Monday - September 14, 2020 - City facades: Hudson Street (Between Laight & Hubert). by Jordan Myers
- Matcha latte from Interlude followed by a walk up Hudson: Tribeca, Summer 2020.
Sunday, September 13, 2020 - Opening day - West 55th Street, between 8th Avenue and Broadway. by Jordan Myers
On a sleepy and cloudy Sunday morning along West Fifty-fifth Street just east of Eighth Avenue, four men and one woman gather: two of the men in black and almost matching New York Jets t-shirts, one in a white Miami Dolphins long-sleeve T (the sleeves pushed up onto his biceps), the fourth in a teamless black t-shirt with white horizontal stripes. The woman wears a Rob Gronkowski jersey —- New England (87). Gronk’s retired, so she says she has to buy a new one, soon. They’re in their late twenties or early thirties. Three Monkeys, on West Fifty-fourth, is suggested as a place to sit outside and watch the games. There’s talk of fantasy football: picking up players off of waivers and the different rules between leagues. No one’s in a hurry; they linger for a while ——- (almost noon) an hour till kickoff / they head west.
Saturday - September 12, 2020 - Jessica A. Krug’s resignation: “Don’t just talk about it, be about it.” by Jordan Myers
I’ll admit that when I heard about Jessica Krug’s resignation from her post as a Black-studies professor at George Washington University, I did so with delight. Krug, who last week revealed that she had been hiding the fact that she is white, had previously spent over three decades self-identifying as Black, Latina, or a combination of the two.
Although I’m still processing what Krug’s admission (if one can call it that) means to me, this much I know for sure: her revelation and subsequent resignation (the University would have removed her had she not resigned) signifies that personally and collectively, we’re being pushed to think more deeply about the meaning of our lives; the origins of our identify; as well as the intersections and parallel lines that create the space between these two. Myself, of course, included.
Her resignation suggests that we’ve reached a point in time where hiding behind whatever masks and veils that we’ve decided to put up around ourselves is becoming less and less possible. Personally and collectively, our false ways of living, moving through the world, and interacting with each other are being chipped away –––– bit by bit and moment by moment -––– so consistently and so forcefully that eventually, only our truths will be able to emerge.
I first heard of Krug while reading Lauren Michele Jackson’s masterful essay from The New Yorker, “The Layered Deceptions of Jessica Krug, The Black Studies Professor who Hid that she is White.”
While reading through Jackson’s essay, I clicked over to the now famous clip of Krug “giving the people what they want,” by way of speaking during a virtual New York City Council Hearing, which took place in June.
In the clip, Krug speaks of the need to not just defund, but instead, to abolish the NYPD. “They’re a colonial occupation force,” she says as she is, presumably, walking through “her neighborhood” the Bronx (she actually grew up in Kansas City, Missouri) and staring into the video feature on her phone, all the while donning neon-purple-shaded aviator sunglasses. “If this city is for ‘us,’” she says, “The NYPD can’t stay.”
As I watched (and now have re-watched) the clip, knowing that her accent and her demeanor were put-on and for show, I also wondered which of the words that she spoke she actually believed in.
Perhaps the delight that I felt, as a Black man, learning of this un-masking and resignation, relates with a strengthened resolve that my life, and by extension, life in general, is even more beautiful and complicated than what may appear.
Quite often throughout this summer of action, protest, awakening and civil unrest, one sentiment that was shared was the idea that silence signifies compliance with oppression. Now, this idea, through Krug, and also through those who have operated from this same place ––– as she’s not the only person who has ever attempted to pull of this type of race re-assignment ––– has proven fallible.
While engaging in her own form of oppression, Jessica A. Krug, was almost always saying and writing all the right words; yet, those words were always undercut, owing to the fact she was never fully-honest with herself.
If however, one is still desiring of a quick quote, pulled from a dense text or speech, which may or may not be taken out of context, this one –––– from a source unknown –––– may be of use: “Don’t just talk about it, be about it.”
Friday - September 11, 2020. by Jordan Myers
I was sitting in a high school classroom at Lawrence Central in Indianapolis my sophomore year and taking a standardized test, the ISTEP, when the twin towers fell. That’s not quite right. I was not taking the test the moment they fell. We were in between sections of the test and the boxy television that was hanging in the corner of the room opposite the doorway was switched on, and images of lower Manhattan were being piped into our classroom.
