It's the birthday of Allen Ginsberg, (books by this author) born in Newark, New Jersey (1926). His father was a schoolteacher and occasional poet. His mother was a Russian immigrant and devoted Marxist. She was in and out of psychiatric institutions all through out his childhood and had to undergo electric shock treatments and a lobotomy. Ginsberg went to Columbia University on a small scholarship and there he began consorting with Jack Kerouac, Neal Cassady, William Burroughs. After college, he got a job in marketing research, wore a business suit everyday, and had on office on the 52nd floor of the Empire State Building. He says he started writing there, and that there he learned about careful manipulation of words.
He moved to San Francisco and became friends with Lawrence Ferlinghetti, who published Ginsburg's first major work, Howl.
By his 30s, he was prematurely bald with a ring of hair on the fringe of his head and thick long black beard streaked with gray. He wore black rimmed classes and his Buddha belly was one of his most distinguishing features.
Ginsburg's reading of Howl was reputed to have "turned the 1950s into the 1960s overnight." It began:
I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked, dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix, angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of the night.
He once said, "There's no bar to us proclaiming our delight and that's the strength of poetry." ____________________________________________________________-
And here is an interview I did of an ex boyfriend, who was a good friend of Allen's until his untimely death.
'The Firm Ground of Poetry to Walk Upon' -- A Springfield Man Remembers Allen Ginsberg
Rajean Gallagher-Healy
With the death of Allen Ginsberg, his influence shifted from the direct to the indirect. Many of us were touched indirectly by him. Some, like Brian L. Jackson of Springfield, were influenced more directly.
At Ginsberg's suggestion, Brian attended the Naropa Institute, founded by Ginsberg among others in Colorado. Later he finished his degree at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. In between these two stints as a student, Brian lived with Gregory Corso, a close friend of Ginsberg's, in New York City, driving a taxi and reading his poetry locally in the City. After he left the U of I, Brian continued his friendship with the two and -- like so many of us -- was stunned when Ginsberg died April 7, 1997.
Brian was interviewed over the telephone and at the Whistle Post Hobby Shop, a store he owned until recently. He is now writing poetry fulltime. Following are: (1) an edited transcript of the interview in question-and-answer format with my questions indicated by "Q" and Brian's answers by "A"; and (2) excerpts from an account Brian wrote soon after Ginsberg's death of the time he spent with Ginsberg. Q. What were Allen's greatest gifts? What did you like and admire most about him?
A. Allen's emotional vulnerability and his willingness to be honest about it. He talked a lot about nakedness, "nakedness of open heart and mind." He expanded the subject matter in poetry because of his brutal personal honesty about his homosexuality and willingness to discuss it openly.
Q. Tell me about Allen's style. Who was he influenced by?
A. Stylistically by Ezra Pound and William Carlos Williams. He sought a combination of the concrete values of imagism, "listening to the crack of doom on the hydrogen jukebox." Surrealism and Dadaism. The rhythm of Allen's work was drawn from Walt Whitman's long line. A Miltonic buildup of adjectival sound.
Q. What do you miss the most?
A. Talking about the arts -- especially poetry. Also conversations about the conditions of this country now. One of our last conversations took place [in the mid-1990s] in Boulder, Colorado. Allen asked if the government was to blame for interferring with businesses, this then causing small businesses to fail. My response was, No, megacorporations were squeezing small businesses out. This is what Jack Kerouac wrote about, predicted in the 1940s and 1950s. Allen lived the life of an artist although he came from suburban working-class roots. He lived on the Lower East Side all of his life, and he was naive in some ways. For example, he never learned how to drive a car. Allen's father was also a poet -- a good one, at that. Allen's father [Louis Ginsberg] wrote traditional verse -- rhymes, iambic [meter], stanzas -- and he would walk around the house quoting [William] Blake. Allen's mother [Naomi] was a schizophreniac and allen had to order a frontal lobotomy for her when he was only 16 years old. I asked Allen once if his mother's mental illness made him homosexual, or influenced it. Allen's response? Yes. The thing about Allen was that he took on authority in a direct fashion. This was done in the Roman tradition of poets such as Ovid.
