Once upon a time . . . or let’s say yesterday, Princess Edda, who lives in a faraway land in the remotest castle’s tallest tower . . . no, sorry, in Bandana Land on Bat Cave Road, took repose in her crystal castle. Maybe it wasn’t a crystal castle, maybe it was rather a tea house. Right, she wanted to test out her itty-bitty barn, or tree house—or did she say tea house?—for a sleepover. She was looking for adventure. It was in the air. Heavy clouds were billowing, the wind howling, heavy drops splashing, thunder rolling, and rain drumming on the metal roof. The storm roared like a lion.
And yet Princess Edda left the safety of her Rainy Castle for the tea house, cozied in her covers, pulled the blanket up to her nose, and admired the strength of the swaying trees outside. This was such a noble fortress, with Saltillo tiles and stained-glass windows and a bed. But it rattled like a mousetrap. The pelting rain noise felt like being inside a drum.
Princess Edda rolled her eyes. Why did this thunderstorm have to happen on her first sleepover in the tea house? She wouldn’t get any shut eye here.
So, she said, “Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep. Angels watch me through the night, and wake me with the morning light.”
But the morning was still far away and the wind howling with no mercy. She decided to read herself to sleep. It got later and later. It got so late that it was almost early again. Yet the lightning kept flashing through the glass door, and the wind howled even worse. No use trying. So, Princess Edda decided to admire the power of God’s nature instead. This was better than a movie.
Kaboom, caramba, catastrophe! Something crashed outside. The rain still drumming on the roof. Princess Edda pulled the blanket higher. Was there a creek or river running by her side? The tea house was shaking something awful. Dorothy in Kansas? No, only Little Edda in Texas. She didn’t have visions of sugar plums in her head, but saw witches flying by on a broomstick. She thumbed her nose at them. And finally, the dawn, not the window, broke. Sigh, what a relief! Princess Edda stepped out into the sunrise, inhaling the fresh, cleansed air.
And she was still alive. A tree had crashed only a foot from her tea house. Oh, miracle and wonder! Not quite. Prince Helmut had sent his Bandana Gang to the rescue. Who else could have heaved the tree away from its fateful destiny? And so Princess Edda escaped the storm unscathed. The Bandana Guard kept watch all night.
Princess Edda looked around: Sea Shell Covid, Two-Face Janus, Old Man Woodhead, Spanish Moss Guy, Hippie Girlfriend, Hippie Boyfriend, an eclectic bunch. Princess Edda bowed to her protectors. No knight in shining armor on a noble steed could have accomplished this: distract the lightning. He would have been roast inside his armor. But Prince Helmut’s wooden guard withstood the storm and saved the princess.
Helm_TurbanGuy_small
Helm_SpanishMoss_small
Helm_MidEast_sm
Helm_girldfirend_small
Helm_boyfriend_small
Helm_Covid_sm
Helm_WorkerDude_small
Helm_JanusOther_small
Helm_bird_sm
Helm_KamaSutra_small
See, I told you so, there is still nobility in sacrifice. The Bandana Gang kept watch for Princess Edda.
Environmental Day at the Capitolearlier this year, struck my memory chord like a gong chiming in my head. Activists from all corners had gathered on the Arizona Capitol grounds in Phoenix to lobby for water protection measures and have a word with their District reps.
Water rights are a hot topic in Arizona. All the Southwestern states’ livelihoods depend on their secure water resource, mostly the Colorado River share quotas.
The Colorado River is so dammed up that none of its waters reach the Gulf of California any more. Lake Mead, in 2023, was at its lowest since the Hoover Dam (1 of 15 Colorado River dams) was built. 2023 was another heat record year with 50+ days over 110F. It’s a damn’ dry situation. For many Native Americans, Navajos included, water has always been scarce.
My friends took me to Gallup. More precisely, a rural lot outside town on the Navajo reservation. I had been cautioned: there is no running water. So bring a pallet of bottles. For that part, there would also be no royal flush. I got it. Outhouse. No worries there. I had grown up on a farm with a Plumpsklosett.
A couple of miles on the north side of Gallup, my GPS turned me onto a dirt road. I made it across the narrow bridge, but was soon stopped by a curious horse in the middle of the road. Anyways, the rainy spring had made the road rutted, but after I got the hang of it, the tracks became quite passable.
It was a beautiful scene out here in the afternoon. The horizon started to take on an amber glow, the boulder mountains toned into a warm ochre, the blue zenith sky darkened to let the stars out, and the scarce pine trees poked their spiny arms into the fresh air. All was quiet out here, except for the dogs.
My friend’s house had a warm, cuddly, welcoming air to it. It was very much ranch-style in its decor with blankets, Native art, and the occasional antler. This was a much privileged outing for me, because a group of strong Native women shared their time and space with me. And I finally would get to see Window Rock, the Navajo capital, as well.
We had the most comfortable picnic with fine mattresses to sleep on. We were glamping on many things, television included. However, there was no running water. And you feel that right away. The kitchen had two large water containers by the sink, but, unlike rare wine, the water in it had not improved its taste since its delivery. It was only old and best used for washing dishes. And still, it seemed to be too precious for that as well. We used paper plates all the way through.
I learned fast: keep the hand sanitizer and wipes on the cabinet by the entrance for the bathroom trips, don’t drink too much, so you don’t have to go too often, and save your paper plate for the next meal. I learned to brush my teeth with bottled water and spit each mouthful into the desert bush. I had this urge–when preparing breakfast, making a sandwich, getting sticky fingers–to go to the sink. But the sink had no water. A long time ago, when the family still lived here, they carted in their water on a truck to fill the tank outside. But that was the old days.
Many Navajo families have no water lines going to their houses. Imagine, any and all water has to be hauled over long distances and bad roads. Imagine how hard it will be to maintain proper hygiene. Imagine how health-compromised individuals might suffer. Or what about elder and infant care? Staying well and healthy requires a reasonable amount of water.
Yes, on the second day I felt the dearth of water. My armpits got stinky. I wetted a Kleenex and went to work. But what about the long range? How would I keep clean, wash up, brush off the dust? I don’t think there was a creek nearby and many hopes for rain in the Southwest are in vain. All you can do, really, is drive to the next truck stop on IH 40 and use their public showers.
I wasn’t ready to do that just yet, but on the third day I hit the pedal to the metal to get home to my own comfort.
Back to the Environmental Day. One Native organization, Tó Nizhóní Ání (“Sacred Water Speaks”) from the Big Mountain community on the Black Mesa Plateau in NE Arizona, protested the industrial abuse (hydroelectric project) of water: The Black Mesa Pumped Storage Project.
Pumping groundwater to the top of a plateau to make it generate electricity—a questionable project. It would seriously endanger the aquifer. As of this February, three of such proposed pumped storage projects were fortunately denied. A remarkable victory for the Navajo environmentalists.
Native activists are fighting for the Earth and US ALL. Water is so precious. We think we know that. But that’s not enough. Someone needs to make us FEEL its preciousness.
Therefore I propose a universal
No-Water-Running Day
Switch off the water main in the evening and see how the next day goes. And touch no faucet at work or school either. Toilet included. Don’t flush. How will you get through the day? You will be allowed to prepare for the water emergency by your own design. But don’t forget: No water will run for you on tap. And why should it? Water needs a break too. It runs all the time.
Kreuzfeuer in Texas (Crossfire in Texas), a Western, is based on a true story. It happened during the Civil War (1861-1865) in Fredericksburg, Texas, Gillespie County. The German settlers, who had arrived 15 years earlier with the German Adelsverein emigration project, were against slavery. Therefore, in 1861, almost all Fredericksburg citizens voted against secession and for remaining in the Union. That was the beginning of a calamity. Immediately, all immigrants had to swear an oath on the Confederacy or be hanged, the Union Loyal League was disbanded, the young men sent to war, the old men recruited for the home defense. And the Comanche kept in check by the Frontier Regiment. Worst of all, in August 1862, a group of 61 German Unionists was slaughtered by the Nueces River on their way to Mexico. Their remains weren’t buried until after the war. Germans were afraid to draw more wrath on themselves.
