Lit Bits-11/26/2014 Rita Dove

Aleathia says:

Rita Dove is an American poet born in Akron, Ohio in 1952.  She graduated at the top of her class from Miami University and received her masters from the University of Iowa.  She was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to study in Germany.  She taught creative writing at Arizona State University until 1989 when she began teaching at the University of Virginia.  In 1987, she won a Pulitzer Prize for Poetry.  She has published 8 collections of poetry, a play, a novel, and a short story collection.

Lost Brilliance

I miss that corridor drenched in shadow,
sweat of centuries steeped into stone.
After the plunge, after my shrieks
had diminished and his oars sighed
up to the smoking shore,
the bulwark's gray pallor soothed me.
Even the columns seemed kind, their musky sheen
like the lustrous skin of a roving eye.

I used to stand at the top of the stair
where the carpet flung down
its extravagant heart. Flames
teased the lake into glimmering licks.
I could pretend to be above the earth
rather than underground: a Venetian
palazzo or misty chalet tucked into
an Alp, that mixture of comfort
and gloom...nothing was simpler

to imagine. But it was more difficult
each evening to descend: all that marble
flayed with the red plush of privilege
I traveled on, slow nautilus
unwinding in terrified splendor
to where he knew to meet me--
my consort, my match
though much older and sadder.

In time, I lost the capacity
for resolve.  It was as if
I had been traveling all these years
without a body,
until his hands found me--
and then there was just
the two of us forever:
one who wounded,
and one who served.

Music Monday-11/24/2014 Daptone Records

Aleathia says:

As a child my father imparted on me the importance of blues and jazz music.  I wasn't very receptive at the time.  I would rather listen to Madonna and Whitney Houston and Cyndi Lauper.  Those artists were just blips in time for me.  I appreciate what they meant to me at the time and they do hold some nostalgia for my youth, but as an adult I will take a fine piece of jazz or some dirty vocal blues over anything.

What I have come to find out is that this type of music touches me.  It makes me feel like I am floating or maybe suspended in time.  It is hard to explain.  It's like being high without drugs.

Five or six years ago I got turned on to an artist off of Daptone Records named Sharon Jones.  Once I heard her, it was all over.  I went to the website to see what else they had in store for me.  Their line up of artists are impeccable....every single one.

Daptone Records is a Brooklyn, NY based indie record company that specializes in producing soul, funk, gospel and afrobeat music.  It was started by Gabriel Roth and Neal Sugarman who are also in the band The Dap Kings.

I had an opportunity to see Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings at the Grassroots Festival in Ithaca, NY. They rocked my face off.  Every beat electric and Sharon's voice just reached down into the depths of me and made me want to dance and lament all at the same time.

Daptone Records is putting on a Super Soul Revue Show at the Apollo December 4, 5, and 6.  I'm not sure what the ticket availability is, but this is some of what you will hear if you can make it.


Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings:

Charles Bradley:

Antibalas:

The Budos Band:

The Sugarman 3:

The Menahan Street Band:

The Como Mamas:

Naomi Shelton and The Gospel Queens:

OM-11/23/2014 Being Truthful in Healthcare

Aleathia says:

Last week, while shaving my legs, I listened to a Ted Talk by Leana Wen who is a medical doctor here in America.  The video was about transparency between a doctor and their patient and how by doing this a true trustful relationship could begin to form.

She made valid points about patients having to hand over their most personal information, their lifestyle, their body to a person with a degree whom they know nothing about.  Patient's don't know where their doctor's stand in the community, with their beliefs, or their conflicts of interest.  It is like a one-sided conversation.

Leana Wen put forth this idea to a wave of hatred by physicians across the country.  She got death threats and bomb threats and was asked to "move back to her country" despite living in the US since she was 8 years old.

I am not a doctor and the nursing model of care is much different than the physician's.  Nurses are a bit more able to look at the bigger picture and take into consideration all of the peripheral reasons why a person might be sick or act the way they do.  We are also more honest and upfront, because maybe, we have less to lose.  We aren't going to get sued for our opinions like a provider might.

Yesterday I had a patient who had pretty severe cancer and was being seen at a prestigious cancer center that is nationally known.  They told him he had lung and kidney cancer and he was young and was undergoing chemotherapy.  When he came to us he had been coughing up blood which is never good.  When all was said and done, his exam revealed a worsened cancer in the last month and cancer in places that our facility had seen in August that were never mentioned to them by their cancer center.

The patient's wife was furious and in tears, because there at 3 am they were both realizing the severity of the situation.  She looked at me and asked my why won't any provider tell them the truth without sugar coating the outcome.  I told her that I could not answer that question as I am not a doctor, but I looked her in the eye and explained slowly and carefully the true possible outcomes of her husband's disease process as it stood right then.  She cried some more.  He cried some more.  I stood there and cried with them.

