Just in time for National Poetry Month in the US

Michael Dickel's eBook, The World Behind It, Chaos

is now available from wv? eBook Press (online)!

Book Title: The World behind it, Chaos
Author: Michael Dickel
Publisher: wv? eBook Press (http://www.whyvandalism.com)
Release Date: March 1, 2009
Price: Free ($0.00) download
Formats: Flash Projector (no plug-in needed), Flash online (requires Flash plug-in for browser), Adobe Acrobat PDF

No fooling, my e-Book was released 1 April 2009. Click on the image of the book cover below (or go to http://www.whyvandalism.com) in order to go to the why vandalism? web page and download the book. If you like it, spread the word to your friends, family, and loved ones. If you don't like it, spread the word to boring colleagues and people you don't like so well. But tell them they'll enjoy it. Just, please, spread the word!

Recently announced: Michael Dickel, along with Sheryl Abbey, will be co-editors-in-chief of the Voices Israel annual poetry anthology, beginning with issue #36, Voices Israel 2010. Issue #35, Voices Israel 2009, will be released at the end of April. For more information about the anthology, click here (http://www.poetry-voices.8m.com/anthology.htm).

Press Release
Michael Dickel's The World Behind It, Chaos
Read Michael Dickel's blog
Michael Dickel's home page 

Subscribe to this blog in a reader.

University of Chicago Professor William Ayers, whose past with the Weather Underground recently gained notoriety through Sarah Palin's linking Barack Obama to "a terrorist," was banned at the last minute by Boston College from giving a talk there.

This action came about after pressure from a right-wing radio talk show host. The host linked Ayers and the Weather Underground to a murder in Boston, even though evidence pointed to supporters of the Black Panthers and people not associated with the Weather Underground were convicted for the robbery. A Northeastern University professor was verbally attacked by the talk show host after he posted information that showed there was no connection between the Weather Underground and the robbery / murder.

Perhaps both the conservative talk show host and Boston College, which also referenced the murder in its last minute cancellation, really feared the topic of Professor Ayers' talk: education reform. After all, statistics seem to show that education tends to lead to liberal views...

See the story from Inside Higher Education:
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/03/30/ayer...

Poetry Thrives Online: Free Poetry Sites And eBook For National Poetry Month, April

April may be the cruelest month, according to T. S. Eliot, but it's also National Poetry Month. Read poetry during National Poetry Month, and read it for free online! Bookstores and online literature continue to thrive, despite the economic crisis. That doesn't mean that you have to buy your poems, necessarily. Online literary publishers offer many options for quality, free poetry. Explore these free online sites for contemporary poetry. This press release also features my forthcoming book, The World Behind It, Chaos.

The Writer's Chronicle

Posted by Authors Promoting Authors at 8:49 PM
Labels:

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Angel's Fire, Demon's Blood, Tamela Quijas

WINTER WINDOW

13 LINES ON MATHEMATICAL MODELING OF REALITY

My friend and fellow writer, W. Scott Olsen,  posted winter blizzard-storm warnings for Eastern North Dakota, Western Minnesota (where he lives and works, in Moorhead, MN, across the river from Fargo, ND) and Northern Minnesota effective for the next few days. While I used to live much, much closer to Scott--in Minneapolis, only a few hours drive from Fargo-Moorhead--now I'm half a world away, in geography and climate, and in geo-political climate.

This post includes two photos from my excursion yesterday into northern Israel that sharply contrast with blizzard warnings. These are from a wooded area (mainly eucalyptus) next to a small airport for private planes and gliders, just outside of Afula, a mixed Arab-Jewish city in the north of Israel. Wild anemones (koloniot in Hebrew) bloom here; different paths are laid out through the woods each year to allow people to walk through the flowers without permanently compacting the ground, which would prevent their growing. We also saw a small iris variety native to the area and butterfly orchids, among sweat peas and other flowers enjoying their brief moments before the hot summer.