Vereinskirche in Fredericksburg, TX
The hunt on the Germans was on. Self-declared partisan rangers pressed the settlers for money, food, goods, and valuables. Fredericksburg was terrorized by the Hängerbande for years. The top rabble rouser was a certain Captain Waldrip. He led especially vicious attacks on German citizens. In February 1864 the teacher and merchant Louis Schütze is murdered. His brother Julius Schütze reports that incident and the events following the murder in his 1886 Texas Vorwärts account “Meine Erlebnisse in Texas”. Julius initiates the prosecution of the murderers, which spawns off the Grape Creek massacre. I read Schütze’s account while researching German history in Texas. It made such an impression on me that 25 years later I decided to make a novel out of it.
Engelbert Krauskopf
We kept as close to the story as we could. My coauthor Georg Unterholzner and I introduced several Native American (Comanches) characters to the mix. They spruced up the points of view in this murderous tale of redemption. The real life model for our protagonist was the pioneer Engelbert Krauskopf. He was a pioneer, gun maker, business man, explorer, and master of many trades, as well as a community leader. He also kept friendships with Comanche chiefs.
Here is the Kreuzfeuer story: Eberhard Kohlkrug, the gun maker of Fredericksburg, is an ordnance officer for the Frontier Regiment. But he rather delivers his percussion caps to the Germans and their home defense. The Major presses him to produce more ammunition, his wife Rita becomes wary of their Comanche maid, the Indian raids are increasing, but Eberhard always plays it safe. Until his friend Louis is abducted. Eberhard gets his friend Matasane involved to recapture Louis. Too late. Louis body is still warm when they cut him from the live oak.
Julius Schütze rides up from Austin. He demands justice for his brother. The wolf pack does not like to be dragged in front of the judge. Now the events take a dramatic spin for the worse. One of the Waldrip gang, Gibson, threatens Eberhard several times about his ammunition, raids his shop, and rapes his Comanche maid. Eberhard is a reluctant hero, but Gibson had it coming. From this point on, Eberhard’s life spins out of control. Done with playing it safe.
Eberhard swore three oaths in his life: never again to make a coffin, never again to shoot a man, and to do away with this scumbag. He broke all three.
Now the Western is out. In German, of all languages. It will be a while until it’s translated. But I will keep you posted.
What sparks an idea? I used to think that inspirations would strike me with thunder and lightning. But, no, sparks can be quite slow at times. Think about the ketchup bottle. It’s been around for a hundred years, but only since the last twenty it’s also standing on its head. Duh! Why didn’t we think of that sooner?
Bandana Book I
The Bandana spark, which has now become a book (CLICK ON RIGHT), came with a slow glimmer too. I never go out on a hike without a neckerchief. Since my old Texas days, I have become protective of my neck. Sunburns sting! Yep, that’s why I my collection of bandanas keeps growing.
One of them was a gift from my daughter, with a Native American design. Once I went into the gas station at Star Valley, says someone behind me, “I like your bandana.” This Native American had recognized the Hopi pattern on it. It was nice to be noticed. A bandana can carry a strong message. Since then, I have also acquired a Navajo design on top of many other colorful patterns.
Bandana Stories
The older a bandana, the better the tale. Master mask maker Zarco Guerrero, here portraying a Cholo, knows all about the mysteries of Dia de los Muertos, plus the Central American bandana. When you Google for bandanas you certainly come around many Boy Scout uses, such as for a bandage, splint, tourniquet, wash cloth, trail marker, carry bag, and what not. And then, as you might imagine, all these incidents have circumstances. And the circumstances make for suspense. You can spin a gazillion yarns off of one small bandana.
Bandana Origin
Even the origin of the almighty, universal, wonderful bandana has a good story or two. I heard, the bandana was a tobacco snot wipe to begin with. Imagine, or don’t, that rag used to be white. And the tobacco stains wouldn’t come out any more. Therefore, an Irish tradesman had the fashionable idea to print his bandanas up in color. The print work was done in India, thus the pretty paisley patterns. As we all know, the cowboys came to appreciate the bandana too—duh, red neck. Bandanas trigger excellent cowboy stories.
Bandana Warriors
Or think about famous men. Some of the toughest cookies wear bandanas: Geronimo, Winnetou, Rambo, Hulk Hogan, John Wayne, Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, Bob Marley, Willie Nelson, and other warriors. Right, the bandana takes to the street for activism.
Here is Ed Kabotie, member of the Hopi tribe, a well-known edu-activist, sharing his fight against uranium mining at the Grand Canyon. He also resents the now much in vogue “land acknowledgment” towards the Native American nations as a hindsight excuse for the colonial land grab and subsequent oppression.
Bandana Art
Independent from my instigations, Elisabeth Sherwood had made a collage series of bandana cowgirls, the mysterious types. (One of her gals to the left.) This was just perfect for the Bandana Book cover. I asked my friends, they wrote stories, I put them all in a book. The second one is on its way. It’s titled “Unusual Encounters.” The stories cover a rainbow of experiences and are deliriously good.
When I see a bandana these days, my imagination gets sparked. What’s next? An exhibition? Do you paint? Make photographs? Prints? Sculptures? How about making a bandana exhibit together?
Australia (yes, this is NOT China) drives on the left, walks on the left, sneezes to the left. How do you avoid being run over? Are Australians bound to be more left-handed too? I figure, they’ve got to be, because the left does most of the work in a car: gears, wipers, climate control, radio. Try that for a change.
Darling Harbor skyline
So, here we arrive in Sydney, in our Holiday Inn, in December 2023. Wherever you look, there are no fat people, least of all the slim and trim Singapore Airlines hostesses. Have they banished the overeaters to Tasmania? Hardly anyone in downtown seems older than 30. Where do they put their seniors? These skinny, fashionable Oriental girls and boys must be all students? I sure feel out of place now.
We tourists are the oldest people around. Some grey-haired troopers in North Face puffer jackets carry sizable backpacks and meander about with walking sticks and hiking boots. Occasionally, you see parents dragging their kids around in a cart. They could be British or German or Dutch. We all hang out at the Public Market. That has everything we need, from lychees to toothbrushes.
The Holiday Inn at Darling Harbor lies amidst China Town. Only Asian people around, Beijing ducks in the shop windows, tasty donut holes (Emperor Puffs) filled with custard, boba shops with many flavors, and the whole range of Oriental cuisine. But what’s with the jostling? Did everybody switch off their inborn proximity sensor?
Asians seem to have expensive seafood taste: a can of three abalone mussels for 100 Dollars! I am not joking. All that dried seafood, some of the most ominous kind, is all very expensive. The abalone—big trays of different mollusks, 1 kg for $675—are harvested in the wild waters of the Tasmanian Sea. Some shell fish divers have even braved shark attacks.
But just go for it! In Australia, you don’t need money. They will take a plastic card for everything. Even the commemorative coin machine at the Sydney Aquarium spews out your minted penny for a tap. The aquarium is an excellent place to go under the sea. It has some of the best shark tanks around
Buses also will let you ride for only a tap: a tap on and a tap off. (No, not a swipe!) If you’re lucky, the tapper doesn’t work and the driver lets you go for free. However, something is amiss with the busses: a signal flashes “bus stopping,” but where-the-heck do we stop? Count on the driver to let you off at the right place because nobody else may speak English.
I always thought I speak English well, but my American accent occasionally collided against the Aussie-speak. It was sure fortunate that our friends taught us lessons about slurpy Tim-Tam cookies, Lamingtons, and the (peculiar) Vegemite spread in the safety of their home. Later I learned some of the local intricacies the hard way.
On the first morning, a ketchup packet exploded on me: I pointed it the wrong way, squeezed, and voila had ketchup all over my snout. Most things don’t seem obvious when you’re under a 14-hour jet lag. Yeah, the blow dryer flicked the frothy soap all over my shirt. Silly me, I hadn’t approached the duplicitous (double-action) faucet from the right angle. Fortunately, Sydney seemed so much cleaner than our American cities. Kudos to the restrooms! And drinks come only with paper straws and there is an extra charge for takeout containers.
