in Tonopah,
including the street scene used on the official poster for the film,
hanging in Tonopah's Convention Center.



One block off of Main

Thrift shop



Outhouse



Miner's house
located just north of the outhouse, also one block of Main St.


View of Mizpah Hotel on Main St.
as seen from cabin next door.



Polaroid of a guy drinking a beer
found in this shack. Yes, I left the photo there.
It's waiting for you.



Back side of heaven



Wild hot springs a few miles from town.
The water was too hot in the middle of the day
to do anything but soak our feet.


Local newspaper clippings 1907 - 1911
Tonopah museum

An incredibly different style of journalism.

1909


1911


1907



Old Tonopah graveyard

revisited again


Baby William's doll
Something moved the doll since my last visit in the spring



Unknown baby
the wind has rubbed the name away

tonopah nevada the last picture show graveyard miner's cabin old west

Saturday at the Roxy - 09.09.06

Today the Roxy matinee is coming to you from the lovely town of Tonopah located in the geographic center of the Great Basin, aka Nevada. This link takes you to some poetry by a few friends of mine that you might enjoy. At any rate, I'll post photos of the Tonopah trip later. I hope you enjoy the show. Last Saturday was basically Werner Herzog day here at the Roxy. First we watched him eat his shoe and then saw his video of aboriginals in the Amazon. Naturally they were both pretty intense, so today I've chosen lighter fare.

To kick off today's matinee here's
Bengal cat Zimba treading Richard Norton's...

Evil Cat Wheel

This next video is for dog lover's.
or you might say lover dogs..

Puppy Love

I found this video by Falconer & Tom (sorry no link) on Channel 101.
It didn't make it very far in the voting but I kind of like it and hope you do too...

Stripey #1

saturday roxy

Tonopah in the morning

I'm leaving for Tonopah in the morning and will be gone until Sunday. For the last couple of years I've been attending meetings there but, after this trip, I rotate out of the service position I've been in and that's it. I'm done and I'm a bit sad about it.

I love to wander around photographing Tonopah's remains which the desert is quickly consuming, but otherwise there's not much else going on there besides the gas station, which must make about a million dollars a month, and the two prisons which will eventually be buried by the sand. Otherwise Tonopah belongs to the dead.







tonopah

Victory for Horses!

Mare and two colts, members of a small band of
wild horses in the Nevada desert.

Horse protection bill passes House!

I got this email from the Humane Society today and want to share it with all of you who called your Representatives yesterday to speak up for wild horses:

Dear Asha,

I am thrilled to share with you truly historic news: Today, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act (H.R. 503) by a vote of 263-146. Our opposition tried to introduce two "poison pill" amendments that, if passed, would have killed the bill. But thanks to your calls and emails, these amendments were soundly defeated, and the House passed the legislation. Your work carried the day for America's horses!

I can't stress enough how crucial the support of dedicated advocates like you has been in this long fight to close down the brutal and foreign-owned horse slaughter industry. Each time you made a phone call, met with your legislators, sent an email, and told your friends and family about this issue, you helped the horses win. All of these efforts have led us to this historic win in the House.

Your actions have also paved the way for a victory in the Senate. To ensure final passage of this vital legislation, please contact your two U.S. Senators (Harry Reid and John Ensign) and urge them to immediately pass the American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act (S. 1915).

We are closer than ever to protecting nearly 100,000 horses a year from a grim and painful end, just so they can be turned into foreign delicacies. Please stay with us in this fight as we reach toward final victory for the horses.

Please share this good news with your friends and family, and urge them to take action by contacting their U.S. Senators, too.

Now the bill has to pass the Senate and that fight is yet to be fought, but that's for another day. Today is a day to celebrate. Thanks for your help! We did together what we could not do alone!







H.R. 503 wildhorses slaughter

Republican plan

"Yada yada woof woof" - President Bush

campaign conservatives congress election iraq