Lots of Rain for Sam Spade - OR - Are not the Halls of Justice Noisy?

Rain – low hanging clouds rapidly moving eastward – the leaves are turning quickly – green to pale green and yellows to browns with intermittent reds – at the moment it is predominately greens – but it won’t be for long. Rain again today – T-storms 100% chance of precipitation – 56.5 ºF – Light rain mist – humidity: 86% - visibility: 4.0 miles – pressure 17.72 in (rising) – mostly cloudy, 1100ft; mostly cloudy, 1500ft; overcast 2400ft. It rained last night – did the flashing and booming wake you up? Did the rain beating on the siding and the pings of it against the aluminum flue put you to sleep again? Why yes, it did. How did you know?

It’s getting harder every day for a poet / to get a girl to fall in love with him / to run for president / to get credit at the grocery store – Juan Gelman – Unthinkable Tenderness, 1997 p120

The staging of risk is the means by which postmodern man prepares to act – in a world where one thing is as evil as another. Our perception of risk is the means by which we build bridges into the future

When we are born they cut the umbilical cord. When we are exiled nobody cuts the memory, the language, the blood supply. We have to learn to live like bromeliads on air alone – Juan Gelman – Unthinkable Tenderness, 1997 p72

Trivia: The Joker in the Batman comics was inspired by a role played by Conrad Veldt in the movie “The Laughing Man”. Conrad Velt is better remembered for a role he played in the movie “Casablanca” – Major Heinrich Strasser. Play it again Sam!. Velt also played the first gay character written especially for cinema in the 1919 German film “Different From the Others”

Them that travel the byways of compromise is the ones that get lost – Andrew Jackson

The assumption is always that normality will return – disruptions are both temporary and amendable. Continuity will prevail – the future shall be a continuation of the past.

Are all great events as they occur hidden by details, first from the participants and then from us? – John Updike – Memories of the Ford Administration, 1992 p331

To disappear – to be disappeared
      To be made disappeared – to become
      Transparent
Except for in the daylight!
      I see the disappeared
      I feel their shadows at midnight

Remembers get carried away, and history is built on shiftier sands – Updike p339

Back to the Hall of Justice I go along the same route as yesterday. Two days in a row and its already becoming routine. This morning there was the distraction of grade school kids all headed to Davies Symphony Hall. Classes were lined up. You could tell the neighborhood of their school by ethic mix of the schools pupils. Those lined along upper Van Ness were mostly Chinese. Afro-American children queued up facing away from Market St. Uniformed Catholic classes where intermingled among them.

That section of the middle class that knows only that it is secure, has no views, only reflexes and scattered irritations, and sometimes indulges in play – V S Naipaul – The Return of Eva Peron with the Killings in Trinidad, 1981 p31

There is constant commotion in the Hall - voices get raised. Cautionary warnings are issued. Greeting are exchanged. Even as the crowd thins out the hallway remains noisy. It not ever quite, voices reverberate off the stone walls of the long corridors.

You shouldn’t enclose space – Frank Lloyd Wright

The prosecuting attorney has exited the Court Room. The Pubic Defender is standing in front of District 19 Court Room. He having a conversation with a young woman. Are they discussing the possibility of a plead bargain? The prosecutor just went into the Court Room. He come immediately back out. A guy in a black suit and pale green bow ties goes in. Then he comes out. He talks with the prosecutor in the hallway. “Not right now” he says, “But we are going to do it this morning.” He heads towards the stairway and says over his shoulder to the prosecutor “Good Luck”.

Rosalie was on the bus this morning. She is walking back and forth in front of the District 18 Court Room. She was not pushing her pram. Other young parents with a similar pram are also waiting there.
The prosecutor re-enters the court. The hallway is slowly clearing out.

Now it time for the opening statement. Then the testimony of officer Richardson. The surveillance tape from the store is shown. It does not show the suspicious movement of the defendants hands that Officer Richardson had described

We are on recess - the defense got into a shouting match with the judge over his over ruling his objections to prosecutor’s introducing the defendant’s prior criminal record. The judge told the defense that it was he who brought the issue up.

“Why would I have mentioned that I had worked at the store for three years. It was not important to me” - the defendant.

