Robert Creeley 1926-2005

It is with overwhelming sadness and a sense of being adrift that I contemplate the event of American poet Bob Creeley's passing two days ago. I only just got the news this morning.

As a poet, his influence on me is immeasurable and so is my sense of loss. But I also remember his friendship and his antics when we both lived in Bolinas in the seventies, a tiny idyllic coastal town north of San Francisco, then a poet's haven. A long time ago I started an extended narrative prose-poem of Bolinas memories, still unfinished as a literary work and not yet published. Here is the part about Creeley:

     ***
From Visitations of Bolinas:

12 noon and Smiley's bar just opened
Bob Creeley is in there drinking alone
so I go in
he slaps his crocheted hat on my head, sheepish after
trying to make long distance calls on my phone
when he and my boyfriend staggered in
one foggy night after closing time .
I put it on, adjusted it in the bar mirror w/
a big cheese smile, he laughed, lionesque guffaws
so hard I thought he'd keel the barstool.

I love it when men send me money.
Wintering in Buffalo
Creeley sent a reply to mine w/
a McGraw Hill royalty check for $1.38 and wrote
on the back, "for sweet Ellen Sander but
only in the bar..."
And some other stuff
but neglected to endorse it.

     ***

Bob wrote the following poem for the Bolinas school graduation 1973, which was held atop Mount Tamalpias. It was a part of the program and he recited it with jazz musician Steve Swallow, also another Bolinas school parent. This has always been one of my personal favorites:

For The Graduation
by Robert Creeley
Bolinas School, June 15, 1973

The honor
of being human
will stay constant.

The earth, earth,
water wet, sun
shine.

The world will be
as ever round, and
all yourselves

will know it,
on it, and around
and around.

No One knows
what will
happen. That

is the happiness
of the circle,
finding you.

     ***

The circle of happiness seemed so endless and complete the last time I saw Robert Creeley. It was his 70th birthday party at St. Marks Church, home of the Poetry Project in New York's East Village. Some of the brightest lights of American poetry were assembled there. "Allen and Gerard Melanga sat together like a royal couple," I wrote at the time It was also the last time I saw Allen alive. So we come to a parting of the worlds as his soul ascends the final mountain trail. I am grateful for his presence, for the honor and delight of his friendship and for the body of work, still underestimated in my opinion, that he left in our care.

As usual, his words say it so much better than mine

an excerpt from Goodbye, by Robert Creeley

did right always have to be so wrong?
I know this body is impatient.
I know I constitute only a meager voice and mind.
Yet I loved, I love.

I want no sentimentality.
I want no more than home.

At this moment in my inner life, those are persistently resonating thoughts. Robert Creeley, I wish you well on your journey home. My love and condolences go out to Bobbi Louise, his wife during those Bolinas years, and another vibrant dear friend.

His life was filled with travel, collaborations, mentorships, teaching posts, lectures and of course, beautifully crafted, accessable works.


The New York Times Obit

more at:

http://www.buffalo.edu/news/fast-execute.cgi/article-page.html?article=72130009
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,60-1549084_1,00.html

I recommend the memorial thread at Literary Kicks

Meet the Beatles, Chinese style

From tian of Hanzi Smatter fame, again (tian, I owe you a drink):


I found this great Beatles' album cover at Tony Fletcher's iJamming. There are two interesting details I should point out:
1. Notice all the band member's eyes? They have been changed to make them look more 'Asianized' (and in John Lennon's case, more stoned).

2. The phonetic translation of the band name "beatles", actually means "disheveled hair" in Chinese."

That's one of the Chinese transliterations that makes a lot of sense! Another one is the word for "we" in Chinese transliterates to "women."

Smoke?
Aaron Brown--does this beat Chicago?

We'll be in New York for 10 days in April. If any of you East Coast readers would like to get together, email me. Love to meetcha. As the trip gets closer, it really intensifies how much I miss America sometimes.

I got to this with a proxy server. It was blocked from within China. Not the whole China National News site, just this page. Pretty meticulous, nanny.

Poets Sign Joint Declaration Aagainst China's Anti-secession Law

2005/03/25 22:52:30

Kaohsiung,[Taiwan] March 25 (CNA) More than 70 local and foreign poets who are attending the 2005 World Poetry Festival in the southern port city of Kaohsiung signed a joint statement against China's Anti-Secession Law targeting Taiwan. The statement, written by Lee Min-yung, a noted Taiwan poet, stressed the civilized values of freedom, democracy, love and peace. The statement said all the signatories hope to use "poetic roses to cover China's guns aimed at Taiwan." Lee said he was pleased to win the endorsement of more than 70 local and foreign poets to use this poetic way to voice opposition to Beijing's Anti-Secession Law that codifies the use of non-peaceful means against Taiwan. With a theme of "Sea and Land in Harmony, Poetic Minds in Interflow, " the 2005 World Poetry Festival in Kaohsiung will run through March 27. During the three-day event, poets from home and abroad will exchange their insights and creative experiences as well as recite their own poems and discuss topics related to literary developments. Among the participants is Derek Walcott, a Saint Lucia dramatist and poet who won the 1992 Nobel Prize in literature. Other participants come from India, Bangladesh, Mexico, Nigeria, Mongolia, Romania, the United States and Japan. (By Sofia Wu) ENDITEM

Wish I were there with you, Taiwanese poets

You couldn't make this up.

