Harvard Museum of the Ancient Near East presents - the Babylonians - the Assyrians - THE GREAT FLOOD. This poem is about 4000 years old. Reconstruction through many long ago sun baked clay tablets, this is the story of Gods and of humanity. The original pre-Jewish/Christian Bible, the flood was already an ancient story.
SHOES
Write about shoes:
Your favorite pair, your first pair (if you can remember them), when you last wore leather shoes, whatever you write for this exercise include SHOES!
C 2018-2022 Christine Trzyna
All Rights Reserved including Internet and International Rights
OK to use this post in not for profit situations. Please credit me. Send me love. It's karma.
AM I WHO I KNOW? (or DON'T?)
Top Model I Think is Most Heart-Stopping Beautiful : Gigi Hadid
Actor With Talent Who Is Also My Heartthrob : Jack Huston
Actor I'll See Any Film She Makes : Jennifer Lawrence
Actor(s) who I think are underrated : Diane Lane, Drew Barrymore
Poem That Always Gets To Me : Dylan Thomas : I Have Longed to Move Away
I'm Curious About : The Pope's Consecration of Russia and the Ukraine/ Fatima.
Enough Already : Cancel Culture
Worst Person I Recently Encountered : The Condescending "I'm On the Board" Bitch Who Lectured Me In A Parking Lot.
Where the Hell Is : Edward Snowden (He has been silent regarding the Russian genocide of Ukrainians.)
So Good - So Bad : 7/11 hot dogs. The bread bun is often stale, too small, and falls apart, the liquid 'cheese' is not available, there are more bad peppers than good pickles, and who knows what these hot dogs are made of, but I've craved them, slathered in mayo and salsa. I've eaten about a half dozen of them in the last couple months.
I Might Just Be Done With : Yahoo
Historical Person I'd Like To Interview : Martha Washington
If I Could Travel Back In Time : I'd like to visit the San Fernando Valley in 1930.
I Could Care Less : Ellen (Degeneres) (Why again is she funny?)
My Favorite Person Is : My dog.
AM I WHAT I INDULGE?
Oldie Film(s) I Just Had to Watch Again : An Officer and a Gentleman
Oldie Film(s) I Want To Watch Again Sometime : The Perfect Storm, Hollywoodland, American Hustle
Not So Oldie Series I Want To Watch Again Sometime : Boardwalk
Newish Series That I Was/ Am So Impressed With : The Wilds
Newish Series I'm Waiting On Next Season : The Crown
I Just Watched and Loved It : Horror In the High Desert (free on YouTube) A documentary about an unsolved murder.
Oldie Favorite Album I Blissfully Recently Listened to from Beginning to End : None
Oldie Band I Didn't Grown Up With That I'm Listening To Now : None
Oldie Song(s) I've Been Listening To A Lot : I The Living by Tom Winslow
Newish music I'm binging : Silk Sonic - Bruno Mars /Anderson .Paak (I think 'Smoking Out the Window' is hilarious and 'Leave The Door Open' is coming from the perspective of that new vulnerable male...)
Book I Recently Read Cover To Cover : The Sound Of the Sea : Sea Shells and the Fate of the Ocean by Cynthia Barnett
Book(s) I Keep Meaning To Reread : So many!
Person I Get and Nobody I Know Understands : The Punk Rocker who lives in his vehicle and spends his days writing and producing music and texting with fans. He may be wasting away but he will do so until his dying day. He defines being true to one's art.
AM I WHAT I EAT?
Favorite Cheese Of The Moment : None
Tortilla to Beat All : Trader Joes Whole Wheat Wraps Olive Oil
Condiment / On Pizza : Olives - Black Olives
Chocolate : Dark with Sea Salt
Canned Soup I Miss That I Don't Think They Make Anymore : Campbell's Scotch Broth
Meal I Miss That I Can't Recreate: Pressure Cooker Stuffed Cabbage
I'm No Longer Into Like I Once Was : Pasta
I'm Drinking : Iced Decaf Coffee, Iced Herbal Tea
AM I WHAT I BUY?
I hadn't bought anything other than food for me and my dog in weeks. But I uncharacteristically threw money down on the counter for two items on sale. I think I was partially motivate by my attraction to the color Orange.
Nature Love Power Peel Foot Spa : I've never tried a foot peel before. Put my feet down into the fruity acids plastic "socks" and await the gross delight.