I can’t remember whether the sound was on, but if it was the words that the men and women on the news were saying didn’t matter. This was a moment beyond words. I remember one of the towers had a gaping hole in its side and my first thought was this: I wonder how long it will take to repair the building, to fix the blemish in the side of the tower. It didn’t cross my fourteen-year-old-mind that the whole thing might come down and collapse into a puff of smoke ––– but then it did, and then our instructor turned the television off.
Maybe we were sent to lunch early, or given time to call family –––– I can’t remember, but I doubt we picked up our pencils, went back into the ISTEP, and started filling in bubbles labeled (A) (B) (C) (D) or (E) again. At least not right away. The world had changed.
My dad is from Harlem and I knew he would have calls to make; and somehow I felt those calls pass down from him and fill my own consciousness: was everyone alright? It had been years since we had visited New York, but even as a teenager growing up in Indianapolis, I remember feeling this glow and energy from the city drawing me in, closer and closer every time I’d meet people from there, or hear stories about what it was like to live there. This went on for a decade, as it wasn’t until ten years later, 2011, when I actually moved here.
From a distance and perched upon the twentieth-floor balcony of my uncle’s apartment in Harlem, for the ten-year anniversary I could see One World Trade Center, still under construction, yet standing tall all the way downtown at the edge of Manhattan, a promise that anything that falls in New York can be built back again.
Although I stood out there for a while that morning, I didn’t have time to think of my fourteen-year-old self who was watching New York from a distance a decade before, without knowing that he’d actually live there in ten years’ time. I was twenty-four and had just taken the New York bar exam in July, and needed to find work –––– pronto. That was almost all that I could fit into my mind at the time: get a job; find work, find a way to stay here, and get your own place.
Thursday, September 10, 2020 - The Bob Woodward Tapes & The United States’ Shift from Duality to Unity. by Jordan Myers
There are failures that occur as the result of an oversight, from misinformation, or from a misunderstanding. There are moments when those who are responsible for leading the nation are unable to assess and comprehend facts. In these moments, one’s inability to form reasonable conclusions, and then speak and act accordingly may be overlooked; or even, pardoned.
All that can be asked is that the those who are elected to positions of leadership and authority in the federal and state governments try their best. There are occasions when determining whether a president is trying his best can be examined with objectivity. Under such circumstances, questions of morality and personal and political preference may be set aside.
If a president is trying his best, when he becomes aware of information that could endanger the lives of millions of people in the country over which he has been elected to serve, he does at least one of two things, if not both: (1) He informs the public of the information that he has become aware of; or (2) Even if he does not inform the public, he takes measures and steps to help assure that the public may be prepared for a pending crisis.
Here are the clips from the interviews with Bob Woodward, wherein on February 7th, 2020, the president of the United States of America mused, inter alia, that Covid-19 is “deadly stuff,” which “spreads through the air,” and is “more deadly than [a] strenuous flu.”
Armed with this information at least one month before the spread of the novel coronavirus claimed the attention of our city –––– leading to approximately twenty-thousand deaths, and thereafter and gradually, our country, the president did not try his best.
While it’s tempting to examine the shock value of these tapes, to do so would be missing the point. Shock and awe is what this president wants. He escalates. He does not de-escalate. He hypes up. He does not calm down.
Yet, one thing that has made 2020 a remarkable year, despite the sickness and loss of life from the outbreak of Covid-19, and despite the repeated murders of Black men and women at the hands of those who’ve been sworn to serve and protect them, is the opportunities for deeper reflection that have flooded the nation’s collective consciousness.
Not everyone has felt the shift, or taken advantage of the infiltration of deeper and more meaningful questions, along with the extended amount of time to consider them, but for those who have –––– and for those who are –––– the rewards have been, and will continue to be sweet.
Donald Trump is the old. His mannerisms, his speech patterns, his sayings, his deflections, his shiftings of blame, and his overall way of being in and of the world reflects the old guard’s creed: “If it benefits me and my friends, I’m in. And if it doesn’t, I’m out.” There’s one phrase for this way of being that expresses the shift that our nation is undergoing in a way that’s clear and direct: duality v. unity consciousness.
