“It was Daniel Schorr’s lucidity that regularly made me crank up the volume when I heard his voice at NPR. Not only were his commentaries caringly researched and clearly thought-out, his news analyses often clashed with NPR’s smooth pro-Pentagon line. Schorr was one of the last broadcast journalists who consider facts and evidence in filing a report or voicing an opinion. He was and remains a treasure.” — Al Young

• Journalism Legend Daniel Schorr Dies At 93
by Alan Greenblatt

Dear Listeners:

Here at KALW, we’ve just received the news that longtime NPR News analyst Daniel Schorr died peacefully this morning in the company of his family, at age 93.

Daniel Schorr was not only a well-known voice to public radio listeners, he was an important figure in the history of
American journalism.  In the words of NPR CEO Vivian Schiller:

“It’s impossible to overestimate Dan’s impact on journalism – from his early days working with Edward R. Murrow, to the founding of CNN, to the last 25 years as NPR’s news analyst, a familiar and beloved voice to millions of listeners. Every one of us who happened to see Dan coming in to work — walking a little more slowly with time but with a razor-sharp wit and warmth that never dimmed – learned a lesson in the dedication, determination, and integrity that it takes to be the best. He was.”

KALW will broadcast NPR’s memorial special on the life and career of Daniel Schorr this evening at 6pm.  And tomorrow morning on Weekend Edition, Scott Simon will give his remembrances of Schorr.

You can learn more about Schorr’s career and post your recollections of his work at the Daniel Schorr tribute page at NPR.org.

Matt Martin
General Manager, KALW

____________________________________________________

• Daniel Schorr at Wikipedia

Daniel Schorr’s Facebook page

__________________________________________________________

Check the Facebook page for this event

Click to enlarge image

ISHMAEL REED to speak at the African American Center of the San Francisco Public Library – Sunday, July 25, 2010

Produced by Justin Desmangles

clickable images

San Francisco Public Library | Koret Auditorium

Main Library
100 Larkin Street
San Francisco, CA 94102
MAP

Photo courtesy Baraka Books | Montréal, Québec

BARACK OBAMA AND THE JIM CROW MEDIA

Ishmael Reed will read from and discuss his latest book, BARACK OBAMA AND THE JIM CROW MEDIA: The Return of the Nigger Breakers, on Sunday, July 25, 2010 at the African American Center of the San Francisco Public Library starting at 2 p.m.

Under slavery, “nigger breakers” had the job of destroying the spirits of tough black men by whatever means necessary. At age 15, Frederick Douglass was sold to Edward Covey who had the mandate to break him. Ishmael Reed makes the case that President Barack Obama is being assailed by 20th-Century descendants of Covey. In a series of essays written during the 2008 primaries and after Obama’s election, Reed describes how Obama’s opponents and some supposed allies use modern reincarnations of those same ugly demons to break him. What’s more, statements and alliances he made during the campaign and in office have made him easy prey. A book sale will follow the reading.

Sunday, July 25, 2010; 2-4 pm

Koret Auditorium, Main Library, Lower Level. 100 Larkin Street, San Francisco, CA
MAP

Listen to Ishmael Reed’s conversation with Aimee Allison on KPFA’s The Morning Show

• Jill Nelson talks to Ishmael Reed in THE DEFENDERS ONLINE, organ of the NAACP’s legal defense fund

Photo © Vicenzo D’Alto/Montréal Gazette

• “Taking on the Jim Crow Media” – Montréal Gazette

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Baraka Books

Baraka Books is a Québec-based English-language book publisher specializing in creative and political non-fiction, history and historical fiction, and fiction. Our belief is that books are a haven of freedom and that they remain the foremost vector for change.

The word baraka is used in many languages and cultures and, depending on the language, can mean blessing, wisdom, luck, and more.

Inspired by this multilingual and cross-cultural word, Baraka Books is committed to providing English-speaking readers in Canada and elsewhere with ideas, points of view, and creative works that might otherwise be overlooked because of cultural or linguistic barriers.

