4/25/14
The roots of the trees in the part looked like fossilized animals and like heads that could be placed over a mantelpiece on the way. There was a gator poking his head up menacingly out of the water, a tortoise shell at the foot of a tree.
4/24/14
“Maybe downtown is finally coming back.” They have waited their whole lives, 40, 50, 60 years to see the downtown, any part of town, restored to its former glory, a place of shopping, cheap movies, theatre and hotels. They sat on the bus recounting their youths, when their parents, long since dead, had taken them to a quarter movie or to the penny candy counter, a day when you could sit at Woolworth’s and have an ice cream soda.
4/16/2014
The mispronunciation of names, it occurred to her, My’ lan for Mil an’ or San Joes for San Jose’, it occurred to her, might come from the dual desire of settlers to start fresh in a new country, but to take some of the comfort of the old country. They knew that this town could never be the same as Milan, so the renamed the name, keeping the spelling to remind them of what they once came from, but remembering it was impossible to go back. And then there were other settlers, from other countries, the so-called melting pot, each coming and finding it difficult to communicate with their neighbors who all spoke strange, different unpronounceable languages. They would have to negotiate as best as they could and My’ lan was the only way that they saw fit. Picturing herself, her parents or her grandparents in this situation, she vowed that she would try neither to snicker under her breath nor to join in with anyone who laughed at these names anymore, but would think about the resilience of people who were trying to start over.
Surrealist Doodle
This was used as the cover of Karawane in 2006 and I have included it in on a number of bags and postcards over the years. Someone on the subway asked me if it was a Miro. I was very flattered!
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