I had fun bumbling along the parks and exploring on foot. My mission on Tuesday was to reach the beach. Another faux pas! Bondi is pronounced “Bon-die” or “Bon-day” Beach. Good day? Or a good day to die? Huh? That’s what the Lakota would say. The bus driver wrinkled his brow, then smiled, and taught me the correct pronunciation of my destination.
I finally made it to Bondi. The sandy bay looked just like in the pictures. I encountered fewer tattooed people here than I had expected. But the ones that afforded body art, displayed their whole tribal story from neck to toe. Surfers, right!
It’s fun to watch the surfers at Bondi. Even better than staring into the tide pools at La Jolla. I settled into a coffee shop for a capuccino and avocado sandwich. Australia had me then and there.
At the Sydney Darling Harbor Wildlife Zoo posing with sleepy Koalas
LIVING INSIDE HISTORY: That Barbarian, Bavarian 70ies story.
Katrina, 17, lives in 2000-year-old village. And yet her historical essays stink. Success comes when Katrina plagiarizes her late grandmother’s diary and the story gets run in the paper. Now the whole village is up in arms against her. There was some old dirt and a skeleton in the closet. This is only the beginning of Katrina’s adventures, because soon a real skeleton is found.
What a story! Katrina is looking for love in all the wrong places until she starts seeing ghosts. Now the Celtic Stallion is out in English! The Celtic Stallion now also rides the American plains.
St. George’s Chapel on the hill, minus the horse ghost, painted by my grandmother Katharina
The original “Keltenschimmel” started in my Bavarian home town. There was a sensational archaeological find in the village: in the year 2000, a Celtic princess was unearthed during the renovation project of an old farm house. Imagine—she comes to life again. And imagine all the other ghosts in between. St. George’s Chapel on the hill had at least four of them: the dragon, the hound, the witch, and the white stallion.
I sat down and wrote the Celtic Stallion then, perhaps in a pursuit of preserving the “good old days.” My book of coming-of-age amidst village myths—between a Celtic burial 2000 years ago and the Comanche who roamed the area during WWII—spilled forth on the pages. I could not have turned this off. But why this urge?
Votive paintings, such as these, are part of a church robbery in the story that Katrina gets blamed for
Was I processing my past? Perhaps. Back then, as a teenager, I could feel the exclusion and sublime bullying caused by my pursuit of higher education. Was I processing the present? Maybe even more so. Conglomerate farming and the insanity of modern times had knocked tradition to the ground. Nobody went to church, but everybody was at the Corn Field Party. Does this show my age? I (hypocrite) am not such a good church goer myself. And, finally, I could not handle the fact that another archaeological study was done towards clearance for a hypermarket building permit. All that was discovered there, is now buried under the sales floor of the grocery store. And even more farmland fell victim to the new commercial district.
This could be the hen house in which Katrina dueled with her type writer against grandpa’s peening clanks
Enough of that. My story plays in a small, 70s, Bavarian village, when the world was mostly still in order. Or so Katrina, the 17-year-old high school student thought. Oh, well, not so OK for a capricious teenager. Katrina was looking for love in all the wrong places, wrote the worst essays ever, and sparred against her mute grandfather in a duel of clattering noises: he sharpening his scythes, she hacking away at her typewriter in the hen house. Needless to say, a modern girl who lives in an old-fashioned village is bound to run into trouble. And ghosts as well. The Celtic Stallion indulges you with the Otherworld or Adventureland of modern German mythology. Be entertained by Katrina’s mishaps and the devious ghosts of St. George’s Hill: the witch, the dragon, and the white stallion. They all come to life, one way or another. History never dies.
The Celtic Stallion is now available in English on Amazon.
The German reading at the Grabenmühle near my hometown was staged with love and care. We had four presenters, who practiced their stage skills. Harp music and singing, were all part of it.
With The Medford Remains Jackie Sereno has put out her second “Circling Eagle Mystery,” after her debut novel “Breaking Ground.” Her second volume of the family saga tells us about the making of a murderer, a Native American boy breaking free from the foster system. This story with a real twist unfolds on two time lines. Richard Circling Eagle investigates his father’s mysterious demise and his mother’s unexplained disappearance. The Medford Remains is an incredibly rich and suspenseful murder mystery and family saga playing in Northern Wisconsin. For all of you who like Tony Hillerman stories, Jackie Sereno very well matches that in-depth research.
I had the great pleasure to help Jackie with the pictures for her Medford Trailer. Actor Cainan Thomas from Fort McDowell (AZ, Yavapai) was the model for the key pictures of the story. It was such a nice adventure to set up for the shots at my friend Renate Mousseux’s house in Fountain Hills. As his former teacher, Renate has know Cainan and his family since his childhood. Cainan is an actor who has played Native American characters in movie productions.
The pictures (below) turned out great. Here is the gist of the story: “Decades after Thomas Circling Eagle’s suicide, his wallet is discovered buried in an abandoned barn. That puzzling fact intrigues his now grown son Richard, especially because its contents contradict the suicide assumption and include a reference to mysterious human remains uncovered in the wilderness near Medford, WI.”
That sets Richard on a quest for the truth.
A long forgotten wallet with troubling clues inside.
Do you know what’s a cycle? Not a bi-cycle. Not an orb. Not the menses. I am talking about another natural cycle. The water cycle. I found one of the best examples, which every fourth grader must know, painted on a trash can during a Scottsdale (AZ) festival season. No natural resource is more important for Arizona (and the world) than the water (and air).
Water cycle painted on trash can in Scottsdale, AZ
Isn’t this a fabulous illustration? And it’s painted on a recycling can. So much more meaningful as an invitation for recycling. These images are fairly old, but I fell in love with the educational art and kept the snapshots for a reason.
The water cycle goes round and round, no saying where the start is: precipitation, collection, evaporation, condensation, precipitation . . . back to the beginning. The water has an infinite loop. Nothing gets lost.
Not so re-cycling (what’s in the blue trash can, not what’s painted on it). As I am spending time in a recycling-bound country, Germany, an idea popped into my head: as hard as we may try, recycling is not a true cycle. At best, it’s a loop. Why?
Take plastic, for example. First we pump mineral oil out of a well from the earth. This goes to a refinery, to a plastic factory, which makes the plastic bottle. From there, the plastic bottle goes to the beverage manufacturer (maybe as throw-away water bottle), to the distributor, to the store, to the consumer (us), to the blue barrel, to the sorting & recycling company, to the shredder, to the melter . . . and then WHAT?
We can’t put that darn plastic back into the ground, not as a liquid anyway, maybe bury it in a dump. We can’t pump the oil back down there. The Jack is out of the box. And, no way, Mike Wisausky, we can’t “put that thing back where it came from.”
Duh. What’s new. We know that already, you may say.
But the plastic has a re-cycle, right? Let’s take a look. Where does the recycled plastic go? Melted into some other containers. Again and again. How long? Hard to say. Until it floats in the ocean as either bottles or micro beads and enters the unavoidable process of the food chain. It’s been said, how sad, we all eat plastic now. Eat your plastic, kid!
Recycling, is not a true cycle, but it is still the best we can do. We humans are ignoring the Sorcerer’s Apprentice problem all too often. We do things just because we can. And for the money. We say, let’s deal with the consequences (of plastic) later, or not at all? Let the kids deal with it?
Avoid the plastic where you can and recycle the rest. America has much room for improvement recycling-wise. In Germany, most beverage bottles (plastic & glass with a deposit) go straight back to the store. Any other glass (wine bottles, jars, etc.) must be dropped at the glass collection station sorted by color. German beverages, in the first place, come in crates (12 or 20 bottles), also with a deposit on them. These bottles are washed and refilled.
How about that, America? Put that thing back where it came from. At least return all your bottles to the store. The merchants have to take them back! They made money off of them. Ditto! The bottles are their responsibility.
What’s behind a rock, a root, a shell, or a time-proven fence post? Maybe nothing. But you can always make it “something.” Just by looking and thinking. Art objects are all around us. Nobody knows that better than silversmith and “Macher” (maker) Helmut Buchner from the Bat Cave Ranch by San Antonio.
