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Pastoralist Propaganda

Of late, I’ve been under the spell of the Mongolian film-maker Byambasuren Davaa.  She has made three movies: The Story of the Weeping Camel, The Cave of the Yellow Dog, and The Two Horses of Genghis Khan (Das Lied von den Zwei Pferden).  I’ve only seen the first two of Byambasuren’s movies, the last was not released in the US.  Her movies are a fascinating blend of fiction and documentary; the actors, humans and non-human, are themselves, they don’t even play themselves, they live their own lives but there is a movie camera and a story that they act in.  Sometimes they think of the camera for a split second, as real people would do Continue reading “Pastoralist Propaganda”

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When Your Day Starts with a #$%*^$% Ballistic Missile Alert

I’m sitting here trying to figure out what to feel.

About an hour and a half ago, as I was making a pot of tea after doing the morning chores, my cell phone starting blaring the way it does when there is a civil defense message.  Usually these are flood warnings but it was a bright and sunny morning in the middle of a drought so I was a bit puzzled.

I picked up my phone and there was the message BALLISTIC MISSILE THREAT INBOUND TO HAWAII. TAKE IMMEDIATE SHELTER.  THIS IS NOT A DRILL.  Yeah. Nice. Fuck.  Continue reading “When Your Day Starts with a #$%*^$% Ballistic Missile Alert”

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Eve Asherah

The Tree

My daughter brought home her art projects at the end of the semester last year.   For her final Illustration class project she had drawn a poster of a great tree spreading its limbs into the upper reaches of the page. Stacked beneath the roots of the tree were a pile of rectangular books. Continue reading “Eve Asherah”