movement of c

Okay, so it’s been a while. I’ve been in this funk…just a matter of not having enough calcium, or perhaps enough sleep?

Yesterday, a case of the Mondays. In the words of Arthur Mullen, I served 90 people yesterday. Except instead of serving, I taught 9 classes throughout the day, ranging from 9:30 am until 8:30pm. In a somewhat successful effort to drag myself from the warmth of my cacoon, I woke up Monday morning and went through the usual routine of making coffee and getting ready. I even managed to put some clothes in the wash (the finale of a 24 hour process I had started Sunday afternoon).

When I arrived at the preschool 15 minutes early for my class, I realized I forgot to get the house boombox from Ari, which she took on the retreat she was leading for her students. Since the boombox that came from the company was broken, I had to teach 4 creative movement classes without music. Well, it was creative alright. We sang songs such as Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes (with the untraditional reprise, Eyes, Ears, Mouth and Nose), Itsy Bitsy Spider, and If You’re Happy and You Know It (Clap your Hands), among others.

4 classes in a row singing these songs, please don’t ask. After this marathon of nothing less than sheer ridiculousness I headed over to the JCC for my next order of business, 2 Baby Ballerina classes. I stopped at the Sub Shop to get a chicken salad sandwich, which was so great!

When I teach creative movement I generally dress kind of schleppy. I don’t wear my dance clothes because I’m usually rolling all over a church hall floor that is not very clean. So I had this t-shirt on, one I’ve had for atleast 8 years that has a little baby dawl tiger on it. It’s that soft gray material, the poly-cotton blend. That stuff is the best.

Anyway, when I go to teach ballet at the JCC or dance classes at the studio, I dress nice. I wear leotard and tights, I do my hair, I look presentable. I’ve learned over the past few years that the more put together a dance teacher looks, the more students admire that teacher, and want to keep looking at you when you are demonstrating steps. This is good because it keeps their attention and makes them want to work harder so they can look like you someday. Self-absorbed? Yes. Reliable Method? Heck yeah!

I came in the JCC, grabbed a Jewish Advocate and went in to one of the many secret conference rooms to eat my sandwich. Ahh, peace. A few minutes before my class was starting I headed to the bathroom to change in to my dance clothes, freshen up, etc etc. What’s this? No leotard or tights in my bag! Gosh darn, they’re hanging in the laundry room drying from the previous night’s laundry adventures! I had to teach my two ballet classes in those grungy black pants and that t-shirt which I have been wearing for the past week.

See, I have this obsession of immediately getting as comfortable as possible as soon I get home. I’ve been like this since I can remember. When I was little it was church, then dance, then family gatherings, then anything! No matter if it’s 10am, 2pm, or midnight, the first thing I do is go in my room, change in to sweatpants and some kind of super soft sweater or shirt, and put on new socks. Anyway, the tiger dawl shirt is my favorite shirt to change in to when I get home so let’s just say I wear it a lot and sometimes sleep in it.

So, I looked like a schlepp for my ballet classes. Okay, so I made up for it by teaching them kartwheels, which was super fun. The appearance thing is a big thing for a dance teacher though, it’s an image.

Luckily my last session of classes was in Melrose so I ganked some clothes from my mom and my sisters since we are the dancing family.

On my way home last night I had to return a phone call. The mother of one of my ensemble students called the studio and left a message that she needed to speak with me specifically. Her daughter, let’s call her Raj, is one of my top students but I have been very hard on her this year. She gives me about 80% in terms of her body, she executes steps but doesn’t always complete them with that extra OOMPH that it takes to make a good dancer. And her face is what I call, A Dead Fish .

In dance class a teacher has to come up with code words for things. There’s no time to say, “let me see the energy in your face!”. Instead I say, “Jonny, Dead Fish!”. Just hearing this makes them smile, so really it works like charm. Raj is a seriously Dead Fish and I have been working with her continuously for 2 years at trying to pull this energy out of her upper body.

