Poll #1842679 Myooir? Mwir? Mer?
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 14

How do you pronounce the word Muir?

View Answers

Meer
1 (6.7%)
Mer
0 (0.0%)
Mweer
0 (0.0%)
Myer
3 (20.0%)
Mooeer
1 (6.7%)
Mwihr
0 (0.0%)
Myooirr
10 (66.7%)
I avoid saying it because it never sounds right. I "go to the redwoods," not "Muir Woods."
0 (0.0%)
Muir is a word? In what language?
0 (0.0%)

Yesterday I went with one of my poetry friends up to Spirit Rock (for the first time) to hear the famous Buddhist priest Jack Kornfield give a talk (also for the first time). 

I'm not sure if I'm spelling it right, but he told the story of Nachitaka, a young man who questioned his father's love for him (I'm skipping that slightly complicated part of the story), and in reply his father said "I give you to death!" (a colloquial curse). So Nachitaka said "I accept." (Jack Kornfield's aside-- any of you know any young men? They like to ask "is there anything dangerous for me to do around here?") And he went to sit under a tree for three days. During that time he journeyed to the underworld. He asked to see Death. Death was out collecting taxes. So he waited. When Death returned he apologized for being a bad host and in apology offered Nachitaka three wishes.

Nachitaka first wished for forgiveness from his father.

Jack talked about how we give ourselves freedom by asking for forgiveness.

Nachitaka then asked to be as awake as possible in this life.

Jack talked about how living a life without heart is not much of a life at all. Even when things are bad, you need to stay awake and let yourself be vulnerable. He quoted Rilke "Ultimately it is on our vulnerability that we depend."  If we are invulnerable we cannot grow.

Fear is the membrane between us and growth.

Nachitaka, for his last wish, asked to know what is eternal.

Death reminded him that this was his last wish, and showed him visions of the palaces and political power he could have, the large family, generations of grandchildren. Nachitaka asked-- is it not true that all of this will eventually return to you? 

Death said that it was true.

So Nachitaka restated his request to know what is eternal.

Death gave him a beautifully etched mirror. He said that he couldn't answer him directly, but he said that if he looked in the mirror long enough, he would get his answer.

Then Jack talked about what Nachitaka would see in that mirror. Not his body. Not his thoughts. Not his feelings. Not his story. These are not *you.* What he would see is that which doesn't depend on those things. That which witnesses those things but is not contained by them.

He quoted or paraphrased Mary Oliver: "I didn't ask for understanding; I asked for wonder." 

What is eternal is the mystery, the curiosity, the ability to wonder. 

...I'd write more, but my notes were jotted on my knitting pattern (I was knitting throughout the talk) and the cat has decided that it is an Important Piece of Paper which means she is in a deep and blissful sleep on it (all Important Pieces of Paper need snuggling). I'll just let the above stand as a reminder of that helpful talk.

May my curiosity always be stronger than my need for certainty.

This Sunday at 4 PM at the Lake Merritt Methodist Church is my next orchestra concert-- Haydn, Beethoven, Schubert-- all hard-core classical all the time. Free! Get there early to get seats or e-mail/text me before 2 PM to confirm you want me to save you a seat.

Alameda County has a low-income healthcare program called HealthCAP that is relatively new and hard to find info about.

Here's what I could find on first stab, for those of you who are uninsured or underinsured (I gather you can enroll at the hospital if your health coverage does not cover the service you need when you are brought into the hospital in an ambulance):

My girlcat Dasha, the delight of my heart for ten years, died at the age of 11 today. She died in my arms, dying of natural causes from a sudden onset aggressive brain inflammation of unknown cause. All diagnostic and treatment attempts failed. I don't have any regrets about my choices, which is a blessing. However, those diagnostic and treatment attempts also wiped out my savings (over $4000 spent in three days). I'm much more in shock about the loss of my little girl, but being rendered suddenly penniless is adding to the shock. Please send me strength.

I'm not sure what people would consider spoilers, and this is really newly out, so I'm putting my quickie review behind the cut.

( Haywire quickie review... )

On the advice of Lyonesse I joined the equestrian LJ a few months ago, and today's topic of discussion was amusing (to me)-- about the random things that make horses spook, or not, or not ever but then sometimes. Here are some highlights:

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In my monthly poetry group we bring poems written by other people to share before workshopping our own pieces. Today we met and I read this poem by Ursula LeGuin from her book "Sixty Odd."

