wallow so long in what isn’t

a score of sunsets of can't find, of

questions

that seize so much room

there isn’t any space left…

not 2 paint

not 2 write

my guitar empty

squinting eyes looking for love and happiness

in every place eyell never find it, but

20/80

only catches images transient as a shadow…

it can't read love 2 the 9s

and that’s truth.

you give it

they take it away

make you weak

make you feel lonely in different places, they

keep you offended by honesty

keep you negligent

indecisive

and hence

and spent

a score of sunrises

afraid 2 face myself, simply

2 disorderly 2 stretch it out
before eye tore it wide
.
.
eye wont make that mistake again

A bit about my life, first.  I am recently married to my partner of nine years.  We run a very demanding business.  A business that can not function, without us.  So we are stuck to mini-weekend vacations through-out the year, and the one week, maybe two if we are lucky week long vacation at Christmas.  This leaves us mostly stuck on a local level for travel, except during our Christmas Vacation, where we can venture farther away from home.

Our home, is in Langley, British Columbia, Canada.  A suburb located in Metro Vancouver.  With Less than 4 hours driving, we can easily escape the city.  Perfect for us to take our RV, or what I like to call it, "our second home" where-ever we feel like for a weekend of peace, quiet, and relaxation.

We can never make a decision, until it comes to the last moment.  We talk and talk about exactly what we want, but when it comes down to it, we might find something so completely different, that we must have it.

We talked about a C-Class motor-home.  This makes me nervous, for a few reasons.  High cost of fuel, it has an engine, and with engines, come mechanical "errors," and once you pull up to a campsite, you are basically stuck there without a secondary vehicle to take you to the "yummy gourmet" restaurant you saw in the next town you just drove through on your way to the site.  The idea of getting dressed up, and taking your motor-home to a fancy part of the town/city, doesn't really appeal to me very much.

So I mentioned a travel trailer (TT).  My new husband start to squirm in his chair.   I started going on about how cost effective a TT would be as they are much cheaper than a C-Class, we can tow it with a secondary vehicle, and the secondary vehicle would be much better on fuel than a C-Class.  He told me, it had to be small, 18ft, cause he didn't like the idea of pulling something.  Ok, deal. 

Next thing, New or Used?  I liked the idea of a used one, as again, it's cheap compared to buying a new one.  But the big reason is, I can renovate it, put our own style into it, and still come out, much cheaper, than buying a brand new one.  Yes, I know, watch for leaks, the stove or oven probably wont work in an older one, etc, but that can all be replaced and fixed.   Once I mentioned this to the husband, he went for it, with the low cost, being the deal breaker.

So we are in the search for the perfect "vintage" Travel Trailer.  Preferably something late 70's or early 80's.  Must have a dinette, and a bathroom.  And must have an oven, as a microwave can be difficult to run on solar-panels, when boon docking. 

And thus the blog.  Whatever I come across something, I will post it here.  I will also post our progress in our search for the perfect "second home."

1Dutta Supratim 23
...was on his way to work at HCL in Gurgaon in an office cab. The driver was allegedly speeding and according to the victim’s family, he fell asleep at the wheels

2U As -turn the car near approached Ghitorni on a MG Road, it hit a Metro barricade at full speed. Eyewitnesses said construction material was lying on the road at the spot 3angle A five- from foot-long the construc iron - tion site rammed into the
bonnet of the car, pierced
the dashboard and impaled
Supratim, sitting in front,
through his torso

This is my first card ever using alcohol inks and I was really happy with the results.  I added 7 stamps from the Escape set by Inque Boutique and no ribbon or embellishments.  Next time I will add those- but this was more of an experiment.  I've decided to go through my stuff a little at a time and either "use it or sell it".  These were purchased and never used, but will get to stay!

I'm in a bit of a sore mood today - I have been trying to order something through my local scrapbook store since May and I keep getting brushed off.  I'm a pretty patient person and I really would rather spend my money locally first if possible.  They say they do special orders and they kept telling me they could get it, then they would check on it, then they didn't know and all over again for two months.  So I emailed them today and said forget it.  I could have ordered it online in 5 seconds two months ago 45 times over.  I wish, wish, wish that customer service still existed - that a simple honest answer was the only option.  I would eagerly keep shopping at a store that told me straight up yes or no, than one that gave me the run around for two solid months.  Ugh.  If you want to keep your customers, be honest.  Even if it sucks.  That's my public service announcement for today.  I'm waiting to hear how they respond...but this really isn't even the first time I've asked for something and haven't gotten any response - it's just this time - I actually NEEDED the thing and was persistant.  I will be shopping online in the future.