Back at the coffee shop its Tunisia vs. Nigeria in the African Gold Cup semifinals. The game starts at ten. The Tunisia contingency is less than ten souls. Osama has set the tables in an ‘L’ shape in front of the TV so as not to have the game interfere with customer services. Monday’s game had packed the entire coffee shop with Moroccans. Morocco will play Mali next. Everyone is hoping for a Morocco and Tunisia match up.

Ms Santa Claus had not escaped jury duty. I saw her yesterday hanging around outside of District 18 Court. I assumed that she had not come as a spectator.

Laughing in bars till we cried / and crying in movies till we laughed, the tenting tonight in old camp grounds / How beautiful it is / to visit someone for instant coffee – Frank O’Hara – The Collected Poems of, 1994 p268

The tribes are now gathering. There are about twenty soccer fans now. All but five chairs are occupied. There are only two non-soccer fans in the café. The new arrangement of the café confuses the regular male customers. They realize that everything is different. The look around quizzically, trying to figure out what is going on. The place is full of strangers - foreigners, mostly Arab and Black hollering and screaming. Are they having doubts about their safety? Most decide that this may not be the right place for them and try to make a quite retreat. All this takes them about twenty seconds to complete. Women on the other hand are having no such difficulties. They enter proceed through the tangled mass of chairs to the counter and make their intended purchases. Some look around with a “oh, how neat” look and proceed on their was as if nothing was amiss - which is true.

He who knows everything fears nothing - Joseph Goebbels

The public defenders’ assistant slaps the prosecutor on the right should and says “hang tight”. Officer Richardson is standing at the intersection of two halls with an officer in uniform and two other individuals. Another two buff young men stop and shake hands with officer Richardson. One says “congratulations and good luck”. Its now 10:45 and we are still sitting in the hallway. There are three large buff men talking in the hallway – probably a contingency of policemen. The all look like they work out in the gym a lot. They could be fresh from the prison yard but they seem at home here.those who work out in the gym and those who work out in the prison yard). Officer Moody, a former pro-athlete, is scheduled to testify next. Moody is no doubt the big one.

We peer into the future and see you happy and hope it is a sign that we / will be happy too, something to cling to, happiness / the least and best of human attainments – Frank O’Hara – The Collected Poems of, 1994 p267

11:45 - Prosecution and defense rest their cases. Judge Stewart reads the his instructions to the jury. The prosecutor makes a statement that “you must either believe the police or the defendant. You can’t believe both - that is not credible” This statement was a strategic error on his part and not his first.

Control implies not merely putting machinery into motion, but also being able to make it stop… Control means being able to relate a programme of action to the results of that action – Stephen Spender – World Within World, 1974 p285

I’m in the flower market - the fragrant pollen of stillborn voluptuousness blooms across the space - shed upon shed of it. The sheds are only a couple blocks from the Hall of Justice. It’s not the same Hall of Justice where Sam Spade hung about. That site is now a Holiday Inn with a pedestrian bridge to Chinatown.

Let’s advance and change everything, but leave these little oases in / case the heart gets thirsty en route – Frank O’Hara – The Collected Poems of, 1994 p266

The Jury is in deliberation. White males do act as a privileged class - they have an innate sense that institutions are always correct. If he were not guilty he would not be on trail.
They have difficulty accepting narratives from non-authorities narratives. They are inclined to trust the narratives of authorities. This is also true for Chinese males but to a slightly lesser degree, they remain skeptical but willing to listen. But they can only change their opinion as a bloc, not as individuals. A sense of a custodial responsibility for justice finally prevails upon most of us. There is a willingness to suspend judgment of character and motivation of others based solely on station and circumstances.

In being simply honest and straightforward, nothing much happens: he [the writer] speaks for the speakable, where as what we are looking for is the as-yet-unspeakable, the as-yet-unspoken – Barthelme “Not-Knowing”, 1983

Walter has been thinking about yesterday’s newspaper and all of the talk about same sex marriage. He asks “What about us single people, shouldn’t we have the option of same person marriage?” “After all” I add “who do you love the most any way” “It would be a form of same sex marriage” Walter says. “There are a few exceptions” I point out. Then Walter thinks of a big drawback to same person marriage “Divorce could be very painful”. We all agreed with Walter.

Deep in its clamor / enough is too plain / nothing’s like pain / beautiful blue eyes, / You should see only skies – O’Hara p238