Our Organic Garden

My brother and I have started an
organic garden in my mother's backyard. He has some gardening experience as he did the digging for two large vegetable gardens in the past while I had exactly none. To the left is our beginning herb garden- thyme on the very left, then sage, shallots--two different kinds--then basel on the far right. To the north of the basel is radishes. To the north west of the radishes is strawberries. In other parts of the garden in the box we have cilantro, cucumbers, and parsley which had been planted by the gardener Heriberto--he started it and then my brother and I expanded it.

Since I was totally inexperienced I got a lot of books out of the library to read. Two were most helpful: Pat Welch's Southern California Gardening and Ann Whitman's Organic Gardening for Dummies. I'd recommend these two for the total beginner. A lot of the gardening books said it was important to test your soil, but Whitman gave easy
instructions to test soil drainage which we did.

My brother dug a 1 foot hole which we filled with water. Then we watched how quickly the water evaporated from the hole: less than ten minutes the soil drains to quickly and greater than four hours the soil drains too slowly. Our water drained in a
half water so the soil was fine for drainage. Doing this small
experiment reminded me of junior high school science class.

We got organic potting soil from Home Depot; my brother had dug up the soil twice, so then he mixed in the potting soil into the soil from the ground. We mostly got seedlings from local nurseries but carrots, radishes and zuchinis we planted from seeds. Once the seedlings were up, we added some organic fertilizer around the new plants. My brother is watering.

By the way I made a big mistake by throwing all the radish seeds into the ground and not spacing them out like the instructions on the back of the seed packet said. I will never do that again! So radish plants grew up in a thick mass--very pretty but the book said they would die if they weren't thined about 2-4 inches apart.

So I got down and started weeding raddish plants. I'm learning best by my stupid mistakes like with raddishes. Next time I'll follow the instructions exactly. Later we want to add compost, and I'm going to a workshop run by the city of Los Angeles on how to compost May 18th.

Small Press Book Fair in Santa Monica

I'll be reading at 2:10 this Saturday at the Third Annual Small Press Book Fair at the Church in Ocean Park along with about 25 small presses and writers. It's a rare chance here in Los Angeles to see what all these presses are doing, hear a lot of new work, and check out new and upcoming writers

The Church in Ocean Park hosts an expansive day of

 writers, poets, and publishers, and finding out about
 new releases from over 25small presses.
    
 Saturday, May 10, 2008       10:30-5:00 pm 

 Publishers will be selling books throughout the
 whole day. Every hour will begin with a short period
 of poetry and spoken word readings hosted by Peggy Dobreer.
 
 Presses and writers taking part in the Book Fair

 Julia Stein 2:10
 DVD
 Video: Alexis Krasilovsly, Poetry Flash
 More presses and writers to be announced.
   
  Admission by donation at the door.
 
 Church in Ocean Park
235 Hill Street on the northeast corner of Hill &
 2nd in Santa Monica 
 
 The Church is wheelchair accessible.    
Bus accessible by the MTA #33 & Big Blue Bus #s 1, 2, & 8. 
 The church has a small parking lot on the north side of the street between 2nd & 3rd Sts. 
  Meter parking, 1/4 block west of Main St., $.75/hr
 to 10 hours & free parking from 4th St. east
 
Contact Fred Whitlock at 310-828-3951 for more information.

A Poet's Seder

Last Saturday, April 26th, I participated in a Poet's Seder, a retelling of the exodus of Jewish slaves from ancient Egypt using poetry, at Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center in Venice, California. In Beyond Baroque’s lobby, we saw Rick Lupert, the organizer of the seder, and his colleagues set up a feast including wine, juice, Passover matzah, macaroons, gefilte fish. I dove in and sampled the excellent gefilte fish as well as received my copy of the Passover Haggadah, the book Rick had published which had poems by 36 poets from around the world interlaced with elements of the Passover seder.

In the auditorium Rick, the organizer of the excellent website Poetry Superhighway, poured either wine or juice in our paper cups to start our poetry seder and then we individually made the blessing over the wine. Then he and his colleague handed out hand wipes so we could wash our hands and say the blessing over hand washing.

In the seder tradition the youngest person present asks four questions starting with, “Why is this night different from all other nights?” The first poet to read was Ellen Maybe reading “The Four questions” a lovely poem with Whitmanesque long lines about a family moving from anxiety to serenity as the “family sits shivering for a week, trying to make forgiveness a verb.” Lynne Bronstein in her poem about the four questions “Kasha’s,” gives warm memories of family Seders including a friend observing “that he never saw my mother/so happy as when she sang at Passover.”

Next Pam Ward read “Passover Blues” about her “runaway slave roots/roof jumpin’ fools/ who’d rather rot/ than be tied” mixing up the blues, runaway slaves, and the Passover exodus. For the plagues that Moses rained down on pharaoh in order to convince him to let the Jews go, Claudia Handler gave us her scary poem “Upon Your House” telling us what terrible plagues she will send at us. I read my poem “Miriam’s Song’ which tells when Moses was sending the plagues how his sister was busy sweeping up the mess. Rachel Kahn gave her personal retelling of “dayeinu,” a traditional song that tells what would be enough to free us from Egypt.