Supplies for Summer Fun:
Stamps: Escape by Inque Boutique
Paper: Summer Sun and Glossy by Stampin' Up
Ink: Jet Black StaZon, Nature Walk Kit by Ranger

I really do need a holiday.

Conveniently enough, come 4pm tomorrow (Ryanair and radar willing) I'll be on one. Here's to a weekend of thermal baths, spa treatment, Eastern Europe-style cheap shopping and cheaper booze, and girly chats with old friends.

Back Monday.

Today I was at peace.

My plans to visit my uncles were handled by Father God. I was in deep dread, not emotionally ready to deal with my family. This still feels very wrong, yet I know and believe that I am to only lean on God's understanding of this situation. I am not emotionally or logically able to decipher what to do with all of these souls. So I willingly, willfully leave them to God.

He provided me with escape today. My uncle was having a procedure done and would not have been up to a visit upon his return from the hospital. I pray to God that he, my uncle not be in too much pain, that he not suffer. I realize there are consequence to a life lived like hell. I also know my God to be merciful. My God never wills His children to have pain and misery. I pray my uncle submits to the direction to trust God in this and let God do a work in him. I pray this knowing that my Jesus will petition the Father for me and Father will grant my petition.

Looking up, I give all honor and glory to Father God in all of this. That he will give a state of Grace to my uncle, my aunt, my mother and grandmother too. I pray in all faith, knowing, that mercy and grace are given to all of us in this time of pain and sorrow.

Today I walked in the peace of God. He fought my battles today...

My roommate/SO is annoying me so bad that I don't even want to look at him anymore. Looking at him is like bile sticking in the back of my throat. Two academics in the same small apartment should be banned. I have to fight for everything I say, because he disagrees with everything I say or think...even it's not about literature, theory, etc. I randomly mentioned outloud the knives weren't sharp enough to cut tomatoes, and it became a half hour argument about how I was cutting tomatoes wrong...what the fuck. This goes on day in and day out: the small annoying criticisms about my arguments, my evaluations of books, my theories on life, my comments about commercials, my "lack of knowledge" about life...as if he is the all-knowing center of the universe. And, the tone he uses when he criticizes or evaluates my speak has begun to feel like nails on a chalkboard. It is the most condescending, matter-of-fact tone that it makes me feel about 2 inches tall. Asshole. Asshole. Asshole.

On top of this, I'm reading this incredibly depressing, annoying novel that I can't put down but makes me want to just vanish. I mean I literally want to run away from everyone and everything. Unfortunately, I don't make enough money to do that... I don't make enough money to do much of anything, which means I'm stuck in this apartment that I hate right now because the asshole won't leave. So, I read. And read. And read.

But, reading is not enough. I still hate people right now. I want to kick the boy out of my life and tell him to go be the center of the universe somewhere else, to go make someone else's life depressing and exhausting. I want to just be done with this dissertation, so I can move on.

-Jason

[vodpod id=ExternalVideo.633514&w=425&h=350&fv=]

Here is the second part to my letter. There is another part still to come. This section starts to get into more difficult topics and begins to address the actions of this family member. It is a bit lengthy, but I am a person of many words, especially when I am pouring out my heart.

When Lee, Ashlyn, and I got over the hurdle of the onset of my postpartum depression, other struggles began to hit us. I don’t need or want to re-hash all the family struggles, especially since most of them have been resolved. I will say that the family conflicts have left me in an intense, gripping panic that causes me to fear seeing the family. I know that I am not the only person who has been hurt by the struggles, but the impact of it for me has been very real and very big. I can only speak for my own reality and the impact on my life.

I’m sure I don’t need to tell you that Ashlyn’s illness was an intensely painful and stressful time. I know you understand that because you were very supportive. I don’t think I will ever get over the fact that my baby nearly starved to death, and I don’t know how to forgive myself for shutting the door and walking away from her screams for food. I didn’t know, and I was doing everything I could, but that doesn’t matter. The fact is that I almost lost my baby, and I have to deal with the deep feelings surrounding this period.