So, when I heard that her mother called the studio and asked for me to call her back, I was thinking that Raj is unhappy in class because I’ve been so hard on her and I’m going to have to go through this long explanation-teacher-speech thing to her mother. Oy vay. Well, I left a message and she called me back this morning. Her reason for calling is even better than the Dead Fish issue.

Her mother wanted to know if she could miss her two dance classes tonight because it’s her brother’s birthday and they’re having family over the house. Raj was scared to miss because I’ve been cracking the whip in class and telling them that if they’re absent, I’m not taking time to re-teach things and it’s their responsibility to be in class and I need to see 100% from them. ROAR!

Well, I’m not really a mean tiger. I just play one in the studio. I called her mom back and told her that it would be fine, but I’m very glad to hear that Raj is taking class so seriously. If she’s worried about missing material, she can come 10 minutes early next week and my assistant can go over the new choreography with her.

Problem solved. Now, if I could only put some life in the face….

I’ve been thinking about robots for the past, well nevermind for how long. I was pondering the idea of a robot that could have an interchangable face. Like a universal body with some kind of hollographic face plate that could reflect the features of a given person. This robot, if dressed corrected, and with an advanced enough hollogram could take the place of you, me, her, and him in such tasks as going to the bank, picking up cigarettes, and/or getting coffee at the local 7-11.

So I got to thinking. How far are robots from breaching the standard of universals…a transcendance of sorts. What will make them be accepted? What will make humanoid robots be respected? Not how far can they take us, but how far can they go? And certainly, such an advanced state is not necessarily the end-all of robotics. Maybe these robots aren’t for me. I should still go get my own coffee and cigarettes. Maybe they are for, well, themselves. With a little research, I found some interesting philosophical takes on robotics from Masahiro Mori.

Mori is a Japanese robotist whose first book, The Uncanny Valley supports the idea that humans will go through a struggle of emptions in accepting humanoid robots. As robots evolve to look more like humans, people will be more accepting, sympathetic, and positive. On the other hand, if the robot is “practically human”, then the non-human characteristics will be the ones that stand out, leading to a feeling of “strangeness” in the human viewer. For instance, not eating a meal with you, not blinking regularly, etc. etc.

Mori has a wealth of other connecting theories, including the idea that robots are capable of reaching a Buddah-like state. But he is sometimes criticized because he made these claims in the late 1970s. David Hanson, the man who built the humanoid robot face (uuh, of his girlfriend), totally disagrees with Mori. Supposedly he has criticized Mori because human-like robots are “only possible now, and only partially”. Oh if only I had more time to write, because this is getting in to something interesting.

What qualifies a “robot” as human-like? What even defines a human to be human-like? If we take some time to break down these questions and answer them in a rational and essential way, we will find that humanoid robots are not really about the platinum-cured silicone “skin” but about some other things that are certainly possible now, and were founded long before our time.

Ok, I’ve got to take Jonny to his karate class now. Adios!

Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch sudty at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn’t mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.

Last night I was teaching at Center Stage, working with my top tier munchkins. My brother Jonny is 11, and he has grown up in the studio dancing with a group of students who are, to say the least, very advanced for their age. This is the 3rd year in a row that I have been teaching their Ballet and Jazz classes, and these kids have that edge. They just want to get better, and it’s always a pleasure to work with students who have the drive and understanding of what it means to progress in dance.

This year I stepped up the level of their classes a lot. The past couple of years there have been a few different levels mixed in the class, and to play it safe my choreography generally reflected the weaker dancers. I didn’t want to risk having a number look bad in a show, so I made the dances somewhat easier than what the more advanced students could actually handle. This year, the first day of class I gave them “a talk.” Dance teachers, I know you know what this means.

We’ve extended the barre in ballet class to include everything from plies, to frappes, to ronde de jambe en l’aire. Really, their execution of technique has just sky rocketed. Every week we discuss the meaning of pulling the heel forward, and now when they are doing their fondu coupes, I don’t see anymore sickles! (or as anatomists might call it, a supination of the foot).