Duh! OF COURSE Chinese birds speak Chinese.

Runway Scarecrow Machine Lost in Translation

Wed Mar 23,10:24 AM ET Oddly Enough - Reuters

BEIJING (Reuters) - China imported a U.S.-made scream machine to scare away the birds at Beijing airport -- except they didn't recognize the noises and refused to budge.

The bird-dispersing equipment had recorded the screams of American birds or the sounds of the birds' natural enemies, the Beijing Evening News said.

"Local birds did not understand the foreign language," the newspaper said.

..not much more, but it's here.

And speaking of incompatibilities, I finally downloaded and installed the Firefox browser to see what the ballyhoo was all about, only to find that Crackpot Chronicles doesn't display very well in it. Maybe it doesn't like my CSS. On my maiden voyage I also ran into other glitchy stuff, which would probably take some fiddling to make work, like auto addressing in Yahoo mail. So much for that.

We have a lot of trouble with Blogger 404-ing often when attempting to compose or edit posts, and the Blogger support folks, after blaming it on the heavily filtered Chinese internet, said to try Firefox, that perhaps its browser-related. Its not. We pooh-poohed the China theory, but now I think that may be at least part of the reason.

Blogger now has a Chinese language interface, but apparently it's not hosted locally in China, which might help. However, that's not likely or at least not in the forseeable future, given the an ongoing crackdown on Chinese internet communication, the latest being the lockdown of several major university chatrooms, which now exclude any connections from outside the universities' internet systems. Some chat rooms have been shut down entirely, blogging has been curtailed, ISPs have been warned they will be held responsible for any politically sensitive or otherwise objectionable content of public posts. There have been some campus and a lot of online protest, which has occupied the local and China savvy blog buzz-osphere most of the last week. Much of it originating in China and in the Chinese language gets censored. But the local birds do not understand the foreign language very well.

Night

A sliver of moon lulls through clear night.
Half abandoned to sleep, lampwicks char.

Deer wander, uneasy among howling peaks,
and forests of falling leaves startle cicadas.

I remember mince treats east of the river,
think of our boat adrift in falling snow . . .

Tribal songs rise, rifling the stars. Here,
at the edge of heaven, I inhabit my absence.

--Tu Fu, Poet of Tang dynasty -Translated from the Chinese by David Hinton

From Hanzi Smatter, again, a piece of red retail hitting the Western market and this one is really hip!

Mao is holding up his little red book and exhorting the geek-speak acronym for "Read the Effing Manual!"

I had to take down the post on the skull purses with the silly commie logo in Chinese, because, well, they were just too ugly. I mean they were u-g-l-y. How ugly were they? Uglier than a two headed lamb.

As we used to say on Compuserve, ROF,LMAO.
(Showing my authentic claim to geekdom, there.) Ten points if you know that acronym.

Just this week, CC has had visitors , in addition to the preponderance from the continental U.S. and China,from the Slovak Republic, Alaska, Russia, Sweden, U.K., Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Singapore, Ukraine, Belgium, Saudi Arabia, Iraq (Baghdad), France, Greece, Italy and others. You are welcome to leave a note, using the "comments" link at the bottom of each post (when it's working) telling us what it's like where you are. Wherever you are, thanks for stopping by, for the emails and for your thoughts.

And hello to the troops abroad. (I see you, too.)

UPDATE: Add Mexico, Cypress and Switzerland to the list.
RE-UP: The Netherlands and Brazil

You've heard of green tourism (ecotourism), here's red tourism, brought to you by a province developing "patriotic education" to keep China's past,"the CPC's glorious history," hitched onto the the train bound for economic glory. You could hardly think of a better example of a market economy with Chinese characteristics. From Xinhuanet (official Chinese government news service), via Great Wall Online . Quoted here as published, Chinglish and all.

Hebei to promote red tourism in historical revolutionary sites

2005-3-7 9:20:02
China plans to designate landmark places in the development of the Communist Party of China in order to promote patriotic education and boost the economy of revolutionary regions.

A project was launched by the general offices of the CPC Central Committee and the State Council last December to promote "red tourism" from 2004 to 2010 in China.

The government plans of the sites raising 100 billion yuan (12.1 billion US dollars) by 2010 for these regions, which are mainly located in mountainous areas and are comparatively poor. The increased tourism would bring job opportunities for 2 million people and indirectly affect 10 million people...