The presence of duality consciousness suggests that it’s possible for me to have an experience that is separate from yours: I am over here –––––– and you are over there. Whatever you are experiencing has no bearing on my experience, and vice-versa.
Part of the beauty of 2020 is that this year, and in this time, it’s possible to look back and realize that the United States has developed a more consistent history ––– and legacy ––– of unearthing duality consciousness than one might realize, at first blush. Duality consciousness was once “Separate but equal.” Duality consciousness was once “Whites only.” Duality consciousness was once dispossessing women of the right to vote.
And already, these outward-facing forms of racism and sexism have been eradicated. And what the nation is facing now is the same fight; however this time, it’s inward-facing. This time around, it’s neither the laws nor the books that this shift is changing; instead, it’s the nation’s own collective consciousness –––– from duality, to unity.
Wednesday - September 9, 2020 - Postcards from New York - So this is time moving forward. by Jordan Myers
I remember biking up Tenth Avenue in late May and thinking that time had stopped. Restaurants were still only open for takeout and delivery, so one was sitting down to a meal outside.
Back then, applause and cheers for essential workers were still being made every day at 7:00pm. And each evening, the sun would hold its place in the sky for longer and longer.
Yet tonight, I can feel the endlessness of the forever summer drawing to its close; and the feeling of infinite time to bike, run, and walk and wander around our sleeping city fading away.
Tuesday - September 8, 2020 - City facades: Greenwich Street (Between Charles & West 10th). by Jordan Myers
Around the corner from The Elk on Charles you can walk down Greenwich in the autumn with a cup of coffee or tea in-hand no problem.
Monday - September 7, 2020 - Washington Square Park: Labor Day. by Jordan Myers
Shirtless in jeans: shadow-boxing, sparring with the air.
In a white t-shirt with black shorts: on roller-blades,
whirling fast in circles. Blue ball-cap: pushing around
a steel-wired cart that carries The Urantia book. A Jazz
trombone; acrylic paintings; a drum-line beneath the arch,
the arch. Chalk drawings near the fountain, the fountain.
Sunday - September 6, 2020 - From our poetry archives: “Self Portrait as a Still Life” - Liz Adams - Issue No. 4 - Summer 2018.
Extending our look back at the work of the figurative painter, poet, and humanist, Liz Adams; we offer “Self Portrait as a Still Life,” the companion poem to “Linens,” which held the space for yesterday’s Daily.
As we inch closer and closer to autumn’s beginning, with the layers of all that’s already happened in 2020 still lingering in our hearts and minds, the entire city feels “flush with a whorl of nowness.”
- Photography by Emily Fishman
Self Portrait as a Still Life
I’ll be the robin’s-egg blue
pitcher in my mother’s pantry ––
Where I would search for silver
and linens on fine Sundays.
Or, given the choice, a pink peony
flush with a whorl of nowness.
I’ll speak to you boldly with my hues:
titanium white, quinacridone rose.
One hundred petals of a story ––
each ruffled and veined,
Leading to my egg-yolk
center of golden occasions.
Cup me in your hands, bury
your face in my perfumed core
Where the colors congregate
before fading at the edges.
Set me in the blue pitcher,
let the right light catch.
Saturday - September 5, 2020 - From our poetry archives: “Linens” - Liz Adams - Issue No. 4 - Summer 2018.
There’s a synergy that occurs often, though not always, when poetry and visual art meet. Not every painter who tries her hand at poetry has a knack for knowing what to show through words, and what to keep hidden within the spaces and lines that make up the poem.
Liz Adam’s poetry is focused and intentional, and does not try to do what her paintings have already accomplished. Over the summer of 2018, we enjoyed speaking with Liz, the self-described figurative painter, poet, and humanist.
Adams, who is a native of Marietta, GA received her BFA in Drawing and Painting at Georgia State University. From there, she later relocated to New York to continue her studies at the Art Students League and the National Academy School of Fine Arts, where she studied life drawing and painting.
Although the amount of time that she’s spent as a painter stretches farther back than her poetry practice (she first started writing poems in 2017), there’s a freshness, as well as an emotional honesty to her work that’s easy to pick up on.
“Linens,” offers a solid example: fabrics, napkins, and “sullied cotton with its / Perwinkle striped border” are brought to life, then imbued with colors that only a painter can see: “The color of sky, of possibility, of first love.”
- Photograph and portrait by Emily Fishman.
