Friday, September 30, 2011

Meeting #1 Occupy Philly


I walked to the Wooden Shoe early. Met someone else headed the same place. No one there but one customer(?) and a woman behind the counter. She told us a story, a visit earlier in the week. A cop (she said he seemed embarrassed about what he was doing) ... asked her if maybe they needed any help?

Noooo...

Maybe you like to tell me something?


Noooo ...

Poor cop. They send a uniformed cop to an anarchist bookstore and he's supposed to ask if he they need his help!

I didn't want to wait another 45 minutes for people to show up, so walked to the Arch Street Methodist Church where we were to meet. Waited outside for an AAA meeting to finish up. Shared impressions and expectations with a young woman waiting by the door--really sharp. Reporter from the Philadelphia Weekly overheard us talking, asked if he could interview us.

Sure.

She was great! I hope he quotes her accurately. When he fed her media-sound-bite generating questions... What is the one single thing that ...

Fended this off beautifully--the reporter seemed only to be following convention and was happy to let our responses find other ground. Forgot how unnatural it is to stand and wait for someone to take my picture. She, wisely, declined.

6:30. Still only 15 or 20 people. Beginning to wonder if we should have stuck with the Wooden Shoe..then around 6:40, out of city hall, chanting and waving, a river of people... close to 400 I'd guess by the time we were all seated and ready to begin.

It was a long and exhausting meeting. Democracy is hard work!

I'll report on the meeting tomorrow.

Thursday, September 29, 2011

Occupy Philly Planning Meeting: Gather at Wooden Shoe, 704 South Street
Walk to 55 N. Broad, Arch Street Methodist Church.

Way too big now for Wooden shoe!




Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Driving through the Holland Tunnel on the way to Occupy Wall Street


For every tile/ a worker’s hand
the trowel he held
32 million
in the ceiling
2.9 million on the walls
set
one by one

how many did one man lay
in an hour/ a day
counting them in his sleep
beside his wife
in a walk-up in Bayonne
14 workers died building that tunnel...

not one of them named Holland

Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Posts and Links on Occupy Wall Street Occupy Philadelphia

Brooklyn Bridge Arrests, from Real News

 Occupy Wall Street live feed

Cornell West at Liberty Plaza! 

Report on Sunday 9/24, NYC Sunday in the Park with Occupy Wall Street 
(long)
General Assembly & People's Mic without day log

Occupy Philadelphia

Report on General Assembly Meeting 9/24, and People's Mic
(last 3rd of long report)

Philosophy & Revolution

MORE LINKS

Beginning to get coverage...

Two articles in Boston Review
The Occupations as our Arab Spring
Eyewitness:  American Autumn--our Arab Spring

Correcting NYT trashing in The Nation
   This is welcome, but she doesn't get the heart of what's happening--that this movement isn't defined by the ideas of individuals in isolation--but in the process of decision making which draws on the creative contributions of all. I would like to tell Bellafane (the NYT writer), or anyone who feels that his or her deeper understand is missing--it is only so because THEY are missing! Attend the General Assembly's and offer such wisdom as you think you have!

Occupy Philadelphia -- go to Facebook




Lots of info on: OCCUPY TOGETHER, and great posters to download

On Facebook: Poetry@OccupyWallStreet


Oberman on blackout of media coverage

More coverage and info for donations HERE
Statement by Noam Chompsky
On Huffington Post. "Occupying is not Rioting"

on Twitter
@OccupywallStNYC,

@OccupyChicago



Sunday in the Park with OccupyWallSt!


NY Gen Assembly


September 17, 2011. One week and a day since a few hundred people went to Zuccotti Park (formerly, and once again, Liberty Plaza Park ) in lower Manhattan and pitched tents for OccupyWallStNYC.

