Art Predator Earns GingaTao Seal of Approval!
Well, golly gee whiz and thank you too to GingaTao aka Paul Squires!
It is a lovely badge; now to just figure out how to put it up on my blog for all to see for all time!
And I am in such grand company! Here are two of the other recipients so far:
Nic Harcourt to Leave KCRW
Well, I guess this Thanksgiving I should be grateful that Nic Harcourt devoted 10 years of his career to KCRW, the public radio station from Santa Monica City College. Read more…
Boy turns 5: gets new bed!
So after much debate, and rapid emailing, and round the world on-line searches, and hopeful starts and false turns, and two generous offers of twins (thanks Jan and Robin!), we found a full size bed on Craigslist, went to LA to see it, bought it, somehow got it all loaded onto David’s truck (thanks David!), then unloaded again and set up (thanks again to David and Auntie Laurie!)–and the boy who celebrates his birthday today still doesn’t know! Talk about a BIG surprise!
If you want it new ($800 plus tax and no mattress), it can be ordered here or just about anywhere–it seems standard in the typical catalogue most stores carry. It’s more challenging and time consuming to search for something used but by persevering, we were able to buy something very nice at a price we could better afford: $400 for the loft, desk, mattress, a matching dresser, and a matching lamp (all of it new would have probably cost closer to $1500).
It’s a lot easier on the earth as well to reuse, recycle, regift than to constantly be consuming new new new!
UPDATE–Birthday Boy Bedtime: He loves it!! He says: It’s soooo awesome! The smile on his face will warm me for years.
Know anybody who needs a really nice convertible crib? Make you a good deal! Comes highly recommended! It’ll last you up to 5 years!
Poem for Vietnam War Veterans I knew when I was a child
These Brothers They: A Memorial Poem
Today is the 90th anniversary of the end of World War 1. Nov. 11, 1918 was the last day of what they considered “The Great War.” My grandfather’s half brother Wilmer “Frenchy” Paquette fought in that war as did his brother Faye Paquette.
Each November 11 is Veteran’s Day in the United States; I understand yesterday November 10 is Remembrance Day in Canada.
It’s not simply a holiday, a day off from school, a day to go shopping at Veteran’s Day sales to shore up our flagging economies.
Veteran’s Day is always celebrated on November 11–to remember the last day of the “Great War,” and those who fought in it, and wars before and since. Like Independence Day, it is not and should not be one of our holidays that we insist on turning into a three day weekend.
When we finally get out of Iraq and Afghanistan, we should have a special day of remembrance, a day set aside to honor those who fought there, and to show respect for all veterans. I pray that day is soon.
I published the broadside above in ArtLife Limited Editions. I published the text and the story behind the poem here on Memorial Day 2008. I plan to record this poem and make a video for it too.
Susan Spano of the LA Times visited many of the cemeteries recently for this article. In it she writes,
I stopped at the German cemetery by the noisy Pontina on the way back to Rome. There I was alone with 27,443 enemy war dead who, resting eternally, no longer seemed like anyone’s enemy.
A plaque quoting Albert Schweitzer put the right coda on my journey. “The soldiers’ graves,” it read, “are the greatest preachers of peace.”
3:15 Experiment Poem: August 15, 2008
3:15am August 15, 2008
Thunder and lightening
wake me but it was
the rain that got me
out of bed to
roam the house
closing windows and
rolling my bike inside.
We don’t have weather
like this often—in fact
the last time it rained
and stormed like this
at night was the
night my son was born.
I sat in the living room
talking with my sister on the phone
trying to figure out what was
going on in my body
what it meant and
whether the baby was
going to be born
with a drum roll please.
Tonight I wake the boy
take him to the potty
reassure him
when the light flashes
and the thunder rolls– I
don’t like this, he says.
It’s okay, I murmur.
I pull the blankets over him
hand him Mimsy the Rabbit
kneel beside his bed
on the Sponge Bob pillow.
The night sky glows
with the almost full moon.
I can’t see any jagged
slashes of lightening
the storm is right above
us now and the light
fills the room. I
hold the boy’s hand
kiss his cheek give
his hand a squeeze
his eyes are closed
he doesn’t flinch at the
next flash and I ease away
back to bed
open the window
listen to the rain
remember other storms
the stories taking me
back to sleep
I wrote this poem last summer as part of the 3:15 Experiment–that’s where poets from around the world awaken to write at 3:15am local time then post the raw, unedited words at the 3:15 Experiment website.
I post this today for two reasons: it is Monday and I almost always post a poem on Mondays, and because my son turns 5 on Wednesday…
The photo was taken that night by Candice Cunningham, of 2020 Images; she specializes in unusual wedding photography and her website is worth checking out!
Finding a Bed for the Boy
The small boy turns 5 in a few days, and as he has mastered making it through the night without an accident, and as he is still sleeping in the convertible crib/bed he has slept in from when he was 9 months, and since he wants a big boy bed, specifically a loft bed:
I am looking for a bed for the no longer small boy and I want to surprise him with it on his Wednesday birthday.
I’ve had my eye out for a loft bed at freecycle but none have turned up recently so I have turned to the web to see what is out there–and what sizes they are to make sure it would fit!
Making one doesn’t seem impossible. It would be difficult to surprise him with one though!
Here are some free plans I found:
they have how to build just about anything from PVC pipe!
(Does this seem sturdy enough for a 50 pound boy and a parent or two??)
Here are some very thorough plans–the dad’s a contractor and so this one seems very sturdy.
Out of wood from Monster Guides (how to build ANYTHING–except the plans are vague and so it looks like what they are doing is selling more sophisticated plans…sneaky–don’t you hate that?)
There are plenty out there to buy of course. Doesn’t this look awesome??
