A Visit with Diane Sherry Case: Creative Writing as Therapy

"Writing is a door into your perceptions, emotions and thoughts, often revealing more to you than you consciously knew." --Diane Sherry Case

In 1942 psychologist Karen Horney, who had been Sigmund Freud's first female student, wrote a book called Self Analysis in which she proposed the idea of journaling for therapeutic purposes. I'd always believed in the value of journaling for untangling the nebulous emotional knots that get us all bound up inside. Journaling also helps us because of that oft-recited maxim, "The weakest ink is stronger than the strongest memory."

Life coach Diane Sherry Case takes this notion a step further. Journalling isn't the only form of writing that has healing power, she proposes. Creative expression is, in its own way, a powerful healing agent.

Tens of millions of Americans a stressed out, anxious or depressed, and as many as one in 10 people struggle with addiction, if not more. There are people whose needs may require professional intervention, but for the most part the road to mental health can begin the moment one takes responsibility for their own health. If I may put words in her mouth, "The pen is mightier than the pills."

Her book, Write for Recovery – Exercises for Heart, Mind and Spirit (Miraculous Productions) shares with readers how to use journalling to ease stress, better process their emotions, and improve their overall mental health. Ms. Case uses real-life stories and hands-on techniques to show how writing is a fundamental part of true healing.

Diane Sherry Case spent much of her life in Hollywood as an actress with appearances in numerous television shows over a period of decades. Her favorite role though was Lana Lang on the big screen in Superman, The Movie (1978). She is now a writer and filmmaker living in Santa Monica, California, a publishing author. Her first novel Elephant Milk won a best novel award in the Next Generation Indie Book Awards and has been adapted for screen.

I reached out to Ms. Case to learn more about the ideas in her book.

EN: I know there must be books about journaling toward mental/emotional health. How did you come to the idea/concept of creative fiction as a pathway to health?

Diane Sherry Case: I first realized that art saved lives when I was an actress. I found I was able to express things through art that I could not safely express in real life. I have also used writing as therapy throughout my life. My first diary, when I was seven, had a little lock and that’s where I kept all my secrets! You can express things to your journal that you may not have another safe outlet for. And you can get in touch with your wiser self who has solutions and answers that you would never think of consciously. The trick is to write before you think. Surprise your self with wisdom you weren’t aware was within. I've seen amazing growth and changes in my students – big emotional shifts and even life changes, like suddenly moving to another home or quitting their job as a big talent agent and becoming a successful writer. It is so exciting to see my clients surprise themselves by what they write – like Wow, I didn’t know I felt that way, or Gee, that’s kind of beautiful and heartfelt, who knew?

EN: You break the book into the four elements of Fire, Air, Earth and Water. Where did this framework originate? Was there a trigger event that served as catalyst?

DSC: That was simply a matter of inspiration and I went with it. Just like I instruct my clients to delight in their imaginations – I delighted in writing the book with that structure. It was fun to play with those metaphors and associate fire with anger or passion, air with silence or atmosphere, etc…

EN: In the chapter on Air you mention silence as communication. Interesting. You also talk about music. Why is music such a powerful healing agent?

DSC: Music is magical! People with dementia for example, respond to music and remember lyrics from long ago. Music can evoke emotional responses, can serve to relax or stimulate. Music therapy is a field that has been shown to be quite effective as a healing modality.

EN: I like the Einstein quote: “There are two ways to live: you can live as if nothing is a miracle; you can live as if everything is a miracle.” Doesn't it seem like the creative process itself is something miraculous? The beauty of being creative is that when one is in the flow they can feel part of the miracle as both participant and witness. Your thoughts here....

DSC: Yes! Writing, or creating some kind of art is an absolute necessity for me, as I go a little wacky and spacy when I neglect to respect that need. One of my favorite sayings that I’m not sure if I heard or just made up is, “If you don’t use your imagination, it will use you!” So true! If you tend to obsess, or project weird scary scenarios into the future, well, that’s your imagination using you and it’s generally not comfortable. So honor your gifts by using them, whatever they may be. If you don’t have a good habit of respecting your need to paint or write or sing, then just devoting fifteen minutes a day to an experience of creative immersion will change your life for the better.

