http://lisamednickpowell.com/blog.html Lisa Mednick Powell: Blog Jannis' PHPRss class - http://www.jannis.to/ Sat, 03 Mar 2012 21:45:32 -0800 http://lisamednickpowell.com/blog.html/guestbook_turned_off__this_weeks_poem Meanwhile here is this week's poem:
So here's what happened. We were out doing errands and listening to Dan Penn. I thought,"Hmmm...I didn't send any poetry out last week. Maybe this week I will send "Memphis Women and Chicken." Or "Dark End of the Street." But then, on our way home, we heard a speech by Bobby Seale on the Alternative Radio Show. We sat in the driveway after we got home, shivering (it's too cold here!!) and listening until the program was over. And when we got inside I looked up Bobby Seale. This led me to Mumia Abu Jamal's Prison Radio. OK, stay with me. I was planning, last week, to send another poem for Black History Month. I had not planned to send another Rita Dove, but after hearing Mumia Abu Jamal speak about Benjamin Banneker and his Department of Peace concept, I remembered this poem. So you get Rita Dove twice in one month, and Prison Radio once, and a Dan Penn song too. (I thought about including "Chicago" by CSNY, but that's easy enough to find if you need to hear it.)


Banneker
by Rita Dove

What did he do except lie
under a pear tree, wrapped in
a great cloak, and meditate
on the heavenly bodies?
Venerable, the good people of Baltimore
whispered, shocked and more than
a little afraid. After all it was said
he took to strong drink.
Why else would he stay out
under the stars all night
and why hadn’t he married?
But who would want him! Neither
Ethiopian nor English, neither
lucky nor crazy, a capacious bird
humming as he penned in his mind
another enflamed letter
to President Jefferson—he imagined
the reply, polite and rhetorical.
Those who had been to Philadelphia
reported the statue
of Benjamin Franklin
before the library
his very size and likeness.
A wife? No, thank you.
At dawn he milked
the cows, then went inside
and put on a pot to stew
while he slept. The clock
he whittled as a boy
still ran. Neighbors
woke him up
with warm bread and quilts.
At nightfall he took out
his rifle—a white-maned
figure stalking the darkened
breast of the Union—and
shot at the stars, and by chance
one went out. Had he killed?
I assure thee, my dear Sir!
Lowering his eyes to fields
sweet with the rot of spring, he could see
a government’s domed city
rising from the morass and spreading
in a spiral of lights....

NOTES: Benjamin Banneker (1731-1806), first black man to devise an almanac and predict a solar eclipse accurately, was also appointed to the commission that surveyed and laid out what is now Washington, D.C.


This is from Mumia Abu Jamal's Prison Radio. It is also about Benjamin Banneker.

http://hw.libsyn.com/p/7/f/0/7f00a499677b2e56/Banneker_long.mp3?sid=ef4d160c558fef84d58bb1ff0dee2918&l_sid=18813&l_eid=&l_mid=2928895&expiration=1330830006&hwt=f4907b42d0a4699de03a7a3514382dfc

And, here is your Dan Penn fix (sung for you today by Etta James:"they say that it's a man's world but you can't prove that by me.")

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dh4v1-QcAzE&feature=related]]> http://lisamednickpowell.com/blog.html/guestbook_turned_off__this_weeks_poem Sat, 03 Mar 2012 21:45:32 -0800 Proto-Americana - Lisa Mednick Powell - Blog http://lisamednickpowell.com/blog.html/ten_years_ago I said, "Hey, let's go to Mardi Gras."
He said, "What's that?"
I am not sure he knew what he was getting into but I know we had a great time.
We drove first to Lafayette and stayed there to see Li'l Band of Gold at Grant Street Dance Hall. They played this song:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tiR8oFy_xUA

We went to Bacchus that Sunday. Nicholas Cage was King of Bacchus and sitting up there on his float drinking bottled water.
I got clocked with a pair of Bacchus beads right in the eye socket. Of course it was the medallion that hit. But you know when those beads hit this head, they broke right in half. So I didn't keep them. Later, I had a K&B purple shiner that matched the beads.
I had no choice but to keep that souvenir.

The Mardi Gras Indians have been working on their new suits and sewing all year long, and now look how pretty they are on Fat Tuesday. They sound good, too.
We did see them Mardi Gras morning, after I made Kip get up early and go to Zulu...he says it was worth only sleeping three hours after hanging out late at the Howlin' Wolf the night before.
Kip caught me a ZULU bracelet which I still wear every year on Mardi Gras. Not that anyone has any idea what it is...it's a shibboleth of sorts.

But you have not seen Mardi Gras until you have seen the Indians.
So--get out the way--here come The Wild Magnolias!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8DU28DiuZBk&feature=related

The Indian gangs were pretty much the coolest thing about Mardi Gras in New Orleans.
One of the things that drew me down there in 1984, in fact.
I hope you will let it draw you in, too. Look around online and find out about their history.
It is a topic in concordance with Black History Month and pretty fascinating if you are new to the subject.

