By Carolyn M. Rodgers
child,
in the august of your life
you come barefoot to me
the blisters of events
having worn through to the
soles of your shoes.
it is not the time
this is not the time
there is no such time
to tell you
that some pains ease away
on the ebb & toll of
themselves.
there is no such dream that
can not fail, nor is hope our
only conquest.
we can stand boldly in burdening places (like earth here)
in our blunderings, our bloomings
our palms, flattened upward or pressed,
an unyielding down.
--------
Rodgers, who helped found Third World Press in the 1960s, died earlier this week at 69. The poem above is from The Heart As Ever Green.
I had no car on Tuesday, so today's report will be as boring as yesterday's. I stayed home, did some work, folded laundry while watching both parts of Due South's "Mountie on the Bounty" since I was in the mood for it after seeing the HMS Bounty in Baltimore this weekend, had homemade tom ka gai and lad na since Paul had discovered that it was the Thai new year, watched Glee which still leaves me ambivalent in some ways -- the show remains much, much nastier to women than it is to men -- but it also has moments of incredible joyous awesomeness like -- SPOILERS -- the Sue Sylvester "Vogue" video at the end, which makes up for anything I don't like by such an enormous stretch that there's no way I could consider not watching. We had to turn off a very good PBS documentary on reptiles for Glee's obnoxious start time, but I forgive the American Idol lead-in because I laughed so much at Jesse St. James saying he gives concerts for the homeless because "it's so important to give back."
We were trying to guess the "Hello" songs -- I wasn't sure they could get the rights to the Beatles and I didn't think they'd actually use Neil Diamond, so I was delighted to be wrong twice. I did figure they'd sing Lionel Richie, but I forgot that my kids only know that song from the Brokeback Mountain parody scene in Scary Movie IV -- they were shrieking and that made it doubly funny for me. I really despised the Old Maids' Club scene; it's in character for Sue, but the degree of Sue's viciousness toward women, or really toward girls, these are underage high schoolers who have self-esteem issues coming from all sides, really crosses a line for me. Not to mention turning date-rape drugs into a joke. Sure, I'm thrilled to see Idina Menzel and I enjoy the musical numbers, but there's a lot on the show that I find just plain fucking nasty.
That said, after the fabulous fabulous "Vogue" video, we put on the original Madonna video for the kids because it was so amazing, then left on The Immaculate Collection to show them the Dangerous Liaisons version from the MTV Awards. Then we showed Daniel "Like a Virgin" because he knows Weird Al's "Like a Surgeon" parody version. Clearly we are going to have to watch the entire video collection before Glee's Madonna episode. Sometimes it's nice to remember why she's, you know, Madonna, whom I adored unconditionally throughout the 80s and 90s, and whose impact on everything from fashion to gay rights really should not be minimized. That's about all the news from here, so here are some photos of the aforementioned Bounty and various pirates from Privateer Day last weekend in Baltimore:
HMS Bounty docked in Fells Point.
A reenactor explains how every piece of ship's equipment can be used as a weapon if necessary.
Items from a nautical medicine chest.
Food being cooked the traditional way at the encampment.
The Pride of Baltimore II, HMS Bounty, Schooner Farewell, and Lady Maryland were all in port near the encampment.
A local wild bird rescue organization had brought parrots for fundraising.
Late in the afternoon, the Bounty crew got her ready to sail...
...so she could go have a mock battle with the Pride of Baltimore.
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