Decidedly, without a doubt...

I posted Mid-Term Memory too hasti-
ly and got the format all messed up.
It is now corrected. Sorry, Dan.

And by the way, bro, you are registered through isp.cz@gtempaccount.com.
Post notices will still be emailed to you at your yahoo address. If you want to try it again, I will send the invite to the yahoo address, but see if it will work the other way.

Meanwhile, to all of you, Mom helped me figure out that you can get to a postable blogsite by signing on at blogger.com, where you will find a dashboard that will have Stillwater Symposia on it. Josh, you still need to accept the invitation, which I will send yet again.

This can be done!

Another Invitation

Sometimes we do need
to read the poetry of
another language.

National Poetry Month

Who knew? We are in
National Poetry month
And for the Czechs too?

The Blogsite Takes Flight

Inauguration Day 2011? The full-grown blogsite? Not sure what to call this posting, but it is the first being posted directly to our Stillwater Symposia site and automatically sent from there to each of you. And each of you can now do the same! With just one holdout (name begins with Josh), you are all registered authors on the site. Meanwhile, Josh and anyone else, if you'd rather just keep sending emails, I will be happy to post these for you, but please, give it a try!

In compiling what we've got so far, I gave myself just two rules: emails to or from less than all of you are not posted, and emails that didn't seem intended for a symposium are not posted. Not much fell into that last category ---a more personal prayer request, one more general newsletter ---but let me know if I've over- or understepped on this. Better, from here on out, each of you as authors can choose for yourself what is postable.

There are no other rules, as far as I'm concerned, but take note of a few format guidelines. First, as noted already, the titles. No more strings of emails with recycled subject lines, now you've gotta name your posting.

Second, and more trickier, using the pages. It took me some time (and no instructions from Blogger!), but I figured out how to link the categorizable posts through the different pages. I'm happy to do this for you, but to make it easier, please post what would have been your attachments as separate postings, in order to give them their own linkable address. And if you want to figure out how to do the page links yourself, just copy the linkable address, press the edit (the pencil) button on the page getting the link, use the Edit HTML tab and follow a prior example on that page.

Third, and least importantly, follow your font (Dan=Georgia, Mom and Dick=Times, Josh=Trebuchet and Anne=Verdana), post your name in the Labels section and give your more creative postings the full-justified blue-grey font I've chosen to set them apart.

Finally, and most importantly, post away! Anne, we've got two handmade postings from you ---they are fun to read, please send more! Dick, one Arizona picture inspired a week's worth of postings ---how about one from Wisconsin? Dan, we're ready for Act Two! Mom, feel free at any time to turn us back to our faith base! And Josh, no excuses!

As for myself, I will, at Dan's prompting, eventually post Mathematics, and I'd like to share a little more of my Walled Gardens project with you all, especially as it is probably my most faith-based set of poems. But let me know what you think of what you've seen so far.

Apart from the Symposia, also at Dan's prompting, I've started adding the third party poems to my Thirty Birds site, not within the blogtext itself but as comments after each poem. This is actually just a trick to avoid having to get permissions (although most of what I've posted are public domain poems), but I've also, on the opening page of the site, offered a general invitation for anyone to add their own favorite bird poems in the comment sections. Dan, in that spirit, feel free to add Havranci as a comment to my Raven poem.

See you all Saturday,

love, Jon

On My Father's Side

This is for all the 12-year-olds and those who have already been and those who will be.

Emmanuel! Love, Mom

Click here: YouTube - On My Father's Side by The Born Again Gang

Earthworm Theology

God knows what depths and shallows
each soul can navigate,
the draught of every creature. God creates...
                  – Sanai, tr. Coleman Barks

...and through this sacred rhythm
I come to appreciate
that everything is sacred. God creates

and bestows each godly wisdom
within. There is no mind.
Another knowing lives outside of time,

beyond the basic neurons
that spark our mortal fire,
above the carnal pulse of our desire;

nor can I have desire
of such capacity
to wish for all that God has given me.

Before this altar silence
becomes my eloquence
and emptiness my path to sustenance,

and I will find tomorrow
connected to today,
and I will learn to celebrate the way

that God has set before me,
this day, my daily earth,
the life I live, the wisdom I am worth.

Random Wisdom from Andrew

Dear fellow sentimentalists,

Random wisdom from Andrew today, unaware of Dan’s email and I think unprompted by the 40th anniversary of Gagarin’s flight. “It’s funny. Most kids want to grow up to be astronauts and train conductors, and almost none of them succeed.” Actually I don’t have any idea what prompted this, as he just said it an hour ago as I dropped him off at fencing class, and now I won’t see him for two more hours. Could they have commemorated Gagarin in an American middle school today? I’m guessing not. More likely Andrew had just seen the conductor in a passing Metra train.

I did not know it was the first spaceflight anniversary until Dan brought it up, but I was prompted to check out Wikipedia to learn more. Interesting stuff, especially given Dan’s suggested context of the Soviet “spin” to his singular orbit. He was apparently later quoted by Kruschev as having said “I don’t see any God up here,” but others claimed he more likely said “Someone who never met God on earth would never meet Him in space.” Or could that have been in response to Kruschev? Three years later, after visiting a monastery he said to a friend, “Just think on these words, ‘who art in heaven.’”

Neither Gagarin nor Kruschev will have the last word on God in heaven, but Gagarin will always be the first human in space —and he was apparently well favored for the task. Wikipedia reports that the cosmonaut candidates were asked to vote anonymously on their own choice for “first to fly,” and 17 of 20 voted for Yuri.

So here’s to Yuri, and sentimentalism, and all kids wanting to be Astronauts, and any one of them succeeding.

Meanwhile, back on earth, again prompted by Dan but also, I hope, in the spirit of Matthew 4: 5-11 (and 1 Corinthians 2:10-14, and, interestingly enough, Yuri’s thoughts), here’s my Earthworm Theology:

http://walledgardenpoetry.blogspot.com/2011/03/earthworm-theology.html

Now, isn’t that much easier than attachments? This was inspired by the opening rhythm of an otherwise blank-versed Coleman Barks poem. I took the liberty of rewriting it, but I tried to make it my own poem too. I do not have a copy of the Barks’ poem where I am writing this (it’s at home, I’m at the office), but if anyone is interested I’ll send it later.

