Here are photos from this morning in Zuccotti Park. The crowd is sparse now.Cat guy is still there, however.
Archive for November 2011
Update on Zuccotti Park (Occupy Wall Street) – 11/21/11
November 21, 2011Not Exactly a Holiday Card – Some (Also Not Exactly Pet) Peeves In NYC Pre-Thanksgiving
November 21, 2011
- Since when did the twelve days of Christmas begin mid-November?
(Make that the beginning of November, if you taking NYC store windows into account.) - Since when did “Black” describe any weekday that did not bring the crash of world financial markets?Hey, is there some dark connection? Between the frenzied buying of supposed discounts and the collapse of world markets? (Yes, I know consumerism is supposed to be good for the economy, but I’m thinking long-term here.)
- Reader Alert: yuck ahead. Since when did rats take over night time NYC? Sure, they’ve always lurked, but lately it has been almost impossible to go at night without having one’s path crossed.I hate rats. It may be a mother thing. It may also be a slither thing. An up-you-leg-thing. A slimy-tail-thing. A horrible-little-squirmy-claw=big-decisive-teeth thing.
BLOOMBERG==Forget about Occupy Wall Street. What are you going to do about the rats?
And if you do nothing, how are we going to (a) walk around looking at Christmas lights, (b) doing midnight shopping?
Magpie Tales 92 – He loved Fellini–“Like a Cello (or Two)”
November 20, 2011
Here’s my offering (fresh off the press) for Magpie Tales 92, a very cool writing/photo blog hosted by Tess Kincaid. I’ve modified Tess’s wonderful photo, and I’m afraid my offering may show my age. (If you don’t know the references, check them out!)
Like a Cello (or Two)
He loved Fellini;
She tended towards George Cukor:
Mastroianni led the forward skip of
his self-style–hers Audrey, champagne
lightness in black flats, though she also
kept Marcello in the loop. (And how!)
Like a cello, each body curved–
a cello clothed in case for protective
carry through black/white streets till
he carried her to sheets too soft
for his tweed jacket, her bare arms
making up the smoothness gap.
Like a bow was the straight line of their connection–but
how can two cellos be played upon at once?
They managed it.
(P.S. – edited this very slightly since sending out–taking out “a” before case. And I really feel like something about reverberation should be added. Any ideas.)
Change Poem – Mother/Daughter/Sister/Hands (“Making It Better”)
November 19, 2011
DVerse Poets Pub has a “Poetics” challenge to write about change today which set me to thinking of both the new and old. Here’s the resulting poem:
Making it Better
I think today, the anniversary of my daughter’s birth,
of my mother’s grace–
how she came to my hospital bed at 8 a.m.,
two hours after leaving her sister’s,
her favorite red blouse catching
the robin’s egg fluorescents, the curled tips
of her brown hair carefully
slipped back as she
bent over over the bassinet,
exuding unshadowed wonder.
My mother, who never made any
decision without vocal re-thinks,
not asking me
at that time
how she should dress
her sister–whether the funeral home’s gown
would not be too frilly–she worked after all,
had a career—
carrying only in the back of her dark eyes
the echos of that laboring pant
that strains so to keep on–
My mother, cupping
my daughter’s still-damp head,
in the same cool hands that had
stroked my forehead as a child, as her mother
had stroked hers, and that now,
when she’s been sisterless
and motherless for many years,
stroke her own forehead, wiping
the thinned hair back.
Like this, like this, she shows me,
running her palms over the
join of face and crown–
her particular self and her
universal self–I just find
that it makes me feel better.
More Pix of OWS (Zuccotti Park)- 11/18/11 – A Whole Lot of Chatting Going On
November 19, 2011
Sorry to those who are not interested, but I walk by Zuccotti Park frequently, and find the changing dynamic kind of fascinating (though my iPhone pix don’t really convey it.)
Yesterday (Friday, November 18), was a much calmer day–a whole lot of chatting going on: Protesters or bystanders with the police (some of the younger protestors were kind of taunting, but most people seemed just to talk)==the police gabbing with each other–the Brooksfield people (I think they are the security guards in neon green vests) moaning with each other–the protestors chanting, and in the evening, singing soft songs.
The Daily Show had a piece by Samantha Bee talking about the divisions in the park before the break-up. I had not specifically focused on these before, but I think Bee’s piece was really accurate–the library, the speak and repeat crowd, the bicycle generators (all put together by the more “intellectual” types) were on the East Side by Broadway–the drum circle, the Sufi-garbed and yogic breathing, cat guy, tended to be at the West End (by Church.)
Protesters still seem to congregate at the tips of the Park , but it’s all a lot more sparse and mixed up. (Cat guy, for example, has moved East.)
One of the dark pictures at the bottom has what looks like someone’s head leaning against a police barricade. This is the head of the bronze sculpture (“Double Check”) of a man with a brief case; the lights are red white and blue glow sticks.