Even though the intensity of my struggles slowed after this difficult period, the difficulties were far from over. Slowly, I healed enough that I could care for Ashlyn and myself, but that was all. I could not care for my house or cook dinner. The mess at home stressed me out, and I couldn’t deal with it, so Ashlyn and I would go places to escape. Also, Ashlyn was not a good napper, and that was very difficult for me. I know other moms deal with babies who don’t want to nap either, but it was a real challenge for me. I needed her to sleep because I desperately needed those quiet breaks, but she would have stayed up all day if I had let her. Finally, after many hours of sleep training and tears (mine), Ashlyn began taking the naps we both needed. I realize now that I was not thinking clearly enough to implement a consistent sleep routine for the first few months and that if I had, sleeping probably would not have been so difficult.

In general, everyday life was a challenge. Some days were great, and I could do some chores and make dinner, and other days were filled with anxiety, feeling down, and feeling like a failure. Often, Lee would be nervous to come home, not knowing what he was coming home to. He dealt with intense stress and chaos both at home and at work. He has been my faithful support, but he does not understand what I have felt.

Finally, 9 months postpartum, the fog lifted. Ashlyn began eating more food, so I was nursing her less. This allowed my hormones to level a great deal, which resulted in my feeling much better. I began to be able to think clearly, and the irrational thinking was not as prevalent. The stimulus issues I had were gone. (I had immense trouble with auditory and visual stimulus. I would get overloaded very easily, like being in the stereo section of a store with all the radios turned up, and I would panic. It took me a long time to be able to shop and have a normal experience.) I stopped having down days, except for the days immediately preceding my period. It was good to feel like me again. I was even able to reduce my medication a couple months ago, which has been a great victory.

Since I have been feeling better, I have begun the painful process of going back through the last year or so to deal with the losses I have faced. I am trying to face my experiences so I can grow and move on. That is why I am writing this letter. What has happened between us has very much been a loss for me, and I have experienced an astronomical amount of anxiety, fear, and sadness. I know that you too have experienced sadness, hurt, and loss. It is not my desire that you hurt. You have been through many tough times as well, and I wish for you to be healthy, happy, and whole. I do not understand some of the things that have taken place. It seems that you have deliberately tried to hurt me, and I don’t understand why. I know you have not known or understood my perspective, but I just can’t understand why you would want to hurt me. I know it didn’t start out that way, but the gap between us has brought that about. I don’t think in your heart of hearts that you have set out to cause me pain but allowed things to occur that you knew would upset me. 

Last July, I was shocked that you didn’t want to talk to me. I was nervous to see you, but I wanted to try to make an effort toward you. I don’t know what else was going on for you that day, but I was hurt when you didn’t want to look at me or have a conversation with me. I still don’t know what brought that on. I know for me that was an immensely hard day because I was anxious about seeing the family.

IMDB link http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0481536/

IMDB ratings 7.4/10 (12,216 votes)

Release Date : 25 April 2008 (USA)
Genre : Adventure | Comedy
Plot : Follows the cross-country adventures of the pot-smoking duo as they try to outrun authorities who suspect them of being terrorists when they try to sneak a bong on board their flight to Amsterdam.

sharedzilla.com

http://sharedzilla.com/en/get?id=173679

bitroad.net

http://bitroad.net/download/d931fe711378/dmd-haroldak2%5Bthegenius.us.by.Articulador%5D.avi.html

flyupload.com

http://www.flyupload.com/?fid=2009445

eatlime.com

http://www.eatlime.com/download.lc?sid=8B6590FA-F127-5074-A909-56FACA607D16

megashares.com

http://d01.megashares.com/?d01=f8b2d9c

transferbigfiles.com

http://www.transferbigfiles.com/Get.aspx?id=2d1d8fd1-7aac-453e-aa3a-6d1e7916ae69

badongo.com

http://www.badongo.com/vid/796475

netload.in

http://netload.in/datei36950c53e4bc8488de8c5e66e02266bd/Harold.and.Kumar.Escape.from.Guantanamo.Bay.UNRATED.DVDRip.XviD-DiAMOND.part1.rar.htm
http://netload.in/datei32ae84c4d6a4e6c3ee8febbdbaf581b2/Harold.and.Kumar.Escape.from.Guantanamo.Bay.UNRATED.DVDRip.XviD-DiAMOND.part2.rar.htm

