Peace for the New Year: Hope over Fear.

Well it's 2018. How did that happen.... And the world needs peace more than ever. And it seems less likely then ever.  We can try to put hope over fear, and move forward, one small step at a time. It's all we can do - one moment at a time....  We can mind our own yard at least. See what near-at-hand  nature might need, what cheer we can bring the people around us. Maybe we cannot change the whole world. But we can change our own world. Make it so.

New Years Eve Crazy & Sawaya's Art of the Brick

Love this red fellow on the right who is busy rebuilding himself as we all hope to do each New Year's. And the one below who is witnessing something from behind his grey curtain, a new view that makes him gasp - we don't know why.

The images are LEGO sculptures I viewed in the Vero Beach Art Museum in November. The show was called "Art of the Brick," and the creator is American artist Nathan Sawaya. All are made from LEGOs.  He is interviewed in the documentary LEGOS, the Brickumentary, which is actually quiet an odd and interesting film.

Don't quite know what to hope for the world in the coming year. The property of crazy expands with each passing day. I don't know that it's getting larger though. Might be diffusion. Maybe it's just spreading out which will have the effect of dilution. Maybe. Or it might be infection. Ah well.

Have already watched several sets of glitzy techno-tainment fireworks with totally unappealingly overproduced music tying it all together. From several different countries. Is there just one school of fireworks showmanship in all the earth? Probably taught at Neilson Ratings. Ha ha. Actually I really liked the fireworks just not the music they are saddled with....

Anyway, happy new year. It's now 2 am. I was supposed to go somewhere at 11PM to ring in the year. Off to a questionable start.  But then the future always is an open question isn't it. (Determinists you are excluded from this thought) Ting-a-ling.

2011 - my personal year in review

When 2011 arrived I don't think I made a single resolution. There's just no point, as I break them all

, and if I say let it be a year of ___ inevitably it turns into a year of something else. So instead of my resolutions for 2012 (of which there are exactly none), I am thinking about what I accomplished in 2011.

A year without New Year's Resolutions is not an emply year. I finished a whole bunch of paintings in the first four months of 2011. That's the time of year when the sun comes right in the front window and the light is really fresh.

I did a lot of poetry slamming this year for the White Plains Slam team beginning with a regional 4-way slam at the Bowery Poetry Club in January and another in July. I did a short featured performance before the first ever  slam in June at the Veterans Memorial Center in Harrison NY.

Twice this past year I read poems at Free Poets Collective events - art-based poems written specially for the events. One was in April at the New Britian Museum of American Art another was in October at Broad Street Books in Middletown for a Celebration of Women Beat Poets/Writers/Artists. Thank you Colin and Yvon.

In July I started playing out at open mic nights again. I won a nice gift certifiace at the Tuesday Night Open Mic in New Milford. (still have to use it....) I did this on and off again all year, at Hideaway, Molten and one more in New Milford.

In August 2011 I officially became a National Slam Poet. I went to the week-long National Poetry Slam in Cambridge as a competitor on the White Plains Slam team. It was more fun than I expected.

The 2011 White Plains National Slam Team

Being at a National slam makes you a witness of sorts. You hear poems from all sorts of people, widely varying circumstances on all sorts of difficult topics. You become a witness to their stories and many were stories i had never heard first hand.  After this experience I find I am much more likely to look with friendly inquiring eyes and not look away. When I see strangers I am always wondering now - what's your story? What's hidden inside you?

I also got some great pictures of wild archetecture on and near the MIT campus, some crazy scuptures and paintings, got to see the MIT museum which is filled with intricate amazing robotic mechanisms.

So Thanks Zork, LV, Jonathan, our coach Bram and of course to the nameless guy who arbitrarily quit the team because he didn't want to be on NPS's favorite good-spirited losing team. This kind of brings things full circle for me as I quit the CT team as alternate in 1997 and Victoria Rivas went as alternate instead. Sometimes you get a second chance.

In September I read my comic erotic story Lipolt and the Amazons at the Erotic Literary Salon in Philedelphia, where two of my fellow Shijin also read. Thanks Erobintica for setting that up.

In November 2011 I finally finished my second chapbook Tabernacle of Bees (which I had been ignoring since 2009 when I began the project. ) I have printed out the first 25 copies and more are on the way.

Not only did I finish it - I sent a copy of Tabernacle of Bees along with a copy of my 1998 chapbook Inverse Origami the art of unfolding to Poets House . On Dec 23 I recieved word back that both would be added to the inhouse collections there and that Tabernacle of Bees will be on display this summer along with other chapbooks published in 2011.

In December I officially retired as Wednesday Night Poetry's web mistress and email update sender. I had been webmistress for most of the last five years and I think that is enough typos and photo changes, and governance committee discussions for anyone. I have passed the torch and the secret handshake or whatever to Derek, Lisa Marie and Christine. I will still maintain the new archve site at wedpoetrypast.wordpress.com. (regular updates are not required....)

