This I Believe: I Feed Monkeys on my Birthday

A friend told me about this "This I Believe" essay by Harold Taw, a Seattle writer (one who I believe just received an Artist Trust GAP grant).

Here's a sampling of it:

I could say that I believe in America because it rewarded my family's hard work to overcome poverty. I could say that I believe in holding on to rituals and traditions because they helped us flourish in a new country. But these concepts are more concretely expressed this way: I believe in feeding monkeys on my birthday -- something I've done without fail for 35 years.



You can read the whole essay here. Or click the link on the title of this post.


I hope you are each considering something you believe in to submit to this fantastic series.


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Turn Your Poem into a Bed & 3 Dozen Roses

SPRING LYRIC CONTEST on A PRAIRIE HOME COMPANION

A note from Garrison:
"Sumer is icumen in," but first spring is icumen in and the song of the lhude cuccu will be heard here on the frozen tundra and the Norwegian bachelor farmers will strip the long underwear from themselves like bark and take their first bath of the year and the crocus and tulip will poke up and why not have a poetry contest to celebrate?

So we will, on March 31, conduct our Lhude Sing Cuccu contest and present the best of your poems and lyrics on A Prairie Home Companion to compete for lovely prizes.

And the first prize — from Select Comfort — will be a Queen-sized Sleep Number 5000 bed (with foundation legs) along with three dozen roses — a bed of roses delivered to your door — a renaissance in your domestic life — a source of untold joy, not to mention untold sleep.

Shakespeare wrote about spring ("Hey nonny nonny no") and so did George Herbert ("grief melts away as snow in May") and Gerard Manley Hopkins ("What is all this juice and all this joy?") and E. E. Cummings ("wholly to be a fool while spring is in the world, my blood approves") and A.E. Housman ("Loveliest of trees the cherry now is hung with bloom along the bough"). Robert Browning wrote, "O to be in England now that April's there" and Chaucer began "Whan that Aprille with his shoures soote" and Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote, "How do I sleep with thee? Let me number the ways. O comfort that I didst select when I selected thee!"

Keats wrote an ode to spring and now is your chance. So start now. Take up pen, or sit down at the keyboard, or brood at the window, and contemplate spring and warmth and the growing season and romance and the end of the school year — whatever bursts your bulbs — and write your poem.

Minimum: fourteen lines. Must contain reference to spring. Must be original. Must be submitted by March 28 at midnight Central Standard Time. If you've submitted work in the past to First Person or Department of Folksong, please resubmit your work to be considered for the prize.


When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes
And buried in snow up to your eyes and noses
Why not write a spring poem and win first prize,
A Sleep Number bed that is strewn with roses?



Rules and Guidelines >>


Submission form >>

NPR Nerd & What We Wore

Last night I went to see a live taping of This American Life on stage at the Paramount in Seattle. The crowd was hugenormous and you would have thought we were at a rock concert (or should I say trendy alternative band concert).

The people didn't look like your regular Seattle NPR listener (fleece, sensible shoes, NPR logo vest from pledge week), but a hip crowd of late-twenty to forty-somethings. The group consisted of some possible pseudo-intellectuals, ex-English majors, young democrats, and artists. Women paid enough attention to their appearance so that they were pretty, but not too made up. Men wore dark coats and black-framed glasses (like their hero Ira Glass, but with a shape that is more stylish in Belltown.)

I'm always interested in the anti-fashion statement, which is also is a fashion statement itself-- the women with their literary glasses, the men with their retro hair. A friend told that at AWP there was a look for young female poets in their twenties--straight dark hair, glasses, and black boots. Even when we try to say no to society's shallow ways and their fashion statements, we are saying yes to another group, saying "I fit in here." Every group has its own set of rules for dress, you can be exiled from the stoners for being to preppy, you may not be goth"enough with your LL Bean vest, and for poets? Is there a certain look? If there is, I probably wear too much pink to be a poet. Another poet who writes about comic book hero does this too. ;-)

But enough what we wore, This American Life was about "What I Learned From Television." The show featured stories from David Rakoff, Dan Savage (from The Stranger), Chris Wilcha, and music from a great band whose CD I know own--Mates of State. The show was hilarious and it was interesting to watch a radio show being taped. We noticed when a line or word was said poorly, the speaker just said the word or line again ("I'm Ira Glass and this is....") and later, magically, it would be added in.

They talked about the new TV series that will appear on Showtime this month. They showed clips of it. I'm just new to basic cable, but have considered getting Showtime just to get my visual fix of TAL. I believe I have listened to every TAL show, I have worked way back in time through my computer, listening to a show late at night on my computer as I clean my office. I was hooked the first time I heard it--I believe David Sedaris was reading, but I'm not sure, David Sedaris is always reading, I know it was before 9/11 because I remember all the 9/11, Iraq stories that came after. What I remember is that I was just taken, just as the Swing Years and beyond takes me away, TAL is a sweet retreat from my ordinary life into the ordinary lives of others. It's probably the best storytelling around...storytelling with music. Last night, I got a better idea how it's done. I saw how Ira Glass moves his arms in odd ways while he talks, how he scratches his head, and flips a paper. The whole event went almost two hours and even from our seats which were probably the worst seats in the house--the very top back wall on the 3rd level in the corner, though technically, I was six seats over from the corner in row Z--the show was fantastic. Though I'm just trusting the guy at the desk with the arm movements was Ira Glass on stage because my view, it could have been anyone in a suit.

Afterwards, we left in a sea of hip strangers and paid for our parking in a sea of hip strangers, and got on a ferry with a bunch of people in fleece to return to our world of corduroy and wool sweaters, down vests and breathable shoes. On the ferry we talked different kinds of mixed drinks and Girl Scout cookies. We stayed in our car and the windows steamed up. N said she was getting emails from the universe--I needed clarification (the solar system or the *universe*). The *universe.* We wondered what kind of emails we'd receive if the solar system wrote emails--we decided Pluto would have the most say being kicked out of the top nine. And we argued if Neptune was Uranus' twin (Interplanet Janet said so).

We drove home and I felt better for being there.