Baraka Books
6977, rue Lacroix
Montréal, Québec H4E 2V4
Telephone: 514.808.8504
Contact us

________________________________________________

Wanda Sabir’s Appeal

Courtesy sfbayview.com

San Francisco Bay View arts editor and poet Wanda Sabir

Greetings, Everyone:

I went to Haiti over the Spring Break this year. I visited many grassroots organizations in Delmas, Cité Soliel and Port-au-Prince. I would like to return in August for two weeks, before fall semester starts, to see the areas I missed in my six-day visit in April, like the Aristide Foundation. I would also like to take cameras for Jean Ristil, Jean Baptiste’s kids, and money for the other organizations like the orphanage supported by Equator Faith Church in Oakland. I’d like to take funds to So Anne to buy food for the meals she serves, and to Rea Dol, who is rebuilding her school and taking care of so many people.

I’d like to raise about $4000 (I have raised $300 as of July 22), which will cover my airfare ($820 ) and transport/boarding ($400-500) with money left over to give between $300-400 dollars to all these organizations. These are the people doing the work without government and NGO/non-profit assistance. When I was there last, I left everything: tent, sleeping bag, bug spray, medicines, school supplies with my host Rea Dol. I’d like to leave money, too, this time. I need another tent and a sleeping bag (smile). I don’t know who I’ll meet when I go to Jacmel, Les Cayes and, hopefully, Port-de-Paix — with an overnight stop in Cap Haitien to see friends at SOIL — and the island of La Gonaive, but I know I will return with another list. The cost also includes my escort’s travel and lodging expenses. So dig deep and give generously.

Send the donations to me at
P.O. Box 30756
Oakland, CA 94604.
Checks can be made out to Wanda Sabir.
You can call me: 510.712.4015 — mobile.

I plan to have another report back in October during Maafa Awareness Month.

_______________________________________________

July 22, 2010

IMF cancels $268 million Haiti debt

The Associated Press
Thursday, July 22, 2010; 5:24 AM

PARIS — The IMF says it has canceled Haiti’s $268 million debt and will lend the earthquake-devastated country another $60 million to help it with reconstruction plans.

The International Monetary Fund said Wednesday the decision is part of a plan for long-term reconstruction after the Jan. 12 magnitude-7 quake, which killed as many as 300,000 people.

To read this story in its entirety, go to the Washington Post original

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Suffering and struggle: Six months after the Haitian earthquake

By Patrick Martin
10 July 2010
World Socialist Web Site

© 2010 WSWS.org

Port-au-Prince shortly after the January 2010 earthquake

Six months after an earthquake destroyed much of Haiti and killed more than 300,000 people, little has been done for the survivors. The promises by the United Nations and the major powers, particularly the United States, have produced only a trickle of aid. Of the billions promised at a series of conferences, amid much media publicity, only 2 percent has actually been delivered.

The scale of the devastation produced by the worst natural disaster of the twenty-first century still staggers the imagination. The death toll was at least 300,000, and by some estimates nearly 500,000, out of a total population of 8 million—the worst disaster, in terms of the proportion of the population, in modern history. The equivalent in a country the size of the United States would be a death toll of 10 to 20 million.

Virtually all the deaths were caused by the collapse of homes and other buildings in Haiti’s urban centers, particularly the overcrowded slums of Port-au-Prince, the capital city. Some 188,000 homes were damaged, according to one survey, of which 105,000 were completely destroyed, along with 1,300 schools, 50 hospitals, the presidential palace, the parliament building and the port of Port-au-Prince.

