| L and I were in Berkeley and Oakland for nearly one week, visiting C, D, E, and other friends, giving slide shows, walking the areas, and generally appreciating this change in venue. Staying with C on Stuart St in west Berkeley, one evening watching the film Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill, we met JM, sat with her, walked her home. Later, for the show at the Ts, J came to see it. This was a high moment for me, JM of despair and empowerment work from the 1980s with the nuke threat, of deep Buddhist ecology, of the Great Turning, and other major feats of human achievement. Walking home, I mentioned to her Leslie Marmon Silko’s book, Almanac of the Dead, about the army of the south, the great turning. J told us she thought that perhaps we are into that moment now, with the Katrina devastation revealing the depths of governmental rot apparent to more and more people. Whether that insight sparks action is unknown. We have the Sept 24 DC march and rally and civil disobedience to use of an indicator. As we greeted C at her home, we heard the good news from J and L: C has arrived. Labor lasted 30 hours, C’s shoulder stuck in the birth canal (a posterior delivery, is that the term?), from home to hospital and from natural birth to C-section with drugs. J was tired, in pain, and relieved. But C, judging by the words I’ve heard and the photos I’ve seen, is gorgeous, long, large, and happy, all apparently, and is a prefect-appearing new human being. This marks a turning pt not only for C, and for J and L, but for me and for L. We are now grandparents. Despite my misgivings about introducing new blood into a gorged planetary body, I am ecstatic. The mystery of birth remains powerful, nearly irresistible, thus the continuing burgeoning of the population. Thus perhaps our own destruction as a species. We might also inquire how this birth process will affect C, whether something in his nature will be traceable to this moment of emergence. Perhaps his truncated exit will manifest psychologically. Will I be around to observe? When C is 20, I’ll be 84, if alive at all. Another mark of distinction to this trip was D’s injury: he was mugged, or assaulted as he named it, while walking home from the Bart station in Oakland. As he reported the event (groggily to me, as he walked in, sank to a sofa, moaning), I’d gotten out of the station, was walking on 41st and Telegraph Ave, there were many people around. Then, out of the blue, wham, right in the eye. A loud whooshing sound, great pain, and I fell down. Someone kicked me in my side. As I groped about for my glasses and to get up, I saw 3 very young and fairly small black boys, each about 14 years old, running down the street. A black man was just getting into his car, called out, can I drive you home? In a flash, I thought, this could be a setup, a dazed old man needing assistance, they get me in the car and rob me. Now I’m pissed at myself for not accepting that kind offer, he probably meant well. I photographed D, with his permission, thinking this could be evidence later. The series of 3 shows him looking dramatically downcast, his eye socket ringed red and starting to turn blue. Was his eye ok, this a crucial question? We found an ice pack for him, E cleaned him off and drove him to Kaiser hospital’s emergency room. He sat there for about 3 hrs, came home with 20 stitches as we were just finishing preparing for the evening’s slide show. He had transformed into that old D we love and admire, jolly, affable, ready to introduce me and explain to his friends, yes, this is D, and here is why I look this way… He learned from the police who came to the hospital to interview him for the report that this might be part of a pattern. Recently, 3 others had been assaulted, all elderly people, D thought probably white. I speculated this might be gang initiation. I hope to follow developments. Riding back to Napa with L we wondered if Katrina had generated more anger that leads to incidents like this. And whether this mugging is exactly what exacerbates racism. A white person would be well advised to be watchful of young black youth. Thus profiling in action. Why not? It is a survival technique. And this fuels black rage, in turn generating more racism. The endless cycle, the thesis of Derrick Bell’s prophetic book, Faces at the Bottom of the Well, the idea that racism will never end but that we must constantly try to end it. +++++ Another highlight of the journey to the city was Alcatraz. D and I visited, riding 2 ferries, from Oakland port to San Francisco, then to the island. This mythically important spot was swarming with visitors. Most I’m certain, were drawn by the prison history, some might have wished to learn about the native history, others the geological and army histories. They were reverential. The interior felt like a church. We might have been sensing the enormous suffering experienced by so many on this tiny island. Most of the site is open, including the cellblock perched high on the hilltop. The explanatory panels claim a prison life of relative freedom and ease—good and ample food, assured medical services, recreation, but living in tight quarters, some 6 by 9 ft, about the size of most bathrooms, with an occasional trip to the hole, same size, but no opening to the outer world. An army prison predated the federal prison. The transition was in the 1930s, the last prison closed in the early 1960s. There were no documented successful escapes, but many attempts, and some of these resulted in lost prisoners, presumably drowned. American Indians took over the site in 1969 and held it for about 20 months. The American Indian Movement either grew out of this or was founded here. Special to this visit was the photo exhibit, Prisoners of Age. This was startling. About 25 aged prisoners, 50 years and up, were shown on huge banner-sized photos, each about 10 ft tall, 3 wide, in the basement of the cell block, with texts about who they were, why in prison, and what they felt about their lives. Many had lived long lives of crime, a few were new to it, many had drunk and drugged themselves into oblivion and in acts of rage killed or hurt others. Several did not remember the incident that landed them in prison. Most