Arabs (Christian and Muslim) and Jews wander through the area, picnic in it, and enjoy the beauty together. Yesterday, a Druze family sold large, flat pitot (more than one pita), with Lebaneh (a thick, sour yoghurt-like goat cheese) and Zatar (an Arabic spice mixture of sesame, sumac and thyme); home-processed olives; goat cheese in olive oil; and olive oil. The martriarch of the family draped our large flat bread over a metal plate resembling an upside down wok and heated by a flame, warming it up. She spread the lebaneh over it, dribbled olive oil on it, and sprinkled zatar over all. She placed the whole back on the metal plate to warm the lebaneh, then spread it with a flat knife before folding it expertly and placing it in paper. This was our lunch.

Arab families picnicked nearby, as did Jewish families. Tourists wandered through the area, as we did. The flowers, nearing the end of their season, were in all stages: some late buds opening, some seeds falling off, some seeds forming, many flowers scattered above the bright green of winter growth, encouraged by recent rains (we're in a record-breaking drought, so the rains were a gift). These anemones grow throughout the Mid-East, according to a sign in Hebrew near the parking area, but mainly in Lebanon, Syria and Israel. The different colors favor different soil conditions, with the red growing most easily in a variety of conditions; areas that have soil conditions favorable to all of the colors, such as this one, are not common. However, they do exist--they are also not rare.



This is, of course, offers the perfect metaphor for what we need here. Areas with favorable conditions for all the possible varieties of color to grow, places where Christians, Jews, Muslims, Druze (and whomever else) might gather and enjoy Creation unfolding all its beauty. These places, if not common, do exist--they might well be rare. Still, almost everywhere I go to hike, view birds or find flowers in Israel I meet people from all of the groups in the region. Those of us who have sought out these places greet each other in peace and point out to each other a nice view or stunning flower. We laugh with the children, smile at each other in our shared enjoyment and hope. We try to ignore the inevitable barbed wire stretched out in our way. Yes, there are coils of barbed wire rusting even in this grove, left over from the days when the nearby airport had military uses. It's overgrown with flowers now (last year, I took pictures of it; this year the paths did not lead near it, and I wanted to respect the protective policies for the delicate eco-system, so stayed on the path).

I hope that you, dear readers, enjoy this alternative view of the Middle East and that, for those in the line of coming storms, you may find in the photos some warmth and vision of a spring to come.

Please leave your comments.

Press Release
Michael Dickel's The World Behind It, Chaos
Read Michael Dickel's blog
Michael Dickel's home page

I read on an email discussion list that Barbie, the doll, celebrated a birthday this week. You can Google it; apparently she turned 50 on Monday (yesterday as I write this), complete with a birthday edition release. I doubt there will be any gray hairs, wrinkles, stretch marks, or gravity effects. Then again, Barbie always did have the best plastic surgeon around (even if, reportedly, she wouldn't have been able to stand up with her bust measurements, especially not with those pointy high heel shoes). Some, apparently, think she's still hot at fifty (see here, for example).

Art and poetry must respond!

Here is my poem, in response to a Barbie challenge on the email list to write something short about Barbie for her birthday:

BARBIE CHALLENGE

Barbitol Barbie, barbiturate babe,
fingers flying, found Ken
lacking below the knave;
Ken for his part at first thought
she had shaved, until his fingers
slid over polyethylene seams
pulled taught like one too many face lifts
in the totally wrong place. Therefore, they
discovered: naked did nothing for them,
so they lived polyester lives in suburban ruin.
Now both down downers in their McMansion home,
wondering where the children had ever come from;
the passion all leached like plastic left in the sun,
one more drink, one more toke, one more porno
before their night is done.

Suburban Flaming Oh, Digital Art by Michael Dickel  

Press Release
Michael Dickel's The World Behind It, Chaos
Read Michael Dickel's blog
Michael Dickel's home page