Supination is ultimately an inversion of the foot, so when a foot is supinated, the sole is rotated medially. This puts strain on the outer muscle of our foreleg, and in dance can both cause cause cramping in the sole and also look very ugly.

This is a supination, see the angle?

Pronation is what we are going for in ballet. When the foot is pronated it is everted so that the sole of the foot is turned laterally and it is fully stretched. Think of it as an extension of the foreleg, as opposed to a branch that sticks off.

Pronation. Doesn’t that look better?

Anyway, that’s my lesson in anatomy for the day. I really want to go back to school for physical therapy, because this stuff just fascinates me. I loved anatomy in high school. All of the terms and just connecting the whole body in a physical sense really aids in awareness of the self, especially as a dancer. And also, I love working with people’s bodies. When I’m teaching these classes that I’ve been talking about, I am literally kneeling on the floor next to their feet and legs, and moving and rotating for them to help them to FEEL the difference between certain technical aspects of dance. Usually once they really feel it, they smile and look at me, as if to say, “I’ve never felt anything like that before!”. I love it!

Choreography is moving along quite smoothly so far, getting ready for this year’s recital in June. This year our theme is “In the News.” My mother and I designed the show to be categorized like sections of the newspaper, so all of our songs fit in to these sections. My classes are spread throughout the show in sections such as “Health and Fitness”, “Classifieds”, “Sports”, “Weather”, and “Current Events.”

Newspapers have been a big part of life, but have slowly grown to dissuade me from reading them. In college I majored in Journalism, and I chose this major even before I was involved in The Student Underground. Then after college I just kind of lost the drive to be writing for a newspaper. I do like reading them sometimes, but I guess it’s all part of my attempt to escape what some call reality and create my own a little bit more. I like writing though, and that’s why I have this blog.

I do appreciate good articles though, and especially would never diss the New York Times for 3 reasons.

1. Ari pays for a weekend subscription of the Times, and I must admit, I like it sometimes.

2. Art might disown me.

3. Sometimes friends get talked about in the NYT, like today!

Yesterday I posted the first section on my paper about Nietzsche, the meaning of life, and the process of overcoming. I’ll recap with the quote from Thus Spoke Zarathustra.

To create itself freedom, and give a holy Nay even unto duty: for that, my brethren, there is need of the lion. To assume the right to new values — that is the most formidable assumption for a load-bearing and reverent spirit. Verily, unto such a spirit it is preying, and the work of a beast of prey. As its holiest, it once loved ‘Thou-shalt’: now is it forced to find illusion and arbitrariness even in the holiest things, that it may capture freedom from its love: the lion is needed for this capture. But tell me, my brethren, what the child can do, which even the lion could not do? Why hath the preying lion still to become a child? (Zarathustra, 84).

The lion has already achieved the act of independence, and says “no” to all outside influences. The final creation out of this achievement is the will to power – to become the overman. Nietzsche believes that to have a creative will is to have freedom. The child represents the most creative of wills because of its brand new potential. There has been no tainting from the outside world, but be assured that it will quickly work its way in to the child’s heart. “Innocence is the child, and forgetfulness, a new beginning, a game, a self-rolling wheel, a first movement, a holy Yea. Aye, for the game of creating, my brethren, there is needed a holy Yea unto life: its own will willeth now the spirit; his own world winneth the world’s outcast” (Zarathustra, 84).

Nietzsche addresses the process of overcoming with these apparently technical aspects, but he does so in a way that relates to history. We master the technical aspects of an art form only by learning the rules and the ways that people have done things in the past. We must participate in the game of creating in order to create. It requires immense plasticity of the mind to push this idea forward, and to break free from the influence of one’s teachers. Progress toward the overman demands a constant struggle, whereupon completion a new self will overcome an old one.

In Upon the Blessed Isles, Zarathustra addresses the men and he tells them that they are not capable of creating the superman. He explains that they may not create life out of nothing, but that they can indeed transform themselves into the superman. This, Zarathustra says, will be their best creation in their life.

