The road to Big Joy

Center of literary and political activism for many years, City Lights Bookstore anchors the North Beach scene in San Francisco

A white-haired man skateboarding down the street.

A nun with full beard and hairy legs carrying groceries.

A skinny man with tight jeans, a protruding crotch, knee-high leather boots, a leather jacket and leather hat.

An older woman dressed to the nines walking her dog.

Welcome to San Francisco, the city James Broughton called his home. These sights are commonplace here. I’m on the second of three San Francisco Bay Area shoots planned for the film, Big Joy, a documentary about “following your own weird” using the life and work of James Broughton as a lens.

The Beat Museum is home to art, photos, and history of the Beat Movement; Ferlinghetti was its publisher and 'shopkeeper'

You can feel the West Coast fog and smell the sea that were so important to James. You can feel the creative spirit that still lives in places like City Lights Books, the first paperback bookstore in the U.S. (1953), where we interviewed poet and artist Lawrence Ferlinghetti this week. (I can remember his book of poems A Coney Island of the Mind opening whole chambers in my imagination to possibilities of expression when I was in junior high school. What an honor to interview him in his office at age 90!)

With Ferlinghetti in his office above City Lights Books, Charlie Chaplin silhouetted in the window

I’m so glad to be working with veteran film director Eric Slade, who produced an award-winning documentary about Harry Hay, the father of Gay liberation, called Hope Along the Wind.

Eric Slade (right) with Armistead Maupin and his partner Christopher Turner at their home in San Francisco after a great interview on Sunday

We started this odyssey last November, at James’s gravestone in Port Townsend, WA, where his epitaph reads, “Adventure Not Predicament.” Making a film is indeed an adventure for this print journalist.

We were thrilled to get an interview with George Kuchar, underground filmmaker who taught with James at the San Francisco Art Institute in the 1970s

James was the father of West Coast experimental film, having made his first film, “The Potted Psalm,” in 1946. After that, he made 23 films and published 23 books of poetry.

James Broughton is featured in a display on gay and lesbian writers at the San Francisco Public Library (click on photo to read)

I’m making this film -- and creating the Big Joy website -- for several reasons. For one, I loved James. I met him in 1990 at a Radical Faerie gathering, and we became friends and mutual mentors. For another, I thought he was a master of images – words, visuals, music – and nobody under 40, it seems, has ever heard of him.


Plus, there’s his message to filmmakers and poetic livers: “Follow your own weird.” He goes on to explain: “But this doesn’t mean that all you have to do is turn on the camera and express yourself. Just as talking has nothing to do with creating, self-expression has nothing to do with art. ‘Anything goes’ may be therapy but that is only prelude to the shaping of what has been unloosed. For a painter the frame defines the shape of an image. A filmmaker must work within the fixed rectangle of the camera eye. Ideally this limitation focuses his imagination.”

One of many iconic buildings in the North Beach neighborhood, where James once lived and published books and did readings with people like Anais Nin and Michael McClure

So, the film making adventure moves forward. I realize that as executive producer one of my main roles is to raise money – eek! Not one of my favorite things.

So I’m shamelessly asking my friends, family, and admirers of Broughton to dig into their wallets and imaginations to help make this film happen. I’m convinced it will make a difference.

(If you are interested, please e-mail me at ssilha@comcast.net .)

The Beat Museum in North Beach

Gay Pride and beyond

Who ARE those masked superheroes on rollerblades?

I can't believe it's July already. Half of 2009 is over? Well, I've obviously been out creating a website and shooting a film instead of blogging. But summer's here and the time is right for gardening, filming, dreaming, scheming, and connecting with friends. I've marched in two gay pride parades in the past year, after 10 years of inactivity on the pride parade front. Both were astounding. Last September I marched with the Gay Island Gardeners in the first-ever gay pride parade on Salt Spring Island in British Columbia. And Sunday, I marched solo in Seattle's amazing Pride Parade. I was able to hitchhike and march with Rosehedge, the first AIDS hospice in Seattle, and be a beacon/sentry for the ACLU of Washington. The parade on Salt Spring Island was amazingly diverse -- lots of straight allies, a very joyous community feeling.

At the rally/concert after the Salt Spring Island Gay Pride Parade, everybody connected and many danced

Seattle's parade on Sunday was something else. Instead of a small community feel where everybody knew nearly everybody, it was a large community pageant. Tens of thousands of people. Many -- maybe half -- of the floats and contingents were corporate or commercial -- buy this or join that. Maybe that's why many people stayed away. At the same time, there were many longstanding traditions -- Seattle Men's Chorus, Dykes on Bikes, Bailey-Boushay House. And many political issues and candidates.