Linens
I have taken to stealing napkins at bars
Those French country accents
Very chic and understated
A wishful me
Dab at the corners of my mouth
Wipe away words
I didn’t mean to say
I’ll clean the sullied cotton with its
Periwinkle striped border
I’ll wash it by hand
Let it air dry
Pressed to a warm window
The way my grandmother showed me to
Wash a handkerchief
I carried hers
Down the aisle
With its goassamer lace
The color of sky, of possibility, of first love
Nothing lasts but her cloth of delicate grace
To wipe away the loss
I still have linens to wash
Squeezing out the water
Each time remembering her worn hand
Friday - September 4, 2020 - Postcards from New York - Traffic along Varick as well as Tenth Avenue - “[Horn honking] Drive Around!” by Jordan Myers
Traffic for the first time in a long time; not gridlocked, but a marker of what was. Two streets mainly: Varick at around four in the afternoon, heading south toward the Holland Tunnel; as well as Tenth Avenue, around six in the evening, heading north toward the Lincoln Tunnel.
At Varick and King: one man in a white t-shirt, sunglasses, and black leather gloves drives a burgundy Chevy Trailblazer and lays on his horn. He’s heading east on King and wants to cross Varick; yet, as the box is partially blocked by vehicles heading south on Varick, the driver of the car in front of him is hesitant, uncertain, and doesn’t know what to do.
The Trailblazer’s driver offers his advice; as in between two or three bouts of honking his horn, he cries out: “Drive around!” [horn honking] “Drive around!” [horn honking] “Drive around!” –––– his best impression of House of Pain.
Thursday - September 3, 2020 -Heard on West 48th Street (Between Eighth Avenue and Broadway). by Jordan Myers
Ext. / Day - West 48th - Sidewalk, one small table with two chairs beneath an umbrella, outside of La Masseria Caffe.
Tara, early twenties, thin, blonde, in light pink sweatpants, white throwback oversized sneakers (of the variety that have recently come back into fashion) and a black halter top.
Mom, via Facetime.
Tara:
I’m getting a tattoo.
Mom:
Of what?
Tara:
“Tara’s world.”
Mom:
Where?
Tara:
––– in my handwriting.
Mom:
––– Where on your body?
Tara:
I don’t know.
Mom:
I wish you wouldn’t.
Tara:
Thanks for making me not excited about this.
Mom:
I don’t see the point.
Tara:
My mind is made up.
The subject is changed.
Wednesday - September 2, 2020 - Black Fox Coffee Co. - Midtown East - 45 East 45th Street (Madison Avenue). by Jordan Myers
Within the Roosevelt Hotel, Midtown East, there exists a spot for espresso in the middle of a coffee desert. It’s a shop called The Black Fox and it’s open from Monday through Friday, from eight in the morning until four in the afternoon.
This morning I traversed east, through a cloudy and grey Manhattan. Crossing through the Diamond District, I found myself at Madison and East 47th, then noticed the Roosevelt Hotel two blocks south. These days rooms at the Roosevelt that once went for almost five hundred dollars a night can be booked for eighty-five.
Along Madison, men’s shops are abound: Men’s Warehouse; Charles Tyrwhitt; Sayki; My Suit; as well as the shoe’s store, Clark’s. They’re keeping their doors open, unabashedly afraid of being stood up by the thousands of men who once, not so long ago, walked up and down Madison Avenue each morning, afternoon, and night. The men who would pop in for a fitting, to buy a suit, to pick up a few ties over their lunch breaks, or who walked in, just to browse. The men who would get off the Metro North at Grand Central in the morning and walk over and into the giant office buildings that stand stories and stories high –––––– somewhere up there, there are views of The East River, Brooklyn, Queens, and the Bronx.
The retailers who are keeping their doors open, day after day, make their announcement: we’re trying, we believe in Midtown Manhattan, and are ready for the revival, even if no one knows how long it will take.
Outside of The Black Fox this morning, sat two sets of tables and chairs: wooden, quaint and inviting. As I walked in, two men and two women were having coffee and pastries together; their conversation, lively –––– a collective sign of life that was piercing through the veil of an abandoned and forgotten city.
Sunny days are better; there’s more life outside. But even through the grey and the light rain, there’s a feeling within this city: remnants of what was; preludes to all that will be; as well as a pulse, that no matter what, still beats.