MORE ~ To read the story in its entirety, go to the WSWS.org original

_______________________________________________

Listen

ISLAND BENEATH THE SEA, Isabel Allende’s new novel, breathes life into the history and spirituality of Saint Domingue (pre-revolutionary Haiti) and New Orléans. From her extensive research into the back-story of colonialism, slavery and human bondage, master storyteller Allende moves in close to dramatize in heartbreaking detail the story of one slave woman’s fate. The revered author’s April 27, 2010 interview with KQED Forum’s Michael Krasny is one sound, moving eye-opener.

_______________________________________________

AP Photo

Michelle Obama and Jill Biden visit Haiti

“Haiti, Haiti, Tortured Lady” — a poem by Al Young

Three Poems for the Terremoto — Lorna Dee Cervantes

Poetry Friday: Edwidge Danticat Voices Haiti, Always

Haitianalysis.com ~ Writing Off Sovereignty: Québec Media on Haiti Since the Earthquake

Courtesy Calabash Music

ADJABEL

ADJABEL dans l’metro reportage RFO été 2009

Origines [Racines 3] ~ MONDOMIX 1998

Frequently updated since the earliest posting of January 12th, 2010

_______________________________________________

Haiti updates at the New York Times

April 2010

_______________________________________________

Rain triggers deadly floods in Haiti ~ BBC News video

March 15-21

Courtesy WorldNews.com

Courtesy telelakaytv.com

Courtesy The Haitian Daily Times

_______________________________________________

© Daily Haitian Times

© theGrio

tweet examiner.com

_______________________________________________

© Jan Sochor at Flickr

Tap-Tap bus, Port-au-Prince

Poems from Haiti, translated by Merete Mueller with Dominique Herard

Jan 19, 2010

_______________________________________________

March 10th

Haiti campers protest lack of food ~ Yahoo News/AP

Lost in the ruins: Haiti’s best and brightest

March 9th

Video footage © Associated Press

US hospital ship Comfort leaving Haiti~ Yahoo News/AP

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Haitian poet Boadiba’s EARTHQUAKE DIARY (introduced by Ishmael Reed

)

_______________________________________________

Note Arundhati Roy’s comment below on how big-money media have perfected the coverage of crisis, disaster and catastrophe in the 21st century.

_______________________________________________

“What are we? Since that’s your question, I’m going to answer you. We’re this country, and it wouldn’t be a thing without us, nothing at all. Who does the planting? Who does the watering? Who does the harvesting? Coffee, cotton, rice, sugar cane, cacao, corn, bananas, vegetables, and all the fruits, who’s going to grow them if we don’t? Yet with all that, we’re poor, that’s true. We’re out of luck, that’s true. We’re miserable, that’s true. But do you know why, brother? Because of our ignorance. We don’t know yet what a force we are, what a single force – all the peasants, all the Negroes of the plain and hill, all united. Some day, when we get wise to that, we’ll rise up from one end of the country to the other.”

– Jacques Roumain (1907-1944),

Masters of the Dew

(Gouverneurs de la rosée)

Translated from the French by Langston Hughes and Mercer Cook

Courtesy photo

_______________________________________________

UPDATE

SARKOZY IN HAITI: Two Accounts

© AP Photo: Boris Horvat

First Lady Carla Bruni-Sarkozy comforts a Haitian child

© Reuters

>>> Sarkozy visits Haiti, unveils major aid package

By Pascal Fletcher

19 February 2010

Reuters

PORT-AU-PRINCE (Reuters) – French President Nicolas Sarkozy announced a financial and aid package of nearly half a billion dollars on Wednesday to assist quake-hit Haiti, as he became France’s first head of state to visit the former French Caribbean colony.

The support package totalling 326 million euros (285 million pounds) included cancellation of 56 million euros of debt, 100 million euros of fresh funds to be provided over two years and 65 million euros to be channelled through the European Union.“I have come to tell Haiti’s people that they are not alone … France will be at your side in the long term,” Sarkozy told a news conference in the grounds of the Haitian presidential palace which partly collapsed in the January 12 earthquake … continued

BBC video footage of Sarkozy in Port-au-Prince

>>> Mass protests greet Sarkozy visit to Haiti

By Alex Lantier

19 February 2010

WSWS.org

French President Nicolas Sarkozy traveled for a one-day visit to Haiti on February 17, amid rising popular opposition to the Western-backed Préval government and international tensions over how to rebuild the country. The US military occupied Haiti after the devastating January 12 earthquake that killed over 200,000 people, wounded over 250,000, and destroyed much of the country’s infrastructure.