* * * *

Diane Sherry Case developed Write for Recovery™ while teaching creative writing in prisons and high schools, and has expanded her coaching to help therapists utilize writing to heal their patients.
She's overcome a lifetime of loss and trauma, and has used writing as a form of psychotherapy to overcome the pain caused by these experiences.

In closing: from her Forward...
Last but not least, creative writing is simply uplifting! I believe that people are by nature creative beings. And believe it or not, literary talent is actually quite common. So if you do not think you have it in you – I plan to prove you wrong. I’m excited to share my joy of writing with you!

RELATED CONTENT
Quiet Heart Music for Healing
How writing helps deal with stress during the holidays.

Remembering Buddy Holly & the Dance Party: Jim Heffernan Takes Us Back In Time

Jim Heffernan

Jim Heffernan began his 42-year journalism career with the Duluth News Tribune in 1963, the year JFK was assassinated, the year before the Beatles appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show. On his blog he describes himself as a "semi-retired newspaper journalist-columnist who contributes online columns about growing up in Duluth's western environs on Zenith City Online." Good-natured and anything but hard-boiled, his book Cooler Near The Lake compiles a 52-card stack of fave columns from the first three-fourths of his career. I reached out to Hef, as he's oft referred to, to unearth some memories about that moment in history when a busload of stars rolled into town.

These past several years the Armory Arts and Music Center has been throwing a Winter Dance Party on the anniversary of this famous evening. This year the AAMC has moved the date into closer proximity with Valentine's Day. Todd Eckart has been selected as captain of the time machine that will take everyone back in time to that memorable era, February 11 at 6:00 p.m. The Dance Party will be at Grandma's Sports Garden in Canal Park this year, so you'll not have to contend with parking up on Fourth Street. A link for ticket info is at the end of this story.

EN: You graduated in 1957, and saw Buddy Holly here in 1959. Who did you go with that night and what were you doing at that time in your life?

Jim Heffernan: Can't recall which friends I might have attended the Winter Dance Party (the official name) with. Likely one or two buddies from college. I was a sophomore at UMD in January1959.

EN: How often were there concerts at the Armory and what were your favorite acts that you saw there?

JH: Remember, it was not considered a "concert." It was a dance. That meant the Armory floor was not set up with concert-style seating. Most everyone stood before the stage and either danced or, when Holly, Valens and Richardson (Big Bopper) performed just stood and took it all in. This was one of several such events at the armory in those days. Teenage boys went to hook up with teenage girls, or maybe even dance with them. Not too many couples on dates. We were all pretty young and single and unhooked up. We -- my friends and I -- went to most of them, but I can't recall any specific acts. Maybe Dave Dudley, but that came a little later and he was living in Superior at the time, before he hit it big with the truckers.

EN: In "American Pie" Buddy Holly's death is equated with the "day the music died." How significant was he to young people at the time?

The planned Dance Party tour route.

JH: Of course "The Day the Music Died" in referring to that night came much later. I wasn't much into pop music by then (I kind of checked out after Elvis faded a bit or was in the Army), but most kids my age were very much into Holly and the other two because their music was being played on the radio. So he was fairly significant to young people at the time.

EN:​ Who were your favorite groups or performers at the time? Did you have a record collection? Favorite album?

JH: As stated, I wasn't much into pop music, although I enjoyed following the crowd of my generation. My mother was a classical pianist and organist and by then I'd drifted into that genre. I didn't collect any pop records, but I did listen to pop radio, usually WEBC. I was a real anomaly.

​EN: Where were you in the audience during that concert? How packed out was the place?

JH: As stated, the crowd gathered before the stage on the dance floor. I was standing off stage right maybe 25 feet from the front of the stage. Very good place for a six-foot-plus patron. It seemed quite crowded down toward the stage, but I don't know how far back it went. Very hard to estimate the size of the crowd.

EN: What's your favorite memory from that night?

JH: Favorite memory? My most vivid recollection was seeing Holly strut out from stage left and hearing the girls in the crowd screaming. It was exciting, but I couldn't figure out why they'd scream at a kind of geeky looking boy in horn-rimmed glasses. I didn't get it. I still think the music's fine. "Peggy Sue" and "That'll Be the Day" will be around forever. I thought Ritchie Valens was a chubby little guy in a tight black suit and the Bopper was just silly, in a loud sport coat, howling "Chantilly Lace." He was pretty hefty too.