Tuesday - September 1, 2020 - City Facades - 57th Street & Ninth Avenue. by Jordan Myers
882 Ninth Avenue in a muted meringue, standing strong beside and beneath the Henry Hudson Hotel (353 West 57th Street), formerly the Clubhouse of the American Woman's Association.
Monday - August 31, 2020 - Movie reviews for films that first screened a minute ago: John and Mary (1969). by Jordan Myers
It’s been a minute, but here is a film to watch on a Saturday morning or early afternoon; when a date, or a serendipitous romantic interlude has happened upon two people ––– something to put on once a Friday evening has spilled into the next morning, or also, once it has collapsed into the next afternoon: John and Mary (1969).
Directed by Peter Yates, the film begins in the dark. The scene is the bedroom of John’s apartment. John (Dustin Hoffman) is sleeping far more soundly than the woman who awakes, a bit a lost though not panicked, in the bed beside him, Mary (Mia Farrow).
At first glance, it’s a wonder that Yates, as well as John Mortimer, who wrote the script, were able to stretch this adaptation of Meryn Jones’ 1966 novel by the same name into a ninety-minute film.
The film moves a bit like a snowball, rolling down a hill, gathering momentum and collecting weight as it continues its descent. The momentum, in part, derives from the fact John and Mary, though already having slept together, know just enough about each other that they’re always wanting to know a bit more. A question begets an answer; which begets another question, which is followed by another answer, and then again, another question.
John and Mary, owing no less to the talent of Hoffman, as well as the deferring yet commanding nature of Farrow, was certainly ahead of its time. One review from the New York Times, from December of 1969, is indicative: “A familiar love story told backwards.” The ‘backwards,’ we’re meant to understand, refers to the fact that these two paramours share a bed and become intimate before going out on several dates and courting each other, rather than after.
Although the balance of the film accompanies John and Mary as they talk, cook, eat, and lounge around John’s modernistic apartment on Riverside Drive –––– he designs furniture, and it shows; consistent use of flashbacks, as well as jump-cuts to future projected possibilities broadens the film’s reach.
The most effective of these are the most immediate; particularly, the flashbacks that travel back less than twenty-four hours, when John and Mary met at a “singles bar” in Manhattan. It’s a crowed and bustling place, one in which John’s friend, Stanley (Stanley Beck) refers to as “A paradise for bachelors,” to which John counters, “The subway, with booze.” Notably, neither John nor Mary actually wanted to be there, yet they were pulled in, by friends.
These flashbacks and leaps forward have a purpose: even if John and Mary are okay with knowing very little about each other’s past, as we’re tuning in and dropping in on their lives for a while on this one Saturday afternoon; naturally, we’re a little curious.
Here’s the short of it; John has fears of abandonment; Mary has struggled to keep a high self-esteem; and they both have built up sizable fortresses around their hearts ––––– lest either one of them actually fall in love.
Sunday - August 30, 2020 - Sunday flash fiction: Before the party. by Jordan Myers
It was possible that Aubrey, at any moment, might stop playing the piano and walk over to Loren –––– who was standing in the kitchen, making tea, and pretending not to be waiting for her. She might ask him whether she could get him anything else to drink, other than tea, or perhaps offer to prepare something for the two of them to eat.
The party did not start for another two hours; and although it was the second week of November, and Loren had grown used to the feeling of the sun setting earlier and earlier each evening, he had not prepared himself to be alone with Aubrey in her apartment –––– not on a quiet and still wintry evening.
He was there to help prepare for the party that would not begin for a while, only because she had insisted that she could not find anyone else to help. And as much as anything at all has the potential to be true, this could have been true as well.
Listening to the sound of Aubrey practicing in the other room, an extended segment from Brahm’s Piano Concerto No. 1, Loren sipped from a large forest green mug of piping hot earl grey tea, which he had prepared on his own.
After a few moments of standing, pacing, and thinking of Rose, he sat down on the sofa, opposite the balcony, that faced the giant windows and looked out over west twenty-second-street.
The night’s sky descended upon the city, faster and faster; and outside it began to snow.
Saturday - August 29, 2020 - From our poetry archives: "Bobby Wiley” - Tom Davidson.