One week and a day, (as of 9:00 EDT, September 26, 2011, and there are now ongoing, or in planning, Occupy movements in:
• MIDWEST
o Occupy Chicago
o Occupy Cleveland
o Occupy Columbus
o Occupy Indiana
o Occupy Indianapolis
o Occupy Kansas City
o Occupy Michigan
o Occupy Minnesota
o Occupy OKC
o Occupy Omaha
o Occupy OSU (Stillwater)
o Occupy St. Louis
o Occupy Tulsa
o Occupy Wisconsin
o Occupy Yougstown
• NORTHEAST
o Occupy Binghamton
o Occupy Boston
o Occupy D.C.
o Occupy New Jersey
o Occupy Philadelphia
o Occupy Richmond, VA.
o Occupy Vermont
• SOUTHEAST
o Occupy Atlanta
o Occupy Birmingham, AL
o Occupy Lexington, KY
o Occupy Mississippi
o Occupy Nashville
o Occupy New Orleans
o Occupy Orlando
o Occupy Tampa
• SOUTHWEST
o Occupy Austin
o Occupy Dallas
o Occupy Houston
o Occupy Phoenix
• WEST
o Occupy Denver
o Occupy Las Vegas
o Occupy Los Angeles
o Occupy Olympia
o Occupy Portland
o Occupy Sacramento
o Occupy San Diego
o Occupy San Francisco
o Occupy San Jose
o Occupy Seattle
• INTERNATIONAL
o Occupy Brisbane
o Occupy Manchester | March on the Tory Party Conference
o Occupy Toronto Market Exchange
You ask, does it have legs?

Saturday, 9/24. An extended action was planned. Those who chose to participate would march from their base 30 blocks to Union Square. Eighty were arrested. (the latest number I’ve seen posted from the OWS site). I watched for hours, saw the women penned and maced, Saw police single out individuals at random from the group, walk in and throw them to the ground, cuff them, drag them across the pavement. There were perhaps a couple of thousand in that march. This is what has made it on to YouTube, what has been the focus of what little attention the Media has given to the movement. While it’s important that this was recorded, that there is a record of what happened, that there are witness who can confirm that passers-by taking pictures, not part of the march, were arrested without cause—it is incidental to what is happening in newly named, Liberty Square. I’ll have no more to say about it.

In the days before the Union Square march—days of continuous rain, tents were banned and taken down. Umbrellas forbidden. Tarps over electronic equipment, forbidden—there were at least rumors that people would not be allowed to bring food and water to the Square—all which seemed to point to a plan of attrition, to gradually make it impossible to maintain occupation of the park. Viewing the Livefeed Saturday night, there was a feeling of crisis. The police presence was overwhelming. One could only wonder if there would be a final sweep in the night. I made up my mind to take the Chinatown bus Sunday morning… if they were still there.

Sunday morning, the rain let up. Livefeed showed the Square coming to life. You could hear the
‘human mike’ chants… which recalled memories of children reciting the pledge of allegiance in class rooms when I was in grade school. I surveyed what I had that might be useful. There was a drawer full of sterile gauze pads, tape, bandages, an ace bandage (the Livefeed said they needed them)—supplies for dressing wounds and skin grafts after I was hit by a car. I put it in an ACME recycle bag. I sleep on the floor. I know one can’t have too many blanket between one’s body and a hard wood or concrete. So I added a wool blanket. Put it in a handbag with an umbrella and my journal; a half hour later, paid $20 for a round trip ticket and boarded a New Century bus and was off to New York.

The bag was heavy. It was warm and very humid. A few blocks and I was soaked with sweat. Why didn’t I bring an extra shirt? I observed traffic, pedestrians. Watched passing tourist busses. Very few cops. I expected to see more as I approached the Square—with so many deployed I’d be in no danger of missing it… I didn’t, but came close. On north side of Broadway, half way to Liberty—too focused on the McDonalds in the next block that I’d been told let you use their restrooms. Across the street—partly obscured because the park is recessed, there they were. Drums going. Cops, but not that many. Up Liberty Street were several police cars and a couple of those big vans they use for communication equipment. More cops on Liberty, west of the park. Good thing. I have asthma. I wasn’t looking forward to the possibility of being pepper gassed.

Entering the park, groups scattered here and there, resting on the marble block benches, on the Liberty Street wall—a mic on a stand, people with laptops on tables. Nothing that looked like it might be an official headquarters. I estimated there were between 1500 and 2000, mostly young, but a few well past my 70 years. A man with a WWII vet hat and decorations looked to be well into his 90’s. More older women than men. I saw a shelf with a dozen or so books—and a sign that said LIBRARY. I’d brought a few books, too—including Mike Davis’ City of Slums, which I thought might make appropriate reading.

