“Paper or plastic?” When have you heard this question lately? I haven’t. It’s “plastic, you must!” That happens to me each time when I forget my reusable bags.
DETOUR to Germany. I just returned from there. Hey, Nutella comes in a glass jar there, isn’t that great? But vitamins are in messy bubble packs, why? Be it as it may, they are ahead of us with managing the mess. They charge deposits on (plastic) bottles and customers will return them to the store (picture below, the fully automated return).
Leergutannahme–Acceptance of Empties: Nice! Let’s bring all our bottles back to where they came from (Fry’s, Albertsons, Safeway, etc.). They made a buck on them, so they must share the recycling responsibility.
All other, non-deposit, glass (wine etc.) bottles must be brought to recycling dumpsters separated by white, brown, or green colors. Papers and cardboards are collected in a separate bin. Compostables go in a brown bin. Next, the packaging refuse (yogurt cups, food containers, cans etc.) are to be cleaned to be recycled. That leaves the “Restmüll” pile much smaller: diapers, hygiene items, & other messy messes to be incinerated.
On packaging: as the consumption of take out food ramped up in Germany during Covid too, there is a new law that all carry-out containers must be paper/cardboard. My mom has a wood-burning stove and can dispose of these in the hearth. For community festivals, china plates, real silver ware, or edible bowls must be used. I went shopping at the grocery store with a basket. Nonetheless, that dang plastic showed a horrible presence in the Edeka cooler section: sliced meats and cheeses strutting more plastic per weight than food. And lots of extra plastic wrapping on fruits and vegetables too (see Aldi).
In the US: Do what you might, you can’t apparently refuse the plastic. Store clerks look at you with disbelief: What? No bag? One for the apples, one for the meat, one for the shampoo, one for the tortillas, one for the toothpaste, one for the birthday card . . . Come on, what are you doing? Save them! These bags are precious!
I have fought to keep those bags at bay. I confess, sometimes I forget to bring my own reusable shopping bags. Then I tell the clerk, “Just put all that crap from the motor belt back in the cart!” What? The packer won’t believe my callousness against his expert wrapping science. Little does he know that I have a (plastic) basket in the trunk. That’s where I throw all my purchases (without crushing my lettuce like they do).
That fight against the bags never ends. The only place that is perhaps a little different is Boulder, Colorado. There they make you buy a bag. Definitely, bags are precious. So, we should pay for them, reuse them, or refuse them. Let needier people have them.
Fight the plastic bags! If we can’t stop this trash, we will drown in it eventually.
Plastic bags should have become extinct by now. The next things to scratch on this long list are the one-way water bottles. Bring your own bottle to the game or school event, fill it at the faucet. Don’t be lazy. Or buy something in a can or glass bottle. Look, San Francisco Airport banned them already in August of 2019. Schools—oh my God, how much trash piles up there—should do the same! Train them school kids to bring their own bottles!
There are signs of hope against that plastic tsunami we live in. Here in Phoenix, the Phoenix Suns Arena was recently renamed the FOOTPRINT Center Arena for its partnership with a material science company that works hard to replace single-use plastics with biodegradable plant fibers. Imagine, all the hot dog boats and burger boxes will compose in the fill after three months!
Footprint Center
So here are my three points:
Let’s skip the plastic bag,
Bring your own refillable drink bottle, and
Boycott liquid detergent.
Why the detergents? Is there any proof that liquid detergent works better than powder? And if, is the result noticeable? I doubt it. BUT: It creates a lot of plastic trash. And plastic is precious, as we know, as our lives are precious. So save that plastic and spare us from it! Because the plastic comes around in the food chain from the plankton in the ocean and up to us. Therefore, if plastic is “dear” to us, we must use it most sparingly, even that micro-plastic.
If we fail on these easy things, we are failing ourselves on many levels. Let’s muster up some strength. Maybe St. Kateri Tekakwitha (Feast Day: July 14th), Patron Saint of the Environment and Ecology could help.
Oh, Holy Saint Kateri! May you protect us from all superfluous plastic and our own negligent recalcitrance! Or can you clean up Midway Island, please? (Sorry, you are right. We better do it ourselves.)
Someone needs to do something about it! How about YOU?
Makin’ Art, Priyanka’s label, is catching on. My multi-talented daughter has produced artworks since early childhood. She has always had a creative knack and amazing patience for precision. That suited her well for her Computer and Electrical Engineering degree at UC Boulder. Now she tinkers with coding and microcontrollers, making new circuits for Sparkfun, an open source electronic components company, also in Boulder.
Art keeps growing on Priyanka and has taken on a technical form: she designs and builds electronic gadgets for art installations, such as Trey Duvall’s mobile constructs and Jaime Carrejo’s “Waiting” exhibit at the Denver Contemporary Art Museum.
All right, let this proud mom brag for a minute or two. Tenacity is one of my daughter’s trademarks. She does art in spite of a full engineering load and turns out a lot of good stuff. Who would have thought that in the digital age she would learn black and white print processing on her own initiative? (Didn’t ask me. You must know that her mom has a degree in photography.) She also paints beautifully in watercolor. Lately, Priyanka has developed the Shrinky-dinks into whimsical earrings and charms. And since she knows what makes a clock tick, other artist keep calling her about musical cuckoo doors, blinking neurons, or floating plants. That is the technical part of her art. How lucky she is to be an engineer.