Then Rick handed out matzah so the whole audience could read the traditional unleavened bread. For the festive meal we eat on Passover, Elizabeth Iannuci read “At Dinner" about the trials and joys of a festive meal with “yam-fisted toddler’s sticky-lipped whispers” followed by Laurel Ann Bogen reading David Gershator’s from “Seder.” Then Larry Colker’s read ‘Visitation," his poem whichis a lovely evocation about the opening of the door and offering of a cup of wine for the prophet Elijah: “opening the door/is such a steadfast gesture; / a silver cup of sweet, purple wine/is such a heartfelt offering.” For the giving praise of the 4^th cup of wine Scott Sonders in his poem “Enosh Introduces Idolatry” praised God.

We found the hidden matzah and then repaired to the lobby for more drink and food. Only a small number of poets from the anthology A Poet’s Haggadah read as the anthology has 36 poets in this marvelous poetic response to the seder and Passover.

You can order the book A Poet’s Haggadah from http://www.poetseder.com/

Janet Fitch at Santa Monica College

Next Tuesday, May 6, 11:15-12:35 acclaimed novelist Janet Fitch will read at Santa Monica College
Arts Complex 214. Free.

I will do the introduction!

Fitch has written two wonderful novels, White Oleander, and Paint It Black. White Oleander deals with a mother, an dedicated poet who winds up killing her ex-boyfriend, and her daughter who is forced to survive in the foster care system of Los Angeles. Ophrah picked the novel for her book club which helped make it a bestseller. Later the novel was made into a Hollywood movie. Paint It Black is about two young artists who find themselves and each other in the Los Angeles punk scene of the 1980s. A generation of young artists included myself performed at these clubs, spaces, etc..

Fitch is a third-generation Angeleno who went to Fairfax High School. She's one of the leaders of a new generation of novelists and poets born and raised in California who treat the state as basis for their writing. She writes stories that only natives can write. One of my students who also survived L.A.'s awful foster care system said Fitch got it exactly right. She brilliantly tells how young people struggle to survive in hostile environments of post-Reagan California.

Tree Hugger Goes to the Gulf War

After hearing Marcus Eriksen speak at Santa Monica College's excellent literary series, I just read his marvelous book: Marcus Eriksen’s My River Home a Journey from the Gulf War to the Gulf of Mexico. His book adds to the growing list of Gulf War and Iraq War soldier memoirs. Eriksen’s book, published in 2007, interweaves two stories:his1990 service in the Marines in the Gulf War and his 2003 trip down the whole course of the Mississippi River on a raft he made out of soda pop bottles. Yes, he made a raft out of soda pop bottles! He endangered his life on the Mississippi in order to regain humanity he felt he had lost in the Gulf War

Early on in his service Eriksen’s Marine buddies call him “tree hugger” for making comments about the environment. He grew up near New Orleans in a blue collar family, exploring with his friends the Louisiana swamps, playing with dangerous snakes and collecting snakes and reptiles. He joined the Marines because he was inculcated with dreams of being a warrior—the book is very good how these media fantasies shape teenager blue collar boys—and also because he wanted the G.I. education benefits. He shows how the military used the boys’ idealism to do good to recruit them.

What’s fascinating is that of Eriksen’s two journeys, the raft trip down the Mississippi was more dangerous, took more bravery and more persistence. Eriksen and his Marine friends never saw combat in the Gulf War; Eriksen conveys the landscape of polluted hell in Kuwait: “Black clouds suffocate the sky. Specks of oil rain down on us and make us filthy.” He and the other Marines had to survive the filth, the boredom, the heat, and the loss of innocence. They spent their time looting corpses and collecting souvenirs. He interweaves the Gulf War stories with stories of rafting down the Mississippi, pulling the raft around logs when the river at first is a tiny stream, often feeling defeated by the slow moving river in Minnesota, almost getting run over by barges numerous times.

With the eye of a naturalist he later developed getting a Ph.D. in science education at USC, Eriksen notes that Iraqi soldiers often had the same equipment made by U.S. and British arms manufacturers and sometimes even better equipment for desert fighting. The boy who once was amazed by the bounty of nature and who once collected reptiles now collects machine guns and other weapons in Kuwait. What offends his warrior pride is his country’s arms manufactures were selling to both sides, endangering himself and his buddies. What begins to restore Eriksen’s spirit in his country is meeting with so much generosity on the river from Boy Scouts, river rats, fisherman, and townspeople from the towns he docks nearby.

What affects Eriksen the most is his four visits of the Highway to Death, the road from Kuwait to Basra, Iraq, where 500 vehicles of fleeing Iraq soldiers were killed by the U.S. Air Force. The landscape full of dead bodies would “resurface in our dreams of Kuwait and to thwart our search for reason and the return of humanity to our hearts.” After the war Eriksen felt used, manipulated, so he isolated and cut himself off from others, buried himself alive in books. He writes with the mature perspective of someone who looks back at his younger selves able to be critical and humble.

What begins to restore his spirit is going down the river, hanging out with generous people on the river in their homes or at bars, revisiting his country’s history in museums and tours of historical sights in St. Louis or Memphis or or Vicksburg or a host of towns. He gains a feeling of confidence that he can master the river and a sense of belonging to his country and seeing once again the goodness of his county people. He becomes a man with a heart not in the Gulf War but on the Mississippi. The stories of the Mississippi are wonderful, updating Mark Twain's view of the river. Eriksen has written a fine tale of going home to the river of his childhood to find redemption.