I asked directions to the medical station, and was pointed toward the other end of the park. On the way, I saw two large piles of blankets and sleeping bags, and a couple of mattresses leaning against a tree. Finding no one who seem to be in charge of this, I tossed my wool blanket on one of the piles, continued looking for the medical station. It was not far from the blankets. I showed them the contents in my bag. “Oh good! An ace bandage—we used our last one!”

The area was clean. Someone was picking up cigarette butts, and complaining, “we’ll have to bring this up,’ he was saying to no one in particular. On the Liberty Street side, south end of the park—dozens, maybe more than a hundred hand painted signs lay flat on the ground. A few people squatted or sat near by making new signs on pieces of cardboard torn from supply boxes by a trash receptacle. Cans of paint, water, colored markers, brushes. A few days ago there had been an issue with the signs—whether they were allowed to have them, or hold them up. A few people on Broadway did have signs in hand, though, holding them up for passers-by. A few people in each of the tourist busses flashed V signs, or fists from the platforms on top. If there were any problem with signs now—cops showed no indication they cared one way or the other.

I saw someone I knew—a former Philadelphia poet who now lives in Brooklyn. He told me he’d been pretty cynical about this at first… the idea sounded pretty unrealistic, but came to see for himself, and now wants to spend has much time here as he can. He sat on the wall during the General Assemble holding a hand painted sign--Whitman’s Barbaric yawp going round the world.

I tied two poems to trees—cards with spangles and glitter and a tag on the back of each: No Revolution without Poetry! No Poetry without Revolution! Someone stopped me with the second one—this was while we were in line for the evening meal. Said they were told not to hang things on the trees. I said I didn’t want to do anything that would cause trouble…maybe someplace else, but we saw balloons on another tree, and a sign on another… and thought, maybe use a tree more interior to the park and less visible from the street. That’s what I did.

It was a long line. Stainless steel trays of food, pasta, some kind of bean dish with raisons, broccoli, several kinds of bread piled in thick slices, pizza. People served up the food on paper plates, hands in latex gloves. So much for the rumor about not allowing food. A guy with a red cross vest went around tossing out bottles of water to those who asked for them.

I was hungry. This was after the General Assembly. A meeting that lasted… I don’t know, well over an hour and felt longer. It was in that meeting I felt the beating heart of everything that matters about this action. But it was long—and not always riveting, and everyone had an appetite--piled that food on those plates.

Let me begin with the Human Mic--the sound that had reminded me of children reciting the pledge of allegiance. It’s not call and response, it’s call & repetition. At some point, fairly early on, not sure when, bullhorns and loudspeakers were banned. The Human Mic was the solution. And what emerged was an action and process with wholly unanticipated consequences, something that deserves our most considered attention.

In a meeting, when someone wants to address the assembly, they begin by introducing themselves.

HI, I’M MIKE

Everyone in hearing range repeats. Word for word. In something less than a full shout. When a hundred or more voice join, you don’t have to shout that loud to be heard in the back lines.


                                   HI, I’M MIKE

This appears simple enough. But if you pay attention, you see how much has gone into this, how much it has evolved, and how profound its consequences.

Vets here know exactly how to break up phrases into units short enough to easily, automatically recalled and repeated, and long enough to keep the flow moving. Too short is equally bad—if you can’t anticipate the meaning in units, phrases--not just successive words, it’s more difficult to follow and repeat, not easier—the mind refuses to go along. A single word—okay for emphasis. One after another—LIKE TYPING ALL CAPS ON FACEBOOK…. no, worse.

LIKE!

                                LIKE!

TYPING!

                               TYPING!

ALL!
                               ALL!

… 

Easy to tell someone new. I got a kick out of Michael Moore! He so clearly hadn’t quite caught on. It’s not easy, If you want to use complex ideas—it takes practice to know how to break up the units. And it takes a peculiar kind of relaxed attention to be in the audience—to repeat the phrase without thinking about it too much, automatically—so you’re free at the same to think about what is being said. I can’t think of anything quite like it. You are both sides of the conversation at once—you are the speaker, and the one listening and formulating your thoughts and possible reply. You feel it with your whole body—not at all the disembodied inside the head voices of normal conversation. You have to think about the meaning of the words in a deeper more purely physical level. Like Brenda Iijima said, who was standing beside me… it’s cellular.

This is fucking worlds away from someone standing in front of a crowd talking more for his own benefit than the people he’s addressing, lecturing, giving orders. You can’t bully people into thinking your way like this—you just can’t! If there’s manipulation, it has to happen on a whole different level, and nobody’s gonna be fooled!

