TC: Penmanship

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If I were Sophocles, brave with truth

I would play my old fiddle a sharp tune or two

And then withdraw into the uniqueness of rock

Which your special penmanship changes into lock

For your l’s are special, as in Elgin Penitentiary

Where you have never been, my expressive farmer

Preferring liberty to freedom or a penitentiary

The baroque swoop in your l’s is for enhancing liking

I like you because I am mad at you

Often you are mad at me too

All very spectacular

But it’s awful when the other person isn’t breathing

Friendship tempts you to essay the r in rock while breathing

Your friend Rock likes you

Jean

Frank

Paul

Matthew

Joy

Austin

And people

Like that

Like you

Goya is a tremendous painter

Goya is dead

But the poetry of penmanship is never dead

While you are writing

We survive for a while, and then we die

And this is but the beginning

Your d pirouettes then later you die

But there is no reason for you to care about any of that

For you have become the virtuoso of capital F

Even if tomorrow we die

I am still free to go on choosing whomever I like

I go on choosing you

And you go on choosing me

Over and over again

Irrespective of merit

Spencerian script: D.L. Musselman, 1884

Classic Pelikan fountain pen with inkwell: Lothar Spurzem, 2006

German class-book, manufactured by Langenkämper-Verlag: photo by Moritz Hector, 2009

Dip pen with nib, 1925: image by EraserGirl, 2008

Cursive script, 1894: image by Arpingstone, 2005

TC: James Schuyler: Salute

.

Unidentified Asteraceae, Death Valley National Park: photo by Mila Zinkova, 2005

Past is past, and if one
remembers what one meant
to do and never did, is
not to have thought to do
enough? Like that gather-
ing of one of each I
planned, to gather one
of each kind of clover,
daisy, paintbrush that
grew in that field
the cabin stood in and
study them one afternoon
before they wilted. Past
is past. I salute
that various field.

James Schuyler: from Salute, 1960

Wildflowers, Death Valley National Park: photo by Mila Zinkova, 2005

TC: Boats

.

All the inconsequential memoria
Seeping into the monody: voyages,
Purposes, cargos, ports of call whose names,

Long since forgot, returned to him in dreams
Only to be forgot again by morning --
Supposing those were really dreams, and this morning.

Boat and Grain Elevators No. 2: Ralston Crawford, 1942 (The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C.)

LIVE FROM THE LIVING THEATRE: Updates from #OccupyWallStreet!

- The Occupation has been a success! and the power of the people has prevailed, including those in authority who resisted the temptation of acting oppressively and violently, and allowed the occupants to stay on October 14th, backing away from their demand the protestors leave Zucatti Park.

This video is a STUNNING example of what is happening, from the 14th.

Watch the man in the green pushed by a policeman on the right side of the screen 12 seconds in, and the guy in blue reach to catch him. Then watch one policeman wildly swinging his baton at 20 seconds into it, so much so he hits another police man with his baton swinging without discretion.

BUT then a courageous woman in red hair comes in from the bottom left corner, and uses peace to over power three police men and keep the peace. It is truly one of the most incredible individual acts of pacifism in action that we have seen in this movement and it is its back bone. She also helped the police keep the situation under control by doing so: (90 seconds long total):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6tboOENXtU

- Occupy Wall Street Occupies Times Square! At 2:30 into this one, a man yelling, "OH MY GOD, THEY'VE SHUT DOWN TIMES SQUARE!!" (8 mins total)

For those who care about schools and education, checkout what Sarah has to say at 6:52.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hwYaBpxledo&feature=player_embedded

Also see this article about 350 Columbia Professors signing a document in support of the protest (article one page):

http://occupywallst.org/forum/news-almost-350-columbia-professors-have-signed-a-/

- President Obama, at the unveiling of Martin Luther King Jr. statue, says MLK would have backed the movement. See the following Washington Times article(one page):

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/oct/16/obama-king-would-have-backed-occupy-wall-street/?utm_source=RSS_Feed&utm_medium=RSS

- From Zucatti Park on the 14th to Times Square on saturday, PHENOMENAL FOOTAGE(5 mins).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75KHM4uvctA&sns=em

- The Living Theatre performance at Washington Square Park October 8th, after the first general assembly held there. Attached is the script we use, for those interested in participating. Please change it, use it, put your logo on it, talk about your projects, keep up the dialogue this movement has started. Also, let us know if you are involved so we can keep you up to date and include you in the Occupy Your World performance festival. Also attached is Judith's essay on Modern Political Theatre that will be published in her book next spring: (5 minutes)

http://vimeo.com/30714057

- On going discussions are happening about occupations in many places, by many different groups all over the world. Here is the video from the Offical NYCGA.CC website explaining the process and how to be involved:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dtD8RnGaRQ&feature=player_embedded

The Occupation is currently discussing the occupation of Washington Square Park and the NYU student body has already offered to share their meal plans with the occupants should they try for this. The Occupation is currently discussing the occupation of Washington Square Park and the NYU student body has already offered to share their meal plans with the occupants should this happen.

- Representing 64 countries and tens of thousands of artists around the world, from IETM Congress:(2 mins)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6QcL0fslQU&feature=player_embedded

Also, encouragingly, The VIllage Voice Obies responded in support as well, and posted on their facebook page!

This is our first attempt at a worldwide social and cultural dialogue for almost 50 years. We need everyone to help maintain the peace. Follow along, and say your piece, whatever it is. Everyone is upset, and we all have the same problem. No one's needs are any greater than anyone else's.

Let's get to work solving our problems.

Spread the word!!!

Love from The Living,

Brad

The Living Theatre

TC: Ticky Tacky

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Surf-Riders, Honolulu: Charles W. Bartlett, 1919 (Honolulu Academy of Arts)

Life should have enough arresting moments
to create at least a tropism in Xanadu

between the bamboo swizzle sticks
and the sarongs soaked in lizard spittle

revolving ceiling fans banana trees
birds of paradise and pineapple daiquiris

but little is expected by those who
dwell in the environs of the lawn bowling court

for them it is a perennial Mondo Samarkanda
a pointed tin roof above cute wood shingles

the ghost of Reagan bumbling through the palms
amid a sunset out of Papua New Guinea

like a great snork bird homing in on orange juice

The Surf-Rider, Hawaii: Charles W. Bartlett, 1921 (Honolulu Academy of Arts)

TC: Little Bang

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Big Bang: NASA animation conceptualizing the beginnings of the universe

The night was hot and heavy and a hazed arc
Flared from the dark rising lamp city
The way a star might ignite above the banks
Of some unlit river, wasting on objects
More revelation than they are worth
To those who dwell and toil amid the ruins

At the witching hour, now, there’s little bang
Left to shrink from, nothing much, just these same blank
Vistas, all lost, receding, much as the man
On the Jupiter mission got littler
And littler, so too we, older, grow closer
To other spheres than to that earth we recall

Mel 111, open cluster in Coma Berenices: astronomical simulation by Roberto Mura

TC: Humility

.

"Oh, don't hurt me! cried Tom. I only want to look at you; you are so handsome": Jessie Willcox Smith, in Charles Kingsley: The Water Babies, 1916 (Library of Congress)

There are a great many things in the world which you never heard of; and a great many more which nobody ever heard of; the picture of happiness which you harbor is steeped through and through in the time which the course of your own existence has conferred on you; and this could equally be a picture of unhappiness; and you would never know it.

An underwater shot looking up at a palm tree and clouds distorted by the ripples on the surface: photo by Bryan Calloway, 4 November 2010