Now here comes the joint project: Last Christmas Priyanka surprised me with the illustrations for my Random Accident story. That scenario, about 20 years in the making, is somewhat between Brave New World and Shrek. Her images are right on: a fantastical, hopeful, post-apocalyptical environment, in which salvation is steered by a little girl. Whimsical, humorous, and yet right down to earth in their floral splendor. What a multi-talented daughter!
You can find out more about Priyanka’s activities and projects at www.priyankamakin.com
Dr. John W. Molina is a remarkable health professional and activist. I met him first at my own house, when he attended my friend Renate Mousseux’s launch party for her memoir, Renatle, Mosaic of Life. Renate had known Dr. Molina for many years. She had organized fundraisers for his Las Fuentes clinic in the past. Dr. Molina makes a striking appearance, looking the part of a Native American doctor wearing a long braid and traditional regalia.
A couple of years later, I got to edit and produce Dr. Molina’s own life story. Having worked with Native American youth in the Mesa School District, his memoir was a real eye opener for me as I kept editing away. Molina’s title evolved over time and became Im Jittoa Bo’o—My Healing Journey, leaning on his Yaqui heritage. And the content reads like a movie. The “Healing Journey” and life experience thrilled me on many levels. I fell right into it. This book, which came as a complete and quite clean manuscript to me, helped me see the Native American experience through Molina’s eyes.
Dr. Molina’s story is written in an engaging narrative voice. He is careful with word selection but all out honest. He grew up in the little Yaqui town of Guadalupe near Tempe as a day laborer’s son. He finished high school (an exception in his community back then), hired on with the Navy, then became a pastor for a Christian church, studied psychology, and eventually landed a community project looking after diabetic patients from his own village. Molina saw many unattended ailments and a great need for a doctor. “Why don’t you become that doctor?” his mentor challenged him. And so he did. After medical school (UofA), Molina specialized in OBGYN and founded the Las Fuentes Community Clinic. So much for the first 25 percent of his CV. He is also a jurist, healthcare advocate, and Doctor of Humane Letters, the whole list is hard to remember.
Molina is totally honest about his bumpy road to success. He faced bullying, alcoholism, prejudice, peer pressures from his own tribe, but whatever he set his mind to—he accomplished it each time at a high price and at his own risk. Tragedy struck not only once. Racial bias in the professional arena did not deter him.
Along with studying the academics, Molina also observed the ancient knowledge of medicine men. As a healthcare compliance officer for Native Health, he now makes sure that Native American patients receive good quality of care. He has reached a position that allows him to work from his cultural roots, through a holistic outlook, to serve the the whole human being. As a young physician laboring through 36-hour-shifts, he also strove for integrative approaches and, when possible, allowed the traditional healing methods to cure the body as well as the soul.
Many times Molina encountered serious doubts and discrimination. “You are a doctor?” hospital parking attendants would ask him when he walked by in street clothes. At a very young age he had realized that a white coat makes all the difference.
My favorite passage is the part where Molina hashes through the decision making process of becoming a doctor. He tells his mentor. “If I go to medical school, I will probably be 40 years old by the time I become a doctor.” His friend replies, “You will be 40 years old whether you become a doctor or not.” Simple fact. Age is an arbitrary measure, but what you do with your time has real value.
As I navigated through the book, my admiration for this man’s determination, ambition, and compassion grew with each chapter. As an anthropologist I was fascinated by the fact that Dr. Molina also turned to traditional healers and the deep knowledge from the past.
Molina narrates his story with bone-chilling honesty. He shares painful details about his affliction with addiction, family tragedies, and professional trials and tribulations—as well as his remarkable, almost miraculous successes.
All throughout his reflections, Molina does not go easy on himself. He has led a full and restless life, but he overcame, regrouped, and always put himself back on the straight road again. Now, granted, he is still a workaholic, but all to the benefit of the Native American nations and their health improvements.
Im Jittoa Bo’o—My Healing Journey, by Dr. John W. Molina. Read it. Molina’s book will enrich your outlook. Money is not all that counts. Insights are important too—and maybe a long list of credentials. Or better, what you did to help others.
You can find out more about Dr. John Ward Molina MD JD DHL on his LinkedIn page.
Waiting. Waiting again. Now at Safelight Autoglass.
This wait was totally unexpected. The timing was freakish. An ice block from the overpass hit our windshield as we were driving under it. It delayed our trip by a whole day. Dreadful.
Aren’t all waits dreaded? The wait in the doctor’s practice, the turn of the red light, the hand of the clock to reach twelve? Waiting for summer, for your turn, waiting for what and why?
During this time of Covid, we had a lot of waiting to do. And we still haven’t learned anything. We still don’t like it and we are not good at it. Waiting takes practice. It’s a skill, It’s an art. Good waiting makes creative and happy.
Many of us (used to instant gratification at a click) couldn’t wait any longer but then we learned it again during the Covid year. Waiting to go back to school. Waiting for take out orders. Waiting in the carvalcade to get your specimen taken and then waiting for the results to come back. Wait, wait, wait a minute or an hour or a week.