One memory that sticks with me occurred when we got back to school early the next week and had learned about the plane crash. Everyone was stunned, of course, having just seen them. One classmate uttered, "Why did it have to be Buddy Holly? Why couldn't it have been me?" There's a 60-year-old quite I'll never forget.

EN: How many Hibbing kids were there that night?

JH: I can't say how many Hibbing kids were there, other than Dylan. Didn't know any. I've been told later that Dylan was accompanied by a couple of Duluth friends from his earlier days here, Louis Kemp and Stan Green. That has not been documented, and might not be true. I've just heard that. I knew Kemp pretty well at UMD but never talked to him about it.

Addendum: The dance was put on by my friend Lew Latto, who was a local disc jockey at the time and with whom I'd gone all through school, in association with the units of the Minnesota Army National Guard, who owned the Armory. Lew and I were pretty good friends. He was MC at the event, introducing the acts, etc. He mentioned to me later that when dealing with the Dance Party touring people, he went up to a room in Hotel Duluth where Holly was staying. Communicating with others, he could see Holly lying on the bed napping, those glasses beside him on the bed table. Lew died a few years ago.

Hef added this Postscript:

That's it, Ed. Right from the horse's mouth.

Thanks, Jim.

* * * *

Related Links
Map of the intended Winter Dance Party agenda.
This year's Dance Party will be February 11, featuring Todd Eckart. Tickets here. Doors open at 6:00 p.m.
Blog post about The Day the Music Almost Died.
The Historic Duluth Armory home page.

Meantime, life goes on all around you. Dance when you hear the music.

Local Arts Happenings: This Month @ Lakeside, Tonight @ the Depot and Waking Dream @ the Prove

"The Cutest Little Berry" by Michelle Wegler

While in Lakeside the other day I took a few minutes to visit the Lakeside Gallery, which features a variety of works by local artists. Here are a few excerpts of what I saw. Owner Aaron Kloss has done a nice job of creating a friendly space, with direct access to the coffee shoppe next door, which is also staffed by friendly people. And there's always a place to park.

The arts district downtown has been an exciting development with but one drawback. Parking is not always convenient, though compared to big cities it's still a breeze. (As any New York regular knows, it's best if you can leave you car at home.)

Sue Rauschenfels has work her. Her show with Tom Tauschenfels is
still on display for a few more days in the Zeitgeist Atrium.

Watercolorist Rosemary Gottormsson is the featured artist this month. Rosemary returned from a trip abroad with a bundle of new watercolors in her luggage. Makes a person wonder, "Why bring a camera when you can bring an artist?" Interesting scenes from Old Europe, captured the old fashioned way.

Don't wait till next Xmas to check out these gift ideas.

TONIGHT 

IS THE DAI MEMBER SHOW 

IN THE GREAT HALL 

at the Depot.

See what Duluth Art Institute members 

have been up to this past year.

And tomorrow evening is the opening reception 

for St. Paul artist Jane Wunrow's "Waking Dream." 

Meantime, art goes on all around you. Get into it.

And if you see me, say hello. 

Jayson Iwen Talks About Literature, Transation Work and Jawdat Fakhreddine's Lighthouse for the Drowning

At last week's Open Mic at Beaners Jayson Iwen, Associate Professor of Writing at UWS, shared portions from his latest book which he co-translated from the Arabic, Jawdat Fakhreddine's Lighthouse for the Drowning. On Monday I summarized my impressions of the evening, but hoped I could also share one of the poems from which an excerpt had been read and Jayson obliged my request, sending several wonderful pieces, one of which appears at the end of this interview.

As a preface to his reading last week he mentioned sipping screwdrivers on the balcony of his hotel in Beirut, and two anecdotes immediately came to mind for me. The first was the story of Terry Anderson, a journalist who was kidnapped and held hostage for seven years. His book, Den of Lions, made an impression on me. Anderson went on to teach at Ohio University, my alma mater, so his story caught my attention on another level.