Allen objected to Vietnam. The 1960s were influenced by the Beat stance of the 1950s. The Gregory Corso poem, "Bomb," refers to his similar dislike of the Cold War. [William] Burroughs was the most political of them all -- almost all of his art deals with this them. By the early 1960s, Kerouac was declining into alcoholism. The Beat poets were from a diverse group, a true cross-section of America. William Burroughs was upper-class, old money. He was educated at Harvard. Gregory Corso was an orphan who was abandoned. He was a delinquent and had been in juvenile homes. Kerouac was from working-class people. He was an athlete and attended Columbia University on a football scholarship. Kerouac was strongly influenced by jazz and the black culture surrounding the music. He was the first white man to hear bebop in Harlem. This was in 1944, 1945 at Minton's when bebop was in its infancy.
None of this core group of Beat poets fit in -- they were rejects in some way. Kerouac was intrigued by the subterranean culture. The city was nowhere as harsh then as it is now. The experimental drug use, the experimental poetry and experimental music were appealing because they represented a non-official America.
Q. What legacy have the Beat poets left our culture?
A. They expanded the idea of personal freedom. This is the right to be true to one's personal identity. To not be squeezed into a conformity straight jacket, which in the 1950s could be taken literally.
Q. Is the Beat movement over now that Allen Ginsberg has died?
A. Only in the sense that Gregory [Corso] appears to be inactive. The "movement" has had, and continues to have, an enormous impact on non-academic poets and writers.
Editor's note: Jackson gave us permission to quote extensively from a talk he prepared for Springfield's Writers and Poets Forum in July 1997, a few months following Ginsberg's death. It gives a good up-close picture of Ginsberg and the help he characteristically gave to aspiring writers, along with such things as his fondness for jazz and the blues.
* * *
I first met Allen at a poetry reading he and William Burroughs were giving at the University of Kansas, at Lawrence. I asked him, with the entire English Department faculty circled around him, if he still dropped acid. There were titters all around. "Yes, and I combine it with Buddhist sitting meditation. Stick around afterwards and I'll show you" . . . Then he told me about the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics, which he had cofounded with Anne Walkman in Boulder, Colorado. I, naturally, did a Jack Kerouac style hitchhiking trip to Boulder, liked the energy there and a new-found girlfriend, and transferred there that summer.
Allen Ginsberg was one of the most generous, and selfless, persons I have ever known. He gave most of his money away, usually to other poets through a foundation called the Committee of International Poetry, or directly to poet and fellow beat Gregory Corso. He made it possible for me to attend New York University by renting one of his apartments to me for the princely sum of $64 a month. Allen lived in a Jacob Riis style tenement slum for most of his adult years. It was cheap, but it was a tiny fourth floor walkup in a heroin- and gang-blighted neighborhood. His apartments -- there were actually three -- were open to friends visiting New York. This meant that there was a constant parade of writers, musicians, and artists staying in his home. In fact, the main room of this apartment was given over to a full-blown office. It was located immediately next to Allen's bedroom. Allen had a full-time secretary by the name of Bob Rosenthal, who would arrive for work in the morning and start banging away at the typewriter, while Allen, who rarely got up before noon, would be sleeping inches away. Needless to say, this arrangement seemed very ad-hoc to this suburbanite kid. There wasn't even the suggestion of a living room!
Allen seemed to thrive on this sort of activity. He was frequently abroad in Europe in the early 1980s and just as frequently doing the same here in the states. For most of the decade of the 80s he made his living by doing readings. Later he taught creative writing at Brooklyn College and slackened his pace somewhat. He once admitted to me that he was a workaholic and could not help himself or say no to an engagement.