Cat Guy
Trying A Banner Run Up Broadway
"Double Checker"
Rob Redux (as in Pattinson)? (Sorry–Can Resist.)
November 18, 2011
I am feeling tremendously guilty tonight.
This is, oddly, because of the opening of the new Twilight movie, Breaking Dawn I.
As long-term followers of this blog know, ages ago (make that about two years back), I was strangely (wildly) smitten by a combo of Robert Pattinson and Edward Cullen.
It was so weird–(make that pathetic)–the type of thing you don’t want anyone to know, and yet are also desperate to blather on about.
And I blathered–I blogged about Rob and Edward, bemoaned Robsten, bemoaned Jacob even more. I became so–let’s stick with odd–that I even speculated at one point on whether Rob and Kristen would like jury duty. (One of the few public activities in NYC where there are no cameras.)
And then, somehow, I was cured. (It may have been seeing Twilight movies II and III.)
But, despite my antipathy for New Moon and Eclipse, I reviewed them on opening night.
I can’t even get myself to buy a ticket to Breaking Dawn, much less deliver the customary bad review.
(Or can I?)
Nope. At least not tonight.
Hmmmm….
(But what about… next week…????)
Friday Flash 55–At the subway by Zuccotti Park
November 18, 2011On the subway by Zuccotti Park
I noticed her yesterday jammed among lines/signs/police I tried to avoid–tall, peaked cap, plastic calf brace.
Having trouble at turnstile today, I swiped for her, said awkward/friendly, “better watch out for that leg.”
Fumbling bills one-handed to repay, “no, stroke accident.”
About 28?
I fumbled now, “Don’t worry about it.”
The above is my offering for Friday Flash 55. Tell it to the G-man.
Below are some photos I took yesterday of Zuccotti Park. As followers of this blog know, I live in downtown Manhattan and so go by the park every day. Yesterday, I was mainly impressed by the cheek by jowl aspect of the protestors and the police, who seemed remarkably at ease with each other, despite obvious irritation. The police are tired of standing around there; the protesters are mad (and kind of confused. Many have always seemed pretty confused. But now, there’s a palpable sense of not knowing where to be/what comes next.) Please note that I am just posting the photos for information; I am not advocating the views in the signs.
“Staccato Poem?” – “World War I Veteran” – Belated Armistice Day
November 17, 2011
Today, dVerse Poets Pub has a “form for all” challenge hosted by Gay Reiser Cannon and Beth Winter, to write a “staccato” poem. I had not heard of this form before, and although Gay and Beth give both a good explanation and great examples of it in their own poetry blogs, I’m not completely sold on it. (It involves two six line stanzas with a series of couplets and internal rhymes and certain emphatic repeated words.)
My own staccato poem came to mind in thinking belatedly of Armistice Day, the end of World War I.
I’m sorry, I’m afraid my iPad painting came out a bit more grisly than intended. That said, World War I seems to be almost as grisly a war as one can imagine.
World War I Veteran
She now speaks of her uncle’s mask with pride,
how she, her brother, each sniffed deep inside–
Yes! Yes!–they put their faces in–
(eyes bug’s), imagined traces in
the mustiness–of mustard’s scent and mud;
and yes, on khaki’s fade, the stain, old blood.
Knew only what they heard or read or guessed–
their uncle never spoke, not even yes
or no. (No! No!) Made tooled leather
wallets and small sacs to gather
coins. Though often he just sat in his old car,
not able to manage masks, no, anymore.
More Pix of Zuccotti Park – Evening After (11/15/11)
November 16, 2011
Zuccotti Park (the site of Occupy Wall Street) was a remarkably serene scene last night. Protesters were back in the park, engaging in their singular “speak and repeat” style of public speaking. (One person gives a speech in phrases, and the crowd repeats it so all can hear. It sounds like chanting.)
There were plenty of police but there was a much greater calm about the scene, the police chatting with each other and in some cases protesters. (I should note that the police seemed very disciplined whenever I passed by there during the day, although their sheer numbers were daunting, as was perhaps intended.) Sorry the top pix especially are blurry.
Open Link Night- “Poem For My Father”
November 15, 2011
As a downtown New Yorker, I’ve been pretty taken up by the happenings at Zuccotti Park today, so it feels strange to post the very different poem I’d planned for dVerse Poets Pub open link night. But life is complex, lived in lots of layers at once. The iPad painting (above) doesn’t exactly go with the poem, but all I could think of. I am also posting this for Poet’s Rally at Promising Poets.
Poem for my father
My father, who loves me completely,
is weakening.
My father, who loves me through and through,
cannot sit up on his own.
My dad, who would do anything for me,
cannot make his throat swallow.
I say to him,
“you have to try,” and he does, but
his body is not
all heart.
What will I do
when not loved
through and through? Hurts
thinking of it, hurts
completely, my body all heart
in a throat that can’t swallow.
ManicDDaily 
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