A set of conventions have evolved to accompany & supplement the Human Mic. Most notably—the hand signals. When you see the group holding both hands in the air, fingers spread, waving them over their heads—they’re not praising the Lord. It means, ‘We agree! We like this!’
Crossing arms in front of the chest: ‘No! There seems to be consensus, but I BLOLK this--it would violate our basic procedure or principles!’
Waving the hands, palms inward and down, arms about a foot apart, means: “I won’t block, but I think this is wrong and disagree.”

There are others. And requests were made at the Assembly I attended for suggestions for others. None were made. There is a committee that works on this.

Decisions are made by consensus. No votes. The nearest equivalent I’ve experienced would be a Quaker Meeting for Business, where the ‘cleark’ of the meeting guides the discussion, at points articulating what he or she feels to be the ‘sense of the meeting. In the Assembly, there were several facilitators who alternated in soliciting suggestions and calling on those who slated to say something. They would as the discussion evolved, suggest a ‘synthesis’ of the discussion at a point where they thought a decision was ripe for consensus. Members of the group held up hand when they had wanted to reply. A facilitator would point out who was to speak next. If it was quiet, the speaker would begin by introducing himself—with the group repeating in chorus. If there was confusion and people talking, he or the facilitator or both—or even someone from the group if they couldn’t hear—would shout out MIKE CHECK! This would immediately be repeated and respectful quiet restored.

What did they discuss? Several forms of outreach: a guided tour of local business to introduce themselves and foster good relationships with the community, a meeting with union leaders from CUNY about a joint action protesting loss of benefits for low wage adjunct faculty (this was to have been today at Baruch College). There was a proposal on policing cigarette butts, appeals for funds, a report on some people from wall street who supported OWS and wanted to contribute money (many hands waving in air on that one). There was a long discussion with much back and forth on future actions and ‘demands’ … with objections made to calling them ‘demands’—they weren’t there to force people or make demands. The marches are another form of outreach—extending their presence into the city. Where and when might the next one be. Cautionary advice was given on avoiding dehydration and remembering to eat enough to keep up energy and not get sick. Volunteers were requested to serve on several committees (which report back to the General Assembly).

This is a very busy group!

It’s an emerging society of consensus, discovering the principles they want to live by—an extraordinary level of creativity on everything—from the daily business of living to formulating their purpose and goals, both immediate and long term. There are many levels of education in evidence—I overheard an involved discussion on commodification and the shift from an economy of production to one of finance, drawing on Marx’s distinctions of ‘use value’ and ‘exchange value.’ Let me wrap this up by saying—that if you think you have an understanding of our economic and political crisis that is missing in this movement—it’s only missing because YOU are not there! If you can’t go to Liberty Square—go to one of the Occupy events listed above—or start one where you live!

The American Revolution isn’t over—it’s only just begun!

Monday, September 26, 2011

Occupy Wall Street


Occupy Movement links HERE

I'm writing an account of the day with more specifics, hope to have it up later this afternoon.

Meeting: Wooden Shoe Books Thursday, Organization for OccupyPhilly!

I did. I spent the day.

I came away impressed that this was a transformative event.. but as though it were something that confirmed what i knew... transformative for those who were there, but ... and then, sitting in a bar after I came home--got engaged in a conversation with a machinist... a loooong conversation... and I found myself responding in a way I'd never been able to do before... and it was long, and hard work... but at the end, I realized... me too .. me too it changed me. It really did. Just one day. So GO if you can! listen! Participate! Learn! And come away with a new sense of reality

I plan to take the Chinatown bus to NYC tomorrow... gather info, hang a poem on a tree, find what can be done from a distance.

Go to end of post for draft of Principles of Solidarity

Oberman on blackout of media coverage

More coverage and info for donations HERE

6:00 EDT

Call 1 888 692 7233 Police Hdqts NYC. Demand they release info on those detained. Some have medical conditions and need treatment. Please share link tweet this Occupy Wall Street

5:35

Police have brought meshnets to Liberty Sq

5:15

Mass police staging. Flood phones, NYC Police 718 520 932, as for release of those arrested for exercising their constitutional rights.

http://www.livestream.com/globalrevolution

3:50

Cops order umbrellas taken down when rain starts... as 'safty hazzards'... strategy to make it progressively more difficult to sustain protest

3: 35 live feed back up

Sat. 3:05 EDT

The livefeed is down and looks like it's been blocked. Police beatings, arrested facilitators in last hour.