He was non-materialistic. One of the funniest things about him was the extreme lengths he would go to save money. Peter Orlovsky would wash their clothes in the bathtub instead of taking them to the Laundromat. As a result, I don't think that Allen ever had a white shirt. Allen never owned anything I could see with an approximate value of over about 48 bucks. The only exception to this was a Nazi-era Leica camera which became his one and only hobby. His stereo system was an 18-year old boom box that looked like he had picked it up, used, from a teenager on Times Square. All of his clothes were purchased from The Salvation Army on Avenue A and Third Street. I used to make the point with him that since he could afford to buy new clothes he was taking used ones away from those who couldn't. I recently reread a postcard which he sent me in which he thanks me for paying the phone, gas and rent bill, stating, almost in a panic, that he was nearly $2,000 in debt. He may not have been able to afford new clothes after all. The last time I stayed at his apartment I discovered, much too late, that Allen's facial towels did double duty as kitchen rags. He put up with all this because it meant he could afford to live as a dedicated artist.
* * *
The emotional honesty and forthrightness of country blues appealed to Allen. I think he found some precedent there for the same qualities in his poetry. Bessie Smith, Robert Johnson, Ma Rainey and especially Skip James. The later was unknown to me until Allen played this amazing record of him with Mississippi John Hurt made in some broken down hotel somewhere in Mississippi. Through Allen, I found out that Jack Kerouac was the first caucasoid present at Minton's where Bird, Monk and Diz were making bebop. This was in 1945. Allen said, "I didn't really understand what was going on but Jack did, and tried to explain it to me. He took me up there a couple of times." Allen was a bridge to the past. I will always remember his description of Charlie Parker's arrival at a party in a Greenwich Village loft: "As Bird mounted the stairs a young woman recognized him. 'Hi, Bird.' Bird responded with a drawn-out droll hipster style 'Hi, Doll, what's happening?' "
What were the Beatles like when [Ginsberg] first met them? Needlessly overawed. How did William Carlos Williams respond to Gregory Corso? With bemused kindness. He loved to answer these sorts of questions. He was a kind of walking university. He loved to explain and teach, and he always found time to do so for the young and ignorant. His library and record collection were always open to me and to any student who expressed interest. He conducted walking tours of New York City, pointing out where W.H. Auden had lived, e.e. cummings, or Jackson Pollack. The White Horse tavern where Dylan Thomas drank his last; the Cedar Tavern where Frank O'Hara, Willem De Kooning and Beat writers met in the fifties; the automat on 42nd Street that figures in Howl; Birdland on 52nd Street; the St. Mark's bar where Monk and 'Trane played in the 60s; the Russian immigrant Jewish neighborhood where his mother had lived as a little girl; Lucky Luciano's old tenement building ten blocks from Allen's. I was truly an education in some of the art and cultural history of this country. [The musicians mentioned by nickname are jazzmen Charlie "Bird" Parker, Thelonious Monk, Dizzy Gillespie and John Coltrane.]
* * *
The last time I saw Allen was in Boulder three summers ago [in 1994]. He was in ill health. He was suffering from congestive heart failure and could only operate several minutes, then his head would bow down and he would have to lie down and rest. I knew then that Allen was not going to have a nice old age. He had hoped to have a late reflowering into Whitman's Good Grey Poet, [but] he was much diminished. When he finally was diagnosed correctly [with pancreatic cancer], the doctor gave him two to eight months. He had only five days. His last moments were spent listening to Ma Rainey belt out "C.C. Rider." He put the record on, adjusted the volume, walked to his bed and lapsed into a coma.
The important thing to remember about Allen was his emotional honesty and courage; whether it meant confronting the humiliation of his homosexuality in Joe McCarthy's America,as he did in Howl, or coming to terms with his excruciatingly painful relationship with his mother, Naomi, as he did in Kaddish. It is a measure of him as an artist that he recorded and ultimately found some dignity in these experiences and made them into art for us. Remember also, his generosity and compassion: he backed me off a suicide trip and gave me the firm ground of poetry to walk upon. He did the same for other men and women.
Currently
listening
:
Mother of the Blues
By
Ma Rainey
Release date: 2007-07-17
To be a successful trainer of elephants, one must possess five simple qualifications: good health, confidence, diligence, sincerity of purpose and wisdom.