filefactory.com

http://www.filefactory.com/file/6154f1/n/dmd-haroldak2_rardmd-haroldak2_part1_rar
http://www.filefactory.com/file/f4ef39/n/dmd-haroldak2_rardmd-haroldak2_part2_rar
http://www.filefactory.com/file/08a4aa/n/dmd-haroldak2_rardmd-haroldak2_part3_rar
http://www.filefactory.com/file/1b4ba4/n/dmd-haroldak2_rardmd-haroldak2_part4_rar
http://www.filefactory.com/file/d0de5d/n/dmd-haroldak2_rardmd-haroldak2_part5_rar
http://www.filefactory.com/file/0fbc93/n/dmd-haroldak2_rardmd-haroldak2_part6_rar
http://www.filefactory.com/file/6e1212/n/dmd-haroldak2_rardmd-haroldak2_part7_rar
http://www.filefactory.com/file/662f9d/n/dmd-haroldak2_rardmd-haroldak2_part8_rar

PASSWORD
	areg

I do not like this place. I lean to the left to see the front of the line. An elderly woman with matted gray hair pulled into a bun at the top of her head is looking over her thin glasses at a stout Lebanese lady. The lenses are long rectangles. Her flesh is the color of steamed salmon. I don’t like this place, but I like her. She is behind the glass that separates her from the breath of the strangers she assists.

I still don’t know if I want to buy a ticket, and if I do, I don’t know where I want to go. I could take a ride to Massachusetts, but I wouldn’t know where to stay or what areas are safe. I recall that I have a friend there, but we haven’t spoken in over a year. I stuff the empty black cherry bag and their pits into my purse. I take out my phone, wanting to call Holly, she moved to Pennsylvania a little while ago and I know that she would let me stay with her. I think she is beautiful and I wish that I were a man so we could do more than just kiss when we are drunk. I know that if I were a man she would want to fall in love with me. I never want to fall in love with anybody.

I close my phone. The line doesn’t seem to be moving. I peer around the man with the ribbed shirt again, turning my head sideways and imagining that the people in front of me are a stack of books shaped like human beings. I continue standing with my head tilted so that my ear is against my shoulder. I wonder who I would want to thumb through, if it really were a library of people. Who has been taken from the shelf the least? The most? The small Lebanese woman is still standing at the window. She is thrusting her hands above herself in exasperation. The lady behind the partition just keeps smiling apologetically and shaking her head in a way that means “no.”

Finally we move one spot forward. I notice that we are all using the dirt-brown tiles of the floor as place markers. I count the number of squares to the front of the line. Seven. I wonder if seven has any significance to my life, because maybe that could help me figure out where to buy a ticket to. I always hated the number seven, it reminded me of my oldest cousin who didn’t dote on me like the others when I was little. It was his favorite number, and any game we played he worked it in somehow. The first person to shoot seven hoops on the basketball court won. The first person to run from one end of the hay field to the other seven times was the winner. When you play hide-and-seek you only have to count to seven. Yes, seven. This means that I should not take a bus home to Michigan. This would counteract everything I am trying to do.

I am trying to get away from myself. It has been exactly four days and two hours since the overwhelming feeling of being trapped inside of my own body began. I awoke feeling heavy in my bones, a prisoner to the various systems of my body. The nervous system, the circulatory system, and the uterine cycle trap me the most. I remind myself of a wild tiger caught in a cage, clawing and scratching at my ribs, wanting to scream for somebody to just let me the fuck out. I think about my body and my mind being controlled by the same organ. Everybody else has a brain that is shiny, slicked with fluid. Their brains are bundled up in smooth waves that fit perfectly inside of their skulls. My brain is sponge-like and lacks gloss, I imagine it resembles strawberry marshmallows. Like the others, my brain fills the inside of my skull, but it is an ill and awkward fit. I’ve never had a CAT-scan, but I know all of this somehow.

The line moved two more places. I am no longer eighth in line, I am sixth. There are five tiles ahead of me. Does five mean anything? There are five boroughs in New York City, but that is the city I am standing in. Perhaps it means that I shouldn’t leave. Perhaps it is forcing me to go. I can’t decide what any of it represents. I make up a poem in my head, it reads:

Five boroughs and five tiles

            Fall in love and have a child

            One by one they ask of me

To keep visiting the salted sea

So they can live vicariously

I write everything out in my head, the inside of it looks like a notebook of endless paper. I write the words out very large sometimes when I feel them too strongly inside of my body. I write the words very tiny when they are shameful or secretive. I wrote the poem I just made up in a calligraphy that I cannot write in with my own hand.