The second anecdote comes from NYTimes journalist Thomas Friedman's time in Beirut. Friedman, in one of his books (I believe it was The Lexus and the Olive Tree), wrote that when he was in Beirut CNN was trying to establish itself as a world news resource. They decided that one way to become more global would be to provide weather reports from around the world. Each day they would call Friedman who would step outside and make up a temperature and describe the weather. It was comical because these guesses were presented as fact to American viewers. He used the anecdote to make the point that many times people make up facts because of the hunger to be affirmed. Why did the DOW drop 80 points? Someone says, new housing numbers were just released. Someone else states with great cerittude that is was inflation, or a sudden uptick in the price of wingnuts.

Back to our story. I've enjoyed getting to know Jayson over the past couple years. His extensive writing, depth of experience and contributions to the University make him a true asset there. I invite you to check out the lengthy summary of his published work and career experience. If you're like me, you'll be impressed at how much he's achieved for one who appears so young.

Thank you, Jayson, for taking time to share a bit of yourself and your work here.

EN: What was the purpose of your stay in Beirut?

Jayson Iwen: Upon graduation from UW-Milwaukee’s doctoral program, I accepted a position as an assistant professor of English at The American University of Beirut, where I taught Creative Writing and British Literature. I’ve always loved to travel, and, earlier in life, I’d been interested in joining the Peace Corps, but I was enjoying college so much that I decided to go as far as I could with my education before working abroad, so that’s what I did.

EN: To what degree is poetry a part of Arab culture and life?

JI: As in many other cultures, poetry is a much more integral part of life in Arab culture than it is in the US. For example, poetry competitions (a bit like friendly rap battles) are often televised in Lebanon. This doesn’t mean that everyone watches them, but just about everyone is aware of their existence and has some familiarity with at least folk Arabic poetry traditions.

EN: What were the big challenges in translating this work? How fluent are you in Arabic?

JI: My Arabic is very poor, but my translation partner, Huda Fakhreddine, is an expert in Arabic poetry, as I am an expert in English poetry. Our method is to pass a poem back and forth, playing with the poem until we agree that we are each as happy with it as we will allow each other to be. She starts the process, of course, and then my responsibility is to make the English version as beautiful and/or engaging as Huda will allow me (because her responsibility is to not allow the English version to drift too far from the spirit of the original). It is time-consuming, but a lot of fun for me. The biggest challenge is usually making sense of statements that sound bizarre in English, and then figuring out a way to make them more intelligible without losing the foreignness of the original statement.

EN: Did you feel like you were sharing something important? What was your motivation in this undertaking?

JI: I was initially just doing a favor for a friend (Huda), but as I spent more and more time with the poems, I found myself gradually assuming the mindset of Jawdat Fakhreddine, much like an actor getting into character, and then I realized how important (though often very subtle) the sentiments were behind the poems. If one reads Lighthouse for the Drowning carefully, I believe one can understand, can actually feel, what someone probably feels like when he or she is experiencing an existential crisis and is on the verge of either enlightenment or “radicalization.”

EN: Can you briefly summarize your other achievements that have been especially important to you?

JI: I’m pleased to have had several books of my own recognized and published by nationally distributed presses. More recently, I’ve been honored to have had several poems reprinted in The &Now Awards 3: The Best Innovative Writing, and I had another nominated for a Pushcart last year. I have several manuscripts that I’ve been submitting to national contests for a while now, and two of them have so far been chosen as finalists (one of them twice); this didn’t result in publication, but the recognition is gratifying for me.

EN: What are you working on now?

JI: I’ve started writing short fiction seriously for the first time, just this last year, and I’ve already had two stories accepted for publication, one in Tikkun Magazine and one forthcoming in The Midwest Review. I’m enjoying this new direction immensely, and I plan to continue with it at least until I have a thematically coherent book-length collection. Alongside my own writing, I will continue my translation collaboration with Huda. In fact, we have recently selected a new poet, one who has not been translated into English yet: Salim Barakat, a Syrian Kurd who has been living in exile since he was a teenager. We are both very excited by his work. The style isn’t quite like anything that either of us has worked with before. A new, welcome challenge!