~From The Teachings of Buddha Donated by Buddhist Promoting Foundation, Japan
On some nondescript, but cinematically moonlit street in Any Small Town, USA, You are stumbling half awake- trippin over Carnhart overalls and beat-assed work boots, And you are always hungry.
room to room wandering, a backlit ghost in the angry machinery of existence, ( and dying inside, knowing you are only half alive) your mind is a steady juxtaposition of thoughts: destiny jumbled jauntily on top of eternity— and under your fingertips, your gentle-giant hand finds the light switch, as your mind displays
a bizarre mental PowerPoint,
a series of buddhist images including: An azure square bowl filled with water. a crayola interpretation of the smell of Chance, and a small photo of the jewels hidden in your shirt pocket.
And suddenly, brilliantly! you utterly grok the necessity of elephant training.
and how it's leg apparently feels suspiciously like a giant carrot. or a pedestal,
or perhaps, even, a leg.
by now, the three fires of the world are burning on your ancient gas range. And you realize you aren't enlightened, It's just the neon glowing overhead.
The Constitution will be discarded? Gen. Franks opinion
Current mood: ashamed
Category: News and Politics
Gen. Franks Doubts Constitution Will Survive WMD Attack
John O. Edwards, NewsMax.com Friday, Nov. 21, 2003
Gen. Tommy Franks says that if the United States is hit with a weapon of mass destruction that inflicts large casualties, the Constitution will likely be discarded in favor of a military form of government.
Franks, who successfully led the U.S. military operation to liberate Iraq, expressed his worries in an extensive interview he gave to the men's lifestyle magazine Cigar Aficionado.
In the magazine's December edition, the former commander of the military's Central Command warned that if terrorists succeeded in using a weapon of mass destruction (WMD) against the U.S. or one of our allies, it would likely have catastrophic consequences for our cherished republican form of government.
Discussing the hypothetical dangers posed to the U.S. in the wake of Sept. 11, Franks said that "the worst thing that could happen" is if terrorists acquire and then use a biological, chemical or nuclear weapon that inflicts heavy casualties.
If that happens, Franks said, "... the Western world, the free world, loses what it cherishes most, and that is freedom and liberty we've seen for a couple of hundred years in this grand experiment that we call democracy."
Franks then offered "in a practical sense" what he thinks would happen in the aftermath of such an attack.
"It means the potential of a weapon of mass destruction and a terrorist, massive, casualty-producing event somewhere in the Western world – it may be in the United States of America – that causes our population to question our own Constitution and to begin to militarize our country in order to avoid a repeat of another mass, casualty-producing event. Which in fact, then begins to unravel the fabric of our Constitution. Two steps, very, very important."
Franks didn't speculate about how soon such an event might take place.
Already, critics of the U.S. Patriot Act, rushed through Congress in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks, have argued that the law aims to curtail civil liberties and sets a dangerous precedent.
But Franks' scenario goes much further. He is the first high-ranking official to openly speculate that the Constitution could be scrapped in favor of a military form of government.
The usually camera-shy Franks retired from U.S. Central Command, known in Pentagon lingo as CentCom, in August 2003, after serving nearly four decades in the Army.
Franks earned three Purple Hearts for combat wounds and three Bronze Stars for valor. Known as a "soldier's general," Franks made his mark as a top commander during the U.S.'s successful Operation Desert Storm, which liberated Kuwait in 1991. He was in charge of CentCom when Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda attacked the United States on Sept. 11.
Franks said that within hours of the attacks, he was given orders to prepare to root out the Taliban in Afghanistan and to capture bin Laden.
Franks offered his assessment on a number of topics to Cigar Aficionado, including:
President Bush: "As I look at President Bush, I think he will ultimately be judged as a man of extremely high character. A very thoughtful man, not having been appraised properly by those who would say he's not very smart. I find the contrary. I think he's very, very bright. And I suspect that he'll be judged as a man who led this country through a crease in history effectively. Probably we'll think of him in years to come as an American hero." (* I find this doubtful, he is already perceived as being one of the worst presidents)
On the motivation for the Iraq war: Contrary to claims that top Pentagon brass opposed the invasion of Iraq, Franks said he wholeheartedly agreed with the president's decision to invade Iraq and oust Saddam Hussein.
"I, for one, begin with intent. ... There is no question that Saddam Hussein had intent to do harm to the Western alliance and to the United States of America. That intent is confirmed in a great many of his speeches, his commentary, the words that have come out of the Iraqi regime over the last dozen or so years. So we have intent.
