{round, rising from the bottom UP}
to where we ARE!
to where we ARE,
& where we WERE
to where we were
bring me UP
bring me uP
bring me up
{round, rising from the bottom, up}
(04 AUG 09 Santa Clara CA)
for the San Jose Peace Chorale
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
Monday, August 3, 2009
Letter to BBC on Bottled-Water, ctd.
In the week after I sent a 2nd letter to the BBC (see below: Sunday, July 26, 2009 CA: bottled-vs-tap water)
Lede sentence: "Can an ad campaign turn bottled water into the new tobacco?"
Subseq. par.: "Taking a cue from anti-tobacco campaigns, Tappening, a group opposed to bottled water on environmental grounds, has introduced a campaign called 'Lying in Advertizing' that positions bottled water companies as spreading corporate untruths.' ..."The 'lies' in question here are about the source of the bottled water. Eric Yaverbaum, a co-founder of Tappening, charged that some beverage companies did not list the source of their water -- and were using only municipal water." (ctd.)
the NYT broke into print with "Ad assault on bottled water industry." by Stephanie Clifford, reprinted here in the San Jose MERCURY-NEWS, 02 AUG 09, Sunday Business section, p. E2, bottom left.
Lede sentence: "Can an ad campaign turn bottled water into the new tobacco?"
Subseq. par.: "Taking a cue from anti-tobacco campaigns, Tappening, a group opposed to bottled water on environmental grounds, has introduced a campaign called 'Lying in Advertizing' that positions bottled water companies as spreading corporate untruths.' ..."The 'lies' in question here are about the source of the bottled water. Eric Yaverbaum, a co-founder of Tappening, charged that some beverage companies did not list the source of their water -- and were using only municipal water." (ctd.)
Saturday, August 1, 2009
The Farm
A big day today!
The pig gave birth
to ten little piglets,
all pushing each other
to get to her udders.
The fence around the pen
is crowded with hikers
oohing, aahing
& commenting.
-Ginny Zeitman
(01 AUG '09, Santa Clara CA)
vzeitman@earthlink.net
The pig gave birth
to ten little piglets,
all pushing each other
to get to her udders.
The fence around the pen
is crowded with hikers
oohing, aahing
& commenting.
-Ginny Zeitman
(01 AUG '09, Santa Clara CA)
vzeitman@earthlink.net
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Merce Cunningham (1919-2009)
Summaries of Cunningham's life & work connect his companionship with John Cage & @le@toricismo. Not needing any music 2dance2 separates his rapt silence from previous dance.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/28/arts/dance/28cunningham.html?_r=1&em
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/28/arts/dance/28cunningham.html?_r=1&em
Sunday, July 26, 2009
CA: bottled-vs-tap water
To: "BBC World Business Programme"
Date: 26 JULY 09
Thank you for reading my previous letter to you about "butterfly...bee" business-practice. Here's another:
CA bottled-water
Here in CA, as the state economy sinks, local water districts (cf. mine, here in Santa Clara County,) are advertizing on local-TV trying to persuade habitual bottled-water drinkers to return to tap-water, using environmental arguments: bottled-water’s not better, but worse; tap-water costs less, reduces plastic landfill waste. Tap-water's as much a consumer-product as anything else, so they need to sell more of it at whatever price(s) they can, within deliverable limits (e.g., they're also simultaneously encouraging more efficient lawn-watering, suggesting it be done automatically at 5am.) Grand Object: reduce & eliminate bottled-water (like eliminating cigarettes.) (Poem follows:)
"Calivaporating…"
Californians are easily spotted
by bottled-water they carry,
but are being encouraged
to drink tap-water by local
water districts’ finally proving
bottled-water’s not better, but
worse; tap-water also costs less,
reduces plastic landfill waste.
Adios, chica bottled-agua;
you're Calivaporating…
(13 JULY 09, Santa Clara CA) v5
~ Bill Costley, former high-tech marketing writer; lifelong published poet
Date: 26 JULY 09
Thank you for reading my previous letter to you about "butterfly...bee" business-practice. Here's another:
CA bottled-water
Here in CA, as the state economy sinks, local water districts (cf. mine, here in Santa Clara County,) are advertizing on local-TV trying to persuade habitual bottled-water drinkers to return to tap-water, using environmental arguments: bottled-water’s not better, but worse; tap-water costs less, reduces plastic landfill waste. Tap-water's as much a consumer-product as anything else, so they need to sell more of it at whatever price(s) they can, within deliverable limits (e.g., they're also simultaneously encouraging more efficient lawn-watering, suggesting it be done automatically at 5am.) Grand Object: reduce & eliminate bottled-water (like eliminating cigarettes.) (Poem follows:)
"Calivaporating…"
Californians are easily spotted
by bottled-water they carry,
but are being encouraged
to drink tap-water by local
water districts’ finally proving
bottled-water’s not better, but
worse; tap-water also costs less,
reduces plastic landfill waste.