40 Carrots Moisture Splurge - Ditto never tried a retinol product. I hope I don't regret this!
AM I WHAT I MISS?
Alone Time - A Long Stretch
Soaking in a Tub (I'm barely showering, trying to save water)
Sleeping nine hours straight no problem.
Burning incense.
A road trip up the coast.
LATEST FASCINATION(S)?
I SHOULD :
Take Yoga Again. Go Swimming.
I WISH:
It Would Rain
I HAVE:
Lately, a strong sense memory of this time of year in 1997.
C 2022 Christine Trzyna
Ask yourself the same questions.
Don't let me influence you.
Did you loose friends during the Pandemic? Initial articles on the internet suggested that it would take about six weeks to regain the friends you only thought you lost. That was just several months into what has been and most certainly is and will remain an epic historical event.
I personally have.
I know one is never coming back. Religious differences.
Another might if I work on it. Bonded over dogs. Has lots of family. Does not need friends.
I have coffee at an outdoor restaurant planned in a couple weeks with another who is out of town right now. Lit major. Not Vaccinated.
Another tells me he does not think he will EVER AGAIN be in LA County! He has gone to live in Orange.
Yet another, after a long spate of unemployment that made him depressed and feel hopeless, actually found work during the pandemic and bought a car with his stimulus checks. His first car in over a decade!
Lots of people have misplaced friends. The long stretch of time with death as the main topic - a necessary obsession - demanded another way of being. Being forced to sequester allowed some people to maximize their use of unexpected time off and do a project that had been on hold. It seems many people just thought about their lives, what had been before, what they wanted to do next, or before they died, if only they could. They could barely wait to get unstuck. Acting upon realizations and decisions made,great numbers have moved to smaller, more affordable places. (Yet there are always incoming.) Some rekindled the closeness with their partners that they felt when they first got together. Others realized that they could only live with their partner if they were both working and saw each other a little. Divorces forthcoming.
So, my thoughts turned to some long ago friends - most who were not close. I didn't want contact. I was just wondering.
Rather than learn what they had been up to during the pandemic, some information on the net turned out to be more dated.
I learned that a person who at the time I thought to be one of the most all around creative people I had ever met had stayed true to herself as a talented seamstress and thrift store collector of antiques and had moved into theatrical costuming. The surprise was that she was divorced long ago.
Someone else had managed to actually put in 40 years into one job and, now retired, was a historian of the local in which he had been raised and worked. I didn't recognize him from the photos. (I barely know anyone who managed 20 years in one workplace... I barely know anyone who managed 10...)
There were those who had been quite public for a long time as creators of poetry and music but who seemed to have disappeared, perhaps into private lives, perhaps - I venture - in order to care for family or partners - well before the pandemic. Maybe they needed a break. Maybe they reassessed. Maybe they learned there was something else they wanted.
A lot of people had moved and moved again.
From San Francisco to Asheville, North Carolina.
From Santa Cruz, to Iowa, to New Mexico.
From LA to Arizona to Up-State New York.
From LA to Santa Barbara.
From LA to Utah.
From LA to Portland.
One person had about eight addresses reflecting his itinerant profession, but settled in a small town in Texas. Ventura to LA to Santa Cruz to..... Texas.
Someone else had managed to archive a history of their art and music-related business at California State University at Northridge. I thought he was younger.
Like we all do - quickly or slowly - planned or unplanned - they'd moved forward.
The question of how to move forward when you're forced to stall out is not easy unless you have considerable resources.
I've always hated it when someone uses the terminology (usually about others) "end up" as in "where did he end up?" I figure that answer is ultimately heaven or hell, not Portland or New Mexico.
I ran into a couple I met a few years ago. They told me about some regulars at a restaurant that I had met, both in their 80's, who had died of Covid, one after the other, not long after they - finally - got their citizenship.
C 2022 Christine Trzyna
(Page 52 of the book. About his friendship with fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld. Note: Both Lagerfeld and Talley are now deceased.)
EXCERPT: While I was in Paris, we only became closer. We spoke early in the morning, before he left the house, almost every day. He loved socializing by telephone. We'd see each other at lunch, or dinner, or at a party, then go home and talk on the phone for two or three hours before going to bed and starting the whole thing over again in the morning. It was like being with my best friend in college. It wasn't labored; we weren't having deep, boring, conversations. It was effortless. Karl always treated me as an equal.