Infinitive

We make too much history.

With or without us
there will be the silence
and the rocks and the far shining.

But what we need to be
is, oh, the small talk of swallows
in evening over
dull water under willows.

To be we need to know the river
holds the salmon and the ocean
holds the whales as lightly
as the body holds the soul
in the present tense, in the present tense.

I just met with my supervisor for my internship with the Governor's Office of Planning and Research and he terminated my unpaid internship because his boss decided all interns need to be full time in the Sacramento office. And I have no option for funding for my transportation, since I'm not interning through a school or other program, just on my own. I can't afford the travel for five trips to Sacto a week.

Today I went for a ride.

1. We did a short trail ride with Alex and her big beautiful Swedish Warmblood Flash, who is very pretty and red with a perfect white star on his forehead. Muffin was very cute, breaking into a little trot to keep up with his long lanky warmblood legs. I think she Likes him. 

2. Then we did trot poles (4 poles). She cantered them and JUMPED them (like, all of them in a big bound), then partially trotted and partially cantered, then finally settled down to trotting them. She got nice and round over them, very collected and fancy. Good girl! We've done lines of trot poles before, but apparently not nearly enough.

3. Then I put up a tiny crossrail in the position of a fifth trot pole on one end of the line of four poles. Mostly she jumped it and cantered into the trot poles and trotted out of them (in one direction), or trotted into the trot poles and jumped the last trot pole together with the crossrail, a bit of a wide leap. But eventually I got a trot out of her over the whole set-up in both directions. But boy, she prefers jumping to picking up her feet one at a time.

Overall, the trot poles had a great effect if only to keep her mind on her feet without busting out with a lunging high-speed canter into or out of the crossrail. The whole time I felt like I had her attention and we were communicating before, during and after the jump.

I realized how much I anticipated with my seat and how much I needed to work to stay back and centered over the rails and the jump. 

Thanks for your sharing your thoughts on this jump-rushing problem, Vicka and Jen!

Horse-person friends-- I have done in my SSG riding gloves in one year's use, and they are $30 to replace, so I'm wondering-- can I get recommendations for a brand of better-made gloves? Or a favorite type of glove?

I don't need thermal gloves-- the same pair works year-round in California.

I'm drafting a blog post addressing children's worries about Santa and the melting of the North Pole. As in, I'm writing as a Wood Elf Junior Correspondent who is leaking information to the Human Children of the SF Bay Area about the Ice Elves' plans. Who is willing to read an 1100 word (2.5 page) piece and give me feedback for language, tone, and my attempt at impersonating an elf?

There's a rough deadline of mid-December, so it's not urgent, but I'm having fun writing it so I'm ahead of schedule.

Well, the people with whom I've been having complicated and somewhat unsettling negotiations regarding an editing/ re-translation project are now off my back for good. 

They finally got me the original Russian text, and I did a test page (editing/ re-translating into good English), which took an hour. It's a 200 page book, so I quoted them $50/hr at an hour a page, or $10k, and a plan for completing the job within eight weeks, which I thought was a nice fast turn-around. But after all these back-and-forths, and my doing a test page, I got a rude "I guess we don't have anything to talk about if you are proposing such a sum" for my troubles.

Really, they aren't going to find better prices going through an actual professional agency, not if they want someone fluent in Russian and English with editing/ translating experience. 

I quoted them the $50/hour at the outset, $15 more than I usually charge per hour, because they were being so unprofessional with me, and I was kind of hoping to scare them off right away, but they persisted, so I went forward with my test page. Unfortunately, it was all a waste of time and I should have told them I wasn't interested at the outset when the yellow flags first started popping up.

Yellow flags such as the big bright one that came up after the main negotiator guy sent me an e-mail from Israel and then called my home number right away to ask me if I'd gotten the e-mail. Waking me up at 2 AM (and not leaving a message) and then again at 3 AM (and leaving a message that I could barely understand-- I think the guy was calling from a cell phone). 

I realized after I went to bed that I didn't explain what happened after I hung out at Occupy Oakland yesterday.

I left around 4 PM, because I had some things I needed to do regarding Manya's funeral preparations, coordination for my day today (I'm in Sacramento for meetings), and the first orchestra rehearsal for the new set, which includes my Favorite Ever piece of classical music to play, Tchaikovsky's first symphony "Winter Dreams." But let me tell you about the rest of my Occupy experience.