"If we know for sure ... that a regime has intent to do harm to this country, and if we have something beyond a reasonable doubt that this particular regime may have the wherewithal with which to execute the intent, what are our actions and orders as leaders in this country?"
The Pentagon's deck of cards: Asked how the Pentagon decided to put its most-wanted Iraqis on a set of playing cards, Franks explained its genesis. He recalled that when his staff identified the most notorious Iraqis the U.S. wanted to capture, "it just turned out that the number happened to be about the same as a deck of cards. And so somebody said, 'Aha, this will be the ace of spades.'"
Capturing Saddam: Franks said he was not surprised that Saddam has not been captured or killed. But he says he will eventually be found, perhaps sooner than Osama bin laden.
"The capture or killing of Saddam Hussein will be a near term thing. And I won't say that'll be within 19 or 43 days. ... I believe it is inevitable." (Oh, yeah. That happened, si?)
Franks ended his interview with a less-than-optimistic note. "It's not in the history of civilization for peace ever to reign. Never has in the history of man. ... I doubt that we'll ever have a time when the world will actually be at peace."
The world has been at peace before. I find his conclusion to be yet another justification of the 'nasty brutish and short' philosophy that is such bullshit. For an interesting counterpoint, consider the Seville Statement on Violence.
(I know this is dated, but it seems topical considering this adminstrations terror warning policies)
I was asked this the other day and it got me to wondering: How long have I been an angry black woman? (please stop laughing, folks.)
I suppose it started when I lived in the projects in Springfield. (The Hayes Homes and then Brandon Addition) Being very young, I didn't realize that I was not really black until I was called a 'honky' during the race conflicts of the early 1970's. This was about the time that my sister had someone try to set her 'good' hair on fire on the school bus.
Most white people don't care if they are called honky- or cracker or gringo...but I know what it means to be called these kinds of names. It means "You are not one of us. You are an outsider. You are one of THEM. Fuck off." But socially I was not one of 'them' and still am not. For several years in Chicago, I worked in 'Obama's 'hood.'--or more accurately, several blocks from the gated communities he frequents that are smacked into the middle of the ghetto.
I was the only white worker in the Martin Luther King Center, teaching GED to low-level literacy students. .. Ever been a minority 'white' person before? It's eye opening.
The infamous South Side of Chicago. The home of the infamous Jazz venue The Regal theater, and the site where former poet laureate Gwendolyn Brooks wrote her most outstanding poetry. It is also home to the most devastating poverty that I have ever seen in my life. The residents call it Bronzeville. At one point, Bronzeville was Little Harlem, the new beginning for post-bellum Americans of African descent hoping for a better life. A beautiful community full of brownstones and gorgeous avenues and all-Black businesses. After de-segregation, many black folks fled Bronzeville, hoping to escape the racism that followed them even there. The result was black flight on a scale rarely seen before, culminating in a financially and spiritually devastated community.
Like Bill Clinton's office in Harlem, I am here to tell you that Obama's South Chicago is now home to million dollar reclaimed homes, an almost-gated community where the poor cannot afford to live. A place where going one block in the 'wrong' direction will lead you into crack-head infested gangland like most of y'all have only seen on television. A place that Obama could not walk alone unescorted. A place Bill and Hillary will never visit. So the next time you hear his Message of Hope, consider this: being an American of African descent Politician does not make you any more likely to help black folk than being a woman will make you likely to help women's rights. It's not about skin color or gender, its about commitment to real change, not just a change in symbolic terms.
Tomorrow it will be two years since a friend of my family killed himself. This is in honor of him, RIP Joey Burgess. ____________________________________________
Verse Libre in Two Parts for Joey and Rick. (RIP, gentlemen) The Gift of Suicide Part One:
Rick did it with drama and flair: splitting hairs behind the community pool, endowed with fine wit, fury and potential. A divorce left him goal-blind, 5 years ago, he went cruising online & purchased several pieces on E-Bay. .He utilized that brilliant mind to assemble the weapon of his own destruction, then blew it all away.