..."The hand-picked ten sites, which are mainly located in mountainous and poor areas, would not only make visitors know more about the CPC's glorious history, but boost local economy," said Wang Xinyong, Director of Hebei Tourism Administration...

...In 2005, Hebei plans to carry out a series of activities to publicize its "red tourism" sites among domestic and even overseas visitors.

... An exhibition on Hebei's "red tourism" is scheduled for April 22 to 24 in Beijing

As a writer, I am of course concerned with the protection of intellectual property. However, I am an advocate of file-sharing on the internet as a means of propagating works that might not have a chance for circulating outside of commercial channels. And extending the circulation of popular works, which, in my opinion, stimulate the commercial market.

As a techie, I admire the development of peer-to-peer technology as a significant independent trend. Major entertainment companies are suing and pushing for legislation to outlaw this technology, its users, its developers and inevitably, and this is what I detest most, it's future. File sharing is a benefit to everyone. The development of a viable back channel for the distribution of popular art improves culture and communication.

The developers of this technology are doing it at their own cost, on spec, as it were. When Napster, a pioneer in this field, was shut down by legal action, the technology quickly sold to a major distributer. You'd have to be blind not to realize that this technology will revolutionize the distribution of music, film, animation, etc.

The Industry has trotted out artists to lobby on behalf of its cause, but artists on their own, some of them, have come out in favor of this technology as a valuable, fan-driven means of distribution. The cases and proponents on all sides are expanding the scope of this controversy and filling in the blanks, instead of just firing them, on the shotgun marriage of art, business and technology.

From the WaPo:

Artists Break With Industry on File Sharing

A prominent group of musicians and artists, breaking with colleagues and the major entertainment studios, is urging the Supreme Court not to hold online file-sharing services responsible for the acts of users who illegally trade songs, movies and software.

The group, which includes representatives of Steve Winwood, rapper Chuck D and the band Heart, said in court papers to be filed today that it condemns the stealing of copyrighted works. But it argues that popular services such as Grokster, Kazaa and others also provide a legal and critical alternative for artists to distribute their material. Rapper Chuck D is among a group of artists who argue that Web sites for file-sharing allow musicians to reach a larger audience.

"Musicians are not universally united in opposition to peer-to-peer file sharing" as the major records companies claim, according to a draft of the group's court filing. "To the contrary, many musicians find peer-to-peer technology . . . allows them easily to reach a worldwide online audience. And to many musicians, the benefits of this . . . strongly outweigh the risks of copyright infringement."

...Before online file sharing, "distribution of recordings to retailers was controlled largely by a few large national record companies and by several 'independent' labels," they argue. "Young people aspiring to be musicians faced daunting odds of ever being signed by a record label."

Another good story, covering the legal issues, Showdown Looms for P2P Networks, from PC World is here and a related Crackpot Chronicles post is here.

As Chinese journalists, poets and intellectuals take risks and face punishment for exercising freedom of expression, Western news producers, who have it all, dumb down the news, letting even the incentive for free expression go to seed. A sad irony.

In China
From the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ):

Authorities suspend licence of jailed journalists' lawyer

New York, March 1, 2005 - Authorities in Shanghai have suspended the law license of Guo Guoting, defense attorney for three jailed [Chinese] journalists as well as a number of other dissidents and members of a religious sect.

...Guo told CPJ that he believed he has been punished for taking up controversial cases involving freedom of expression and religion. City and district authorities have regularly warned Guo to stop his advocacy of political prisoners such as the imprisoned writers, he said.

"Journalists Shi Tao, Zhang Lin and Huang Jinqiu are in jail today because they wrote or distributed essays that offended the political leadership," CPJ Executive Director Ann Cooper said today. "The suspension of their defense attorney's license, apparently for related reasons, points again to the failure of the Chinese government to accommodate criticism or to ensure adequate legal protection for those who express dissent."

In Canada
From the Toronto Star
In a speech to university students, bemoaning the "Dumbing Down of News" in the west,

Branding it "rooftop ventriloquism," he [BBC elder-statesman journalist Michael Buerk]attacked news networks that don't dispatch reporters to where the action is, to bring back eyewitness accounts of what is going on.

"It is little wonder that stories are sometimes reported by men and women who may be in the right country but, because they spend their days and nights on some hotel roof with a camera and a satellite link, may have no more first hand knowledge about what is going on than you do.They call them `dish monkeys' in the trade; the women are called `dish bitches.'

"...today's corporate media are not interested in serious and significant news, said Buerk. Instead, they're churning out "childish" news, dumbed down for numbed out audiences.A lot of thought seems to be going into making it thoughtless. It seems to be getting both thick and thin.

...A flawed media, I suggest, leads to a flawed democracy. Ill informed citizens cannot make proper judgments about their leaders' actions, about the actions that take place in their names, about the laws that govern them."