Adios, chica bottled-agua;
you're Calivaporating…
(13 JULY 09, Santa Clara CA) v5
~ Bill Costley, former high-tech marketing writer; lifelong published poet
"Don't float like a butterfly, don't sting like a bee."
Last week, I heard an op-ed on BBC radio (via KQED, S.F.) that proposed a reversion to a less vicious business environment, ending in a negative restatement of the (in)famous Muhammad Ali quote: "Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee." So I popped up, walked to my keyboard in the next room, wrote the following, & e-mailed it to the BBC World Business programme. Tho the BBC didn't reply, Ann Wainwright in Billingham, Teeside, northern England heard from her friend Brian who'd heard it read over that programme @ 3am GMT the next day.
Bottom-line: I'm glad I can still easily do what I used to do (for a tiny PR-shop in Wellesley MA): plink a distant, passing media window of biz.PR-op., but this time, on behalf of myself & social sanity.
RE: the last words: "butterfly...bee."
Monday, July 20, 2009 10:13 PM
From: "Bill Costley"
To: world.business@bbc.co.uk
Here in Silicon Valley CA, I've just been listening to the BBC overnite business programme that ended with the anti-quote: "Don't float like a butterfly, don't sting like a bee" (Muhammad Ali, reversed) That is, act & talk no jive. If that had been the Golden Rule for the past 25+ years, the USA economy might possibly be solvent, or something almost like it. But it sounds nice to hear as I lay me down to sleep in Silicon Valley.
~ Bill Costley, ex high-tech marketing writer
Santa Clara CA 95050 usa
Bottom-line: I'm glad I can still easily do what I used to do (for a tiny PR-shop in Wellesley MA): plink a distant, passing media window of biz.PR-op., but this time, on behalf of myself & social sanity.
RE: the last words: "butterfly...bee."
Monday, July 20, 2009 10:13 PM
From: "Bill Costley"
To: world.business@bbc.co.uk
Here in Silicon Valley CA, I've just been listening to the BBC overnite business programme that ended with the anti-quote: "Don't float like a butterfly, don't sting like a bee" (Muhammad Ali, reversed) That is, act & talk no jive. If that had been the Golden Rule for the past 25+ years, the USA economy might possibly be solvent, or something almost like it. But it sounds nice to hear as I lay me down to sleep in Silicon Valley.
~ Bill Costley, ex high-tech marketing writer
Santa Clara CA 95050 usa
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Remembering Harvard Sq. (Camb MA)
I 1st-visited Harvard Sq. in '58 to buy both a hard-&paper-back copy of William Empson's THE 7 TYPES OF AMBIGUITY for my sr. yr. RC prep-school English teacher, Bro. Kyrin Powers, who'd suggested we read it.
I had my 1st English (Mackeson's London) stout there (at the Wursthaus) with Jeff Gutcheon, Maria Muldaur's pianist, during the Summer of '62 while I was at Harvard Summer School, taking Chaucer's minor poems, still being given by the legendary B.J. Whiting.
Joan & Maya & Alex & I lived in Cambridge (in Central Sq.,) from '64-72, & were, of course, often in Harvard Sq. during what I call The Years of Flame (=the High-'60s)
I was last in Harvard Sq. in '03; while Carolin & I reduced the contents of the Wellesley Sq. apt. to move to CA, I kept bringing all my extraneous poetry books to donate them to the Houghton Library's Woodbury Poetry Room because it was now too poor to buy more (its early-20th c. bequest had become pitifully inadequate by the early-21st c.) Things had changed, even inside Harvard, between 1958-2003.
Once charming Harvard Sq. is now dense with traffic & the MBTA subway goes all the way to Porter Sq. Do people still busk at night in the former COOP (now Barnes & Noble's) 's portico? Sure; I'm told they now even sit begging 24/7.
I had my 1st English (Mackeson's London) stout there (at the Wursthaus) with Jeff Gutcheon, Maria Muldaur's pianist, during the Summer of '62 while I was at Harvard Summer School, taking Chaucer's minor poems, still being given by the legendary B.J. Whiting.
Joan & Maya & Alex & I lived in Cambridge (in Central Sq.,) from '64-72, & were, of course, often in Harvard Sq. during what I call The Years of Flame (=the High-'60s)
I was last in Harvard Sq. in '03; while Carolin & I reduced the contents of the Wellesley Sq. apt. to move to CA, I kept bringing all my extraneous poetry books to donate them to the Houghton Library's Woodbury Poetry Room because it was now too poor to buy more (its early-20th c. bequest had become pitifully inadequate by the early-21st c.) Things had changed, even inside Harvard, between 1958-2003.
Once charming Harvard Sq. is now dense with traffic & the MBTA subway goes all the way to Porter Sq. Do people still busk at night in the former COOP (now Barnes & Noble's) 's portico? Sure; I'm told they now even sit begging 24/7.
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