Silver Lining
(All pictures are by by Dan Bush of Albany, Missouri, and were taken with a Nikon D70 Digital Camera.) 
(And that one's for my atheist friends - tell me about some random-chance, chaos theory principle making THAT image happen. HAH! )
I was delighted to run across this image and the one that follows as I did a little surfing after writing my early post. I wonder if it rained before Moses encountered his burning bush? Certainly would explain in mundane terms one of legend's great metaphysical mysteries. It might have appeared to the Patriarch thusly:
That last picture was all I needed to see. No more wool-gathering about the job or molly-coddlying myself about obscure emotional issues. Every cloud has a silver lining, and if my skies are partly cloudy today, then I shall adorn myself with the unspeakble beauty of Mother Nature. Thanks, Dan Bush. Thanks Astroligist people. I'm getting my ass
out today. Genessee Valley Park,
here I come!
Today's Horoscope for moi:Quickie:
You have accomplished a lot -- be happy with what you have instead of wanting more. It's springtime, and that means it's time to get outside and hum along with the honeybees and whistle with the birds and blossom with the flowers. Breathe deep and, if it's balmy out, spend as much of the day as possible outdoors. There's nothing in the world that compares with the healing powers of a Sunday in spring. Pick a bouquet or two, while you're at it, to bring a little spring home. Overview:
Face it -- you care a lot more about this person than you've been letting on. How can you figure out what to do next if you don't know what's going on now? The worst kinds of lies, after all, are the ones you tell yourself.
I was once in a counseling session to help fix a relationship (that ultimately didn't work out). The counselor was a friend of my Significant Other, and a female besides, so I figured I was in for an emotional and intellectual ass-whooping. But when all was said and done, my S.O. was the one who was told she had a lot of things to work out. Lady Therapist surprised me with the observation: "Jahaka, you are one of the most self aware people I've ever met."
Now I tried to take that comment with a grain of salt, because intellectual women can often give backhanded compliments that carry a lot more backhand than compliment. She might have been calling me self-centered, or even selfish! I decided she probably meant some of the former, but not so much of the latter.
Today's horoscope speaks to me on several levels, although I'm hardly an astrology "enthusiast." The "Quickie" seems to address my extracurricular vocation - Spoken Word and Poetry. The "Overview" tickles my consciousness on a much deeper level and the implication that I might be in denial about personal issues tells me I may need several hours on the therapy couch with my Self.
Undercutting it all is a ridiculous situation of workplace estrangement that has me stressed in a whole different fashion.
Nothing to do on a day like this except what the horoscope says -- "spend as much of the day as possible outdoors... Pick a bouquet or two, while you're at it, to bring a little spring home."
And if it's a sucky day, I'll just work out like a maniac. But I WILL take this day for myself and I WILL do something positive with it.
Another interesting blog:
Confessions of a Cyber Queen? Now men can solve some of these enigmatic questions regarding the sexuality of our 'better' halves.
Yeah, right!
Confessions is quite racy -
definitely not for the under-aged set, but there appears to be legitimate information and it's worth having a look.
I ran across the
DelaWhyte blog on a random search and just stopped. I read almost everything there - I was
compelled to read it.
The author lists his name as
Williard Whyte out of Delaware. Basically, he recounts interesting news items, then gives us his own thoughts and opinions about them. His writing style is clear and witty and the subjects he chooses are all worthy of discussion.
When I peruse Whyte's site, I am comforted that some people are actually using the Internet to its most positive effect. Perhaps that's a lesson for the rest of us, as well.
Coming Together
When Moka and JB asked me to meet with them I thought it would be just to talk about the development of the Wednesday Poetry Forum at
The Baobab Center. Indeed,
Language Arts Wednesdays was discussed more than anything else, and a tentative plan to increase the popularity of the workshop/seminar-oriented program.
But I found myself contributing ideas and thoughts about a variety of other things, including an offer to help network computers at the center (
Didn't I get enough of that with Robert?!) and possibly helping attendees create web sites, or at least blogs.
We also talked about disversifying the Centers twice-weekly film-and-discussion gathering and pumping up the business club. The
Language Art Wednesdays program also will rely heavily on the club structure: Poetry clubs, debate teams, SLAM events; and
perhaps theatrical and oratorial activities as well.
It's actually the kind of thing I love to do (organizing stuff for youth) and I'm looking forward to working with Moka, Niema, JB, Crystal and the other players at the The Baobab.
Who knows? It might even inspire me to get an easel and break out the paint and brushes again... Now that would be a cathartic change.
Springing Forward
It was another totally awesome weekend. Friday at
Julius Cafe was
off da hook, Saturday was smooth on the job (minus the usual antics of ET Boy), Sunday was an even tastier piece of cake and I made it out the door in time for the Meet and Greet at Baobab, prior to the 6-hour
Spring Forward in Conciousness gala.
It's okay now to admit I had a bad case of jitters, but it wasn't nervousness of self. I had been called upon to produce a quintet of "hot" poets to perform, and contacted seven individuals I thought merited that description. Would they come through? It would reflect on me either way and I was nervous about
that. I don't like relying on others any more than I have to.
I had varying degrees of agreement from 6 of the 7, although one of those bowed out at the last minute. Four of the remaining five answered the bell, and yours truly comprised the point and fulcrum for the quintet.
Javonte Adams. Carol Owens. Justice Peace. Imani Wagstaff. Jahaka Mindstorm. It easily could be argued that Rochester's best poets were on that stage yesterday.
Easily.
(That's Javonte to the left, on his one of his CDs - I have both of the CDs he's produced to this date. They ROCK!)
The success was undeniable, difficult to measure, but I think
SWORD (Spoken Word Organization for the Rochester District) was
really born yesterday.
We were supposed to be interim entertainment between African and Modern Dance acts. Event Hostess
Neima Neteri turned the mic over to me right after the introduction. I did
Paul Lawrence Dunbar's We Wear the Mask, and told the audience that would be the last poem they would hear which was not
composed by the poet doing the spitting. After performing
There I Was, I turned the mic over to Imani for his
Can a Poet Get Some? Then to Carol for
The Truth About Cotton, Justice for
Gound Zero, and Javonte for
Mandatory Minimums.
Reception was incredibly warm, Javante sold all the CDs he brought with him (he should have brought more!) and I unloaded nine
SeptaVerse booklets. We were supposed to be interim entertainment between dance routines - and the dance routines were awesome. But when all was said and done, the dance routines were interim entertainment to three rounds of poetry that ranged from socially intense, to romantically intense to politically intense; but was always
intense.