Helmut has a very deliberate way of talking. Each sentence, no matter how obvious the content, clearly captures a deep thought. And that also applies to the stories behind his sculpture park on his ranch, which grows steadily. I will try my best to do our conversation justice with my English interpretation of some of his new, money-free objet d’art.
“Mona Lisa came together just for fun. There was a river rock laying around for years. It had the shapes of a beautifully formed woman, no relations to the Kardashians (maybe Picasso or Gaugin). And then there was also the tree stump of an old cedar tree. That tree had been in conflict with an oak. Every time when I have to cut down a tree, I leave a stump as a memorial. It could be used for something later. That tree offered itself to install something on it. The other two things had been waiting in the grass for a while. So I put all three together, set the rock on the stump, and installed the metal frame around it. The stone, steel, and wood enhanced each other quite naturally.”
Covid-19 Man: “I made that at the beginning, when we started to realize how threatening and aggressive Covid-19 was. For the first time it happened in my long life that we had such a worldwide epidemic. For me, the woodblock face demonstrates the anguish of a patient screaming from pain and terror. We’ve had the ball made of sea shells for a long time and it offered itself as a Covid virus symbol encompassing the entire globe.”
Bird Happiness: Helmut stands at the bottom of 40-foot-tall bamboo pole. It has a weather vane at the top, a bird with a long ribbon tail. The “Windvogel” sways in all directions, depending on how the wind blows. Unfortunately, storms repeatedly tore the sculpture off its mount. Helmut’s solution? He made a bamboo man to help support the structure. “The golden-haired bamboo guy holds up the pole so that the bird won’t fly away,” Helmut says. So how is this working out? Time will tell.
Himmelsleiter-Stairway to Heaven: A bicycle without a saddle is parked at the bottom of a bamboo ladder leading up into the air to who-knows-where? This sculpture, one of Helmut’s oldest, is thoroughly weathered. Visitors are fascinated by it, a stairway to heaven. “I figured that the ladder alone won’t get you to heaven, but I had a lot of people thinking that it might,” Helmut says with a wry smile on his face.
Nothing is accidental about Helmut’s sculptures. They are built on careful observation, selection, and artistic vision. A lot of thought goes into them. Helmut’s next sculpture could take a while or happen spontaneously. It starts with the idea, then the collection of materials, and finally comes the technical problem solving. The organic part is undeniable. These sculptures, exposed to the elements, change and mature over time—intentionally. They are in constant dialog with the maker and spectator. And nature.
“I don’t want to convert people to anything. Everybody should make up his or her own interpretation. Friends brought visitors over to show them the sculptures. I am always surprised about their comments. Everybody gets to think what they want. And that is the way it should be.”
Another piece is in the works, called Kama Sutra, aka a bunch of large, gnarly cedar roots arranged together. “At this time, I am working on the enlightened lovers,” Helmut says.
What will people think about that?
Whatever they want. Like me. Mea culpa, Helmut! I had thought that man with the sea shells was playing beach volleyball: shells = beach, white ball, get it? Perhaps some wishful thinking there. We all could have done so much better without the Covid.
Maybe some objects are also crying out to you for the art inside of them? Just look around! Elevate your vision for the not-so-ordinary.
There is more. Helmut is also an excellent silversmith-jewelry maker. His life partner Edda Buchner will be showcasing his jewelry together with the sculptures in a book. Helmut has also built a Zen garden, a labyrinth, and a tipi on his Texas home turf.
War on Crime, War on Drugs, War on Poverty, Star Wars, Price Wars, – Why not have a War on Plastic—NOW? We need one more good war!
We splurge in unnecessary plastic all the time. Where does the waste go?
Refuse, reduce, recycle that plastic!
I confess, I use plastic still too much. Most of it is totally avoidable.
Regardless how judicious you may be, you will have committed one of these 10 Plastic Cardinal Sins. Aren’t we lazy! (Or is it short-term memory loss?). So, let’s restart.
The 10 Cardinal Plastic Sins
Single-use water bottle: It should have been legally restricted or taxed by now. Some schools and organizations have banned them. Bring your own refillable water bottle. Water in tin bottles available now.
Plastic shopping bags: Yeah, what’s your problem? Bring your own bags, or a basket. Ask for paper bags. Don’t trust the “recycling” of plastic bags in the stores. Or hopefully the store makes you pay for a plastic bag.
Take out containers: In the US, it’s still a world of plastic and Styrofoam. Avoid restaurants that serve you tubs of plastic that could be aluminum or paper. Plastic take-out containers were banned in some European countries.
Online purchases: Hell, no! Get your items from the store, because the shipping material refuse is insane. Peanuts and bubble wrap galore. Leave that stuff to Santa!
Beverage bottles: Get your drinks in a can, glass bottle, or from the faucet, notplastic! This would be my NEW LAW: Stores must recycle plastic bottles, return them to the manufacturer. Let the Coca Cola deal with the plastic!
Liquid detergent: The utmost insanity of all! Haven’t we always used washing powder? It gives you the same results. Listen up, Tide & Co.: Take your jugs off the shelves right now! We can shake up our own soapy sauce.
Body wash & hair shampoo: Just use bar soap. Even hair shampoo and conditioner are available as solid bars these days.
Body lotion: Easy fix. Use fragrant, essential, natural oils—in glass bottles. Oils have fewer ingredients than lotions and may be more beneficial than lotions overall.
Juice & milk jugs: Tropicana switched to plastic carafes. Why?? Other juices still come in cartons. Buy those! One gallon milk jugs can still be recycled in our town. But you may just as well get milk in 1/2 gallon packs.
Egg “cartons” ???: Why should plastic egg “cartons” even exist?
Our municipal authority, the City of Mesa, has basically given up on recycling. Only about 5 item categories will be accepted, forget about washing out yogurt cups. Since China does not take our American trash any more, the dumps on the Salt River Reservation and the other one by the Florence prison are growing at horrid rates.
ONE MORE EXAMPLE OF ILL-FATED PLASTIC LOGIC: In my college days I met a lady who had a big heart for animals. She cut up the plastic rings from the soda six-packs. Why? So that no sea-life should be caught in it. WHY would our plastic end up in the ocean in the first place? This was some 30 years ago, and ongoing.
At any rate, plastic should carry a Surgeon General’s warning, just like cigarettes:
SURGEON GENERAL’S WARNING: Plastic Causes Piles of Trash, Harmful Inertia, Intrusion into the Food Cycle, Death of Sea Life, and various types of Cancer. Plastic Overuse by any Human Has Been Shown to Result in Global Pollution, Toxicity in the Food Chain, and the Increase in Morbidity in Humans on All Continents.
FROM NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC:
Environmental change: California’s new plastics law could force the rest of the nation to cut down on its polluting materials. The legislation mandates, among other things, a reduction in the single-use plastics sold in the state. It also requires 65 percent of plastics to be recycled within a decade—an ambitious goal. Plastics makers will have to foot the bill for recycling. The law could have ripple effects across the nation, but not all recycling proponents are pleased, Laura Parker reports.
Read the full story. (Pictured above, one million plastic beverage bottles are purchased every minute worldwide.)
If you are an “adult” like me (whatever that means), you may have left most cartoons behind you. But I like an animated movie once in a while. Animations help us to look beyond reality. They punch our buttons, hit us on levels of irony and travesty, where reality just does not reach. Here are my top five animation movies.
Shrek turns all fairytales upside down. I like it so much, because I grew up with a lot of Grimms’ stories in Germany. And Shrek busts our stereotypes once and for all: nothing noble about the steed, a prince turned out short, and an ogre who is a philosopher. There are surprises around every corner. I love how all the characters are mixed up in a paradoxical stew. Best of all is the twist in the end: Be who you are, not who you think you should be. And don’t we all love dragons!
Monsters Inc. shows us the inside workings of a scare corporation–very well done! The monsters are more scared of humans than the other way around. When the monsters march to work, I am reminded of our current political scare tactics. Doors hold a fascination for all of us. Don’t we always want to know what’s behind them? Are we afraid to open them? So cool, how the doors are played throughout. The nice thing about Monsters Inc.: Truth be told, laughter creates more energy than fear.