I have contacted people interested in a solidarity protest -- an OccuyPhilly sustained sister campaign to stand with NYC, Chicago, Kansas City and other actions. If interested, comment here or go to my profile for email address. Follow on FB, Twitter and Google+

Sat 3:17

Counter Media blackout--find links, Youtube on Occupy Wall St action, link share make viral

Here's the line to Occupy Wall Street live feed

PRINCIPLES OF SOLIDARITY – working draft

Posted on September 24, 2011 by NYCGA

What follows is a living document that will be revised

through democratic process of General Assembly

On September 17, 2011, people from all across the United States of America and the world came to protest the blatant injustices of our times perpetuated by the economic and political elites. On the 17th we as individuals rose up against political disenfranchisement and social and economic injustice. We spoke out, resisted, and successfully occupied Wall Street. Today, we proudly remain in Liberty Square constituting ourselves as autonomous political beings engaged in non-violent civil disobedience and building solidarity based on mutual respect, acceptance, and love. It is from these reclaimed grounds that we say to all Americans and to the world, Enough! How many crises does it take? We are the 99% and we have moved to reclaim our mortgaged future.

Through a direct democratic process, we have come together as individuals and crafted these principles of solidarity, which are points of unity that include but are not limited to:

Engaging in direct and transparent participatory democracy;

Exercising personal and collective responsibility;

Recognizing individuals’ inherent privilege and the influence it has on all interactions;

Empowering one another against all forms of oppression;

Redefining how labor is valued;

The sanctity of individual privacy;

The belief that education is human right; and

Endeavoring to practice and support wide application of open source.

We are daring to imagine a new socio-political and economic alternative that offers greater possibility of equality. We are consolidating the other proposed principles of solidarity, after which demands will follow.

1 The Working Group on Principles of Consolidation continues to work through the other proposed principles to be incorporated as soon as possible into this living document.

A post on Philosophy & Politics

This is an official document crafted by the Working Group on Principles of Consolidation. The New York City General Assembly came to consensus on September 23rd to accept this working draft and post it online for public consumption

Occupy Wall Street, the General Assembly


The General Assembly

From my account of Sunday in the Park with OccupyWallSt

Let me begin with the Human Mic--the sound that had reminded me of children reciting the pledge of allegiance. It’s not call and response, it’s call & repetition. At some point, fairly early on, not sure when, bullhorns and loudspeakers were banned. The Human Mic was the solution. And what emerged was an action and process with wholly unanticipated consequences, something that deserves our most considered attention.

In a meeting, when someone wants to address the assembly, they begin by introducing themselves.

HI, I’M MIKE

Everyone in hearing range repeats. Word for word. In something less than a full shout. When a hundred or more voice join, you don’t have to shout that loud to be heard in the back lines.


HI, I’M MIKE

This appears simple enough. But if you pay attention, you see how much has gone into this, how much it has evolved, and how profound its consequences.

Vets here know exactly how to break up phrases into units short enough to easily, automatically recalled and repeated, and long enough to keep the flow moving. Too short is equally bad—if you can’t anticipate the meaning in units, phrases--not just successive words, it’s more difficult to follow and repeat, not easier—the mind refuses to go along. A single word—okay for emphasis. One after another—LIKE TYPING ALL CAPS ON FACEBOOK…. no, worse.

LIKE!

LIKE!

TYPING!
                             TYPING!

ALL!
                             ALL!

... lose all sense of what's coming, or been said



Easy to tell someone new. I got a kick out of Michael Moore! He so clearly hadn’t quite caught on. It’s not easy, If you want to use complex ideas—it takes practice to know how to break up the units. And it takes a peculiar kind of relaxed attention to be in the audience—to repeat the phrase without thinking about it too much, automatically—so you’re free at the same to think about what is being said. I can’t think of anything quite like it. You are both sides of the conversation at once—you are the speaker, and the one listening and formulating your thoughts and possible reply. You feel it with your whole body—not at all the disembodied inside the head voices of normal conversation. You have to think about the meaning of the words in a deeper more purely physical level. Like Brenda Iijima said, who was standing beside me… it’s cellular.

