Something to remember

Something to remember when so much is at stake. If we want responses to this (economic) crisis that leave us with a world that is healthier, that is more just, that is more peaceful, we're gonna have to go out there and make them do it.
- Naomi Klein, The Shock Doctrine

Culture

This is at the heart of Mundy's Myndscape workshops

The Solution

Bertolt Brecht in an open missive to the Central Committee (East Germany) when the workers and students were crushed by Soviet tanks when celebrating Stalin's death and demanding democratic rights for all -

After the uprising of the 17th June
The Secretary of the Writers' Union
Had leaflets distributed in the Stalinallee
Stating that the people
Had forfeited the confidence of the Government
And could win it back only
By redoubled efforts. Would it not be easier
In that case for the Government
To dissolve the people
And elect another?
(Tariq Ali - Streetfighting Years)

(Picture: Brecht and Weigel on the roof of the Berliner Ensemble during the International Workers' Day demonstrations in 1954). (Wikipedia)

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The Fall of Black States.

In his book, The Soccer War,
the Polish foreign correspondent, Ryszard Kapuscinski,
writes about "the same drama that every Third World
politician lives through if he is honest, if he is a patriot."

 

- the essence of the drama lies in the terrible material resistance that

each one encounters, on taking his first, second and third steps up to

the summit of power. Each one wants to do something good and

begins to do it and then sees after a month, after a year, after three years,

that it just isn't happening, that it is slipping away, that it is bogged down

in the sand. Everything is in the way: the centuries of backwardness,

the primitive economy, the illiteracy, the religious fanaticism, the

tribal blindness, the chronic hunger, the colonial past with its practice

of debasing and dulling the conquered, the blackmail by the imperialists,

the greed of the corrupt, the unemployment, the red ink.

Progress comes with great difficulty along such a road.

The politician begins to push too hard.

He looks for a way out through dictatorship.

The dictatorship then fathers an opposition.

The opposition organises a coup.

And the cycle begins anew.

But maybe this is too charitable. Maybe the main thing about power is that it's addictive.

(quoted by Alex Shoumatoff in his article The Fall of the Black States, Vanity Fair Nov. 1991.)

THE BIRTH OF ZEN

One day, in ancient India, the Buddha was giving a teaching to his followers. On this day however, instead of a verbal teaching, he simply held up a flower. One of his disciples, Mahakasyapa, amiled. The Buddha said: "Today, I gave a silent teaching and Mahakasyapa alone understood it."

AN AFRICAN IN EXILE

This is a poem by my friend, Bart Wolffe. I met him in Zimbabwe many years ago and his poems bring back the memories of my homeland more than other words I have read.

I bought his book, Waking Dreams, from Lulu: here
http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/waking-dreams/16109047?productTrackingContext=search_results/search_shelf/center/7

I LEFT WITH THE SHIRT ON MY BACK.
It had lizards crawling across it.
A lilac and blue flannel
Long-sleeve African design.
That was eight years ago.
I still wear it like a skin.
It may not be in fashion,
Now worn a little thin
But I wear Africa a bit
When I put my T-shirt on.
Animals know their own kind,
Birds recognise their kin.
This is my icon, my talisman,
My identity without, within...

A FACTIDOTE.

One of my Sunday joys is reading AA Gill's column in the Sunday Times. This week he was at his beasty-best. I share with you his first few sentences in Table Talk on Sunday 12.6.11, because, if you don't read this paper, you won't have seen it - and why should I be the only one to enjoy his wordly ways?

I am plagued, palsied and agued with unnews, outformation, stuff that we don't need, ought not to know. I don't mean prurient or boring, irrelevant or secret, but factidotes. Mental bellybutton lint. the insidious information version of clothes moths that chew holes in the cashmere of joy. For instance, I've just read in a newspaper that Alan Titchmarsh doesn't need Viagra. That is a factidote. Pointless, anodyne, but somehow horrible, grit in the Vaseline of a smooth existence.  I know that my life is ever so slightly lessened, sullied and smeared by knowing that Alan Titchmarsh doesn't need Viagra. This world is a minutely shabbier and more compromised place. I will never be able to unknow that Gardener Gets Wood. So I'm passing it on to you, because why should I be the only one to suffer?

Purity

I am a lover of truth, a worshipper of freedom, a celebrant at the

altar of language and purity and tolerance.

Stephen Fry.

A LIFE WELL LIVED

If anybody can be said to have succeeded in living life wall-to-wall, it is Mundy.  He is the happiest person I have ever met. There are many different ways of describing happiness and success.   Ralph Waldo Emerson, the American essayist and poet, put it thus:

"To laugh often and much; To win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; To earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; To appreciate beauty, to find the best in others; To leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition; To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded."

ON POVERTY AND WEALTH

Many years ago, I made a note of something William Saroyan said about wealth. I kept it with all the many scraps, notebooks and diaries  in which I scribble words that impress me.  I found it the other day, and want to share it with you:

Poverty is not having but wanting

Wealth is having and not wanting

Great wealth is neither having nor wanting.

The greatest wealth of all is having so little that one must notice how much one has in having life itself.

BART'S POEM

My friend, Bart Wolffe, writes beautiful poetry.
Today he put this poem on his Facebook page.

Across the cold gust flies some bird whose heard cry breaks the rain’s breath with loneliness, an outflung wish, tempest tossed and lost as I. Its voice is wordless and yet it speaks every bleak tear my eye can’t shed.

You can see more of his poem's and books here:

here

You can even download some free!

What to do with the Elderlies...

A friend sent me an email that said this:


Let's put all retired folk in jail and the criminals in a nursing home.  This way the seniors would have access to showers, hobbies and walks.   
They'd receive unlimited free prescriptions, dental and medical treatment, wheel chairs etc and they'd receive money instead of paying it out. 
They would have constant video monitoring, so they could be helped instantly, if they fell, or needed assistance. 
Bedding would be washed twice a week, and all clothing would be ironed and returned to them. A guard would check on them every 20 minutes and bring their meals and snacks to their cell.    
They would have family visits in a suite built for that purpose. 
They would have access to a library, weight room, spiritual counseling, pool and education. 
Simple clothing, shoes, slippers, PJ's and legal aid would be free, on request. 
Private, secure rooms for all, with an  exercise outdoor yard, with  gardens. 
Each senior could have a PC a TV radio and daily phone calls. 
There would be a board of directors to hear complaints, and the guards would have a code of conduct that would be strictly adhered to. 

The "criminals" would get cold food, be left all alone and unsupervised. 
Lights off at 8pm, and showers once a week. 
Live in a tiny room and pay £900.00 per month and have no hope of ever getting out.   
Justice for all we say. 

THE SWAN - by Mary Oliver

A favourite poem combined with a favourite photograph

On supporting artists...

(Don't talk, just kiss - Mundy-Castle, 1993)

If we, citizens, do not support our artists, then we sacrifice our imagination on the altar of crude reality and we end up believing in nothing and having worthless dreams. ( Yann Martel -Life of Pi )

IDEALS

The difficulty is not so much that of moving towards an ideal, or even remaining in a fixed relationship to it, as of trying to slow up the pace at which we are always moving away from it. (from an old notebook)

Silence is golden

"Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent"
(Wittgenstein).