In one’s life, there is little that is achievable. The jaded achievements of society mean nothing, and throughout our life, only produce suffering. This is not to say that life is horrible, or even unlivable, but rather that it is a state which is to be overcome. Suffering is life, but life itself is to create. The only true creator of this world is a child-bearer; who once has created, becomes a mother, and I use that word loosely. Zarathustra says, “Creating – that is the great redemption from suffering, and life’s alleviation. But for the creator to be, suffering itself is needed, and much transformation”(Zarathustra, 139).

Nietzsche continues to say that these creators are impermanents. “Thus are ye advocates and justifiers of all things that pass away,” he says. Nietzsche, it seems attributes these great and necessary act of creating to the woman, but continues to use the word “he” in the following passage in an effort to display the child-bearing father, who also has the ability to create and overcome. “For the creator himself to be the new-born child, he must also be willing to be the child-bearer, and endure the prangs of the birth-giver” (Zarathustra, 139). But Nietzsche knows, as all others do, that no man can endure the physicalities of child-bearing. While he insists that life is suffering, he recognizes the pains of childbirth to be brutal in all comparisons. He points beyond the physical, and tends to the mental burdens of creation that only few can understand.

It’s snowing! And aside from a few snow showers in the midst of our late Fall season, this is the first snow of 2006. Today’s snow is so special and daunting that I decided to take the morning off from teaching. Since I gave my 60 day notice (yes, 60) to the company that I am currently running in Boston, it’s been hard to get myself motivated to keep pace. I’m having visions of computer land in the morning, and today that morning is a reality.

The weather channel eats this stuff up, and they love to tell me that it’s going to turn to rain this afternoon. Only 2 degrees colder and we could have been shut down! This winter has been, and will be indoubtedly milder than last year. Last year we had several power outages, and one or two shut-ins, which were to say the least, a blast!

I’m pressed for time and have to get ready for teaching the munchkins how to groove. I’ll leave you with Segment #1 of a short paper I once wrote. It will be published in 4 parts…let’s get philosophical!

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This life. What does it bring us? We are present on this earth for such a finite time, that we are told anything is achievable. Our society has given us the impression that to succeed is to go to college to earn high grades, or secure a job at a corporation to earn a high salary. Our religious institutions have proposed values for humanity to live by, all the time preaching that life is sacred and life is truth. While our life is the only real truth we can grasp, the inner truth comes from understanding the root.

True Life is a mother giving birth. This process is painful, more painful than any process of life. The child, however, is something radically new. It represents the potential of human life as something great. Life, in this sense, is innocent. The child has been exposed to this world for such a finite amount of time that this child is reborn in every moment. Though, Nietzsche would say that all life follows this path. The child represents all life, but does so in a purer sense.

The life of the new child represents existence as a sequence of events, but it is also fragmented. It is, at the same time, continuous and discontinuous. In each moment lies the potential for radical change. However, life as we know it is inherently guilty. The child is put in to a contaminated world, but with each new life there is more potential to overcome such a polluted society.

The child is the result of the final step of overcoming. Of course, this heart-wrenching and noble process can not simply be broken down in to three easy-to-follow steps, however, Nietzsche points out three distinct concepts that occur in the process of overcoming. The Three Metamorphoses describes these three stages. Life means to overcome itself, and to overcome is to create something markedly new. Nietzsche explains this in the third stage of metamorphoses:

To create itself freedom, and give a holy Nay even unto duty: for that, my brethren, there is need of the lion. To assume the right to new values — that is the most formidable assumption for a load-bearing and reverent spirit. Verily, unto such a spirit it is preying, and the work of a beast of prey. As its holiest, it once loved ‘Thou-shalt’: now is it forced to find illusion and arbitrariness even in the holiest things, that it may capture freedom from its love: the lion is needed for this capture. But tell me, my brethren, what the child can do, which even the lion could not do? Why hath the preying lion still to become a child? (Zarathustra, 84).