Wall-e is the most real and scariest animation that I know. I have always had a knack for utopias (Brave New World, Time Machine, 1984). A tiny robot is the only worker left in a post apocalyptic world, when spoiled-beyond-belief humans have escaped on a spaceship. Humanity, all fat like mast oxen, has fallen victim to limitless comfort seeking, subscribing to the Buy&Large, until all life on earth was buried under trash. So what should we do? Go about our business, as the world goes down? Think. Think again. Do something! Recycle, vote, refuse the plastic!
Rango must be counted as one of the best Westerns of all time. It’s up there with Dances with Wolves and Unforgiven, but not only because Johnny Depp is the chameleon. If you’re ever talking “characters” in an animation–it’s Rango. But I like it the MOST for its DIRE dire story line, especially for us in Arizona. A little desert town called Dirt is running out of water–because a greedy corporation diverted it. Similar monster developers and corporations have bought up everything in the Valley of the Sun. When will our Valley run out of water? What can we do to conserve it? Certainly the cancer-like sprawl doesn’t help.
Finding Nemo instantly thrilled me. It had a good story, I can identify with short term memory loss (ha, ha, Dori!), and I have always been fascinated with sea life. At one point, I had wanted to become a marine biologist, reading too much about Jaques Cousteau and an Austrian scientist, Hans Hass. Both swam with sharks and studied their behaviors. They weren’t the blood-thirsty beasts as often portrayed. Imagine:
100 million sharks are killed by us in a year!!
Sharks, in return, hardly kill 10 humans a year. Something is off here. Something is also off at the Great Barrier Reef. It’s dying from global warming.
Thank God for animation! At least we are able to participate in nature vicariously via movies. Although that’s not enough for me. I need a regular, in-person experience with nature to balance me out—not necessarily with sharks, but a good hike on the Rim will do.
So, if you got nothing better to do, watch a movie! I just gave you my top five animations.
Guest Column by Dan Baldwin, Ghost-Writer & Author
I remember the 1950s when conformity in life, belief and culture was not only expected, it was demanded. Most people went along, but there were a few on the fringe who refused to conform. This was before the age of the hippie. (Although of that generation, I have more in common with the beatniks—jazz, writing, being cool as opposed to being loud, “sick” comedians like Lenny Bruce, Mort Sahl.) We seem to be living in a retro-fifties era today. The cries for conformity are everywhere. If you’ll watch the news carefully you’ll see that the “free” kids of the sixties, who are now in their seventies, are bringing back the worst of the fifties.
That’s true in the writing universe, too. As with the “pantsters” vs. “plotters” debate, we have an ongoing confrontation between those who believe in the conventional and those who believe in the cool (originally a beat term).
Dan talking to the spirits of the past with his pendulum
The conformist seek comfort in well-established, inflexible rules. The cool isn’t afraid to risk pushing the edge of the box or even punching through now and then. For example, the conventional believes with the faith of a 12-year-old Southern Baptist at her first tent revival that a work must—must mind you—be rewritten and rewritten and rewritten until like Goldilocks says, “it’s just right.” The cool, with the confidence in his own ability looks across the uncharted literary landscape and says, “I wonder what’s over there” and then makes the journey to find out.
Being a beat generation survivor, I think of myself as a cool. I send my works to first readers for their input. I listen to that input, evaluate it, and incorporate their suggestions if I agree with them. A conventional writer will automatically submit to the recommended changes of an editor, critique group, best friend, fellow writer, or first reader without hesitation. Why? Because that’s the way it’s done. The rule book says so.
A conventional knows for a fact that the way to publishing success is to get an agent who will get a publisher who will then publish the work. He knows for certain that this is the only sure-fire method. The cool knows that he can take that road or choose another, such as self-publishing. I’ve debated the pros and cons of traditional vs. self-publishing and each side has its share. The amount of emotional attachment some authors have to conventional thinking, however, borders on religious belief.
I am not against conventional writing, publishing or marketing techniques provided they are not employed by rote simply because ‘that’s the way we’ve always done it.’ To me, conventional or cool should be a choice and not a self-imposed mandate.
Something to think about, eh? Give it some thought.
Dan Baldwin has been my role model and motivator for the last 15 years. He has penned and ghosted probably more than 70 books. Mysteries, thrillers, westerns, and the paranormal are his favorite genres. In his spare time he works as a psychic detective to let the departed speak through his pendulum. You can contact him through his website below.
Here is a taste of my my bandana story. It’s about the red snuff kerchief that my Opa always carried along. But how will this story end?
Opa took me to the St. Leonhard’s horse parade. I was 2 years old
“Opa has picked berries for you!” Mom was in her typical taking-care-of-business mode. She rushed past me through the kitchen with a load full of washed laundry. She had no time to waste before heading back out into the field.
This was the berry-picking and haymaking season in my Bavarian village. You could tell by the tattered house dress Mama was wearing. Her hair was tied under a headscarf. Her skin was flushed. On her upper arms tan lines showed from longer sleeves. She was ready to jump on the tractor as soon as the sheets were hung.
I flung my school bag into the corner of the bench. Then I dropped my four letters down and grabbed the plate, warmed-up pancake soup and a schmalznoodle. For those who do not know, pancake soup is a clear broth with plain omelet strips cut into it, and schmalznoodles are sticks of fried bread. Beggars can’t be choosers, but I could smell the berries before Mama had set the bowl on the table.
“Here, Opa picked these for you!”
Wow, raspberries, blueberries, strawberries. They glistened like sumptuous little jewels. “Where did he find them?”
“Inside the Marsh Moss clearing. Didn’t take him but 15 minutes to scoop these up.”
Grandpa always looked out for us kids, me and my three younger siblings. He helped us build bird houses, constructed an underpass along the creek so that we didn’t have to cross the busy state road, and made sure to drive us home at 6:30 with a stick.
“How did he carry them home? Did he have a basket?”
“Nope.”
“His hat?’
“Nope, his bandana. You know how he ties these knots in it.”
“His bandana?”
“Yes. Eat up. I must go now. There is some cream in the fridge. Aren’t you getting a royal feast today! Thank your Opa for it.” And out she was. Seconds later, the small tractor puttered off the yard.
Gramps’ bandana? The berries suddenly didn’t smell so good any more. I didn’t dare imagine all the places the bandana had been. And he never put it in the wash. He insisted on washing it himself, usually in the rainwater trough under the gutter spout. Easy grandpa logic. That red bandana was his only one. His lucky bandana. He couldn’t do a day without it. So, he washed it himself, as needed.
As needed? I gagged. I kept on ladling my pancake soup, very slowly. Gramps’ bandana, was it washed? When was it washed last? I ogled the sparkling berries in front of me. And my imagination went wild. Poisoned by a snuffed out bandana?
Should I risk a light bandana poisoning? It was a hot day today, and gramps for sure had wiped his sweat on his bandana. Or was I in for a severe intoxication from snuff snot? That is, my gramps was addicted to stuffing Gletscherprise (Glacier Pinch) up his nose and then blow it out like an erupting volcano into his almighty bandana. Brown goop. That and the recent bloody accident had made the “bandana berries” most unpalatable to me. Three days ago, gramps had spliced not only the kindling but also his palm with his splicing knife. Blood was dripping. “No big deal,” he had growled after mom had rushed to bring him a bandage. He beat her to it and wrapped his good-fortune bandana around his palm. Maybe it had curative properties? The next day the cut was gone.
Where all had the bandana been? I stared at the bowl of berries. The soup was finished and I was still hungry. I pulled the bowl closer and sniffed the stunning aroma.
Bandana berries—to eat or not to eat was the question
How do you think the story ends? Send me your (alternate) ending for this bit. It would be great fun to contribute your guesses to my story.
NOTE: My webmail isn’t jinxed. It just may ask you to declare yourself as human. So write in any time if you’re not an android. If you’re getting a weird reply, it’s my spam blocker.
S-P-E-C-T-A-C-U-L-A-R ! I can’t stop watching this. It’s mesmerizing. Reflections and light play a bag of tricks on my mind. And not only did my daughter Priyanka build this piece, motor and all, she also made the GIF of 85 sandwiched pictures above. And this is how she describes it:
“Kinetic Column is my contemporary take on an iconic, historical relic. It’s completely built out of neon acrylic sheets. The transparency and bright colors contrast the white stone columns we traditionally know. The top platform is meant to resemble the turning pedestals you would see in home shopping TV shows. An amphora vase cut and etched on iridescent acrylic serves as the topper.”