Lagniappe: Here are a couple of extra Indian videos so you can see them in action:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYef9JOeB1g

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYBOf4EMpVo&feature=related]]> http://lisamednickpowell.com/blog.html/ten_years_ago Sun, 19 Feb 2012 09:36:00 -0800 Proto-Americana - Lisa Mednick Powell - Blog http://lisamednickpowell.com/blog.html/what_mark_twain_said - Pudd'nhead Wilson

yeah you rite. Funny thing, isn't it? You try to help people and they turn around and help themselves to whatever they see that isn't tied down...]]> http://lisamednickpowell.com/blog.html/what_mark_twain_said Thu, 05 Jan 2012 22:18:23 -0800 Proto-Americana - Lisa Mednick Powell - Blog http://lisamednickpowell.com/blog.html/last_night_at_the_rat_pack_revue The Rat Pack Revue entertained, just as it was meant to. We dug it, and the jokes were pretty funny. We are old enough to get the jokes. what was really funny, and Kip pointed this out this morning, was that the performers kept saying how glad they were to be in "Santa Fe." And each time they said that, they got a deeper silence from the audience. Because we were not in Santa Fe. and, if anyone in that crowd had been able to afford New Year's Eve in Santa Fe, I am guessing they would have been there instead of in Tesuque. But it goes deeper than that. This was on tribal land of course, we crossed what amounts to an international border to go to the Casino last night. These Rat Pack tributaries were not aware of course. If they would only install check points at the Pueblo borders, perhaps people would get a clearer picture. So, on many levels, the entertainers were flying blind when they said how great a city Santa Fe is. At least they tried. Happy New Year!]]> http://lisamednickpowell.com/blog.html/last_night_at_the_rat_pack_revue Sun, 01 Jan 2012 21:56:03 -0800 Proto-Americana - Lisa Mednick Powell - Blog http://lisamednickpowell.com/blog.html/sitting_in_at_the_cowgirl_last_night That Cowgirl place is OK, but it ain't Threadgill's on a Wednesday in 1991...]]> http://lisamednickpowell.com/blog.html/sitting_in_at_the_cowgirl_last_night Thu, 03 Nov 2011 20:44:13 -0700 Proto-Americana - Lisa Mednick Powell - Blog http://lisamednickpowell.com/blog.html/a_dream_of_deeper_snow
That is all I remember. Except for the two snowy owls I saw and the lamb that was the size of a kitten. They wanted to get into my house. Oh, and some sort of scruffy terrier dog that also wanted to get in. I brought the kitten-sized lamd into the house because I thought the owls might eat it. It turned gray after I brought it inside. Perhaps gold would turn to copper in my presence too?]]> http://lisamednickpowell.com/blog.html/a_dream_of_deeper_snow Sat, 22 Oct 2011 22:30:45 -0700 Proto-Americana - Lisa Mednick Powell - Blog http://lisamednickpowell.com/blog.html/coyote_family I love those animals.
Wasn't it horrific to hear about this man who let all of those tigers and lions and bears loose and then shot himself? Why are people so stupid? Did he know they would all get shot by cops?? Such a waste.]]> http://lisamednickpowell.com/blog.html/coyote_family Fri, 21 Oct 2011 21:19:16 -0700 Proto-Americana - Lisa Mednick Powell - Blog http://lisamednickpowell.com/blog.html/the_flyovers Of course, my husband and other loved ones are more valuable to me than a stranger across the world. But that's not the point. We shouldn't be exempt from our own horror show that we perform daily for others.]]> http://lisamednickpowell.com/blog.html/the_flyovers Mon, 17 Oct 2011 21:00:40 -0700 Proto-Americana - Lisa Mednick Powell - Blog http://lisamednickpowell.com/blog.html/other_horses_other_hearts They have a little merry-go-round for the horses. Not the kind with painted ponies...they tether the horses to it and they can walk around and around. There is also a starting gate. One morning as I left for work, I was lucky enough to see one of the horses burst out of the gate and gallop past me.
The most beautiful horse though was this one I only saw one time. It looked like it was made of silver and pewter. There was a jockey riding it up and down the length of the field. I was out walking the dog and she barked at the horse. The sound of the hooves really got to me for some reason. Don't know why, it just did.]]> http://lisamednickpowell.com/blog.html/other_horses_other_hearts Mon, 17 Oct 2011 20:55:48 -0700 Proto-Americana - Lisa Mednick Powell - Blog http://lisamednickpowell.com/blog.html/it_is_a_new_year_5772
One had his last name tattooed across his throat. One was a woman about 65 years old coming back to school after who knows how long.

Essays and stories told to me are about drugs, trials, parole, and prison, young sisters who go out at night and don't come home, and more. A young lady who is 25 came for tutoring because she could not get in to see a tutor at SFCC, though she is a student there.
Was I supposed to turn her away?

They all need help, and MLA citations are the least of their worries.
I hope I helped someone even if it was just a little bit...mostly I hope to make them realize that they can actually do something they don't think they can do.
You never know. Now and then a sentence just shines out and more often you get strangely spelled words, tense disagreements, and pronoun-antecedent conflicts.]]> http://lisamednickpowell.com/blog.html/it_is_a_new_year_5772 Wed, 12 Oct 2011 20:26:36 -0700 Proto-Americana - Lisa Mednick Powell - Blog