Tribute to Akilah Oliver, April 8, 2011

Last month, the poet, teacher, performer, activist, mother, sister, and friend to so many, Akilah Oliver (1961-2011), admired, respected and beloved by many in the poetry community, passed away suddenly. (I wrote up a little tribute, but have not yet posted it, so that's coming.) For many this has been great loss of an important and energizing creative spirit who died far too young. This Friday, April 8, 2011, in Chicago, the Midwest Naropa Writers and Red Rover Series are co-presenting A Toast in Your House: a memorial reading to celebrate the life & work of Akilah Oliver.

Here's the info. If you can come and celebrate her life and work, want to hear her poetry, and support the engagement with art and life that she represented, please do.

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A Tribute to Akilah Oliver

FRIDAY, APRIL 8th
8-10pm

A Toast in Your House:
a memorial reading to celebrate
the life & work of Akilah Oliver

Featuring:
Adrienne Dodt
Krista Franklin
Jenny Henry
Jennifer Karmin + dancer J’Sun Howard
John Keene
Kevin Kilroy
Marie Larson
Todd McCarty
Marissa Perel

Hosted by Rebecca George
& Luis Humberto Valadez

at Outer Space Studio
1474 N. Milwaukee Ave
Chicago, IL

logistics --
near CTA Damen blue line
third floor walk up
not wheelchair accessible

$4 suggested donation
All funds will be donated to assist the Oliver family with the costs
associated with Akliah’s departure and to keep her work alive!

Co-presented by the Midwest Naropa Writers & Red Rover Series
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/redroverseries

AKILAH OLIVER was a poet, a dedicated teacher, and an inspiration to the lives she touched. Her books include An Arriving Guard of Angels, Thusly Coming to Greet (Farfalla, McMillan & Parrish, 2004), The Putterer’s Notebook (Belladonna, 2006), a(A)ugust (Yo-Yo Labs, 2007), and A Toast In The House of Friends (Coffee House, 2009).  She taught poetry in New York at The New School, Pratt Institute and The Poetry Project. She also taught at Naropa University’s Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics, http://www.akilaholiver.com.

This Might Explain The Applause

So, we all know that the "memorial" service for the victims of the shootings down there in Arizona was a bit weird. That is, if you consider a pep-rally-esque atmosphere "weird". If you think it's perfectly normal to yell and scream and print up T-shirts and bring signage to a memorial service, then you probably have no idea what I'm talking about. But considering that you're reading this blog, you most likely do not think that is normal and think that those who behaved in such a fashion are tools to the nth degree. Do you think that whole deal could get any worse? If you didn't, you might want to sit down because it kind of did.

My utmost thanks must go to Ima Wurdibitsch of The Wordy Bitch. (I highly suggest that you check out her blog. She's hilarious. I would like to have a beer with her. I would like to have several beers with her. She's that entertaining. But now I sound like a stalker. Hmm. Oh, well. Nothing new.) For it is Ima who informed me of a possible reason why there was so much cheering and carrying on at the memorial service. She directed me to a post over at something called Gateway Pundit. It is there where Robert Gibbs was quoted as saying, "I will say that I read the speech several times and thought that there wouldn’t be a lot of applause if any. I think many of us thought that. But I think there was a celebration, again, of the lives of those who had been impacted. Not just at that grocery store but throughout the country. And I think that, if that is part of the healing process, then that’s a good thing."

Before I continue, just let me say how idiotic that statement sounds. Were any of the family members of those who were killed "celebrating" that day? I'm just going to guess that they were not. I saw pictures of them from throughout the ceremony and they did not look happy. They certainly didn't look like the softheads in the stands who acted like the University of Arizona just won the Rose Bowl or something. And I don't know what part of Robert Gibbs's "healing process" involves shouting and yelling and screaming and clapping, but I don't think I agree with him that it is "a good thing". It's a disrespectful thing. It's an inappropriate thing. It's a lot of things, but I don't think that I would say that good is one of them.

Back to Gateway Pundit. After the quote from Gibbs, they write: "Oh really?Then why was it printed on the Jumbotron?" Wait. What now? Behold!

Good Lord. What in the world is wrong with people? Were they really asking for applause there? It certainly looks like they were. Now, I suppose that it could have been a closed-captioning thing for the hearing impaired. I suppose. (Granted, I'm not sure that would have been necessary, as anyone in that building, hearing impaired or not, would have known that the place was going bat-S.) But it really looks like they were asking for applause. I have no idea which one it was, but given as how President Barry did not ONCE ask for people to be respectful and pipe down, it would seem to be a logical jump that it was being asked for.

Whatever the reason, it doesn't look good no matter how you look at it. It doesn't look good if they asked for applause. And it also doesn't look good that they didn't tell people to stop applauding. (It also didn't look good that they handed out T-shirts with a freaking slogan on them. Not to mention that it was a slogan that had nothing to do with remembrance, healing or memorializing. Nothing. Who hands out T-shirts at a memorial for dead people?) President Barry's crew needs to step it up a bit in whatever way that they should have. It never should have happened the way that it did.