It was great to march in front of the ACLU, whose chant of "Be Yourself" went well with "Follow Your Own Weird"

Most amazing was the diversity of people: young, old, gay, straight, transgendered, multicolored. The media's power was on display as it's now obviously "cool" to be gay (in the wake of Will & Grace, Ellen, Queer Eye for the Straight Guy)... to display affection, to dance naked in the International Fountain, to show how affirming church congregations can be. And just when you think it's time to move beyond "gay pride" celebrations, you see rampant homophobia play out in schools, organizations, and communities. Yes, we've come a long way... and there's still lots of work to do.

OK, time to check out Big Joy.org!

Birthday Season

Tulips and sidewalks and sun (in Pittsburgh) -- oh my!

This season (as always) is so busy there’s not even time or energy to blog!

Blossoms are popping everywhere and new energy and creativity are in the air, when I’m not exhausted or overwhelmed.

Salmonberry blossoms grace Vashon Island at this time

The demands of Journalism That Matters (I finally got to speak about it at the Green Festival at the end of March), taxes, house/garden maintenance, and ramping up the Big Joy Project have made it difficult to smell the apricot blossoms.

Soundcliff (our house) in spring -- it doesn't get much better!

It’s a good thing I celebrate the entire month of April as my birthday, because the actual day was a disappointment – conference calls all morning, and packing all afternoon. The only delight was a beach walk with Gordon and a fabulous dinner of barbequed lamb, fingerling potatoes, and mustard greens.

But the trip that came next was amazing, and I may have to do several blog entries to do it justice. I flew to Pittsburgh, where my friend Dr. Owen Cantor, a well known dentist and cultural maven, picked me up at the airport. He whisked me to a floating gay gathering known as G2H2 – gay guys’ happy hour – which happens at a different straight bar every month. Then we went to an amazing Turkish restaurant with live music. Pittsburgh is the friendliest big city I’ve been to in a long time; when no tables were available, a group invited us to join them! We had a great time, and by the end of the evening it seemed like we’d known each other for a long time. A woman belly-danced.

The Czechoslavakian room at the University of Pittsburgh's amazing Cathedral of Learning, which dominates the Oakland neighborhood

Just one of many great birthday celebrations -- thanks, Owen, for the amazing time in Pittsburgh. I loved so much about it – the weather, the music, the healing of an industrial city.

And now the celebrations go on – Gordon and I heard Leonard Cohen in concert Thursday night in Seattle, and in early May we’ll witness the Seattle Opera’s production of The Marriage of Figaro.

This is always a busy time – the Open Studio tour in early May, followed by the Youth-Adult Dialogue and Media That Matters at Hollyhock. Whew!

Birth mirth
Easter feaster
Devilish dervish
Gardening fiend
Open to the new sounds
The sounds of reconciliation

Moonrise, Moonset

Amazing pitcher plants at Sarasota's Selby Gardens can catch and devour animals

Hourglass sand on Longboat beach
Slips through toes and memories
Heart pounds as waves burnish shells
And pound sand dollars into dimes

First love flutters when
Sounds of music and surf keep
‘Comin’ back to me’ ...

Florida’s not usually my favorite place, but I just had two great weeks there.

Howard Finberg and Ellyn Angelotti were our hosts and co-convenors at the Poynter Institute

The first week was the Journalism That Matters gathering at the Poynter Institute in St. Petersburg. It was extraordinary in that 85 people from all kinds of media (print, broadcast, online) and educators, authors and activists showed up and participated in a lively inquiry on journalism in the new news ecology.

Mark, Gordon, Helen and her good friend Jackie took a break from looking at Gordon's amazing bells

Then, Gordon and brother Mark flew in and we had a great week with my mother, Helen, at her condo on Longboat Key. The weather couldn’t have been better.

We even got to see my cousin Alice Deck and her husband Jerry -- traveling in their extraordinary mobile home-away-from-home

I was reminded of visiting that same beach as a kid, when the white sand was even whiter and it was easier to find sand dollars on the beach. I recall walking that beach when I was first in love, feeling more alive than I thought possible. Seeing sunsets through palm trees unlike any I’d seen before.

This time, I got to see the full moon rise from Helen’s condo on the east side of the key, and then saw it set while jogging on the beach the next morning. We all got a little sunburned, the kind that itches and feels good.