As I was leaving, the bicycle contingent (Critical Mass) was silently assembled at the head of the march, about to take off for the port. I mean it was SILENT. People were solemn. It was a bit chilling. They were ready to face violent resistance from the police. Thankfully, that didn't happen. At the port that didn't happen.

Here is a great photo-essay narrative from one of the bicycle lead-off group members. Read it, read all of it, it's important as a document from this movement. I really resonate with the author's sentiment that this should not be made into a "crypto-vanguardist" movement by a small subset of organizers.

In fact, in response to a friend's complaint on FB about the lack of any demands ("OWS, I really really want to support you. But could you come out with one simple, actionable demand, please?") I just summarized my current feelings about the movement pretty precisely:

I don't know about OWS, but I felt that way about Occupy Oakland, and now (having spent some time in the midst of things) I'm sure I like it the way it is, as an organic, barely coordinated, multi-issue process and physical place where people can learn about each other's identities within the present economic crisis. It would be a TOTALLY different thing if it had a spokesperson or leading organization coordinating negotiations of specific demands with a particular decision-making authority. That is what the professional advocacy world is good at; that is not what the Occupy movement is good at or should be about (I think, now). However, until you get yourself into the mix of things and see it for yourself, from the outside the lack of demands and lack of any one authority who could satisfy them (if they were definable) is indeed frustrating.

...So, after walking through the silent block of bicyclists about to head for the port, I saw the various lead-off contingents shaping up behind giant banners, and the hilarious cow/chicken on a bike with a boombox playing "We Are the World" and the confusing "Keep Your Fork There's Pie" sign... and then as I kept walking down 14th I saw small groups filtering downtown, all happy and excited and variously adorned, some pushing strollers, some carrying signs, some carrying signs and pushing strollers. A rally at the main library looked like it was about to launch a contingent of families with little kids. I had my "Occupy Oakland Not Palestine" sticker which everyone looked at with a serious and thoughtful expression as I walked by (it took me a few serious-faced people watching my chest to make me recall that I was still wearing that sticker, and then I started meeting their serious faces with a friendly smile).

Then I took care of my personal chores and orchestra rehearsal, and checked back in with the news. Everything still looked peaceful. Then everything started to come unglued again. What I heard (and I'm still reading the various accounts, so I might be representing only one person's view) was that the OPD cleared the intersection of Broadway/17th using teargas, so a bonfire was lit to clear the gas (fire eats up the tear gas fumes). I had seen a massive pile of broken up dried wooden pallettes at Frank Ogawa Plaza, which I'm guessing were used later for the bonfire. Well, there's no way public safety personnel are going to just let a bonfire get lit and allowed to burn in the middle of the street. So, more teargas, more police action to clear the intersection with the bonfire (I think at 16th). By 2 AM there were merry bands of vandals doing their best to destroy property and get shot with rubber bullets and etc. etc.

But that was NOT the main experience of the day for most people. Somewhere between 50k and 100k people experienced a TOTALLY WONDERFUL LOVING PEACEFUL day of solidarity with people struggling around the world in an economic depression caused by under-regulated financial institutions.

I wish I wish I wish that signal was stronger than the vandalism. But at my orchestra rehearsal break (where we gather around to share snacks) all the talk was about the windows being broken at Whole Foods earlier in the evening.

I didn't feel a lot of connection to Occupy Oakland because they weren't going to a decision-maker with a demand that could be satisfied, so it just felt like people spinning their wheels being mad in a totally unresolveable way that could only lead to a big police show-down and no improvement for the people truly suffering. But then I went down there last week after the horrible police behavior on October 25th, and was totally inspired by the organic and earnest nature of the gathering (although my opinion about how it is unresolveable and won't improve the lot of the worst-off is the same). It was intriguing and fun.

So I didn't really intend to spend much time at the "General Strike," given that nobody cares where I am at any time (I'm unemployed) and the strike wasn't called for by organized labor. But again, I was sucked in by sheer earnestness and charm of the people gathered. It was really fun! The vibe was so kind and caring.