A warm moment came for me when a gentlemen named Mr. Townsend was attracted to the EROS book because it matched the exact shade of pink as a band in his wife's shirt. Mr. townsend is an engineering supervisor at Kodak and the picture to the right is straight from his business card.
Nice! But is that also a new kind of Homeland Security thing? I mean, if your picture is floating everywhere your business card lands, your privacy must lose a little integrity. I know this might sound cryptic, but it certainly has me going
Hmmmmmm...
Capping the entertainment features, after the excellent storytelling of
Djed Snead, came the psycholdelic sound of Rochester's premier local band,
Black August, and the driving and incredibly on-time 'riddims' of
Giant Panda.
Yours truly had a
blast and next week, we start doubling up on Open Mic night at Julius.
WHOOPIE!
Parting of Ways
Hosea says I can be vindictive sometimes. I never thought of it that way. In the past, I''ve been quick to anger, but I'm a little mellower this decade.
Robert Ricks met with me at my place last evening to dicsuss the
Open Minds over Open Mics on Monroe Avenue. He was my partner in that and other endeavors. Rob felt that the venue was failing because there haven't been large crowds. Because the Ciara White fiasco made him look and feel bad. He wanted to close the venue.
He had the nerve to imply I wasn't doing enough to promote the venue.Wait-a-fucking-minute, Speedy. I've sent over a thousand emails, produced and distributed over a thousand flyers, made dozens of calls and numerous mentions to the shit on my open mic nights. I have inserts on that shit in my booklets and I've been trumpeting it from my web site. Blurbs in the daily paper
and the weekly entertainment rag both mention
Open Minds over Open Mics on Monroe Ave. What the hell else did Mr. Ricks expect?!?!
He thought I should have been visiting schools and churches, sticking flyers under windshield wipers and some other shit. He's
on some other shit! Maybe my way is a little too high tech for him; maybe he doesn't appreciate effort of an electronic nature. Why should I beat the pavement to talk to a couple dozen people if I can click a button that will reach out to a couple hundred? Why go out to plead with the faculty of a school or the congregation of a church when I can send them a tidy email and point them to a tight web site?
Work smarter, not harder - that's my motto!
Rob never bothered to look at the newspaper ads or check out the flyers. He
says he read the emails and visited the site (once!), but I disbelieve him.
I asked Rob if he minded stepping aside and to let me continue developing the venue on my own. "What makes you think it will work with you running it alone if it didn't work with both of us running it?" he asked.
Well, maybe because I'm willing to give it more time. I do have a history of success with this open mic stuff. Look at the Marqee, the SPoT, Julius cafe... I mentioned the amount of time and effort I had already put into promoting this venue and how I didn't want to let it go so abruptly.
Ron knows how committed I am to this open mic movement. He can't be considering I might want to do something else on Thursday nights...)"I'm not willing to relinquish control just yet," he finally said. "I have a possible grant coming through from the city and I'm planning to do a youth program."
Ahh, so there it was. I sat back in my little black leather chair, fingers steepled my chest. Contemplated, cogitated, meditated. Robert didn't let the silence last long.
"So what are you gonna do?" he asked me.
Do about what? Thursday nights? "Yeah." Now it was damned near in the open. He didn't want to do the Thursday night open mic thing, but he wanted me to throw my lot in with whatever this new project was, which he hadn't even discussed with me.
Rob, Thursday night is my power night for poetry. I'm going to keep pushing it, if not on Monroe Avenue, then someplace else. He thought about on that for a minute. Then changed the subject, asked me if I would still look at the half-dozen computers in his
Teen Empowerment office that he wanted me to network.
I had verbally committed to setting up a LAN system at the office for a nominal fee. I was also locked in to a lead role in his upcoming play:
Where You At, Lord? (which I had also done extensive rewrite work on.)
By the time Robert left yesterday evening, I was still agreeable to doing the LAN work and playing the role. But the more I thought about how he had handled things with the Open Mic, diametric to my support of
his endeavors, a little steam started coming out of my ears. I wrote 5-star reviews for his novel on amazon.com as well as barnesandnoble.com. I played equal time opposite him in his
Down Here In the Dirt production for a measly hundred-fifty bucks (and gave him a third of that back as "investment toward future projects together"!) I had links to his organization and to his book on my web site, and plugged
him as my favorite author on the back jacket of my
SeptaVerse series.
Well, those links are gone now, and my next version of
SeptaVerse will probably tout Steven King or Robert Jordan. The 5-star review on Amazon has disappeared into the great beyond (I can't figure out how to delete the barnesandnoble.com review). I will eatthat script with tobasco sauce before I study another line (although he can keep the measly fifty bucks!)
Hosea says I'm vindictive. But I could have put up a one-star review and brought his struggling book ranking to a mortuary level. I could have bad-mouthed him (like Ciara did!) on my web-site or discourage participation in his venues from my open mic. I did none of the above, nor to I plan to, and I pointed this out to Hosea.
"No, you weren't vindictive to Robert - Actually, you were kind of mild in your reaction," he said. "But you
can be vindictive, Jahaka."
Okay. I won't argue that. Too Subjective. But whatever I am 'being' - it sure felt good to purge a little Robert Ricks out of my system.
Ahhhhh.
Kid Chaos
Staff took the clients on an overnight campout. ALL the clients, except for one who's behavior has been so extra-terrestrial that's his standing orders say he doesn't leave the campus until his release date. Wow.
So what did all these hyperactive kids do once unleashed on Mother Nature? Well, most of them learned the hard way that there were legitimate reasons staff asked them to bring hats, gloves and coats. Those who didn't we're chilled to their cute little bone marrow. The scoutmasters (who probably should be in psychotherapy themselves) gave the kids saws and axes to cut wood. Sociotherapists rushed in to prevent Armaggedon as the kids immediately went after one another with these steel implements. Ye gods!
They needed more Quiet Time (In tents!) to settle them they than ever needed at the unit. The long days, made longer by lack of electronic toys, totally robbed their time sense. They reported back to the campus before 2 pm and many bitched about dinner not being ready!
Last, but certainly not least, one kid upset the others after he french-kissed a scoutmaster's dog and stuck his finger up its ass!!! And he
still doesn't understand why no one ever lets him help with the meal preparation.