Sarkozy, the first French head of state ever to visit Haiti, was greeted with street protests by thousands of Haitians demanding the return of elected President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Ousted by a US- and French-backed coup in 2004, Aristide was exiled to the Central African Republic, a former French colony. President René Préval, a former prime minister under Aristide in the 1990s, came to power in 2006 in elections supervised by the provisional government of Boniface Alexandre that was installed by the coup.

Préval tried to address the crowd outside the presidential palace. However, crowds shouted him down, and Préval left in a luxury Jeep, surrounded by bodyguards … continued

_______________________________________________

© Associated Press

A man listens to a radio at a refugee camp in Port-au-Prince, Haiti.

Over to You: the BBC’s daily Connexion Haiti broadcasts are helping people reunite and solve everyday, hour-to-hour, minute to-minute problems.

Courtesy WSWS.org

Four weeks after earthquake —

Haiti: hunger sparks growing protests

By Bill Van Auken

World Socialist Web Site

9 February 2010

On Sunday, Haiti saw one of its largest protests since the January 12 earthquake. as four weeks after the disaster, frustration with continuing hunger and homelessness mount …

Read the rest of this troubling story

_______________________________________________

Haitians react to Pat Robertson’s ignorant ‘devil pact’ insult

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´ © NYDailyNews.com

HAITI: Two Weeks Following Earthquake, Needs Are Changing

26 January 2010

© Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders: An Overview

_______________________________________________

Haitians flee Port-au-Prince

Link TV ~ 22 January 2010

19 January 2010 ~ MTV’s global telethon fundraiser

Les Cayes, Haiti ~ 12 January 2010

This is video sent on the day of the earthquake. The Global Orphan Project supports over 2200 kids in Haiti. This video was sent through the Cambry Technical Center to Shane Hackett and Frantz St. Germain.

_______________________________________________

The Daily Haitian Times

_____________________________________________

Signal FM Haiti

90.5

____________________________________________

Dahoud André: Radio Lakou New York

____________________________________________

Radio Solidarité Haiti88.5 fm

____________________________

ADDITIONAL NEWS SOURCES

7 días
(Dominican Republic)

Granma
(Cuba)

New York Times coverage

BBC coverage

° Voices from Haiti °

° BBC In pictures: Haitian earthquake °

Le Devoir
(Montréal)

l’Humanité
(Paris)

_______________________________________________

Mosaic @ Link TV

Link TV’s Ten Sources for Information on Haiti

_______________________________________________

Courtesy photo

“Crisis reportage in the twenty-first century has evolved into an independent discipline — almost a science. The money, the technology, and the orchestrated mass hysteria that goes into crisis reporting has a curious effect. It isolates the crisis, unmoors it from the particularities of the history, the geography, and the culture that produced it. Eventually it floats free like a hot-air balloon, carrying its cargo of international gadflies — specialists, analysts, foreign correspondents, and crisis photographers with their enormous telephoto lenses.”

– Arundhati Roy,

An Ordinary Person’s Guide to Empire (2004)

© OutlookIndia.com

Arundhati Roy

_______________________________________________

Paul Farmer: WHO REMOVED ARISTIDE?