Tomorrow night is my cousin DJ’s going away party. He’s going to Missouri for Basic Training because he joined the U.S. Army. It’s the first time that someone in my family, in my generation, is going in to the military.

During the last couple of years of high school, and for most of my time in college I was adminantly political. Not in the sense that I ever really did anything, but I had lots of opinions. Wait, let me rephrase that. I had lots of unfounded opinions. What else can I say other than it was a rather typified sense of radicalism, believing in anything non-traditional and really believing that if our country or maybe even our world could implement some of more left-wing lines of thought, then we could really go somewhere.

I remember September 11, 2001. 9/11. I remember being in class, at BU, stunned that I was only half-informed of what had just happened in New York City. The more stunning thing was, I was 50% more informed than most of my classmates. I was living at home with my parents at the time, and walked in to the kitchen for my morning travel mug of coffee. I saw the first plane hit the WTC, and somehow I didn’t get that perturbed. I left the house, but did turn on the radio as soon I got in the car. Every station I turned to had been reporting what was going on. “What is going on?” I asked myself.

I knew what happened, but I wasn’t sure how, why, or what was going to happen next. I wasn’t sure what to think, and in turn I really wasn’t thinking. I saw people running to other people on the street, most with their cell phones in hand. I saw people crying. But I parked my car in the student lot of Comm. Ave and started my 5-minute walk to my Rhetoric class. The scene was similar on the inside. In between classes I made every effort to talk to people, I called my boyfriend who had not heard of anything. He was working in an office in the storage room all morning.

After my Rhetoric class, the students were on the street looking at the sky. The word on the street was that Boston would be next. That day it was said that Osama bin Laden’s neice, who attended BU at the time, was ordered to leave the campus. Wafah Dufour (formerly Wafah bin Laden) was being taken to military headquarters for questioning. It turns out that she was not on campus at all and was in Geneva with her mother during the time of the 9/11 attacks.

That evening I was driving home from school. I had been catching this and that about the attacks all day, and was feeling confused. I remember watching the news that night huddled on the couch with my boyfriend, and my parents upstairs, probably watching the same news. It was so soon after these events that I turned this confusion in to something that I thought was productive at the time. I started researching the ties, the threads, and the reasons why people would attack our country like this. I started putting together a puzzle, and deduced something close to sheer incompassion. I attempted to understand why our country was attacked, and I started to justify those reasons by reacting negatively to what our country stood for.

Not soon after I was knee deep in politics. I guess you could say I jumped on the bandwagon, but didn’t everyone feel like that wanted to do something at that time? The time between that day and the day that the war started in Iraq is blurry. Though I came to understand things so much more clearly over the next few years, I was still trapped in the mindset of anti-Americanism in so many ways.

I remember meeting someone new and hanging out for the first time. He asked me, “Do you like Christmas?” Strange question, I thought. At the time I had such a quick answer. I told him that I liked the time I spent with my family and this and that, but I didn’t like how it is corporatized by our country. From there I remember going off on capitolism and how it’s just terrible. I was angry at our country, but not necessarily because I didn’t like it. I was angry because our government allowed things to go down the way that they did. So from there I started to dislike our government, the people through whom it was comprised, and the people who supported it. I went to the anti-war protests held in Boston, and I even started believing the Palestinean support groups who would stand outside of the Israeli embassy chanting that Sharon was a dictator of some sort.

I watched operation Shock and Awe in Baghdad on every major TV station. The display of fireworks through the eyes of night-vision goggles infuriated me. I felt ignorant, and I felt vulnerable to believe in something that attempted to explain the bad things that were happening in our world. But, as time went on I grew less angry. I tried to educate myself in a more balanced light, and I stopped thinking about politics so much. Still whenever I read stories of soldiers, tally the death count of soldiers in Iraq, or listen to our President speak, I grow a small fireball in my belly.

I’m not an advocate of the war that is still going on, and I don’t believe in what our government tells us half the time. I believe in what I see, and I believe in what I know and this is a lesson that has taken some time in learning. I know that I love my cousin, DJ and I know that he is the first person from my life that has made the choice to serve our country. What I don’t know is where this decision will take him. It’s hard not to connect the idea of the military and the reality that there is a war, or whatever you want to call it in Iraq right now. I know that it’s not going to be over soon though.

