Elephants

The Gift of the Magi

By O. Henry

One dollar and eighty-seven cents. That was all. And sixty cents of it was in pennies. Pennies saved one and two at a time by bulldozing the grocer and the vegetable man and the butcher until one's cheeks burned with the silent imputation of parsimony that such close dealing implied. Three times Della counted it. One dollar and eighty- seven cents. And the next day would be Christmas.

There was clearly nothing to do but flop down on the shabby little couch and howl. So Della did it. Which instigates the moral reflection that life is made up of sobs, sniffles, and smiles, with sniffles predominating.

While the mistress of the home is gradually subsiding from the first stage to the second, take a look at the home. A furnished flat at $8 per week. It did not exactly beggar description, but it certainly had that word on the lookout for the mendicancy squad.

In the vestibule below was a letter-box into which no letter would go, and an electric button from which no mortal finger could coax a ring. Also appertaining thereunto was a card bearing the name "Mr. James Dillingham Young."

The "Dillingham" had been flung to the breeze during a former period of prosperity when its possessor was being paid $30 per week. Now, when the income was shrunk to $20, though, they were thinking seriously of contracting to a modest and unassuming D. But whenever Mr. James Dillingham Young came home and reached his flat above he was called "Jim" and greatly hugged by Mrs. James Dillingham Young, already introduced to you as Della. Which is all very good.

Della finished her cry and attended to her cheeks with the powder rag. She stood by the window and looked out dully at a gray cat walking a gray fence in a gray backyard. Tomorrow would be Christmas Day, and she had only $1.87 with which to buy Jim a present. She had been saving every penny she could for months, with this result. Twenty dollars a week doesn't go far. Expenses had been greater than she had calculated. They always are. Only $1.87 to buy a present for Jim. Her Jim. Many a happy hour she had spent planning for something nice for him. Something fine and rare and sterling--something just a little bit near to being worthy of the honor of being owned by Jim.

There was a pier-glass between the windows of the room. Perhaps you have seen a pierglass in an $8 flat. A very thin and very agile person may, by observing his reflection in a rapid sequence of longitudinal strips, obtain a fairly accurate conception of his looks. Della, being slender, had mastered the art.

Suddenly she whirled from the window and stood before the glass. her eyes were shining brilliantly, but her face had lost its color within twenty seconds. Rapidly she pulled down her hair and let it fall to its full length.

Now, there were two possessions of the James Dillingham Youngs in which they both took a mighty pride. One was Jim's gold watch that had been his father's and his grandfather's. The other was Della's hair. Had the queen of Sheba lived in the flat across the airshaft, Della would have let her hair hang out the window some day to dry just to depreciate Her Majesty's jewels and gifts. Had King Solomon been the janitor, with all his treasures piled up in the basement, Jim would have pulled out his watch every time he passed, just to see him pluck at his beard from envy.

So now Della's beautiful hair fell about her rippling and shining like a cascade of brown waters. It reached below her knee and made itself almost a garment for her. And then she did it up again nervously and quickly. Once she faltered for a minute and stood still while a tear or two splashed on the worn red carpet.

On went her old brown jacket; on went her old brown hat. With a whirl of skirts and with the brilliant sparkle still in her eyes, she fluttered out the door and down the stairs to the street.

Where she stopped the sign read: "Mne. Sofronie. Hair Goods of All Kinds." One flight up Della ran, and collected herself, panting. Madame, large, too white, chilly, hardly looked the "Sofronie."

"Will you buy my hair?" asked Della.

"I buy hair," said Madame. "Take yer hat off and let's have a sight at the looks of it."

Down rippled the brown cascade.

"Twenty dollars," said Madame, lifting the mass with a practised hand.

"Give it to me quick," said Della.

Oh, and the next two hours tripped by on rosy wings. Forget the hashed metaphor. She was ransacking the stores for Jim's present.