The fall from the house of Burgess though not as dramatic, is most recent: Joey left this life at 17. His Boy Scout knots clean and tied onto the antennae of his childhood home. Goaded, shamed, disregarded, he jumped. And he wasn’t alone.
They lightened the load, but left us with a sordid mental lunch box filled with grief & Why didn’t I’s ? That’s the gift of suicide. and there’s a gift, no doubt: this final act lifts the burden off of them intact, finally: distributing it most evenly on the psyche of everyone nearby, in the room, on the phone, next door.
PART 2 Moralists suggest: It’s a sinners way to go. You might as well say that its a losers way you know~as if some Santa Claus-lookin-motherfucker is gonna give you a karmic bozo button for hanging in until the cancer-eaten, cardiac-arrested bitter end.
And who knows? Perhaps we are mammalian lemmings in our shiny metal trailers and semis. Self- thinning the herd of people who feel too much, hold on to their pain..those who lack that extra layer of reptilian skin to repel lifes biological, nuclear & emotional weapons.
The only other solution, is that army of medical clowns arriving on time with the ice cream and narcotics, some serious soporific shit guaranteed to keep another soul from taking an early dive off of the stage & into the footlights.
Rest in peace, gentle men. Rest in peace, gentle souls.
Apologies to all of you who have seen this one before. It's been requested that I repost a couple more of my poems. This is the third poem I wrote, circa 2005.
It Takes a Long Time to Simply Be ~Rajean Gallagher 2005
Clothes and shame hit the floor silently they fall from me, as soon as I see You and I believe that longing to be is not belonging transposed, then torn apart. &
I truly believe that longing to be is not some discreet variable sewn into the fabric of life as clothes and shame hit the floor silently.
Tony Blair is speaking here at the ’local’ college tonight..
Category: News and Politics
And, I have to admit that I am as interested in his speechmaking at the 'local' college as I am in the medieval dental practices of Serbo-Croatian monks and their influence on the flatulence of prehensile dinosaur-toy operators in canada.
Just saying.
Ever notice how Bush and Blair look alike?
I understand why George looks like his daddy-
<
But why does George's daddy look like this guy?
(Choose one—it doesn't matter which!)
And why do they all look like Dan Quayle?
Dan the Tomatoe Man is, by the way, a graduate of DePauw university. Consider the quality of such an education.
If you didn't know any better, you'd think the Greco-Roman Briton empire had simply stretched its genitals across the big water and deposited a bunch of seamen on the east coast of the united states.
Just saying.
And- of note: the campus gossip machine claims that Blair is being paid upwards of $400,000. for his speech giving exercise tonight at DePauw. That's about 20 times the average annual income of the 'townies' here. At that rate, its twenty years worth of work in one night.
*******************
Doors Will Open at 5 for Monday's Tony Blair Lecture; E-Mail a Question
..[if gte vml 1]>..[endif]-->February 27, 2008, Greencastle, Ind. - Security measures which are being put in place for Tony Blair's Monday visit to DePauw University will require that doors open at 5 p.m. and that all attendees pass through metal detectors. Additionally, those who wish to submit a question for the former prime minister of Great Britain and Northern Ireland are being invited to e-mail queries now.
Blair's address, "Challenges and Opportunities Facing 21st Century Citizens of the World," is presented by the Timothy and Sharon Ubben Lecture Series and will begin at 7:30 p.m. in the Lilly Center's Neal Fieldhouse (702 S. College Avenue). The event is freeand open to all on a first-come, first-served basis. Doors will close at 7 p.m. or earlier if the venue is full before that time. There will be no pass-outs.
"This will perhaps be the largest event DePauw has ever hosted, given that Mr. Blair has been out of office for less than a year and continues to be a prominent world newsmaker in his current role as Quartet Representative on the Middle East," says Ken Owen '82, executive director of media relations at DePauw, who coordinates the Ubben Lecture Series. "We want to be certain that all members of the DePauw community, as well as the many visitors who have made it clear they plan to travel to Greencastle Monday, are aware of the provisions that have been put in place."