Mark and I had a ball swimming in the Gulf of Mexico on Longboat Key

It reminds me how important it is to spend time in nature every day, and how important it is to take breaks from our usual routines.

And despite some dismal economic news, I feel more hopeful about the future of journalism and the future of the U.S. given current leadership. It’s ironic, though, how complex new stories are emerging (not just in Washington) and mainstream media still for the most part don’t get it. They continue to try to polarize, oversimplify, and cover everything like a horserace. It’s a good thing there’s a new ecosystem of news.

The censored invocation

Before coffee this morning, the almost ex-President hosted the new one! Photo from CNN.

Today is the first day since the Iraq War started in 2003 that I am wearing no black. It's a great day in America. Even Karl Rove says so, now that he's a Fox News commentator. We're watching Fox on TV and Democracy Now online. It's a good balance.

Some say they're shocked that Bush didn't pardon Scooter Libby or Ted Stevens... yet. Here, since it was omitted by NPR, HBO, and others who broadcast Sunday's inaugural kickoff concert and event, is the invocation delivered by Bishop Gene Robinson, the openly gay Episcopal bishop.

Bishop Robinson at the Lincoln Memorial. Photo from USA Today.

Opening Inaugural Event
Lincoln Memorial, Washington, DC
January 18, 2009
Delivered by the Right Reverend V. Gene Robinson:

"Welcome to Washington! The fun is about to begin, but first, please join me in pausing for a moment, to ask God's blessing upon our nation and our next president.

O God of our many understandings, we pray that you will:

• Bless us with tears -- for a world in which over a billion people exist on less than a dollar a day, where young women from many lands are beaten and raped for wanting an education, and thousands die daily from malnutrition, malaria, and AIDS.
• Bless us with anger -- at discrimination, at home and abroad, against refugees and immigrants, women, people of color, gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.
• Bless us with discomfort -- at the easy, simplistic "answers" we've preferred to hear from our politicians, instead of the truth, about ourselves and the world, which we need to face if we are going to rise to the challenges of the future.
• Bless us with patience -- and the knowledge that none of what ails us will be "fixed" anytime soon, and the understanding that our new president is a human being, not a messiah.
• Bless us with humility -- open to understanding that our own needs must always be balanced with those of the world.
• Bless us with freedom from mere tolerance -- replacing it with a genuine respect and warm embrace of our differences, and an understanding that in our diversity, we are stronger.
• Bless us with compassion and generosity -- remembering that every religion's God judges us by the way we care for the most vulnerable in the human community, whether across town or across the world.

And God, we give you thanks for your child Barack, as he assumes the office of President of the United States.

Give him wisdom beyond his years, and inspire him with Lincoln's reconciling leadership style, President Kennedy's ability to enlist our best efforts, and Dr. King's dream of a nation for ALL the people.

Give him a quiet heart, for our Ship of State needs a steady, calm captain in these times.

Give him stirring words, for we will need to be inspired and motivated to make the personal and common sacrifices necessary to facing the challenges ahead. Make him color-blind, reminding him of his own words that under his leadership, there will be neither red nor blue states, but the United States.

Help him remember his own oppression as a minority, drawing on that experience of discrimination, that he might seek to change the lives of those who are still its victims.

Give him the strength to find family time and privacy, and help him remember that even though he is president, a father only gets one shot at his daughters' childhoods. And please, God, keep him safe. We know we ask too much of our presidents, and we're asking FAR too much of this one. We know the risk he and his wife are taking for all of us, and we implore you, O good and great God, to keep him safe.

Hold him in the palm of your hand -- that he might do the work we have called him to do, that he might find joy in this impossible calling, and that in the end, he might lead us as a nation to a place of integrity, prosperity and peace.

AMEN."

New Years Evolution

Poetry stenciled on the window at the Lewis & Clark Interpretive Center on the Long Beach Peninsula

Forget what I might resolve
It's more prescient to evolve
What's giving me labor pains? What's rotting my fetid brain?
Look -- look out over the sea
Fierce blanket of blue-green fudge
Roiling tides of question marks
Thick crashing expletives
Do a downward dog --
Look between your legs
Say goodbye to lies and hate
Leave them back in '008
Say hello to mystery
Open lines of conversation
Ask questions of the moon ...

