"MuMu Land"

  Got to hear the old song the other night on a DJ'd show.  It's one of those Our Triumphs songs.  Some of us have scored remarkable seemingly little big victories.  And somehow found in the cord pile, the equipment to document. 

  Heartbreak done up in "touching"; the sweet as the caboose to trainfull of bitter; some impression of the white heat of life that keeps happening.  I saw a photograph that kind of goes with the opera "MuMu Land" as a pop song.  It's sculpted sand where lightning hit the ground.  Apparently not the kind of lightning that comes from the ground, or maybe it did radiate back out.  You know that was a little big discovery, lightning shooting out of the ground as well as coming from cloud.

  It was, the song, a survey, a marker of where people were...surrounded by a swarm of contention and a swirl of issues.  Maybe not exactly, automatically taking a high road, but walking close enough to note.  It was also a glory--of that curious way some people have of getting off the palette of poverty if only for a bit, celebrating reality with all the decor of a mumu!  There's a poignancy in that, as there is in having lived lives jam-packed with adventure--emotional and actual.  And an embracing of it is what it is.

  You know, past fighting, hating, uzi-ing away from there's a spent.  Some people tend to that as last anchorspot before gone.  In doing that some people found themselves in the realm of forgiveness and some spirit of if not renewal, something to savor.  People also found what was precious of the past, even of the haunt and enemy, and could find a common in honoring.  We may not honor the same stuff in life, we may not be present when we can honor-in-life, but some of us found solace in acknowledging the act of honoring, the practice of just acknowledging, even if gratitude is not possible.

  Acknowledging made people less invisible in lifestyle and service.  It was also the start of change in many a relationship.  And it highlighted where people couldn't agree BUT had some common humanity.  There was also acknowledging shitpile-covered traditions like decency even in squalid conditions.  And, the sense of treasure.  Discarded, discharged, disconnected from revenue, just dissed...but what is there then?  A person tapped another's chest and asked.

Mama's River Rat Sunflowers
Spring Place Park, T'see

  Ah, yes "MuMu Land".

  Suddenly meaning(s) complicated, simplified in the symbolic mumu.

  Many versions, many spin offs.

  Tired eyes.  Hunched lumps of people.  A pall.  Foxholes turned inside out for the advancing of the ages.

  The rapid whispering, rational, polite.  A sane conversation about it.  Actually not the first.

  "How can you say it?" The physical emotions drawn back inside, made the tone of voice sparkling, crackling lava.  "MY, my loved one."

  Steady, calm, seated beside.  But walking daily to and fro from Heaven.  People.  Loved ones.

  The state of healthcare, death, and dying already like Gettysburg, day two.  None of the policy and practice sufficing.  Nobody gettin' out alive.  Walking that last mile with others was turning out to be eighty miles, no resources.  Most, not saying anything.  Reprimands and calm downs.  An illogical surrealism smoke and mirrors around already-been-hit craters and the walking wounded.

  In the churn at the pit of nation pivoting...pendulum like a chopper...no safety net debt....

  Parks became overflow catch basins.  Filing from parking lots to park for

  We got nothin' but psychology under the pavilion, there were even ushers.

 The sun had burnt off most of the dew but still shuffling slid, heels sank, sneakers slimed.  Check ins, alive, alive, don't know, haven't seen, with the Mrs.  Community action groups were plentiful on paper.  Silent sweeping changes on the seas though, so shock.  Stupefied.  So angry.

  Some were overlisting pro bono cases in effort to not turn away, and then inviting other professionals to consider.  Some of the most-psychology-studied but without license were showing up everyday.  

  "Projection!"

  "Transfer!"

  "Personal issue?"

  "Mind yer own bee's wax."

  "There's no personal anymore."

   There's puke in the portuhpotty!

  Clean it up!

  You'd think pukers would clean up after themselves!

  All the knotted stomachs from American "food" and travel bugs and ACCEPTED/DENIED, isolation, come together to screams, anti-gravity of tyranny to democracy....

  And nobody gives a fuck?

  A clown-faced person grabbed a stick and stalked towards the portable shitter.  The complainer let the door slam and rejoined a van full of people.  The person, make up on face, work tee, towel-skirt and flip flops flung open the door and cleaned the deck!

  Which one baby?  I'll make sure he gets a shower.

  Retired.

  A Vet?

  Dunno technically.

  "It's a long way to Broadway lover boy.  It'll cost you!" The stereo wasn't working but the motor was a clunking bass.

  Red bags not dog poop.  Basket of gloves sent by sweat lodge people who'd put in the time.  Someone occasionally laughing had separated the lasagna pan salad by type of ingredients.

  "Not much political talk," I shrugged.

  "Then we'll hang out."

  There was thought to rinse the salad parts.  Eat with hot sauce.  The pan was stuck in a stripe of roller paint.  Eat these, someone thrust Doritos, someone wouldn't touch anything, the chips fell.

  Sanctuary cities forced segregation.  People drifted from summer refuges.  There was some sticking together despite the icy cold your-on-your-own autoplay from D.C.

Don't worry, we're still here!  It wasn't all bad just really really hard.  