This is fucking worlds away from someone standing in front of a crowd talking more for his own benefit than the people he’s addressing, lecturing, giving orders. You can’t bully people into thinking your way like this—you just can’t! If there’s manipulation, it has to happen on a whole different level, and nobody’s gonna be fooled!

A set of conventions have evolved to accompany & supplement the Human Mic. Most notably—the hand signals. When you see the group holding both hands in the air, fingers spread, waving them over their heads—they’re not praising the Lord. It means, ‘We agree! We like this!’
Crossing arms in front of the chest: ‘No! There seems to be consensus, but I BLOLK this--it would violate our basic procedure or principles!’
Waving the hands, palms inward and down, arms about a foot apart, means: “I won’t block, but I think this is wrong and disagree.”

There are others. And requests were made at the Assembly I attended for suggestions for others. None were made. There is a committee that works on this.

Decisions are made by consensus. No votes. The nearest equivalent I’ve experienced would be a Quaker Meeting for Business, where the ‘cleark’ of the meeting guides the discussion, at points articulating what he or she feels to be the ‘sense of the meeting. In the Assembly, there were several facilitators who alternated in soliciting suggestions and calling on those who slated to say something. They would as the discussion evolved, suggest a ‘synthesis’ of the discussion at a point where they thought a decision was ripe for consensus. Members of the group held up hand when they had wanted to reply. A facilitator would point out who was to speak next. If it was quiet, the speaker would begin by introducing himself—with the group repeating in chorus. If there was confusion and people talking, he or the facilitator or both—or even someone from the group if they couldn’t hear—would shout out MIKE CHECK! This would immediately be repeated and respectful quiet restored.

What did they discuss? Several forms of outreach: a guided tour of local business to introduce themselves and foster good relationships with the community, a meeting with union leaders from CUNY about a joint action protesting loss of benefits for low wage adjunct faculty (this was to have been today at Baruch College). There was a proposal on policing cigarette butts, appeals for funds, a report on some people from wall street who supported OWS and wanted to contribute money (many hands waving in air on that one). There was a long discussion with much back and forth on future actions and ‘demands’ … with objections made to calling them ‘demands’—they weren’t there to force people or make demands. The marches are another form of outreach—extending their presence into the city. Where and when might the next one be. Cautionary advice was given on avoiding dehydration and remembering to eat enough to keep up energy and not get sick. Volunteers were requested to serve on several committees (which report back to the General Assembly).

This is a very busy group!

It’s an emerging society of consensus, discovering the principles they want to live by—an extraordinary level of creativity on everything—from the daily business of living to formulating their purpose and goals, both immediate and long term. There are many levels of education in evidence—I overheard an involved discussion on commodification and the shift from an economy of production to one of finance, drawing on Marx’s distinctions of ‘use value’ and ‘exchange value.’ Let me wrap this up by saying—that if you think you have an understanding of our economic and political crisis that is missing in this movement—it’s only missing because YOU are! If you can’t go to Liberty Square—go to one of the Occupy events listed above—or start one where you live!

The American Revolution isn’t over—it’s only just begun!



Philosophy & Revolution


I left this comment to a thread on Larval Subjects.

This thread began with an image from the Occupy Wall Street Protests… yet, curiously, not one of the other comments so far have made reference to this… like the “Main Stream Media”… as though it didn’t exist… was not worth notice or comment.

Yet here is an action in progress, itself an emerging ‘assemblage” on the edge of our massive, massively repressive self-referential system—alive with individuals in process of defining their goals, defining what they are collectively—so far, mostly outside the mad scientist’s dissected frog’s eye—trying to SEE what they are—which makes them all the MORE interesting, especially given the example of the Wisconsin protests… which BEG for study and analysis on the power of media feedback to define and limit the goals of nascent revolutionary movements.

What can philosophical thought contribute to present, immediate-right-now events? I’m sure I could add—as an unapologetic non-philosopher—plenty of reservations to Zizek, but gods bless him, he risks projecting his thought into the chaos of our shared historical reality… no less aware than anyone else of the cautionary tale offered by Heidegger.