            I decide the poem meant something. I step out of the line, expecting to trip on the invisible barrier of the edge of the square tiles. I was fifth in line and now the person who was sixth is moving into the void I just created. I wish I had the ability to create voids, vacuous spaces in various places. I wonder where I would start.  Right here, I think, I would create a void right here. And then I move towards the escalator and do.

………………………………………

            I am in a subway car. It is heading to Coney Island. The first time I saw the ocean was at Coney Island. It was chilly outside, then, but I stripped down to my underwear and scarf and danced in the water. I liked the way the salt dried onto my skin as a white powder. The lakes in Michigan are made of fresh water and don’t burn any small cuts one might have.

            In the subway car there is a man slouched into the corner. He is looking at me. I am a plain woman and I wonder if his eyes are simply using me as a place to rest. They do look wearied. I am plain but when I was younger I was beautiful, everybody liked to dote on me. I grew up, and now nobody wants to pay attention, I don’t mind since my words are often pointless and without value.

            The train moves underwater in a tunnel for part of the trip; it moves high above the ground for part of it, also. I like to take this train when the sun is setting. It’s a nice surprise to be a passenger in the darkness and then to be carried into the changing colors of light. I have some photos of the stunning sunset but I do not have any pretty photos of it. I am terrible at composing photographs. Here is a short list of other things I am bad at: returning letters, controlling my temper, being good to myself.

            I am arriving at Coney Island now. My knees hurt from having been sitting with them pulled up to my chest in the subway car. There was an empty can rolling about the floor. It clinked against the walls and poles and ricocheted calmly, directionless. I thought, that’s me, the way that it wanders reminds me of me. I had lifted my feet from the floor so that I would not accidentally block it or propel it in another direction.

            I am walking towards the water. The feeling of being isolated inside of my own body is faint, I am hoping the grandiosity of the ocean will dissolve it entirely. The sun has been down for a while now. I watched it in the subway car and it was beautiful, but I don’t have a camera with me. I don’t mind since my photographs often appear pointless.

            It would be dark here if it weren’t for the streetlamps that line the boardwalk. I find the darkness close to the water soothing. I walk towards it, I am wearing an old pair of jeans and the sand hitting against the bottoms of the legs makes the denim feel stiff. There are no other people on the beach that I can see. I am not worried if there are. I feel tired. My chest slumps, the muscles of my back feel tense but when I try to straighten it out they do not want to tighten. My body is the victor, the triumphant. I wave an imaginary white flag into the darkness.

            I don’t bother testing the temperature of the ocean; I know it’s always going to be too cold. I am standing at its edge and I unlace my shoes, slip them off and then remove my jeans. The fabric feels more pliable in my hands. I bend my body in half and pull the sweatshirt and thin undershirt off together, over my head. I toss them onto the dry sand ten feet behind me. I no longer believe in underwear or socks, they only aid the feeling of confinement, so I have nothing more to remove.

            I am confused about how I feel. I should dance in the liberation of removing a layer of myself, a societal layer. I should frolic in my skin, twirl into the water and duck my head under so that I can immediately wet my hair and don’t have to struggle with keeping it dry. The first time here I was filled with joy, now something feels as if it were dwindling inside of me; wilting, perhaps. Everything seems blurry, I am losing track of my thoughts, they are taking over my head exactly as the snowstorms do to the streets in Michigan. White and kinetic, everything is becoming static.

I have stopped thinking. I am reduced to a single spark of rage. I run towards the ocean and throw myself into a large wave as if it were a wall. It is not a wall, and that angers me more. I want the fuck out. I want to breathe on the inside, to be able to inhale into the place where my emotions become destructive. I am kicking in the water; I hate my limbs for not aching. I am trying to punish my body for trapping me inside of it. I am mad. I am a madwoman. Nobody on the whole ugly face of the earth understands what is inside of me. I hate myself for this. I hate my skin for trapping my emotions inside of me; for not letting them seep out and become thin in the air. I hate this ocean for cradling me when I want to be harmed. I let out a scream. It is the scream of the madwoman inside of me. It sounds like a wild tiger trapped in a cage, scratching and roaring to be set free, it’s head filled with nothing but the color red.

I stop. I am panting. I look towards the boardwalk and notice a man. He is watching me splash in the water.