(Dan, I have no answers on what to do to sign in as a blog author, but if you or anyone else has continuing difficulties, I will be happy to post your pieces for you until we figure it out. I also do not use my gmail address for anything else, but I guess that’s the trend - AT&T now wants me to have another email address just to check my voice mails.)

love to all, Jon

...

Next Day Postscript

I meant 50th anniversary. Old math.

Coleman Barks' original poem is now posted as a comment on the same link.

Andrew's inspiration, it turns out, was the conversation we were having about Scott Kuntz, my colleague, who is driving to Pennsylvania today for a model train convention.

Enjoy your days!

Mid-Term Memory

Decidedly, without a doubt the ele-
phant within the fishbowl wanted out: not
because the curvature was cramped or that

the oxygen was scant—her snorkel took care
of that—and not because she was alone:
while dreams of pachyderms at home preoc-
cupied her most reflective hours, the tickle
of her funny bone was only sometimes dour:

the bowl was filled with someone else, a
goldfish swimming (as it were) ‘tween folds of flesh,
forgetting seconds past for present tasks and
minding business own against what fatso’d ask
which resonated thus: ‘Remind me, golden friend,
how came we to this end: my memory renowned
is worthless here, as nothing—see—is worth
remembering. How on earth do you go on?’

Said goldfish feint, without much thought:
‘I remember naught but how to eat—your trainers
call that instinct and I might stop at that, to
think through nothing else but what is here, not
to dwell on what is not. I get the umpteen
screeds on what-and-how I soon forget; if
so, I’d always never know I’m bound in glass…
alas, I always am—my seconds never pass.

I won’t and can’t recall your fate; I vaguely
know you don’t relate to this milieu. I feel
quite bad for you; if pity fades and flits I’m
glad you’re in it here, with me—or so I try to think.’
‘Don’t bother,’ elephant rejoined: her power
to objectively employ a reasonable riposte
was wrapped beyond a prayer to what she all-
too-clear remembered then and there:

The plummet in to present fate (tsunami years
ago) crushed goldy’s mate and stuffed the hole
that would have lured him to a senseless search,
a flip book look for what was lost, a blurred
and lurid chase: the elephant knew that
nothing old or no one new would matter here
and now. The pair was cut. A mutant mix—
Decidedly, a shared mnemonic shut.

Havranci (little ravens)

Veteran's Day, the armistice of killing time with
apple-picking cheer against the chill and
pallor... Meanwhile, I'm Weeping more of late,
I'm less old than I am if Frost cannot rub the
strangeness from his sight, daft to think I can.

Black crows have come back to stakehold leafless trees
and caw the closed penultima and brashly animate the
freeze.
'Nevermore' belies the constance of their mob— a
fledgling plague Ukraine expels for virgin winter
wheat to rob.

Then I hear a 'kraa kraa' in an aping pitch,
naive and fresh, familiar, bright… my frosty
eye begins to twitch:
Advent Emma's turning two—November now
extends the warmth of autumn (the sole
season to remember)

Go Gagarin

Dear all,

Forever sentimental, I'm celebrating Gagarin's universal (not strictly Soviet) venture into space. Of course the poor man was a propaganda pawn, of course the ubiquitous 'microregions' of Turkmenistan and everywhere else I managed to spy into during the early-mid 90's named in honor of this man were wrapped up in the larger-than-life zeitgeist of the moment-beyond-the-passing-days of the 1960's. In fact, I never once thought of that precursory decade while I walked around dilapidated Turkmenistan. Gagarin was probably just a dude who wanted to leave a personal legacy; I wonder what he really though of the subtle sabotage that followed.

We're in it for less demagogic gain. I love what Jon has done and want to leave things temporarily at that. I'm still having some log-in struggles on these lines: blogspot.com always converts to a Czech line of instructions I usually understand, but they get cross-wired when they pose ultimata like, 'Do you want to change your log-in from [my school-issued gmail] to another gmail account?' [I don't even administrate my gmail account!!] or less clear questions whether I am signing in to an existing account, new account, create-an-account, etc (all in Czech). In other words, I'm still rather stupid/stupefied by the labyrinth we may be in.

But--positive forces unite!--the spirit is working where the web as we know it is weak! I thought I had tapped into Jon's 30 Birds but I guess I was at his Walled Garden site--still couldn't 'post a comment' there, despite trying to sign in (as a 'Follower'? I'm in over my head). Read that whole site--you can link into it if you type Jon's "About Me"--and see specifically the poems I most wanted to comment on, "Mathematics", "The Elephant" (which Jon shared after I wrote "Mid-Term Memory", attached) and "Earthworm Theology". I'm rather into slimy creatures, for whatever reason!

Go further to the Calendrums site--I was, by coincidence, thinking of penning a Palm Sunday poem this year, and "March" is a wonderful impetus. I think I like lower-case "gray" as a better poem, however. Another eBlogger (the other name for blogspot.com) site Jon has created is March to December, a wonderful double entendre. Read the Beckett/Pirandello-inspired "Story" or the more plot-apparent "Disappearance of Walter Herring"--again, I wanted to 'comment' to these entries but couldn't figure out the cyber-keys.

Finally, alas, the Thirty Birds that I took to heart poem-by-poem when they were written in the summer of 2008 (yes?). I hope these poems on this site will have their companions from renowned poets, doubling the 30 to 60 with names like Ted Hughes, Wallace Stevens, Robert Frost, et al. My favorites in that collection are "At the Bus Stop", "Social Creatures" and "Hawk Diode".

Anyway, this is everything I would have hoped by now and more. A la Greg Loftness, I was hoping we'd have a repository, a family legacy, an internship for whomever interested. As a 19th-century man, compelled to teach Web 2.0-sort-of-things, I don't much care about the confines of cyberspace. But I do love the spirit that both complements and prevails over the ether. In that sense, go Gagarin--not for jingoistic glory but for the metaphor that space cannot confine the aesthetic endeavor to touch the stars and return to earth unharmed. What's deeper in our pursuit, we have Matthew 4: 5-11.

love,
Dan

Somewhat Reluctantly, a Designer

Hey Dan, and all,

I’ll send the invites out again to hopefully allow you to sign in as an author. So far just Josh and Anne are called “followers,” which I think is something different than authors, and I wonder, were you, Dan, also unable to sign in as a follower, too? And Josh, Anne, did you also have difficulty accepting author invitations? For that matter, I don’t even know what a follower is, as distinct from an author or someone who simply looks at the site without being a follower or author, as apparently you did, Dan. Mom, too. You are, it seems, iconless “visitors.”

