Tuesday, October 30, 2012
Monday, October 29, 2012
A Tragedy's Anniversary Without Press Coverage
On the 4th Tuesday of every month I attend the general meeting our our neighborhood's community association. It's something we've done since arriving in New Haven and finding out about the group. My ties to West River have grown and deepened, and the neighborhood's initiatives toward community building have done the same. That particular night, my friend, Ellen, Lilli and I were walking home the block and a half from Barnard School and we were overtaken by a swarm of teenagers. They quickly parted around us on foot and on bikes and we could see that they were heading towards my house.
Four houses down we met A, who had been at the meeting, too. He is by temperament both cautious and suspicious. Perhaps for good reason; and perhaps he is this way as only people who have given others reason in the past to be cautious and suspicious can be. He was getting ready to call the police. I told him wait, I saw my neighbor, Eric, in the crowd, talking to kids, keeping an eye on things. We went down the street and a hunch I'd had since the first teenagers overtook us was confirmed. It was a year ago that Marquell Banks was murdered in the house 2 doors down from ours. These kids, some who knew him, some who did not, collected to grieve, and to discharge an inchoate, unspecific anger towards the house's tenants. I'm sure if Eric hadn't been there some kid would have tried to get inside the house. (The tenants coming home saw the crowd forming and left to sleep elsewhere.)
It is that palpable anger that made A want to call the police immediately. Even a wise cop can only ameliorates it briefly. And wise cops are rare. But, it's a year later now and these kids are still angry, still looking for the answer to the problem of one of their own killing another of their own. Marquell's family is traumatized. The tenants, who have young children of their own, are traumatized and stigmatized. (This is not conjecture on my part. This comes from conversation and witness.) The teenagers who came to mourn are traumatized.
We, the adults of this street in particular, and this community in general, need to reclaim the obligation that we've assigned to the police. We've demanded, in the name of public safety, that they also fix what's broken in the social fabric and by doing so wash our hands of responsibility to each other. As a community we've made great strides in that direction when the issues address a material lack, we fall short when it involves matters that are made more difficult by a lack of trust and no belief in agape love. When those events happen we resort to calling the cops and deluding ourselves that the problem's been solved. It hasn't, and I expect to see some of those same kids back again next year.
Four houses down we met A, who had been at the meeting, too. He is by temperament both cautious and suspicious. Perhaps for good reason; and perhaps he is this way as only people who have given others reason in the past to be cautious and suspicious can be. He was getting ready to call the police. I told him wait, I saw my neighbor, Eric, in the crowd, talking to kids, keeping an eye on things. We went down the street and a hunch I'd had since the first teenagers overtook us was confirmed. It was a year ago that Marquell Banks was murdered in the house 2 doors down from ours. These kids, some who knew him, some who did not, collected to grieve, and to discharge an inchoate, unspecific anger towards the house's tenants. I'm sure if Eric hadn't been there some kid would have tried to get inside the house. (The tenants coming home saw the crowd forming and left to sleep elsewhere.)
It is that palpable anger that made A want to call the police immediately. Even a wise cop can only ameliorates it briefly. And wise cops are rare. But, it's a year later now and these kids are still angry, still looking for the answer to the problem of one of their own killing another of their own. Marquell's family is traumatized. The tenants, who have young children of their own, are traumatized and stigmatized. (This is not conjecture on my part. This comes from conversation and witness.) The teenagers who came to mourn are traumatized.
We, the adults of this street in particular, and this community in general, need to reclaim the obligation that we've assigned to the police. We've demanded, in the name of public safety, that they also fix what's broken in the social fabric and by doing so wash our hands of responsibility to each other. As a community we've made great strides in that direction when the issues address a material lack, we fall short when it involves matters that are made more difficult by a lack of trust and no belief in agape love. When those events happen we resort to calling the cops and deluding ourselves that the problem's been solved. It hasn't, and I expect to see some of those same kids back again next year.
Le Petit Morte
Which according to the French, or more specifically the male cultural and linguistic superstructure, is a description of orgasm. But I claim it as the point at which we lose electrical power when Sandy does its damage. So, blog while the blogging is possible, I say.
I missed posting Saturday, a combination of study, grappling with the post that follows this one, and simply being outside to register all the various colors of fall here in the Elm City. In the backyard where I can see them are a few Burning Bushes, an inconspicuous evergreen that peacocks in the fall and produces gold, red, almost sienna-like leaves. This year, in this fall so mild that the heat is off more than it is on, our burning bush has produced hot pink leaves. (This is where a savvy blogger would insert a picture. The picture of our hot pink deck chairs alongside the bushes. Yep, that's what a savvy blogger would do. This blogger says Hey! Use your imagination!!)
Fall: meals full of roasts, root vegetables, heavier wines and elegaic music. Friday we went to SCSU's Garner Auditorium for Music Haven's fall student concert and potluck. There is something magical when a child falls in love with an instrument as I did when I fell in love with the violin at 9. The stage was decorated with tiny cellos, violins and violas (violi?), and basses that begged for the tallest kid with the longest fingers to play. And all the gifts that come from the effort -- the love of music, the self-discipline, the reward (applause and admiration) for monumental effort, the poise that comes from performing, and the entree into new worlds -- all those gifts were on display.
