Strange Days In A Small College Town
Oct 22,2001 during the bombing of Afghanstan.
My name is Bodhi, and I'm an outside peace agitator. I arrived at an upstate N.Y. Ivy League college town weeks ago in order to protest the U.S. bombing in Afghanstan. I've since become involved in the local community peace group in town which is made up of mostly middle-aged, middle-class, lefty college professors who seem more content in boring their students with their dull and repetitive rhetoric every day in class than sticking their necks out for Peace. We've held weekly peace demonstrations designed to not offend anyone and as a result we've received little notice in the local newspaper. My most effective action for peace to date here is standing at intersections with an anti-war sign flashing the peace symbol at the passing traffic...
Life goes on in a small college town.....
Then last week something very bizarre happened.
Until recently Dewitt Park held nightly candle light vigils against the war in Afghanstan. As the bombing progressed so did the number of concerned people that attended the nightly vigils. Then the cops closed us down and removed all the candles and peace signs from the park. Several days later while walking thru the park I came upon a large art sculpture built on the same spot where the peace vigils were once held. This sculpture appeared suddenly and without warning. Entitled "Sept 12" it was created by a mysterious artist named Bill Keokosky and represented a graphic re-creation of the wreakage and destruction found at "Ground Zero." The sculpture is described in the local paper as "four tons of mangled steel girders and car parts, stone rubble, and photos of the WTC wreckage." The sculpture's "three mangled, rusted beams hold three large steel panels that display panoramic images representing the various views of the World Trade Center as seen by rescue workers at the site." Local resident Rupert Robbins is quoted as saying of the art piece,"It's pretty chilling and really stark. I feel like i'm watching the plane barrel into the building all over again." Sasha Schumyatsky, another local resident, has this to say, "It makes the scope of what happened more realistic that what we see on T.V. because it's so much larger." Scott Pobiner, a high school student said, "It is very chilling. Seeing it gives me the creeps."
This ugly post-modern, post-apocalyptic, "art piece" is intended to honor the fallen firemen who died Sept 11, but it's horrifying, graphic nature seems intended to evoke hate, fear, and support for our current war instead. The creator of this sculpture, Bill Keokosky, is not a local artist and no-one i've talked to seems to know where he came from - or why he's here in town. (This is beginning to sound like a Stephen King novel!)
Reaction from the locals so far has been pretty intense. Folks enjoying a quiet stroll in the park have come upon this sculpture and have left either in tears or muttering hate filled statements. Arguments and fights have broken out around this art piece, and insane behavior have been reported occurring in the park late at night. In the mist of all this hate and madness the Artist stands all day next to his art piece. Grey haired and casually dressed in an open neck suit, his calm demenor and slight European accent cast him in a very sinister light.
The newspaper article below will describe how the peaceful bodhisattva (yours truly) encounters the Artist and how everything is then plunged into madness and chaos, violence and fear, as this small town enters into the heart of darkness.
---------
From the Ithaca Journal Oct 24,2001
Headline:
"BLOODY CROSSROADS OF ART AND POLITICS."
by Michael Serino/Another Voice.
"Last Sunday afternoon, Dewitt Park had all the elements of an ideal fall day:bright sunshine, crisp autumn air, and one man dragging another across the ground by his shirt collar.
"Stop, you're choking him!" screamed a high school student in the park distributing free food for the Food Not Bombs program.
"Let him go!"
The man doing the dragging hauled the other to his feet and began pulling him out of the park. A small group attempted to seperate them.
"Violence is not the answer," yelled one.
"Leave him alone," shouted the others.
The conflict between artist Bill Keokosky and political activist "Bodhi" had come to a head. Keokosky, a local contractor and artist, is the creator of "Sept 12," the controversial memorial to the World Trade Center victims and rescue workers on exhibit in the Park - at least until the First Presbyterian Church, the park's owner, boots it out at the end of the week. Bodhi, as his friends refer to him ("It's his Buddhist name")is an itinerant political activist, recently arrived in Ithaca from the West Coast. You may have noticed him at the concluding ceremony at the Apple Harvest Festival. He was the tall, bearded fellow standing at the side of the pavilion, wearing a sign reading "Our Grief is Not a Cry for War," a large American flag patched with wide strips of gray duct tape wrapped around his back like a cape. Keokosky's installation is a powerful evocation of the terrorist
attack. Three twisted steel beams rise from a triangular base filled with broken rubble. Mounted on those beams are six panoramic photographs of rescuers at work in the trade center wreckage. Keokosky was one of the many volunteers on the scene.