Meanwhile, I don’t even know how one gets an icon, if that’s even the right name for it. All I know is what my kids did to Josh on my smart phone. Any time Josh calls, a picture slightly different than his symposian icon pops up, and any time I want to call him, I have to scroll past the J’s and the L’s to O, for Old Man Lamken. I swear, Josh, I’d change that if I knew how to. Guess I need Smart Phones for Dummies. Or less clownish kids.

So there would seem to be authors, followers, visitors. And, somewhat reluctantly, a designer. For the record, I don’t mind being an even keeled co-author, or symposian visitor, or, yes, a fellow follower of Christ, but designer? What? Wait... Oh, okay.

According to the design page – how do I let others into the design page? — I am currently the only author. It seems, if we are bashing our bosses and bringing up personal stuff, we ought to limit the site to authors only, but until you guys get signed in as authors or direct me otherwise, I will have to keep this as an open access blog. No, wait, I can limit the site to “only people I choose.” Which means there are authors, followers, visitors and then ...the chosen. However, I can only choose people with gmail addresses, so, until you all get on board, we’re back to an “anyone” site.

Not that anyone else is looking. There are stats on the design page that indicate only two countries, US and Czech, have signed in to this site so far. By comparison, my Thirty Birds site somehow has people looking in from the Phillippines, India, Germany (but not, by the way, Czech). I’m guessing this is because I gave it a registered domain name.

Anyway, for now, I don’t mind doing the posting of our first couple months of sympofied emails. If ever we get into multiple authorship, though, I propose a few rules. First, to allow us to keep the more personal stuff to the side, no posts unless they are directed to all. I wouldn’t mind sharing what I sent to Mom for her birthday, or talking Dan into sharing a poem or two he has sent to me separately, but I’ll let the authors do the sharing first. Second... Oh, heck, there is no second.

In the mean time, if there wasn’t already enough for a designer to think about, I am trying to give you all separate fonts. The blog only gives seven options, so I started going in alpha order by age. I’m Ariel, Dan’s Georgia, Josh is Trebuchet and Anne’s Verdana. Except I forgot Mom, so I guess she will get Courier. If there are any objections, please speak up, although your only other options are Helvetica and Times.

For now,

Designer Jon

The Woebegone Feel

Hello family,

My first online IB workshop is over--whew! A lot more work than the face2face workshops, and not more cash on the contract. What's rewarding is that I'm among the first to teach a new IB literature course online, and it went swimmingly (not belly up, as did a few pilots before mine). Had I known this would be an eventuality, I would not have signed into the Paris workshop, but that one will be big, with a different type of networking, so I shant regret it too much. At any rate, thanks for taking in Katerina and the kids a full five days before I can get there.

Jon, a belated thank you for the site--I like how you've stylized it as a chronicle, and the ducks and reeds in the background casts a wonderful mood. I tried to subscribe as a "follower" several times but I'm being rebuffed; the way I had subscribers for my erstwhile "Lamken's Philology Central" (same eBlogger platform, still accessible) was to type in their emails in an 'invite' box. As the sole editor, only I could post articles for subscribers' comments, only I could control the gate who was in or out (and 100 people max, at that), so unless the settings on this one are different, we won't necessarily have discernible 'surf' traffic. But that's a detail that can be sorted later. I'm just so appreciative of the archive and possibilities to keep writing.

I liked re-reading the letters among our other writings, and perhaps some content therein can be excised--I refer to my ISP boss unflatteringly, for instance! But the lovely part of it is the Woebegon feel, the notion that this is an effort to leave (in part) to the generation(s) that follow. I guess I'm thinking in those terms because I was asked to speak at graduation again--I begged to do the less formal 'Senior Banquet' on graduation eve, as being the main speaker twice in three years wouldn't be comfortable. I like this senior class quite a bit, and recently we've been workshopping poetry. I want to write something on the theme of 'walking to run', a bit because no less than 20% of the senior class came out for cross-country, including the 1st and 3rd place finishers in the conference. I also liked hearing an interview on The Daily Show of an Argentinian brain researcher who is working on synapse technology by which paralyzed people can 'think' themselves back to a walking status (real medicine, not hokus-pokus). Of course Jesus with the paralytic comes to mind--I'll craftily work that in! And something about passing a baton--a relay whether in a fast race or deliberate saunter (walks for cancer research come to mind--our annual Breast Cancer Walk is this Saturday). So if y'all have any ideas toward this theme, send 'em my way; eventually Stillwater Symposia may feature a message board or wiki space, I imagine... For now, let's celebrate this launch along with 30 Birds, the work that goes into avocations and the relaxation that may result in our vocations.

love,
Dan 

GOOD to be Home

Hi - Thanks for the reminder - and all the early-hour work - of getting in to the blog.  Loved reading through it this morning, and I had been trying, unsuccessfully, to get into your blog, Anne - now I can.  Again I ask, do you want me to transfer over en masse the emails and writings which I arbitrarily put into a file called "Birthday 2011"?  How do I do that?  Is that what g-mail is all about?  And how much purging can you do once it is passed on?  Actually, I have the feeling that you have kept pretty much everything that I did, so I'll just let it ride and wait as you continue your blogwork.  Of course, the ancient history (1988+) is precious to read, too.

   It is SO GOOD to be home.  We slaved on the land one day, cleaning up after Wayne the patrolman on the Loyalty bank below our house.  That's when we came up and sat on the porch swing and talked to you, Josh and Anne, and watched bluebirds build next in our birdhouses.

   So catching up with friends, and getting into church music and an actual wedding I have for April 30, and doing women's club stuff, and modifying our southwest-US basement corner,  has delighted us.  Dick's knees hurt, and they didn't in Arizona.  Phooey.  It has been rainy the last few days, so that adds to it, for some reason.  Today we're going in to Verona to pick up the two bikes Ken (Dick's brother) gave us that Anne and Eric and Jon tried out and they had some problems.  Hopefully problems are gone.