Continued from yesterday’s daily, which featured Tom Davidson’s poem, “Darius Azmeh-Volpato,” we present the companion persona poem from the author, “Bobby Wiley,” both appearing within Issue No. 3 - Winter - 2017-18.
We love the image of “robins / jerking around on the branches,” and join with the author, as well as with Bobby Wiley, in “say[ing] goodbye to bad shit happening.”
All of our best,
Curlew Quarterly
______________________________
BOBBY WILEY
The baseball junkie next door stinks like grease.
Looks like he’s about to croak. He ain’t clean.
I AM.
Been spick and span for six years.
Back then I said goodbye to hocking junk
& bombing liquor. Goodbye
to stealing azaleas and axles, to stockpiling turpentine,
to stewing in the gutter, to holy beaters,
and the street demon peddlers.
I said goodbye to bad shit happening.
That’s when I was transferred to this building,
took one of the only single units left.
From my window I can see robins
jerking around on the branches.
I’d probably kill myself if I was a robin.
Turning up leaves all day to find
nothing. Free as a bird they say, but that’s not
any kind of freedom I want to partake in.
Freedom is a CLEAN mind, a CLEAN body.
And it takes mental focus.
It takes all you’ve got.
Friday - August 28, 2020 - From our poetry archives: “Darius Azmeh-Volpato” - Tom Davidson. by Jordan Myers
Walking through Manhattan this afternoon and feeling the end of summer, I was glad to remember Tom Davidson’s poem, “Darius Azmeh-Volpato,” from Issue No. 3 - Winter 2017-18; which carries three lines that captures the feeling of the weather changing as the time within one calendar year, elapses: “To stand before the coming season and wait in luxury / for the puffed-up owls, slippery foxes, and the mama wolf / while city life motors on happy in its nature / walloping with clubs the treasured stories.”
“Darius Azmeh-Volpato,” like the other poem by Davidson that was published in Issue No. 3, “Bobby Wiley,” is a persona poem, a description that Davidson coined.
An excerpt from the interview with Davidson, wherein he describes the process through which he creates persona poems, along with “Darius Azmeh-Volpato,” appears below. The portrait of the author, also below, by Alexandra Bildsoe.
All of our best,
Curlew Quarterly
__________________________
Alex: How do you think the concept of wonder plays into your process of writing poems? And by wonder, I mean this idea of unselfconscious wonder with the world, or with anything.
Tom: Wonderment. I think this is where I’ll have to bring up meditation, because meditation for me is an integral piece of the puzzle. I find that if I don’t get myself into a meditative state and if I don’t let passing thoughts and emotions pass me by, or run through me, then I cannot write the poem that I’m meant to write.
The only way that I can describe it is that I have to . . . almost empty myself of any fixed point of focus or anything concrete, everything has to kind of flow. And once I’m in that flow state, I can usually write the poem that I’m meant to write.
It’s a practice that I try to bring to other situations as well. For instance, when I’m meeting someone for the first time, whether I’m going to write about them or not, I consciously try to let the perceptions or the impressions, or the feelings and thoughts that I have about the other person just wash over me.
Some of them are prejudices that come from God knows where, judgments that come from God knows where, or it could even be a joyful thought. But whatever it is, whether it comes from inherited judgments of people, I let it wash over me and then I can connect with that person’s essence.
Usually I write down a couple of sentences about that person in a more documentary type fashion: what they were wearing and what they said to me. Then, if I can access that space of openness, when I didn’t see them in any particular way, then I can write these persona poems, but only when I’ve accessed that kind of place. Which for me is this kind of all-embracing place of compassion, where you’re completely compassionate toward the person, wherever they’ve been or whatever they’ve done and whatever they tell you, you can hold that space for that person.
This makes it seem like we’re talking about therapy in some way, I’m not. It’s about what’s going on in my mind and in my body. I’m not letting myself go to a place where I feel as though I’ve understood someone. I try to be that way with people that I write about, even when they’re imagined people.
Alex: I think that totally comes across in your poems. I was reading a few this morn- ing, and I felt like, whoa, I really just got sucked into another person’s world.
Tom: That’s what I try and do. It feels satisfying when you can . . . I don’t want to say sum up someone’s personality and encapsulate them, and I don’t even want to say that I’ve captured the essence of that person, necessarily. That’s probably too grand of a statement. But there’s just this moment I know that it’s entirely physiological or primal, where I feel like, yes, I’ve think I’ve gotten something about you, a little bit, in our small encounter. I think I’ve understood something, and I’m going to do the best that I can to put it on the page. But it doesn’t work out all the time.