Getting in touch with nature is cathartic, and a wonderful thing if you can do it with a child, even/especially a child who may have mental/emotional issues. But to do it with a
dozen such children, all at the same time, is an open invitation to kid chaos.
(
Question:) Who the hell thinks of this kind of shit anyway?
(
Answer:) Some idiot who makes a hell of a lot more than I do.
What a Weekend!
(or: "The post that sat in
draft mode for 2 days!")
from Sunday
(In the photo to the right, taken by Adrian Pingstone in November 2004, a pair of 'human statues' do their thing in London's Jubilee Gardens. The pair remain perfectly motionless for long periods. Even when asked a question, they will not reply.)
Following the young poet's Thursday night meltdown, I was very concerned about Friday's Open Mic at Julius Cafe, and moreso when I arrived and saw no other performers. I made a couple calls to my big guns:
Javante and
Seven.
Ben Miller, Sam Cooper and
Hosea Taylor made up the band. The house was full of waiting patrons...
Brandon came with my grandson and my youngest son, as well as Dominique and Teresa. It seemed to start out slow; I didn't think people were feeling my
Paul Laurence Dunbar or my
William Ernst Hensley, so I did some original Mindstorm verse which seemed to wake them up a little more. Then I brought out the
White Lightning.Actually, he signed his name as Mike G., and he explained to the crowd that was his actual first name and last initial. I didn't give a shit what his name was,
White Lightning blew that shit away with some Neo Urban verse for your
ass! It took him a minute to warm up, understandable as he was the only non-black in the place (at first). But once he warmed up he rocked that goddamned mic like nobody's business.
Crowd was getting good and warm now. I flipped back with a little more Mindstorm, then brought out Seven, who never lets me down. Seven knocked down a couple pieces, then I hit the crowd with Javonte. He has been blamed by some for closing us down at SPoT Coffee, because of a poem that had some really raw lyrics in it, but I never looked at his poetry as the cause of that situation. However, SPoT management may have used it as an excuse.
Javante ripped some of his unique slam style, preacher style, call-and-response revolutionary shit and now the house was completely lit up. Carol Owens came in strong to break up some of the testosterone all the male poets were laying down and the Friday show was the best to this date, although I know intuitively this is just the beginning....
My last two appearances on the mic, I held my (too long and too heavy) son Jonathan, who was mouthing the words his father said, while the crowd chuckled.
Oh, so you wanna be like daddy? You want to be Master of Ceremonies? "Ask the people how they're doing, Jon-Jon."
"How were y'all doin'?" he said and the crowd gave the loudest response of the night. Damn, maybe his does have some MC in him. His dad and older brother are both doing it - why not?
Last night was the culmination of the week's events - a solo performance for the Spring Formal of the
Sigma Pi Phi Fraternity. It was held at a pretty nice place, "The
Lodge at Woodcliffe" and I sold 11 books and passed out a few dozen business cards. It was the most apprciative audience I've entertained in a pretty long time, and I had a great time.
The only unfortunate part is I won't get to see Jon-Jon again before he leaves for Brooklyn. But I was glad to see him, he
loves his little nephew, and it was great hanging out with my two oldest sons again, we don't do that often enough.
(finished Monday)Probably should have saved this rant for another time, but when you're pissed you're pissed.
Robert wants to deep-six the Open Mic on Monroe Ave. He also fired Ciara from
Where You At, Lord? (but that part makes sense.) Robert has all the patience Creation gave a fly, which I think lives only six days. We were debating the value of things on the phone when he made a comment that he doesn't think I'm as committed as he is, or that I'm not working as hard - they equate to the same thing in my eyes. "Jahaka, you and me ain't cut from the same cloth."
I tried to remember that Robert's under a lot of stress, with issues that include a crumbling domestic relationship, a delinquent son, hounding creditors, being 300 pages in the red on a book deal for which he's already received an advance, a play that's awesome in concept but is plagued with uncasted roles and uncomitted actors. I tried to remember that, but I blew up at him anyway. Shit, he cast me as The Devil for a reason - I have "a lot of hell in me." It comes out when I'm riled.
How could he say the open mic had failed when we never took time to let any of the ideas germinate, when cross promotion from other venues was still marinading, when its sister night was a juggernaut success? How could he say I'm not working hard when he hasn't even bothered to look at the web site, read the emails, peruse the flyers or bring his over-book ass down to Julius to see how we rock it when it's plan and executed
right!In the middle of my reactive tirade, the connection was lost. Robert later said it was a poorly charged battery. I almost didn't give a shit. But I'm going to keep going to rehearsals, keep promoting the Monroe Avenue venue (for as long as we keep it). However, if the venue doesn't pan out, I'm not about to dump Thursday night as an open mic alternative. There'll be another Thursday night venue if I have to stand on a chair in the middle of the goddamned mall and spit freestyle at sanitation workers!
Okay that feels better!
It also felt good Sunday after work to chill with Jonathan and BJ again, not to mention my olders sons, my nieces and my nephews. We all gathered at Evelyn's house for Sunday dinner. Teresa switched her departure time to make it so JJ could be there. (That was pretty cool - I take back some of the things I thought about her!)
Alright, so it had more ups and downs than the virtual roller coaster at Coney Island. I came out of it okay and (hopefully) some great photos will be emailed back to me.
What a weekend!
Flunking the Feature
The plan was to enhance the Thursday night Open Mic by diversifying the session. We would start out with a featured artist, run about an hour of Open Mic, and finish up with a freestyle competition. It was (my industry partner) Robert Rick's idea and I supported it.
The second part of Rob's idea was to let Ciara White lead off as the Featured Artist. He wanted a young performer, with the idea of making the Monroe Avenue venue more developmental, maximizing the use of young talent. Ciara has worked with Rob quite a bit in the past and she is a
very talented poet/actor. However, she also is an 18-year-old (
literal!) Drama Queen who suffers acutely from 'Diva Syndrome.'
At 8 pm last night, there was no one there but Willis III and me. A group of about 18 people arrived
en masse at 8:10; most of them to see the Featured Artist perform. W3 (Willis III), my son and understudy, has been opening for me the past few weeks. At 8:20 I instructed him to give Ciara five more minutes and, if she was still absent, to start anyway.