When we weren't on the phone together, Karl and I sent elaborate handwritten letters to each other, often delivered by hand across town in Paris. Just the way people did centuries before. Karl loved stationary, and his paper was designed and made just for him.. In his rue de l'Universite apartment, there was a storage room solely for reams of letter-writing papers and envelopes of various sizes (another storage room housed his massive collection of Goyard hard cases for travel). Out of these large envelopes, pages and pages came in his very baroque handwriting, which I learned early on how to decipher. Writing by hand to a friend was luxury to him. For years, we communicated by either fax or marathon telephone calls.
....
People thought I was Karl Lagerfeld's lover. I was not. Nor was I ever. Nor was I Diana Vreeland's, as some people gossiped. There is always the thought that as I am a black man, it can only be my genitals that people respond to....
When have you SELF-CENSORED?
When and Why?
C 2018-2022 Christine Trzyna
All Rights Reserved including Internet and International Rights
OK to use this post in not for profit situations. Please credit me. Send me love. It's karma.
I've been dog/ house sitting the last few days. Friends headed north for a long weekend. A much needed change of scene and pace. I sure hope they come home renewed.
I'm caring for their dog along with mine, both oldsters. Theirs is more peppy. I love their dog despite her many bad habits that they never expect her to change. One day when I had to be away, I came back to find my dog, unused to me being away for so long, had been sitting by their gate and crying with anguish for hours. I saw that their dog was beside her, however, and as I came through, their dog used her nose to tap the face of my dog, to comfort her and say, "There she is. I told you she would come back. You have not been abandoned." Their dog is aware that my dog is going blind. Their dog held out faith that I would return, watched for me, was there for her. So how can I hold it against their dog that, after I gave both of them baths, she ran for the freshly laundered bed that belong to my dog, and spread herself out on it? Leaving my dog on the floor. That she runs for my dog's food if my dog stops eating for a moment? That she is fat and mine is too thin. Mine gives her warning barks about the food. Mine barks a lot to tell on her when she is invading to get treats.
I hold their dog and I tell her that I know that she starved in a past life. I hold their dog and tell her that I know that she poops and pees on their bathroom floor to make a point: she is actually a human and humans do use that room to do their business.
Right now the two of them are trying to distract me from writing by tail wagging in hopes of walks and food. "When I finish my essay!"
Outside birds are chirping. An early spring nest, perhaps, is in their tree. It is a cold morning. I'm under the covers and don't feel like starting my day. I'm enjoying the quietude of a house empty but for me and these dogs, at least until the end of the day when they return. I'm fortunate in that way.
Do I, you wonder, write every day? Have some sort of routine or schedule for writing? Overall, the answer is no. I do write often. I do write for hours. I do still hand write, though I get more done typing. I don't publish on this blog or elsewhere most of what I write. Some of it is just for me. Some of it is experimental. I wrote a short short the other day, the first time in a long time that I wrote a short short.
I remember in my writing program there was a student who wrote a children's book that I thought was charming in its imagery. This student was warned by the university that he needed to get on with finishing his projects as he had acquired too many units and might have to go without completing a degree. He was procrastinating his final paper. He was in therapy for writer's block. (Probably also he was procrastinating because he knew that once he graduated he would probably have to move somewhere and find a job.)
I could not imagine that. I think, however, that many writers are suffering the specter of Cancel Culture, of being told that they may not write about something they imagine or research, that they must stick to what they "know." Imagination and research are being cancelled in favor of testimonials. Cancel Culture has been brewing for at least twenty years at college campuses.
Ideas come to me all the time. Often I forget the idea because it comes to me at a time when I can't stop what I'm doing at the time in favor of writing. It is like forgetting a dream one just woke from, knowing it was a memorable dream. You hope you will dream it again.
The first thing I do these days, before I'm even out of bed, is check the news. Specifically the hard news, the war in Ukraine. The atrocities of war crimes committed by soldiers of the Russian army against civilians. I wish the Power of Hate worked like magic because I despise them, I loath them, I want them all to spontaneously combust from their own evil. I want them to get the hell out of Ukraine. (I wish I could be more spiritual about this. I watched the Pope's Consecration of Ukraine and Russia - careful to include all the countries in the world - with interest. Will that white magic work?)