My photos:

2011_11_02_General Strike_Occupy Oakland

I very quickly ran into someone I knew-- Rebecca Crump. Then ran into my friend Julia's good friend Penny, and my old co-worker Sydney, who were both representing Jewish Voice for Peace. So I tooled around with them for a while. The Occupy Oakland Not Palestine signs and stickers were a hit. I ran into my pal Rose (GDV's friend) and she was preparing to join the clergy contingent and also do some medical service stint. I saw Zachary Runningwolf (who I worked with on some things when I was interning at Project Underground in the 90's) doing an offering of white sage in the middle of Broadway. I saw a giant puppet and some political street theater. I saw Shelly Doty (backing up an amazing folk singer from Seattle who brought me to tears getting us all to sing "We Will Not Be Moved"). Oaklandish's storefront was closed in solidarity but had a DJ on a turntable having fun playing hiphop (F*ck Tha Police, while I was filling up my water bottle at the jugs provided by Oaklandish). I knitted while watching a string of good performers (and one lame-o pseudo reggae act that annoyed me by wanting us to stand to honor Haile Selassie), topped off by the wonderful young poets of Youth Speaks and dancers/performers from Destiny Youth Arts. All day I felt like I was connecting with some of my favorite parts of my life in the Bay Area, and the best of Oakland. Familiar friendly faces everywhere.

My favorite sign (which I saw only after my camera battery died): OCTOPI OAKLAND!

My favorite costume: tall, sad/serious-faced guy (or was in a serious conversation) with long thin face and lots of facial hair wearing all green and then giant daisy petals on his head (so his long solemn face was at the center of the flower). A repurposed Halloween costume? ("General" and "Strike" were written on the petals to either side of his head.) Serious Daisy!

Honorable mention for the cow and chicken riding on a bicycle together (the cow had a sign: "The 1% is milking us dry!") with a boom box playing "We Are the World" that everyone they passed sang along with.

Worst propaganda speech: guy from the Western Service Workers Association trying to tell me there IS no middle class in the U.S. But I gave him a chance to explain because he saw me eyeballing his stack of sandwiches and gave me a PBJ. I happily munched the sandwich and let him talk as long as he wanted. I agreed with almost everything else he said (with the main thrust being we have to redirect all the good energy of the day into organized action).

Worst t-shirt slogan: Marijuana Cures Racism. (Huh?)

Worst sign: photo of a tiger cat photoshopped into a suit, with the caption "Keep your fork, there's pie."

Best giant sign installation: the word SOLIDARITY posted one giant letter per window along a floor in a high rise facing Broadway at 14th.


Excellent free food for everyone, and I mean really excellent. I think when I went through the food was from the Loafer Bakery. Later I think some Middle Eastern food was brought in by another local vendor, all for free. The two or three cafes that were open today did great business, and perhaps figured they could afford to donate a bunch of food.

My friend Lisa and I went to go check out Occupy Oakland's encampment tonight. Here are some initial impressions from the second night after the night of police violence.

- There weren't any helicopters.

- There were media vans nearby, but I didn't see any cameras rolling.

- There were maybe a few hundred (200? 300?) people down there.

- The first thing you saw tonight walking up to the plaza was an altar full of votive candles for Scott Olsen. There's a notebook where you can write notes to Scott (I thanked him for coming to our city and joining the movement, and wished him full justice) and a sign with the website where you can make donations to his medical fund.

- Light sources were either votive candles in dixie cups or the diffuse light from the interior of City Hall. It made for a very sleepy, peaceful vibe.

- There were 10-15 tents down there, with new tents being erected as we left. Word was passed along that something like 120 tents were being donated to the encampment by Occupy Wallstreet, but they didn't know any details of how they'd be received or distributed.

(Click to see an album of photos of tonight's Occupy Oakland)

2011_10_27_Occupy Oakland

- The legal status of the encampment is unclear at this time, and those assembled were told they risked citation by police if they stayed overnight.

- I ran into my pal Rebecca Crump, who is one of my friends most involved in the encampment and protests, and I asked her if it was true that the tents seized by the police were tagged and put into storage so that people could get their property back. She had heard the same thing, but didn't know more than me.

- Right after Lisa and I got there, a proposal was read to have a speak-out on police violence from 6-8 PM on Saturday, and affinity groups were formed to discuss the proposal. After that, there was a period of "clarifying questions," and then ten people were allowed to present "pros and cons." After that, there would be a vote on the proposal, and if it didn't pass, there would be friendly amendments. Or, that's how my affinity group understood and explained the process to me.