   Really looking forward to Easter Saturday and seeing all but Prague branch.  Excited that that will happen come summer!  

   Meanwhile, Jon, Andrew's 12th is coming up, and since we can't duplicate his sister's treasure hunt, we have some other expanded ideas that involve a whole weekend.  Any chance you can come up near his birthday???

   Hugs to all of you.  Mom

Easter Invitation

Jon, thank you so much for pulling this blog together!  I am away from home today, but I will feast on literary genius tonight. 

Please come celebrate Easter at our house on Saturday, April 23nd.  Come around noon and we'll have dinner at around 2.  Email me if you want to bring something, but no pressure at all.

I can't wait to see EVERYBODY soon!


Take care,
Annie

www.handmadebyannepotter.etsy.com
50% of all proceeds go towards missions

The Fledgling Blogsite

Hello family -

After 9 days, The Stillwater Symposia blogsite I tried to start has gained one "follower" (Thanks Josh) and no comments from the symposian gallery other than in a non-group email (thanks Dan). I have never tried my hand at this blogging stuff, though, and I suppose the gmail hurdle is daunting. And yes, we are all allowed to be busy with other priorities, as I have been myself. But check it out, all, and please, any suggestions on how to do this right are welcome.

Actually, if you had checked it out before today, the site has been sitting empty. But tonight I started posting the emails beginning in mid January when Dan first came up with this idea. I spent about an hour on this, and it is a little bit of work sorting through old emails and attachments, and there is at least one post that is certainly too long (my 1990 Dostoevsky final, which I had shared before we roped the rest of you into this project). But overall I think it will be nice to see this come together. So far, I'm just at the point where Dan first opened it up to all with his turtle poem. I haven't even gotten to the duck photo and the haikus, not to mention the point when we came up with the name. But take a look - and feel free to help me post some of the older emails (just be sure to time/date stampt them on the post-options). Again, the address is http://stillwatersymposia.blogspot.com/

In fact, blogspot.com is itself pretty easy to work with. And it is not hard to give yourself a gmail address. I told you I had first tested this with one of my poetry books; I have since put all three of my poetry books into blog format, and for one of them, yes the bird book, I went even further, populating it with photos and giving it a separate non-blogspot domain, which means you do not need gmail to check this one out: www.thirtybirdspoetry.com

See you all in two weeks. Anne, what time should we show up?

Love, jon

A Blogsite!

Ok, all, I couldn't resist. I started the bare bones of a blogsite for Stillwater Symposia through Google's blogger service. And to show how easy this is to work with, take a look at a separate blog I put together in about two hours this morning, which contains all 29 poems of my Walled Gardens collection. (I don't always have two hours to spend, but KC's on her band trip this week, Andrew was at Bensenville and the house was eerily quiet. Andrew's back home tonight, though, so I have Call of Duty Playstation sounds in the background. Peaceful!)

The sites:

http://stillwatersymposia.blogspot.com/

http://walledgardenpoetry.blogspot.com/

Nothing is in the Stillwater site yet, but everyone will be free to contribute through your current email addresses. I will send the invites out shortly. You will be asked to set up a Google account with a different email address, but this is easy and you don't have to use the gmail address for anything else.

You are also free to object, or propose a better site, or stick with searching back through our various old emails. But I kinda like the thought of having a single place to go to, rather than having to remember where that old email with the newt haiku was. And of course we can have links, too ---handmadebyanne, for instance... And Scrabble scores. And if anyone can figure it out, how about Dick's duck photo as a background?

- Jon

Last Word?

How are you all doing?  I miss it when we don't hear for a few days!

I promise this will be the very last word on Stillwater for the symposium, but as this was our last Sunday in Mesa, and we really have enjoyed - yeah, that's the word! - worship at St. Timothys - where we often go out clapping and singing to this Matt Maher 2003 song:

 

YOUR GRACE IS ENOUGH

Great is Your faithfulness, O God of Jacob.

You wrestle with the sinner's restless heart.

You lead me by still waters into mercy,

Where nothing can keep us apart.

 

So remember Your people, remember Your children,

Remember Your promise, O God.

 

For Your grace is enough, Your grace is enough,

Your grace is enough for me.

 

Great is Your love and justice, God of Jacob.

You use the weak to lead the strong.

You lead us in the song of Heaven's victory,

And all Your people sing along.

 

 

Oh, Ok, just one more - not related to the 23rd Psalm, but this struck me forcibly during communion today:

 

ABOVE ALL (1999 Lenny LeBlanc/Paul Baloche Integrity's Hosanna! Music

 

Above all powers, above all kings,

Above all nature and all created things.

Above all wisdom and all the ways of man,

You were here before the world began.

 

Above all kingdoms, above all thrones,

Above all wonders the world has ever known.

Above all wealth and treasures of the earth,

There's no way to measure what You're worth.

 

Crucified, laid behind a stone,

You lived to die, rejected and alone.

Like a rose trampled on the ground,

You took the fall and thought of me above all.

 

and in conclusion,

DUCKlings

 

Today biking on

The Western Canal

We saw eleven ducklings

Learning to turn tail.

 

Fluff balls they were

Still close to their mom,

Yet climbed the steep bank

As we pedaled along.

 

How many times

Were you blessed today?

Swimming spring ducklings

Caused "Hey, thanks!" on our way.