London Review of Books ~ April 15, 2004

_______________________________________________

General Toussaint L’Ouverture (1743-1803)

by Jacob Lawrence

° The slave who defeated Napoleon, Britain and Spain °

_______________________________________________

Honorable agencies that actually deliver aid in the form of food, clothing and medical care directly to people on the ground in need

HAITI ACTION.NET

Haiti Emergency Relief Fund

DOCTORS WITHOUT BORDERS

Médecins sans Frontières

PARTNERS IN HEALTH

HAITI ~ ONE RESPONSE

THE LAMBI FUND OF HAITI

_______________________________________________

Justin Desmangles, host —
New Day Jazz

Photo: Al Young

KDVS-FM

Show description for Sunday, July 18, 2010,
3:00 pm – 5:00 pm PDT

This afternoon, on the four o’clock hour, we are joined by Harvey G. Cohen, author of the recently published, Duke Ellington’s America.As part of our focus, this afternoon, on Ellington, we will revisit many of the earliest small group recordings lead by various members of the orchestra, including Johnny Hodges, Barney Bigard and Rex Stewart. Also included in this afternoons broadcast will be selections from the Ellington-Strayhorn oeuvre, such as “Day Dream,” “Johnny Come Lately” and “After All.”

Two collaborating master pianist-composers perform “Johnny Come Lately”

Along the way we will listen in on many poems written contemporaneous with the Ellington era, including works by Langston Hughes, Jean Toomer, Arna Bontemps, Margaret Walker and Gwendolyn Brooks.

New Day Jazz

Justin Desmangles
Jazz music for lovers and the lonely.

Missed the Show?

Download the MP3 streams:
Click here to find links posted at the KDVS archives

________________________________________________

Press release from the University of Chicago Press

Harvey G. Cohen
Duke Ellington’s America
720 pages, 12 halftones  6 x 9  © 2010
Cloth $40.00
ISBN: 9780226112633   Published May 2010
E-book from $5.00 to $40.00 (about e-books)
ISBN: 9780226112657

Few American artists in any medium have enjoyed the international and lasting cultural impact of Duke Ellington. From jazz standards such as “Mood Indigo” and “Don’t Get Around Much Anymore,” to his longer, more orchestral suites, to his leadership of the stellar big band he toured and performed with for decades after most big bands folded, Ellington represented a singular, pathbreaking force in music over the course of a half-century. At the same time, as one of the most prominent black public figures in history, Ellington demonstrated leadership on questions of civil rights, equality, and America’s role in the world.

With Duke Ellington’s America, Harvey G. Cohen paints a vivid picture of Ellington’s life and times, taking him from his youth in the black middle class enclave of Washington, D.C., to the heights of worldwide acclaim. Mining extensive archives, many never before available, plus new interviews with Ellington’s friends, family, band members, and business associates, Cohen illuminates his constantly evolving approach to composition, performance, and the music business—as well as issues of race, equality and religion. Ellington’s own voice, meanwhile, animates the book throughout, giving Duke Ellington’s America an intimacy and immediacy unmatched by any previous account.

By far the most thorough and nuanced portrait yet of this towering figure, Duke Ellington’s America highlights Ellington’s importance as a figure in American history as well as in American music.

Read an excerpt

________________________________________________

CULTURE’S AMBASSADOR
By Peter Keepnews
Published: May 27, 2010
©2010 The New York Times

[Click image to magnify]

© John Pratt/Keystone Features — Getty Images

Duke Ellington in 1963

DUKE ELLINGTON’S AMERICA
By Harvey G. Cohen
Illustrated. 688 pp. The University of Chicago Press. $40

The idea of a substantial book about a major musical figure that pays relatively little attention to his music might seem counterintuitive — or, to put it less politely, pointless. That “Duke Ellington’s America” succeeds as well as it does is a tribute both to its author and to its subject.

Arguing that Duke Ellington’s “significance went far beyond the musical realm,” Harvey G. Cohen, a cultural historian who teaches at King’s College London, places Ellington’s life as a public figure and “culture hero” in a larger social and political context. Others have written about his connection to the civil rights movement, or the many State Department tours on which he and his remarkable band functioned as cultural ambassadors during the cold war. Cohen makes such matters his primary concern.