“Can I join you?” he shouts in a tone that is perverted.

I realize that I am naked and feel exposed. All of me, bare in the water. My girly bits and breasts, my scarred back, I don’t want people to know them, they are intimate to me and only me. I scramble back to my clothing, tugging the layers back onto my body pitifully. I am pitiful. I am not very good at running away. Or, I am good at running away, but not from myself.

I am wishing I had a jar and that moonlight could be gathered. I am sitting near the water, it spreads onto the shore and touches my cross-legged knees. I dig my hand into the packed mud next to me. It hurts my nails when I try to scoop it from the ground and leaves impressions of all of my fingers except for my thumb. The water washes into the crevice I just dug, leaving sediment and eroding it so it is not as deep. You can no longer see my fingers.

I am thinking about the hole I dug in the ground and wishing that I could leave holes all over the earth. I dig another hole, shallow and closer to the water. It fills it up and carries it away. The ground there is smooth now, like the brains of people who are not me. I realize that I can leave uninhabited space anywhere I like. I stand, shake the sand from my pants, move towards the train station, and leave another.

She goes and checks, and comes back to the phone, telling him that the room is empty.

"Good," says the man. "That means I must have really escaped."

I went on to Reno (Draino, as we called it as kids) and I can say it's ol' nickname holds true. Add all the well-manicured mega stores you want. Add a Trader Joes and a Whole Foods--add four of them if you like, it won't change the fact that it's still Reno--worn down casinos that show like a stretch of old drag queens--glowing only under the cover of night, with a whole lot of sparkles and make-up. There are more tattoo parlors, vagrants, hookers, lost tourists, all sucked onto South Virginia Street under a smoke filled sky. Escher would have done a double scream.

Reno, I believe, has seeped into a dear friend's psyche as well and made her as crazy as the ring leader at Circus Circus, with more clowns and drama. An ear wrapped cell phone is permanently embedded in her ear and I never knew if she was talking to me or the universe. Plus, what is the protocol when the guy who wouldn't "man-up" a year ago and broke her heart, the one she left in full adult defiance, the one I helped her pack to leave, greets me at the door when I arrive? I know, it's a case for Dear Abby and we've ALL been there, but I had sworn to loathe him for all eternity and I wasn't prepared to change my oath. Sigh.

(The one photo I took while there. Escape gate.)

And escape I did, and not a hazy second too soon. I was on the verge of my own mental melt down when I went for food and a future IRS agent disguised as a waiter, ordered me to leave his nearly-empty patio w/Zephyr as if he were dirtier than the grubby-handed slot players who graced his restaurant. I gave in and ran for it. Thank the Goddess of Parking, Traffic Lights, Easy On-Ramps and 70 mph Freeways. In under 30 minutes I was at my favorite Truckee, California haven :

This place is a gem, new and used books, good coffee and a boyish barrister I once tried to set up with MY cafe's boyish barrister, long distance: match making via My Space. He is dear, in a brooding Zen-like post-teen kind of way. He treated Zephyr like just another customer when we walked in and plopped down on a cushioned chair. I had very dark French Roast and The Tree Hugger--granola, bananas w/milk.  I felt supremely better. Blessed be independent homegrown coffee houses everywhere!

We then went for a long swim in Donner Lake. Zephyr swam after sticks and I swam and bobbed and breathed like I was doing it for the first time all over again, before heading home.

And now, we are blessedly home. d.

Excerpt from documentary 'Mata Tigre'' 2006

Placido Domingo cried when he saw the Venezuelan Youth Orchestra perform. The world-renowned opera singer confessed that the concert evoked the strongest emotions he had ever felt.

Sir Simon Rattle, director of the Berlin Philharmonic, swore that the country's youth orchestras were doing the most important work in classical music anywhere in the world.

And former Berlin Philharmonic director Claudio Abbado only needed to see one performance by the orchestra to invite the Venezuelans to play in Germany.

Venezuelan Youth Orchestra at BBC Proms 2007

The talented musicians of the National System of Venezuelan Youth and Children's Orchestras are a source of national pride, like football stars in other Latin American countries. They have also inspired 23 countries across the hemisphere to launch similar music education programmes.

Troubled youths

Called El Sistema by its members, the programme is celebrating 30 years of making classical musicians out of half-a-million young Venezuelans, and it has transformed the lives of many underprivileged and at-risk youths in the process, giving young people the chance to learn an instrument, getting them away from drugs, guns and crime in the barrios.