The Memorial Debacle

Yesterday, there was a pep rally memorial service for the victims of the shooting down in Arizona. I've gotta say that I have never seen a memorial service quite like that one. And I think I'm glad that's the case. It was, um, odd from the get go. I didn't think that you would need to remind people at a memorial service that they were there because people had died, but that might not have been such a bad idea yesterday. Seriously, who are you people?

I should have known something was not quite right when I saw the picture below that my friend Scott had posted on his Facebook page. Let's take a look.

Now, Scott didn't caption this or anything, so I was left to my own devices (which are few and far between these days) to figure out what in the world was going on. It appeared that they were getting ready for some sort of a sporting event by putting a T-shirt on each and every chair in the arena. Nope, turns out that they were getting ready for the memorial by putting a T-shirt on each and every chair in the arena. Because nothing says "We're in mourning" like a new shirt to commemorate the event. I knew that group T-shirts were popular for large family reunions, but here's to hoping that they never catch on for memorial services.

The place was packed. I mean packed. And while that surprised me, what surprised me even more was the number of cell phone cameras and regular cameras that people kept holding up to take pictures. It was beyond odd. I've been to a fair number of memorial services and I've definitely been to more than my share of funerals (it's what happens when you grow up in a family full of oldsters) and while I don't remember them all, I am fairly confident in saying that there was NO photography going on at any of them. NONE. I am also fairly confident in saying that if someone had tried to take pictures at either sort of service, one of the family members of the deceased would have either knocked the camera out of the moron's hand or just simply attacked the moron. There's no guarantee that it wouldn't have been both, but there is a guarantee that it would have been one of those.

Who does that? I don't care who you are or what the circumstance is, who does that? Who takes pictures at a memorial? I don't think that I'm alone in thinking that it is incredibly disrespectful, but if I had been in attendance, I obviously would have been in the vast minority that thought so. But if you think that taking pictures at a memorial was bad, allow me to show you that some folks thought that it was perfectly fine to bring signs to the memorial. Behold!

And then there was President Barry. I'm not blaming him for any of what went on when he was talking. He looked very uncomfortable when he walked out to speak at the memorial for several deceased individuals including a 9-year old little girl as the place went completely bonkers. People were clapping and cheering and taking pictures and hollering. It was the weirdest thing that I think I have seen in a long time. It wasn't a sporting event, you dimwits! It was a memorial! Who gives a fat rat's ass if it's President Barry coming out to speak? You don't clap and cheer! What part of that don't you understand?! He wasn't campaigning! You people were supposed to be mourning! You people were supposed to be in need of healing! You people were supposed to be aware of the circumstances that brought you to the place where the President would be speaking to you! And yet in spite of all of the things that you were supposed to be aware of, y'all still acted like a bunch of idiots. It was disgraceful is what it was.

And while I don't think that it was President Barry's "fault", I am a little bit surprised that he didn't at least frigging say something to address the inappropriate behavior by most of the crowd. I don't think that it would have been out of line at all for him to have said something to the effect of "Thank you, but let's remember that we're here to pay our respects to those who lost their lives the other day and I think it would be better if all applause was held during this ceremony for mourning." And I can't imagine why he wouldn't have said something. He did look uncomfortable, I'll give him that. But I guess that maybe it stroked his ego more than it make him feel kind of oogey.

I put a lot of thought into how I felt about this whole ordeal. At first, I was conflicted in the sense that there are some people who do not want their funeral or their wake or their memorial or whatever it is to be a somber occasion. Had that been the case in this instance, I suppose that all of the cheering (no matter how odd it may have seemed) would not have come across as reprehensible. But that wasn't the case. The people who were there who lost their family members were distraught. I don't know that I would have been able to contain myself if I had been one of them when the cheers erupted from the stands. I think I would have had to leave because I would have felt that those who were cheering were not there for the same reason that I was there and that I was clearly outnumbered. And I don't think that I would have been able to stomach being in a room with a bunch of softheads trying to get a good picture of President Barry on their cell phones while I was still completely devastated at the loss of my loved one.

I wish I could explain what in the world went on in there, but I can't. I'd really like to be able to ask those that were cheering what in the world they were cheering for and why on earth they felt it appropriate to do so in the given venue. Since it seemed to be a sporting event-like atmosphere that most of those in attendance wanted it to be like, maybe they shouldn't have put a T-shirt over every chair and instead put them inside one of the T-shirt cannons that they use at NBA games and give everyone their shirt that way. Then they could have a big wildcat mascot or something come out and do a little dance. And don't forget to send out a bunch of concessions vendors so that folks don't get hungry or parched during a memorial service. Good Lord, people. Seriously, what in the world is wrong with you? Throughout this entire ordeal it has seemed as if people's perspectives have been completely skewed. And sadly, the memorial debacle was no exception.

Focus, people! FO-CUS! For cryin' out loud...