March from Hollywood to the Port to Get a Raise

A group including actors, janitors, longshore workers and other working people will march 28 miles April 15-17 in Los Angeles to get better jobs in our city. They symbolize 350,000 workers in Los Angeles from screenwriters to janitors to longshore workers to actors whoare fighting in unions this year for a decent wages and to keep out of poverty, so they have organized a march for decent jobs from Hollywood kicking up with Screen Actor's Guild actor Esai Morales and AFTRA member Jason George speaking at a 4/15 rally at LaBrea Tar Pits and ending three days later with a rally at the port of Los Angeles. jThe ILWU (longshore workers) drill team will lead the march. Los Angeles needs a raise! People will walk twenty eight miles from Hollywood to San Pedro to start getting that raise!

For more information see http://www.hollywoodtothedocks.org/about.asp

No Paper No Plastic

So for six months I've struggled to eliminate paper and plastic bags from whenever I go shopping, and I feel like a recovering addict finally getting over the addiction.

I finally realized that the only way eliminate paper/plastic was to BREAK THE HABIT by keeping my own recyclable bags in my car trunk: for grocery shopping a big multi-cultured plastic bag, a backpack, a white string bag, a black cotton bag from Washington D.C. art museum, and about 5 Trader Jo's large paper bags. I grocery shop every week for 4 people, and we eat home almost every meal plus having regular lunch/'dinner parties at home, so I weekly bring in a lot of groceries, needing about eight bags to haul it all in. I developed this new habit of hauling in my bags whenever I entered the grocery store. As my mother said, life is about habits, and I developed my new habit.

The one problem was fruit and vegetables which demanded little plastic bags. I've learned that plastic bags are toxic to birds--birds as well as animals and fish eat them and die. Thousands of plastics bags wind up in rivers or oceans. For two months now I've been reusing the old plastic bags--stuffing the little plastic bags into the big bags in my car trunk--so I'm outfitted for shopping. But I discovered reusablebags.com, a website that sells organic cotton produce bags, so I ordered 13 of those. Now I can go shopping with my reusable small cotton produce bags as well as my large recyleable bags.

What I discovered is that now that I'm not storing paper/plastic bags in my kitchen drawers, I'm freeing up space in the kitchen--one nice benefit of debagging.

Yeah, I still drive a car but that's for another blog.

Author Rafts Down Mississippi on Soda Bottles!

Santa Monica College has had a wonderful literary series this spring.

The next speaker (information below) is Gulf War veteran Marcus Eriksen will discuss his unusual journey down the Mississippi River on a homemade raft kept afloat by empty soda bottles and a lot of ingenuity. Free. Call (310) 434-4303. So Erikesen is recreating Mark Twain's voyages down the Mississippi over 150 years ago Twain describe in his book Life on the Mississippi. I'm wondering how the Mississippi has changed in 150 years? What is it like now to go a long distance now. When I was in New Orleans I took a short tourist steamboat ride down the river, but a long trip on a raft is different.


Erikesen will speak
main campus of Santa Monica College, Concert Hall, 11:15-12:30 pm
April 15, Tuesday

Parking is bad on campus, so best way to get there is park a few blocks away to walk in
or park about a mile away and take the Big Blue Bus on Pico which stops right in front of the campus.

Last weekend, a publication party and a bookstore wake

I'm reading Sara Forth's Eve's Bible: A Woman's Guide to the Old Testament because Sara is my friend, a feminist theologian, and published one of my poems "Miriam's Song," in her book. Sara had her book party last Sunday in at a spectacular wooden house in Brentwood full of fantastic folk art. I read along along with Sara, of course--the star--and also Terry Wolverton, leading L.A. poet/novelist/writing teacher; and Dinah Berland, who read from Hours of Devotion: Fanny Neuda's Book of Prayers. Fanny Neuda was a 19th century German Jewish woman who was the first Jewish woman to write the first full-length book of prayers; Dinah has rendered them into English, helping bring Neuda's lovely prayers to our consciousness.

In her introduction in her book to my poem Sara actually was the first person in history who understood the poem! I was touched. I mean I've read from my book Shlulamith, which has poems in the voices of biblical women, and people just don't understand it. Some poetry audiences often think I'm some kind of fundamentalist for writing poems inspired by biblical woman--odd. Sara said,

"When contemporary circumstances required specificity the Bible lacked, the rabbis would start with a biblical story and then, using its characters or context, spin a new tale that addressed the question at hand. Modern women of many religious persuasions have used the form to create everything from short parables to book-lengths works. Here is one example of what biblical Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza calls a 'narrative amplification' of an existing story 'Miriam's Song' by Julia Stein.'

When I read that, I nearly cried, as that was the first time in four years that my book has been out that someone actually understood it. Sara's party was splendid, with the interweaving of voices who read; Sara and her family's great hospitality; and the breathtaking house with a skylights over a two-story living room. Sara's book is terrific midrash of the Bible, bringing the Bible alive to us once again, helping us connect, explore and understand.

After the publication party, I then went to the closing party for Dutton's bookstore Brentwood. As I arrived the courtyard was packed to the rafters, people on the stairs, and more people on the balcony. Dutton's staff gave talks at the microphone including Doug Dutton himself who has just been one of the most terrific most wonderful supporters of writers in Los Angeles for decades now. Doug has two loves: books and music. He's going to teach music at LACC, Santa Monica College, and Colburn School of Music, but he and his bookstore will be missed by thousands of us.

Then poet Scott Wanberg who worked at Dutton's for many years read a marvelous poem about the store. Then former mayor Richard Riordan said a few words at the mike how in the Irish tradition this party was a wake for a bookstore--and a great wake it was.

