The much-hyped London weekend has come and gone, leaving me with a lighter wallet and loads of empty calories. I was once again entertained by Mr. Gary Barker and his lovely ladyfriend, though I joined this time by some American compatriots. Benny "Bach" Martinson was there, along with crowds from Leeds and Bristol and Kevin, a new-ish Cardiff companion. Nothing spectacular to spew forth about London weekend. I can say it was fun. I can say that.
On yet another lead obtained from watching the walls of Bute Library for fliers I ended up at a recitation of some Eco Poetry tonight, courtesy of Susan Richardson. Throughout the duration of the talk it was clear that Susan has a great passion for things Environmental, and I wondered for a bit how this would fit in with her poetry. Actually, it worked quite well. She read in beat-like fashion - very stacatto, very exaggerated - about melting penguins, ice caps and relocated Icelandic families. Here book is called "Creatures of the Intertidal Zone." I didn't get my own copy, but it's worth checking out, if the selections she presented are any indication.
After poems and questions were through, I made the initial mistake of try to find my way out of the main building without assistance. I got down two hallways before I realized that I a) didn't know what the hell I was doing b) was surrounded by threateningly important science equiptment and c) didn't want to spend the night hopelessly wandering the halls. This is a very big, very old looking building. I'm sure there are ghosts.
Making my way back to the room to pick up a sherpa, I ran into Chris, who immediately guessed why i was walking back toward the lecture hall. I was lucky to run into this guy not only because he provided me with an escape route, but also because he shared with me an interest in a group of people we had heard mentioned in passing who were very intentionally spending the night in the main building.
Like so many other colleges and universities in the world this week, Cardiff has its own occupation. the goals of this group is to get the university to divest not only from stocks within or in support of the weapons industry, but also to bring attention to the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. In the lecure hall I saw some familiar faces from the Guantanamo Forum (one of whom, I believe, was the guy who filled me in on some stuff I omitted in my rant on that subject - thanks, man!) and got a welcome earful of information on the kinds of things that have been going on. What was most notable to me was that their actions had already yielded not only praise from numerous local groups (and Noam Chomsky) but that they had also managed to convince the administration to sell some of the questionable stocks. I would go on at greater detail about the kinds of events they've been putting on - dialogues, debates, lectures, video-links to Palestinian students - but I was only there for a brief few minutes. While I was happy that students not unlike myself were causing some progressive motion, I will say that there are probably few stranger feelings than walking out of an occupation after 20 minutes or so of conversation. I've got my escuses for not taking a fuller part (phone calls, reading, the prospect of deportation is I miss too many things, etc.) but certainly not unique in that I've got other things going on; these guys are missing their fair of engagements as well, I'm sure.
All said, the best I can do at present is to talk about it and encourage people I know to read about what's going on and, if they are so moved, to do something about it all.
On a totally apolitical note (there aren't many of those in this blog, are there?) I've been on a Byrds binge. So it's been a pretty good day, all and all.
Later dudez.
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