Unfortunately, my son was very nervous last night and apparently he was not prepared to hold the mic down for more than a few minutes. I wish he had told me this. Ciara arrived at 8:25 and W3 immediatley announced: "
And here she is! Let's give a hand to our featured artist!"I was in the DJ's booth, spinning CDs to accompany the poetry and scribbling a list of announcements I wanted Willis III to make before he turned the show over to Ciara. For her part, she scowled at W3 when he made his hasty and ill-timed introduction, and then Ciara made a beeline for the ladies' room.
Okay... there's something going on here and Mr. Mindstorm never got the memo...It was an awkward moment for all, and I wanted sooo badly to rescue my son, but he failed to see my efforts to get his attention. He stumbled on with some more freestyle, but now his confidence was shattered. Lack of confidence for an event host is like lack of air for a land-based mammal: the only thing left to do is to choke.
Ciara returned and sat down in the audience. Willis III tried to dialoge with her
while he was still on the mic (a serious
faux pas if the intent is to help settle and comfort a person - one doesn't make it public). W3 was desperate to get rid of the mic and he finally noticed me and handed it up the the window of the DJ's booth.
Meanwhile, Ciara decided to make an (only somewhat dramatic) exit. The 15 or so people who had come expressly to see Ciara sort of looked around at each other and departed the way they had arrived -
en masse. W3 hung his head in dejection. I needed to talk to him. I needed to talk to Ciara. I needed to save the show.
I sat in the DJ booth with the mic in my hand trying to decide what was my highest priority. Before I could reach a decision, the other three people in the audience got up and left. Now there was just my son and me. Decision made.
Oh! Now the musicians are returning, with their instruments and amps. Willis III blamed himself and it fell upon me to rescue his self esteem while allowing him to embrace the lesson that his efforts to help Ciara were (
sabotaged!) hindered by his (
desperation to be rid of the mic!) haste.
After talking with W3, I went in search of Ciara. I found her, but she was totally unwilling to dialogue. Muttered a few unkind things about Rob - apparently she was
really pissed off about his not being there. Well, I was
really pissed off about Ciara ruining my open mic, but I did a decent job not saying anything about it. What good would
that have done?
When I went back downstairs, Ben had his bass thumping and Sam was laying jazzy notes on that tenor sax. Ben, as usual, was popping out straight funk.
Ben, for the poets' sake, I need you to turn the volume down on that axe and hit more bluesy riffs. Well, maybe the night wasn't a
total waste.
Hey Ben! Can I see that for a minute? "What? This?"
Yeah, the bass. "What? You're gonna play?" The bass player is seldom The Intellectual in a band.
Yeah Ben. I wanna see if I can bump this blues beat. You just listen.... "Okay, but don't choke yourself with the strap!" He laughed and walked away.
I'm no musician. If anything, I mess around with drums every now and then. But I know a little about notes and so I started in with a basic blues beat,
using just one string.
Da-bump, Da-bump, bump, bump... Da-bump, Da-bump, bump, bump... Sam joined in with the sax. I struggled to concentrate on the frets.
"Not bad!" This boomed from the speakers. I looked up to see Ben, the bass player, over on the mic, grinning. "Now
you listen, Jahaka!" And he started freestyling....
So the Sax player did his thing on the Sax while the Poet fumbled through a basic beat and its changes on the Bass and the Bass player ripped off some amazingly cerebral shit about humankind's place in the universe with Poetry. My son consoled himself with a pencil and a sketch pad.
Rob finally showed up around 9:30, raised eyebrows to see an empty audience, the Bass player on the mic, the Poet thumping the bass, and the Sax player leaning over, gasping for air from the effort of trying to support the Poet-Basist's too-deep, one-string notes. Rob simply said he had had some personal issues that still required resolution - we'd talk later. He left.
Nonetheless, life was good I had a good time (I'm
supposed to have a good time on Thursday's -- it's in my 'contract'.). But we flunked the Featured Artist Experiment. I went home early and got a decent night's sleep. This morning, I played with my youngest son and my grandson. In about two hours, I'll open the mic on the show at Julius Cafe. Life goes on, ya know?
Da-bump, Da-bump, bump, bump... Da-bump, Da-bump, bump, bump...
Jon-Jon Cometh!
The kid to the left, practicing the innocent look that would save his bacon innumerable times, is yours truly at the age of two. My older sons like to tease me about that old photo - ("Damn Dad! Were you in training to be a little Farrakhan or something? Did you sell bean pies, too?") My sons have a warped sense of humor. They also have remarkably similar features, although there is only one common parent between the four of them.
Jonathan Jerome Anderson is the little tyke to the lower right, finishing up a good cry after his first bath, which was clearly unappreciated. He's now five years old and I just found out he will be here tomorrow, along with his mother. The phone call was interesting when his mother (Teresa) called to tell me of their arrival.
Um, where will y'all be staying, with Evelyn? Teresa and Jon-Jon had crashed at my niece's crib during past visits, to mutual convenience. I was hoping that the arrangement was still good, because my apartment is too small for guests and I was certain she didn't have enough money to get a hotel room - the visit was too spontaneous. "We'll be staying with Barbara," she said.
A goose walked over my grave. Teresa and Barbara are the two 'baby mammas' (among the
five that plague me!) with whom I have the least cordial rapport. The idea of the two of them commiserating about whatever for a full weekend gives me a mild case of the heebie-jeebies.
Nonetheless, I am very excited about seeing my youngest child this weekend - I miss him terribly.
I'm also looking forward to seeing JJ interact with BJ:
Brandon Jeremy Anderson, Jr. BJ is my four-month-old grandson and JJ's nephew. Jonathan has met only one other family member younger than himself, to my knowledge. I'm curious to see whether he will look at his tiny nephew as a rival or someone to be protected.
That's BJ to the left. As active and lucid as his father, uncles and grandfather all were. These are the young males I hope to super-prepare for the world so that they may bring gifts cultural and genetic to Humanity at large. Future artists, thinkers, warriors, leaders. I was tempted to put up pictures of my remaining sons,
Willis James Anderson III, Brandon Jeremy Anderson (Sr.) and
Kahlil Jibran Anderson This weekend will be a welcoming time of renewing ties, strengthening bonds.
And the prospect of growing old acquires a sweetness that was hoped for, but only half-expected.
Look out world! Jon-Jon cometh! The Clan Jahaka is rising.
Stopping the Steal
"Jahaka, if you don't be careful,
God or
Grandpa will wind up stealing the show from you," Robert said.