New California Literature at California Studies Conference

I'm organizing a "New California Literature: Breaking into the Future" panel

with Judy Juanita, Rip Rense, and Owen Hill
at the California Studies Conference in Berkeley April 12, 1:45-3:15.

I wanted to present work that is innovative and shows a path into future literature.
So why these three?

Judy Juanita is a brilliant poet/playwright/novelist who has 11 plays produced.
She's also a stunning performance poet whose poem "Bling" tells who fought for African-
American freedom so the present generation can have bling. She lives in Oakland.

Rip Rense is a journalist, record producer, and novelist whose 2nd novel "The Oaks"
tells how a teenage boy struggles to survive the collapse of his middle class
suburban family by identifying with California's native oaks. He lives in Los Angeles.

Owen Hill is a Berkeley poet who has published six books of poetry, a book of
short stories, and a brilliant mystery novel "The Chandler Apartments" set in
contemporary Bay Area. He's from Berkeley.

Everyone is inviting both to the New California Literature panel and the whole conference.


>
>The California Studies Association, in conjunction with the California
>Studies Center at UC Berkeley, and the Institute for Research on Labor and
>Employment,
>
>       Presents the 18th Annual California Studies Conference:
>
>
>           Changing Climates: Class, Culture, and Politics
>                    in an Era of Global Warming
>
>
>                         April 11-13, 2008
>
>                      Berkeley City College
>                        2050 Center Street
>
>
>                  Keynote address by Matt Gonzalez
>                      7pm, Friday, April 11th
>                 Wine and cheese reception to follow
>
>
>                Luncheon address by Jackie Goldberg
>                   12:30, Saturday, April 12th
>
>
>Saturday night entertainment by Ian Ruskin, performing “From Wharf Rats to
>      Lords of the Docks: The Life and Times of Harry Bridges."
>
>
>Panels on: Coping with Climate Change, Working in a Green Economy,
>Immigration, Community Organizing in Silicon Valley, Green Media, In
>Praise of Taxes, People & Water, Arts & Activism, New California Literature,
and more.
>
>Speakers: Rick Wartzman, Margaret Gordon, Peter Schrag, Raquel
>Pinderhughes, Judy Juanita, Owen Hill, Rip Rense, Tom Athanasiou, Sasha
>Abramsky, David Bacon, Richard Walker, Norman Miller, and more
>
>
>For additional information, go to:
>http://geography.berkeley.edu/ProjectsResources/californiastudies.html
>
>Conference contact: Lindsey Dillon at changingclimates@gmail.com.
>

March 15 anti-war march Los Angeles

On the right, a woman with a "stop Bush" sign in
a wheelchair at Hollywood at Vine at the beginning of the march on the 5th anniversary
of the War in Iraw.


Kids and moms for peace.






Clowns for peace.One great sign was "Make balloons not war."


























Lots of veterans were there. Also man on right wants habeus corpus, the right not to be imprisoned forever.

Labor unionists for peace. San Pedro neighbors as well as neighbors from
Topanga, Bakesrsfield, and Pasadena






















In yellow t-shorts Bus Riders union who rock!


Korean-American peace marchers on left

Here is a dog at the march in his own anti-war costume. His sign on the other side says, "yes, you can." I saw the anti-war dog at the end of the march.

Dutton's bookstore is closing

Dutton’s Is a Limb , a Main Branch

The closing of Dutton’s bookstore feels to me as if one of the limbs of literary Los Angeles is getting chopped off. If literary L.A. is a huge tree, Dutton’s for decades has been one of the main branches. I always loved Dutton’s in Brentwood, loved going there and saying “hi” to Scott Wanberg, a fellow poet I know from many years ago at the Venice Poetry Workshop at Beyond Baroque. Dutton’s was always a home to poets, a bookplace which sheltered us—so very rare in this city.. The readings were terrific. I saw Margaret Atwood in a courtyard stuffed with people. I was Australian novelist Peter Carey before he was famous with only a few people in the front room.

I had the readings for my last two books of poetry there. I remember reading in the courtyard, happy to be alive, happy to be welcoming my new book of poetry into the world in Dutton’s. One person who came to the reading was a UCLA student of Carolyn See’s. The student had to write about a poet, so she was writing about me. Dutton’s was a place where people made connections. The little café at Dutton’s was where my friends and I often would gather after a reading. Dutton’s was a place I will miss. Soon one of the main branches that sheltered us in the literary L.A. tree will be missing.

For Choice For Women

I'm participating in blogging-for-choice day today January 22, 2008 to
honor Roe Versus Wade Supreme Court Decision legalizing abortion.

I am an illegal abortion the summer I turned twenty, and immediately
after the abortion I started hemorrhaging. Actually, after the abortion
I had gone to my legal doctor who said I was all right but I had started to hemorrhage.
Each day I got weaker, was losing blood, couldn't eat, and found it hard to walk.

Four days later I had to be rushed to the hospital in Los Angeles. By that
time I had lost a lot of blood and was losing my ability to walk. Since I was
under twenty-one I couldn't sign myself into the hospital, my doctor called
my parents who immediately came with cash and signed me in. The doctor

immediately performed a d and c to save my life and I stayed overnight
in the hospital. Actually, the doctor never told he what had happened but
told my mother who explained it all to me later. I was happy I could walk again.
My mother brought me home the next day to recuperate, and a few days later

I got mononucleosis, which my doctor thought I had picked up in the hospital.
I was sick with the mononucleosis for the next six months, and had to take
time off from college. The whole experience took about 8 months out of my life
and has had negative impact on my whole life. Even routine doctor's visits bring
back nightmares.