Codex Orange, Act I

Codex Orange

Dramatis Personae

Lillian Farmworth—school board chair

Rhea Smith—a school board member

Jon Tiosook—a school board member

Helmand Dostune—high school guidance counselor

Dr James Bourban—district 27 superintendent

Mary-Alice Springer—high school principal

Lou Vestral—high school teacher

Erin Kryzinski—high school teacher

Petra Green—school nurse

Sheriff Bohumil Slucha—Golden Valley Police Department

Duputy Phillip Porter—GVPD

Officer Sharon Simmons—GVPD

Officer Timothy Racine—GVPD

Officer Claude van Erdal—GVPD

Officer Gustavo Marrot—GVPD

Detective Soledad Bream--GVPD

Cole Barnadine—a local drunk

Terry Brandiwine—his girlfriend

Ted O’Shea—a locksmith

Father Faye—a priest

Antony Serentino—a basketball coach

Beth King—a standout player

Gavin Tate—a standout player

other players, standout or otherwise

Scene: Golden Valley, Minnesota

Ii—after a run

Iii—sizing up the school

Iiii—poking the drunks

Iiv—school board meeting

IIi—GVPD pre-brief

IIii—fight on the court

IIiii—Dostune’s office

IIiv—drunks poke back

IIIi—School Board at GVPD

IIIii—planning revenge

IIIiii—after midweek mass

IIIiv—after a run

IVi—sizing up the school

IVii—informing the school community

IViii—pub humor

IViv—Dostune held up

Vi—GVPD lock-down

Vii—Father Faye’s message

Viii—drunken plan at basketball

Viv—after all, said and done

Ii: A school gymnasium with un-pulled bleachers on one side and a curtained stage area on the other; walls are decked in old bunting and banners of conference and regional accolades. Eight adults merge together, slapping hands to cap the final game of pick-up. Lights high above illuminate the scene, windows equally as high are black with the night sky to the north and the second-floor corridor to the south. Nothing else fills the space.

TIOSOOK:  Getting too old for this—who called the win-by-two?

SERENTINO:  No one has to call it, dummy; your team threw away the lead.

TIOSOOK:  And then clung to desperation. We would have more wisely lost it by one, some seven points and fifteen minutes ago.

MARROT:  See, that’s your old guys’ problem, needing two minutes for each point—

SERENTINO:  Oh, and your academy youth did anything to help us tilt the balance? A dozen shots you took beyond the arc and how many actually landed? I thought you were a sharp-shooter! Next week bring your rifle site!

MARROT:  (sniffs out) Reminds me of something, not sure I’m supposed to say…

SERENTINO:  Say what?

MARROT:  Not authorized as yet. At least I think not, right Jon?

TIOSOOK:  What am I supposed to do with it? It’s not my call, really,… but might as well, seeing that it’s a closed circle at this point.

DOSTUNE:  (leaning in, quietly) Wait a second ‘til Gavin and Beth leave—you never know with new alums….

SERENTINO:  (contrastingly) Hey! See you two—good run tonight. Don’t shower together!

KING:  (offstage) You neither. Next week we’re on?

SERENTINO:  Next week!

MARROT:  Next week may be called off. That’s all.

SERENTINO:  Cut the cryptic, Gus: what’s going on?

MARROT:  Nothing cryptic when it comes to it, just a little hard to couch.

SERENTINO:  Man, I’ve got practices to run, games Tuesday and Friday—why not try to fill me in.

DOSTUNE: It’s a good point—I’ve been struggling with,… well, how all this might be received—

SERENTINO:  All what?

MARROT:  All the shooting and screaming and silence that will be going on—

TIOSOOK:  Hey, now, say it better—

SERENTINO:  Say it straight—you goons planning on doin’ something?

MARROT:  A terrorism simulation.

SERENTINO:  Get outta here—

MARROT:  Beslan, full blown. Just actors and us, a camera crew to take it all in, a school board review—the whole measure.

SERENTINO:  What? And we were supposed to know about this—when?

TIOSOOK:  Well, that was the tricky point. Monday is Presidents’ Day, kind of inconspicuous and we’ve always had a ‘spring cleaning’ crew come in to wax floors and such—they’ll still do that, only in the middle of the night, when the simulation is declared over.

DOSTUNE: What worries me isn’t actually the fake blood…

MARROT:  We’re going to have to run the whole gamut of a facility lock-down: when to crash in, when to shoot, how to negotiate through silence and noise. The whole gamut.

TIOSOOK:  The community will know what’s going on, but not too early—it’s decidedly not going to meet a debate—and the school campus will be cordoned off, off-limits completely. At least, I think that’s been established.

SERENTINO:  So, to be clear, you were eventually going to deign to tell… me, for instance, to stay clear of my own gym on Presidents’ Day so as to let paintball-by-grown-ups run amock?

TIOSOOK: Eventually, yeah. We were going to fill you in. Like, maybe now.

SERENTINO:  You sons of bitches—it’s gonna be a joke that turns on yourselves.

DOSTUNE:  No, no—there’s no joke or no turning—it’s nothing like that. It’s just a sensitive situation with all the annoying innuendo, y’know?

MARROT: Annoying: Al Qaida raids middle America—that’s hardly simulation stock. It’s more likely to be Columbine in most folks’ memories.

SERENTINO: So which is it? Which one are you simulating?

TIOSOOK: Well, that’s why we didn’t want to debate it. The fact is we can’t be reduced to the two prototypes. Terrorism defies any easy model.

SERENTINO:  Easy? No one said anything about ‘easy’.  I’ll just be god-damned if any of this is half as thought out as you think.

TIOSOOK:  C’mon, Tony, don’t get glazed over in this. It’s practical, it’s theoretical—but not the stuff of knee-jerk debate. It’ll be a tempest in a teapot, at best. It won’t involve students or teachers or anybody but actors and cops. It will be a troubleshooting exercise.

SERENTINO:  It will be whatever you don’t want it to be. It will define itself as an inchoate beast, lacking purpose and lapping up misgivings. You’re saying there wouldn’t be a place for debate, when time will tell and an arbitrary debate starts to unfold in colors you hadn’t contracted or comic-booked for. The stir of the night will not be the simulated fright of actors. The blood won’t be fake that courses through each cordon-buster, body and brain. You see, even if it goes without a hitch, the unannounced plan, when known, won’t ever be the same.

TIOSOOK: No, I s’pose not—now that you rhapsodized it. And you, good servant of the law, exposed it.

MARROT: As you allowed me to. No harm done: I said it only for the good.

SERENTINO:  (harrumphing) …only for the good…

TIOSOOK:  Good riddance—please keep in under your hat for a day or two, ‘til we figure out a disclosure method.

SERENTINO:  What hat? I’ll need to borrow goofy Gus’s and practice my DOOM.