What?! Who the hell does he think he's talking to?!Hearing that remark at rehearsal last night lit a fire under me. It was a fire that was close to one of those 'pissed off' situations, but I think I managed to turn it into something constructive. When it was time for my monologue, I put some
real fire on it...
I leapt and prowled around the stage; roared and hissed my lines, made 'mean-mug' faces that would frighten angry trolls... I went into my role as the
Prince of Darkness with vigor and intensity. When I finished, all Robert could say was: "Damn, Jahaka. I'm impressed. I'm
really impressed -- and I never say that to
anybody."
Yeah, Robert, I know. But you better start practicing how to say it because this is only the beginning. I'm beginning to embrace this
Satan role so much now I have to fight urges to instigate people into altercations and spraypaint graffiti on church doors.
I think it's just stress though. I'll feel better after I go outside and throw rocks at squirrels for awhile. Yeah...
Steal the show from ME?! Man I oughta blast his ass with my pitchfork...Hey, where did all the squirrels go?
Remembering Freddie Crofford
Today is April 10th and I remember you, Pops.When he came into our lives, I was already 14 years old, rebellious, not ready to accept a father figure. My DNA dad had never been part of my life and I didn't see why I should accept this stranger that Momma presented from apparently nowhere and told me was my "new father."
At first, I called him 'Mr. Freddie.' It was calculated to give him respect and still keep our barriers intact. He never pushed at those barriers, but his very passivity seemed to explode them. When he found out I was smoking, he would buy me packs of cigarettes. "
If he wants to smoke, he's gonna," he told my mother. "
I'd rather have him doing it in his room, writing and drawing pictures, than with God-knows-who on the streets."
I didn't know whether he was crazy or just a sucker, but I kept him as an ally all through the time God let us have him. Years later I realized that the things he did to keep peace between my tempermental mother and her frequently delinquent son wasn't 'suckerism' but rather wisdom that made a lie of his humble 3rd-grade education.
Third-grade education? Haha! Pops was the smartest cat I ever met,
bar none! If, before I die, I can master half the shit he did in life... yeah 'if.' He never made it to 4th grade because his own father died and he had to go to work so he, his mom and his baby brother could eat. Farm work, dry cleaning, roofing, even moonshine and numbers. Whatever it took, know what I mean?
Dirty Red, they used to call him, a calculating, ruthless brother with a reputation for consistent inconsistency. But
Dirty Red was dead when I found a father in a man named 'Fred.' Pops was generous to a fault. Bums and panhandlers would get the rough side of Pops' grumble whenever they asked him for stuff, but then he'd give them whatever he could. The grumble was just an exterior.
After we grew closer, he started calling me "Big Dummy." Only in private though, and I recognized it as a term of endearment. Pops was a
huge Sanford & Son fan and he only Mimicked
Redd Foxx's fondness for fictional son
Lamont with the
Big Dummy moniker. Whenever he would introduce me to one of his cronies Pops would brag about '
how smart my son is - say something clever to them, son!' Always would I respond with a quote or some obscure geographical trivia so Pops would have his moment. Sometimes it was embarrassing, but by then I loved Freddie Crofford with all my heart, and apparently more than his own DNA son... (but that's another story, and not for mine for telling.)
The strongest bit of advice Pops ever gave me was ethical in nature. "
I know you always try to do the right thing, son. And you can, too. Because The Right Thing is a little voice that lives inside you, and whenever you want to listen, just get quiet and The Right Thing will be clear to you." I put that right up there with "
Choose your Battles Wisely" as the best advice I ever got - (Well, that and: "
Make sure you have a condom!", but that, too, is a story for another time.) Man, that was the most thorough 3rd-grade education I ever heard of.
In October of 1993 my father, my 'Pops' - was diagnosed with brain cancer and they gave him six months to live. Pops did the token chemotherapy and then went on a farewell tour. He bought a van and drove to visit all his relatives in New York, New Jersey, South Carolina, Georgia and Florida. I had been out of the Navy for a year and I took three weeks vacation from my new job to join him; flew up to Rochester and did majority of the driving.
I remember Pops wanted to buy new tires for that van before we left Rochester. I wanted to strangle the tire salesman, who innocently (
Shit! He didn't know!) asked my father if he wanted the 3-year warranty or the 5-year warranty. Pops listened intently to the whole pitch. "
Well, from the sound of things, I'd be a fool not to take the 5-year deal." And that was all he said.
He was the first man (other than myself) that I shaved (I would later take a razor to the chins of my young charges at my current job, for
their first shaves). It was a poignant experience, and I can't imagine the amount of pride he swallowed to ask me, to admit that his own shaking hands could no longer be trusted.
On April 10th, 1994, at the age of 67, Pops passed away, quietly in his sleep...
Hey, Pops - down here... Check me out! Big Dummy is doing his thang! Are ya proud, Pops? Are you proud?
New Link - The Upstate Cats
Had an early contact with my
magazine editor today. There was a little disappointment because a story I had promised for the upcoming
Health issue didn't get written, but they have two new assignments for me - profiles on close acquaintances of mine, which are the easiest kind of stories to write and gives me bargaining chips to call in later.
Carolyne also asked me about
Rob Lee -- did I know who he was? Am I familiar with
Upstatecats.com, the website his group maintains?
(uh, no, not really...)It's a cool site, nice musical intro, apparently written in
Macromedia Flash code. I couldn't get the site to load with Internet Explorer, which I thought was odd, but Netscape 8.1 handled the page without problem.
Upstate Cats focuses on promotion and management of musicians and I was surprised that the group isn't more widely known in Rochester. This city certainly has a plethora of entertainiers, and more pouring each year from the doors of the Hochstein and Eastman Music schools.
Yeah, this is the kind of link I want to share in my web log. Gonna put it on
Storm Haven, too, later. For now, I'm just gonna chill and think about a golden dream.
Whatcha doin' babe?Peace.
Frazzled? I dunno...
Yesterday morning, I got up wanting a cup of coffee. I pulled on a pair of slacks, sweater, shoes and grabbed my walking stick. I was two doors down before I noticed a funny feeling in my feet. I look down and, to my horror, realized I had on one black shoe and one brown shoe. Embarrassed like a mutha, I went upstairs to change.
Today I had been at work for just over an hour when a colleague asked me "What the hell is wrong with your shoes?" I was afraid to look, but I did. I was relieved to discover that both my feet sported white tennis shoes with red and black trim. But I was distressed that the right foot was adorned with Reekbok and the left was wearing Nike...