Late in the year organizers asked if I would donate some music performance to the Molten Java send off bash on December 18. (The Cafe is moving from 102 to 213 Greenwood Ave). So I played a 1/2 hour gig of my own original songs for the event which went fairly well - despite me being in less than good voice.. I also got to see some fabulous acts -  Michel Rae, Marc, Joey, the Molten Jazz Trio, Burnkit2600, the Hip Replacements and many more during that event.  And  I'd like to take this space to thank the nine people who came out just because I invited them. Thank you all so much - seeing your smiling faces made it so much easier to do!!  As a consequence of video from that performance - I cut my damn stringy hair into a very short punkisk cut.

Finally - I have to note that for the fifth year running I weigh a little bit less than at the start of the year.

So,  bring on 2012.  What will happen? Don't know -  but I'm pretty sure something will!

A Peaceful New Year's Eve

Well, well

my first post of 2010!

And what an odd evening.

What did I do this evening?

Nothing. Slept through dinner.

Later, I solved a Sudoko puzzle.

At 11:30 walked the dog around the block.

The holiday lights were still up.

A few homes were having parties.

All quiet with a slight snow softly falling.

The old dog eager and playful.

We came around with a dusting

on our coats, at peace with the new year.

Came inside to make this post

then sleep some more.

The surreal state of late

Everything goes a different way than anticipated. Usually later. With all my writing about late publications, I am late too, so late in so many ways.

Hope you all had a satisfactory New Year's eve. Old acquaintences have an annual party, and this year I was thinking I would go. Looked up from working too late. I was trying to get the magazine out, and at the same time upload stuff to a new youtube channel my boss created.  This divided flipping continued long into the night.

Some notes of the evening:


• Bent Pin is going to be a week late due to software glitches, ticks and odd computer behaviors  and me. I don't charge for Bent Pin though. I am tired and am spending way more time than I want on computer woe. My brain is late.

• After midnight on Jan 1 around 2:45 or so, I heard something outside and looked out to see what it was - the DANBURY NEWS TIMES HAD ARRIVED EARLY ON THE FIRST DAY OF THE NEW YEAR!

• Had a reasonable view of the fireworks out that window earlier in the evening. Pretty colorful. Saw the little dipper between the clouds while walking the dog tonight.

• Did I make any resolutions? uhhhh. My resolutions are going to be late also. I can't figure out what to resolve. EXCEPT MAYBE THIS I resolve to do more real things and fewer unnecessary cyber things. Right now I am going to do something very real - I am going to sleep.

resolution resale - recycling human nature

This column of mine appeared in 1/2/91 issue of The Reporter, a now defunct weekly newspaper in North Conway, New Hampshire.


So it's Jan 2, 1991. (Well it was when I wrote this.) Resolutions already broken?
Don't throw them away. My Uncle Jake has a friend who's in the recycling business. "Fred's Old Age Home and Recycling Center for Broken New Year's Resolutions, Dreams and High Hopes." Every January 1st, the sandwich sign at the end of the driveway says "Big Sale today: two for one."

Uncle Jake and I rode out to see Fred last week, to see what the specials were for 1991. Now, I have personal statute of limitations on New Year's resolutions, Once their year is up, it's up. I never make the same resolution two years in a row. Why spin your tires on sheet ice?

Fred's place is a long, rangy one-story shack with lots of little rooms added on one at a time, probably without asking the planning board. The stove pipes all stick out sideways and the shingles are falling off.

Old Fred looked pretty scruffy and sad when he came out to meet us. I guess it's pretty depressing work cleaning up after all those broken resolutions. "What can I git yah this year?" he asked, slapping Jake hard on the back as they ducked through the low doorway of the shop.

"Well, I'm not so sure," Jake said. "What you got that's cheap?" Fred ushered us over to a dusty table with heaps of old papers with fancy letters. Resolve: No more drinkin' cussin' or lyin.' Resolve: To invite your crabby mother over for dinner once a month and treat her nice no matter how bad she acts. Resolve: To be a better neighbor and to paint the kitchen for Molly. Resolve: To save $10 every week and mend my own socks. Each scroll was tattered and had strips of crinkled, yellowed scotch tape where Fred had mended it.
"So - did you bring a trade-in?" he asked. Yep. Last year I resolved to show how I felt toward people more, try to let the soft heart show instead of always playing the wicked cynic. I had some mixed results there. (I guess I really am a wicked cynic.)

Old Fred said he had a wide selection of barely used, mostly broken resolutions that could replace it. He highly recommended that I swap for a "No more negative attitude" resolution. Fred says that resolution is out of favor now, because with the declining economy, negativism is in, and he'll sell that one cheap. No surprise there.

Uncle Jake couldn't decide between a "Not talking so much when I drink," and a "Keeping the cellar clean," which I must say he would break in half an hour taking some Christmas present apart to see how it worked. (He'd break the other one too.) To trade,  Jake  brought along a "Not to pinch my wife in public," resolution which he broke at 12:07 a.m. on on January 1, while he was still at a New Year's eve party at the neighbors house. (Fred is very fond of Jake because he often has something unusual to trade...)

Uncle Jake suggested I might want to get a diet resolution because he was worried about the springs in his truck. "Mind your own business," I snapped. "I don't need one of those right now." Besides without a "self discipline" resolution, there's no sense to it.

I hope your resolutions last longer than mine. I won't tell you what I finally swapped for at Fred's. I'll probably break it anyway. Happy New Year.