The wait at the post office (even pre-Covid) was usually the deadliest for me. I always thought each PO visit would shorten my life by a day or two. So I avoided the PO. HOWEVER, I was so WRONG: actually the PO extended my life. It tricked me into appreciating my time more. The PO gave me slack time that I wasn’t aware I had in my rushed daily routines.
“Waiting for God” was a British sitcom about feisty older folks in an assisted living home. They didn’t jus want to wait around. They wanted to be players in their home court. Nobody wants to wait. Waiting seems a waste.
Waiting is good. Why? We discover our own inner world of fantasy and creativity.
Ask Jaime Carrejo. This Denver artist just now has an installation at the Museum of Contemporary Art called “Waiting.” He made up a colorfully decorated waiting room where the walls seem to come alive in floral patterns and the hanging plants randomly raise or lower themselves. I know all about the ins and outs of this exhibit because my daughter Priyanka Makin (proud mom shout out) designed and built the motorized mechanism for ten of these trailing plants. These spider plants are making a name for themselves by hanging on a thread.
The description for “Waiting” says that “Jaime Carrejo explores the relationship between confinement + duration (=waiting) by layering Southwestern symbolism, mid-century design, and objects from his domestic space.” Wherever this comes from, it is just fun to watch and live inside for a while. More often than not, the pictures on the wall of my doctor’s office have come alive too.
Here is what we learn in this exhibit: Waiting doesn’t kill time. It makes the relationship between space and duration more colorful and essential. Waiting entertains us too. We never know what might happen next. So waiting becomes the real adventure.
My idyllic hometown, Ascholding, received a hodge podge of oversized industrial buildings over night. Some structures are large enough to park the whole church inside. Was this necessary? Where will this insanity end?
Im Jahr 2018 hat das idyllische Bachzeilendorf Ascholding ein Gewerbegebiet erhalten. Hier (anklicken) ein Überflug mit den Dohlen vom Kirchturm: Zuerst das wunderbare Alpenpanorama, dann das industrielle Schachtelwerk.
Da haben wir den Salat–ein “Gewerbegebiet.” Die zwei größten “Flugzeughallen”, überdimensionale Fremdkörper, verhindern nach allen Richtungen den Ausblick. Solche Mammutbauten gehören nicht einmal an den Rand des idyllischen Bachzeilendorfes. Bieten die neuen Firmen den Ortsansässigen viele gute Arbeitsplätze an? Die landwirtschaftlichen Felder sind für immer zerstört, die Sozialstruktur verstädtert.
So war es früher einmal: auf dem Feld links unten steht jetzt das Gewerbegebiet.
PHASE II: Geht es jetzt so weiter? Mehr als 80 Parkplätze für den Edeka Markt (insgesamt ca. 120 Stellflächen mit Kindergarten eingerechnet) sollen noch kommen. Aber brauchen doch mehr Grünflächen und weniger Abgase, um das Global Warming zu reduzieren? ABER: Die nächste Bauphase (II).
Wie viele Parkplätze braucht ein Lebensmittelladen in einem 1000-Seelen-Dorf?
So viele wie der Holzwirt (40 geteerte, 30 auf Kies)? Oder so viele wie der Netto in Egling? Genau 68, aber Egling ist größer. Oder so viele wie das Kaufland in Geretsried (120, wenn ich mich nicht verzählt habe)? Welcher Parkplatz ist jetzt da am schönsten?
PHASE Baustelle mit Keltengrabung–2019, siehe Schotterfeld
PHASE EDEKA und Kindergarten–2020–Siehe Mega-Markt
All grocery stores must recycle their store-brand plastic water bottles.
OR ELSE: We won’t buy them, drink tap water, refill our own.
All grocery stores must collaborate with beverage manufacturers to create a deposit/recycle system for any which plastic bottles.
OR ELSE: We only buy drinks in glass bottles or cans.
All beverage vendors must institute refillable(plastic) bottles/jugs.
OR ELSE: We only buy glass, cans, or cartons, especially milk.
Door Dash Company must establish a beverage delivery service that also returns our empties.
OR ELSE: What else? Duh! It’s a BUSINESS OPPORTUNITY!
All detergent companies must stop liquid detergents, as the plastic canisters generate unnecessary plastic waste.
OR ELSE: BOYCOTT liquid detergents!!!
All soap/shampoo/body wash and other hygiene articles producers must provide “infusion bag” style dispensers with reusable nozzle to reduce plastic waste.
OR ELSE: We only use bar soap and make our own beauty supplies.
All condiments such as mayo, mustard, ketchup, salad dressings, etc. must be available in glass bottles or squeeze tubes or infusion bags.
OR ELSE: We mix those up ourselves.
All plastic container/bag/bottle manufacturers must find next-to-zero waste packaging solutions, materials that can be disposed of with minimum damage to the environment.
OR ELSE: See all the above.
All food/beverage/restaurant franchises must use paper straws, paper cups, paper containers or other biodegradable packaging/serving ware.
OR ELSE: We don’t buy and cook our own dinner for a change.
All organizations/schools/communities putting on events must prohibit plastic bottles, plastic dinnerware, and plastic cups. Use water cooler, paper cups, wood utensils, porcelain, or edible containers.