She found it at last. It surely had been made for Jim and no one else. There was no other like it in any of the stores, and she had turned all of them inside out. It was a platinum fob chain simple and chaste in design, properly proclaiming its value by substance alone and not by meretricious ornamentation--as all good things should do. It was even worthy of The Watch. As soon as she saw it she knew that it must be Jim's. It was like him. Quietness and value--the description applied to both. Twenty-one dollars they took from her for it, and she hurried home with the 87 cents. With that chain on his watch Jim might be properly anxious about the time in any company. Grand as the watch was, he sometimes looked at it on the sly on account of the old leather strap that he used in place of a chain.

When Della reached home her intoxication gave way a little to prudence and reason. She got out her curling irons and lighted the gas and went to work repairing the ravages made by generosity added to love. Which is always a tremendous task, dear friends--a mammoth task.

Within forty minutes her head was covered with tiny, close-lying curls that made her look wonderfully like a truant schoolboy. She looked at her reflection in the mirror long, carefully, and critically.

"If Jim doesn't kill me," she said to herself, "before he takes a second look at me, he'll say I look like a Coney Island chorus girl. But what could I do--oh! what could I do with a dollar and eighty- seven cents?"

At 7 o'clock the coffee was made and the frying-pan was on the back of the stove hot and ready to cook the chops.

Jim was never late. Della doubled the fob chain in her hand and sat on the corner of the table near the door that he always entered. Then she heard his step on the stair away down on the first flight, and she turned white for just a moment. She had a habit for saying little silent prayer about the simplest everyday things, and now she whispered: "Please God, make him think I am still pretty."

The door opened and Jim stepped in and closed it. He looked thin and very serious. Poor fellow, he was only twenty-two--and to be burdened with a family! He needed a new overcoat and he was without gloves.

Jim stopped inside the door, as immovable as a setter at the scent of quail. His eyes were fixed upon Della, and there was an expression in them that she could not read, and it terrified her. It was not anger, nor surprise, nor disapproval, nor horror, nor any of the sentiments that she had been prepared for. He simply stared at her fixedly with that peculiar expression on his face.

Della wriggled off the table and went for him.

"Jim, darling," she cried, "don't look at me that way. I had my hair cut off and sold because I couldn't have lived through Christmas without giving you a present. It'll grow out again--you won't mind, will you? I just had to do it. My hair grows awfully fast. Say `Merry Christmas!' Jim, and let's be happy. You don't know what a nice-- what a beautiful, nice gift I've got for you."

"You've cut off your hair?" asked Jim, laboriously, as if he had not arrived at that patent fact yet even after the hardest mental labor.

"Cut it off and sold it," said Della. "Don't you like me just as well, anyhow? I'm me without my hair, ain't I?"

Jim looked about the room curiously.

"You say your hair is gone?" he said, with an air almost of idiocy.

"You needn't look for it," said Della. "It's sold, I tell you--sold and gone, too. It's Christmas Eve, boy. Be good to me, for it went for you. Maybe the hairs of my head were numbered," she went on with sudden serious sweetness, "but nobody could ever count my love for you. Shall I put the chops on, Jim?"

Out of his trance Jim seemed quickly to wake. He enfolded his Della. For ten seconds let us regard with discreet scrutiny some inconsequential object in the other direction. Eight dollars a week or a million a year--what is the difference? A mathematician or a wit would give you the wrong answer. The magi brought valuable gifts, but that was not among them. This dark assertion will be illuminated later on.

Jim drew a package from his overcoat pocket and threw it upon the table.

"Don't make any mistake, Dell," he said, "about me. I don't think there's anything in the way of a haircut or a shave or a shampoo that could make me like my girl any less. But if you'll unwrap that package you may see why you had me going a while at first."

White fingers and nimble tore at the string and paper. And then an ecstatic scream of joy; and then, alas! a quick feminine change to hysterical tears and wails, necessitating the immediate employment of all the comforting powers of the lord of the flat.

For there lay The Combs--the set of combs, side and back, that Della had worshipped long in a Broadway window. Beautiful combs, pure tortoise shell, with jewelled rims--just the shade to wear in the beautiful vanished hair. They were expensive combs, she knew, and her heart had simply craved and yearned over them without the least hope of possession. And now, they were hers, but the tresses that should have adorned the coveted adornments were gone.

But she hugged them to her bosom, and at length she was able to look up with dim eyes and a smile and say: "My hair grows so fast, Jim!"