There are things happening here that deserve attention and thought—how when the cops confiscated sound amplification, they devised a method, on the spot—of shout and response, where one person shouted a phrase, the near crowd would repeat it, broadcasting the words to the more distant crowd. This kind of creative response … I can’t put into words how important I think this is.. and why I think the relative confusion of this prolonged form of demonstration matters so much… that in ACTION, people on the ground, not from directives above, find ways to solve problems—and in process, REdifine the goals and the very idea of WHAT is possible.

I’d like to turn this to a question of how—if there is no way to change a closed system from the outside—how ELSE such a system CAN be changed? But to confront that system from the outside in such a way that it is forced to respond—and seek within itself a means of responding that was perhaps only latent before?

Saturday, September 24, 2011

Occupy Wall Street: Links


Beginning to get coverage...

Two articles in Boston Review
The Occupations as our Arab Spring
Eyewitness:  American Autumn--our Arab Spring

Correcting NYT trashing in The Nation
   This is welcome, but she doesn't get the heart of what's happening--that this movement isn't defined by the ideas of individuals in isolation--but in the process of decision making which draws on the creative contributions of all. I would like to tell Bellafane (the NYT writer), or anyone who feels that his or her deeper understand is missing--it is only so because THEY are missing! Attend the General Assembly's and offer such wisdom as you think you have!

Occupy Philadelphia

 Occupy Wall Street live feed

Lots of info on  OCCUPY TOGETHER, and great posters to download

On Facebook: Poetry@OccupyWallStreet


Oberman on blackout of media coverage

More coverage and info for donations HERE
Statement by Noam Chompsky
On Huffington Post. "Occupying is not Rioting"

on Twitter
@OccupywallStNYC,
@OccupyChicago

Thursday, September 22, 2011

Live feed from Wall Street


Cops pen, then mace unarmed women. Make this viral!

Live Feed facinating to watch this, the stage of early creative semi-chaos unusually sustained. The convergence of a Troy Davis march around 8:00 led to some interesting confusion & then to the arrest of 6 demonstrators...which in led in turn to a new assembly outside a police station calling for their release.

Side bar has many lamenting this lack of focus, 'stick to the issues'... missing how 'sticking to the issues' and 'focus' led to the Wisconsin demonstrations being subordinated to the campaign for recall elections... that is, safely back into the electoral system. It's way to early to be thinking about 'focus.' Much broader changes are called for.

"Local Knowledge," Where Poetry & Philosophy Meet


As I read Levi's post on the coming of age of a philosopher of "local knowledge," I thought the work of poets I know and have heard and read: Jenn Osman's The Network, her intimate outsiders-intersection with science; the locality of place itself in the poems of Ryan Eckes, of the experience of place in Frank Sherlock; of CA Conrad's intense polyamorous embrace of everything local and real, out of an experience of equally intense alienation-as-object-in-the-eyes-of-others growing up poor and queer in small town America.


... to engage with and understand and leave our fingerprints on... not the world, but a world--the one where we find ourselves in place & time

Levi Bryant on Larval Subjects: Of Disciplines and Practices




Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Light Rain in South Philly


Rain. Light rain. Barely noticeable as rain, but that one sees the sidewalks are water-stained, that the rain has altered their color. If we look at them & say they are wet, others will know what we mean. They will be able, if they wish, to picture wet sidewalks, wet concrete or brick or paving stone or asphalt—picture them in mind, or perhaps the feel of it underfoot if you are a child & barefoot, or very poor & have no shoes or the soles of your shoes are worn through & your socks and feet are wet so what those same words call to mind will not be the fact of rain which your body feels & is all too real without words, but rather what you think of will be warm dry socks & warm dry feet--& isn’t there a kind of rule here, a rule first of all of mind & then of words—that we apply mind and words not to what is immediately before us, this dull gray light, these wet sidewalks, wet streets, light rain—but to what is absent, what comes to mind because it’s beyond us, as on the coldest days we think only of how to stay warm, of the fire in the hearth, of the warm stove, the hot shower that awaits us after we stomp the snow off our boots & open the door to our warm house at last, or how on the hottest summer afternoon we dream of a mild spring breeze, or long for brisk autumn afternoons to come—as even now among dry stalks of corn or walking over cracked earth weeks or months into a killing drought, this very rain, the sound & feel of it, our rain, the rain at our window, the rain that glistens on Morris Street, so slight in our mind as to pass almost unnoticed, is at this moment the obsession of someone, perhaps on the other side of the world, on another continent--thirsting for what they want & need & cannot have.  