"I felt like I was part of something where the best of American society surfaces," he said. "That's the total picture we were suppose to show." "We" refers to the close to 20 people who helped execute and install the work early last week. "We all knew it was going to be provocative," he said. And it was. Several residents have complained that displaying such a work in a public place is too upsetting to children and have asked that it be removed.
Bodhi was more upset with the piece than most, but for a different reason. For him it was a piece of "war propaganda." "It's very visceral," he said Saturday. "It reaches out and it grabs you. It's a postmodern, apocalyptic art sculpture." His interpretation of the piece is the opposite of the artist's. "We're seeing destruction," he said. "There is nothing living in it; there is nothing to promote the goodness of humanity." In protest, last Tuesday Bodhi attached an "Our Grief is Not a Cry for War" flier to one of the photographs with a wide swath of tape. Keokosky removed the poster, but Bodhi replaced it. This happened on more than once, and on one occasion a flier was attached with glue. Eventually there was damage to the photographs, and Keokosky felt action was necessary.
So he had Bodhi arrested.
When the case was heard Saturday morning, Bodhi was ordered by the judge to stay at least 25 feet away from the artwork, and from Keokosky.
Which brought him back to the park Saturday afternoon.
"Seeing as how I felt the restraining order was illegal and an infringement on my free speech, I intentionally ran over while Keokosky was there and placed my hand on the sculpture to protect my free speech," he said. He wanted a reaction and he got one. Keokosky decided to move him away before the work could be damaged again. He regrets it now. "I'm not a hot-headed guy," he said. As things played out, Keokosky eventually let go of choking Bodhi and left the park. The police arrived and ascertained that Bodhi was unharmed. They later arrested him again when Keokosky filed additional charges. Bodhi declined to file any charges of his own. Keokosky, whose installations of the version of "Sept 12" in Philadelphia's 30th Street Station and Baltimore's Pennsylvania Station over the past month have received many favorable reviews, said that, between Bodhi's actions and the negotiations with the city and the church over the display of his sculpture, he has had it. He is at work on a new project. He's not certain where he will show it, other than that "it won't be in Ithaca."
------
Oct 30,2001
As many of you may already know from reading my piece "Strange Days In a Small College Town," I am currently involved in a very controversal peace protest here in the town of Ithaca, N.Y. As a result of standing up for my constitutional rights of free speech, I have been beaten, arrested and threatened by members of the Ithaca establishment (ie: business owners, City Hall, The Police Department). I have been charged with harrassment, violation of a restraining order, resisting arrest and having a dog on the Commons. Everyday in the local newspaper, radio, and television my name has been defamed with the worst kind of "yellow journalism" imaginable. I've had the cops in this town threaten me with a "late night beating at the police station" - actual quote - and a not so nice request to leave town.
Friends I have known for years and were staying with in town began receiving late night phone calls threating their lives unless I leave. So now I am sleeping with my dog in an all-night laundry mat waiting for the cops to give me my late night beating and escort out of town. But I'm tough and I'm not leaving and will sleep on the sidewalk in the middle of winter if I have too.
All this insanity started because I spoke out against the War.
Now I'm forced to hire lawyers in order to defend myself in court or else face at least a year in jail. None of the lawyers in this town want to take my case and the public defenders cannot be trusted. The legal establishment's watering hole in this town - Simieon's bar - I have threaten to have their liquor licence revolked because their customers have repeatly threaten me with violence as well as recently beaten two gay men outside their bar. Word is out that any lawyer in town that takes on my case will have his drinking privileges revolked. So I am forced to seek outside counsel.
Meanwhile, rednecks in pick-up trucks with American flags drive pass me and throw bottles out the window in my general direction. My dog is my only protection and the police are attempting to take her away from me for violating the "leash law" (leaving my dog tied up in front of stores) as well as walking my dog on a leash in the Commons. If they succeed in taking my dog "Marley", a full blooded pit bull away then my only guess will be who will get to me first - the rednecks or the police - while I lay awake at the all-night laundry mat.
All I have is my strong faith and conviction that what I'm doing is right. When I find myself despairing over my plight, I think of the babies in Afghanstan, many who will not survive the winter. I feel their empty bellies and hear their cries late at night.
I must and will remain strong.