For this mind-bending piece of art, she had to first bend some plexiglass with the help of her mentor Trey Duvall:
Priyanka writes: “This project is one of my efforts to create open source art. I currently work at an open source technology company (SPARKFUN)and am incredibly inspired by the sharing of information to recreate or expand upon projects. I think this makes the exclusive fields of creating art, designing tech, or writing code more accessible to a range of people that would not normally think to explore those realms.”
Here is more to watch—Laser etching:
Laser cutting:
And this the movie of all of it:
Isn’t it something? Technology, design, and craftsmanship come together. Priyanka is preparing to soon learn and build more at the NYU Tisch School of Design ITP Program. She will start her studies for the Masters degree in August. Can’t wait to see what comes next. (bragging rights of a proud mom)
Wow, I hopped on the Internet–it’s astounding what bandanas are all good for! I thought I could make a book of it. But not without your help. Submit your entries! Download the guidelines below. $200 grand prize; $100 second; and $50 for honorable work (multiple)–tell your friends!
Bandana gone to the dogs
Bandanas have been an important hiking gear for me. Sometimes we have turned around when I forgot my neck-saver. Indeed, I am a redneck. I burn easily. Perhaps that happened to the cowboys too, when they were driving cattle under the scorching Texas sun. Ditto. Necks turn red. Or, wait a minute, were they wearing a paisley red bandana? That would explain the expression, too.
My bandana is blue and has Hopi dancers and decorations on it. Of course bandanas come in all colors and patterns, but red is still the best. And those colorful mini rags are usually dirt cheap. Michaels, the crafts store, will sell them for a couple of bucks. Don’t pay any more than ten. Some bandanas like to claim a boutique extravaganza. Mine actually came from a Goodwill store. Maybe 50 cents? I’ll ask my daughter.
John Wayne’s trademark rag
What else is a bandana good for? It got me thinking. My grandpa never left house without one in his trouser pockets. Mostly—gee thanks, but gross—he used it to wipe snuff and snot off his mustache. But at times (I hope that kerchief was clean), he carried mushrooms or blueberries home in his bandana. He tied the diagonal corners together to make a carry bag. On one occasion, he used his bandana as a bandage after he cut his hand splicing kindling wood.
A bandana could, seriously, save your life. Maybe you got injured and needed a tourniquet. Or you got lost and needed a flag for the helicopter search team to find you. Or you needed to filter drinking water from a desert puddle. My friend Edda might use a bandana as a signal flag for the prettiest Texas cedar tree for Christmas. And on it goes.
Bandanas are not only for hikers, cowboys, and pirates. Animals like bandanas too. Do you have a bandana at home? Maybe you can write a story about it and send it to me. I am so much looking forward to that!
Like the fat Cheshire Cat from Alice in Wonderland I sit perched on the window sill of our 13th floor room at the Hilton in San Diego. Down there, at the dock, a ginormous cargo ship lies anchored. Its name is the Dole Pacific. It’s stacked high with white containers. Piles of “white mice.” And then the process begins. Like a cat watching mice at play, I get entranced with the container logistics 13 stories below me. So many containers! So many bananas? Or were they filled with pineapples?
The big “Dole” boxes all have refrigeration fans and stack up perfectly, on the cargo ship as well as on the loading zone. No “supply chain problem” for bananas, so much busy-body activity below.
The cargo ship at anchor had two cranes for unloading the containers. Close by the dock, there was a mountain of containers piled up. Were they empty? Crammed on the islands between the throughways, spindly trailers were neatly filed up. And across from the monster warehouse with its gaping receiving gullets, the “mice” were perfectly sorted into numbered spots to be carted away.
How does all this work? At eight o’clock sharp, the first harbor rig, a motorized box with a hitch in its back, crawled out of the abyss somewhere below me. Its overnight sleeping location was invisible from my windowsill. What was that tiny looking tadpole up to now? Catch some mice? You bet! That cabin vehicle knew exactly what it was doing. It backed straight into one spindly trailer, hitched it, and scurried with it to the dock. There it sidled up to the monster boat. Slowly but surely, the crane drifted one of the hundreds of containers down on the truck’s trailer. And, happily, the truck carted the white mouse off. This process repeated itself a number of times, until half a dozen rigs scurried back and forth between the cargo ship and the distribution area.
They lined up so many mice! I smacked my lips in awe. That was no small feat, because these monster mice barely fit into their spaces. After a while, no more slots were available for the mice to be parked. But, voila, from outside, the cross-country rigs lined up by the pearly gates of Dole harbor business. One by one, ever so slowly, they pulled off one after the other mouse to the open prairie. And they knew exactly, which mouse they were getting. How did they do that? Meanwhile, the harbor rigs filled up the vacant spots with more mice. It was a mystery to me.
After three days, all the containers were offloaded from the Dole Pacific and she sailed off to Ecuador and other places to bring more bananas in. What was in the boxes now? Air mostly, I read, and 5 percent freight.
I was getting hungry for bananas. A cat? Why not.
The terminal at the Port of San Diego can hold about 800 containers. All of them are refrigerated boxes known as “reefers”: Each 40-foot reefer can hold 1000 boxes, and each box holds around 100 bananas. Dole discharges around 2 billion individual bananas and 16 million pineapples in San Diego alone. Read more at:
These Sparkly Thumbprint cookies are delightful on any occasion, not only Christmas. They have been adapted from a traditional German recipe, “Husarenkrapferl.”
Dough:
250 g flour
1 flat tsp baking powder
100 g sugar (or less)
vanilla flavor (sugar or liquid)
dash of salt
3 egg yolks
150 g butter
Decoration:
1 egg white (as left over from above)
sugar sprinkles
raspberry jelly
Pile the dry ingredients on your work surface (flat counter, or we use a large wooden board), make an indentation for the eggs in the middle, chop the butter in pieces and arrange the flakes around the pile. Mix the egg with the dry stuff and gradually knead all the ingredients together into a cohesive, smooth ball of dough.
Production:
Divide the dough in 4 parts, and roll each one into a 1-inch-thick sausage. Then cut the sausages into 1-inch-long pieces. Voila! Then roll each piece into little balls.
Decorating:
Dip each ball first into the egg white, then into the sprinkles, and set them on a baking sheet. With the end of a cooking spoon, make an indentation into the sparkly balls. Then fill each hole with a dab of raspberry jelly.
Baking:
Bake the Sparkly Thumbprints at 325 F for about 25 minutes. They should be golden brown. (If you were overly generous with the butter, as we were, they may turn out a little flat.)
November is Native American Heritage Month. The Mesa Public Schools NAEP celebrated a fabulous Heritage Night at Westwood High School. The evening was filled with Native royalty, sizzling dance performances, and a heart-felt community spirit. The evening started with an invocation by Freddie Johnson, Diné, and the Land Acknowledgment read by Vice Principal Paul Davis. Keynote speaker was Steven P. Toya Sr. from New Mexico, a much loved counselor and educator. NAEP Program Director Esther Nystrom was visibly proud of her District team that night. Senior NAEP Liaison Debra Toya from Mountain View High School had brought the Royalty and top performers to the stage.
Amazing performances by the internationally acclaimed Indigenous Enterprise group (top row) and Renae Blackwater/Maswade (above).
The fancy Rooster Dance
Multi-talented performers
The Drum Group (above) fired up the spirit of dance. Then the Traditional Akimél O’odham Singers (below; Salt River Pima) invited everybody to join hands for a social dance.
Everybody dance, and . . .
. . . they all did.
Finally, Thunder and his brother Tyler read us a story called “Thunder’s Hair.” Here Tyler and Thunder are with team leader Tiffany (middle) and their mom (right).
Debra Toya and Esther Nystrom provided gifts for Royalty and honorees.
Great job, everybody!