The torture, the rape, the mass graves that testify that genocide is being committed, make me feel upset and also helpless and hopeless but I feel - maybe you do too - that not knowing would be worse. I'm so impressed with the way so many millions of people have been giving of themselves to help others but a question I have is, how can we collectively continue to afford this? Is my imagination too small? Have I no idea just how rich, rich is?
Well, what about our refugees here in the United States, the homeless?
Years ago I was told that anyone without a permanent address is considered homeless. I was surprised because, like many people who immigrated to Southern California as the land of opportunity from other parts of the United States, I relied on others who had moved here first to receive me and shelter me until I could find a job and my own apartment. I was three different places before that happened, though I did make it happen within three months. At the time there was a feeling of optimism in the air, that there was enough for everyone. People still walked into places they wanted to work to apply in person. People might find jobs other ways, such as personal networking, but I didn't have a network. When I walked into a place that was not hiring, and people actually told me about other places that were hiring.
I also relied on the kindness of a friend after graduating from college and having nowhere to live immediately. I had other 'friends' who could have taken a turn to have me, giving her a break during those months, but they were nowhere to be found. (And living in houses that their parents made possible.)
(If you are wondering, I've senselessly given, even to people who I came to understand were clearly not respecting me, within my means.)
However, now I'm hearing that agencies do not consider people who are sofa hopping or staying with other people temporarily, or even those who live in RV's, vans, and cars, to be homeless. No, now homeless means on the pavement. I met a woman dog walking who told me that she had been sofa hopping for several years without any hope of help from these agencies. By redefining, the count is actually lower than it could be.
Also the count is always an under-count and was suspended during Covid. I know the people I'm going to mention further in this post were not counted and do not want to be.
I currently know two people who have been living in vehicles for years, getting Social Security, who are terminally ill and wasting away. One is in stage 4 cancer. They are both rugged individualists and have some connection with others for the purposes of mail and showers. One has been helped by an AA group though he has not been a member for many years. The other is still performing whenever possible.
I currently know of four people who are staying overnight in a business where they work, with permission of the owner. I know this because I'm one of the 'in-crowd.' Two of them need surgery.
Out walking dogs I go to a park where there are people in tents, waiting on living in one of those tiny house villages.
I hear my old neighborhood has a long stretch of tents.
Pre-Covid there was a woman who had two shopping carts that she would move several times each day, going from bus stop to bus stop, I suppose so as to not be accused of loitering. We would stop and talk to her and she would pet my dog. I haven't seen her and hope she got in somewhere. Whatever her mental illness might have been, she had clarity when we interacted.
There were also two individuals that I was so concerned about, I filled in one of those outreach forms on line. The one man decided to sit on a bench near a store and he sat in that same spot, but for going into the store to buy food and use the toilet, day and night for months, in the cold, in the overnight rain, when he would spread some plastic over himself. I spoke to him and he smiled and was mild mannered. I learned other people were also concerned and trying to get him help. He is not there anymore. However, the other man I reported as needing help was far gone. He roamed wearing nothing but sweat pants and one morning as we were walking to the store, he proceeded to pull the pants down, squat, and openly take a shit.
As I see people in Canada, a country in which previous Ukrainian immigrants have proven themselves, especially welcoming in any and all who want to come there, I'm impressed. I reason that Canada has space and that Ukrainians are already used to living in a cold climate. (Manitoa -15%, Sadkatchewan -13%, Alberta -10 % , Yukon -5%, British Columbia 5f% and Ontario - 3%)
On YouTube I saw an interview with one woman, who spoke with an American accent, who was a Canadian living in Poland who had taken in ten Ukrainians fleeing that war. Asked how long she expected them to live there, she said, at least a year, or as long as it takes. Even if the war ended tomorrow, the damage to the human spirit - of having endured rape - gang rape - seeing your child killed - knowing your mother was hung - never seeing your brother or husband again - all these things are much to cope with. So about 4 million Ukrainians are now refugees. I won't say 'get over' because I don't think people get over these experiences. I think 'closure' can be a lot of B.S.
So why do we think that mental illness comes first and then homelessness? When homelessness is not just tough, but dehumanizing. When homeless women especially are the victims of rape? When sex traffickers prey upon homeless teens? When not sleeping regularly and not being able to use the toilet when you need to can ruin your health?
