from “Travel Wonders of the World”

WHATHAPPENED | a fictional memoir
About ~ Chapter 1 ~ Chapter 2 ~ Chapter 3 ~ Chapter 3.5 ~
Chapter 4 ~ Chapter 5 ~ Chapter 5.5 ~ Chapter 6

Chapter 6: Cockateels and Cops

“There is no progress in art, any more than there is progress in making love. There are simply different ways of doing it.” ~ Man Ray, from his 1948 essay, “To Be Continued, Unnoticed”

It is no good telling what the view is like from the observatory decks of la Tour Eiffel on the Champ de Mars.  Of course, it is spectacular up there. Of course, it is grand and you think of Napoleon and Hitler, all the relentless conquerors who thought they could rule this singular place for a thousand years. Now, they are gone, Paris still here. Not burning after all, except for the bronze sunlight burning off the fog floating in tendrils above the meandering Seine.

Or what it smells like inside Shakespeare and Co., in the 5^th arrondissement on the Left Bank. Dust and old linseed oil. Perhaps Hemingway’s rummy sweat lingering on the air amid the floor-to-ceiling stacks of books and books and books. And is that Man Ray’s shade in the Poet’s Corner scanning his “Self Portrait”?

And Notre Dame – yes, yes, it is big. Cavernous, with rapturous curves carved from stone old as the surrounding river. Sonorous inside when you scuffle your shoes or emit an owlish ‘whoo!’ into the candle-scented air. The sound scatters in the rose-colored light to a hundred alcoves where shaded saints wait your supplication, echos clattering off the distant ceiling where ten million prayers have jostled for God’s attention. And before that, for Jupiter’s favor in the temple Romans built here, on an island the French would name Ile-de-la-Cité, once they got their hands on it.

But you’ll have to see for yourself as this is no tour guide, or at least no guide to average Parisian sights (if such a thing exists). Paris and I — and this is no boast — had this short, tempestuous affair. It ended badly, as tempestuous affairs often do. I cannot say I’d do it again. It was, of course, my fault, not hers. Jimmy’s. Mine. All that’s left are imperfect memories, probably a few falsehoods. Some singular souvenirs. The usual keening and longing for something that won’t come again in this life. So let’s begin. Again. We may as well start with hashish and a few places to find it in Arab Paris. But that was our night life. First, the days. (more…)

The disturbing rise in violent threats against congressional officials in the wake of health care reform’s passage – and the namby pamby response by Republicans – is worthy of note by all who care about the health of this country. Josh Marshall at Talking Points puts it best in a post aptly titled “The Undying Shame”:

I’m not sure John Boehner making a generic statement that violence, threats and vandalism aren’t legitimate parts of the Health Care Reform debate really cuts it. Especially when his own congressional campaign committee is actively downplaying the importance of violent incidents and even blaming them on the victims. Thankfully, no one has been injured or killed. But this didn’t come from nowhere and it can’t be pawned off on a few cranks. Everything that’s happened over the last five days has grown from a pattern of incitement going back almost a year — wildly hyperbolic statements, coded appeals to menacing behavior, flippant jokes about bringing firearms to political events and all the rest.

Now Eric Cantor (R-VA) is going on the attack, claiming that who’s really to blame here is the Democrats for making a big deal about these acts of violence against them. No one who is even remotely honest can pretend that anything about this is bipartisan in character. The Right and yes the national Republican party has been stirring this pot for months. We all see this. Cantor’s behavior is shameful beyond imagining. It’s time for a truth moment for the national Republican party. Incitement matters. They have to take responsibility for what they’ve done: which is nothing less than a campaign of incitement for which they’re now unwilling to take any responsibility.

Taking a moment in the audio booth of Audible Arts Studio in Princeton, WV. The results will be released into the wild this summer. But hear the debut of our new musical theatrical troupe, Third Eye Cabaret, on Saturday, April 3,  at the RiffRaff’s Room Upstairs in a free, collective concert starting 6 p.m. that caps off AllTogetherArts Week in Mercer County. The show features Option 22, the Captain Lazerblast Band, Kathleen Coffee, Melissa McKinney, Briddy & the Buzz and Third Eye Cabaret. Starting about 11 a.m. that Saturday, catch the colorful parade down Mercer Street, followed by a drum circle in the park across the street. I need new parade headgear for the 2010 parade. Last year, I wore the back-half of a cow pinata from  my daughter’s 12th birthday celebration. There’s photographic evidence somewhere. Plus, if you look closely on a sunny day you can probably still see the glitter glinting in the middle of the street from last year’s boisterous, many handfuls of it flung into the Mercer Street air.  See here for more details on the day.

“I have seen wicked men and fools, a great many of both; and I believe they both get paid in the end; but the fools first.”

~ Robert Louis Stevenson (“Kidnapped,” 1886)