IMPORTANT NOTES:
Arizona is home to 22 Tribal Nations that comprise approximately 28 percent of Arizona’s land base. Two important legislative bills impacted the Native American communities in 2021:
In April, Governor Ducey signed a historic tribal-state gaming compact agreement that modernized gaming in Arizona.
The Governor also signed legislation allowing Native American students in communities across Arizona to wear traditional tribal regalia at their graduation.
This can’t wait any longer. The Huntington Beach oil spill on October 4th, 2021, reminded me again. 25,000 gallons of crude oil flowed into the ocean. As the beach cleanup goes on, residents can apply for federal disaster loans. But why should the government (we) pay for the corporate oil exploitation sins? Make the oil barons cough up the money. Besides, no money can make the hazards of offshore drilling or pipelines breaks go away.
Look, at the above sculpture “Water Is Life (Remembering Standing Rock)”, a porcelain piece by Cincinnati artist Lisa Hueil Conner. It was featured in an SOS Art Exhibit and Retrospective last year. Isn’t it beautiful? I just had to have it. I look at it every day. It tells an important story. And it’s also a stark warning about oil spills.
There are oil spills all the time. Remember the Amoco Cadiz in 1978? The Exxon Valdez in 1989? The exploded and burning oil platform in the Gulf at BP’s Deep Water Horizon in 2010? This was the largest oil spill in history, which left 11 workers dead.
And the spills continue. There were at least 8 spills at the North Dakota Access Pipeline in 2017 after it was put in operation again. The Native American DAPL protesters (2014 to November 2016), who held watch over their land, were trying to stop the pipeline transgression, but the protectors of the land were forcibly removed.
At the time of the no-DAPL protests in 2016, I marched too, in Arizona. At our Native American program in the high school, we held a presentation on the DAPL issue with Native American speakers, Tim Hunts-in-Winter (Lakota, Standing Rock), Stephanie Big Crow (Oglala Lakota), and a key participant by the name of Rance. (The assistant principal wasn’t too happy about it.)
The Dakota (Sioux) knew they had reason to be afraid: The Black Snake prophesy could bring life to an end. In that prophesy, a black snake would slither across the land, poisoning the water before destroying the Earth—the Dakota Access pipeline. It crosses over the Standing Rock Reservation and under the waters of the Missouri.
“There was a prophecy saying that there is a black snake above ground. And what do we see? We see black highways across the nation,” said Dave Archambault, chairman of the Standing Rock reservation, which straddles North and South Dakota. “There’s also a prophecy that when that black snake goes underground, it’s going to be devastating to the Earth.” (CBC News, December 11, 2016)
That’s why hundreds of people had gathered in 2016 to pray in camps along the Missouri River. The incoming Trump administration put a violent end to the encampments.
DAPL continued. The DAPL pipeline expansion is now vying to cross under the Missouri River without a federal permit. Standing Rock fears that their drinking water supply is threatened. They called on President Biden to shut down the pipeline.
Lisa Hueil Conner speaks my mind:
“We still see the disregard for indigenous people’s humanity in the handling of the Standing Rock Pipeline in North Dakota and its ongoing controversy since 2014. Hiking trips to several national and state parks in the Dakotas inspired my work in porcelain called “Water is Life (Remembering Standing Rock)”. This piece is a visual statement of my outrage over the pipeline that was allowed to be built below Lake Oahe and through sacred native lands in North Dakota. The base of the piece depicts a Lakota family (a father, mother, and child) with representative Lakota icons displayed beside each face. The faces are a composite created after viewing many photographs of members of the Lakota tribe. The rim is the pipeline as it leaks toxins into the ground water of the Lakota peoples. Of course, the pipeline has leaked countless times into the lake water.”
What can I say? Protest, protest, protest! Speak up when things are wrong. Art can give you a voice for that. SOS Art Cincinnati has been going strong for 25 years, giving a diverse voice to many political concerns. There is a lot say about humanitarian outrage—rightfully so.
What can we do? We all use oil. We can car pool and use less of it. We can opt for alternative energies. We need to be willing to pay a higher price for clean products.
But what would we be without water? Lake Mead is at its lowest point in history.
Lake Mead has declined about 140 feet since 2000 and now sits at 37% of full capacity.
Luckily we can always drive up to Horton Springs for some untreated well water right from the earth. Inder scooped it straight from the source; spring in the rocks to his right. (Yeah, yeah, wrong kind of bottle, I know!)
I hope this spring will stay clean forever. You all stay clean!
ABOVE: Performing at LeMars, Iowa, in 2015 are Frankie Carter (left), Tommy Buller (middle), Lillie Mae Rische (right, fiddle), and two more.
Bob Everhart has left the building. He passed away on August 20, 2021, at the age of 85 from heart complications. The world of Old-Time Country Music has lost its most passionate advocate. He was a great entertainer as well. Here we are with Bob and Sheila at LeMars in 2017.
I met Bob on my first trip to the United States in 1979, visiting my hometown Friend Maria “Leni” Petersen in Omaha, Nebraska. She, an accomplished zither player and singer, took me to a county fair park called Westfair.
Maria “Leni” Petersen, plays the zither, her friend the guitar, the harmonica, and the saw.
Instantly, I was immersed in a world where folks strummed and fiddled and balladed on every corner of some dusty arenas or around the camp fires in the RV park. You could hear bluegrass, honky tonk, highway music or Appalachian dulcimers, a vast range of styles topped off by gospels and spirituals. This good-natured music mania was also going on simultaneously on several stages. There were competitions, instruments, vendors, foreign guests–I was hooked. In the eighties, I often ventured to Iowa over Labor Day weekend for a country music bath and to hear familiar acts again.
Bob is recognizing Harry Rusk, a First Nations minister and singer from Alberta, Canada, with a lifetime award.
Bob Everhart was the perfect host at his festival, scootering on a golf cart all over the park. He was also an accomplished singer of train songs, when he let his harmonica do the Train Whistle Blues, ALL Around the Water Tank, the City of New Orleans, or the Wabash Cannonball. And in the winter he usually went on tour to Europe, including Germany. When I still lived there, I booked a couple of gigs for him at the Oklahoma in Munich, the Notabene in Wolfratshausen, and even Gasthaus Lacherdinger in Ascholding. I will never forget that raucous evening with the Black Bottom Skiffle group. That night I realized that I would never want to be a music event manager. How, dear Bob in heaven, could you do that tricky business for more than 40 years? God bless you! Please tell him/her to blow a bit of traditional country music our way, and not those terrible hurricanes!
A snapshot of Bob and me in 2015.
Nobody made a lot of money at Westfair, Avoca, or LeMars, but we all made lifetime friends. When I revisited Bob’s festival in 2015 and 2017, I recognized some familiar faces from the eighties, like Stanley “Gallon Hat” or Erv Pickhinke. Some I didn’t recognize because they weren’t born yet in the eighties. These young musicians were the maybe-soon-to-be-famous offspring of the CW hardliners. Bob cared a lot about growing up young country musicians. He was excited to provide them a platform to show their talents. Bob kept his Who’s Got Talent in Country Music going until his eighties. Well done! A life unmatched.
And so many of the young CW folks played him their last respects with songs like “In the Sweet By and By.” But here comes Jacob Austin as Dapper Dan.
Bye, bye, Bob! Keep on jamming with Woody Guthrie, Hank Williams, Johnny Cash and company.
Here is more In Loving Memory of Robert Phillip Everhart
And yet Princess Edda left the safety of her Rainy Castle for the tea house, cozied in her covers, pulled the blanket up to her nose, and admired the strength of the swaying trees outside. This was such a noble fortress, with Saltillo tiles and stained-glass windows and a bed. But it rattled like a mousetrap. The pelting rain noise felt like being inside a drum.
But the morning was still far away and the wind howling with no mercy. She decided to read herself to sleep. It got later and later. It got so late that it was almost early again. Yet the lightning kept flashing through the glass door, and the wind howled even worse. No use trying. So, Princess Edda decided to admire the power of God’s nature instead. This was better than a movie.
And she was still alive. A tree had crashed only a foot from her tea house. Oh, miracle and wonder! Not quite. Prince Helmut had sent his Bandana Gang to the rescue. Who else could have heaved the tree away from its fateful destiny? And so Princess Edda escaped the storm unscathed. The Bandana Guard kept watch all night.