Saturday, September 17, 2011

Creative Illness ?

I found this in my journal... don't recall whether it was posted--maybe in reply to a comment, but thought I put it up again. From February when I was dealing with asthma, and the had just begun working on Poem to the End of My Days. I've recently completed work on the third volume.


I keep thinking about the psychosomatic components. So very complicated--as I don't have to tell you, not a matter of 'mind' &/or versus 'body'  Nothing of mind that isn't physical, nothing of body that isn't mind. This would be the year of my father's death... didn't live to his 71st birthday. Simply the fact that this occurred to me several times as early as this summer  (beginning 69th B-day, beginning of my 70th year)..  and came to mind very forcefully with those 'faux death'
syncope episodes... which  happened, when? In October. Month of my father's birthday. I think this tells me that there's something to be listened to here. Not a matter of simple cause... anything but simple

I love this quote from Lacan... in answering the question of where the ego is situated.. that one must ask "through whom and for whom the subject asks his question. (ital mine)... 'subject' in Lacan's use,  being the 'I' who speaks: whose 'language' the analyst is keen to hear in the swerve and ellipses of what is spoken.   

through whom -- for whom
the subject asks

... & what is the question?  ... how can one hear or understand the question, until you grasp that?

I needn't add how relevant this is to any form of creative work... the very mark of difference between success and failure of any piece.  It may not be conscious... almost certainly isn't, but that 'from whom... and to whom' is there inhabiting, animating, engendering every novel poem painting musical composition song dance... if it is to live. To be alive. This is the psychic reality of the Muse, of 'inspiration.'  ... some word, eh? ..."in-spiration?" The breath of life. Poem to the End of My Days

Coincidences are incidental, are they not? ...  to our powers of selection from the glittering stream... perhaps, even more, conjured from our powers to ignore what doesn't correspond? ... not out there, but private. Symbolic language within. Thinking them out there, of the world, I'd think would be but another veer from our own Truth. Through whom am I speaking now... and to whom? And what is the question... yours or mine?

Not so much my father as his death, his day of birth, the timing and this cough and how I number my days... coincidence of subject... how my body has responded. The pulmonary specialist told me to ditch the Lisinopril even though the cough preceded it. Gasoline on the fire, he said, not cause of inflammation or its spark, but fuel enough (& deadly, so i heard) & so I stopped. Ace inhibitor--inhibitions incomplete...  insufficient for the task. It's always the context, material and otherwise, that matters.

Observe Ulysses bound to his mast...

oh no! Scrap that!

Wrong symbols there for sure! 

Who then the sirens, where the foundering rocks?





Friday, September 16, 2011

Interview, Damask Press


Toby Altman interviews the Old Dog for Damask Press, and likes Overriding Genesis.

Monday, September 5, 2011

Ammiel Alcalay: Neither Wit Nor Gold


Ammiel Alcalay: Nither Wit Nor Gold, on The Quarterly Conversation .

The kind of review too often reserved only for long works of fiction.

I've been thinking, as I've been taking up again my 12 year 'novel' in progress... encouraged by what I find, by how it's turning out, and at the same time, longing to get back to poetry--how much I'd like to tear down that wall that's been artificially erected between poetry and every other form of imaginative writing. Not that there shouldn't be, won't be, distinctions, but that fiction might recover a degree of strangeness, the mind bending power of the best of contemporary avant poetry, and that poetry--without surrendering anything of its contempt for conventional aesthetic 'solutions' to the challenges of form and structure, & unembarrassed by narrative profluence, be received by critical readers as answering to a common challenge, a common summons of our living confluent generations, that challenge being--that creative language become poetry, BE poetry--whatever the external form it takes--as opposed to commercial-made- for-money-and-entertainment/distraction--and the reification of conventional modes of using language to 'represent' and falsify reality.

Why the division in, of all places, the most innovative critical lit blogs, between poetry & fiction--such that there is so seldom a crossover, at a time when we have works like Kim Gek Lin Short--taking just one example--that defy those distinctions and plead for critical responses prepared to deal with and acknowledge its crossover ambitions from both sides?


In the 18th century, 'poetry' was a term that might be applied to any form of written language assumed to aspire to other than expositional ends... of what we might call 'creative writing.' It's time we aspired to a criticism that set for itself a goal of reconfiguring our understanding along similar lines.