I understood first hand the power of cancer's grip to steal those that you love right from under you.  It is so silent at first, so evil in the end.  The wife thanked me for my honesty and my compassion.  We were going to transfer him to a higher level of care and after I finished the paperwork I thought about Leana Wen and I too was angry for this family.  Why don't doctors tell you how it is really going to be?  Sometimes it is because they want you to move forward with their plan of care.  Sometimes people don't want the truth.  Sometimes I think they forget what it is like to be on the other end of the spectrum.

I went into work last night and was told that as my patient was being put into the ambulance for transfer, he died.  His cancer swallowed him whole, so to speak, and he was gone.  I knew the ending to his story, but some part of me had a glimmer of hope that maybe I was being a fatalist or being too severe.  I know now that I was able to give them both a realistic picture as sad as it was.

A nurse's job is very hard.  We have to learn so much about a patient in a short amount of time.  We have to juggle 4-5 lives at a time while making everyone happy.  We get to save lives and watch them slip away. Each one chipping a layer away silently.  Each one embedding themselves in your collective personal graveyard.  Try to remember as patients that we are limited to what the doctor says we can do for you, that though we may seemed rushed, or busy, we really do care about making you better.  We wouldn't put ourselves through this daily torture if we weren't compassionate and loving at the core.

Today, I am looking for meaning in the face of untimely deaths, and I am not sure I find any good reasons.  Love your life while you have it.  Tell people how wonderful they are, don't forget to smile and laugh, and take all the hugs you can get.

Peace.

Quills and Frills-11/22/2014 Heroes Your Mom Threw Out Comic Book Shop

Aleathia says:

Recently we have gotten back into comic books in this house.  I'm not talking Superman or Spiderman, but this new revolution of really intense work coming out of Image comics and even some Dark Horse.  We are reading titles like Saga, Wytches, Sidekick, Dream Police, Hellblazer, The Walking Dead, Black Science, Ten Grand, and a host of others.  The art is spectacular and the writing gripping.  It is the best time in the world to be a comics fan.

In our small town we don't have a shop, but in the next few towns over there is a great comic book store called Heroes Your Mother Threw Out.  Jared is the owner and you couldn't find a more laid back, knowledgeable guy about comics.  If you feel like an awkward nerd going in the store, you sure as hell don't feel like one coming out.

The store itself just moved to the storefront next door for more space and it has been turned a bit upside down.  Finding comics is an adventure right now as you run from shelf to shelf and box to box.  His little daughter, the quietest kid ever in the history of kids, is there roaming around giving you cute smiles and sometimes his son is there stickering comics.  It's a family affair.

What I found most interesting is the clientele.  There were TONS of women buying comics.  There were professional people, jock looking dudes, hipster bearded folk, and your general run of the mill folks like Mike and I.  We all fit in that store.  We are all there for the love of art and great storytelling.

Over the last few days we have been talking about the importance of shopping local.  We could find all of the comics we read on Amazon.  We might even get them cheaper, but what we find is that we feel great about spending money at Heroes because we know it goes to Jared and his family.  We love that some of what we spend feeds his kids.  We love that even after one visit to his store he remembered us, what we liked to read, and had suggestions for new works.  Businesses like this are hard to come by anymore.

So my holiday message to you is, shop local if you can.  Small store owners need your support and it should give you a great feeling that even though you might pay a few bucks more, you know you aren't lining the pocket of a mega company who doesn't give a shit about you or the town you live in. Give back.  Shop Local!

Lit Bits-11/19/2014 Gibbons Ruark

Aleathia says:

I found this lovely poem by a writer named Gibbons Ruark.

Gibbons Ruark is a contemporary American poet born in 1941 in the great state of North Carolina. He grew up there and graduated from the University of North Carolina in 1963 and shortly thereafter moved to Massachusetts where he worked as a bus boy until earning another degree from University of Massachusetts.  His poems began publishing in the 1960's and was hired on at the University of Delaware in 1968 where he became friends with the writer James Wright.  Ruark has traveled many times to Ireland and maintains a love affair with that country which shows itself in his work.  In his lifetime he has had 8 collections of poetry published with the most recent one being in 2008.


A Vacant Lot

One night where there is nothing now but air
I paused with one hand on the banister
And listened to a film aficionado's
Careless laughter sentence poetry to death.

It's twenty gone years and a few poems later,
The house demolished, the film man vanished,
The friend who introduced us to him dead.

I side with one old master who loves to tell
His film buff friends that film is like an art form,
And yet my eyes keep panning the empty air
Above the rubble, as if, if I could run

The film back far enough, I might still start
For home down the darkened street from the newsstand
And turn a corner to the house still standing,

A faint light showing in an upstairs window.
Is someone reading late? Or is is the night
Our newborn lies burning up with fever,
And all the doctor can say is plunge her

In cold water, wrap her up and hold her,
Hold her, strip her down and plunge her in again
Until it breaks and she is weak but cooling?