DOSTUNE: That video game is long on the outs—a cyber-generation ago... Unfortunately, there’s a whole lot worse if you want to see a widening gyre—

SERENTINO: I want to see more of us putting this orange thing through a bushel basket, again and again and again and again…

Iii: The next morning, several members of the Golden Valley Police Department mill around the receptionist desk of the school. The first bell has rung and most students are in their classrooms, although some stragglers go to their lockers, cast glances toward the officers and shuffle toward the closed doors of their classrooms. When corridors are completely clear, the group walks slowly, loosely in a group, some jotting down particulars on clipboards. The pantomime starts and stops serendipitously, with random looks into trophy cases and pencil taps to the casings of fire alarms. The mumble of voices eventually defers to the principal’s attempt to gather them to a central spot on the stage, marked by the school’s coat of arms under their feet. None of them look that far down; instead, heads swivel mostly to the sky lights and the scribbles on their clipboards. 

SPRINGER:  And this is the junction between the academic wings and the ‘common area’—

PORTER:  ‘Common’ meaning what, exactly?

SPRINGER: Well, ‘common’. Not sure what else that can mean—

BOURBAN:  Kids would be prone to hang out here. We also might have informal gatherings and such.

PORTER:  But the big stuff happens in the gym…

BOURBAN:  Naturally. From the theatre platform—that’s right, isn’t it, Mary?

SPRINGER: (nodding, mumbling) Alice… Mary-Alice, so that these gentlemen know…

PORTER:  Okay, so we’d want to know the various ways from this common area to the theatre—any secret passageways, Alice, in the basement, maybe?

SPRINGER:  No—Mary-Alice, together-like.

BOURBAN:  Didn’t we already send you blueprints of the facility?

PORTER: Apologies. Left them at the station. But I do recall something about…

SPRINGER: Yes, we do have a basement—generally locked.

BOURBAN:  From the inside, though? I thought they were lock-release…

SPRINGER: Well, why don’t we go check…

PORTER: We’ll do that, all in good time. For now, pace us through a typical school day. Let’s say kids are in the academic… ah… wings and they want to go common.  Or, wait, let’s pretend it’s a, what d’ya call it—assembly, or a basketball game, and kids are going from this common…

SPRINGER:  If it’s a basketball game, we lock the doors to the common area and the academic wings.

BOURBAN:  Mind you, they’re release-lock, from the inside—

SPRINGER:  A school assembly, however, is a very different occasion—day from night, literally. Which begs the question: what exactly is the premise of this simulation?

BOURBAN:  Mary, we’ve been over this time and again: we’re not here to debate the premise. The occasion could be anything, from a single lunatic to an orchestrated campaign—

MARROT:  Belsan, full blown.

SPRINGER:  That’s not what I meant—I get the purpose, but what exactly is the premise you want? A middle-of-day event, or something in the evening? When kids are coming, or going, spread out in classrooms or assembled in a large place?

PORTER:  Yes. All of the above.

SIMMONS:  With due respect, sir, Mary-Alice is asking a pertinent question. What are we imagining for our roles this Wednesday?

PORTER:  We’re imagining being caught off-guard. So, whatever happens, it’s ‘situation fluid’—and that means now, tomorrow, this Monday—every day thereafter.

BOURBAN:  Well put. That’s the premise and the purpose.

SIMMONS:  Here’s my idea, for sake of efficiency: one of us keeps an eye out for the small spaces—washrooms, classrooms, nooks and crannies—another sizes up the common areas—

PORTER: Just one common area, I thought—

SIMMONS:  Not if we include the gym, the cafeteria, the foyer...

MARROT: I’ll take them. I know the gym inside and out.

PORTER:  The point is we all gotta know what we don’t know. Everybody has to be ‘small space’ and ‘big space’, familiar and unfamiliar. Gus, you want gym duty ‘cause you imagine this will be some kinda Beslan? Sharon, you want classrooms ‘cause you got good grades in school? Hell, I almost dropped out—was looking for any chance to get high—so should I take one of these, what did’ya call ‘em, ‘crannies’?

SIMMONS:  Yeah, I guess that’s what I’m saying.

SPRINGER:  Listen, the bell is going to ring soon—I think we need to proceed with the tour and get relatively out-of-sight when kids pass to their next classes—

BOURBAN: They shouldn’t be affected by authorities checking out the school.

SPRINGER:  And our talking Beslan, lunatics, and crannies to get high?

PORTER: Now, Mary, that’s not fair.

SPRINGER: (sighing) I think I’ll leave you to sort that out. Dr Jim, I trust you know the ins and outs and how each lock releases.

BOURBAN: No room for sarcasm, Mary-Alice. This is supposed to be your chance to lead the school through a code-red scenario; there’s nothing more important than what we’re doing right now.

SPRINGER: I don’t disagree, but the bell will ring and students will see us in muddle-mode, not the picture of confidence in code-red.

MARROT: Maybe it’s ‘code orange’ anyway.

PORTER: I always wanted to keep it ‘code x’—neither black or white or any other set color… Fact is, most of these situations wouldn’t care if the code were anticipated or not. Code green is just a trip-wire away from code-red..,

SPRINGER:  I don’t understand what we’re discussing in the middle of the common area as students are about to tumble our way…

BOURBAN:  I can’t understand why you can’t understand.

Iiii Near the Golden Valley train station, under leafless trees. Though the sun is high, a women shuffles in with a sleeping bag over her shoulder and spreads it across a bench as a makeshift bed. Behind her, downstage, a man stops at a message-board pillar and reads what appears to be fine print. With some effort he pulls off a plank of posters—glued one over another—and holds it as a heavy, open newspaper.

BRANDIWINE:  C’mon, Cole, come and make me warm.

BARNADINE: The sun will do that by itself. Anyway, it’s noon, fer God’s sakes—why don’t you get up finally and get some exercise?

BRANDIWINE:  Come in here with me and exercise you’self.

BARNADINE:  There was a time, no foolin’, I was a damn decent spor’sman.  Look here at what’s coming to the Target Center—the Harlem Globetrowers…

BRANDIWINE: What kind of trousers?

BARNADINE:  I said Globetrowchers—trow..trollers—shit, you know what I mean.

BRANDIWINE:  No, what do you mean?

BARNADINE:  They’re trick ball-players that travel the globe—there: Globetrav’lers, no, trow… damn!—doesn’t matter.

BRANDIWINE: Well just read it, if you’re not too pissed.

BARNADINE: ‘Trotters’. Of course. ‘the One and Only’—that’s a sly cover for ‘the Original’!

BRANDIWINE:  Wha’s so special about ‘em?

