Saturday, June 29, 2024

Visions of America: poetry, music (PRS)


What happened?
Flyer with all the pertinent details (prs.org)
MC Jane McCarthy kicked off the evening with a reading of her poem, composed for the special purpose of addressing the night's question, "What is your vision of America?" She said she would present her reading and explanation of Emma Lazarus' great "The New Colossus" about the Statue of Liberty after the music then brought up Wisdom Quarterly's own Seven.

He pointed out that Native Americans do not view the Fourth of July in the same way as other American. Rather than a celebration of liberty, it is commemorated with indigenous practices revived after long, slow and ongoing genocide, occupation, apartheid, and erasure.

A view of the venue from the second floor, Manly P. Hall's Library of World Religions, PRS.
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The evening called on six artists to articulate visions of America by reading famous works and presenting their own recent work. Seven combined the prompt with a deft homage (parody) to British poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge and perhaps his greatest poem, "Kubla Khan."

The Hacking of the American Mind
The background is that Coleridge was addicted to opium in the form of the prescription pain medicine Laudanum (poppy and alcohol), an early form of heroin or morphine. And Seven pointed out that in America, no one has a right to be happy. All we have is a right to chase it. Our constitutional guarantee is to "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." 

Few seem to realize there are two kinds, as pointed out by Dr. Robert Lustig, MD, in his breakthrough publication The Hacking of the American Mind: The Science Behind the Corporate Takeover of Our Bodies and Brains. We either compulsively seek more dopamine hits (from our cell phones, risks, social media, hookups, hits, and drugs of abuse) or we breathe into a long-term happiness mediated by serotonin. It's short-term thrill vs. serene contentment, paper fire vs. wood fire.

To teach or not to teach?
Here we are as Americans, Natives and later arrivals, subjects and colonizers, with all this "freedom of choice" to squander, and what do we do? Do we pursue actual happiness or settle for cheap thrills? We don't know any better. It was the same way in the Buddha's time.

Once in Ajapala, in the weeks following his "Great Awakening" (the maha-bodhi under the bodhi tree), reflecting on life, the universe, and everything, the Buddha came to the decision that he should remain silent, rapt in bliss, and not vex himself trying to teach anyone what he had discovered was possible in terms of human freedom and happiness.

Ah! Just this bliss, this rest, this nirvana is enough
He reasoned that in his day and age (the Kali Yuga as the Vedas and rishis call it), people were just all about pleasure-seeking, obsessed, bound, addicted to hedonistic pursuits like sex, drugs (alcohol, sura, and betel or whatever else was available -- ganja, blue lotus, fermented mare's milk, soma, amrita...), and drums (music). The beat, the beat, the beat, it's always the beat -- tabla, taiko, snare, bongos.

What do you want?
Sahampati Brahma is said to have intervened and convinced the Buddha that the human and deva worlds need him. Just think how many living beings there are who for lack of hearing the liberating Dharma will have no chance of making an end of suffering. The Buddha agrees and determines to teach.

Consolidating these disparate ideas, Seven said: We have life, or some version of it, and civil liberties but only when we fight for them. And the carrot dangled in front of us, cradle to grave, is just this: Life, Liberty and the PURSUIT of Happiness. I am a merry Can or, as some would say, an AmeriCan't.

I'm free to try to find it any way I can
It should surprise no one that Native Americans do not celebrate so much as commemorate the 4th of July, when Paradise was Lost. In just the same way, rather than settling on happiness, we endlessly pursue it like good consumers deluded about what could possibly ever bring it about. He only read his version, but here are both, line by line, the legendary ("Kubla Khan") followed by the parody ("A Merry Con").

Wishing to both break the ice and introduce the subtext of the poem, and given that we were at the Philosophical Research Society, Seven led with a brief philosophical riddle: A merry Can or A merry CON? "If you're American when you arrive, and American when you leave, what are you when you're in the bathroom?" (European).

Kubla Khan/A Merry Can

Or, a vision in a dream. A Fragrance.