Is it the night they call about my father
And I lay the mismatched funeral suit
In the back seat with the cigarettes and whiskey
And drive off knowing nothing but Death and South?

Somewhere a tree limb scrapes at a gutter
The wind blows.  Late trucks rattle the windows.
Never you mind, I say out loud to the girls

Away at school, there's nothing there to hurt you.
The sky is thickening over a vacant lot,
And when I leave there is a hard rain drumming
With the sound of someone up in the small hours,

Thirsty, his palm still warm from a sick child's
Forehead, running the spigot in the kitchen
Full force till the water's cold enough to drink.

OM-11/16/2014 Thich Nhat Hanh

Aleathia says:

I recently discovered that Thich Nhat Hanh fell ill around November 1st.  It is said that he has suffered a stroke and though he is weak there is possibility of survival for him even at the great age of 88.

He has been a source of peace for so many people, Buddhists and non-Buddhists.  Let us send a little light and good thoughts his way for recovery, so he can continue to do his work in this body, in this life.

For me personally, I was introduced to his gentle nature when I requested instruction from my lama on walking meditation.  In those days I walked everywhere and thought it would be helpful to walk and meditate on those days when I did not have time for sitting.  Since that point, I have been looking to his words in times of need.

From "Two Treasures" by Thich Nhat Hanh

"Many people are victims of their fear.  If we can alleviate someone's fear, that is the greatest gift that we can offer them.  Our life will be filled with happiness if we can help others around us.  But if we spend our whole life building up our name and our fortune, then we cannot find happiness.  We might have a lot of money, a big house, a luxurious car, but that's not real happiness.  We can only taste real happiness when we can help others around us.  And we have to start with those in our family and the dear friends around us.  We have to help family, relatives, and friends before we are capable of helping others outside our circle."

Foodies-11/13/2014 Beef and Cheese Manicotti

Aleathia says:

Believe it or not this recipe for Beef and Cheese Manicotti (stolen and loosely followed and revamped) from Everyday Italian has garnered the number two spot of best things ever in the world to eat at my house.

Originally tonight I was going to go for something a little more simple like Pasta Primavera, but when I mentioned Manicotti there was a twinkle in the collective family eye.  It is a long process to make, not hard, but it has many steps that can't be skipped.

Beef and Cheese Manicotti

You will need the following:

1/2 pound ground beef

15 ounces Ricotta

1 box Manicotti

Fresh Basil

Fresh Oregano
1 Sweet Onion

1-2 cups shredded Mozzarella

1/2 cup grated or shredded Parm

Salt and Pepper

1 can of diced tomatoes

1 small can of tomato sauce

olive oil

butter

Start by chopping the onion and sauting it in a few tablespoons of olive oil.  When they start to get soft, add the ground beef and cook until there is no red showing.  Turn the heat off and let this mixture cool.

While the meat is cooking, you can prepare the cheese portion of the filling.  In a large bowl put the ricotta, 1 cup of mozzarella and 1/4 cup of parm, mix.  Chop your fresh herbs and add them to the mixture.  Salt and pepper and stir again.  When the meat mixture is cooled, add it to the cheese and combine thoroughly.

While you are making the cheese mixture put a pot of salted water on to boil for the manicotti.  When the water comes to a rolling boil, add 4-5 manicotti to the water.  You will need to cook them only 6-7 minutes because you want them to hold their shape for filling.  Set them on a greased plate to cool.  Once all the pasta is finished you can make the marinara.

To make the marinara place the can of diced tomatoes and the tomato sauce in a blender.  Blend until smooth.  Set aside.

Put a few tablespoons of olive oil in the bottom of a baking dish.  Spread out a half cup of sauce across the bottom.  Fill your manicotti.  I suggest that you hold them horizontal at first, fill one end, and then turn them vertical to fill them the remainder.  This keeps the filling from falling out the other end.  It saves on frustration.

The filling usually makes 12 manicotti, but sometimes you can squeeze out an extra one.  I arrange them in the dish like this.

Place the remainder of the sauce over the manicotti.  This will help cook the pasta the rest of the way.

Spread the remaining mozzarella over the manicotti and sprinkle a 1/4 cup of parm on as well.  This recipe calls for breaking up pats of cold butter and placing it around the top of the finished dish.  I'm not sure what the hell this does but I love butter so who cares.

Your oven should be preheated at 350 degrees.  The manicotti need to cook for 30-40 minutes.  When it is done, let it rest a few minutes or you will burn the crap out of your mouth and ruin your dining experience.

Serve with salad or just gorge yourself on cheesy goodness.