(Good thing I don't have a lot of imagination, from a fashion perspective.)
My longtime friend and former Sensei Hosea asked me if I was "frazzled." I told him wasn't sure, but I doubt if I'd be able to identify it if I was. I know I'm working my ass off and not resting properly. I know I don't have much in the way of tension outlets. I know I'm not exercising anymore and my health is a long way from optimal at this moment.
But frazzled? I dunno. I did more sleeping today after work than I have over many nights this year. Got a good 5 hours in. But instead of feeling refreshed, I feel 'threat of headache' at the base of my skull. Last time I felt that sensation, I had a pain in my head that made me think blood vessels had broken in my skull and I was gonna die. I subsequently had my blood pressure checked that day and it was pretty high... I've been doing things to bring it down since then... but I'm not as diligent about looking after myself as I am about looking after others...
Hosea said I needed to take a day all to myself. I laughed. There is no such thing. I work Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday and I host poetry Friday, Thursday and Wednesday. Since my mother's passing, I guess am a 'patriarch' and I get the damnest calls from relatives now, for the strangest reasons... Consoling a niece over the loss of a boyfriend, empathizing with a nephew who had a negative law-enforcement contact, refraining from the filicide of a son who acts like he doesn't need to do housework... (Man, I didn't have to do shit like this when Momma was here!)
I'm doing twice-weekly rehearsals for a play in which I have a leading role, studying another script for a supporting role in a film that a local director plans to shoot this summer, doing my own tech work for both my website and my publishing projects and dodging calls from a magazine editor who wants me to write a profile on apparently everybody in Rochester and pay me peanuts for it...I work eight damn days a week, which day am I supposed to just take? Which one?!
Frazzled? Not as far as I can tell. Just fucking killing myself in 24-hour increments, that's all. Somebody remind me why, please?
"What are you going to do to help keep our young men from becoming extinct?"
That's the challenge from painter/musician
David Haygood as he discusses his motivation behind the work to the left:
Endangered. I like to think that my poetic ministry is part of the preservation effort, as well as my work with young people at my "normal" job. However, each adult has to answer that question for himself or herself: "
If there is anything I can do to help preserve young lives, am I doing it?"
For some people, like my dear colleague
Tiesha Johnson, RN, the question seems to answer itself in many of the tasks she performs on a daily basis. Tiesha is tenacious in her advocacy of better safety measures for at-risk children. Her efforts include:
- Pediatric Planet, a website designed to help parents (and other health professionals) get fast information on a wide variety of child-health issues.
- Lupine Creative Consulting, her own company, a consortium of health professionals commited to qualitative research, aiming to identify and rectify disparities in the health care industry.
- SAFE-T-KID, another of her many pet projects that I can comprehend on a distant lay level, but won't attempt to describe. Tiesha is much better qualified to do that.
- Last, but not least, Tiesha's own blog, which often serves as a source of information and discussion about child health issues, and most particularly, the danger of physical restraints and efforts that should be utilized to minimize those dangers.
Yours truly knows a little about restraints because my job requires that I sometimes initiate them
against (no other term fits)
children. I hate restraints and I think they're dangerous. Tiesha reports that the children also hate restraints (
No shit?!) and that they think restraints are dangerous, too.
Yet, there are apparently some (
nurses, no less!) who balk at the duty of simply checking a child's vital signs after what is often a violent encounter with 500 or 600 pounds of aggressive adult intervention. Wow. Maybe they need to ask themselves:
"What (am I) doing to help keep our young men (and young women) from becoming extinct?"
Son of Jahaka & Jazzopetry
One of the few things I love more than vibing with poetically-minded people is learning new language, especially lyrically-related language. My mind tasted the word
synesthesia, upon learning its meaning, with the same relish my tongue felt letting
synethesia roll off of it.
Synesthesia, to me, tastes very purple, in a velvety sort of fashion. (As opposed to the sound of yellow piano music, dig?)
But now I have a new word to taste: "
Jazzopetry." Yeah, baby... that tastes like a tenor saxophone holding high C, and it sounds like a freshly lit cig chasing down a swig of precisely-warmed cognac.
Jazzopetry is of course a purely fictional word (To avoid the possibility of having to eat another hat, I looked this one up!) which, for me, gives it added creative appeal. I make up words all the time, like
poetherapy, SeptaVerse, and
Theophilosophonlogy.
Nice thing about
Jazzopetry is that is also comes with
a link and a chance to connect with artists in nearby Buffalo. The jazzopetry.net site itself doesn't show a whole lot of recent activity, but hey! Everybody isn't as fanatical about this spoken word stuff as I am... I'm sure the
Jazzopetry people will be back.
*********
Last night I let my son host
Open Minds Over Open Mics. He did a fantastic job, especially since it was his first time acting as Emcee for any prolonged period, there were few people in attendance when he started (which can be good or bad for a 1st-timer) and my son is extremely nervous to begin with.
He did a smart thing and started out with his strongest talent, which is freestyle rhyme. My sons rips lines from the top of his dome like he has Dr. Suess in one ear, Mother Goose in the other, and Dolomite running shit in the middle. Yeah, I'm biased, but just check him out some time if you doubt me. Kid is baaad.
His humility, combined with an uncanny ability to turn nervous energy into humorous charm, won the audience for him. ("I'm a terrible host and I deserve a spanking. [
His eyebrows raise invitingly toward one young lady in the audience] Any takers?") He read a lot of his father's poetry, which didn't hurt him at
that venue.
His style and tempo set a whole new vibe on the
Open Minds scene and Robert Ricks, who swept in with about a dozen late-teen/early 20-something people, started collecting for a prize pot to give whoever might win a "Freestyle Contest." By that time yours truly had relieved Willis III of hosting responsibilities.
I was kinda leary about the Freestyle Contest at first, because this smacked suspiciously of a battle, as in Rap Battle, and I wanted no part of
that. But it also sounded a little like a Poetry Slam, which is right down my alley. So I took the bull by the horns, so to speak, and rolled with it. Robert immediately declared I would be ineligible to compete (he's heard me freestyle before) but he was going to allow Willis III compete. I nixed that idea and my son understood. However, I did ask him to set the standard by dropping the first improv, and he ripped it in stellar fashion.
A young man named Durell spit the hottest flow and therefore took the pot. All the young ladies followed him out, perhaps to McDonald's to help him spend his newly-acquired $30. I was almost at a loss for words to tell my son how proud I am of him. But I think he knows... We plan to do the contest style thing on a weeky basis, and it I think it will be a popular draw.