OR ELSE: Organizer(s) must personally separate out the plastic refuse and either reuse or take the plastic to the recycling station.
All consumers (WE) must responsibly and conscientiously participate in plastic recycling, which means taking OUR empties back to the store or recycling station. (REMEMBER THE ALAMO . . . , I mean, PLASTIC BAGS?)
OR ELSE: We don’t deserve what was in the plastic bottle in the first place.
CONSUME LESS!
A Celtic village was unearthed in Ascholding (near Munich) as a result of a construction project. The remains/artifacts were dated ca. 300 BC. Soon the site will be buried under concrete and asphalt for a new Edeka grocery supermarket.
This is just a small example of what they call “Flächenfraß” (=urban sprawl; literally, gobbling up green lands) in Germany. The “development” (add an industrial complex of 12 buildings, a super-hypermarket, a fire station, a kindergarten, plus at least 6 private home constructions) happened within only 3 years. Insanity! This village of 1000 people has doubled its weight and jumped into the Munich Metroplex over night.
The heat is on in Mesa. It’s the new construction fever. Whole subdivisions are sprouting up over night. The most awful, megalomaniac, commercial buildings just shot up two blocks down by Falcon Field. Not that they have been sold yet, it’s just so that the investments may be attracted.
Californians are coming to Arizona in droves. Can’t blame them. Arizona is still a little cheaper and has not totally burnt down yet. Let’s just see how long the water is going to last. The Tempe Town Lake—now with flashy glass-and-steel towers and beehive-like apartment complexes—is not real water, it’s just for show. But since we got more business, we need more roads to support the growth. Thank God, we have a lot of rock in Arizona. We are blessed with it, unless this rock is being mined right next to your house.
Do you get the picture? Unfortunately, the Mesa monster holes, as large as meteorite craters, look a little flat from Google Earth. And you can’t see them when driving by, as they are hugely bermed up. You could bury a whole town in some of them. Here are some of these holes along the 202:
We did it again. We do Kaltenberg on every German trip. Look, here is the Grand Entry. The Kaltenberg Medieval Jousting Show and Marketplace is hosted at Kaltenberg Castle, the residence of the Duke of Bavaria.
42nd National Old-Time Music Festival and Pioneer Expo
August 28 – September 3, 2017
Plymouth County Fairgrounds—LeMars, IA 51520
Funny, how a small Bavarian village (where I spent most of the summer) can harbor all kinds of memories. But country music? When the Ascholding riding club let out a few country western tunes, it sent me down memory lane. Those tunes sounded much like the skiffle group that I taped two years ago at Bob Everhart’s Festival at Le Mars, Iowa (above), or back then at guesthouse Lacherdinger.
Country music was nothing new in Ascholding. More than 30 years ago, old-time country music ambassador Bob Everhart came to perform in my quaint German hometown. Maybe those stones got rolling there?
During his European trips, Bob and I and another few put several country music acts on stage in Germany. I will never forget when the Black Bottom Skiffle group heated up the fully stuffed “Saal” and eventually made off with all the door money, or when Jeff Doty ran up the phone bill mile high at my friend’s house. Kathl, by now almost 90 years old, still remembers the story. Jeff had the love-sick blues. Duh, that explains the phone bill. Luckily, there were more stints to come in Wolfratshausen and Munich.
Bob Everhart has been promoting traditional country music all his life. He has recorded classics for a select album for the Smithsonian Institute (Folkways Records), runs the Old Time Country Music Hall of Fame, “live-streams” the traditional tunes (Wabash Cannon Ball etc.) at countless appearances and hosts every Labor Day the Old Time Country Music Festival in Le Mars, Iowa.
Bob Everhart is a country boy to the bone, as he reveals in his autobiography, “What I Saw”. Bob came from a day laborer family, which was terrorized by an alcoholic, violent dad and held together by a saintly mom. The singer had his first “radio appearances” in the Navy as a radioman. Maybe he also caught the travel bug there because the Navy took them as far as Japan.
Soon after his college studies, music fever led Bob Everhart into the hard-knock music business. Big record labels called the shots, and good bands got their songs stolen. In his early beginnings in the hard-hitting music industry, newspaper reporter Bob met the Rolling Stones when they toured America early in their career before the Battle of the Bands in Omaha, Nebraska.
I visited Bob’s Traditional Country Music Festival in 2015 and was amazed that his flagship event was still going. My friend Maria (also from Ascholding) faithfully played the zither there at several workshops as 30 years before. Bob apparently had not changed much; but he was close to 80 years old now (did I miscount?). How did he keep up this energy? Music keeps him young.
Eventually, I stopped at the festival information booth. Boy, some of these photos seemed familiar. When I was a student at the University of Texas, I attended Bob’s Old-Time Country Music Festival several times. And took pictures. Yep, some of my snapshots stuck out of the photo display. Bob had kept them all these years! Even Bob’s Folkways album cover seemed awesomely familiar. I remembered that performance in the 80ies. I came to Iowa from the University of Texas. Could I have taken the picture for the album cover and didn’t know it?