  In the 1990's a lot of epicenter issues spun out of control and drifted with trades, especially the illicit trades.  Small town America had already had an ignore it, it will go away attitude.  And law enforcement had never seen itself in action as a force.  When first suggested--you should see yourselves, a lot of people had processing to do and adjustments to make.  That was thirty years ago.  Remedy to worsening conditions was often as nastygnarly as the problem.  And that created a light in the darkness that was enough space for people to agree--we got issues.

  From there it was some immediate and some slower solution.  Rounds of layoffs, shifts in economy, twists in small print of policy....it kicked millions of people into a limbo zone, but people talk...even about ways to survive and function.  People share good news too.  And experiences.  And overcome hoarding know-how and expertise.

DIY. Fyi.  Moi?  Cha.

'Did It Elevate the Art?'

  Almost to tears, my own emotions in hearing voice harmonize with air raid siren in Ukraine.  Thinking about the hard work of the 1990's too, one recalls an almost heart-stopping cold ocean feeling in art when it reached you, or you dove in.  

   Its capacity to touch people changed with the times, maybe.  The capacity of an artist, artists to make art in/of all kinds of situation, moments of pause-and-notice.  Some of the kinds of art hadn't been seen since other war times.  Though there was a running key dictate to deny culture war(s) as a concept, a political buzz, as others' reality there was a lot to process (and not) in disintegrating and decimation.

   There was also an urge not to plop the art into the silvery smooth mindset at the core of modern art.  For one thing, most contemporary art wasn't created by minds burnished by world war.  There was also a lot of rejection to assimilate; to stand out as response; to participate with what clearly dominates.  Art was used to elevate.

   There was too, already by the 1990's, primal screaming at the moulds of modern art.  Not everyone could get past screaming.  Contorting and producing.  Or, self-exiled and then, "art".  Others worked along in tradition or used tradition to: And there was no shortage of "capture".  From the annals of chaos and its counter, the mainstream.  Product of extremes.  Something(s) gleaned as the pirate ship swung up and down, swinging over....something about culture in crisis alongside an almost cattle driving of selves as cattle to keep the chaos on the other side of the credit cards.

  There was a sense in the 1990's of wanting to be done with "modern", but.  There were traits of humanity we could not shed.  Some measure of not knowing blood on the homesoil spilled through...let's not call it war.  And there was an invisible pressing in of rails, maybe, maybe rails pressing that lent to a notion of "boogeymen" withholding permission to move into postmodern.  When overly eager to name media tried to force the issue, dub a time period, an intellectual movement, it was elusive.  Like political parties and co-workers with a passive aggressive good, suffer the media was largely denied a neat package of what art is this?

  We sort of got to postmodern like chunks and flakes of iceberg.

  Making the connections.  Post- periods do allow for analysis of formula, critical and otherwise.  We marvel and coo, wonder and in America, have the right to question.  The semicolon of time periods.  Post-9112001 it weighs against the exclamation marks of terrorists and terrorism.  Look at Me!  Listen to Me!  Give to Me!  So we must ask; What to do?  What's going on?  Is there a we/me balance?

  "FASHION TOLD YOU THAT," the man in the towel was not yelling, he just had a BOOMING voice.

  "And your father told you that." A girl told a younger guy.

  Worthless

  A slight bodily slump as relax.  Long arms reached each piece of costume from piled to suitcase.  Petting hairwig to smooth.  Slept poorly.  "We still need to talk about mother."

  "Let me take a turn.  Need sleep." The booming turned into mahoghany when they spoke with each other just regular.

  Different disciplines had come together in the park to do the day.  People didn't know what was wrong with them.  Just something or something's off.  A large pink tongue stuck out blah, blek, yuk.  "I hate the stuff!" A plaincloths nurse genuinely laughed.  Never met a kin'un didn't like orange juice.  "MAYBE 'cuz it's ORange." He looked at us white kids, waited, then winked.

  "Of all the luck!" A slender young man with shoulder-length hair and jeans ironed like a business suit pair of pants was crossing arms and starting to tap foot.  The traveling actors groaned.  One plucked a shawl from the pile and hid behind it.

  "They got dry cleaning in them woods?" A tank-top and acid washed jean shorts covered guy called out.  "Oh, there you all are," the neatnick spied people at a different table.

  "THIS is SO high SCHOOL."

  "Naw, we're in our twenties now."

  "YAH, some of us."

  "Want some OJ?"

  "Ixnay Lupe.  This is where it's at," the self-proclaimed "wigger" swung the soda like a pirate in the ride at Disney.

   "My mother calls that mountain piss water."

  "Your mama

  Others did little head shakes and eyes trying to lead away from topic.  That of parents was cutting across generations.

  "Why is this all coming up for people?" A woman asked a woman over rounds of building lyrics...healthy ain't for me, 'cuz, me ain't for healthy.

  "Figures," a perfectly proportioned girlwoman sized up the challenge.

  "Discriminating policy and taking advantage of 'the system' is probably the technical answer."

  "Is the policy discriminating?"

  There was a clioboard with maybe twenty clipped small prints on one of the tables.  Along with spare crayons, pens, fading leaky markers and highlighters and an "album", no photos, but people had started writing in it versus on the tables.

