Vote Bots hit my youtube channel overnight

Amazing stuff. Automated votebots attacked my wee-little brand new channel overnight and most of my videos went from five stars to one star overnight. Some had less the ten views but had been rated as many as 34 times. I did have the foresight to disable ratings on My Escape from Christianity which seemed like an obvious target.

April 1 Poem, Poem-a-day in April Challenge "Out of the Muck"

This and all the poem a day entries are back dated. I wrote and posted them all to the Poem A Day Writer's Digest blog during april. It took me a while to post them here..)

The prompt was "origins"

Origin

Out of the muck we come
over-adrenalized and peevish
Muscled, toothed, furious to survive

Out of night, into the cave,
firelight dancing, igniting imaginings
of more-than-muck, and we

Out of our minds, with fire-born charcoal,
into the cavern carve a vast sprawling hunt
that we have made: gazelle, mammoth, man

men, together, ready for more than muck.

--- Mistryel Walker

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I closed one, opened two more Youtube Channels

Following the example of someone else I know, I closed my old YouTube channel, PuzzledDragonVideo. I had so many videos of other people reading poetry, it just didn't look like my channel anymore. I took all the videos from WNPS or of other poets reading and put them on a channel called PoetsAndTheirPoems. Its URL is http://YouTube.com/PoetsAndTheirPoems I also added the infamous Dueling Cameras video to this channel where six folks from Wednesday Night Poetry go to the Blue Coloney Diner afterwards. There is also a playlist with two videos of Anne Marie on that channel. One is on the channel itself; the other is on her slam-team mate Sean Gallager's site. It's a little blury but still funny.

My own brand new channel has the same title as my original blog here (I've moved as you can see) - the Puzzled Dragon at http://YouTube.com/thePuzzledDragon This channel is now home to my poems, stories, odd notes, weird videos, artwork videos. I really culled the material to be put up there so there is absolutely no material that I did not create myself. The classical singing from my recital in 2006 will go up on a channel of its own at a later time. Though I might include the spoof video of Ernani Involami

Ademdum: The classical channel is http://YouTube.com/AlmostSang

Living Model Of Basic Units Of Human Brain Created

- A process under development may enable the modeling of the human brain in a living representation, according to an article in Science Daily.

Using cells originally from a tumor which have been 'reprogrammed' to stop multiplying, along with a natural molecule used by the body to stimulate cellular development, the cells are turned into a "co-culture" of nerve cells and astrocytes - which the article calls "the most basic units of the human brain." According to the article, this line of research could lead to improved treatments for Alzheimer's and other neurodegenerative diseases.

As someone who feels fairly numb at the moment, heavy with all the folks who have died in the last year, I can't help but wonder if this living model could contain joy..... so elusive right now. So I'm engaging in a little art therapy trying to make a co-culture of renewed vision, shed some grief by the polishing the rice bowl method of doing something, namely sculpting a little. (pictured above) Not working so far. Taking out trashing didn't work either. Nor a blog post. But each little action propells forward into the future. That's really all one can do. Go forward.

Go to the article -- in ScienceDaily.com (2009-03-22):

A Wonderful Slammer: Anne Marie Marra

Anne Marie Marra (June 25, 1953 - March 17, 2009)

We have lost a bright and mercurial presence in the world.

Anne Marie Marra, a fine slam poet, member of the White Plains Library National Slam Team in 2008, a quilt-artist, singer and a holder of an interdisciplinary Master's Degree with a concentration in Creativity, is now giving readings in the 'great beyond' of our memory. She will be missed very much by those left behind. National Slam Poet Anne Marie Marra, seen at the right performing during the 2008 National Slam competition, was a quilt artist, slam poet, wild child, a whirlwind. Anne Marie, also known as ArtisAnneMarie, held a master's in creativity from Vermont College.  She died March 17, 2009 at her Putnam Valley home in New York State. Anne Marie was just a few months shy of her 56th Brithday.

Born to Bridget Eufemia and Reginald A. Marra, Anne Marie was a multi-talented artist She graduated from Sacred Heart High School in Yonkers, studied at Parsons School of Design in New York City, and earned a B.S. in Community and Human Services from Empire State College/SUNY and an M.A. in Interdisciplinary Studies from Vermont College. In order to embrace her life as a musician, singer, painter, poet and quilt-maker, she held a number of administrative and supervisory positions at New York University, College of New Rochelle, Consumer Reports and Empire State College.

The official bio says: "Anne Marie Marra, 55, a resident of Putnam Valley, passed away in her home on March 17, 2009. Born to Bridget Eufemia and Reginald A. Marra, Anne Marie was a multi-talented artist. She graduated from Sacred Heart High School in Yonkers, studied at Parsons School of Design in New York City, and earned a B.S. in Community and Human Services from Empire State College/SUNY and an M.A. in Interdisciplinary Studies from Vermont College. In order to embrace her life as a musician, singer, painter, poet and quilt-maker, she held a number of administrative and supervisory positions at New York University, College of New Rochelle, Consumer Reports and Empire State College. Most recently, Anne Marie's poetry found her reading at venues in New York and Connecticut. She was one of the rotating hosts of the 3rd-Friday Open Readings at the Hudson Valley Writers Center in Sleepy Hollow, and she competed in Wisconsin at the National Poetry Slam this past August, as a member of the 2008 White Plains Poetry Slam team. Anne Marie is survived by one brother, Reggie Marra, of Naugatuck, CT, his wife, Marianela Medrano-Marra, and their son, Noe Jimenez."

 The funeral took place on Monday March 23, 2009 at Whalen & Ball Funeral Home, 168 Park Avenue, Yonkers, NY 10703. Bural followed at at Mt. Hope Cemetery, Hastings-on-Hudson, NY. A life-celebration for Anne Marie on June 27, 2009 was held at the home of Reggie Marra & Marianela Medrano-Marra in Naugatuck. It was well attended.

About the photos: At the top, AM performing her Colonoscopy poem at the 2008 National Slam in Madison WI, photo by teammate James Joseph Buhs. AM reading a poem at Molten Java in Bethel CT, Then two team photos one in front of the Bowery Poetry Club and one in front of the Lizard Lounge, and below: AM in front of the Nuyorican Poets Cafe, AM singing a love song at Dangerfields.

Bent Pin will be changing

Well, after two years of publication and eight issues, Bent Pin is going to change at bit. The word "quarterly" will be dropped from the title. This e-zine will move from a quarterly "edition" based periodical that happens to live online to a continuously published web-style publication where pages are put up year round as they are created. I think one page per week should do it yeilding about 52 pages per year... Now, we have about 15 pages per issue for around 60 pages a year. It's close.... Who knows, I might throw in a special feature like an interview or two.....

UPDATE: Bent Pin closed in November of 2009. The Bent Pin Archive and Index are moving, albeit slowly.... to:

http://bentpinquarterly.blogspot.com   Note: the author index now at http://bentpinquarterly.blogspot.com/p/author-index.html is part of the archive

The blurry lights of night

This wasn't a two-wheel turn - just the phone on the steering wheel during a normal turn....