Eden Revisited

I think its time to revise the loss of innocence myth.
The serpent was Steve Jobs.
The Apple was an I Phone.

The Origin of the Name Sowebo

The Origin of the Name Sowebo

It was June of 1985. I was sitting at the butcher block table in the dining room of my apartment at 1316 Hollins Street in Southwest Baltimore. The late spring sunshine was pouring through the tall south facing front windows. I was drinking a cup of light coffee and reading the New York Times (back then an ordinary person could afford to buy it).  There was an article about the unrest in South Africa around the June 16^th anniversary of the Soweto uprising. I had always thought Soweto was an African, Zulu or Bantu name for the city. From the “Times” article I learned that the apartheid government of South Africa had actually in vented the name Soweto. It was an acronym for South West Townships. The article stated that the designation had been given to denigrate the area and deny the residents, many refugees from land seizures, a native name to identify with  I was shockedk that my assumption about the name being African was so, so wrong.  I dropped the paper and sat back in my chair. One of my primary reasons for moving to this neighborhood in Baltimore was to build an integrated artistic community around the café I had opened. All my beliefs and feeling were antithetical to apartheid.  A block to the north of where I sat ran West Baltimore Street, the epicenter of the 1968 Martin Luther King assassination riot in Baltimore. I wanted to prove that art could unite the racially divided neighborhood into a thriving community, a battle spiritually linked to the one being  fought at that moment in Soweto. These communities and the struggle were linked in my mind. Click. SouthWest Townships = SoWeTo — SOthWEst  BaltimOre  = Sowebo. “Sowebo, Sowebo the name is Sowebo!” In time the name caught on. Now that is all that remains of my dreams.

New Spires

New Spires

Up spring loud, white satanic mills,

Upon our rolling verdant hills.

Eagles lie broken on the ground,

But GREEN redemption has been found.