And them Della leaped up like a little singed cat and cried, "Oh, oh!"

Jim had not yet seen his beautiful present. She held it out to him eagerly upon her open palm. The dull precious metal seemed to flash with a reflection of her bright and ardent spirit.

"Isn't it a dandy, Jim? I hunted all over town to find it. You'll have to look at the time a hundred times a day now. Give me your watch. I want to see how it looks on it."

Instead of obeying, Jim tumbled down on the couch and put his hands under the back of his head and smiled.

"Dell," said he, "let's put our Christmas presents away and keep 'em a while. They're too nice to use just at present. I sold the watch to get the money to buy your combs. And now suppose you put the chops on."

The magi, as you know, were wise men--wonderfully wise men--who brought gifts to the Babe in the manger. They invented the art of giving Christmas presents. Being wise, their gifts were no doubt wise ones, possibly bearing the privilege of exchange in case of duplication. And here I have lamely related to you the uneventful chronicle of two foolish children in a flat who most unwisely sacrificed for each other the greatest treasures of their house. But in a last word to the wise of these days let it be said that of all who give gifts these two were the wisest. O all who give and receive gifts, such as they are wisest. Everywhere they are wisest. They are the magi.

Coeur de Pirate

The standout track of "Comme Des Enfants" from 18 years old Quebec-based musician Béatrice Martin carries whimsical joyfulness, sweet vocals, and playful piano, organ and string arrangements.

Validation

"Validation" is a fable about the magic of free parking. Starring TJ Thyne & Vicki Davis. Writer/Director/Composer - Kurt Kuenne. Winner - Best Narrative Short, Cleveland Int'l Film Festival, Winner - Jury Award, Gen Art Chicago Film Festival, Winner - Audience Award, Hawaii Int'l Film Festival, Winner - Best Short Comedy, Breckenridge Festival of Film, Winner - Crystal Heart Award, Best Short Film & Audience Award, Heartland Film Festival, Winner - Christopher & Dana Reeve Audience Award, Williamstown Film Festival, Winner - Best Comedy, Dam Short Film Festival, Winner - Best Short Film, Sedona Int'l Film Festival.

The Blessings of True Fables

Outside the Palace of Fine Arts
the brassy bedouin gifted
this uneasy teen
her guitar.
And as
he slipped beneath
the sassy spell of
crazed voodoo spirits,
wicked fingers blazed
electric on its strings,
and wailed alongside the waif's bluesy
this-is-the-last-song-I-will-ever-sing voice.
A mic in one hand and swigs of
Southern Comfort from her other,
she would dub him "Raoul",
an unsung
discovery,
sober no longer
in the drunken
merriment
of the spring moment
that would never
leave him.

Weeks passed.
Time stopped again
as music channeled
from some
other distant life took hold,
and ephemeral summer
magic howled
its symphony,
then took sudden flight as a thief
in the stolen
night
never to return.

Sadly, Janis soon passed as well.


The young man grew older,
accomplished
many other things
in his life,
until the last sepia'd memory
of Raoul faded
to white.

One day a lost friend,
a godchild unseen
in decades,
passed as a ghost
through his thoughts.
As if by whim, he typed random numbers
into the address bar.
Her profile splashed
on the screen.
He was startled,
delighted.
It was magic!
She'd moved across a continent
and an ocean,
eight time zones away,
and yet here she was
before him.

Conversations followed.

And he smiled.


Raoul had never left.

Straight No Chaser

Dare you not to smile...

Milton Katselas

I lost a dear friend last Friday, Milton Katselas.
A brilliantly insightful man. An uncommon teacher. A respectful listener. A friend.
To those whose lives he touched, he inspired and, indeed, fueled us to reach further than we thought imaginable.
On Broadway and on film he directed the award winning performances of Blythe Danner (Tony), Eileen Heckart (Academy Award),
and Bette Davis (Emmy).
The list of his students at the Beverly Hills Playhouse is legendary, but the songs of praises are uniformly extraordinary.
Gene Hackman. Michelle Pfeiffer. George Clooney. Anne Archer. Catherine Bell. Chris Noth. David Carradine. Alec Baldwin. Miguel Ferrer.
Tom Selleck, Burt Reynolds, Ted Danson, Giovanni Ribisi. Tyne Daly. Patrick Swayze. And on and on.
A life well lived by how he brought out the very best in all those who knew him.
He will be dearly missed.
But the light he gave us will shine forever.

