Tuesday, August 30, 2005

Contraria Contrariis Curantur

Opposites are cured by their opposites.

Corruption, injustice, murder have been brought closer to retribution by a hand both powerful and just.

A hand I'm somewhat ashamed it was only borrowed, and not our very own.

I will not say this isn't a time to rejoice and dream, because it is. Though we must not forget it is also a time to think hard, watch hard, and learn the makings of the great nation and great people we aspire to build and become.

Saturday, August 27, 2005

I wish I was a Cricket

It is one hour after midnight. I feel like posting but I don't know what to say.
Except that I'm almost asleep. I've always wondered what it would be like to write in a state of fluctuating consciousness, hovering in and around a picture not clear. Where am I... really. The screen is bright when all around is quiet. But the cricket. The cricket doesn't sleep. Or is it just snoring? How would I know. I should have asked the cricket that came to visit three hours ago before I asked him to leave. Maybe he was looking for a place to spend the night. He was a neighbor cricket. I think I'd seen him before. It was hard to push a friend out the door, at night. But my place is no hostel for a cricket. A cricket who doesn't sleep. Or is he just snoring. If he is snoring then his wife must certainly use earplugs. Otherwise she would never be able to sleep. Or maybe she too doesn't sleep. Or is she just snoring.

I wish I was a cricket
Singing the night away
Serenading the morning
Waiting to see the day

I wish I was a cricket
I would have let him stay
We'd both now be awake
Singing away or snoring

I wish I was a cricket
Always a sun in sight
Always the day adoring
Reaping the dawning light

I wish I was a cricket
Singing away or snoring
Always wish you Good morning
Always wish me Good night

Saturday, August 20, 2005

Tribute



To all the beautiful women, mothers, sisters, daughters, who leave their families and homes, looking for a life more abundant, a window out of dire destitution, for their people and maybe themselves, and instead find, thousands of miles away, a dungeon of solitude, servitude and death.

To all these women, I dedicate this drawing, and humbly, this I say- Thank you for teaching me again and again not to sit in the comfort of my personal little universe of plenty, and insolently complain.

What goes around...

Comes around.

Surprise surprise, my settler friends. You're weeping, and your pain seems great. So how about a taste of your own medicine, for a change.
Bitter? How odd. Maybe you'd care to look back and see what you and your fathers have been doing for the past two thirds of a century.

Sure. I'll give you a hint. How about people like you, driven out of their houses, out of their villages, stripped of their nation, and left to crawl across borders looking for a place they can call home, because their own home was taken away from them.

Ring a bell?

"Oh, is this your living room? your kitchen? your tree? is this your identity? is this your life? great. I'll take it. You and your flock can spend the night in the backyard, but it would be nice if you'd vanish forever, sometime around the break of sunrise."

How about a carillon now?

Yeah I figured you'd remember. And I figured you'd act like you didn't.

Careful not to understand this the wrong way. No sides taken here. Both you and the sons of Palestine dug deeply into my land's side every single time you could. And the wounds are still oozing. To forgive you would be divine. And I am only human.

Yet when you weep and cry foul, while you're all guilty as sin, I refuse to just shut my mouth up and listen.

You might eternally bicker over borders, you might kill each other over land and religion, or you might all perish in the deep sulk of a giant earthquake. Right now, I don't care. But I do have a piece of advice for you. Kill all you want, displace and destroy all you want, but remember, as I know you will, that history is its own copycat, and that what you did yesterday might come back tomorrow and haunt you for years to come.

What goes around comes around. That's how we like to put it. And that, my settler friends, is what I hope you are now less likely to forget.

Monday, August 15, 2005

Foodian Slip?

This happened at McDonald's a couple of days ago. It's a true stroy. I promise.


Lateeka: "May I help who's next in line please"

Y: "Yes. Thank you."

L: "What can I get for you today sir?"

Y: "Oh emmm... OK. Can I have a big and nasty?"

L: "You can have a WHAT?"

Y: A big and nasty..?

(At this point everyone- well, everyone except for Y- within hearing distance was laughing, including luscious Lateeka who was laughing so hard she almost fell over behind the counter)

L: HAHA.. OH God almighty! WOOOOO... OK. Sir, you probably meant a Big n'Taysteee!

Y: Yes! Big and tasty! sorry sorry sorry. I meant big and tasty. big and tasty..



Yep. So funny, so true, and so fricking brilliant.

The magical world of wordplay rarely gets any better.

Saturday, August 13, 2005

Monday, August 08, 2005

Ibrahim Ferrer is no more

I don't usually report on news that are not my own.
Although this might seem like an exception, it doesn't really feel like one. Those of you who know the voice and sounds of Ibrahim Ferrer and the Buena Vista Social Club will probably understand.

Ibrahim Ferrer is gone. Today, at 78, carrying long and painful years of poverty and hardship, and just a few of recognition and fame, he, the majestically humble Ferrer calmly wrapped his last song, smiled at the crowds, and exited the stage for the last time.

Something about Ferrer's music was just different. It came from familiar places, filled with hope and remembrance, breathing the rhythm of not just its own roots, but the roots of all humanity, opening its eyes to the first flickers of a warm and youthful sun.

His was the only music that made me smile, and love, and cry, and dance, maybe all at the same time. It was the only music that made me live and remember to live, and to forget.

At 70, Ibrahim Ferrer was shining shoes to survive. At 78, from the hot and humid alleys of Havana, he had moved souls and maybe even changed lives.

Can you recognize a king in a beggar's clothes? Watch the dance of his tapping finger. See the sparkle in his eye. And listen.

Just listen.

And you will know.

Sunday, August 07, 2005

If Only

Wednesday, August 03, 2005