If I had to do it over again, I would have done the same thing as I did. At nineteen
I did not want a baby. I wanted to continue at college. I knew my mother had
gotten pregnant when she was a nurse cadet during World War II and was thrown
out of nursing school because of her pregnancy (nurse cadets weren't allowed to
be pregnant). I knew I didn't want to be forced out of college. My parents were
very poor when I was born as my dad, just out of the air force, didn't have a job.

I think that nothing can stop women from having abortions, and we should have
safe, legal abortions. Otherwise the consequences will be horrendous. I was lucky
I didn't die and merely had eight months chomped out of my life and lifelong scars.

Keep abortion legal!

No Country for Old Men Terrible

I went to the worst movie last night called No Country for Old Men from a Cormac McCarthy novel by the same novel. The film starts with a horror show as a young antelope hunter Vietnam veteran stumbles on a drug deal gone wrong and a bunch of dead bodies near the Texas-Mexican border and runs off with $2 million dollars. He is trailed by a psychopathic killer and a philosophizing sheriff. That's basically the plot.

About half way through I figured out that the killer played by Javier Bardem was the Angel of Death or the Force of Evil, and about that point I thought the film was truly silly and didn't take it seriously. The sherriff philosophizes how THINGS HAVE GONE TO HELL NOW. The sheriff's musings made the film sillier. Why are things worse now? If the sheriff believs things are bad now, he should live a hundred years ago when life was much worse. I don't buy the baloney that things are much worse now.

I just read William Kennedy's novel Quinn's Book, a quite good tale about a poor Irish orphan growing up in 1850 Americas seeing the famine Irish coming in NY and these poor starving people being force out of Albany, New York. Compared to the famine Irish, people in No Country for Old Men are quite prosperous, stay in motels with TVs, and drive around in nifty big shiny American cars. Like McCarthy's hero the Vietnam veteran, some people now just want a lot more like $2 million which gets them in a lot of trouble. If I had stumbled on a bunch of dead bodies and $2 million, I'd leave and call the sherriff--no novel, no film. Sorrrry.

Cormac McCarthy seems to be writing right-wing rants in his novels about HOW THINGS HAVE GONE TO HELL. Like most right-wingers, he uses the violence of the drug trade in the 1980s and 1990s as his evidence, without looking the deindustrialization of the U.S. during that period and the desperation of unemployed that fed the increased drug usage. So without looking at the wider sociological and political reasons for the drug trade, he just opportunistically appropriates it for a violent and quite meaningless and quite silly story. Anyway, I recommend avoiding the films. It's a downer anyway that revels in gratuitous violence.

After writing this, I read online James Wood's article "Red Planet' in January 5, 2008, New Yorker where he criticizes both the film and McCarthy's original novel. Wood says the novel imitates the narrative of pulp thrillers and action film. Then this bad novel was made into an action film which Wood says has moral hollowness and can not give its "violence any depth, context or reality." I heartily agree, and now understand why I thought the film so silly: halfway through the violence, lacking any context, seem like violence in a child's cartoon. Bam, I threaten you. But the Coen brothers and McCarthy load up the film with cartoon violence and absurd philosophizing as if Popeye the Sailor Man was musing about the world.

Avoid the film. Ignore the novel.

Best Novel I Read in 2007: Bleak House

The best novel I read in 2007, the novel that spoke to the year 2007, is Dickens's Bleak House. I agree with Edmund Wilson that Bleak House is a masterpiece; the novel is the greatest written by a Englishperson.

Dickens in his novel was describing England in the 1840s as a Bleak House, a nation dominated by corruption as symbolized in his fictional world by the Court of Chancery, supposed to fairly settle wills and estates. Within the novel the lawsuit Jarndyce versus Jarndyce in the Court of Chancery has lasted for a generation, destroying the heirs who patiently wait forever for judgment as the lawyers' fees eat up the whole estate so at the end the heirs get nothing, the estate is bankrupt, and only the lawyers have profited. What's great about Dickens is he makes judgments: against lawyers corruption, against the corrupt Court of Chancery, against the brutalization of the poor and the homeless. Well, right now the United States is also a Bleak House dominated by corruption: the corruption of the Iraq War totals billions. What is missing in a lot contemporary fiction is Dickens' moral judgments.

I read Cormac McCarthy's The Road, a novel which won a recent Pulitzer Prize for fiction; the well-written novel has a father and son trying to survive in post-apocalypse America. In many ways I thought the Road was metaphorically saying this country is now so bad off all a decent person can do is suffer it--I find that a huge cop out. Give me Dickens any day of the week instead.

Bleak House is long--881 pages. Hurrah to great length of a wonderful novel! I loved to leave the presentday Bleak House U.S.A. go to into Dickens' world where he creates characters who care for the poor, the orphans, and reunite destroyed families. As his heroine Dickens has Esther Summerson, a poor orphan, raised by an aunt who rejects her until she is rescued by wealthy John Jarndyce who rescues seven orphans, giving them a home.

Like her guardian Mr. Jarndyce, Esther is the ethical heart of the corrupt inhumane society. One small example is when Esther finds Jo, a homeless boy suffering from smallpox, so she takes him home to give him shelter and care when her maid Charley (also an orphan rescued by Mr. Jarndyce), gets smallpox, so Esther nurses her night and day until Charley recovers. Then Esther gets smallpox, so Charley nurses her night and day until Esther recovers. What's amazing in the cold brutal Bush's America of 2007 is that these characters go out of their way to care for each other. Further, Dickens says that the wealthy can't wall themselves from the poor: the wealthy will get the same diseases as the poor. Mr. Dickens says there's so safe gated communities to run to. Dickens would say either we care for each other or we will die.