"I wish players in the US were here to hear the conviction with which you play," Gwyn Richards, dean of Indiana University's School of Music, told a Caracas youth orchestra after it played Dmitri Shostakovich's Festive Overture in honour of his visit.

"No-one is just walking through it, watching the clock," he said later. "When they play, they really mean it."

The young musicians' excitement stems from the programme's social mission, which its founder Jose Antonio Abreu describes as helping "the fight of a poor and abandoned child against everything that opposes his full realisation as a human being".

One of Mr Abreu's musicians is Lennar Acosta, 23, who six years ago was already making his ninth visit to a Caracas correctional facility after a history of heavy drug use and armed robbery.

While the facility denied Mr Acosta's request to return to school, the youth orchestra took him on as a student and soon gave him a scholarship.

He now earns his living at a music institute, has played a dozen times in the nation's famed Teresa Carreno music hall, and is studying to perform Mozart's clarinet concerto.

"One of the biggest emotions I've felt was when they gave me a clarinet," Mr Acosta said, sitting with his instrument in hand in a Caracas music conservatory.

"El Sistema ended up straightening me out. It is my family, like my home."

Key performance

When 11 young musicians put on the Youth Orchestra's first concert in 1975, there were only two symphony orchestras in the entire country.

The programme has helped boost that number to around 200, with at least one professional orchestra in every state.

El Sistema has also transcended politics and regime changes, receiving increased funding from every new government. Its 2005 budget is $23m.

The growing quantity and quality of Venezuelan musicians is due in part to the programme's teaching methods, which involve inviting children as young as two to play in front of audiences as soon as they begin learning their instruments.

Susan Siman, one of El Sistema's founders, says that playing her first concert at the age of eight motivated her to keep improving as a violinist.

"I was terrified. The music score went blank," Ms Siman said of her performance of Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star, with her parents in the audience.

"But at the end, [the concert] was what motivated me and I wanted to do it better."

This approach to music education is beginning to leave its mark on orchestras worldwide.

The Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra's Gustavo Dudamel, 24, who is a disciple of Sir Simon Rattle, won the Bamberg Symphony's Gustav Mahler Conducting Competition last year.

He also received rave reviews from local press after conducting the Los Angeles Philharmonic in September.

The programme's Edicson Ruiz has also earned a seat as double bassist with the Berlin Philharmonic at just 20 years of age.

Class barriers

In a two-week period in November, visitors to the Caracas Youth Symphony included Gwyn Richards, contemporary Polish composer Krzysztof Penderecki and Italian violinist Uto Ughi.

Mr Richards said he was impressed with the programme's goal to create a larger space for classical music in popular culture.

El Sistema has brought the sounds of Beethoven to the masses, by giving children instruments, scholarships and free transportation, in barrios such as the Caracas neighbourhood of Sarria.

About 90% of students there are from the country's lowest economic class.

"In Venezuela, we broke the myth that you have to be from the upper class to play violin," says the Sarria school's director, Carlos Sedan.

Young musicians in Sarria are not allowed to take their instruments home because of the risk of being mugged, and some come to class with headaches because their families cannot afford food.

Yet when they perform, they become the pride of their neighbourhoods and inspire their parents to learn about the great classical composers.

"I saw the whole evolution. [In the beginning] you saw a certain sadness in their faces," said Antonio Mayorca, who taught music in a low-income Caracas neighbourhood and is also first violinist in the Simon Bolivar orchestra.

"But when they started to play music, it was different. The light that they transmitted taught me a lot."

Source: BBC

See also

• El Sistema's oficial website (FESNOJIV)
• Featured in segment on Gustavo Dudamel on CBS News 60 Minutes (video and transcript)
• Orchestra Manoeuvres - The Guardian
  
• Caracas About Them - The Observer
• Mata Tigre Website
• Land of Hope and Glory - The Guardian
• For Venezuela's poor, music opens doors - The Boston Globe
• Scaling the Heights - The New Statesman
• Venezuela a powerhouse for producing musicians - Houston Chronicle
• The Culture Show - Gustavo Dudamel -Feature on young Venezuelan conductor Gustavo Dudamel, who caused a sensation at last year's Proms with the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra.

dispelling the darkness

evil, sloth, misery

seeking the final

escape from life's

perverse tenacious tentacles

i have dared

what few might

leaping into voidness

hoping for paradise

ready lose all

for godly sake

********

for i believe

so help me

my lord master

it is rare

you must know

i really believe

god shall prove

because i believe

the law uphold

by my beliefs

& destiny occur

as i believe

grace is infinite

for i believe

We searched everywhere for the little dude (his names Stitch by the way) and we couldn't find him, We decided to stop searching for him as he was probably gone far away by then. I was really worried that a hawk got to him.