Thank you, Milton.
Thank you.

Synchronicity

Cherokee Story

The Finest Creative Juices

A behind the scenes tour of an award-winning creative farm and juicing process in South West England...

Whitman

"Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to everyone that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown, or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons, and with the young, and with the mothers or families, re-examine all you have been told in school or church or in any book, and dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem, and have the richest fluency, not only in its words, but in the silent lines of its lips and face, and between the lashes of your eyes, and in every motion and joint of your body." --Walt Whitman

Awareness Test

Yes, in an insane world it's very easy to be distracted in a shell game and not use our complete awareness.
Yet it is hardly an excuse to not be fully responsible for the world around us.
Economics is an example of a subject that is strewn with misleading and outright false data that makes it appear "impossible" to understand.
Indeed, it is made impossible to be understood by the unethical few who stand to benefit from a manufactured chaos.
Modern economics, based on Lord Keynes treatises, is a nightmare of clever deviousness in it's covert argument for a totalitarian state. He was hailed as the most brilliant economist of his time, but was also noted for his aberrant sexual proclivities as well as his interest in eugenics and racial cleansing and his oft quoted "Capitalism is the astounding belief that the most wickedest of men will do the most wickedest of things for the greatest good of everyone." Yet his solutions only opened the doors for the most wickedest of men to do their deeds.
But all this aside, isn't it peculiar that for the past 60 years a "campaign of distraction", as I've long called it, has been taking place?
As precisely executed as wartime battleplans and twice as insidious, we have been taught to love our distractions more than life itself. After all, if we're all distracted we don't observe the obvious. From sports to entertainment, television, media advertisements, and mindless consumerism, we have been distracted to not notice the obvious.
Back in the 60's the often repeated quip was "a frog thrown in boiling water would reflexively leap out, but a frog placed in a pot of cool water which was very slowly heated would remain in the pot till he perished".
Meanwhile, a world economy crashes because we fail to notice that money is not being burned, destroyed, or lost, it is simply redistributed by a few who have pulled off a massive shell game.
Could you imagine how much could be accomplished if we took one tenth the time to understand the basics of economics or our current fractional banking system or government, as we do say, a football game?

Look at what the "Bailout Plans" have cost us:

Bailout type.....Cost to taxpayers (Source: Reuters)
Financial bailout package approved this week up to or more than $700 billion
Bear Stearns financing $29 billion
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac nationalization $200 billion
AIG loan and nationalization $85 billion
Federal Housing Administration housing rescue bill $300 billion
Mortgage community grants $4 billion
JPMorgan Chase repayments $87 billion
Loans to banks via Fed's Term Auction Facility $200 billion+
Loans from Depression-era Exchange Stabilization Fund $50 billion
Purchases of mortgage securities by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac $144 billion
POSSIBLE TOTAL $1.8 trillion+
NUMBER OF HOUSEHOLDS PER U.S. CENSUS 105,480,101
POSSIBLE COST PER HOUSEHOLD $17,064+


Mr. Obama and Mr. McCain both failed miserably to understand the basics of the consequences of their positions in our economy.
In a country where both parties have been corrupted by individuals and industries who back only flawed and
manipulable candidates, it is time to take full responsibility for the world we live in and to first understand
the position we are in.
It may seem boring.
It may seem time consuming.
It may seem overwhelmingly unconfrontable.
But no one can say it is not worth it.
We can blame the evil in this world for the condition we find ourselves in.
And we would soon perish as a boiling amphibian.
It is our world.
It is the world we are handing to our children.



One idea on the economic end...Click Here to Read the Article
It is just one idea.
Another can be found here
Many more can be developed and be put in place.
Of course, that is just one small aspect of what needs to be dealt with.
There is so much more.

We live in exciting times.
We could choose to simply turn away and ignore it.
Or we could choose, as Gandhi put it, "to be the change you want to see in the world."

