20150704 (fallibility)

On the 5th of July 2007 on Skylane

In Cleveland Terrance Hough, Jr.

About 12:45 AM shot nine rounds

Into a group of neighbors next door

Partying with fireworks and music

Killing three wounding two more

Convicted he was sentenced

To life without parole 

What bothered me most was

It could have been me

Earlier in the day mid afternoon

The renters next door set up

Theater speakers on their deck

Tested the volume at super loud

The crackle and pops of cable

Connections drew my attention

The owner lived in Akron

Took great umbrage that I’d call

To complain of loud late parties

That kept me awake 

Work it out with them he’d say

Ignoring my statement that wasn’t happening

His patio between us is likely twelve feet

Plus my walkway another four

So we’re close by comparison although

On the other side we’re eight feet at the most

The crazies got drunk played heavy metal

Worst shot off M-80s after stupidly

Shouting Fire in the hole

I asked them early on

Not to play the music so loud

To go easy with the hand grenades

They set one off for a message

As I walked back to my house

By seven Loki’d crawled under the bed

The booms and boom doesn’t say it

Rattled the windows the floor and my teeth

I called the cops at ten eleven twelve and one

The dispatcher assured me each time

They’d send a car out to check

After two the revelers ran out of rounds

The music got quieter the chatter subdued

Then they started a roaring blaze in the pit

Which sent glowing ashes onto my roof  

The fire department had to take my call seriously

But didn’t show up till the flames had burned down

At the sound of the sirens

And sight of firemen in full gear

Various attendees found their cars and left

Before names could be taken

Success finally they had quieted them down

Cautioned them about large fires in the city

Then they knocked on my door

To tell me the fire was safely contained

Not when I first called 

It was threatening trees

They rent a brick house 

I own a dry tinderbox

Gritting their teeth they withdrew with

Some grumbling as they packed up

Next morning one of the miscreants

In full facial jewelry 

Lips tongue and eyebrows

Met me at the gate to excoriate

Me with many Fs many As

To call me spoilsport 

Would be way too gentle described 

How I was an ignorant et cetera

Inconsiderate of neighbors the one I liked best

Later when I finally heard about Hough

I shook to the core 

Unnerved at the thought of

What could have happened

If I’d had a gun

c. J.S.Manista, 2015

Review of Old Movie--Mr. Nobody, Almost Famous

Quick and Dirties first:

Mr. Nobody--visually fascinating, story a mite perplexing but it's no Mulholland Drive. Can't say enough about Jared Leto's acting, nothing short of genius. 

Almost Famous will please rockers but bore pretty much everybody else. Frances McDormand endearingly portrays the smothering mother who proves incredibly reasonable. 

Mr. Nobody (2009) All around good acting. The story takes a little following but ties together around cosmological theory. Really about choices and the future, love, suffering and growth. Rivaling the star Leto is the stunning use of visuals worth the explanation in the extra features. A tad light on human insight, heavy on fable, and foreseeing a dire future of "quasi-immortality" where spectacle is all, sex is obsolete, and everything else is over the top. 

Almost Famous (2000) Cameron Crowe's review of an age that will never be again--coming of age in an early era of rock and roll with an insider's view of drugs, sex, and R&R. Central character by Robert Fugit is credible for a youngster. Philip Seymour Hoffman plays mentor to the young critic. Kate Hudson, younger than ever plays worldly wise but vulnerable groupie--but calls her type Band-Aides. Frances McDormand plays the mom with her head screwed on straight. Zooey Deschanel the rebellious sister does cute. No heavy thinking in this one.                                                          

c. J.S.Manista, 2015

20150703 (identification)

Cleveland State Hospital on Turney Road near Broadway and Miles

His shortened pant leg exaggerated

His staggering step as we drew nearer 

I could see his unshaved face 

Set in a hostile stare straight ahead

I offered Good Morning he stopped

Dead in his tracks without answering

Over my shoulder I saw him resume 

Soundless once my dog passed him by

Unkempt bedraggled not stoned or drunk

He looked half my age

With an extra ten years for his troubles

Drug addiction drink mental impairment 

Sometimes nowadays losing a job

A catastrophic upheaval one year later 

You’re a permanent mess

Maybe the leg thing was part of the story

Some accident birth defect possibly

Always kept him behind 

In adulthood it finished him off

I don’t remember how it was that I visited

Cleveland State Hospital 

Turney Tech it was casually called

Sprawling mid-Victorian campus

Whose huge dark red stone tower 

Could be seen from its twin 

The Garfield monument miles to the north

Founded the Northern Ohio Lunatic Asylum

In the ‘thirties and ‘forties it was our Bedlam

Rife with horrific negligence abuse

Mismanagement only somewhat

Relieved during World War Two

When conscientious objectors

Mennonites in the main 

Were assigned there as aides 

I don’t recall fences photographs

Reveal park like grounds where perhaps

The doors were always locked

Looked like a school served as a prison

It was not discussed in polite conversation

No one spoke of visiting and the mere mention

Sent a visible chill through the faces of listeners

Closed in ’75 razed in the ‘nineties 

Today it’s home to new ticky-tacky 

Hardly less scary than the buildings before

A lot of the inmates returned

To their families homes managed

With newer meds home care

Supportive short term stays

At the hospitals remaining

And the rest went to prison

So this guy this morning is doing well 

For his case and out on a walk

An escapee who needs to return

Somebody just a bit off his meds

Like so many others wandering about

We have several care locations nearby

He is totally harmless if a bit off-putting

To soccer moms and ladies who lunch

The psychiatric cases who terrify me

Are the ones in the senate the house

On TV fomenting absolute madness

More wars intervention whose words

Spawn more heartache slaughter

Bloodshed and sorrow

Than these poor beaten souls

Who only grumble and wobble

c. J.S.Manista, 2015

20150702 (animal house)