Either way, I hope my son stays active and gives serious thought to the idea of taking over at Monroe Avenue, or one of the other venues. He's a talented young man and definitely shares his father's spirit... He's a real son of a Jah...
A Good Start
Naw, I wasn't nervous at the Baobab tonight - there was really no one there but the organizers. And they were, of course, very warm and attentive. I think they would have really let me go on until 11 pm, pretty much as a solo act, had I so desired. Almost did desire - it was fun!
I had been reading a lot from the last two SeptaVerse chapters when Baobab brainchild Moka asked: "But Jahaka, don't you have anything Romantic?" Of course! Hey Aisha! This is what your fiance would say to you if he were a poet...
And so I reeled off Mind Sex (for you!) and a few other pieces from the EROS booklet, which seemed to satisfy Mr. Moka quite well. It satisfied me too, because as I spit every stanza, every line; I thought of you. Maybe you were thinking of me also, because I seemed to feel your presence, a comfort.
Times like that, I don't have to hang around the mental shallows, feel me? I can strike out for the emotional depths without fear. If somebody twisted my arm and forced me to be honest with myself, I might admit how that mental shit is sometimes a crutch. Might. But if you kissed my forehead and whispered your desire to know, I would empty my soul. Would.
Guess it's all a matter of motivation.
Yeah, it was a good night, a good start. At such an early juncture, and considering that the subjects are such positive people, it's easy to surmise that the best is yet to come. Good, meaty optimism to sustain us through the lean times.
A good start. Only thing I'm missing is you.
Nothing to be Nervous About...
Usually, getting on the mic in front of people doesn't bother me in the least. I relish it. My heart pumps icewater and nerves never enter the equation. That is, except for times like tonight...
In about 90 minutes, I'm going to open the mic on a new venture at the Baobab Cultural Center on Gregory Street (right above the German House, in case anyone is interested in joining us - there's a five dollar cover.) New venues always get to me a little bit.
"Jahaka, this is your house. Say it!" Those were the words Sam Guzman used to help me shake the shakes when I hosted my first open mic venue, three years ago at
Studio One. Sam created a monster, because I've always felt where ever I hosted was (
" 'my fucking house' - say it!") my own, so nervousness simply wasn't a factor. I was no more nervous than would be a housewife entertaining an encyclopedia salesperson.
Okay, tonight is NOT different, Jahaka. You were recruited heavily by these people - they've been begging your ass to do this for months. They wanted to give you half the gate (I refused) just to make it harder to say no.Not only that, but you're Jahaka By-God Mindstorm and this is what you do. So stop bitching, put on that hat, and move your ass.Okay, I'm cool now... there's nothing to be nervous about.
Shit -- I'm in
Mindstorm Mode, baby!
Passion to Divinity
The painting depicted on the right is
The Abduction of Psyche by William Bouguereau. The winged fellow doing the abducting is none other than mythical
Eros. This is where the interesting part comes in:
Psyche, of course comes from
psychos, and means "mind."
Eros is commonly mistranslated as "love," but its more literal meaning is "passion."
So Bouguereau's work just as easily could be titled
Passion Steals Mind for the same essential 'esoteric' value. Things that make you go:
Hmmmmm....Another pair of words, almost interchangeable with
passion and
mind, are
emotion and
reason. Newer psychological texts refer to three interactive human 'mindsets' - Rational Mind, Emotional Mind (the poles) and Wise Mind (the intermediary). When this was first presented to me in a training seminar three years ago, I guffawed loudy. The facillitator questioned my sardonicism and I stated "that's ("emotional mind") got to be one of the bigest oxymorons I've ever heard." (Of course I had to explain "oxymoron," which should have told me I was in for a beating, but I don't always listen well.)
(
Bear with me, baby, I'm getting to the relevant part.)For most of my
mature adult years (Last 9 years or last 9 minutes, depending on how the score is kept :-) I have struggled with the reality of being what I term "
emotionally retarded." This means that I seldom identify or "own" anything as a personal emotion unless I've had the opportunity to think about it, and very deeply. This is probably a developed defense trait, because Uncle Jah has been burned (
scorched!) a time or two.
"The mind must overcome desire for you to achieve your potential."It's been more than 25 years since those words were first given to me and they've been reinforced by research
and experience every single day of that quarter-century.
The more I let my thoughts guide me, the more I must suppress/control my feelings.
The more I let my feelings guide me, the less reliable become my choices.
The formula was clear. If I wanted to be an intelligent man, I'd have to sacrifice my feelings in a lot of situations when that would be most difficult to do. (Can you say "understatement" like a
mutha?!)
To make a long story (
biography!) short, my personal philosophy is that mind, matter, energy, spirit and the time/space/gravity/formation element(s) are all byproducts (effects) of the same Primal Cause: Consciousness/Will. In the above, which will be convoluted to s/he who has never really contemplated the signifiance of origin/destination, and clear to s/he who
has, I found the Face of God and my Reason for Existence.
(
It's deep enough to merit a reread for perspective's sake. Really.)
The flip side of this is that in removing myself from my feelings, I have to admit that the new studies are correct that it (pure reason) sacrifices
balance. That throws me yet again. Because, if
balance is interchangeable with
harmony, then I'm still missing the boat. If I'm trying to practice pure reason, I divorce emotion and therefore become imbalanced. If I allow emotion equal time with reason, I risk being the same fuckup I was during the
first 35 years of my life...
Decisions, decisions. And that's ultimately what makes a man (
Me!) a success or a failure - what he
decides to do with his energy, talent and other resources. How to balance work and recreation, family life and career demands, desires and needs, strengths and weaknesses, virtues and vices - all these elements add up to determine whether he is content or miserable, fullfilled or empty, loved or despised.
So what happens when passion steals mind? For me, nothing I can ever predict. It's not always a tragedy, but it's seldom a stroke of brilliance. Despite my Sagittarian side (which is supposed to make me so happy-damn-go-lucky) , I have a pretty healthy dislike for unexpected shit. And I'm a creature of habit, constantly changing habit, so it's hard for me to open up (to myself!) and say I need to give my feelings some breathing room before I go bonkers trying to be super sane.