What of those who commit these crimes? It is easy for me to think they are not operating with a soul. Are they human? Well then, I don't like humans. There's a theory that rather than eternal damnation, a person must earn their soul while on this earth and when a person does such things, upon their mortal death they do not obtain eternal life, they are gone, blank.
Which brings me to the promise of the title of this post. The race to be elected mayor of Los Angeles. As of yesterday Mayor Garcetti had not been approved to be ambassador to India. (India is not willing or able to go without Russian oil.)
I watched the debate with interest.
Rich Caruso, the millionaire property developer, has ads coming up on YouTube videos. He claims he will solve the homeless issue. It is impossible for me to believe him. (I think there is corruption in City Hall because developers seem to get away with a whole lot.) This cannot happen unless a half a million apartments that average people can afford are build in Los Angeles County yesterday. Average people are all in the pipeline towards homelessness. (Anyone on EBT is in that pipeline.)
It is possible for someone who develops property to care, but as I see it, unless he has detailed plan on how he expects to do this revealed soon, we can be pretty sure he will not solve the issue.
Mike Feuer is someone I briefly interacted with a few years ago and I was directed to fill out a form with one of his office personnel who was to get back to me. No one got back to me. That said, he had the experience to take on the job, and frankly, has had a good reputation overall.
Around that time that I met Feuer, though I prefer snail mail, I e-mailed the same letter to every person on the Los Angeles City Council but for one. The letter focused on the homeless issue as I witnessed whole families coming into a library asking the librarians for help on finding housing. These people were mostly in older and small buildings in the Valley area, were mostly of Mexican heritage, and that summer there were also many families on floors of friends and sleeping in cars around libraries and parks. There was a program in areas where young people were joining gangs and in an attempt to deter this, there were weeks where food was served nightly along with basic entertainments and things to do. I went one day to see how this was going and various politicians had booths set up. I spoke to the teens who were hired to cook, set up tables, and so on, and basically, there were homeless families there night after night.
Not a single member of city council got back to me, two people who worked for two of them sent an email back asking me what I wanted. I said "If you read my letter you would know." My impression was that LA City Council did not give a rats ass.
Joe Busciano appeals to home owners and those who think human beings in encampments need to be "cleaned out" and basically evicted from where they have planted themselves as they are 'moved.' We need to equate this with what happens in war - forced migration - loss of personal property. Not a chance in hell I will vote for him.
Karen Bass was a gentlewoman at the debate while the men pretended to love each other and be friends, while also slinging mud. However, this may have come off as too timid. I will be learning more about her in the next few weeks.
I also do not know enough about Kevin DeLeon.
So right now Mike Feuer has my vote.
C 2022 Christine Trzyna
Author Ann Tyler is now part of the conversation about CANCEL CULTURE and the censorship of books, that includes that writers making apologies for their past publications, and limiting themselves to the kind of books they write.
I failed to find the original article in whole from which many other publications on the net quoted or used material. The Times (United Kingdom) published an interview last Sunday. So in these articles the interview is referred to as the Sunday Times. THE TIMES UK - ANNE TYLER : I SHOULD BE ALLOWED TO DO IT The Times requires that to read whole articles you have a subscription - not a bad idea for publications with an intent to survive.
Excerpt: She has been heralded as the Jane Austen of our age, making up for what her novels lack in plot with rich emotional drama -- and a new Anne Tyler is always an event, French Braid, which comes out on Tuesday, is Tyler's 24th novel and eagerly anticipated, even though the Pulitzer-prizewinning novelist is the last person on earth to make noise about her books.
VIGOUR TIMES : I SHOULD BE ALLOWED TO DO IT
Excerpt: One of America's most acclaimed authors is wading into the culture wars, saying she believes she should be able to create characters from a diverse range of backgrounds.
Anne Tyler, 80, spoke out on the issue in an interview with the Sunday Times, stating "I'm astonished by the appropriation issue. It would be very foolish for me to write, let's say, a novel from the viewpoint of a black man, but I think I should be allowed to do it."
MY OPINION : She should not only be allowed to do it, but black men authors should be allowed to write white woman characters.
A little Temptations... a little Marvin Gaye. SILK SONIC: BRUNO MARS ANDERSON PAAK
My latest favorite song.... A wish for normality.