So this morning my mum woke me up and as usual I told her to go away! She came upstairs to me and she had Stitch in her hands. (What a way to wake me up eh?!) I was delighted! She told me that when dad went up to leave out Gizmo (my dog) he saw Stitch flying over to the hedge. He went in and told mum, so she went out with some bird seed and got stitch!

So today we went and bought him a new bird cage, Because the other one was broken.

And that was the second time in his life that he escaped, but the last time there was two budgies and we didnt get the other one (Lilo) back.

So miracles can happen eh?!

I did this once in my car. Here is a picture of my car:

This post required 8.3 seconds of effort. Quit yer bitchin', I was... ahem... busy this morning.

What to do?

This article gives 5 steps you can take to make your escape....

http://youtube.com/watch?v=9-MYwHr_pEA

A rebellious giraffe sparked a mass animal escape from a traveling Dutch circus after kicking a hole of their enclosure.

Two zebras, 15 camels, and an undetermined number of llamas, Catholic Priests and pot-bellied pigs followed the giraffe's lead.

The menagerie went on a massive killing spree and was spotted wandering through a nearby suburb brandishing crudely made weapons, such as sharpened traffic cones and really- really pointy sticks.

The errant animals and priests were eventually rounded up by police and read their rights in their respective languages. 8,797 people were killed during the rampage 17 people were ordained and 39,677 people were injured.

All suspects are refusing to cooperate with police, and have made it perfectly clear that they will only speak to their lawyers.

Aardina Dutchsomething was one of the survivors and said "I've never seen such evil… I thought the last thing I was ever going to witness was the burning look of evil on the llama's face"

Or at least that's what we think she said.

His eyes were wide and wild.

When he ran, his short frame’s stride heated the streets.

Sweat trickled down his bony face, and his throat

lumped with desire, the race, the win.

We used to sit on the hood of my parents’ car,

gaze at the stars. He would win state,

dash through the flagged shoot in Austin,

get a scholarship to Auburn, escape the tumbleweeds,

the dirt floors of his pink adobe home, his father’s rage.

We were runners.

Our thin bodies warmed with sweat, and the moon round

with dreams of release. We lived a mile from the border;

the Tigua Indian drums could be heard in the cool evenings.

Our rhythmic hopes pounded dusty roads, and cholos

with slicked hair, low-riders, were only a mirage.

We drove across the border, heavy voices, drunk

with dreams, tequila, and hollow fears. We ran

trans-mountain road, shadows cast cold shivers

down our backs in the hundred-degree sun.

Danny ran twenty miles, finished, arms raised

with manic exultation.

The grassy course felt different beneath his spikes,

and the gun’s smoke forgotten in the rampage of runners,

his gold cross pounding his chest to triumph, his legs

heedless to pain, his guts burning.

Neither of us return to the cement underpasses,

graffiti, and dry grass, though I know

the drums still beat when we look at the stars,

and our eyes flicker with ambition.

Brown children in tattered shorts still beg for pesos,

steal pomegranates and melons.

Young men with sweaty chests and muddy pants

ask my mother for work, food,

passage to that distant win

somewhere on the other side of Texas.

Today the green trees are wet with rain,

and I am too lazy to run. The desire to run my fingers

down an abdomen tight with ambition, is shaky, starved.

It’s been too long since I’ve crossed that border,

drunk tequila, screamed victorious

at the mountain. The stars seem small tonight,

they don’t burst over the sky like they did back then.

These poems, these books don’t ravish me

the way Danny could, the way the race could.

His accented English, broken on the wind, and his run,

his lean darkness, drove exhaustion to consummation.

The wind seems too humid in this preferred place,

and when I hear throaty Spanish spoken in the lushness,

I long for the grimy heat,

the Rio Grande’s shallow passage,

the blue desert, and the slick legs of runners

along the smoggy highway.

Sheryl Luna