Friday Dinner

A group of teachers pile into a Blue Bird taxi and zoom through the polluted capital to a mall for dinner.

There's a Filipino woman, married to a local with two kids. The whiners are at home with maids.

Beck and call.

There's a fat happy Catholic Filipino relic of a science teacher, a young angry Hebrides science fiction android and a wandering scribe. They find a diner. They feast on Caesar salad, chips, tomatoes covered in cheese, dip and 150 grams of cooked beef between bad white bread.

Watching people flow past, in and out of gleaming neon stores, the scribe and woman talk about advertising, marketing and the relentless pressure people feel to consume, to buy, to get STUFF. They need to buy to feel better, to improve their internal sense of worth with external STUFF.

She is waiting for her local marketing husband to fight and survive traffic to get to the mall. When he arrives he doesn't smile. He doesn't greet anyone. He slouches, collapsing in a chair. They don't talk. This happens in many old boring Friday night marriages. No surprise here.

Everyone gets up and wanders around the mall. The husband tells his wife he's going to find some dim-sum. He goes off to eat alone. Alone.

"Great!" she says, "I'm going to look for phone accessories. I really need something new, flashy and fashionable for my Strawberry."

The android and introverted priest stand around eating sweet I Scream. Waiting to leave. Waiting to become trapped in a car while the husband negotiates a business deal at the wheel next to his silent wife as the priest talks about finding a female nest.

A ride through Hell-o Friday.

Metta.

Carving Symbols

Doodle drama, ah the drama, the unfolding play! Information versus entertainment. Keep them stupid and happy. Children, of all ages, are amused by the idiot box. Give up your consciousness. Use the remote.

We watch all the feelings, sensations and thoughts that arose upon having that event happen.

Absolved by rain, the deluge.

"Keep your hand moving," whispered the writing teacher. They were strange. All of them.

The teacher in Tang Dynasty clothing filled with dragons, yin-yang mysteries of balance,

becoming, a Phoenix rising, a crying crane flying through mist covered mountains while emperors danced with concubines inside Forbidden Cities' red lacquered

emotional curiosities where visions of detached ebullient phosphorus streams dove into silence,

the abstraction of tonal quality in extreme bliss, a manifestation of phenomenal superior detective analysis and forty questions of the soul examining marketing examinations at 7:00 p.m. followed by utter exhaustion.

Leo and the clown escaped into the hills.

“We know so much and understand so little. People are more affected by how they feel than what they understand."

Bright star Leo continued.

“On day one my teacher said, ‘I only want you to bring two things to class. Your ears.’”

They sharpened sticks on stones, carving paleo-Leo-lithic cave paintings on soft clay walls.

Leo edged circles, rectangles, triangles, curves, lines and dots. He carved his name backwards for future historians and archeologists to get the gist, EOL, or, as an unemployed academic financial analyst now a linguist on Wailing Wall Street would, could, should declare, “English On Line!”

Metta.

Leo & Charlie

Greetings,

We stood deep inside excavated lands. A new planet. High dirt walls bordered by pine, evergreen and blue sky were lined with sharp deep gashes where earth machine teeth had gouged down soft dirt.

Workers harvested soft red clay soil for construction projects and imperial jade tombs at the nearby Chinese university where 15,000 trapped, lonely and bored students struggled to survive in a harmonious society.

Where they mastered the art of eating, sleeping and exploring casual sex hiding from recycled security guards in olive drab green army uniforms. We were at the bottom of a large bottomless pit.

“I have a theory they are spies,” whispered Leo.

“How do you know this theory?” said Charlie the Clown an imaginary friend.

“Because their job is to keep an eye on us. Think about it. We have too any people here and so, to monitor our behavior, attitudes and thinking, they recruit students and teachers to be spies. To be informers.”

“My father was an informer during the Cultural Revolution,” said Leo, a Shining Star.

“Yes, he was a member of the Shining Path Young. This is our new generation, with a new generation of informers and spies. They make good money. They keep their mouth shut and know their place. We don't talk about June 4th. It's the kiss of death."

"Creativity is my meditation," said Charlie. "Don't take it all too seriously. The one who laughs lasts."

Read more...

Soldier Artist...

Metta.

Accelerate Production!

The title is from an automated voice in a factory in Juarez, Mexico. Where thousands of women work for $5 an hour assembling televisions and appliances under NAFTA "free trade" agreements. No insurance, no benefits.

Cheap labor. Hundreds perhaps thousands of women brutally murdered. Powerful Mexican and American economic and political interests. Bordertown.

"You are falling behind in meeting your quota. Accelerate production! Accelerate production!"

More...

Metta.

Take amazing risks

We begin the final "test" portion for G4 kids today. Speaking. They have five topics.

They present in groups of three and the audience asks them questions, follow-up questions and curious questions about unique proteins found in the venom of Komodo dragons.

1. What is a rain forest? Why are they important?

2. Name some jobs people do in Indonesia.

3. Imagine you are a tourist. What would you like to know about a place?

4. You are planning a vacation to a new place this summer. What do you need to know? Talk about five ideas.

5. How can you learn about the past, about history?

6. Random bonus questions, like:

"Talk about the coolest thing you did in school this year."

"How does making a mind map help your intellect and creative instinct?"

"What is the difference between a fact and an opinion?"

"Explain your values on friendship."

"Is imagination more important than knowledge?"

Metta.