--------
Something beautiful happened to me yesterday. A middle-aged sister I never met came up to me while I was walking the dog. Seems her son signed up for the Army the other day at the insistence of her husband. Her husband told their son he had a duty to "defend this country, by gawd!" and refused to finance his continuing college education unless he enlisted. Well poor sister was pretty distrate over the entire situation. She believes in peace with all her heart but was not able to stand up to her husband. This has caused quite a riff in her family and has made her very unhappy. The thing is, she has no outlet for her feelings. Her friends and relatives think it's great that sonny-boy is heading off to the Afghanstan war. Everybody at work collected minature american flags and placed them on her desk. Her boss is very proud of her son's decision. Everybody she knows are all cheery and happy that sonny-boy is serving his country, but little sister has nightmares at night that her beloved son will arrive home from his tour of duty in a body bag. Her husband refused to talk about the subject and forbad her to talk of the matter with her son. Major tension in the family.
So every morning she would drive to work all depressed and feeling alone in her concerns for her son. Everywhere she looked, everything she read or watched, cried "WAR WAR WAR." She would count the American flags on the cars driving down the road and cry. One day on the way to work she sees a tore-up middle-aged hippie in front of the library with a sign reading "War Is Not The Answer" and flashing the peace sign. The next day she sees the same guy again at the same location.
Whatizthis??
But soon she is honking her horn and flashing the peace sign back and laughing at the pure silliness of it all. This went on for about a week and she told me it was at these moments she felt liberated and powerful in her resolve that her son not join the Army.
So seeing me walking the dog yesterday she wanted to explain to me that because of our early morning encounters she has mustered up the courage to stand up to her war-mongering husband, friends, and co-workers and talk about her desire for peace. Her son IS NOT joining the Army and is indeed going back to school. He is very proud of his mother. All this was told to me in a rush of words, tears, and hugs. She wanted to thank me. And then she was gone.
Moments like this are priceless because it is rare you get any kind of positive feedback of this kind. I relate this story to you all because it reinforces in my mind the powerful influence each of us has to promote peace. No, you don't have to wear a sign and stand on a street corner, nor do you have to protest loudly. However your voice is so very important and just speaking out at the right moment can sometimes make all the difference in the world.
pray for peace.
My name is Bodhi, and I'm an outside peace agitator. I arrived at an upstate N.Y. Ivy League college town weeks ago in order to protest the U.S. bombing in Afghanstan. I've since become involved in the local community peace group in town which is made up of mostly middle-aged, middle-class, lefty college professors who seem more content in boring their students with their dull and repetitive rhetoric every day in class than sticking their necks out for Peace. We've held weekly peace demonstrations designed to not offend anyone and as a result we've received little notice in the local newspaper. My most effective action for peace to date here is standing at intersections with an anti-war sign flashing the peace symbol at the passing traffic...
Life goes on in a small college town.....
Then last week something very bizarre happened.
Until recently Dewitt Park held nightly candle light vigils against the war in Afghanstan. As the bombing progressed so did the number of concerned people that attended the nightly vigils. Then the cops closed us down and removed all the candles and peace signs from the park. Several days later while walking thru the park I came upon a large art sculpture built on the same spot where the peace vigils were once held. This sculpture appeared suddenly and without warning. Entitled "Sept 12" it was created by a mysterious artist named Bill Keokosky and represented a graphic re-creation of the wreakage and destruction found at "Ground Zero." The sculpture is described in the local paper as "four tons of mangled steel girders and car parts, stone rubble, and photos of the WTC wreckage." The sculpture's "three mangled, rusted beams hold three large steel panels that display panoramic images representing the various views of the World Trade Center as seen by rescue workers at the site." Local resident Rupert Robbins is quoted as saying of the art piece,"It's pretty chilling and really stark. I feel like i'm watching the plane barrel into the building all over again." Sasha Schumyatsky, another local resident, has this to say, "It makes the scope of what happened more realistic that what we see on T.V. because it's so much larger." Scott Pobiner, a high school student said, "It is very chilling. Seeing it gives me the creeps."
This ugly post-modern, post-apocalyptic, "art piece" is intended to honor the fallen firemen who died Sept 11, but it's horrifying, graphic nature seems intended to evoke hate, fear, and support for our current war instead. The creator of this sculpture, Bill Keokosky, is not a local artist and no-one i've talked to seems to know where he came from - or why he's here in town. (This is beginning to sound like a Stephen King novel!)