Bob Everhart has a fabulously strong voice, Nashville-good. But he didn’t want to go that route, selling out to the music industry. He decided instead to serve the Midwestern people’s old-time music and friendships. It’s no easy feat to pull off such a large festival each year. Seems the audience has gotten a little older. But many young musicians join the lineup just as well as the old faithful make the pilgrimage to present faithful crowd pleasers.
If you like traditional people’s music and want to spend a couple of casual days with friendly people, the Traditional Old-Time Country Music Festival is just the right place for you.
Arnold Annen ist ein Keramik-Poet. Hier (oben) eines seiner Designs, das er der Natur (Mikroben) abgeschaut hat. Wir haben ihn und seine Partnerin Violette Fassbaender–unsere Freunde–kürzlich besucht. Beide Künstler sind einzigartige Keramik-Pioniere, Arnold mit seinen zerbrechlichen Schalen, Violette mit ihren marmorierten “Steinen”.
Our friend Arnold Annen from Basel, Switzerland, creates poetry in porcelain. His large bowls and luminescent sculptures are paper thin. His partner Violette Fassbaender, herself an accomplished ceramicist, helps Arnold push the edge of a fragile art.
We recently stayed at Arnold and Violette’s house amidst scores of highly exclusive, one-of-a-kind artifacts. All pieces of their collections were mindfully arranged to evoke a symphony of inspiration.
In 2014 Arnold, who has gained much recognition in Europe and Japan, won a prestigious award at an international ceramics show in Chicago, Best of Show at SOFA.
Who would have guessed this world fame when Arnold was born in the small town of Gsteig (Gstaad, Switzerland) in a small farm village. Arnolds relentless passion for the ceramics process drove him to perfection. Among of our most priced household possessions is a pair of paper thin porcelain cups that Arnold gifted us.
Violette’s concept in ceramics is drastically different. She creates organic patterns from different colors of clay at different stages of moisture to build them into objects resembling rocks from nature. Organic patterns as in nature.
The detail in Violette’s hollow “rocks” tells stories of ancient magma–or an observant walk through the Swiss Alps. Eye-catching blocks of “Urgestein” shape-shift in the sheen of daylight versus dusk. She also has perfected her technique since she began her organic quest in Japan. Her deceptively casual patterns require a high level of skill, simplicity, and abstraction. The soul search. Or the simple admission that there are no accidents in life.
We spent some wonderful hours with these two remarkable artists who we are glad to call friends. Their hospitality is heart-warming as well. We enjoyed some very tasty, home-cooked meals at their house. Memories.
There is much more to know about Arnold and Violette’s art. Further reading:
“Water Is Life” No debate about that. Thousands of people from all over the world gathered last fall 2016 at Standing Rock Reservation for a camp out. The Dakota tribe protested the pipeline because the DAPL violated tribal autonomy, desecrated cultural treasures and gravesite, and put the water resources–above all the Missouri River–in great jeopardy. To no avail. After a short-lived halt of construction by the American Corps of Engineers, the pipeline was finished by executive order and the protesters cleared away in January 2017. There are many stories of camp endurance, nonviolent resistance, and bravery in the harsh Dakota winter. Solidarity and support (such as donated wood-burning stoves from Germany) poured from all over the world.
Listen to this Native American speaker at a Phoenix solidarity protest march.
Nevertheless we humans keep building industrial conundrums. In the process we are soiling & spoiling our water resources. Industries sprout like there is no tomorrow. What kind of tomorrow will it be? The North Dakota Access Pipeline is finished and open for business. Pipelines spill all the time. Only we don’t hear much about it, unless an offshore drill platform bursts into flames–mega disaster. Deep Water Horizon?
People from all over the world joined the Dakota Nation for Thanksgiving 2016. Native Americans are the Greenpeace of our times. We all need clean water. The descendants of Sitting Bull and Red Cloud are still fighting the legal battle for sovereignty and the environment. Let’s stand with Standing Rock. The debate about water is here to stay.
My friend Earley is a Jack of many trades. Yes, Jack Earley is his name. Much to say about him (Jack on right; middle, Kate Earley; left, me)
Jack has been creative all his life, one way or another. He is a painter, book dealer, philosopher, and writer. His wife Kate keeps Jack’s back free for artistic exploration. We have been friends with the Earleys since our Loveland (Cincinnati, Ohio) days. Jack’s paintings hang on our walls in Arizona. They make us feel like we are still neighbors.
Jack’s “earliest” passion was writing. “I have been writing since I was 18,” Jack said. He got interested in literature around the time when he started college. “Everybody was talking about the weird guy next door, so I went over to meet him.” That guy got Jack to read all the great novels, about 20 of them—Moby Dick, War and Peace, Brothers Karamazov, The Red and the Black, and so forth. He has been writing every since.
Only in the last 2 years Jack has produced finished products.
Like many circumspective writers, he catches a good story when it comes around. “One morning, I was doing tai chi, and I heard a news article”, Jack recalled. “There the novel just came to me and I started writing it. It was like I was a secretary transcribing what automatically appeared in my brain.”
Jack’s novel is called “Through the Ice”. A man drives his car through the ice on a lake. In shock and far away from any help, he has to walk back to town with a coyote. Imagine that!