"Anything worth having is worth waiting for and worth working toward."My mother said a lot of real shit to me coming up, but that may have been "the realest shit," as the late Tupac Shakur would say. Man, I have dreams that are so precious I hardly dare reveal them to
myself and I guard them jealously. I moderate my behavior now, not only in response to Wisdom's counsel, but in the knowledge that keeping my options open could lead to the Realization of Another Fantasy.
Who says you can't be both passionate and smart?Yeah, I read him, too - and he's another old fart!All the aesthetics write about denying the bounties of the material, but only after they have grown to old to enjoy those bounties for themselves. The Road to Divinity doesn't
have to bypass Passion -
in fact, at some point, I'm certain that road goes right throught it.
Joshua, Son of None
I hate taking my job home with me. And I shouldn't have to do it. But any person who is commited to what he does will find that what he does
commits itself to him. A piece of his work attaches itself to piece of his soul and... well, work comes home with him.
And so I find 'Joshua' in my head right now. Of course that's not his real name, but he's a real person with
unreal experiences and challenges. Unreal.
Anyway, Joshua has really been struggling. He's an oversized 13-year-old with anxiety and behavioral disorders like you wouldn't believe, a family with a sad history of poverty and dysfunction, a
personal history that includes real and imagined abuse from both sides of the victim line and... well, I think you get the picture.
Joshua is a "primary" client of mine, meaning I am tasked with supporting him to a more personal degree than other "sociotherapists" where I work. Joshua is experiencing a cyclical pattern of behavior swings that are nearly bi-polar, (but I don't think that is how Joshua has been diagnosed.) During his "up" swings, one can easily see the beauty in this unfortunate child, so eager to please, so desperate to have a sense of security. During his down swings, a cherbuic face hardens into a stubborn pout and his body language exhudes a message of hostility and distrust.
However, it's his behaviors that make Joshua such a problematic client. He attacks people (and makes gestures of self-harm), destroys property makes threats and frequently attempts to run away from the treatment facility to which he has been remanded. During these times he vehemently denies any self worth, makes suicidal and homicidal statements and lauches into vulgar tirades against the staff tasked with ensuring his protection and welfare.
In his search for security, he thrashes about; wanting, needing,
aching to destroy the environment that dares to promise him hope of normalcy. How dare such hope be proferred! How dare the world set him up for disappointment again! How dare
anyone try to make Joshua buy into a bullshit vision of a mother and a father and a dog and happily ever-fucking-after!
How dare they!And woe be to he who would offer the hand of friend-ship, of brother-ship, of
father-ship; for Joshua is the son of
None. His own family was never more than an instrument of woe, leaving him shipwrecked on a psychological beach of viscious predators and eager scavengers. And woe to he who would say "I understand" because you
can't understand, baby!
Hell, I thought I had been through some shit with my
Native Son-like origins and adventures. I couldn't walk a mile in Joshua's moccasins if you spotted me 3,000 feet and a shoe horn. Despite the fact that most of my childhood was spent without a father figure, I was never a son of None - I always had
somebody. Can't say the same for poor Joshua. And so his reality is what it is. He responds to it the best he can.
Those of us who are committed to our work try to offer Joshua what love we can, because when your life has been
that fucked up, when you have challenges that big in front of you; love is about the only team mate than can make a difference.
Nonetheless, I hate taking my job home with me... be well, JH.
Concience and Stress
Hello, I'm Satan. But I was God until a few weeks ago. I didn't really appreciate the job and I bitched and moaned until higher powers made some personnel changes. Now my good friend Lonnie Simmons is God. But God really wants to be Satan, I can tell. I always see him mouthing my lines at our rehearsals. Ultimately, we agreed to switch it up every now and then. I'll go back to being God and he can be the Ultimate Bad Boy from time to time. After all, we have similar voices and delivery styles, so it won't hurt the overall production. Might give it added flava.
Obviously, I'm talking about a play, Where You at, Lord? which is based on the biblical Book of Job and fellow writer Robert Ricks and I are at the 'tale end' of the casting phase. In a roundabout way, I wanted to get to the point of how we, as people, do seem to have a variety of roles in our lives and some roles seem to be diametrically at odds with others.
Ancient philosophers considered this dualism an inherent part of human nature. The institution of Drama evolved largely to satisfy this need in humans to portray different aspects of ourselves, and to see similar portrayals from our fellows. It extends into our personal lives as well. We have different 'facades' for our parents, children, siblings, teachers, friends, rivals - everyone gets to see a slightly different side of you; of all that comprises you. None one will know all those characters, although your closest friends may be familiar with more than one.
At essence, all people are at least a little schizo. Some of us just cope with it more fluidly than others. Some of us find outlets where our various 'personalities' can just be. That's about the only 'cure'.
One of my very dearest friends struggles with this on a daily basis. A person with lofty altruistic values, the only thing higher than her character is the standard she sets for herself, a standard that doesn't allow a lot of 'slack' - she will kick her own ass from here to Sidney if she believes she has 'let anyone down' for any reason, at any time.
She's a drop dead gorgeous woman, but the slightest increase around her waistline or tightness in her wardrobe sends her into a panic. ("I'm fat!" is her war cry.) She juggles a schedule of a million activities, but if she double-commits even once, she's all over herself for lack of organization. She's one of the most intelligent people I've ever met, but she constantly second-guesses herself.
My dear friend is indeed intelligent, and I believe she has an innate understanding that her rugged treatment of self will cause/is causing problems that can easily infect other areas of her life. She knows that "letting one's hair down" is a very healthy and necessary way of coping with stress. She knows that stress is one of her worse enemies. But she fears potential chain reactions from letting her hair down, and so even more stress is generated from that line of thinking and the cycle feeds itself.
Cause and Effect is the constant mantra I say to self when I'm looking for a solution to a problem. I know that we, as humans, are often more inclined to treat the symptom of a malady than to search for its source. But logic suggests that symptoms (Effects) can be treated indefintely and the malady persists. Cures are only effected when the Cause of a problem is identified and treated.
In my humble opinion, permitting conscience unlimited control over behavior may win a person a lot of Mother Teresa points, but it won't let the real energies flow in a healthy manner. You can't ride the wind if you're worried about how far down is the ground.
Then again, it's not like I'm an expert in matters of Conscience. But I do know a lot about stress. And, if compromised, one can always fall back on on the late Flip Wilson's catch-all excuse: "The Devil made me do it!"
Hello, I'm Satan. But until a few weeks ago, I was God...
(The artwork at the top is Gustave Dore's depiction of Satan from John Milton's Paradise Lost)