The attic is no place for birds

Nor the second floor for squirrels

But until the damaged soffits are repaired

We’ll have a noisy visitor or two

No surprise then when I found a dead

Robin wedged between my ex’s sewing magazines

Poor baby must have exhausted himself 

Looking for an escape hatch

Leaking box gutters Yankee gutters

Where the rains drained to collectors

Beneath the eaves over years the wood

Below absorbed what didn’t flow away

Rotted from periodic drenching 

Entrances appeared where branches

Of my neighbor’s tree tempted 

Birds and squirrels eager to nest

Once they’ve scouted the land nearby

Explorer types set out to find what might be

Behind the insulation

A Columbus or two discovered a world

As dazzling as Columbus found

Thought to make it his own

Untold perches from which to spring

Boxes galore some sealed only for a moment

To a pecking beak or scratching claw

Then treasure more than any 

Bird or squirrel could conceive

Glorious fabrics art supplies rocks

Camera filters colored chalks and data

Records of every type letters bills

Unopened mail floppy disks rewriteable CDs 

Padding fake fur damask satins tripods

Safelights photographs cups filled with

Pencils pens small rulers clips to clamp

Every course in college notebooks

Ribbons needles pins enough to stock

A sewing shop through summer books

Newspapers address lists a misplaced check

Postage stamps forgotten but unlicked

Some first issues of peel and stick

In short a cornucopia of which 

The flock or scurry must be informed

Astonished by their findings 

They could not recall the path back

Flew or scrambled about

Birds knocking themselves on the window glass

Squirrels were puzzled too

I’d hear this ruckus and think what the hell

Has gotten into the cat to topple boxes

Crash piles of buttons across the floor

The crow cawed and was easy to find

Closed the doors opened the window

With a broom as a guide he fluttered about

But during church that Sunday he must have left 

On his own fulfilling two prayers

The squirrel was a tougher nut to crack

Once I opened the window he scooted across the floor  

Leapt at the open space 

His forepaws and legs outstretched

Like Supersquirrel flying to discover 

It was from a second floor that he ventured

And he had before him a brick patio

Not a soft branch and alas 

He was not a flying squirrel 

If it killed him I found no body 

Or bloodied spot

I’ve said before I’m no Francis

To invite birds to rest on my arms

Squirrels can be rabid 

They’re unwelcome and though

I’ve never turned them away at the door

Like Jehovah’s Witnesses they keep coming back

Believe me I’m eager to seal up these holes

But if I have to rely on a contractor’s promise

For the short term I may as well

Sue Mother Nature and make peace

With the animal world

c. J.S.Manista, 2015

Review of Old Movie--Requiem for a Dream

This 2000 film is an adaptation of Hubert Selby, Jr,'s novel based 

on what was known then about addiction. If you've heard of Johann 

Hari and his book Chasing the Scream you might come away 

puzzled by Requiem which relies heavily on the "chemical hooks" 

theory of addiction. As Hari claims and further illustrates, "What 

we think we know about addiction is all wrong."


But setting that aside for a while, Selby and the director Darren 

Aronofsky do a top-notch job of presenting visually the states and 

stages of addiction running side-by-side stories of conventional

drug use (heroin, cocaine) and drug abuse by prescription drugs

(physician authorized amphetamines for weight loss). The images 

and acting are superb in conveying the world of substance abuse

and the dangers involved across a spectrum of users, sellers.



Quick and Dirty--A confluence of stories, visually riveting, well 

worth the watching. Convincing on its own but must be measured 

against new knowledge of addiction--itself obviously not the last 

word.



c. J.S.Manista, 2015

20150701 (philosophy ain't science)

Philosophers can’t give you tech

No physical laws no fine formulae

To scrape on a blackboard or wipe 

From a whiteboard. Don’t expect to get

Some module for music news pulse

They might speculate 

Why it wouldn’t be good

To chip our necks with inputs or outputs

Or perhaps the reverse 

Why we should use

Our genes to prevent cure heal

But don’t expect clones that’s

Engineers’ work 

God in the sky cherry pie by and by 

Might get you to think 

Hard enough to do physical work  

Thinking can get a good man down 

Exercise biceps triceps quads and such

But cranial muscles give me a headache

Really those knots are part of a migraine

Not farfetched at all a cortexual hernia 

Everybody loves a good syllogism 

It’s the a priori-s that are all the fuss

Do we really see the world as it is

Or just the best image our senses deliver

Descartes had to find certainty for his Self

A complete waste of time

Had he been tortured with bamboo shoved 

Under his nails he’d not have a doubt

What was dream what was real

Even de Sade would have stumbled on morals

Had he been more the victim

Less the tormenter

All of the sophists who leapt 

Upon Darwin’s thinking

And came up with races

Justified exploitation of colonies

Expansions of empire what idiots

So like today’s who use quantum mechanics

To conclude things can be and not be

By mathematical signs

And find nothing remarkable 

That something comes from nothing

Just pops up like daisies then pops

Back again never quite going far enough

To ask why there is anything at all

Or why there is this and not that

Or what does it mean to understand anything

Who is just Who is loved

Why are we at all if we all die

You can’t find these on Google

And you can’t trust some maps

Who determines if sunsets sunrises

Are magnificent or drab

Who gets to work like a slave

Or hang by their thumbs

For the rest of their lives

Philosophers can’t give you tech

You may not want headaches

Many get by not asking

Questions at all

c. J.S.Manista, 2015