Whenever I heard of other people’s decision in joining the military, a part of me that didn’t let itself out always said, “now, why are you gonna go do a thing like that? there’s a war going on! are you crazy?” But when DJ told me about his decision, I didn’t have that thought. I accepted his decision because he is intelligent and he is his own person. He told me that he wants to help people. And I’ve got to say that the way in which he’s going to do it is something much more complicated, and multi-faceted than anything I have done. Respect for the free will is something to keep in mind often, though it can be hard when you feel so connected to something that you wish you had control over it. But if I did have control, I wouldn’t even try to change his mind. DJ, I love you, I’ll miss you and will always think of you. Good luck in Basic Training little cuz.

I call this DJ and DJ…

DJ playing 4-Square with the fam on Easter ‘05. He kicked the munchkin’s butts!

DJ and our cousin Samantha getting krunk at a party. Freshies.

Oh, horror upon horror! the ice opens suddenly…and we are whirling dizzily, in immense concentric circles, round and round the borders of a gigantic amphitheatre, the summit of whose walls is lost in the darkness…But little time will be left me to ponder upon my destiny…we are plunging madly within the grasp of the whirlpool and amid a roaring, and bellowing, and shrieking of ocean and of tempest, the ship is quivering, oh God! and going down.

Whaat??? Yo, on this day in history, nobody in this house was going down! Edgar Allen Poe found this note in a bottle, and coincidentally was born on January 19th, along with the best-dressed man in rock n’ roll history, Robert Palmer (who I never noticed, bears an uncanny resemblance to Arthur Mullen III).

What would we do without you? Happy Birthday man!

And for all of YOU…I summon you to embrace the nuclear era, and join Arthur in his nuclear bunker.

This morning I needed to have a really big cup of coffee. After a long day of dancing, I came home last night only to find out that internet robots have discovered very human-like ways of crossing signals on the internet. Eliot was perplexed, as was I. After reheating Shepard’s Pie from the previous night’s dinner, I ate dinner on my bed, which is my favorite place to eat. Within seconds, I was passed out. Warm in my wooly velvet sweater and sound asleep, I did not dream to my recollection.

I did miss out on my nightly routine of brushing, flossing, rinsing, washing my face and feeling “ready” to rejuvenate in a mere 5 - 8 hours. It’s okay, because I think the fluids in my back are preventing me from functioning correctly right now. I have to listen to my body, and if my body says, “eat Shepard’s pie and pass out”, then that’s exactly what I will proceed to do.

Just to be clear, craving a monstrous cup of coffee within seconds of awakening is not at all rare to me. In fact, it’s all too common. But this morning was even more intense! Maybe my caffeine addiction is no longer just affecting my brain. I think it is slowly moving down my vertebrae, so that when I don’t have enough coffee in my system, it results in empty caffeine pockets in my spinal cord. I believe that the reason I stay so healthy and have a super-human immune system is because coffee is a health drink.

But this morning, my house lost power just as the coffee started to brew! In a frenzy, I cleaned the Turkish espresso maker and leaked gas form the stove so that I could light the a flame with my lighter. What a relief! Luckily, we got our power back around 9:30 am so I still had a milder brew to nurse throughout the morning. And it’s a good thing, because morning is my favorite time of day.

Just less than one year ago, I dreaded the morning. It was hard to wake up, and I never wanted to go to sleep. My, how things have changed. With the emergence of Eliot having a full-time job, and my maternal instinct kicking in, I started waking up early to make a pot of coffee and sometimes pack Eliot a lunch. I also started teaching creative movement to baby munchkins all mornings of the week, driving to places like Newton, Arlington and Brookline. I started to appreciate the quietness of the kitchen, the feeling of emerging from a cacoon that is my bed, and most of all, I started to love the thought of sleep. Sometimes I think about my bed all day, just waiting for that moment when my head hits the pillow and all is right with the world, because tomorrow is a brand new day.