To read the rest, go to the New York Times Book Review original

________________________________________________

]]> http://alyoung.org/index.php/2010/07/20/duke-ellingtons-america-at-new-day-jazz-with-justin-desmangles/feed/ 0 http://alyoung.org/index.php/2010/07/18/charles-lloyd-quartet-mirror/ http://alyoung.org/index.php/2010/07/18/charles-lloyd-quartet-mirror/#comments Sun, 18 Jul 2010 15:34:11 +0000 Al http://alyoung.org/?p=15665 ________________________________________________

Courtesy photo

Visit the Charles Lloyd Blogspot

________________________________________________

Dorothy Darr

Listen and watch Dorothy Darr’s video of  Charles Lloyd and his ‘new’ Quartet

Photo © Roger Mitchell

Jason Moran, piano; Reuben Rogers, acoustic bass; leader Charles Lloyd; Eric Harland, drums at the Melbourne International Jazz Festival, 10 May 2010

“As the notes of Prayer floated across the auditorium, serenity seemed to settle on those assembled. When Lloyd spoke, it with his characteristic grace and humility. “We are honoured to be here. We don’t understand the planet or how they’ve worked the game out, but we still want to play this music,” he said.

Click here for the full review at Ausjazz Blog

Charles Lloyd at Facebook

________________________________________________

FIRST-EVER Poetry Contest at Beyond Baroque!

© Emily Winters

The cherished heart of L.A.’s poetry community is conducting its first-ever poetry contest. All poets of our region [California poets only] will benefit from boosting Beyond Baroque at a time of urgent financial need. Winners will further benefit from cash prizes and the reading/reception held in their honor. There can be no losers.

Prizes: $500, $250, $100

Final Judge: Tony Barnstone (Professor at Whittier College, NEA Fellow, Pushcart Prize winner)

CONTEST RULES

1. Submit up to three unpublished poems, 40-line limit.

2. All themes and styles welcome.

3. Deadline September 1, 2010 (postmarked)

4. No ID on poems. Cover sheet must include poet’s name, address, phone, e-mail address and poem titles.

5. Send entries, including $15 reading fee, to:

Beyond Baroque Contest
681 Venice Blvd.
Venice, CA 90291

Checks payable to Beyond Baroque 7. No SASE [stamped, self-addressed envelopes]. Poems will not be returned.

Note: A reading/reception will be held for the three cash winners and five top finalists at Beyond Baroque on Sunday, October 17, 2010.

THANKS TO OUR SPONSORS:

Anonymous
Mary Armstrong
Marjorie Becker
Nels Christenson
Conflux Press
Bill Hickok & Gloria Vando
Sherman Pearl
Ellen & Herb Reich
Carol Stagers
Lynne Thompson

A LITTLE ABOUT BEYOND BAROQUE

Beyond Baroque is one of the United States’ leading independent Literary/Arts Centers and public spaces dedicated to literary and cultural production, contact, interaction, and community building. Founded in 1968, it is based in the Old Town Hall in Venice, California, near the Pacific Ocean. It offers a program of readings, free workshops, publishing, bookstore, archiving, and education.

The Center launched its own imprint, Beyond Baroque Books, in 1998, dedicated to emerging, overlooked, out of print, and experimental writing, as well as the history and legacy of experimental and alternative writing, poetry, and the arts in Los Angeles.

Call 310.822.3006 for more information.
www.beyondbaroque.org

__________________________________________________________

View live courtroom reaction to the verdict

Ishmael Reed in 2009 on the fatal BART shooting

Officer Found Guilty in Deadly BART Shooting

KTLA News
4:58 PM PDT, July 8, 2010
© KTLA

LOS ANGELES — A former transit officers has been convicted of involuntary manslaughter in the shooting death of an unarmed black man on an Oakland train platform.Johannes Mehserle was found guilty on Thursday in the New Year’s Day 2009 killing of 22-year-old Oscar Grant.

