June 5, 2020

The North Carolina Museum of Art wants to reprint my poem from their last anthology.

Return to Fred Anderson Toyota at the crack of dawn– so long ago in this long summer day that when I thought of it, it seemed days and days ago. Am I the only one who’s written tiny little poems and a few paragraphs of a novel while sitting in the FAT Service Lounge? Two huge old man with long gray hair came into the lounge, each pulling oxygen machines behind. Maybe brothers, together for seventy years.

Rain followed by blinding light. I feel the garden supersizing and swelling its sap. Tiny Japanese iris with blooms purple as night. Small water iris with blooms purple as night.

Long, not too severe bout of gout. Strange how that colors everything just a little bit

Notice from UNCA that W will be leaving us for an administrative post elsewhere. In a time like this, one should not notice that relatively minor irony. That she should decide to take on permanently a job she did as badly as anybody I’ve ever known is merely par for a wretched course. Whether she was cowardly or actively malign is difficult to tell from this perspective, but it was one or the other. Strengthens my conviction that university administrators are a sort of caste, helped by one another into a string of positions with absolutely no reference to how well they have done the job. Like cops or abusing priests though their time may be over.

Faces on TV praise the protests but lament the fact that people aren’t honoring the curfews. The problem with curfews and obeying them is that the space police are clearing is public space, and not theirs to "clear." I'm thinking especially of Lafayette Park and downtown Asheville. A curfew for a night or two may be a valuable tool, but, extended or over-enforced, it is an example of the over-policing that is one of the roots of current unrest. The police have no right to make you go home. The police have no right to move you from public point A to public point B. The police have no right to make you go inside from your porches or balconies. The police have no right to decide or control how public space is to be used, or for how long. Of course they may "keep the peace," but, so far as I have seen, the police have instituted turmoil and violence each time they have presumed to assert "authority" over public space. I do not advocate defying curfews right now, for the police are violent and civil authority still has not exerted itself to bring them under control, but I think we should rethink the idea that protest is all well and good, but it should end at the magic policing hour. Two hundred people dancing naked in City County Plaza at 2 in the morning is no concern of the police. We must reconsider over-policing wherever we find it. Nanny-ing public space is not on the to-do list. Is the problem looting? Then station those dozens and dozens of cops in front of the stores. Address the problem; don't fight for power.

Linda and I sharing ancient gossip about our family, having come into contact with one of Alice’s granddaughters. Forgot that Uncle Albert shot himself. Forgot that grandma’s first child wasn’t grandpa’s. Linda and I differ on whether it was Harry or Ellen. Can’t imagine featuring in any interesting way if family gossip, but I suppose I do.