Environmental Day at the Capitol earlier this year, struck my memory chord like a gong chiming in my head. Activists from all corners had gathered on the Arizona Capitol grounds in Phoenix to lobby for water protection measures and have a word with their District reps.
The Colorado River is so dammed up that none of its waters reach the Gulf of California any more. Lake Mead, in 2023, was at its lowest since the Hoover Dam (1 of 15 Colorado River dams) was built. 2023 was another heat record year with 50+ days over 110F. It’s a damn’ dry situation. For many Native Americans, Navajos included, water has always been scarce.
My friend’s house had a warm, cuddly, welcoming air to it. It was very much ranch-style in its decor with blankets, Native art, and the occasional antler. This was a much privileged outing for me, because a group of strong Native women shared their time and space with me. And I finally would get to see Window Rock, the Navajo capital, as well.
Many Navajo families have no water lines going to their houses. Imagine, any and all water has to be hauled over long distances and bad roads. Imagine how hard it will be to maintain proper hygiene. Imagine how health-compromised individuals might suffer. Or what about elder and infant care? Staying well and healthy requires a reasonable amount of water.
Julius Schütze rides up from Austin. He demands justice for his brother. The wolf pack does not like to be dragged in front of the judge. Now the events take a dramatic spin for the worse. One of the Waldrip gang, Gibson, threatens Eberhard several times about his ammunition, raids his shop, and rapes his Comanche maid. Eberhard is a reluctant hero, but Gibson had it coming. From this point on, Eberhard’s life spins out of control. Done with playing it safe.
Bandana Stories
Bandana Origin
Bandana Warriors
Independent from my instigations, Elisabeth Sherwood had made a collage series of bandana cowgirls, the mysterious types. (One of her gals to the left.) This was just perfect for the Bandana Book cover. I asked my friends, they wrote stories, I put them all in a book. The second one is on its way. It’s titled “Unusual Encounters.” The stories cover a rainbow of experiences and are deliriously good.
Australia (yes, this is NOT China) drives on the left, walks on the left, sneezes to the left. How do you avoid being run over? Are Australians bound to be more left-handed too? I figure, they’ve got to be, because the left does most of the work in a car: gears, wipers, climate control, radio. Try that for a change.
The Holiday Inn at Darling Harbor lies amidst China Town. Only Asian people around, Beijing ducks in the shop windows, tasty donut holes (Emperor Puffs) filled with custard, boba shops with many flavors, and the whole range of Oriental cuisine. But what’s with the jostling? Did everybody switch off their inborn proximity sensor?
But just go for it! In Australia, you don’t need money. They will take a plastic card for everything. Even the commemorative coin machine at the Sydney Aquarium spews out your minted penny for a tap. The aquarium is an excellent place to go under the sea. It has some of the best shark tanks around
On the first morning, a ketchup packet exploded on me: I pointed it the wrong way, squeezed, and voila had ketchup all over my snout. Most things don’t seem obvious when you’re under a 14-hour jet lag. Yeah, the blow dryer flicked the frothy soap all over my shirt. Silly me, I hadn’t approached the duplicitous (double-action) faucet from the right angle. Fortunately, Sydney seemed so much cleaner than our American cities. Kudos to the restrooms! And drinks come only with paper straws and there is an extra charge for takeout containers.
I had fun bumbling along the parks and exploring on foot. My mission on Tuesday was to reach the beach. Another faux pas! Bondi is pronounced “Bon-die” or “Bon-day” Beach. Good day? Or a good day to die? Huh? That’s what the Lakota would say. The bus driver wrinkled his brow, then smiled, and taught me the correct pronunciation of my destination.
It’s fun to watch the surfers at Bondi. Even better than staring into the tide pools at La Jolla. I settled into a coffee shop for a capuccino and avocado sandwich. Australia had me then and there.
It had to be written—I don’t know why.
I had the great pleasure to help Jackie with the pictures for her Medford Trailer. Actor Cainan Thomas from Fort McDowell (AZ, Yavapai) was the model for the key pictures of the story. It was such a nice adventure to set up for the shots at my friend Renate Mousseux’s house in Fountain Hills. As his former teacher, Renate has know Cainan and his family since his childhood. Cainan is an actor who has played Native American characters in movie productions.
The pictures (below) turned out great. Here is the gist of the story: “Decades after Thomas Circling Eagle’s suicide, his wallet is discovered buried in an abandoned barn. That puzzling fact intrigues his now grown son Richard, especially because its contents contradict the suicide assumption and include a reference to mysterious human remains uncovered in the wilderness near Medford, WI.”
Take plastic, for example. First we pump mineral oil out of a well from the earth. This goes to a refinery, to a plastic factory, which makes the plastic bottle. From there, the plastic bottle goes to the beverage manufacturer (maybe as throw-away water bottle), to the distributor, to the store, to the consumer (us), to the blue barrel, to the sorting & recycling company, to the shredder, to the melter . . . and then WHAT?
Recycling, is not a true cycle, but it is still the best we can do. We humans are ignoring the Sorcerer’s Apprentice problem all too often. We do things just because we can. And for the money. We say, let’s deal with the consequences (of plastic) later, or not at all? Let the kids deal with it?
“Mona Lisa came together just for fun. There was a river rock laying around for years. It had the shapes of a beautifully formed woman, no relations to the Kardashians (maybe Picasso or Gaugin). And then there was also the tree stump of an old cedar tree. That tree had been in conflict with an oak. Every time when I have to cut down a tree, I leave a stump as a memorial. It could be used for something later. That tree offered itself to install something on it. The other two things had been waiting in the grass for a while. So I put all three together, set the rock on the stump, and installed the metal frame around it. The stone, steel, and wood enhanced each other quite naturally.”
Covid-19 Man: “I made that at the beginning, when we started to realize how threatening and aggressive Covid-19 was. For the first time it happened in my long life that we had such a worldwide epidemic. For me, the woodblock face demonstrates the anguish of a patient screaming from pain and terror. We’ve had the ball made of sea shells for a long time and it offered itself as a Covid virus symbol encompassing the entire globe.”
Another piece is in the works, called Kama Sutra, aka a bunch of large, gnarly cedar roots arranged together. “At this time, I am working on the enlightened lovers,” Helmut says.
Liquid detergent: The utmost insanity of all! Haven’t we always used washing powder? It gives you the same results. Listen up, Tide & Co.: Take your jugs off the shelves right now! We can shake up our own soapy sauce.
Environmental change: California’s new plastics law could force the rest of the nation to cut down on its polluting materials. The legislation mandates, among other things, a reduction in the single-use plastics sold in the state. It also requires 65 percent of plastics to be recycled within a decade—an ambitious goal. Plastics makers will have to foot the bill for recycling. The law could have ripple effects across the nation, but not all recycling proponents are pleased, Laura Parker reports.
I remember the 1950s when conformity in life, belief and culture was not only expected, it was demanded. Most people went along, but there were a few on the fringe who refused to conform. This was before the age of the hippie. (Although of that generation, I have more in common with the beatniks—jazz, writing, being cool as opposed to being loud, “sick” comedians like Lenny Bruce, Mort Sahl.) We seem to be living in a retro-fifties era today. The cries for conformity are everywhere. If you’ll watch the news carefully you’ll see that the “free” kids of the sixties, who are now in their seventies, are bringing back the worst of the fifties.
Being a beat generation survivor, I think of myself as a cool. I send my works to first readers for their input. I listen to that input, evaluate it, and incorporate their suggestions if I agree with them. A conventional writer will automatically submit to the recommended changes of an editor, critique group, best friend, fellow writer, or first reader without hesitation. Why? Because that’s the way it’s done. The rule book says so.
A conventional knows for a fact that the way to publishing success is to get an agent who will get a publisher who will then publish the work. He knows for certain that this is the only sure-fire method. The cool knows that he can take that road or choose another, such as self-publishing. I’ve debated the pros and cons of traditional vs. self-publishing and each side has its share. The amount of emotional attachment some authors have to conventional thinking, however, borders on religious belief.
Something to think about, eh? Give it some thought.