- I didn't fully understand what the issues were with this event, so I just listened. Other people in the group (which was a mix of ~10 people, men, women, brown/black/white, older and younger) were concerned that the speak-out was being scheduled between a couple other events (an afternoon outreach event and an evening march), and so it wouldn't be as powerful as it should be, and one woman was worried about public safety, going straight from a rally against police violence to a march (she was afraid people would be whipped up into a more confrontational state). I repeated back what I was hearing to make sure I understood.

- So, since I was showing skill at summarizing what was being said, I was nominated to present our "cons" during the "pros and cons" section.

- First, we went through about 40 minutes of "clarifying questions," during which I got the impression that the event was going to happen no matter what, since any questions were being taken as criticisms and responded to defensively. As in, if you had a problem with their event, you were pro-police and probably a racist, certainly someone who has never experienced regular police violence, maybe even a member of the hated bourgeoisie. The organizers of the event were clearly looking for trouble, wanting confrontation with police, and hating rich people. Not the banks, individual rich people. I wasn't terribly impressed with this process.

- I dutifully lined up and gave my two cons. I spoke with the "Occupy" M.O. of human amplification, so everything you said had to be in short phrases that were repeated by the whole crowd-- a little unnerving. But I did OK. The woman whose concerns I was voicing thanked me after I scurried back to my seat. I was hissed by some people in the audience after I presented her concern (that the march might be more violent than it otherwise would be, coming right after an anti-police violence rally). So, good. I was expressing a non-universal viewpoint, which makes it more important to voice.

- The proposal for a two hour speak-out on police violence was passed by a 90% vote. I asked someone with more experience at the assemblies when there would be opportunity for a friendly amendment, and he said he hadn't seen it happen. In other words, every proposal gets approved.

- The process of discussion wasn't worthless, but it was meaningless in the end. The speak-out organizers were fliering the assembled folks with announcements of the event that were clearly already prepared before the so-called proposal was voiced. So, it wasn't a proposal, it was an announcement of an event that was going to happen in any case, and our discussion was an opportunity for anyone who had a problem with it to be called out on our privilege and racism.

- Two hours for a supposedly open-mic format speak-out event on police brutality in Oakland is woefully inadequate. That was my point. You can't give that topic short schrift. You can't rush people off the mic because they are taking too long to tell their painful personal story. Grrrr. I was one of the very few no votes (expecting that there would be an opportunity for friendly amendments). When I was voicing my concern after the vote, someone else nearby said she felt the same way but she voted "yes" because she didn't want to seem against speaking out against police brutality. I believe there were many in the crowd who also might have had a problem with this event, but were being cast as villains if they voiced their problems. Democracy!

- But overall, I am glad I went! And I was really heartened to see familiar faces, and lots of people being thoughtful and engaged. We need more of this!

Hi LJ friends,

Anyone out there have a recommendation for me on a client to download my LJ entries/ comments/ etc.? I'm suddenly interested in backing this thing up.

 

If I join an Occupy camp, when do I get to go home? At what point are our demands satisfied? Is the point just to camp in a public place having a public process of resistance until the cops absolutely refuse to let you camp anymore? Or is there some other way it could end?

Do I stop Occupying when we all have jobs and homes? Or is there something more realistic/ attainable that a government or bank can do to allow the Occupy camp to disperse in victory?

 

I needed an epic movie or series to help me get through a translation over the weekend, so I re-watched the Lord of the Rings trilogy. The version I got is the extended edition. They are NOT kidding-- the Return of the King was 4 hours long!

So, obviously, the Jesus Character is Frodo, oh so often does he die and return to greater glory. But who is the Gay Character? Ponder ponder ponder. There is so much literal sabre-rattling, so much asserting of heterosexuality and masculinity (or femininity for the very few women in the movie). So who crosses gender boundaries? Frodo. Only Frodo. He is always fainting, very pale and frightened, speaking in a high feathery voice, hardly ever able to defend himself alone, continually being rescued. That scene when he is wrapped up by the spider, he is so uber-androgynous! And then he completely collapses, and Sam has to carry him up Mount Doom. Where then he does the very passive (yin/ feminine) move of disappearing to escape with the ring. I'm surprised I didn't notice this unusual aspect of the movie before (or maybe I did-- I don't remember). 

Lesbian movie standard-- I'm not even going to waste a second trying to consider this. No two women were ever in any scene together except for the royal procession at the end, where neither of the two (Arwen/ Eowyn) had any lines.