Reaction from the locals so far has been pretty intense. Folks enjoying a quiet stroll in the park have come upon this sculpture and have left either in tears or muttering hate filled statements. Arguments and fights have broken out around this art piece, and insane behavior have been reported occurring in the park late at night. In the mist of all this hate and madness the Artist stands all day next to his art piece. Grey haired and casually dressed in an open neck suit, his calm demenor and slight European accent cast him in a very sinister light.
The newspaper article below will describe how the peaceful bodhisattva (yours truly) encounters the Artist and how everything is then plunged into madness and chaos, violence and fear, as this small town enters into the heart of darkness.
---------
From the Ithaca Journal Oct 24,2001
Headline:
"BLOODY CROSSROADS OF ART AND POLITICS."
by Michael Serino/Another Voice.
"Last Sunday afternoon, Dewitt Park had all the elements of an ideal fall day:bright sunshine, crisp autumn air, and one man dragging another across the ground by his shirt collar.
"Stop, you're choking him!" screamed a high school student in the park distributing free food for the Food Not Bombs program.
"Let him go!"
The man doing the dragging hauled the other to his feet and began pulling him out of the park. A small group attempted to seperate them.
"Violence is not the answer," yelled one.
"Leave him alone," shouted the others.
The conflict between artist Bill Keokosky and political activist "Bodhi" had come to a head. Keokosky, a local contractor and artist, is the creator of "Sept 12," the controversial memorial to the World Trade Center victims and rescue workers on exhibit in the Park - at least until the First Presbyterian Church, the park's owner, boots it out at the end of the week. Bodhi, as his friends refer to him ("It's his Buddhist name")is an itinerant political activist, recently arrived in Ithaca from the West Coast. You may have noticed him at the concluding ceremony at the Apple Harvest Festival. He was the tall, bearded fellow standing at the side of the pavilion, wearing a sign reading "Our Grief is Not a Cry for War," a large American flag patched with wide strips of gray duct tape wrapped around his back like a cape. Keokosky's installation is a powerful evocation of the terrorist
attack. Three twisted steel beams rise from a triangular base filled with broken rubble. Mounted on those beams are six panoramic photographs of rescuers at work in the trade center wreckage. Keokosky was one of the many volunteers on the scene.
"I felt like I was part of something where the best of American society surfaces," he said. "That's the total picture we were suppose to show." "We" refers to the close to 20 people who helped execute and install the work early last week. "We all knew it was going to be provocative," he said. And it was. Several residents have complained that displaying such a work in a public place is too upsetting to children and have asked that it be removed.
Bodhi was more upset with the piece than most, but for a different reason. For him it was a piece of "war propaganda." "It's very visceral," he said Saturday. "It reaches out and it grabs you. It's a postmodern, apocalyptic art sculpture." His interpretation of the piece is the opposite of the artist's. "We're seeing destruction," he said. "There is nothing living in it; there is nothing to promote the goodness of humanity." In protest, last Tuesday Bodhi attached an "Our Grief is Not a Cry for War" flier to one of the photographs with a wide swath of tape. Keokosky removed the poster, but Bodhi replaced it. This happened on more than once, and on one occasion a flier was attached with glue. Eventually there was damage to the photographs, and Keokosky felt action was necessary.
So he had Bodhi arrested.
When the case was heard Saturday morning, Bodhi was ordered by the judge to stay at least 25 feet away from the artwork, and from Keokosky.
Which brought him back to the park Saturday afternoon.
"Seeing as how I felt the restraining order was illegal and an infringement on my free speech, I intentionally ran over while Keokosky was there and placed my hand on the sculpture to protect my free speech," he said. He wanted a reaction and he got one. Keokosky decided to move him away before the work could be damaged again. He regrets it now. "I'm not a hot-headed guy," he said. As things played out, Keokosky eventually let go of choking Bodhi and left the park. The police arrived and ascertained that Bodhi was unharmed. They later arrested him again when Keokosky filed additional charges. Bodhi declined to file any charges of his own. Keokosky, whose installations of the version of "Sept 12" in Philadelphia's 30th Street Station and Baltimore's Pennsylvania Station over the past month have received many favorable reviews, said that, between Bodhi's actions and the negotiations with the city and the church over the display of his sculpture, he has had it. He is at work on a new project. He's not certain where he will show it, other than that "it won't be in Ithaca."