After this revelation, many short stories started popping into Jack’s mind. He collected 103 twitter-like vignettes together in a volume called “Saturday Nights”. They are all related to Saturday family events, poker nights, and memorable pranks. Recently, Jack has started another series called “Every Day of the Week.” He has more than a dozen together but wants to come up with over 100 to match the “Saturday Nights” stories. He records the readings of his stories for YouTube, where people can subscribe for free.
Each of Jack’s short stories contains a little snap, a little epiphany. “We all go about doing things that we think are right. Suddenly, out pops a piece of knowledge, an unexpected awareness. According to James Joyce, such an epiphany normally means that God revealed himself in the streets.”
Jack camouflages these real life events by fictionalizing the characters, but all experiences are his own. In “Steak Every Night” he cast himself as the young dude getting annoyed with a loud-mouthed Polish coworker. There is a true learning moment there. If you pay attention, in each of Jack’s stories a little light bulb goes off.
All right, easy enough. But, then, ask Jack about science. Scientific discoveries may not come on accident. “In science, people are working their tails off in one direction,” Jack said, “until a little epiphany takes them into a completely different direction—because more stuff is coming at them than they are aware of.” His conclusion: Science is the art or attempt of predicting the future.
Now we are getting philosophical. Let’s take it one more step further.
According to Jack, neither painting nor story are linear, they only appear so. All of the time is right now, regardless in which order the paint was laid down or the characters enter the scene. The future is only the place where the energy is heading.
Get it? Along the way of our unsuspecting lives we are collecting more knowledge than expected. So that is called a learning experience.
Based on his definition of the common man’s epiphany, Jack is bothered by a movie called “Arrival.” In it some aliens gift humanity with a “una-language” for perfect communication and a glimpse at the future.
“However, if you can see the future, it means it is already here,” Jack said. “And if it’s already here, it means everything already happened. And if everything already happened, what’s the point? What’s there to learn? Why aren’t we just catatonic? Why do anything?”
Good question.
Quick, Jack, just write another story, paint another picture.
Mark Twain is my American literary hero. Recently, I had a chance to take a picture with my idol at Tlaquepaque in Sedona. Wow! Our chat felt nice.
Mark Twain, aka Samuel Clemens, was a journalist before he was a novelist. He started to craft stories as young as 12 years old. He ceaselessly honed his art as a newspaper reporter, first in St. Louis, MO, and then many other places. Twain found just the right words, perspective, and dosage of humor that he was able to “get away with murder.” Lesser scribes would have been hung.
I believe in Twain. A master of social criticism and satire, he pointed out hypocrisy, absurdity, and profound human misery. Imagine, a seasoned alley cat like Huck Finn coming to his own conclusions about the runaway slave, Jim. These unlikely companions float down the Mississippi on a raft with plenty of time to learn from each other. Use your brain, man! So Huck did. In his own way, Huck Finn was a humanitarian of the simplest kind. Kind.
Another character I admire is the dude in the Connecticut Yankee at King Arthur’s Court. That’s a story of brain power gone awry. The Yankee’s square-headed mentality and modern weaponry caused total destruction in the chivalrous, medieval world. In a doomsday scenario, royal jousting spiraled fully out of control.
Yes, Mark Twain showed us the whole spectrum of human nature.
Twain was a master of religious satire and got away with it as well. Captain Stormfield’s Visit to Heaven tells a story of how the afterlife turns out much differently than expected for the main character.
One of our greatest problems is, which Twain often indicated, that we people like to overrate our own importance. “All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence, then success is sure.” Dang it! We see that all the time.
I learned a lot of good words from Mark Twain as well and added them to my American street vocabulary. Although by now antiquated, I still thoroughly enjoy expressions like “low life, bottom feeder, scallywag, carpet bagger” and many more. We might use other words today but the same character types are still lurking around each corner.
Finally, Mark Twain’s excursions into the German language are hilarious. How can the prefix from a verb break off and resurface at the very far tail end of a sentence? And he sure admired the German knack for assembling some of the longest composite nouns in the universe, such as “Donaudampfschifffahrtskapitänsmützenabzeichen” (Danube Steam Shipping Company medal for the captain’s hat).
And if Twain were still alive, he might play even mightier tricks with words. Especially now that we have entered the age of alternative truths and official lies are not even concealed any more.
Language has always been a creative process. It has to, because the world keeps changing all the time. If Latin were still a living language, someone would have made up new words for “aircraft carrier” or “underwater mortgage” or “fragile facts”. Or borrowed them from another language?
Let’s face it. Since the last elections, our vocabulary will soon add some new inflexions: That’s so trumpish! What the trump just happened? Don’t trump me! Let’s join the Trumpler Club. (Not me. I am not a Trumpionista.) Atta trump!
Oh, trump! Where will this end? Let’s read those Mark Twain stories again.
It’s Lent. Now what? The choices for Lenten penance are as many as there are sins. Except for beer. I can’t give up Märzen and Doppelbock as a good Catholic, especially since St. Patrick is such an important saint also for us Bavarians. (At least it seems the Irish are related to the BaI-risch.)
So I gave up Facebook. Nothing is easier than dropping something of little use? I don’t do Facebook much. So I barely felt a sting by giving it up for Lent. Done deal.
If I can do it, so can you, Catholic or not. Abstinence from Facebook is a good exercise for self-control and curbing your needless curiosity. You might learn to master your budding (or raging) addiction. Who needs to know everything about everybody all the time?