There’s a full bed on top and a trundle bed on the bottom level! I am sure it is way out of our budget, and I can’t even get the link to work to the company but we can still drool… Here’s a link to a similar one but in a shaker style which runs $1200…
I would really love to have a full bed above and a twin below…
These are inexpensive and flexible–very customizible.
And homemade ones abound for all kinds of great ideas out of my realm I’m afraid…Lucky Andrew!
I think what I’m going to do next is check Craigslist, and then while the Big Monkey and small boy getting bigger are out on a bike ride, I’m going to hit the thrift stores and see if I can find something used!
More Salvage: Masia Carreras 2001!
I am so glad I have no moral compunction about scavenging and salvaging what I find valuable and what otherwise will get thrown out.
After all, I grew up going to garage sales and auctions with my family. For years, my dad worked as an auctioneer. When I was in college, I bought for him at garage sales, worked his auctions, and learned to refinish furniture too.
I find no shame in dumpster diving, having spent several of my formative years collecting beer cans from the neighborhood dumpsters. I still have a number of Navy middies I found at the dump when I was about 12; I imagine now they once belonged to someone recently returned from Viet Nam.
Like the recently deposed Sarah Palin, I regularly shop at thrift stores, especially on half-price Wednesdays at the Goodwill by the farmers market, and at Habitat for Humanity’s Restore.
So when it seemed that the room full of open wine left behind after the after party at the Wine Bloggers Conference was going to get poured down the drain, thrown out or who knew what, I packed up what I could manage and drove off with it, figuring I’d drink what I could as fast as I could, taste and write and taste some more, and share the wealth–which is exactly what I’ve been doing since I returned from the Wine Bloggers Conference last week.
I know now how little I know about wine. And how much less I knew a week ago before I went to the Wine Bloggers Conference and tasted more wine in one weekend than I had in the previous year.
I am not sure whether I tasted the Masia Carreras 2001 Saturday night at the after party or not, and I have no idea who brought it to the party. There was such a blur of wines I’d never heard of I have no idea. But as we were cleaning up after the party, someone urged me to take it so I did. Read more…
Hail Langston Hughes aka President-Elect Barack Obama!
As a writer, I have long admired Barack Obama’s articulateness on and off the page. (For her ability to answer hard-driving questions with wit, agility, and skill, I am still amazed by Hillary Clinton and can’t wait fort the day she leads the Supreme Court!) For a FREE STICKER or to buy a POSTER of this image, see below).
So I wasn’t surprised to know that Pulitzer Prize winning author Toni Morrison, who will be speaking at the LA Central Library Nov. 19, also admires his prose.
I was surprised, however, to discover that Barack Obama is a poet of such skill that Harold Bloom compared his poetry written as a student to the work of Langston Hughes, Harlem Renaissance author of such works as “America” and “Harem” which is popularly known as “dream deferred.”
Each week on this blog, in addition to my own poetry, I like to offer a poem or two by a poet I enjoy, appreciate, admire. Since I don’t have any of Barack Obama’s poetry at hand (yet!), I offer work by Langston Hughes.
I, Too
I, too sing America.
I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong.
Tomorrow,
I’ll be at the table
When company comes.
Nobody’ll dare
say to me,
“Eat in the kitchen,”
Then.
Besides,
They’ll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed–
I, too, am America.
Harlem
-
- What happens to a dream deferred?
- Does it dry up
- like a raisin in the sun?
- Or fester like a sore
- And then run?
- Does it stink like rotten meat?
- Or crust and sugar over
- like a syrupy sweet?
- Maybe it just sags
- like a heavy load.
-
- Or does it explode?
Let America be America Again
LANGSTON HUGHES 1938
Originally published in Esquire and in the International Worker Order pamphlet A New Song (1938)
Let America be America again. Let it be the dream it used to be. Let it be the pioneer on the plain Seeking a home where he himself is free.
(America never was America to me.)
Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed– Let it be that great strong land of love Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme That any man be crushed by one above.
(It never was America to me.)
O, let my land be a land where Liberty Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath, But opportunity is real, and life is free, Equality is in the air Read more…
Is it just me or is everything looking up?
High Desert Test Site
Maybe it’s just that after that long divisive election, we’re waking up and coming round to seeing what else is going on in the world. Literary series are starting up, universities are bringing people around, it’s too dark to work in the garden or go for a late afternoon bike ride, so might as well make some plans to put the arts into your life. Read more…
Art Predator Turns One w/32,000 Page Views
It’s true: one year ago, on November 4, 2007, I, Art Predator, started my blog.
And today I have over 32,000 page views!
THANK YOU!! Thanks to everyone, for coming around and reading and commenting on my blog this past year!
So, what would you like with your cake? Ice cream? Coffee? Champagne? A poetry reading?
To celebrate, I thought I’d list how I got here– my Top Twenty posts of the past year, all which received over 200 page views:
What I am most proud of is how blogging has motivated me to create more, to write more, to learn to make videos of my poems, to have a venue to respond to what’s going on in the world. It has been important also this past year to be a part of several on-line writing communities like the one Paul Squires has created over at gingaTao, read write poem, and the Poetry Train, and to discover and join wine blogging communities as well (look for my first Wine Blogging Wednesday post!)
It’s been really rewarding watching this baby grow from only 728 page views during the month of November 2007 to 4,844 one year later during the month of October 2008. In 365 days, from my first posts and the rare comment to 347 posts and 1040 comments (yes that’s almost one post a day and 3 comments a day!).
Last week was my biggest week ever (well, except for the week with the lunar eclipse back in February!)
| 10/27 193 | 10/28 245 | 10/29 212 |
10/30 308 |
10/31 368 |
11/1 147 |
11/2 203 |
week total 1,676 | week ave
239 |
art predator 