BARNADINE: They beat every team they face, if all for show.  I saw them in Chicago at the ol’ Ampitheatre, big barn that was. Back before everything turned into ‘Target Centers’—

BRANDIWINE: They got Target in Chicago?

BARNADINE: Something more like a Delta Center or United Airlines—something in honor of ‘His Airness’.  I los’ interest before all that racket.

BRANDIWINE: No, they got Target stores in Chicago?

BARNADINE: Well who gives a damn? Target’s everywhere by now, I think.

BRANDIWINE: Tell me why you left again. Come snuggle in, ‘least lean agains’ my legs.

BARNADINE:  Well, I wasn’t no Clyde Marrow run outta town, but I wore out my welcome too many places. Hard to disappear anywhere, even midst millions o’ people. I worked Steinmetz High School on the near north side for a couple years—

BRANDIWINE: Janitor.

BARNADINE: yeah, but more to the point I sold pot. Lots, and the place became a bit’uva mecca.

BRANDIWINE: but you didn’t get rich.

BARNADINE: you can’t get rich like that—gotta go harder core, then you get killed more likely than get rich. Anyway, I didn’t care for that kinda life. I wanted to coach, y’know, or just even assist some team in city league. But I’m a janitor, right? Who’s that? Can’t know his X’s and O’s or how to lace up shoes, let alone jump to the moon. I got involved in a midnight league, pick-up all night long if kids showed up. Paid me nothin’ but a little room to sleep in, right next to the locker room. Drug trade there was worse than Steinmetz, and, y’know, reputation follows a guy and so I was kicked out, no questions about it. I’d been through a lot’a temp jobs and hoped to get hired back at a book warehouse, where I played three-on-three every lunch hour and coffee break.  Andre Battle, Derek Mays, Nikita Walker—good guys, y’know, who played at Simeon and King and Loyola Academy, some to go on to Division I, but most sputtering out, like me. So then there’s nowhere to go but stackin’ boxes o’ books, and selling dope to make a dent, and… fas’ forward to Golden Valley…

BRANDIWINE: Wha’s the song we like, ‘Erase an’ Rewind’?

BARNADINE: But there’s nothin’ to go back to. May’s well go to the frickin’ Globetrotters game at Target—

BRANDIWINE:  O, can we? I’d like us to see a sure win…

BARNADINE: all scripted out—not a game at all. More like a shopping trip, I guess, if you got the cash… Target gets its customers one way or ‘nother.

The two settle in to a slumber, with the plank of posters serving more a sun shield than a blanket. Two police officers come by.

VAN ERDAL:  What’dya say, Tim, now or next go’ round?

RACINE: Looks like they just settled in for a long winter’s nap—hard to argue against hibernation instinct, huh?

VAN ERDAL: Not hard at all. Especially since they’re three months late for bear behavior. Let’s rouse ‘em.

RACINE:  Claude, we don’t have Dorothy Day available ‘til 4; that’s a bunch of hours to push these two from bench to bench, in and out of the train station.

VAN ERDAL:  ‘s their problem more than mine. Simple law: no loitering. Nothing I need to interpret, really.

RACINE: Okay, but what if you had to negotiate? We’re supposed to go through that simulation next week, at the school…

VAN ERDAL: With a couple o’ drunks? That would be easy. I’d let my billy club do the talking. ‘Never talk to a drunk’, my grandpa used to say. Nothing you can do to squeeze out sobriety.

RACINE: Well that’s what we might encounter: the equivalent of drunks. Terrorists whipped up by their own witches’ brew, not looking to unvex the situation with methods of reason, much less with clear-and-simple adherence to rules, and much much less with billy clubs.

VAN ERDAL: Listen, I’ll let Monday unfold how it will: it’s training, for heaven’s sakes. Today is ‘trained’—cops on the beat, rousing drunks, ticketing cars, seeing and being seen. Shouldn’t second-guess what we’re here to do.

RACINE:  You’re Rambo, man, when it’s easy pickins’. I think you’ll shit your pants on Monday, the way they’re talking ‘realism’.

VAN ERDAL: Pardon my boredom, boy scout—Hey! You two, get up! Rise and shine and give God your story, story—just don’t tell me, and don’t let me see you lounging these benches again—they’re tax-payer property.

BARNADINE:  Huh? Whe—(coughs) Where we at now?

RACINE: Sir, you’re outside the Golden Valley railway stop. Do you have a residence you can return to for a more appropriate sleep?

BARNADINE:  We’re here with the Target Center show—

BRANDIWINE: We’re on the team that always get beat…

VAN ERDAL:  Don’t tempt me with that inviting sarcasm.

BRANDIWINE: Maybe I seys what’s true—you ain’t a judge and you can’t push us around like that. Rodney King—we all saw that police brutality.

VAN ERDAL: You got ten seconds to move your asses! Or maybe you want a couple nights in jail—I wouldn’t blame ya—but what you can’t do is loiter.

BARNADINE: Come on, girl, I got an idea anyway.

VAN ERDAL: What’re thinking of doing?

BARNADINE: None of you damned business—we’re leavin’ your ape-shit city furniture and you can’t do nothin’ more. Freedom o’ speech an’ assembly, and freedom to keep you out o’ ours.

RACINE: Sir, the Dorothy Day Center, down this road three blocks, opens at 4, if you need their services.

BRANDIWINE: And Target is open righ’ now—we gonna go an get beat.

VAN ERDAL: Whatever, just not on my beat, if you catch my drift.

BARNADINE:  I smell your pig methane…

RACINE: It’s enough.

BARNADINE:  More than enough. Girl, I done dreamed up an idea!

Iiv Evening, at the high school library, a meeting of the school board in a conspicuously small space between reference shelves and computer terminals.  Coats are still on, as the building is somewhat chilly. Lights are off except directly above. In the shadows are an array of books on display, student art, a mezzanine balcony and study carrels.

FARMWORTH:  Appreciate your attendance here tonight—extraordinary meetings may happen at the discretion of any board member, and—

TIOSOOK:  Point of semantics, Lillian: extraordinary or ‘extemporaneous’?

SMITH: Is there a difference?

TIOSOOK:  Sure—worlds, really. I mean with ‘extraordinary’ we’d still need to publish its taking place, its minutes—all in accordance with the by-laws: did you mean for that to happen tonight?

