Merce Cunningham

clean teeth. preserve. orphan tapes. territory. confusion. not sure if all i am doing mentally or emotionally is just an elaborate plea for security, not sure if that would be a bad thing even if it were true. not sure if trusting myself is just an elaborate plea for security. it might be it might be, there is nothing wrong with that.

Driving home around 9pm, the sun was setting and there were thousands of fireflies glowing in the acres and acres of baled hay.

Make Peace

Its almost 1am now. I'll be getting up early to drive to Lisa's house where I'll meet new little Henry Makepeace. Do I understand your question then, is it hopeless and forelorn? Its amazing to me how we can swing back and forth so many times in our lives from unbridled optimism to destitute failure. The smallest gesture of kindness in the right place at the right time can give me just enough energy to take another step, just one more breath. Like in birth, you don't have to think about how the baby will come out, the mountain that looms before you, you just have to keep breathing one breath at a time. I've been feeling very grateful to Pema Chodron lately for reminding me how the flare ups, the moments of desperate heart-armoring, are actually flags that mark a door. The door can be locked and double bolted and alarmed and barricaded, or it can just be opened. What is behind the door? Just a red beating heart, all bloody and soft and strong.

I don't need anyone else to share my interpretations of the last week. Our experiences and perspectives are all different. For myself, I feel incredibly blessed and confused, full of love with the wisdom and roots of grief. Unsure of the future but afloat on a vessel of truth and trust. This is ME, this is ME coming through. I can't control it and I don't want to. I also can't control how any other human being, friend or foe, responds to or interprets me, and I don't want to control that either. If I could have controlled it, I would never have been able to create the brilliant shining stars in my life or predicted how deeply you would influence me.

1969-2009

A rat done bit my sister Nell
With Whitey on the moon
Her face and arms began to swell
And Whitey's on the moon

I can't pay no doctor bills
But Whitey's on the moon
Ten years from now I'll be paying still
While whitey's on the moon

You know, the man just upped my rent last night
Cause whitey's on the moon
No hot water, no toilets, no lights
But whitey's on the moon

I wonder why he's uppin' me?
Cause whitey's on the moon?
Well i was already given him fifty a week
And now whitey's on the moon

Taxes takin' my whole damn check
The junkies make me a nervous wreck
The price of food is goin up
And if all that crap wasn't enough
A rat done bit my sister nell
With whitey on the moon

Her face and arm began to swell
And whitey's on the moon

With all that money i made last year
For whitey on the moon
How come I ain't got no money here?
Hmm, whitey's on the moon

You know I just about had my fill
Of whitey on the moon
I think I'll send these doctor bills
airmail special
(To whitey on the moon)

- Gil Scott Heron

Thank you, Kiki and Herb! Thank you, Jessica, for reminding me of the Cherry Lane Theater only yesterday!
Love,
Len

Pick it up and drop it.

I'll enjoy this while it lasts! Here are the things I want to work on every day that's left of my summer vacation:

- New obscene dance moves courtesy of Shawna. Anyone who thinks pussy popping is easy should try it and be humbled. And its not just meaningless vulgarity, either! Its a lot like belly dancing - its not coquettish or evasive, it is a mesmerizing assertion of your flesh and sexuality in space. So much fun! I know many people would be completely disgusted by this uncensored Ludacris video which absolutely qualifies as soft core porn. There's plenty that's annoying about it, but what stands out in my mind is how hard those ladies must have worked for those moves. I enjoy seeing sex workers' skills being appreciated and celebrated, too. These are basically yoginis and I am working to be like them. Shawna said if I practice every day for a few months I'll get it down. omg what if I could do it in a headstand?!

- Working on songs. The repertoire is expanding slowly and with any luck I will grow out of my habit of strumming only with my thumb. I am excited because my mom got a piano yesterday and I've been trying to figure out People Ain't No Good and Into My Arms.

- Reading in the sunshine. Had to renew Infinite Jest today.

- Seeing friends before I move. This project is going passable well.

That's really it for things I want to do every day. There are other things that are on my To Do Summer '09 list - at the top: bike path with Zoe.

Varuh Meje

Guardian of the Frontier, or Varuh Meje, is the story of three Slovenian students who decide to take a canoe trip down the river that separates Slovenia from Croatia. Their adventure becomes an exploration of all kinds of borders - international, personal, and gender - and the spectre of physical violence that hangs over those who cross them without institutional permission. Its from 2002, the first Slovenian film to be directed by a woman, and I really enjoyed it.

The Cult Starts Ten Years Ago.

Today's mid-morning contained an episode of the Daily Show followed by the Colbert Report, and its actually not over yet but I felt I had to report on a chilling and hysterical moment. In a segment titled "Fourth of July Under Attack," Colbert said, "Were it not for the American Revolution, all nature documentaries would look like this:" and then they cut to a clip from the BBC's Planet Earth in which a white wolf was attacking a herd of sheep, but they sped up the footage and played the music from the Benny Hill Show. I just stood there extremecida - when I would go to Gaggie and Alice's house when I was little I always took in an enormous amount of television and the Benny Hill Show was particularly disturbing to me. I liked to watch soft core porn on the cable channels and I made a Barbie whorehouse, but watching that fat old man chasing bikini clad girls through the English countryside always offended my sensibilities. Colbert knows what I mean.

INTERDEPENDENCE

25 Years After We Met

When my friend Jessica's dad Mitch died in April, Corey made this poster as a memorial.

Lenya is Published!

Simultaneous Assessment of Peripheral Tissue Oxygenation using EPR and NIR Spectroscopies
Benjamin B. Williams1, Shudong Jiang2, Rachel Haynes Coombs1, Thomas Matthews1, Nadeem Khan1, Harold M. Swartz1
1 Dartmouth EPR Center, Dartmouth Medical School, Department of Radiology, Hanover, NH 03755, USA
2 Thayer School of Engineering, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH 03755, USA

Wonder of Nature! Wonder of Nature!