Putting the elephant out

Click on people's faces in the photo to tag them.

"Adult Elephant"

Ivete Zighelboim

 

    I've been feeling bad that I had to miss a special event last night that I had really been looking forward to. It was a special ekphrastic poetry reading with improvised music by a local band that I'm quite fond of. It was set up in conjunction with our museum of fine art to celebrate their exhibit called Humanimal. I have been in to see the show a couple of times but am sure I wouldn't have written anything in response to it had it not been for the call for poems to be read at the event. While I liked many of the works in the exhibit I was most struck by this hauntingly beautiful, and very large, painting  entitled Adult Elephant by Ivete Zigelboim, an artist based in NYC. When I began writing about the painting I intended to speak about elementary elephant issues; loss of habitat, poaching, etc. but something entirely different came out. I enjoyed the process, and the result. Reading with the band to improvised music is something I do on a fairly regular basis and I have found that I write differently when I am intending to read a poem aloud, then when I don't have that intention. Since I couldn't share it at the reading, I thought I would share it with you.

Humanthropomorphism

A poem in two voices

We have to talk about it, eventually.

No, we really don’t.

We do.

We don’t. That’s the whole point.

The point of what?

You know.

Yes, we both know. But we mustn’t acknowledge it.

Acknowledge what?

You know. ~  Her.

Her who?

Her right there.

Right  there where?

Damn your denial.  Right there! Stop pretending.

Oh, that?

Just say it.

Say what?

There’s an elephant in the room.

An elephant? What kind?

A lovely Hindu blue, but is that relevant?

No. What’s she doing?

Sleeping.  Peacefully.  The elephant in the room doesn’t do anything but just be.

I bet she is dreaming.

Yes.

Dreaming of green. Her Asian home, and superior matriarchal society.

Mangoes, and mud holes, and trumpeting only the truth.

Free of incompetent  creatures who can’t communicate with each other

and so insist that large land mammals appear and excuse them

from yet another responsibility of being human.

copyright T. J. Truax, all rights reserved.

Banned Books

     Did you know that this is Banned Books Week? Banned Books Week is the only national celebration of the freedom to read, and was launched in 1982 in response to a surge in the number of challenges to books in schools, bookstores and libraries. More than a thousand books have been challenged since that year, yes, here, in The United States of America, home of the free and the brave. The challenges have occurred in every state and in hundreds of communities. It's interesting to note that almost all of the books being challenged these days are meant for teenagers to read, and these battle ready book banners believe they are protecting your children from the harm these books could do them. The harm seems to be mostly exposure to profanity (I probably took care of that one while still on the maternity ward) and reading of positive portrayals of homosexuals (my children's gay grandmother took care of that one for me). SO I don't know about all of you, but I don't want or need anyone else deciding what my kid can or should read. That's my job and I think I do it pretty well. But even if I did it badly I don't want anyone else deciding. Keep your hands off my books, but more than that, keep your hands off my kids. The banners go after books that explore contemporary issues and controversies to classic and beloved works of American literature so nothing is safe. It is often done insidiously and silently so you may be completely unaware of it happening in your community, to your children, in your tax supported institutions. The popular Twilight series of the last couple of years has been a big target, but Catcher in The Rye is still making the list. I will post a link to the #1 most challenged book of late below and I think I'm going to order my fourteen year old daughter a copy. It looks like something she would really like, and as a writer I admire the author's creativity. It is quite clever.




     And here is Good's interactive viewer of the most targeted books within for about each.

http://awesome.good.is/transparency/web/1005/targeted-books/flash.html

Nautical Terms

	I have been studying sea shanties for the last few days. As with all folk lore there is much fascinating history to uncover. This subject is particularly appealing because of the connection I feel to the sea. Maybe everyone feels that? Have just about finished the piece I've been working on and really do like the way it is turning out. During my research I was very surprised to learn that quite a few phrases that I kick around regularly are nautical in origin. Take a look at this list and see if any surprise you too.

ALOOF - means to stand apart or be indifferent, but it came from the Old Dutch word loef which meant "windward" and was used to describe a ship within a fleet which sailed higher to the wind and was thus drawn apart from the rest of the fleet.
BLAZER - meaning a jacket, the term came from 1800s British slang "blaze" which meant "a brightly colored jacket" and referred to the red flannel jackets worn by Lady Margaret, St. John's Cambridge boating club.
BY AND LARGE - Today this means "in general" or "on the whole".  It's nautical origins come from the nautical terms "by" meaning to be able to sail into the wind, or close to, and "large" meaning to sail in the direction the wind was blowing, so a ship that could sail with the wind blowing from behind it or from nearly in front of it, could sail "by and large".  The first documented use was by Samuel Sturmy in The Mariner's Magazine , 1669.
CLOSE QUARTERS - Based on today's meaning of being in close contact with, it's easy to think that "close quarters" came about because of a ship's limited space.  However, the term first meant an area on a ship's decks where barriers were put to provide the crew a safe haven from which to fight an enemy.  "Close" meant "closed" and not in close proximity.
GET A WORD IN EDGEWISE - Originally "edgewise" was "edgeways" and the earliest use was "edging forward".  Today it is used in reference to joining into a conversation when one person speaks continuously and doesn't give others a chance to talk.  Nautically, edging forward was a term used to describe the small progress a ship would make when sailing against the wind by using small tacking (zig-zag) movements.
HAND OVER FIST - most often used financially to mean that someone is making lots of money quickly, this term actually may have come the action used by a sailor to pull a rope - hand over hand.  The phrase dates from the mid-18th century.
HARD AND FAST - meaning "rigidly adhered to" as in hard and fast rules, this phrase was well-known by the mid-19th century when it was defined in 1867 by William Henry Smyth in The Sailor's Word-Book : "Hard and fast. Said of a ship on shore." The term was used in reference to a ship which was firmly beached on land.
SHOW ONE'S TRUE COLORS - a phrase meaning to reveal yourself as you really are, actually came about because of the opposite phrase "false colors" - from the 17th century referring to a vessel which sailed under a flag not her own, a practice often used by pirates to gain easier access to a victim ship.
SLUSH FUND - Money put aside today, the phrase has a less than pleasant origin.  On a ship, slush was the leftover fat or grease gotten from boiled meat on board ship.  Cooks would sell this fat whenever they were in port, making some extra money - their slush fund.
TAKEN ABACK - meaning to be surprised or shocked by a sudden turn of events, the phrase originally was used when speaking of a ship.  When the wind shifted quickly so that a sailing vessel was suddenly facing the wind and its sails were pushed back flat against the mast and spars that held the sails up, it was said to be taken aback.
THREE SHEETS TO THE WIND - meaning very drunk, how many have wondered how this could possibly mean super drunk?  On a ship, a sheet is a rope.  Back in the time of sailing ships, if three sheets were very loose, the sails would flap all over the place and the ship would sail along in an awkward path much like a drunken sailor.  Thus the ship was "three sheets in the wind".
TIDE OVER -  At first glance, this would seem to be an obviously nautical term.  Today it means to make a small bit of something, usually money, last until a supply comes in, as in borrowing some money to tide you over till payday.  However, the meaning has changed over the years.  Once upon a time, ships could move under sail power, or in the absence of wind, float along with the tide, called a tide over.  One could say the floating would tide the ship over until wind came again to move it along.
TIDY - We all know what this means: in order, precise. Originally probably from the mid-13th century, tidy most likely was first used in reference to the seasons to mean something seasonal, timely, or excellent and came from "tide" in the sense of seasons or time.