There will be two separate entrances for attendees, both of which will require individuals to go through metal detectors to gain admission to the building:
DePauw Students, Faculty and Staff - will enter ..[if gte vml 1]>..[endif]-->
from the east side of the Lilly Center and must present a valid DePauw identification card to gain admittance. Only the person holding the ID will gain admittance; others must use the public entrance. This entrance will open at 5 p.m. and close at 6:30 p.m.
Public - will enter from the north side of the Lilly Center. This entrance will open at 5 p.m. and close at 7 p.m.
"We are very aware that these stipulations are unusual for a campus event, but this is, indeed, an unusual occasion," says Angela Nally, director of public safety at DePauw. "Working with external agencies, we're ensuring that we get everyone into and out of the building in a timely manner and, most importantly, take the necessary security precautions for Mr. Blair and the 5,000 people we expect to be on hand for his remarks."
She adds, "I would strongly urge people to assume that the venue will be filled by 7, if not before, and plan accordingly."
A closed-circuit videocast of the event cannot be produced, thus the only way to witness the speech is to procure a seat in Neal Fieldhouse.
At Monday's event, the following will be prohibited inside the Lilly Center:
Bags or backpacks
Cameras
Cell phones
Signs
Key chains with mace or pepper spray attachments
Rain is in the forecast for Monday. Please note that umbrellas will be permitted.
As stated previously, all guests must pass through metal detectors to gain entry to the venue. It is advised that attendees carry as little with them as possible; objects that are deemed problematic by security officials will preclude an individual from entering the Lilly Center.
As was the case for the October 2005 visit of Mikhail Gorbachev, student journalists from each of DePauw's three media outlets (The DePauw, WGRE radio and D3TV) will question Tony Blair at the conclusion of his remarks. You are invited to submit questions for them to present to Mr. Blair at communityconversations@depauw.edu.
Blair becomes the fifth former prime minister of Britain to speak at DePauw. Harold Macmillan, whose grandfather was a graduate of Indiana Asbury, provided the 1958 commencement address as the sitting prime minister. Harold Wilson presented a 1981 talk. The Ubben Lecture Series brought Margaret Thatcher to campus in 1992 and John Major in 2001. (at left: Prime Minister Macmillan and DePauw President Russell J. Humbert riding through Greencastle in a convertible)
This is one I wrote about 6 months ago. I re-worked it for logical flow, which was missing in the first write. Feel free to kick its ass or love it or both.
Camus, "Create Dangerously"
Be wise, ask divinity to spare you from living in interesting times.~ proverb
Unfortunately,
we are living in most interesting times,
and artists are the conscience of the world.
In pursuit of divinity,
but trying to not rebel,
means forgetting that every publication
is a public action.
Poetic attacks of patriotic melancholy
are a living reproach to eternity,
for only great art peers through our souls
and into our progeny.
Regrettably, passionate eras are quite unforgiving.
Camus believed, and I concur:
'to create today is to create dangerously.'
(several phrases in this were blatantly taken fromResistance, Rebellion and Death, by Camus. Some are paraphrases of his thoughts with my own added in for emphasis and the rest-including form or lack thereof, are mine and are copywritten as such, 2007)
NYC after 9/11 a student's villanelle by Rajean Gallagher
I first visited New York City after 9/11. Perched in a window, I'm remembering her as I peer out over Avenue of the Americas.
The pigeons and countless mourning doves smack and flatter, metal and steel eyes watching, as they fly over New York, after 9/11.
At the Imagine Memorial, three roses for John. I think of Rome sacked yet again by Vandals, looking over Avenue of the Americas, I will
never forget how it felt to see this beautiful woman weep: remembering New York after 9/11. Nor will I forget the
terrorized pterodactyl screams of Fire Truck 5 descending upon the single human beast we all became as pedestrians on Avenue of the Americas.
and the utter profound silence that smothered every single sound as we looked to the skies after 9/11 in New York, remembering this as I perch above Avenue of the Americas
ashamed
February 27, 2008, Greencastle, Ind. - Security measures which are being put in place for Tony Blair's Monday visit to DePauw University will require that doors open at 5 p.m. and that all attendees pass through metal detectors. Additionally, those who wish to submit a question for the former prime minister of Great Britain and Northern Ireland are being invited to 