* * * *

“Glow”
(To Talal and Haytham)

1.
In the nights that wasted us
we only found tomorrow,
a prey
cowering under the cover of night.
We caressed it with words,
and consoled it with sympathetic song.
All we found in the nights that wasted us
and closed upon our whispering
under the canopy of stars
was tomorrow
trembling,
glowing like prey in the forest of death.

2.
We found in politics,
poems and dictionaries
a feeble spark
for our guttering hearts.
We took refuge in the flame,
fearing it may go out
in the wilderness of nights that wasted us.
It must be yesterday, then
our glistening death.
Illusion, our savior!
It is you we choose,
and in your shadow we stay alight.
You are the branch of life,
and the only ember left
of our extinguished hearts.

3.
We found neither
in politics
nor poems nor dictionaries
nor in the nights that wasted us
anything looming
into our sight.
We retired to our illusions
and sat there turning coals
in the ashes of language.

(December 1990)

* * * *
You may purchase Lighthouse for the Drowning here on Amazon
or locally at Zenith Bookstore on Central Avenue next to Beaners.

Illustrations here courtesy Portuguese artist Margarida Sardinha.

The title of the series: Hyperbolic Hyparxis

A Visit with Our New DAI Executive Director Christina Woods

After a stint as interim director for the Duluth Art Institute this past summer, Christina Woods was officially designated Executive Director this past month. Her career experience includes teaching at St. Scholastica, public speaking, grant writing and in her most recent role Executive Director at the Damiano Center. She also has extensive board experience including serving on the Board of Directors of PAVSA and the Duluth League of Women Voters. She is also currently the Education Director for the PBS program “Native Report.”

Our paths first crossed in 2012 as a result of a mutual interest in the Steampunk activity that emerged here in the Twin Ports. The Duluth Art Institute hosted Steampunk-themed events in both 2012 and 2013 that included a Steampunk Art Show and Emporium and attracted a large swath of the community while generating much enthusiastic participation.

EN: How did you come to take an interest in the arts?

Christina Woods: The arts have been central to my life. As an Anshinaabikwe, I was around the visual arts early as a tool to learn our cultural stories, medicines, and traditions. My first experience with contemporary visual arts was with my brother. I was about ten. He took me on a picnic at the MIA and talked to me about art. I especially recall after viewing the MIA exhibitions how vulnerable art seemed. I also realized how incredibly smart it was to use the visual arts as a language to understand what we have come through and how we have come through our lives to know who we are. As an adult, the language of visual art was easy to incorporate into my teaching. It was most effective in teaching little ones about conflict resolution, listening, and respecting other’s perspectives.

EN: What are some of the responsibilities of the Executive Director?

CW: My primary duty is to be the best team member possible! The expertise in all areas of operation at the DAI is deep. The entire team, staff to board members, is dynamic, responsive and, yes, a lot of fun! My responsibilities beyond that are essentially running the business. I keep track of income, expenses, new endeavors, contracts, personnel, and board governance. The usual non-profit stuff. My experience in education, non-profit management, grants, business ownership, contracting, event planning, fundraising, and networking line up beautifully in this role.

EN: What makes the Duluth Art Institute important in our community?

CW: The DAI is the only organization providing wrap around services for artists. Those services include workshops on writing, exhibitions and creative practice. We are working to expand our services to artists by providing open office times, more robust residencies, and strong networking opportunities with artists regionally, statewide and nationally. We hope to have a meaningful role in connecting artists to opportunities in non-profits, commercial and community work such as teaching. The DAI is also reaching into the community deeper and outreaching to individuals who have important stories to tell and are creating art about it. These stories may be about homelessness, poverty, incarceration, race, or privilege. The DAI encourages me to incorporate my passion to reach underrepresented groups into visual arts experience for all. This is my vision for “Bridging Art and Everyday Life”

Artists are activists and activists are citizens and citizens are humans. Humans make change. The visual arts play a vital role in the navigating day-to-day experiences, connecting community, and bridging the human experience. Artists are interconnected to society and create opportunities for viewers to grapple with contemporary social issues, be a generator of culture, and learn how culture informs us.

Artists are cultural archivists. Whether it be archiving history, grief, time, specific events or the creative the process, artists become the entrepreneurs moving fluidly across commercial, non-profit and community archiving memories with their visual descriptions.