Robert & Alison

A spellbinding collaboration between two great and truly unique voices, produced by the legendary T-Bone Burnett.

The Time Is Now

While this may bring a laugh, history shows there are certain steps that any would-be dictator must take to destroy constitutional freedoms.
A must read is Naomi Wolfe's piece in The Guardian. Click here for the article
And see this interview given two days ago...if you've read any amount of Presidential directives on the White House site
and have followed the radical unconstitutional changes in laws, you may see these are not acts of incompetence by our leaders,
but well thought out acts toward specific ends. For us, apathy and fear are not an option. Waiting for a presidential candidate or someone else will do little good without our own personal responsibility, courage and action.

Mystic Emotion

"The finest emotion of which we are capable is the mystic emotion. Herein lies the germ of all art and all true science. Anyone to whom this feeling is alien, who is no longer capable of wonderment and lives in a state of fear is a dead man. To know that what is impenetrable for us really exists and manifests itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty, whose gross forms alone are intelligible to our poor faculties - this knowledge, this feeling ... that is the core of the true religious sentiment. In this sense, and in this sense alone, I rank myself among profoundly religious men."
-Albert Einstein

The Seven Blunders of the World

Distilled from a lifetime of disseminating

non violence in a violent world,

this is the list that Mohandas Gandhi gave

his grandson, Arun, on their final day together

shortly before his assassination.


The Seven Blunders of the World

* Wealth without work
* Pleasure without conscience
* Knowledge without character
* Commerce without morality
* Science without humanity
* Worship without sacrifice
* Politics without principle



Arun Gandhi later added an eighth blunder,

"Rights without responsibilities".

If one could prevent these acts of

passive violence, Gandhi believed,

perhaps greater acts of violence

could be averted...

Neil Gaiman

"Everybody has a secret world inside of them. All of the people of the world, I mean everybody. No matter how dull and boring they are on the outside, inside them they've all got unimaginable, magnificent, wonderful, stupid, amazing worlds. Not just one world. Hundreds of them. Thousands maybe."
-Neil Gaiman, "The Sandman"


English born author, Neil Gaiman, has delighted millions with fantasy tales of imaginative genius. Through short stories, poems, novels, graphic novels,
comics, and film he breathes life into fantastic universes that reveal welcomed insights about ourselves and the nature of humankind.


A friendship with Tori Amos led to a character in "Stardust" (and her referencing him in songs "Tear in Your Hand", "Spacedog", "Horses" and "Carbon"). Tori muses here...


The Hugo and Nebula award winning novella
"Coraline" comes out in 2009 in film...


From the book "Fragile Things" the poem, "Instructions"....


"The little folk dare anything", said his friend. "And they talk a lot of nonsense. But they talks an awful lot of sense, as well. You listen to 'em at your peril, and you ignore 'em at your peril, too."
-"Stardust"

The Meaning Behind "American Pie"

What do Bob Dylan, The Rolling Stones, JFK, Martin Luther King, Elvis, The Beatles, The Byrds, Altamont, Hell's Angels,
Janis, Kent State, Waylon Jennings and, of course, Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and The Big Bopper have in common?


Click Here For More on "American Pie"

Ashes and Snow

In 2006 I was enthralled by the Nomadic Museum, a temporary structure at the Santa Monica pier, where artist Gregory Colbert created Ashes and Snow as an installation
of photographs, films (narrated in 3 languages by Laurence Fishburne, Ken Watanabe, and Enrique Rocha), and two short film haikus.
Breathtaking and breathgiving, Ashes and Snow astonishes and captivates you as you explore the spiritual poetry between wild animals and humans.
Over 10 million visitors in Venice, New York, Tokyo, Santa Monica, and Mexico City have been transported to this realm of infinite sensitivity and beauty.

He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven

"He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven"

Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half light,

I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
--W.B. Yeats

Strangers in the Night

"To be is to do."-Socrates
"To do is to be."-Sartre
"Do be do be do."-Sinatra

With Plenty of Heart

These folks have been working their craft a long time...music fills their veins and is expressed
with plenty of heart...



Born in London and living in Rome, New York, L.A., and back again to New York to study art, music,
and film, Fredo Viola has his own unique take on using all these mediums that is startlingly beautiful, moving
and strangely familiar.

