November Cento: Heard at Red Room XXIV November 19, 2011

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Screams and shouts for the 24th month of Red Room!

Red Room!!

Happy Birthday: Ayesha (27), Leiven (43), Milton (99) and Red Room (2)!!

Red Room!!

You never know who you’re going to see here.
It’s a wonderful place to overcome your fear,

The bench is all yours!

Stop to listen to each other.
We need to learn how to treat each other as well as possible,
Glean the good
Choose to carry that
Without holding onto the pain.
Relinquish the power we have over each other.

Red Room!!

Let’s talk about exchanging value.
The Red Room is exchanging value – I want to talk about that.

Red Room!!

There’s something here for everyone.
Friends help friends.

by Ruth Giordano

Genevieve Murphy – Mental Metamorphosis, November 19, 2011

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Mental Metamorphosis

As we sat there together, under the rainbowed sky of Rokkasho, Japan, in the ceramic studio, mixing clay together, a conversation was initiated that would alter my paradigm of life completely.  It began as a telling of tales, so to speak… of encounters, loves and circumstances of lives past.  It was the sort of conversation you could only have with someone you were connected to at the core of your being… a soul mate, so to speak.  These were topics usually left covered and buried deep within, rarely revealed to anyone, including ourselves.  First he went, sharing several stories of lost loves and the experiences connected with them.  Then, I went.  I began with a surface story, but as the conversation progressed, I began digging deeper and deeper, unveiling my stories of sadness and exposing the emotional scars that accompanied them.  None of this was easy or comfortable, but these were the types of conversations we had.

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Mark Caltonhill – Things Known, November 19, 2011

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Mark Caltonhill’s recent poems are all available on his blog:
www.aviewfromthehill-taiwan.blogspot.com
and earlier than that, are available in his first collection: “Malarkey’s Amusement Park”; NT$220 to Red Roomers)

Things Known

Before he sits to eat, Jesus knows he will be betrayed.
….Copernicus knows the earth is round,
….Darwin knows there is no God,
….Marx knows the working class must liberate itself,
and, eating their TV dinners ten thousand miles apart, Brezhnev and Nixon know the people will believe their lies.
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Nick Herman, November 19, 2011

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What I read can be found here:
http://psychanaut.wordpress.com/2011/10/25/hong-kong-crazy-part-one/

nick hermanSitting on the airport express, the train hardly makes a sound.  We whiz by improbably tall towers while the on-board tv replays clips of business “commentary.”  The question being discussed by the American hosts—why are startups so sexy?  Can Microsoft compete with Facebook and Google at luring young graduates?  Numbers flickers by on the screen like divinity readings.  Crack bones over the fire, read the flickers of stock values rising and falling like an ever spinning roulette.  I look out the window and wonder where I am.

It is quiet, clean, efficient.  No one talks. This is the sound of modernity—sterility, anonymity.   In the American subconscious, there is a romantic idea of making love in the backseat of a convertible.  Can you imagine making love in this commuter train?  If so, you might truly be a master of your surroundings.

for more>>follow the link, above.

Victoria Crowley, November 19, 2011

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One day, a very poor painter decided he was going to paint a masterpiece. There was only one problem. This painter was poor. However poverty was not this painter’s only characteristic. He was also a brilliantly strategic thinker. All his material possessions had been obtained through the execution of some creative plan that didn’t cost him a thing. Remember, this painter was very poor.

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Peter Giordano, November 19, 2011

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nobler suffer slings arrows outrageous opposing heart-ache shocks heir consummation Devoutly wish’d there’s rub shuffled coil respect calamity whips scorns oppressor’s proud contumely pangs despised law’s delay insolence office spurns patient unworthy quietus bare bodkin fardels grunt sweat undiscover’d bourn traveller returns puzzles ills cowards hue resolution sicklied enterprises regard currents turn awry

Cento: Heard at Red Room XXIII: October 2011

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by Ruth Giordano

Shhhh
Learn to listen
When the storm blows through
Unlock your heart
The water’s fine!
Please dive in.
Unblock your mind
We’re nervous because we want to be ourselves.
Say what you really want just because because because because
It’s a chance for all of us to shine
Build a community center
Be a world changer
Anything Goes!
All languages are welcome.
Feast on your life
Sit here. Eat

Why not?

Confrontation by Chiyo Tsai, October 2011

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Confrontation by Chiyo Tsai

recollection from darkness
being fearful around Erben-Ren
as if they can see through me
and find out that i am not one of them

my very blood is contaminated with an inferior race
not too long ago, under their occupation
my people forced to conform and assimilate

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Peter Giordano – A Matter of Life and Death, October 2011

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A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH (also called A STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN) is a film made at the very end of World War II. I’ve been thinking about it because it is a film about hope and love and it was made during one of the most violent times in human history.

For me the film resonates because it’s about the need to connect, the need to open our eyes and see how close we are to each other, to see not only that it’s a small world but it’s a small universe.

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Holly Harrington – Keep doing what you love… in Chinese, October 2011

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Recently, as I was preparing to perform in my first major Chinese stage role with a local theater company, and as I shared snippets of the performance at the past two Red Rooms, I became frustrated after hearing, from a number of people, the following reason for not attending the show:

“Sorry, my Chinese isn’t good enough to understand it.”

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