The DAI provides opportunities for artists, creative learners, and viewers to connect in ways that help the people in our community thrive. The integral role the DAI plays in the community is through providing space for art, voice, and learning.

EN: Is there a relationship between the DAI and the Duluth Public Arts Commission? 

CW: Yes, we use the commission’s Duluth Arts + Culture Plan to inform us about the interests of our community. We hope to hold a seat at this table.

EN: A lot of people do not realize that the Morrison Gallery is named after a well-known Native American artist, George Morrison. Would you say that the DAI's connections to the Native culture is one of its unique features?

CW: George Morrison is part of my Anishinaabe lineage. I have been informed by George’s work for decades and have known Duluth in relation to his visual art contributions. His work, along with Joe Geshik, deeply speak to me.

The gallery named for George Morrison is a strong testament to how the DAI recognizes the vital importance of the visual arts as everyday life. This ideal is evidenced in the art of the Anishinaabe. I think what makes the DAI most unique is the 110 year commitment to serve the community as an arts center bridging art and life through classes, workshops, exhibitions, professional development, and studio spaces for painters, photographers, ceramic artists, and fiber artists. With so many ways to use the DAI and like the tradition of belonging stemming from the Anishinaabe, we hope each person, in and around the region, gets here to experience the Duluth Art Institute!

* * * *

Thursday evening is the Opening Reception for the 2018 Member Show at the DAI, 5 - 7 p.m. in the Great Hall at the Depot. The art will be on view thru February 23. Join other friends of the arts and see what's been happening in studios around the Northland this past year. Never been? Then you owe it to yourself to check it out. It's always a highlight of the season.

Meantime art goes on all around you. Get into it.

Full House Enriched by Powerful Readings at Beaners Spoken Word Open Mic

Last Thursday I attended the January Spoken Word Open Mic, a monthly event that takes place  at Beaners Central, the 3rd Thursday of every month. Hosted by Tina Higgins Wussow, who weaves a trivia contest throughout the evening, the event features writers and all genres of written work. As further inducement to come, the win is half price on these special nights.

Writers from all kinds come to read, and often there is someone takes the stage who has never read their poems or stories in public before.

When I arrived Thursday the parking lot was jammed, something I'd never seen before for a poetry night. The street parking was also maxed as well,  so it was curious. As it turned out, the mob was gathered for Liz, a candidate for city counsel I believe. But even after the Rally for Liz thinned it was an exceptionally healthy crowd, from the stage to the windows in the other room.

After welcoming everyone, Tina announced that the theme of this month's trivia contest was "wood." During the course of the evening we were asked questions about what state produces the most matchsticks, which state produces the most toothpicks, what country has the longest wooden bridge in the world, what country has the oldest tree, along with questions about beavers and termites. It's multiple choice, so you can guess your answers if totally blanked out.

But the writers present were there to read, and it was an excellent crop, because as many as a half dozen were there as a final practice event in preparation for Gut Instinct, an event in Ashland in which winners of a writing competition were invited to read their stories. So, we were treated to some mighty fine memoir excerpts, stories and poems.

Tom Kanzar read first, sharing a story about an incident in the South Pacific during the Second World War. A typhoon sank a ship and the brave seaman of the Tabor searched for 36 hours to find survivors. Kanzar, a wiry older man, wore a Stetson cocked at an angle and took a Sinatra-esque pose. He said that he sees it as a performance in which the object is to become someone else.

The second reader, David, reads a section from his non-fiction memoir, a memory from the first grade. It began, "The kid that lives next door is the one and only guest who is not a blood relative at your birthday party..." The story segues to an incident in school that pummels you like a volley of punches.

Zomie followed, offering up two whimsically titled poems, Why the World Needs More Georgia (O'Keefe) and After the Endoscopy, After Which You Looked Into My Guts and Found Nothing. This poem was written in an effort to redeem a bad experience, a poem about fortitude in the midst of the system.

I recently produced a piece of flash fiction titled The Gladiator that I wanted to share. When I heard some of the other readers I realized the importance of practicing your work before you read. A little rehearing helps strengthen one's presentation, a lesson I need to remind myself of before my reading.