__________________________
DARIUS AZMEH-VOLPATO
Mama, you are beautiful as a wraith.
Every morning the world shoots
Out of your corpse under
the wan light of winter
near where the children in the playground dismantle
daisies and hum sweet tunes
to the scarred ants and squelchy pond critters,
out of you gushes the plain windows,
knee-high fences, succulent lawns,
all your astonishing pages unbound,
whispered with intention on down
pillows late at night
when the ashes of our sleeping turn
back to body to fern to ocean jelly again,
and from the crevices in your bones seedlings hover
one hundred fold over children
and beleaguered school administrators
who long to retreat to your painted summer shacks
and attend to the drift of dandelions,
to stand before the coming season and wait in luxury
for the puffed-up owls, slippery foxes, and the mama wolf,
while city life motors on happy in its nature
walloping with clubs the treasured stories, coughing up
a lung defending the drone from the podium, too skittish
to pause for breath, not dwelling on the white sheet
an orderly once placed over your body, Mama –
the one woman who is unseen but heard whose
words alight even on steel girders, with so much love
to give I want to be as open as your body is
with its bulbous sockets out of which grow blazing lilies,
as open as we all want to be when we’re not snarling in time
with the beating heart of the beast scratching the ages on tombstones.
Thursday - August 27, 2020 - Jacob Blake - Cancelled Sporting Events, & Everything: Accelerated. by Jordan Myers
Ninety-four days ago, following the murder of George Floyd by members of the Minneapolis Police Department, the public outcry created a wave of protests across the country; many of which were carried out with a strength, force, and sense of urgency and demand for change which, in sum, moved beyond the level of what anyone has seen, or felt over the last twenty years.
Millions of Americans, tired of being on lockdown due to efforts to slow the spread of Covid-19, and exhausted by the prospect of spending a summer locked inside and repeatedly walloped by news of the virus, which would not stop spreading and killing hundreds of thousands of their family members and friends, decided to focus their attention elsewhere: on racial injustice, systematic racism, and the ever-growing list of young black men and women who have been murdered by police officers across the country.
Calls to defund police departments grew in fervor, and racial justice organizations like Black Lives Matter and The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, commanded a greater amount of focus and attention from the nation’s collective consciousness.
Personal, as well as professional social media accounts were flooded with black squares, posted by account holders to reflect their solidarity in the stand against racial injustice, and in the fight for greater equality.
People were waking up, and millions were being forced to confront realities that had long been either swept under the rug and kept quiet, or completely ignored. Remaining silent grew less and less acceptable. And vows to do better were made.
By the middle of July it was unclear whether the NBA season would resume, after it had been suspended in March due to the outbreak of Covid-19. Players had met to confer and discuss whether it made sense for them to keep playing basketball. Ultimately, the season was resumed on July 30th, with an abbreviated close to the regular season, as well as a condensed playoff format; all of which would be held in a “bubble” in Bay Lake, Florida. And for a while, the games went on as scheduled.
Then on August 23rd, 2020, a young black man in Kenosha, Wisconsin, Jacob Blake (29), was shot seven times in the back by members of the Kenosha Police Department, and paralyzed from the waist down as a result. Three days later, on August 26th, the Milwaukee Bucks refused to play their playoff game against the Orlando Magic. Thereafter, the two other playoff games scheduled for the day, the Los Angeles Lakers v. the Portland Trailblazers, and the Houston Rockets v. the Oklahoma City Thunder, were postponed.
The Milwaukee Bucks players issued a statement:
“The past four months have shed a light on the ongoing racial injustices facing our African American communities. Citizens around the country have used their voices and platforms to speak out against these wrongdoings.
“Over the last few days in our home state of Wisconsin, we’ve seen the horrendous video of Jacob Blake being shot in the back seven times by a police officer in Kenosha, and the additional shooting of protestors. Despite the overwhelming plea for change, there has been no action, so our focus today cannot be on basketball.
“When we take the court and represent Milwaukee and Wisconsin, we are expected to play at a high level, give maximum effort and hold each other accountable. We hold ourselves to that standard, and in this moment, we are demanding the same from our lawmakers and law enforcement.