I'm standing with Malcolm Dorn as my scarf whips in the chilly wind on Long Beach

Indeed, it helps to go to the sea when things seem murky. The constant crashing, the negative ions, the tidal motions – the inside’s out. You move through different states of consciousness more easily. Perfect for this particular new year, which feels in many ways like the beginning of the 21st Century.

Clearly, the 20th Century was amazing – incredible inventions, horrible wars, great art, horrible and wonderful movies, astounding progress in civil rights in many places. It was the century of exponential growth. And that, in 20/20 hindsight, didn’t work. The Club of Rome was right. There ARE limits to growth, and other things. The planet is showing us now with its pains and strains, its new extremes. Unchecked greed kills (thanks, Cheney et al).

So now, where? Fortunately, we have a new leader who does not have all the answers. He sees the complexity of it all, and welcomes everyone’s ideas. And the Internet provides a way (albeit imperfect) for us to have more global conversations.

Parker Lindner's beautiful new house in Ocean Park sits beside the 12 x 14-foot beach cabin where she escaped for 20 years

Seven of us danced in the new year with 10 dozen oysters, champagne, and a beautiful new house to christen at Ocean Park on Washington’s Long Beach Peninsula.

The oysters from Oysterville -- just of few of the many we shucked and sucked

We enjoyed group-facilitated yoga, stories by the fire, 8-handed massage, and underwear fashion shows. Four of us made timelines of our lives, through 2040 (we’re still working on parts of those).

Inaugurating Parker and Ann's new house with New Year's Dancing: Gordon, Malcolm, Parker, Collin, Tuti (from Hawaii)

We walked back in time at the amazing village of Oysterville (where we actually bought 12 dozen oysters and two oyster knives). In the church there, Malcolm played the piano and we waited for someone to light the gas lights. (Nobody did, so we enjoyed the dark.)

The Fresnel lens which used to send beacon 20 miles out to sea from Cape Disappointment has been replaced by a weaker, electronic light.

Gordon and I stopped by the Lewis & Clark Interpretive Center, where they ended their expedition with a wet, wet winter and Maia Lin has created some stops on the Confluence Project.

In fact, our time on the coast was also wet and windy, but that didn’t keep us from beach walks, beach runs, and amazing times together. What a great way to enter this new time.

We left a snowy scene at home, but by the time we returned it was gone. Happy New Era!

A gift from the heart: The golden keychain

With Ilka in Salzburg, Austria, in 1983 (Photo by Robert Huber)

“The key is in the light at the window.” It was engraved on the back of a golden pocket watch that had been made into a keychain.

This is the gift I most cherish. An idea that keeps me sane in times of insanity.

The real gift was the friend who gave it to me, Ilka Chwatal -- a surprising figure in my life, a woman who loved aphorisms and spouted poetry without thinking. (She died in a kitchen fire in 2001.)

When I went to live in Vienna, Austria for a year working with the United Nations, a friend of a friend wrote a letter of introduction to her sister-in-law, Ilka. I called Ilka when I got there, and she immediately invited me for a tour of the city. She and her husband Peter drove me around, then invited me to their house, a modest apartment in the working-class 20th district.

I felt instantly at home. We became family. Ilka and Peter took me under their wing, introduced me to Austrian culture and cooking (Ilka made a mean Cordon Bleu – a Wiener Schnitzel stuffed with ham and cheese), took me on trips around Austria, Germany and Czechoslavakia.

When friends visited Vienna, Ilka always rolled out the red carpet and treated them like they were friends of the family.

My family also adopted her and Peter. When they visited the U.S., they stayed with members of our extended family across the country. I drove them once from Minneapolis to Seattle on a memorable trip that included the Corn Palace in Mitchell, S.D., rainbows in the Black Hills, Mt. Rushmore and Geronimo, Western museums in Cody, Wyoming (“a thousand Winchesters!”), geysers, elk and buffalo at Yellowstone, and even the squalor of the Spokane Indian Reservation. When they saw the open expanse of I-90 sprawling as far as the eye could see, they gasped, in German, “Oh, what a huge street!” They loved Vashon.

The last time I saw Ilka was in northern Italy in 2000. Her husband Peter has visited recently

They taught me to love opera, which I’d always shrugged over before living in Vienna. Their favorite opera, Beethoven’s Fidelio, they’d seen scores of times.

After Ilka died, I invited Peter to the Seattle Opera production of Fidelio. We cried together as we wished Ilka were there. And then I saw the light. It’s in the window of my heart. “The key is in the light at the window.” I knew she was there.

(A version of this article appeared in the Vashon Island Beachcomber, December 2008.)