were expecting to die in captivity. Many were ailing. Unlike the messages about Alcatraz prison, this display indicted the prison system savagely, which in my mind was a positive development. Many visitors lingered over the exhibit. The show travels and has been or will be exhibited in other prisons. One of my best photos from the Alcatraz trip shows a group of visitors looking upwards, with cells behind them, a mysterious light illuminating them. In reality they are watching as a ranger explains the operation. But the impression looms clear, more fantastical, so I hope. —Journal, September 14, 2005 On the fifteenth of September, the day of the second court appearance of the Cambridge Seven, and I’m not present but still here in Napa, relatively safe, reading about others impaled by the consequences of fear and greed in the book, Homeland, by Dale Maharidge and Michael Williamson. With these few paltry dreams: on a large ice covered lake, with others, including family, skittering about on curious self-propelled iceboats. They were actually more like bicycles and moved rapidly across the ice. We were warned to stay within a certain safe perimeter. I waited until late to try one, then excelled. As we rode they turned into Frisbees and I was high on an ice mound expertly throwing Frisbees down below. Secondly, it was the end of a college term, I’d been teaching filmmaking. I came to my office and found my desk splattered with caked on dried up colas. Someone had turned my radio to a different station playing rock. There were other and numerous signs of others using my private facility. Plus, a colleague, maybe S or J, younger, also engaged in teaching media, informed me in effect that I’d been fired. No warning, no justification, no recompense, just let go. Much like my experience at Boston College, I thought in the dream, and upon awakening. I prepared to leave, angry but not willing to confront authorities. I wondered about my students, whether they’d find me for the final work. I or someone had made arrangements for the students to eat if needed, and exactly where and thru whom was unclear. ++++++++ Primarily, I felt A’s immense and barely moderated suffering. At the point of tears constantly (much like me after Gaza), her voice soft, she radiated hurt, not survival and strength. Maybe she wouldn’t be such a good writing partner. She told L Buddhism saved her, it is her muscle. L was very empathetic, sighing and commiserating compassionately. A invited us to a Zen sitting on Saturday morning, with a dharma talk following. We attended, sitting a long hour or so, then rapidly walking in meditation thru the gardens of the center and out onto the sidewalk for all to see, a parade of practitioners. The talk was a bit stodgy, about not knowing, and reveling in that and building from it. This reminded me of my frequent state of affairs in the Levant. She also introduced me to the dialog group consisting of Palestinians and Israelis, Jews and gentiles, who’ve been together for years sharing views and insights about the middle east. There I met the radiant JH. The topic was the Gaza pullout, but Joy, moderating, invited comments about Katrina and the current terror and how all that might connect with Gaza. I offered Osama bin Laden’s remark about what motivated the choice of attack. He said, when we saw Israel destroying the high-rise buildings in Beruit, we decided to hit comparable buildings in the US. We’ll see what if anything develops from this meeting. And finally, to end this account—my walk to the Emeryville shell mounds. I’m not sure I ever actually arrived there. Mounds are mostly covered or otherwise destroyed. They mark the sites of eating, of course, but also burials, and Indians regard them as sacred. They ring the bay. L is promoting a shell walk scheduled for late autumn this year, organized by Native people, modeled after Nipponzan Myohoji’s walks, and will be participated in by Jun-san herself, the queen of such walks. L hopes to join. I won’t. So I thought, well, here I am for now, close by one of the more infamous shell sites, where recently and after much controversy a developer built a mall over the Emeryville mounds. I aimed myself south, to reach the coast, but I had no good idea how to get there on foot. I was soon blocked from reaching the water by train tracks and expressways. But I found myself on Shell Mound Drive, paralleling the tracks and highway, less than 1/2 mile from the water. To get here I had to dive into a road tunnel, the walkway covered with strewn about moldering remains of homeless housing, the sidewalk disappearing. Up to the tracks, across in other ways because rail workers were present, and a long walk past massive housing developments, arriving finally at a mall. I’m not sure I found the actual site in question, but any site will do in this region. The walk allowed me to imagine 300 yrs ago, before white inundation, when Natives ruled. —Here, friend, have a clam. Just throw the shell on that heap over there. Stay awhile, we’re going to bury one of our elders. You can help us celebrate her life. And then stay overnight if you wish. We have plenty of wikum space. I know you have a long way to walk to get home tomorrow, on the other side of the bay. I drank coffee at borders cafe, ate a small cookie, sat outside musing about being Indian. The slide show work is progressing. Having a live audience helps immensely. Tho who to listen to for criticism is not easy. One says, too many maps (D), others say, needs maps. Some say, great music (the musician at the Boston show), others (L) say get rid of that ugly sound. Some say too long, others say the show needs filling out. Etc. But I move ahead, inch by painful and often satisfying inch. One of the great advantages of digital is how easy borrowing is from other shows. I need a certain map, a certain face? Just find the show, locate the slide, copy and paste. I’m also getting more experience in thinking about the audience. Zen center—Buddhist principles. T’s—Jewish friends of theirs in the audience (tho they didn’t come). Local Napa show—olive harvest. Santa Cruz—some well informed people in the audience and the presence of my first tour leader. —Journal, September 15, 2005 |