Malicious Humans making Robots

Malicious Humans making Robots acting like adolescent boys. We are all captured.

My dog is a teacup rhinoceros.

Her teeth were so white they arrived at the party ahead of her.

Life is a goddam mess...but you wouldn't want to miss it! ―Joseph Mitchell

It takes almost a lifetime to learn how to do a thing simply. ―Joseph Mitchell, Up in the Old Hotel

“You’re a trouble-maker. What race do you belong to, anyhow?’ ‘The human race,’ I said. ‘I come from the womb and I’m bound for the tomb, the same as you, the same as King George the Six, the same as Johnny Squat.”
― Joseph Mitchell, Old Mr Flood

“Gould is a night wanderer, and he has put down descriptions of dreadful things he has seen on dark New York streets – descriptions, for example, of the herds of big gray rats that come out in the hours before dawn in some neighborhoods of the lower East Side and Harlem and unconcernedly walk the sidewalks. ‘I sometimes believe that these rats are not rats at all,’ he says, ‘but the damned and aching souls of tenement landlords.”
― Joseph Mitchell, Up in the Old Hotel

“America may be unique in being a country which has leapt from barbarism to decadence without touching civilization.” ― John O'Hara

Animals by Frank O'Hara

Have you forgotten what we were like then
when we were still first rate
and the day came fat with an apple in its mouth

it's no use worrying about Time
but we did have a few tricks up our sleeves
and turned some sharp corners

the whole pasture looked like our meal
we didn't need speedometers
we could manage cocktails out of ice and water

I wouldn't want to be faster
or greener than now if you were with me O you
were the best of all my days

 

Frank O'Hara 

Destruction by Joanne Kyger

 

First of all do you remember the way a bear goes through

a cabin when nobody is home? He goes through

the front door. I mean he really goes through it. Then

he takes the cupboard off the wall and eats a can of lard.

 

He eats all the apples, limes, dates, bottled decaffeinated

coffee, and 35 pounds of granola. The asparagus soup cans

fall to the floor. Yum! He chomps up Norwegian crackers

stashed for the winter. And the bouillon, salt, pepper,

paprika, garlic, onions, potatoes.

 

He rips the Green Tara

poster from the wall. Tries the Coleman Mustard. Spills

the ink, tracks in the flour. Goes up stairs and takes

a shit. Rips open the water bed, eats the incense and

drinks the perfume. Knocks over the Japanese tansu

and the Persian miniature of a man on horseback watching

a woman bathing.

 

Knocks Shelter, Whole Earth Catalogue,

Planet Drum, Northern Mists, Truck Tracks, and

Women’s Sports into the oozing water bed mess.

 

He goes down stairs and out the back wall. He keeps on going

for a long way and finds a good cave to sleep it all off.

Luckily he ate the whole medicine cabinet, including stash

of LSD, Peyote, Psilocybin, Amanita, Benzedrine, Valium

and aspirin.

__________

“Destruction,” by JOANNE KYGER.

He has the most who is content with the least. Diogenes

I took my kids to our local public pool here in Cleveland Heights nearly every day this summer. There were old people there who had learned to swim in that pool eighty years ago. My kids learned to swim there. The air smelled of Coppertone and chlorine and nachos from the concession stand. Everyone is happy when they’re in the water. We all spent the summer being happy there. When the summer ended on Labor Day at 6 p.m. the lifeguards lined up along the poolside and all blew their whistles in unison. And one of them, a tanned teen boy, raised his megaphone and said, “Thank you, summer.” Yes. Thank you. 

George Bilgere

In the end these things matter most:
How well did you love?
How fully did you live?
How deeply did you let go?
― Jack Kornfield, Buddha's Little Instruction Book

Peace requires us to surrender our illusions of control. We can love and care for others but we cannot possess our children, lovers, family, or friends. We can assist them, pray for them, and wish them well, yet in the end their happiness and suffering depend on their thoughts and actions, not on our wishes.
― Jack Kornfield

Amounting to Something

My first job was washing dishes at a fancy trendy Italian restaurant. I ran away from the ritzy suburb of Larchmont New York at age 17 and was living in Providence Rhode Island. When I called home to tell my mother she shouted into the phone, You'll never amount to anything if you like washing dishes!