------
Oct 30,2001
As many of you may already know from reading my piece "Strange Days In a Small College Town," I am currently involved in a very controversal peace protest here in the town of Ithaca, N.Y. As a result of standing up for my constitutional rights of free speech, I have been beaten, arrested and threatened by members of the Ithaca establishment (ie: business owners, City Hall, The Police Department). I have been charged with harrassment, violation of a restraining order, resisting arrest and having a dog on the Commons. Everyday in the local newspaper, radio, and television my name has been defamed with the worst kind of "yellow journalism" imaginable. I've had the cops in this town threaten me with a "late night beating at the police station" - actual quote - and a not so nice request to leave town.
Friends I have known for years and were staying with in town began receiving late night phone calls threating their lives unless I leave. So now I am sleeping with my dog in an all-night laundry mat waiting for the cops to give me my late night beating and escort out of town. But I'm tough and I'm not leaving and will sleep on the sidewalk in the middle of winter if I have too.
All this insanity started because I spoke out against the War.
Now I'm forced to hire lawyers in order to defend myself in court or else face at least a year in jail. None of the lawyers in this town want to take my case and the public defenders cannot be trusted. The legal establishment's watering hole in this town - Simieon's bar - I have threaten to have their liquor licence revolked because their customers have repeatly threaten me with violence as well as recently beaten two gay men outside their bar. Word is out that any lawyer in town that takes on my case will have his drinking privileges revolked. So I am forced to seek outside counsel.
Meanwhile, rednecks in pick-up trucks with American flags drive pass me and throw bottles out the window in my general direction. My dog is my only protection and the police are attempting to take her away from me for violating the "leash law" (leaving my dog tied up in front of stores) as well as walking my dog on a leash in the Commons. If they succeed in taking my dog "Marley", a full blooded pit bull away then my only guess will be who will get to me first - the rednecks or the police - while I lay awake at the all-night laundry mat.
All I have is my strong faith and conviction that what I'm doing is right. When I find myself despairing over my plight, I think of the babies in Afghanstan, many who will not survive the winter. I feel their empty bellies and hear their cries late at night.
I must and will remain strong.
--------
Something beautiful happened to me yesterday. A middle-aged sister I never met came up to me while I was walking the dog. Seems her son signed up for the Army the other day at the insistence of her husband. Her husband told their son he had a duty to "defend this country, by gawd!" and refused to finance his continuing college education unless he enlisted. Well poor sister was pretty distrate over the entire situation. She believes in peace with all her heart but was not able to stand up to her husband. This has caused quite a riff in her family and has made her very unhappy. The thing is, she has no outlet for her feelings. Her friends and relatives think it's great that sonny-boy is heading off to the Afghanstan war. Everybody at work collected minature american flags and placed them on her desk. Her boss is very proud of her son's decision. Everybody she knows are all cheery and happy that sonny-boy is serving his country, but little sister has nightmares at night that her beloved son will arrive home from his tour of duty in a body bag. Her husband refused to talk about the subject and forbad her to talk of the matter with her son. Major tension in the family.
So every morning she would drive to work all depressed and feeling alone in her concerns for her son. Everywhere she looked, everything she read or watched, cried "WAR WAR WAR." She would count the American flags on the cars driving down the road and cry. One day on the way to work she sees a tore-up middle-aged hippie in front of the library with a sign reading "War Is Not The Answer" and flashing the peace sign. The next day she sees the same guy again at the same location.
Whatizthis??
But soon she is honking her horn and flashing the peace sign back and laughing at the pure silliness of it all. This went on for about a week and she told me it was at these moments she felt liberated and powerful in her resolve that her son not join the Army.
So seeing me walking the dog yesterday she wanted to explain to me that because of our early morning encounters she has mustered up the courage to stand up to her war-mongering husband, friends, and co-workers and talk about her desire for peace. Her son IS NOT joining the Army and is indeed going back to school. He is very proud of his mother. All this was told to me in a rush of words, tears, and hugs. She wanted to thank me. And then she was gone.
Moments like this are priceless because it is rare you get any kind of positive feedback of this kind. I relate this story to you all because it reinforces in my mind the powerful influence each of us has to promote peace. No, you don't have to wear a sign and stand on a street corner, nor do you have to protest loudly. However your voice is so very important and just speaking out at the right moment can sometimes make all the difference in the world.
pray for peace.
posted by Unknown at 17.3.05
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