This all points to a general change in my persona that has developed in the past year as well. Generally, I am happy with life. Without considering the ups and downs of a job that I will be leaving in the next 30-days, life has treated me well. I fancy the people in it everyday, and look forward to every interaction that the day holds.

I was talking with an old friend on Sunday night, and we were discussing the pieces of the past that brought us to where we are now. He is somewhat of a pessimist, and has a hard time getting over the more tragic events of life. Of course it’s hard to recover from trauma, from pain, or sadness or anger, but I was telling him that we’ve got to look at where we are now and take the past in stride. I guess it’s more a faith thing, and believing that we got to where we are now for a reason. He made a good point after I told him this though. He said that it’s a lot easier to accept the steps in life that have gotten you to where you are now if you are happy with your current situation. I think that’s completely true, and hearing him say that made me see that I really am happy with where I am now, or else I wouldn’t be piecing together the puzzle in such a faithful way.

I have felt more affected in general lately, realizing the importance of the things that are close to me. My New Year’s resolution was to focus less on minute things that are usually self-absorbed. I’ve got to admit, it hasn’t been a flying success, because sometimes I get very emotional over silly things. But, with enough sleep, enough coffee, and plenty of fluids moving through me while I dance, I think that 2006 is going to be a great year.

In any nonviolent campaign there are four basic steps:

• collection of the facts to determine whether injustices exist.
• negotiation.
• self-purification.
• and direct action.

Memphis, TN :: March 28, 1968
“Poor labor has dignity but you are doing another thing; you are reminding not only Memphis but you are reminding the nation that is it is a crime for people to live in this rich nation and receive starvation wages.”

He planned to start the march and get on the plane but as soon as the march started people started breaking windows and breaking bottles. Lines of black men in black suits lined the streets.

Senator Robert Byrd :: March 29, 1968
“MLK fled the scene, leaving it to others to fix the destructive forces that he helped to create. I hope people will take a new look at this man who gets other people in to trouble, and runs off like a bandit.”

Dr. King :: In response
Q: What your reaction?
“My only reaction is that I did not abandon the march. I have always said that I would not leave a violent demonstration.”

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His determination was to go back, to do it right. He didn’t go out to dinner that night. He went to Juanita Abernathy’s to cook some fish. They watched the news, and his spirit was just sad. He looked like he was burdened down. “We tried to make small talk but everytime we would lift the conversation, you could see him just sink.” He was more distraught than she had ever seen.

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August 1968
They met with young men, they met with the peachers. There was a mass meeting, the workers and him.

“We have an injunction and we are going to court tomorrow morning to fight there illegal unconstitutional action. If this is America, we’ll tell her to be true to what she said on paper. We’ve got some difficult days ahead but it really doesn’t matter for me now because I’ve been to the mountaintop. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life; longevity has its place. But I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will and he’s allowed me go up to the mountain. I was allowed to look over, and I’ve seeeeeen the promise land. I might not get there with you, but I want you to know that we as a people will get to the promise land. So I’m happy tonight, I’m not worried about anything. I’m not fearing any man because mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the lord.”

He stumbled back from the podium and nearly collapsed in to the chairs. A crowd howling, clapping, and falling back to their seats with him, it was over. The next day would be in court for an injunction that only went on to be overturned.

Samuel Billy Myles :: Remembering April 4, 1968
That evening they had a big pillowfight. They stepped out on to the terrace before leaving for dinner. His brother said, “you mght want to go inside and get a topcoat.” Next thing, he was down.

East coast extrordinaire, Senator Robert Kennedy, delivered the public announcement.

Stokley Carmichael :: “The one man in that age who was trying to teach love and passion and mercy. White America killed Dr. King and we declared war on them.”

People in more than 100 cities aorund the world retaliated with revolt and street violence afteir his death.

“It’s not how long you live, but how well you live.”
Martin Luther King Jr.