FARMWORTH:  No. Indeed this is an extraordinary extemporaneous meeting—really no reason to Roberts Rules it.

DOSTUNE:  Sorry, I don’t understand that reference—the ex’s I get, but who is Robert?

BOURBAN:  Before you Westernized, Helmand—a sometimes fuddy protocol that requires recognition from the chair, motions and seconds and other ‘Rules of Order’.

FARMWORTH:  Well, I wouldn’t say ‘fuddy’ or ‘duddy’ or anything disparaging—it keeps contentious issues civil.

SPRINGER: And sometimes ushers in a civil war.

BOURBAN: I wouldn’t say protocol does that any more than chaos theory.

SPRINGER: Energy can be channeled any which way, toward civility or corruption; entropy is your chaos theory, and those molecules just go their own way—don’t look to clash.

DOSTUNE: Okay, I get it. In honor of my remaining friends in Afghanistan, let’s hope for civil entropy.

TIOSOOK: The question remains, though: are we meeting in an official capacity? You called some of us, not all, and drew poor Helmand away from his…

DOSTUNE: Harem?

TIOSOOK: Don’t get me in trouble! I assume you have one lady friend that your courting…

DOSTUNE: One, and counting..

SMITH: Gentlemen! Can we get to business? The courted of us have kids at home being babysat by the TV.

FARMWORTH:  Indeed, I want this to be quick, candid, off-the-record, troubleshooting—

SPRINGER: How apropos. This will be a great opportunity to shoot our troubles away.

BOURBAN: I think we’re painting devils on a process that remains a training event, and that by the GVPD. It’s not really our business—not in our interest, I’d even suggest—to trouble-shoot anything. Monday comes, the actors assemble themselves as the police have pre-arranged, they do their thing, tape it for their internal use, share it for our internal use—maybe an ‘extraordinary meeting’  opens it up to comply with the Public Information Act—

SPRINGER: Maybe WikiLeaks beats us to it…

BOURBAN: Is that a threat? Mary-Alice, whose side are you on here?

SPRINGER: Is that a paraphrase of George W?

FARMWORTH:  Folks, listen. I think, civil or otherwise, these are exactly the questions that we are trying to troubleshoot. And… I’ve been scratching my head since last week… I don’t know exactly how this simulation is supposed to meet the public.

BOURBAN: I don’t think it needs to, exactly.

TIOSOOK: But Jim, the campus cordoned off, dozens of police cars and S.W.A.T personnel, I understand ambulances need to rush to and from—this isn’t something we can hide, Presidents’ Day or Fourth of July.

BOURBAN: We’re not hiding anything. We’re following the express mandate of the Golden Valley Police Department—that on the advice of Homeland Security—to have them put this event on and clean it all up. We don’t have to answer for anything.

DOSTUNE: But sir, all due respect to that point-of-view—and I assume this is the reason the board asked me to be here tonight—there will invariably be some counseling ramifications, kids painting chimeras, wondering if the hypothetical is more immanent…

SMITH: Yes, that is precisely the concern. And talking it through will definitely be your area of expertise, but in a way, we haven’t talked through anything for ourselves. I mean, this event never came to a vote—arguably, it’s not sanctioned, no matter who holds the guns.

BOURBAN: Again, I think you’re being too provocative—presumptuous, even.

FARMWORTH: Funny. I always hoped, from 5^th grade student council ‘til now, for discussions like this.

TIOSOOK:  On the record, or off?

FARMWORTH: Well, that’s just it—no yes or no. It’s like this library. Some meetings I wish the whole place were filled, listeners swinging legs through the balcony railings, speakers sticking enough to an agenda but enough off the cuff to keep it interesting. Maybe someone fetches a book to ‘check the record’ or some words of wisdom—something Lincoln might say about houses divided or angels of our better nature. Lights would be on, passers-by would wonder what’s going on and perhaps envy, nostalgically: the school’s in healthy shape—it wants to be peopled off-hours. The learning doesn’t end in the classrooms, with any kind of final exam. There’s your extemporaneous, Jon—we have to maneuver as we go, a bit like Star Trek maybe.

SMITH: I think the kids understand The Matrix better…

DOSTUNE: I don’t know what they understand. There’s a scene from Bowling for Columbine where—

BOURBAN:  Oh, please!

FARMWORTH:  No, go on:

DOSTUNE: Well, not to be suggestive here, but… Michael Moore interviews Marilyn Manson

BOURBAN:  (mock-screeching) “I’m not a sl—ave to a g—od that doesn’t exist!”

SPRINGER: Jim, quit it! Helmand, say more.

DOSTUNE: Yeah, that song is in the background, but then there’s a quiet moment, when Moore asks Manson, who was scheduled to do a concert in Denver that spring, what would he say to kids wondering about all that happened at their school. And his response was, ‘I wouldn’t say anything, I’d just listen.’

BOURBAN: Pro-found. Is this a role model of yours?

TIOSOOK: It’s a reality of ours.

FARMWORTH: I feel like adjourning on that note.

SPRINGER: If only. For once I want us to keep going—

FARMWORTH: Of course, I’m being facetious. We haven’t hashed out anything yet.

SMITH: But a purpose to listen. And not just to the sirens on simulation day.

BOURBAN:  Okay, so. Brass tacks: we post on the schoolnet an innocent message that the campus will not be accessible Monday for—keeping it simple—a police-coordinated training exercise. Nothing about its scale or target, nothing even indicating that Tuesday will be any different for the activity that passed. We put the same brief message around the cordon—a firm-but-gentle ‘stay out’—and that’s that. The police will need to watch the cordon—

TIOSOOK:  Shouldn’t our school security do that? They’re all supposed to be present, but what are their responsibilities?

BOURBAN: I’ll find that out. Good point.

SPRINGER: And another thing that we’ll probably need to anticipate is—

Outside the library, but clearly inside the building, a tumbling of what sounds like stacked furniture.

TIOSOOK:  What was that?

FARMWORTH: No one’s supposed to be here, right? Speaking of security?

DOSTUNE:  I’ll check it out. Could be just said security.

BOURBAN:  or a Gremlin.

SMITH: one of us!...

SPRINGER: I was just about to say, at least it’s not one of us…