I guess I was supposed to amount to something. I still worry about this on a daily basis.

Am I allowed to enjoy washing dishes, teaching swimming, walking my dogs, reading and writing, doing laundry, making bread? Am I amounting to something yet? Have I earned my keep? Am I worthy of joining humanity? Have I made a meaningful contribution? Am I allowed to breathe air and take up space on Planet Earth? Am I worthy of love and friendship? Of being ALIVE?

My dogs say YES, and that's what counts. 

I was named after Emily Dickinson. When I asked my mother about it one day it she said, "Yes, I read her poems when I was suicidal and pregnant with you!" Grrrreeeat! I thought. What a legacy.

"She stayed in her room and wrote poems and nobody knew until until after she died. So stay in your room!" My sister loved to taunt me. I did stay in my room until the one day I hitched a ride out.

Since then I have not stayed in my room. I have danced in the street. I have built a life. And I still love to wash dishes. The feel of it, of being in water, soothes me. Water is the mother love medicine I never received but now give to myself, and to others.

Wake up at the Intersection

My circadian rhythm section woke me up - my dogs licking themselves at 3AM. I was actually already awake daydreaming of being five sitting on my mother's lap in a wet bathing suit at Harbor Island beach, asking her to buy me a colorful candy necklace. 

Suddenly a Pontiac's horn sounded at the four-way stop, announcing I am back! I hear this horn every few days if I am awake at 3AM. I wonder if it's an angry ex driving past his former lover's apartment or just someone blowing through the intersection. 

"It's okay to go through a red light if you honk!" My mother said, driving through red lights back in 1972.

This honk at 3AM? It must be my mother! She is alive, not just the mean voice in my head all the time, she's back, honking at me. Except she drove a Volvo. This was definitely an American honk. A Pontiac honk, rude, loud and insistent.

A few summers ago at this same intersection, a woman's husband shot out her 2nd floor apartment window on July 4th. This was to scare her. It did, and it scared the whole neighborhood. 

Then a few days later there was a dead rooster on the sidewalk in front of her apartment building.

Everyone was spooked, feeling that it had a particular meaning. So maybe my mother is keeping her honking tradition alive. But this time I laugh, Hi Mom! and let her go.

Afro-Caribbean Religious Offerings (Santería, Lucumí, or Vodou) In religions like Santería and Vodou, animal offerings are deeply sacred. A rooster is often offered to specific deities (Orishas) like Elegguá (the guardian of crossroads, paths, and doors) or Changó (the god of fire and justice). The Meaning: These rituals are usually done for cleansing, healing, or spiritual protection. The animal is believed to take away negative energy, illness, or bad luck from a practitioner. Why the Sidewalk? Intersections, sidewalks, and the bases of trees are considered spiritual thresholds where the physical and spiritual worlds meet. The offering is left there so the energy can be dissipated by the crossroads.

Spanish Vegetable Stew: Pisto

 https://www.themediterraneandish.com/pisto-spanish-vegetable-stew/

Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching: When two great forces oppose each other, the victory will go to the one that knows how to yield.

Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching: just do your job, then let go.

He who stands on tiptoe doesn’t stand firm. He who rushes ahead doesn’t go far. He who tries to shine dims his own light. He who defines himself can’t know who he really is. He who has power over others can’t empower himself. He who clings to his work will create nothing that endures. If you want to accord with the Tao, just do your job, then let go.

Carl Jung: There is no coming to consciousness without pain. People will do anything, no matter how absurd, in order to avoid facing their own Soul.  One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.

Not till old age did I learn to love silence.
Sometimes it is more exciting than music.
In the silence emerge tremulous signals
and at the crossroads of memory
you hear names
which time had tried to stifle.
― Jaroslav Seifert