No Facebook? Just grab your phone and call your friends. Drop them a postcard. Stop by on your way home from work. Watch a movie, get creative. But don’t get sucked in.
Soon you will realize that a Facebook fast makes you free. Free from the burden of needless worry. Free from anxiety about so many scary health problems distant relatives of your friends are struggling with. Free from being hacked into, or being mobbed by obtrusive advertising, or from being overwhelmed by the constant flow of forgettable news and movie clips.
A Facebook fast will make you healthier. You will get more exercise, protect your gall bladder from envy about lavish vacation trips to Waikiki or the French Alps, and make your bond stronger with your pets (or children; what about the old board/bored games?).
Wouldn’t it be nice, if we could have a day, just a day, of “All quiet on the cyber front”?
Even if we all do the Facebook fast together today, yesterday’s news will still be there tomorrow. (Don’t fall back on Twitter or Instagram or Linked In.)
Yeah, watch out! Facebook is the largest marketing machine on the planet. It’s an ultra, super, mega, giga, tera data warehouse. Think again . . . you did? . . . thank you!
Yeah, one aspect you should give up forever: don’t vent your medical complaints to the Facebook phishing engines. People, wake up, medical information is confidential! Only the doctor may know! Why would you trust the Internet with your ailments?
At best you might be bombarded with drug ads, at worst receive a tombstone in the mail. Or you might be declared dysfunctional, insane, or delusional. Or unemployable. Beware. Your host or hacker or back-upper is always listening, not only your friends.
Like many, I have a love-hate relationship with Facebook, but I can easily do without it for a while.
Fazit: Live better, give up Facebook! Like you would scorn junk food. A Facebook fast can be educational and cleansing.
Dear Mark Zuckerberg, you should try it too. Can you do without Facebook for a day?
Tonspuren, Gedichte von Gisela Baudy, ist ein lyrischer Zirkel in zehn Stimmungsbildern des Sich-Suchens, Überwindens, Heimat-findens. Foto-Illustrationen von Chris Baudy und Gisela Baudy.
Tonspuren, bedenke: Der Weg ist das Ziel.
Lebensreise
Werden
der du warst
bevor die Flügel brachen.
Werden
der du bist
trotz Flügelbruch.
Das Leben bringt jedermann(frau) Abstürze und Flügelbrüche. Aber daran kann man arbeiten: „Der vorliegende Gedichtzyklus will allen Traumatisierten Mut machen”, schreibt die Autorin.
Aus Tonspuren spricht die persönliche Geschichte der Erzählerin mit zwei Identitäten (Reflektion= Spiegelbild und Original). Die Charaktere im Dialog heißen Clarissa und Alaine (alleine? ihr Alter-Ego).
Wieso der Titel Tonspuren?
Weil alle schrägen, dunklen, hellen Töne des Lebens auf jeweils eine Tonspur gesetzt werden, wie eine Symphonie der Seele. Manchmal aufrührend, manchmal träumerisch, in allen Gefühlslagen. Mit Tönen und Klängen gehen wir auf die lyrische Reise, wo sogar die Stille klingt.
„In uns allen leben Töne aus Worten und Bildern, die unsere Sehnsucht nach einem Zuhause zum Klingen bringen. Es sind stille Klänge aus Erde und Vogelflug.“
Haste Töne, los geht’s. Tonspuren führen uns auf eine lyrisch-literarische Reise mit erlebten Stationen. Jeder Mensch kennt die Knackpunkte und Neugeburten im Laufe des Lebens. Aber die Absicht der Autorin ist übergreifend. Nicht nur die persönliche Heimat wird durchwandert, sondern auch das Menschengedenken und Menschlichkeit gegen den Überdruss der Gleichgültigkeit, Bosheit und der Erderwärmung. Die Tonspuren suchen Auswege aus verschiedensten Krisen. (Wenn nur jeder aufwachen würde.)
ZUM BEISPIEL: Die Wende einer Beziehung
Brandstätte
Was hast du erwartet?
fragte er die Liebende
und kehrte den Rücken.
Flog zurück in ein Land
das er nie als seine Heimat
bezeichnet hatte.
Die Liebende blieb stumm zurück.
Jahre vergingen.
Die Brandstätte blieb.
Was sie erwartet hatte
war einfach:
dass er die Frage nie gestellt hätte.
Wer liebt
erwartet nichts.
Er liebt.
Eigentlich sind lyrische Betrachtungen nicht so sehr „mein Bier“. Poetische Prosa dagegen hat aber immer eine Anzugskraft auch mich gehabt. Von daher konnte ich Gisela Baudys Tonspuren und so manche Scherben wertschätzen. Der Autorin Wortwendungen sind tiefgründig und spitzfindig zur selben Zeit. An den kurzen Einsichten ist keine Silbe zu viel. Mit Oxymorons und Synästhesie bringt sie die Stille zum Klingen. Deshalb wollte ich mich dieser Besinnungsreise überlassen und auch einmal in mich hineinhorchen. Jeder hat in sich Dissonanzen, die entstehen wenn die Erwartungen von der Realität eingeholt werden.