At least a half dozen readers had come as a warm up for Gut Instinct. The readings included a terrifying first person excerpt from a novel about mountain climbing, about hiding in a crevasse waiting out a storm in a ten day storm with the tensions over tough decisions vividly outlined; a memoir about memories of New Mexico; a piece  about tea and relationships; a wonerful story about teen angst that began, "In the middle of January Willen still hadn't figured out how to talk to girls. Even if he failed, trying was the right thing to do.

As a writer/reader myself, I get impressed by and take pleasure in beautiful sentences, and there were plenty of these Thursday. Chris, who teaches English as a second language at UMD, read an autobiographical piece about a camping trip. The poem converged into this one wonderful line: "And you realize it's this vulnerability you've been searching for all along."

Marie Zhukov of the Lake Superior Writers, shared a powerful non-fiction essay about being mugged and its subsequent events with the intriguing title, Book Signings Can Be Hazardous To Your Health.

A fellow named Kevin shared three short, heartfelt poems: 1. The Lonely Mop Bucket 2. Music of the Universe 3. What Is Art? and a young woman name Cheyenna took the stage for the first time in her life to read a pair of poems as well.

Keynote presenter Jayson Iwen took the stage along with a UMD student, Mollek Adju, who hails from Tripoli in Libya. Dr. Iwen, who teaches at UWS, is himself a writer and poet with experience teaching English and writing. Interestingly, he lived in Beirut from 2004 to 2006 where he organized, publicized and emceed the first postwar public open mic reading series in Lebanon, a series that led to ongoing readings at the Blue Note Café.

For this particular evening Iwen and Adju read from the recently published Lighthouse for the Drowning by Jawdat Fakhreddine. There was a tragic beauty in these poems. Adju read a portion of a section in Arabic and Dr. Iwen read his English translation. There were so many great lines that served as containers for profound thoughts.

The process of translating the work to English was intriguing. A literal word-meaning translation would be produced by his assistant, and then Dr. Iwen would craft this so as to be culturally accurate and parallel to the intent of the writer. The themes reminded me of the longing for homeland expressed in Psalm 137.

This latter portion of the program was so rich that I must save it for another day.

Best to you in the week ahead and cherish it.

Mad Magazine Takes a Poke at Dylan, and Some Additional Dylan-Related Humor

A friend from California sent me this cartoon from a 1967 Mad Magazine. Her friend Andrew from Texas had shared it with her along with a story about being in the car with his mom as a kid in the 60s and reading out loud to her from Mad Magazine. When he read Bob's name, he said "Bob Die-lan" and his mom corrected him.

Evidently when he recently found the cartoon, he passed it along. Andrew was eight at the time and apparently quite precocious. The cartoon remains as funny as ever. To quote my source, "Way to go Mad Magazine!"

Actually, I tried to find more jokes about Dylan, and to be frank most were pretty lame. Primary theme, his mumbling or not being easy to understand, which could be taken more than one way. Here are a few licks c/o JokeBlogger.

I saw Bob Dylan in concert once and I have no memory of it whatsoever. --Glen Tickle

Bonnie Tyler is gonna sing "Total Eclipse of the Heart" to an actual eclipse. Bob Dylan, please start prepping "Talkin World War III Blues." --Adam Nobler

Facebook added a bunch of new gender options. You can now select male, female, or Cate Blanchett as Bob Dylan --Loganerik

Listening to Bob Dylan's "O Come All Ye Faithful" and I would not be at all comfortable putting any money on what language he's singing in. --Amanda Flanagan

If Bob Dylan didn't introduce the Beatles to drugs, they would've just been another boy band with no substance... Get it?...No substance? :) --Adam Scott Waddle

[I thought this was pretty good.] Since everyone has a Bob Dylan impression, I'd say we're all the voice of a generation. --Jonathan Schwartz

* * * *

Related Links
A post from ten years back reminiscing on Mad Magazine 
Jokes Dylan himself has told during concerts over the years: Bob Dylan, the Jokerman
Mad sends a 75th Birthday greeting to the Bard.
A Mad commentary on Dylan's relationship with Mad-ison Avenue.

Meantime, life goes on...