Fredo Viola's video for his single 'The Sad Song' - an innovative .jpeg clip collage.



Tilly and the Wall, a group from Omaha is noted for having a tap dancer instead of a drummer. Several band members formerly played with Conor Oberst (Bright Eyes) and formed their own group. Listen up and I dare you to not
grin with glee...

Tilly and the Wall--Rainbows in the Dark



Little Boots is the solo project of Victoria Hesketh, formerly lead singer/ synth player in Dead Disco. Classically trained,
she creates her own singular music!

Little Boots--Meddle (acoustic on piano, tenorion and stylophone)



Australian Orianthi started on the acoustic guitar at 6, electric at 11, and by 18 had been playing with Carlos Santana,
Prince, and Steve Vai. Make no mistake, this girl plays a wicked guitar along with the best of them.

Orianthi--Lights of Manos



Annie Clark is a multi-instrumentalist, singer and songwriter from Tulsa who performs under the moniker St. Vincent.
She was nominated for three PLUG Independent Music Awards, and won the Female Artist of the Year award...
a tremendous talent...

St. Vincent - These Days

Has Anybody Seen My Good Friend Isaac?

(Isaac and friends around the piano at one of many of our famous
open-all-the-doors Christmas parties he helped make more festive
entertaining and having fun with the hundreds of kids and friends
and families in Memphis).


I have to say I haven't found a way to say goodbye to my good friend, Isaac.
David Porter, his long time friend and songwriting partner, would say,
"...it's hard to really tell you what's in my heart."
Yes...it is.

The world knew Isaac as a Rock & Roll Hall of Famer, a Grammy and Academy Award winning
composer and musician, an icon of innovative soul and funk, a truly creative force as songwriter,
singer, producer, and actor.
Black Moses, to many.
To many others and myself he was affectionately, Bubba Lee.
To everyone, whether it was the first time you met or a lifelong relationship, he was a friend.
A man truly beloved by everyone.
And the one fact which eclipsed this, was the genuine caring and love he expressed
for each individual he met that carried far beyond the initial encounter.

For myself, to say Isaac was also a tremendous humanitarian would not begin to touch
what was in his heart and what he expressed with his work.
As a spokesman for the World Literacy Crusade, he more than campaigned for literacy and change,
he directly helped create it, opening dozens of literacy centers throughout the world.
(Indeed, he was made an honorary King in Ghana for his work in opening schools
and literacy centers in that country). His tireless work in the field of human rights
with the One Campaign, Youth for Human Rights International, The Shepherd Foundation,
and his own Isaac Hayes Foundation would be just a glimpse of this soul who gave so much.

I lived ten years in his hometown Memphis, a town I grew to love in an immense way.
Memphis. The Home of the Blues. The Birthplace of Rock & Roll. Beale Street.
Graceland. Stax. Sun. The finest barbeque in the world!
And sadly, where Dr. King passed from this world-- a fact which
has never left the city's collective consciousness.
Where streets of extreme poverty and extreme wealth still run side by side.
Where those with bright futures mingle with those without, with each group always
keenly aware of the other.

Despite all this, it was easily understood raising literacy was key to effective change.
With literacy true ability could be gained. Without it endless despair,
drugs and criminality were a simple fact of life.

I had the privilege of working with Isaac in building literacy centers in Memphis and
in introducing groundbreaking techniques to its school system. When you begin to
understand the heartbreak of high school students struggling to read at second
grade level, by rule, not the exception, then you can also begin to understand and share the
joy of completely changed individuals, by rule, not the exception, when given the tools of
how to study and learn. Multiply this by hundreds, no, thousands of kids of all ages
who have learned to read and study for the first time and you will begin to understand
what this meant to their dreams. And Isaac's dream. And indeed, all of our dreams.

They say the measure of a man can be seen by his effect on those around him.
Over the years after meeting with, talking with, walking with, laughing with his
family members, his hundreds of musician friends, business friends,
mayors and ministers, society's finest and society's forgotten,
all who were touched by this man,
I can say also, it's really hard to tell you what's in my heart.



There is simply no way to say goodbye, my friend.
You've never left us.