Involuntary manslaughter carries a sentence of two to four years.

To read the rest of this dispatch, go to the KTLA original

_____________________________________________________

Thursday, July 2, 2010
© 2010 Bay City News

Closing Arguments Conclude in Oscar Grant Murder Trial, Jurors Might Begin Deliberations This Afternoon

Prosecutor David Stein and defense attorney Michael Rains completed their closing arguments today in the trial of former BART police Officer Johannes Mehserle on a murder charge for the fatal shooting of unarmed passenger Oscar Grant III.

A Los Angeles County Superior Court spokeswoman said Judge Robert Perry began giving jurors legal instructions before their lunch break and will continue giving instructions when they come back to court.The spokeswoman said deliberations in the closely-watched trial could begin later today, depending on how long it takes Perry to complete presenting the instructions. Jurors are scheduled to leave at 4 p.m. today and come back to court at 8:30 a.m. Tuesday.

>>> Read the whole story at SFAppeal.com >>>

Photo via Flickr | Thomas Hawk

The Shooting Death of Oscar Grant: What You Need to Know

By Tom Head | About.com Guide

__________________________________________________________

Photo courtesy of KTVU

Oscar Grant III and daughter

__________________________________________________________

Police mugshot

Johannes Mehserle, the ex-BART police officer who shot and killed Oscar Grant III on New Year’s Day 2009

KNTV Videos

Lori Preuitt: The Wait Is Over, Mehserle Trial Begins This Week

© 2010 MSNBC.com
June 7, 2010
Go to the original

The highly anticipated and long awaited trial of a former BART police officer accused of killing an unarmed passenger on New Year’s Eve night a year and a half ago is scheduled to begin late this week in Los Angeles.

Last week, hundreds of potential jurors reported to court for hours and hours of screening to see if they would make the cut and sit on the jury.

The timing appears to be on track for opening statements to begin this Thursday.

>>> MORE >>>

Julianne Hing: Oscar Grant Murder Trial Kicks Off in L.A.

© 2010 Racewire ~ The Colorlines Blog
June 1, 2010
Go to the original

It’s been exactly a year and a half since Oscar Grant was shot in the back while he lay face down on a train platform by former BART cop Johannes Mehserle. Today, Mehserle faces his last pre-trial hearing before his trial gets underway with jury selection this week.Mehserle’s been charged with second-degree murder and has pleaded not guilty. Michael Rains, Mehserle’s attorney, is expected to make the claim that Mehserle mistakenly pulled out his gun when he meant to reach for his Taser when he shot Grant on New Year’s Day 2009.

>>> MORE >>>

__________________________________________________________

AlYoung.org coverage of the Oscar Grant III murder

_____________________________________________

(top) Still from the USSR film Solaris (1972); directed by Andrei Tarkovsky
(bottom) Don Quijote y Sancho Panza image courtesy el blog de LeeTamargo

SOLARIS

“Science — nonsense! We don’t want to conquer space at all; we want to expand earth endlessly. We don’t want other worlds; we want a mirror.”
– Dialogue spoken by Snouth in the Soviet film, Solaris (based on the novel by Stanislaw Lem)

Explore earth evidently, rock by rock, root by root,
inch by inch, hair by hair, pixel by pixel, tock by tock.
There was a way once to get back; not to get even,
but to reach home without leaving the body.
Imagine the unsounded but fully heard voice
that clumps up within you, that fluffs into a hunch,
silver every time. If intimacy lit up like this,
all holiness could be speared and stuffed and mounted.
Thank God for invisibility, for the untraceable
trails we sink in, marking our journeys in electrical ink
upon mental score paper that reads us perfectly.
That thoughts are things is all the faith we need.
To think pure beauty, have it turn up in your arms
or at your feet or on your bourgeois walls means
business. To slow time down until the space between
moments stretches beyond the hours means eternity.
Unworldly gospel people who lean into the clouds
look for that uncloudy day. To others, matter matters,
nothing else, and business is business. Explore?