The university is closed today and tomorrow (as it was when Irene happened). It is an example of unearned grace since I'd be taking a quiz this afternoon if the university was open. So, Sandy has bought me more time to study, to write, to do what I can while I still have juice.
I missed posting Saturday, a combination of study, grappling with the post that follows this one, and simply being outside to register all the various colors of fall here in the Elm City. In the backyard where I can see them are a few Burning Bushes, an inconspicuous evergreen that peacocks in the fall and produces gold, red, almost sienna-like leaves. This year, in this fall so mild that the heat is off more than it is on, our burning bush has produced hot pink leaves. (This is where a savvy blogger would insert a picture. The picture of our hot pink deck chairs alongside the bushes. Yep, that's what a savvy blogger would do. This blogger says Hey! Use your imagination!!)
Fall: meals full of roasts, root vegetables, heavier wines and elegaic music. Friday we went to SCSU's Garner Auditorium for Music Haven's fall student concert and potluck. There is something magical when a child falls in love with an instrument as I did when I fell in love with the violin at 9. The stage was decorated with tiny cellos, violins and violas (violi?), and basses that begged for the tallest kid with the longest fingers to play. And all the gifts that come from the effort -- the love of music, the self-discipline, the reward (applause and admiration) for monumental effort, the poise that comes from performing, and the entree into new worlds -- all those gifts were on display.
The university is closed today and tomorrow (as it was when Irene happened). It is an example of unearned grace since I'd be taking a quiz this afternoon if the university was open. So, Sandy has bought me more time to study, to write, to do what I can while I still have juice.
Saturday, October 20, 2012
Saturday Poetry: What She Saw
Her eyes are in a bored frenzy,
whirring cherries in a slot
machine.
The question stalks her
and all her friends with their
advanced degrees
who decided to stay home:
what will I do?
They fasten onto
her daughter, so she can
watch and watch again
as Ruby goes
down
the
slide
for an eternity.
She reminds herself
between trips, that it is her
task
to be in this moment, then the
next,
even though at first she
didn't want to stay home.
But childcare took too much
of her salary,
and now studies say that
it's better, it truly is better
for her to be here.
But, it was an old woman,
the Ah Ma, who woggled --
their word for Ruby's
bowlegged, sashaying walk --
over to the slide to
reprimand her satin-capped
grandson trying to pry
Ruby's fingers off the bar
and force her
down
now
before she was ready.
That's what she's screaming:
I'm not ready.
Not ready, not ready.
No.
And the woman, in that instant
of infinitesimal distraction,
framed the grandmother,
who she would very much
like to draw, if she
Could convince the old
woman that she means no harm.
She didn't hear Ruby's
cascading scream
in time to halt her jettisoning
from the banked chute
into the bitter dust
beneath.
What did arrest her gaze
was the nimbus of brown
radiating over to where she stood
as she realized
that her child needed
attention, despite her own grief.
No Baby Einstein, Moi
I know. I know. It's been 2 weeks to the day. You've kept up your end of the bargain by reading, and I have not. But, even if Reading is Fundamental™ Math is Hard, yo. And I had a mid-term and last week was the culmination of months of work towards the Congo in Harlem film series, and Cuthbert has returned from Ye Olde Sod and math is still hard. Even my beloved niece, who attends St. Whozit, and who laid her mother and uncle on the floor as in ROFLMAO when she announced that they make the 1st graders study Math and other terrible things at her school, even she offered to help me with my homework. I did not refuse her.
As some of you may know, we have been doing proofs. As in prove that:
Now, I've been called irrational and have been presented with sufficient evidence that proves it, but this is an altogether other matter and one that takes time. I offer this in demi-apology for not writing while studying for the midterm. I did okay, iff the professor grades on a curve. The range of test scores out of a possible 100 were 7 to 93. But, two months into this class my expectations are tumbling faster than Felix Baumgartner. I'm just tryin' to get out of this one alive. Have mercy ...
As some of you may know, we have been doing proofs. As in prove that:
3√2 – 7 is irrational
5 Now, I've been called irrational and have been presented with sufficient evidence that proves it, but this is an altogether other matter and one that takes time. I offer this in demi-apology for not writing while studying for the midterm. I did okay, iff the professor grades on a curve. The range of test scores out of a possible 100 were 7 to 93. But, two months into this class my expectations are tumbling faster than Felix Baumgartner. I'm just tryin' to get out of this one alive. Have mercy ...