One character I love is the homeless boy Jo, born an orphan in the most destitute level of society. Someone is always telling Joy to "move on" just as people in the USA tell the homeless to "move on." In the first half of the novel only the penniless clerk Nemo was kind to Jo while the rest of the callous society turned their backs on the poor boy. Well, I loved Dickens' sentiment--his emotions--for Jo. The brutal society just hounds Jo until he is sick and near death, when the kind doctor Allan Woodcourt carries him to refuge in the soldier George's fencing studio where Jo can die not on the street. In the end a whole group of people help Jo in his dying--George; his roommate Phil; the doctor Allan Woodcourt; the stationer Mr. Snasby who writes Jo's will and confession. These people redeem society, give it a heart.

But Jo still a boy does die, and Dickens addressed the reader:

"Dead, your Majesty. Dead, my Lords and Gentleman. Dead! Dead, right reverends and wrong reverends of every order. Dead, men and women born with heavenly compassion in your hearts. And dying thus around us every day. "

Well, I love Dickens' moral outbursts because homeless in USA are dying thus around us every day, and he is still right to address directly his readers, the men and women "with heavenly compassion in your hearts."

Dickens also thinks pride will kill you, and our society in 2007 and 2008 has been overrun with material pride and greed. One character with too much pride is Mr. George, a young man who ran off to become a solider; he never felt he did well enough as a soldier to face his family, so he cuts himself off from them for years. Also Lady Dedlock was killed by her excess pride. As a young woman Lady Dedlock had an out-of-wedlock baby whom she gave away and then she later got married. She was terrified to tell her husband about her past, terrified she will be rejected by all of society, and terrified she will bring shame to his family name. Terrible terrible pride dominates both of them. But George has befriended the Bagnet family, and when he's falsely accused of murder, his good friend Mrs. Bagnet goes gets George's mother, brings her back to London, and reunites mother and son.

In contrast, Lady Dedlock flees rather than confide in and trust her husband, and she winds up dead a few days later. Her husband, who loved her dearly, would have forgiven her anything, and is striken with a stroke right after she disappears. Overcoming his pride helped George regain his family, reuniting first with his mother, then with his brother and lastly with his brother's family, giving George a whole family life for the first time in decades, but pride leads to Lady Dedlock's death.

Reading Dickens I totally fall in love with his moral voice: he is a moral, ethical England, a caring England. Dickens' novels led out of the wretched callous brutal society he described starting with the reform of the corrupt Court of Chancery --Hurrah, hurrah, hurrah!Iin the 20th century. I'm sick and tired of 20th century modernist novels which give into cynicism, telling us how bad things are in 2007 and 2008. We all know how bad things are in 2008. Cormac McCarthy isn't news. Give me Dickens any day of the week. Give me novels of 881 pages! YES!

Visit to north north California: Code Blue

My brother who lives in Burney, California, in the far northeast part of California
got pneumonia so was taken to Mayers Hospital, a small hospital in Fall River Mills.
There they diagnosed him with something else and we about to operate on his non-
existent condition but he asked to be flown by helicopter to Mercy Medical Center in Redding, which they did. At Mercy he was correctly diagnosed with pneumonia.

The weekend this happened I was going into finals week where I had to give and
grade three finals. Also, I had jury duty on Monday, and my mom's home had
two furnaces not working, so on Sunday I arranged for a furnace repair company
to replace her two furnaces. I kept on calling my brother who was in Intensive Care
Unit (ICU) at Mercy. Luckily my jury duty was only one day on Monday the same
day the furnaces were successfully put in. I gave and grade my three finals, and flew to my
brother in Redding on Saturday.

Redding is in the Central Valley of California, the biggest city between the Sacramento
and the Oregon border, but it has a small airport. After I got a car, I drove to the
hospital where my brother at last was out of ICU and in the intermediate ward. Driving
I had to cross the Sacramento River and Interstate 5, but it wasn't far.

My brother who has had parkinson's for many years was on oxygen and making a slow
recovery from the pneumonia. That evening he sat up for the first time to have dinner
with me in his hospital room--we both ate from the trays. That was a good sign. My brother
had a roommate who seemed very ill.

Monday my third day there I was walking to my brother's room to again eat dinner with
my brother when I was all these nurses rushing to my brother's room yelling "Code Blue."
I stuck my head into the room to see my brother quietly sitting up in front of his food
tray, so the Code Blue was for his roommate. I said, "I'll see you later" and left as more
medical people were running into the room.

My brother had been eating and talking to his roommate who must have had a seizure,
choked on some food, and went quiet, so my brother hit the emergency button and yelled
out for the nurse who came running into the room to start the Code Blue. I stayed out a
half hour, and when I returned the staff had gotten the roommate breathing, had taken
his X-ray, and were wheeling him out to ICU. The nursing supervisor was talking to my
brother and said to me, "Thanks to your brother for hitting the alarm. If I were in the
hospital, I'd want your brother for a roommate." Other nurses that evening thanked my
brother for being so alert as to call an emergency.

I sat down across from my brother and ate my dinner.

The roommate did recover in ICU.