“We are calling for justice for Jacob Blake and demand the officers be held accountable. For this to occur, it is imperative for the Wisconsin State Legislature to reconvene after months of inaction and take up meaningful measures to address issues of police accountability, brutality and criminal justice reform. We encourage all citizens to educate themselves, take peaceful and responsible action, and remember to vote on Nov. 3."
And the team’s owners issued their own statement, in support of their players’ position:
“We fully support our players and the decision they made. Although we did not know beforehand, we would have wholeheartedly agreed with them. The only way to bring about change is to shine a light on the racial injustices that are happening in front of us. Our players have done that and we will continue to stand alongside them and demand accountability and change.”
Yet, prepared written statements released to the press are always topped by in-the-moment quotes from men who are speaking the truth, and speaking from their hearts. Milwaukee Bucks’ guard, George Hill, said it best:
“We’re tired of the killings and the injustice. We can’t do anything [from Orland]. First of all, we shouldn’t have even come to this damn place, to be honest. I think coming here just took all the focal points off of what the issues are.”
As of this morning, there were reports that the NBA season might not continue, as the Los Angeles Clippers and the Los Angeles Lakers, including one of the NBA’s most talented players, and certainly, its prominent voice, Lebron James, voted to end the NBA season.
More recently, these talks have been resolved, and the league is set to continue its bubble season.
Yet, even amongst the decision to keep playing, what can’t be lost is the fact that decisions are being made more quickly, and calls for change are being made more loudly. In early June, the league didn’t know what to do, whether to hold off on playing, or to go forward. And weeks passed before a decision was made.
However, in late August, the Milwaukee Bucks made a clear statement, and they made it quickly: we’re not going out there; and we’re not playing. It didn’t take them a month to decide. It only took three days.
Yesterday, the WNBA; MLS; the MLB; as well as No. 1 ranked women’s tennis player Naomi Osaka joined in with the Bucks in bringing awareness to racial injustice and demanding change, rather than playing ball.
And although the NBA season, for now, is moving forward, the call for change, as well as the dramatic actions that are being taken in order to bring about change are happing with less hesitation, and are happening more rapidly. Everything is being accelerated.
Wednesday - August 26, 2020 - Lighting up the grid: The NYPD Affirms that Black Lives Matter @ Manhattan Plaza - 43rd Street (Between Ninth and Tenth Avenue). by Jordan Myers
For three hours this afternoon a group of five to ten members of the NYPD, either from Manhattan’s Tenth Precinct, which covers most of Chelsea, or from the NYPD’s Community Affairs Division, played basketball with children, boys and girls, black, latino and white, from as young as about seven to as old as about fifteen, who live in Manhattan.
After a few minutes of stretching, practice shots, generally warming up, and choosing teams, the action began. First the teams played two half-court games, and then the entire court was opened up, for an up-and-down, full-court match. All the while, the children’s parents watched, cheering loudly, and often, when three-point shots were made from distance, and ooohing and aaaahing just after acrobatic drives to the basket were punctuated with graceful and ballerina-esque lay-ups off of the glass. The officers didn’t do so bad either, though they drew less cheers.
The venue, a second floor landing wrapped within Hell’s Kitchen’s historic Manhattan Plaza, provides a front-row view of Midtown-West’s skyline, including a glimpse between buildings of the on-ramp that leads toward the Lincoln Tunnel.
Manhattan Plaza, owing to a plan devised by real estate developer Daniel Rose in 1976, served as a home and a hub for performing artists who were cementing their lives as well as their careers, and making their names known in New York in the 1980s and ‘90s. Names of notable former residences include Terrence Howard, Alicia Keys, Larry David, and Samuel Jackson ––– who worked there as a security guard, and who no one must have crossed.
Throughout the afternoon, the sun remained high and bright in the sky but did not beat down upon the basket-ballers and spectators, as it was paired with a cool breeze, which, on-and-off, swept across the court as well as the nearby playground.
Before the children and the officers broke into their four separate teams, they gathered on the courts’ most western end for a photograph. Everyone fit into the frame. And on more than one occasion, a parent or family member who was holding their camera phones toward the group would offer an instruction, “Now, say Black Lives Matter!” And everyone would. And everyone did.