I have also discovered (not for the first time) that math makes you stupid. That is, the more higher mathematics you study the more arithmetic you forget. (One common complaint on these tests are the oh no you din'it! algebraic errors one makes that Cost Points. I mean I had the definition of the negation of a limit dead to rights and then wrote: |x-a| ≥ ∂, etc. instead of |x-a| < ∂. Oh, the shame. But even stupider than that is what I did at dinner last night. It's raining. It's Friday. Cuthbert and I have already eaten the low-hanging fruit -- the crackers, the cheese, the peanuts, and truth-be-told, neither of us wanted to cook dinner. (Heh, heh as I pretend I'm ever willing to cook dinner.) So, we decide to go out and he finds a new place close by, The New Haven Meatball House. We go there, and have a meal served by a friendly young man with ear plugs which I always associate with the Maasai and other East African people, and the young man suggested we try some beers and when I said I liked 'em dark and stout (self-portrait as a glass of beer?) he started talking about beers like sommeliers talk about wine and brought me something fruity and dark called the Vampireslayer, and yeah buddy (as they say in Louisiana) it was good. Great meal -- 2 main dishes, 4 exquisite beers, dessert and coffee -- great service all while Cuthbert and I discuss Christopher Hitchens, Niall Ferguson and Mitt Romney. We get the check. I calculate the tip, do the addition, sign off and we leave.
Just before we pulled into the driveway I realized that I'd made a mistake. When we get in the house I start harassing Cuthbert -- get me the phone number! google the restaurant! don't you know he has to enter in the amount I signed and hurry up hurry up hurry up!!!. When he wasn't fast enough I remembered I had the receipt and poured out my purse to find it and breathlessly, boozily called the restaurant and said: Oh, no! I just ate at your place and I added wrong and the total should actually be ... Turns out the person I talked to was the person, Juan, who served us and he had my receipt and he was probably cursing out the sociopathic cheapskate who just up and left him a $5 tip. And I made right by him and we signed off as BFF and damnit, math is hard.
Saturday, October 6, 2012
Saturday Poetry: Famine (a pantoum)
I eye my Irish husband.
He sneers at me in derision.
It’s our tattooed 17 year-old son:
he who has gotten obese.
He sneers at me in derision.
The boy’s buttonholes fly across his chest.
He who has gotten obese.
My Irish husband pats his corduroy vest
the boy’s buttonholes fly across his chest.
Reminds me of the times, he tells me.
My Irish husband pats his corduroy vest
Do I want to hear it again?
Reminds me of the times, he tells me,
his father would heat the poker.
Do I want to hear it again?
I must close my eyes to my husband’s glee.
His father would heat the poker
swinging it round and round his head.
I must close my eyes to my husband’s glee:
His father staggering home singing bollix tiss and fookin tat
swinging it round and round his head,
his memory conjures a white-haired gabna
His father staggering home singing bollix tiss and fookin tat
sick to death of snotty beggars huddling in their corner.
His memory conjures a white-haired gabna
that sent the eldest running across his father’s acres
sick to death of snotty beggars huddling in their corner
his final sight of them, petrified,
that sent the eldest running across his father’s acres.
And in his telling he stowed away on the last boat leaving,
his final sight of them petrified.
He brooded over the moment when the crew found him.
And in his telling he stowed away on the last boat leaving.
Not one thought for his sisters and brothers
He brooded over the moment when the crew found him
he told them he was an only child, an orphan, prob’ly.
Not one thought for his sisters and brothers.
The year our son met his father’s siblings
he told them he was an only child, an orphan, prob’ly
and they my son, filling his hands full of shillings,
pounds.
The year our son met his father’s siblings
they told each other how he was so like their brother
and they my son, filling his hands full of shillings,
pounds.
But, the boy declined the morsels of their faith.
They told each other how he was so like their brother
A boy they never forgot.
But, the boy declined the morsels of their faith,
a sin the family never forgave.
A boy they never forgot
is the sullen boy before us now
a sin the family never forgave
shared with a father more agnostic than most.
Is the sullen boy before us now
aware of what he has
shared with a father more agnostic than most?
Hence the tattoos obscuring the fatty rings around his neck.
Aware of what he has
he genuflects before the refrigerator
hence the tattoos obscuring the fatty rings around his neck
I dare not come between my child and his God.
He genuflects before the refrigerator,
he sneers at me in derision.
I dare not come between my child and his God:
he who has gotten obese.
Garbo Cooks
Yes. I surprise myself in this soon to end month of Bachelorettehood. I have cooked, and eaten the results. But, more important than that I have actually devoted mental energy into figuring out how to cook what I cook better. This is all so new for me, I blush. It helps that it's fall and there are great vegetables nearby. I am agnostic about what I prepare. Yesterday, I was making spaghetti sauce and almost sauteed a spider who lived in one of our iron skillets. (Makes me look bad, if not a liar, no?) I said almost.
Anyway, I plan to keep this up. Hell, I need a win. Ye Olde Math Class is giving me, if not quite nightmares, anxious dreams. It is phenomenally beautiful and unusually warm these days, but I am in a permanent state of crankiness and misanthropy. And, why, you may ask? Okay, help me with this:
If you can't, leave me alone. I'm off to look up some fish recipes. I hear fish helps.
Anyway, I plan to keep this up. Hell, I need a win. Ye Olde Math Class is giving me, if not quite nightmares, anxious dreams. It is phenomenally beautiful and unusually warm these days, but I am in a permanent state of crankiness and misanthropy. And, why, you may ask? Okay, help me with this:
Prove or disprove the
following statement:
There exist rational numbers a and b such that ab is
irrational.
If you can't, leave me alone. I'm off to look up some fish recipes. I hear fish helps.
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