– Al Young

from The Sound of Dreams Remembered
© 2001 and 2006 by Al Young

__________________________________________________________

SUNDAY, JULY 11, 3:00
Poetry Flash
at DIESEL, A Bookstore

© Tom Killion | The Golden Gate from Grizzly Peak

Contributors reading for
The Place That Inhabits Us:
Poems of the San Francisco Bay Watershed

DAN CLURMAN
SUSAN KOLODNY
PRISCILLA LEE
JACK MARSHALL
RICHARD SILBERG
AL YOUNG

DIESEL, A BOOKSTORE, 5433 College Avenue, Oakland, near Rockridge BART | 510. 653.9965

map

Diesel’s cool literary video

The Place That Inhabits Us: Poems of the San Francisco Bay Watershed is an anthology put together by Sixteen Rivers Press relating to our wide watershed, the poets gathered together in a wide-cast net, poets living and dead, famous and much less so, some living here, some from other countries. The poems came half and half from a national call for submissions and from a pool of poems nominated by members of the Sixteen Rivers collective.

In his generous foreword Robert Hass says: “At a certain moment, a group of early-twenty-first-century poets made a selection of poems about the place that mattered to them, so that this book is about the experience of place—and about being given the remembered expression of the experience of place by others who have lived here. And that begins to be a culture.”

This beautifully designed and edited anthology celebrates and represents the life of poetry in northern California.

Pamela Biery: “Poems About Home” ~ Sacramento News review of The Place That Inhabits Us

°Poetry Flash°

°Diesel Bookstore°

°Sixteen Rivers Press°

_______________________________________

“The fight is never about grapes or lettuce. It is always about people.”
— César Chávez (1927-1993)

“In winter I’m a Buddhist;
In summer I’m a nudist.”
— Little Joe Gould (1891-1957)

_____________________________________________________

© Al Young

Sun rising over Lake Altus-Lugert at Quartz Mountain, Oklahoma

__________________________________________________

Photo © Jill Enfield

OSAI [Oklahoma Summer Arts Institute] Creative Writing Class 2010

Front row, L-R ~ Alison Liu, Kathy Zhou, Katie Duncan, Brooke Bolding, Erin Miller
Second row ~ Mary Alexa Woodard (bending), Renae Perry, Hannah Erb, Kailee Bird West
Back row ~ Al Young, Arthur Dixon, Elizabeth Sholar, Olivia Leigh Branscum, Claire Winfrey, Ross Haley, Margaux Griffith

The 2010 OSAI writing workshop in action at Beverly Badger Memorial Library, where poems and prose-poems were composed on the spot. Student laptops were rigged to block internet access.

Photos: Connor Choates

Two versions of how to look preternaturally cool (or altogether vanish) in 100°F heat on a typical June afternoon at Oklahoma’s Quartz Mountain.

Front row, L-R ~ Alison Liu, Erin Miller, Kathy Zhou, Katie Duncan, Renae Perry
Second row ~ Kailee Bird West, Hannah Erb (leaning), Al Young, Olivia Branscum
Far back row ~ Ross Haley, Claire Winfrey, Mary Alexa Woodard, Elizabeth Sholar, Arthur Dixon

Photo: PC Mack

During a much-needed workshop excursion by bus to nearby Mangum, Oklahoma, Al Young and teaching liaison Margaux Griffith relax outside the Old Greer County Museum & Hall of Fame.

Courtesy Old Greer County Museum & Hall of Fame

Coming across a stash of American flags as the class explores Mangum’s long abandoned Franklin Hotel, Hannah Erb, Kailee Bird West and Margaux Griffith note their home state’s devotion to patriotism.

Kathy Zhou and Katie Duncan are off to look at Mangum while Hannah Erb, Olivia Branscum, and the rest of us look around the ruined hotel.

Photos: Al Young

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