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
In watery loo did a merry Can
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
A state of her own pleasure decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Where white the moistened waters ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Through a cavern immeasurable to man
     Down to a sunless sea.
     Down to a sunless deep.
So twice five miles of fertile ground
Thus twice divide child's fertile mound
With walls and towers were girdled round;
With walls and tubes all girdled round;
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
And here were toys bright with bells 'n whistles,
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;
Where unraveled many an ecstasy;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
And there were garters damp as the dills
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.
Below folds, a narrow strip of slippery.

But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted
But O! that deep romantic chasm which slanted
Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!
Down into potent still under wood that hovered!
A savage place! as holy and enchanted
A savage gash! a hole enchanted
As e’er beneath a waning moon was haunted
As air breathed by waxing moon that taunted
By woman wailing for her demon-lover!
Cries of a woman wailing for her deadened-lover!
And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
And round this chasm, with unceasing circles seething,
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
As if this post into moist thick pants were seeping,
A mighty fountain momently was forced:
A mighty fountain momently was forced:
Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst
Amid a slit that half-intermitted burst;
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Huge sounds bounced, red, rebounding wail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher’s flail:
All chaffed in pain beneath her threshing flail:
And mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
She mid-trance rocked at once and ever
It flung up momently the sacred river.
And flung up suddenly her sacred river.
Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
Wide smiles trembling, her head in mazy motion
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
Through wooden dill the sacred river ran,
Then reached the caverns measureless to man,
Then reached the cavern immeasurable to man,
And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean;
And sank in sweet foam into a lifeless ocean;
And ’mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
And ’mid this tumult bubbles oozed hard
Ancestral voices prophesying war!
A merry Can’s voice, a banshee’s AAH!
     The shadow of the dome of pleasure
     The shallow pant of her own pleasure
     Floated midway on the waves;
     As she floated midway away
     Where was heard the mingled measure
     Was the curse of her own tinkled treasure
     From the fountain and the caves.
     After the fountain from her cave.
It was a miracle of rare device,
It was a miracle of randy device,
A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!
A sultry pleasure owned to melt a cave of ice!

     A damsel with a dulcimer
     A damsel with a dull peter
     In a vision once I saw:
     In a vision once I saw:
     It was an Abyssinian maid
     It was her and a marital aid
     And on her dulcimer she played,
     And on her dull peter she played,
     Singing of Mount Abora.
     Singing as she’d mount amore.

     Could I revive within me
     Could I revive within me
     Her symphony and song,
     Her liberty and song,
     To such a deep delight ’twould win me,
     To such a deep delight ’twould win me,
That with music loud and long,
That with video loud and long,
I would build that dome in air,
I would build to my own for e’er,
That sunny dome! those caves of ice!
And sultry own that cave of ice!
And all who heard should see them there,
And all who heard should then be scared,
And all should cry, Beware! Beware!
And all should cry, Beware! Beware!
His flashing eyes, his floating hair!
His flashing eye, its fulsome hair!
Weave a circle round him thrice,
Weaving round my own device,
And close your eyes with holy dread
And close my eyes with holy dread
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
For I on honey dew have fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.
And spilled the milk of Paradise.
  • Have we established the roots to be happy? There's a famous Buddhist saying, according to KFI's Gary Hoffman, that runs: "The best time to plant a tree is 30 years ago; the second-best time is right now."
LA's Joan of Arc Toypurina
Seven went on to read an amazing poem about ancient Native American tribal life in pre-Los Angeles (which the native Tongva/Kizh people called Tovaangar), "A Boy Named Sioux," published in The Stone Bird Anthology of the Eagle Rock Library, Los Angeles. No one spoke Spanish; that is the language of conquest and European imperialism. They spoke the Native Uto-Aztecan languages. Mexico spoke no Spanish. It spoke Nahuatl and at least 67 other indigenous languages.

A Boy Named Sioux
Modern Native American kids of the San Fernando Valley, Tataviam of Haramokngna
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While we Tongva gathered bear fangs,
arrowheads and beads,
the Chumash would play at
collecting trinkets from the sea --
iridescent shells, bones, serrated shark teeth....

We envied their seafaring horde
gathered from far off lands --
as far out to sea as one could see,
as far out to sea as canoes could reach.

"Did you gather these on those distant isles?"
"Our hunting grounds are secret," they replied.
"'Secret'? We can see them from here!" we insisted....