In Stücke
Ich zerschneide
meine Tränen
in Stücke Papier
und werfe sie zum Abfall
meiner Träume.
Gisela Baudys Tonspuren Zyklus ist nicht zum schnell Leben oder schnell Lesen gedacht. Auch wenn man eine Betrachtung zum fünften Mal zu sich nimmt, entdeckt man wieder neue Facetten. Diese Lebensreise ist extrahiert von sehr persönlichen Erfahrungen und will jedem Mut machen, wieder Kind zu werden. Außerdem: um an sich selber zu arbeiten, braucht man nicht unbedingt einen Therapeuten.
V
Doktor
Sie müssen
sich nicht beeilen.
Wirklich nicht.
Ich sterbe
auch so.
Das sitzt. Die Grenzen der ärztlichen Kunst und Motivation. Vielleicht braucht man einen anderen Doktor als den mit dem Stethoskop. Einer, der auch ohne Hörgerät die Tonsplitter wieder richtet. Die Seele repariert.
Aber ganz so schwarz muss man nicht sehen. Man kann sich wieder finden:
Gewissheit Erde
Dem Flüchtigen
Konturen geben
im Wort.
Dem Wort
die Gewissheit
der Erde geben.
Den Alltag vertagen.
Hell werden.
Werden.
So ist vielleicht das Ankommen bei sich selber, sobald dem Kindlein Flügel wachsen, sobald es verloren gegangen ist. In diesem Sinne sind wir alle auf bestimmte Tonspuren geeicht. Die Hoffnung liegt im Licht.
Die Ton- und Wortmalereien haben einen Sinn: die innere Heimat in sich zu finden. Aber nicht nur für den Einzelfall (ego), sondern als Nachhaltigkeit (Sustainability) für uns alle.
Der erste Schritt
Der erste Schritt
die Sonne
in sich einzulassen
ist auf alten Wunden
und Sehnsüchten
nicht zu bestehen.
Wunderschön. In einer kleinen Rezension kann man mit dem kunstfertigen Wortspiel (vielleicht ist es kein Spiel) nicht konkurrieren. Jeder muss es selber erlesen. Was mir am besten gefallen hat, waren die Schattierungen des schwarzen Humors. Und das folgende Mantra in der Einleitung:
„In diesem Sinne sind wir alle Kinder der Erde. Es ist das Kind in uns, das dem Nachbarn die Hand reicht und die Erde für alle bewohnbar macht. Wir müssen es nur suchen wollen.“
Und dazu eine Lesung im Hamburger Raum: Am 21. März 2017 las Gisela Baudy (2. Reihe, 1. von links) ihre Gedichte bei einer bei einer Gemeinschaftslesung in Hamburg-Heimfeld (Kulturverein“Alles wird schön”, Friedrich-Naumannstraße 17, 21075 Hamburg) bei der Suedlese-Aktion der Künstlervereinigung Südkultur. Die Lesung ist der Auftakt der Literaturtage, die vom 20. März bis zum 14. April 2017 in ganz Hamburg-Harburg stattfinden.
Buch Bestellungen:
Gisela Baudy, Tonspuren – Lyrisches Tagebuch, Verlag Stimme fürs Leben e.U., Wien 2016, 188 Seiten mit zahlreichen Fotos von Chris und Gisela Baudy. ISBN 978-3-903032-08-8. Verkaufspreis 19,90 Euro.
Bestellungen bei Stimme fürs Leben.
ODER bei Amazon oder die kostenlose Hotline der Buchhandlung Osiander 0800-9201-300.
Music by Waco Brothers, live at Monty Hall, Harm’s Way.
Yes, I am submitting my docu-shorts as a new category to the movie academy in Hollywood. If I don’t win, then Molly would for sure. Molly, aka Susie, does the Rubics cube in under ten seconds. What a Speedy Gonzalez. Whatever–Happy Oscars to you!
Music by Josh Armistead, Full-time Casual album, Peace with my Brothers.
Music by classy firetruck.
Music by catch-me-if-you can police. Video by Susmita Makin.
In the US: Do what you might, you can’t apparently refuse the plastic. Store clerks look at you with disbelief: What? No bag? One for the apples, one for the meat, one for the shampoo, one for the tortillas, one for the toothpaste, one for the birthday card . . . Come on, what are you doing? Save them! These bags are precious!
That fight against the bags never ends. The only place that is perhaps a little different is Boulder, Colorado. There they make you buy a bag. Definitely, bags are precious. So, we should pay for them, reuse them, or refuse them. Let needier people have them.
If we fail on these easy things, we are failing ourselves on many levels. Let’s muster up some strength. Maybe St. Kateri Tekakwitha (Feast Day: July 14th), Patron Saint of the Environment and Ecology could help.
A couple of years later, I got to edit and produce Dr. Molina’s own life story. Having worked with Native American youth in the Mesa School District, his memoir was a real eye opener for me as I kept editing away. Molina’s title evolved over time and became Im Jittoa Bo’o—My Healing Journey, leaning on his Yaqui heritage. And the content reads like a movie. The “Healing Journey” and life experience thrilled me on many levels. I fell right into it. This book, which came as a complete and quite clean manuscript to me, helped me see the Native American experience through Molina’s eyes.