Traveling Over Holidays--Ethical Traveling

Now that Thanksgiving is over, most people are looking forward to the holidays. I already
took the pledge for ethical traveling http://ga6.org/campaign/ethical_travel/ to support hotelworkers at hotels.

According to Salon,"the Jewish Funds for Justice, the Progressive Jewish Alliance, and the Jewish Labor Committee [has] collaborated to launch the Travel Justly campaign. The effort is designed to call attention to -- and perhaps even improve -- the relatively crappy working conditions of many hotel housekeepers. Ninety percent of these workers are women. "

According to UNITE/HERE what are the working conditions of housekeepers:

"- Hotel housekeepers are facing increasing injuries due to heavy workloads. In most hotels, housekeepers must clean 15 or more rooms per day.

- Hotel housekeepers must rush to meet a daily quota of cleaned rooms. They frequently skip rest periods and meals in order to finish, and even work off the clock to meet their quotas.

- In recent years, corporate hotel chains such as Hilton, Hyatt and Sheraton have increased both the pace and the amount of work performed by housekeepers.

- Most hotels have recently introduced new room amenities without reducing the number of rooms assigned to housekeepers each day. Luxury beds with heavier mattresses and linens, triple-sheeting, duvets, and extra pillows ... make room cleaning more difficult and time-consuming.

- According to a recent study of company records covering thousands of employee injuries, hotel housekeepers face an injury rate of 10.4%, almost double the injury rate for non-housekeepers (5.6%).

- Sprains and strains are the most common housekeeper injuries (44% of all injuries in one study) often resulting from demanding tasks like bed making_lifting mattresses, adding extra sheets, and stuffing multiple pillows and duvets_and pushing heavy carts full of linens and amenities.

- In a recent survey of more than 600 hotel housekeepers in the U.S. and Canada, 91% said that they have suffered work-related pain. 77% said their workplace pain interfered with routine activities. Two out of every three workers visited their doctor to deal with workplace pain. 66% took pain medication just to get through their daily quota.

- Hotel housekeeper injuries are debilitating. Back injuries, housemaids' knee (bursitis), and shoulder pain can lead to permanent disability.

- When injured workers try to return to work, most hotels do not offer them lighter tasks to do, forcing them to choose between getting hurt again or not working at all. "

The pledge I signed says that over the holidays as well as in the future I will

"- avoid hotels where workers are on strike;

- support union hotels (the site, unfortunately, requires you to enter the name of a specific hotel in a specific town; it would be a lot nicer if you could just search by city, assuming a full list would be too long to effectively navigate).

- TIP YOUR MAID $2-$5/day*

- be considerate by putting trash in trash cans, leaving dirty towels on the counter or racks so the housekeeper doesn't have to bend over to pick them up; and stripping your own bedsheets;

- leave complimentary comment cards if you are happy with your maid service;

- keep a copy of the pledge in your suicase to remind you of it when you travel.

After you sign the pledge, you can buy a luggage tag to remind you of the pledge, plus make your luggage identifiable. 75% of the cost of the tag is tax-deductible. And maybe, if you're lucky, occasionally give you an opportunity to talk to other travelers about the campaign.

So far now on I can tip $2-5/day whenever I'm in an hotel.

Cooking Thanksgiving Dinner

Last two days I cooked a Thanksgiving dinner for eight. I got most (not all) of my fruits and vegetables--organic, of course-- at the Hollywood Farmer's market. I try to buy my fruits and vegetables in the farmer's market all year to support Southern California farms and to reduce energy used to grow my food. The market was spilling over with great looking fall produce I got--corn, grapes, pears, sweet potatoes, red leaf lettuce. The day before Thanksgiving I got a free range 10-lb. turkey at Whole Foods market, and I'm glad I got a smaller free range turkey rather than a monster bird raised in lock-up.

All year long I've been reading on blogs about buying food from within 100 miles of where I lived. Yes, I buy my fruits and vegetables all year from local farmers at Farmer's Market, but I do make exceptions for spices such as cloves, allspice, and cinnamon from Trader Joe's and Ralph's. I've just discovered a new fair trade organic coffee called Peruvian Cafe Femenino at Trader Joe's which smells just wonderful. Another exception is tea, which I'll buy fair trade. Thinking of my spices I was reminded of the spice trade from India for thousands of years imported spices like cloves and cinnamon.

Besides the spices, I wanted to dedicate my menu to native American foods--corn, squash, sweet potato, turkey, cranberries, and, of course, pumpkin--and wanted to connect with these indigenous foods by cooking them. One way to give thanks on Thanksgiving is to honor the Native farmers and cooks who created the great American foods. I planned the menu to be as American as possible:

California green salad with corn and red wine vinegar/olive oil dressing
cheese bread
California white wine

turkey with herbs de provence
Spicy roast sweet potato butter- from Pueblo Indians
Oaklohoma Corn and Squash Pawnee
Cranberry orange sauce
fruit nut stuffing with cranberry, apricots, and walnuts
green beens with almonds

pumpkin pie
pears and grapes
Peruvian coffee and tea
chocolate mints (a gift from my guests)

Ok, the herbs de provence --thyme, summer savory, lavender, basil, fennel seeds--is a herb mix from the south of France, but I said earlier I let myself use spices and herbs from across the seas as well as Peruvian fair trade coffee.