  At the library kids of all ages filed in and out onto something.  One of the Holston camp people got to use a car for a week while someone was away.  Acting like king of the parking lot, a woman with dark circles under her eyes but laugh lines coming back said of her cousin.  At one point a couple kids came back outside.  Whatchyou doin'back out here already?  The king asked.  Said we smell.

  "WHAT?" First he closed the car door.  Then he opened the car door.  "Pretend like I just got here," he said and closed the car door.  Then he opened the car door.  "Hey kids!  How's the day?" Kids said stuff like good 'nuff and sho is fine.  "Okay," the king said, "Okay." Everyone waited.  Then he closed the car door.  Then he opened the car door and grabbed wallet and keys.  Then he closed the car door.  Said, "Let's go." He started to walk but also started looking through his wallet and mumbling can't find it, my library card, can't, turn it around, library card can't be found, can't, until now, can do, library card, he held it like it was a microscope slide in the sunlight.

  Inside the kids stayed behind the king.  The king went up to the front desk and asked, "I've got my library card here and I wonder if you could check and see if I have any outstanding books on it."  One of the librarians broke from the group to look on the computer.  The king started sniffing the air.  Just a few sniffs at first.  Then as the librarian tapped in numbers and such, the king really obviously sniffed the air.  Let out a sound implying, I smell something.  Sniffed again, in fact, got pretty dramatic about sniffing and then asks out loud, "You smell something?"  The librarian helping just looked at the computer screen.  King said, "I do.  I smell something."  Nobody else said anything.  The king sniffed the air again like a giant bear in nature.  Then he announced, "I smell something.  Smells like noodles.  You smell that?"  The librarian helping didn't really look up but said, "I might smell noodles.  Maybe something in the microwave."  Maybe in the microwave, the king kind of said to himself.  "Noodles," he said out loud.  Then, "You know I ATE noodles for dinner and for breakfast this morning.  Maybe I smell like noodles."

  "I did too," the helping librarian said.

  "I know that's all we had to et for a week," one of the kids said.

  The king sniffed the air in a different way, long and short sniffs, then he smiled big and gleaming, "YES!" He nodded as he took his library card back and started to put it in his wallet.  "We ALL smell like noodles."  The librarians looked at him.  "Do I owe anything?"  He asked the helping librarian.

  "No Sir, all caught up."

  "Thank you."  He turned to the kids then and told them not to come back outside until they'd found what each was looking for.

  "Yes Sir," one replied.  The others made way to the books and magazines.

  Outside a woman came barreling towards the library doors.  "WHO TELLS CHILDREN they stink?"  The king put a hand under the woman's elbow and redirected her towards the car.

  Inside the librarians asked one of the librarians if okay.  One soothed one on the back.  One held a glass of water near the one okay?  Slowly the librarian said in a small voice sounding far away, "I couldn't breathe."

  In parking lots everywhere plumes of incense raked the air.  You wouldn't hear the music loud but for when car doors would open and the incense smells would pour out.  The incense smells made some people sneeze.  Some people sneezed and sneezed.  Voices wheezed.  Coughs could be louder than the bass in some songs.  And people were sharing--stolen from kids sometimes--inhalers.  Spent inhalers, empty lighters, cigarette butts and boxes, the litter just moved across parking lots in the wind, piling and re-piling.  Cars coming and going from quick visits regarding what's up? and what's going on? and what's happening?  rolled over litter.  Flattened boxes of smoke on the ground perpendicular to newspapers in locked window boxes told the story of what was going on in some places.

  "Might as well," someone answered to the question "Wanna sing?"

  Next thing we knew Nicholson was making that dreadful movie about the old white guy goes whacky from the loss of context.  Someone suggested ignoring all them all.  Someone else said, HEY!  THAT'S ME in just a few years!  A small but reassuring reunion of renegades came to a close.  Instead of smoke hanging in the air, a big question mark, not metaphoric.

  Yeah?  But what does it mean?

  Well, there's quite a few.

  And it's called?

  Patriot Acts.

Oh she did.  A queen of queens, she cried.  As I recall she had not, ever.  She was bad ass tough.  Street tough, road warrior, dance hall guru, hostess with the mostest--venom and sweetness, a mama alley cat and a giraffe in heels.  For a couple weeks she wouldn't budge.  People brought food but she wouldn't eat.  She organized clothing brought in garbage bags.  She wore a plain skirt and a plain tee shirt.  She made mental notes out loud and she cared about the fates of the others.  She listened to dozens of tales of woe and she patted hands and arms.  Her closest bestie went out ahead to see about more acting work.  Word was relayed, not happening, nothing, not there anymore.  The glory days were gone.  What had been her life and her living her best life was really changing.  That's what made her cry.  And her bestie ran down a very long list of what hadn't made her cry.  She was truly that rare bird who flies in the face of adversity and thrives.  Somehow they found a trailer park situation.  They put on regular clothes, not costumes.  And together they cried and laughed their way into a version of retirement.  And it was her, tall as a giraffe without heels, who was smiling and crying good-byes and said, I'm just going over to mumu land.

  Def, a hero.