The Chumash envied us our magical motherlode,
as smooth as a well-worn maize millstone,
and we their sea-fangs as sharp as chipped basalt,
warrior talismans invested with the skill of the hunt.

They found theirs, they said, bleached on the beach,
cast off by the sea, in rows,
with sinewy flesh shriveling away in the surf.

Again and again, they ask: "Who are your name?"
What is your people?"

Again and again, I explain:
"They call me Sioux, Red Xochitl,
and my people come from beyond the Plain."
They boys laugh, "Sue! Sue!"
and the Chumash girls bow their heads, grinning....

The Tongva (Gabrielino Indians) lived next to their friends the Chumash, meeting in Malibu.
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Map of Tovaangar (pre-Los Angeles)
The native tribes in and around Los Angeles County included the Tongva (LA), the Tataviam (the Valley), the Chumash (Malibu, the Channel Islands, and Ventura), the Acjachemen (Orange County), Payómkowishum (San Diego).

There were other Indian bands because, when the British arrived on the East Coast, there were 100,000,000 (one hundred million) Natives living throughout this "empty" land ripe for the taking, just as when European Ashkenazi Jews went to Palestine and found it completely empty with not "a people" in sight. Thus did yet another genocide begin. 

When one decides to steal land, it seems a prerequisite to tell oneself one is not taking it from anyone, and anyone who says any different you call an "antisemite" and dismiss their criticism immediately. Only, in the USA we would instead say, "Sure, there were a few Injuns, but 'Manifest Destiny'."

Seven wrapped up with a reading of "Redskin Xochitl," published in Yay! LA Arts & Culture Magazine.

Music
Then the band, the duet Lael Neale and Guy Blakeslee, got to play its first song. She's from Virginia, so their tunes and covers had a hit of Americana reminiscent of The Flying Tourbillion Orchestra.

Co-Host Mandy Kahn (mandykahn.com)
After the music subsided, Jane McCarthy brought out Mandy Kahn and Senon Williams, each reading a curated classic poem and then their own pieces. Mandy got very personal and autobiographical. Senon chose a work by Nikki Giovanni and, knowing that "brevity is the heart of poetry," presented many short pieces that seemed to get shorter until they were only a few lines each.

[A mud flood star fort?] The hidden shackles and chains on the Statue of Liberty (Indybay)

Few know her ankles are in shackles.
Jane returned to read and explain "The New Colossus" by Emma Lazarus, a Jewish activist from New York around the turn of the century, before Staten Island had a Statue of Liberty. Funds were being raised to build the platform at an astronomical cost of about a quarter million dollar, quite a sum as the young United States went from the 1800s into the 1900s. To raise money an art festival was proposed and the fundraising of commissioning a poem to be auctioned off. Lazarus was too proud and snobbish a poet to accept the challenge, not thinking herself one to "write on command." But she was persuaded by a friend to accept and leave something for posterity. The base of the statue now bears her immortal words of give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free..."

The New Colossus
BY EMMA LAZARUS near Ellis Island, New York
Please, Donald, this was supposed to be my moment. - Did you see the debate? I nailed him.
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Shackles on our titular Goddess Columbia?
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
  • Source: Emma Lazarus: Selected Poems and Other Writings (2002).
Details
Peace Class Wednesdays on Zoom (PRS)
Jane McCarthy and peace activist Mandy Kahn cohost the Deep Dive Poetry Series at PRS (suggested donation). This month as the 4th of July approaches is all about live music and dramatic readings.

Performers share illuminating visions of the USA at its best, in pursuit of happiness (equal, full of life, civil liberties, and individual pursuits).

What can our country be if it chooses? Empire or Example, military force or diplomatic mission, center of power or one among equals?

Poets and musicians will entertain on this warm summer's eve. PRS Library of World Religions on Los Feliz Bl. near Griffith Park. Donations to PRS encouraged. Features:

  • POETS:
  • Senon Williams
  • Seven Dhar
  • Many Kahn
  • Jane McCarthy
  • MUSICIANS:
  • Lael Neale
  • Guy Blakeslee
Sacramento is the capital of California, where Natives experience the 4th
of July in an entirely different way: genocide, oppression, and erasure.

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