I learned that green beans also originated in the Americas. Green beans along with kidney, navy and black beans belong to the plant species known as Phaseolus vulgaris. Peruvian indigenous peoples first cultivated all these beans which originated from a common bean, and then other Native peoples brought the green and other beans to other parts of South, Central, and North America. The Spanish explorers brought green beans first back to Europe. Of course, Native American farmers first cultivated corn, squash, sweet potato, and chocolate as well as pick wild grapes and cranberries. Some Native Americans mourn Thanksgiving because it led to such deaths for Native people, but I think the holiday can be redefined to honor the greatness of Native American farmers and cooks whose discoveries benefited us all.

As I cooked I really got into the smells and feel of fall foods--cranberry, sweet potato, pears, grapes, apples, turkey. People kept on saying that it was a lot of work to cook for eight, and it is, but shopping and cooking with these wonderful American foods is a way to experience the fall as well as to give praise to American food traditions and local farmers.

On the Picket Line With the Writers Guild

Friday morning in the 2nd week of the Writers Guild strike against the multi-media corporations I joined them to picket at the Bronson Gate of Paramount. To me the strike is very simple. The huge multi-media corporations are putting TV shows online and making money from this but not giving the writers any money at all as if writers should work for free. In an online video "Sara Silverman Strikes" she said if the producers give the writers money for TV shows repeated online the multi-media corporations still will be fabulously wealthy. All the writers want is to be paid for their work.

Many years ago I was interviewing novelists in Los Angeles, and I interviewed novelist -screenwriter Daniel Fuchs who wrote the wonderful novel triology of novels about poor Jews during the Depression in the Williamsburg neighbrohood of Brooklyn and was also a Hollywood screenwriter for decades starting in the mid-1930s. Fuchs told me that in the late 1930s he wrote a screenplay but the producer took Fuchs name off it and put his family member's name on it; the screenplay won the academy award. Fuchs said the screenwriters were trying to organize a union but it was too weak to protect the writers making sure they got credit for their work.

Later in the early 1950s Fuchs wrote the screenplay for Love Me or Leave, a big Hollywood film starring Doris Day. He said the Writers Guild was much stronger then and protected writers, making sure they got credits for their work. His screenplay for Love Me or Leave Me did win the academy award, so finally he got the award that his brilliant writing deserved. So Fuchs taught me how necessary the Writers Guild is for the protection of writers. Every artists and writer should, I think, walk the picket line with the Writers Guild.

I had been watching youtube videos made by the striking screenwriters all week, and for some good videos see

http://www.youtube.com/user/wgaamerica

I live six blocks from Paramount, so I walked over down Melrose to the Bronson Gate where about eight writers were picketing, said, "I'm a writer who lives in the neighborhood, and I've come to support you. "They said, "Get a picket sign at the Windsor Gate," so I walked 1/2 block more to the Windsor Gate where 30 pickets were, got my sign, and walked back to the Bronson Gate. So round and round we went. Lots of cars honked in support. Workers on a waste disposal truck honked in support. Some cars crossed are picket line driving onto the studio.

The screenwriters said they had pickets there from 6:00 am to 10:00 and from 10:00 - 2:00, will be picketing Monday and will have a march/rally on Tuesday on Hollywood Boulevard. My small platoon was high spirited and had shakers and clappers to make noise as we picketed. Sometimes the writers danced, sometimes made jokes, or discussed restaurants in the neighborhood. I said the general public is supporting the writers, not the producers, and one writer agreed, but said the producers haven't made any new offers by the second week of the strike. Somebody brought donuts for our group. All in all it was fun, and I'm going to join them again next Monday on the picket line.

J.M. Coetzee's novel Foe

I just read J. M. Coetzee's novel Foe where he creates a heroine Susan Barton who is a castaway cast ashore on an island where an Englishman Cruso and black slave Friday in this retelling of Daniel Dafoe's Robinson Crusoe. I liked the original novel, and, of course, it lacked females. I was intrigued by having a female castaway but didn't like what I thought the flat telling of Barton's story about her year on the island, meeting first Friday who can't talk because slavers ripped his tongue out, and then Cruso who give the heroine shelter. When the novel was written circa 1700, there were Englishwomen writers, poets mostly, in this era, but no women novelists like Daniel Dafoe.

After a year on the island, a ship comes by, rescue the three castaways, but Cruso dies abroad ship while Susan and Friday make it to England. In London, Susan meets author Foe (original name of Danie DeFoe) and convinces him to write up the story which she hopes will make herself well-to-do. Foe begins, but unfortunately he has debts, so he flees from the baliffs who come after him. Destitute Susan and Friday then take up residence in Foe's house, where Susan writes the missing Foe letters. I thought that amusing: the novel's leading character, a woman, takes over the writing, arguing with the author how the novel should go and also asking and begging and pleading the author to return.

The problem is Susan throughout the novel tries to get Friday to speak but never succeeds. Friday dons Foe's wig and black robes and dances for hours and plays on the flute one tune endlessly but he'll never communicate to Susan. At time Susan seems sympathetic to Friday, trying to get him to Bristol to put him on a ship to return to Africa, but at times she seems like she's acting like a slave master herself. At the end Susan and Friday rejoin Foe, who tells Susan to teach Friday how to write English, which she does but Friday still won't speak.

Rethinking the novel, it's about stories and who tells them. Some critics now think of Robinson Crusoe as an allegory for European colonialism, so Coetzee, a liberal white male author from South Africa, writes about one of the characters left-out of the original, the white woman. But Coetzee can't tell Friday's story: Friday always refuses the domination by the white author/colonialist. Maybe that's Coetzee's point. Friday will tell his story in his own novel, not one written by any whites.