I'm Going to Pass on That Reefer, Barack (A Psychedelic Reading In Haight-Ashbury, San Francisco)

1.
I'm in rainy San Francisco, in Haight-Ashbury where the Flower Power movement started in 1967.

When I walk down Haight Street I'm reminded of the Summer of Love, of the Grateful Dead, of spaced out hippies looking for joints on the sidewalk. I was only eleven years old back then. If I'd been older, I would've loved the orgies. I can just picture myself at the bottom of a human pile introducing myself to strangers ... (Well, come to think of it, there are a lot of genitals I wouldn't want in my mouth).

Actually, I don't like orgies at all. They're so impersonal, people take liberties with your balls, and I'm an intensely private person. However, I did love the music that came out of the era, The Flower Power Men's Let's Go To San Francisco and hey, I can still hum Scott McKenzie's San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Some Flowers in Your Hair).

Yes, those were the days. No AIDS, no Starbucks. The world was uncomplicated: People in suits were pigs and everybody else was groovy. But I was born five years too late. I'm more a child of the early Seventies, of Deep Purple and bad hair days.


2.
But today I find myself in Haight-Ashbury for the best of reasons. I'm here for my reading at The Booksmith, San Francisco's best book store. They have to be the best because they invited me. Oh yes, the people at The Book Smith are wonderfully weird. I mean, who in their right mind would invite a Danish novelist who resides in Oregon? That's a deadly, almost kinky combination.

Actually, the reading goes well. My readings usually do because no one, absolutely no one, understands what I'm saying. I have a Danish accent, I swallow everything in sight, verbs, nouns, poetry. My mouth is a sewer and people watch in horror when I read aloud from The Tsar's Dwarf. I should know by now, I've done 22 readings and people walk out in droves.

"I'm surprised this country gave you a visa," an angry man shouted. A second later he walked away with the new John Grisham novel ... or am I making this up? I don't know. I'm a fiction writer and I've always had a hard time relating to this thing called reality. Actually, I'm not sure it exists.



3.
San Francisco is one of my favorite cities in the world.

I have fond memories of the place. I was almost killed here in 1980. I did something stupid, I went roller skating in Golden Gate Park. I went with my mother and a few friends. Everybody was good at it but me. I had a slight problem, I couldn't figure out how to brake. At one point, I got to a hill. Since I'm from Denmark I had no idea what a hill was, but to my surprise I discovered it went down. And I couldn't stop. I went faster and faster passing some gay boy scouts. "Help," I shouted, "help'" and then I continued out on a highway. Cars stopped dead in their tracks, everybody honked, but I continued downhill, through the Castro, down Market Street, up through Chinatown till I reached Fisherman's Wharf.

Luckily, I wasn't traumatized by this. I've been back to San Francisco eight times since. And I'm in love with the Bay area, the pretty Victorian houses, and the sea lions at Pier 42 that only smell slightly better than most people I know.

But Haight-Ashbury is the greatest area of San Francisco. and this time I had the fortunate of having a local guide with me, Ashley. Ashley is one of my ex-students from Portland State University. She's the last woman on earth I would mess with. She got the black belt when she was twelve. That's right, twelve. She could have me for lunch. She could throw me around the room as if I was tossed salad.

Ashley couldn't make it to my reading, so she sent her delightful family and a gentleman you might have heard of. When he walked in I did a double take. No, could it be ... really? I'd heard he was a big fan of mine, but I actually thought it was a rumor. But no, believe it or not, it was Barack Obama.



Barack wanted a signed copy of The Tsar's Dwarf. We hung out for a while, just the two of us and after a couple of drinks Barack promised he would do a campaign called Books We Can Believe In.

On the picture below you can see his first choice.

Groovy, right?

Now throw away that reefer, Barack, and start reading, you hear?

Barack Obama starting his campaign for Great Literature: Books We Can Believe In. I hope he passes my book on to Michelle and the guys in the Secret Service. They look so bored behind those cool shades, any way.


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The Courage to Laugh in Zimbabwe: "Can You Imagine a World With Only Textbooks?"

Christopher Mlalazi, playwright, poet, and novelist from Zimbabwe.


1.
As a few of you know, this bloghead is a member of Danish and American PEN.

We're a brotherhood of writers, an international organization with chapters around the world that works for freedom of speech. We believe that no poet, writer or journalist should die, be imprisoned or tortured for writing what he or she believes to be true.

Yes, I admit it. I'm a spoiled novelist from a rich country. I take certain things for granted. I take for granted that soldiers won't be at my door, if I call the Danish prime minister a scumbag. That's the joy of democracy; we can call any one a moron without being at the receiving end of a baseball bat!

But the sad fact is that in most countries, you'll still be harrassed for making fun of your mighty leaders. Just ask any Chinese writer about that. Or the comedians of Burma. The world can be a scary place when you choose to show the ridiculous ways of men in power.

Yes, I'm talking about you, Robert Mugabe. I bet you have a small penis.

And I'm talking about Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian prime minister who had some comedians fired when they had the audacity of making fun of him. Other Italian writers have been beaten up for criticizing The Great Showboat With The Unconvincing Suntan.

All this happened in "civilized" Italy, so maybe freedom of speech is a bigger problem than we think, even in Western Europe.

2.
Right now I'd like to introduce you to Christopher Mlalazi, a writer from Zimbabwe and honorary member of Danish PEN - a courageous wordsmith who recently got into trouble with the authorities in Zimbabwe when he co-wrote a satirical play, The Crocodile of Zambezi. (I wrote an earlier blog, Please Don't Make Fun of Robert Mugabe. He's Such a Sensitive Dictator. You can read it by clicking here)

But now follows an excerpt of an interview with the before mentioned novelist and playwright.

Christopher Mlalazi, do you think literature has a role to play in a time of crisis?

"It definitely has. The role of the story teller is not only to entertain the adult, but, above that, to inform and make humanity aware of the vicissitudes of their surroundings. I write mostly from the heart and about what touches my heart, both negatively or positively ... but in a fictional and honest manner, which a writing friend recently described to me as faction (fact and fiction). When that gets published and read by a wider audience, it gets the news out, it makes both the aggressor and the victim aware of their folly, and that can bring about change in the away people think and act."

How much do you think writers should engage in public issues?

"One hundred percent. We write about people and the way they behave, so for me there is no dimension of humanity that is sacred to the pen, otherwise there would be no stories to tell, and can you imagine a world with only textbooks?"

What are the challenges you face as a writer in Zimbabwe today?

"The biggest challenge is getting published. Because of the economic challenges in the country, most publishers have folded, and we currently have only two active publishers in the country ... Weaver Press and ama’Books Publishers, but these also publish sporadically, and you can imagine how many writers we have in our country? Then there is politics, most writers are loath to touch political writing because of fear of intimidation, but of course this sphere is personal – those who want to write must write and those who don’t must not write."

Your play The Crocodile of Zambezi was banned for performance in Zimbabwe. How do you circumvent the two kinds of censorship that ensue from such heavy-handedness (a) self censorship (fear to express exactly what you want), and (b) political paranoia of the ruling establishment (fear to raffle any feathers)?

"The play The Crocodile of Zambezi was co-written with Raisedon Baya, one of our country’s most prolific and controversial playwrights. I must say we did a kamikaze in this play. To circumvent political censure we did not mention any names or places. Despite of this it was easy for people to deduce what we were talking about, which basically was our intention, but as we all know, most political commentary in the so called Third World is the same from one country to another, so the story can also apply elsewhere. As for paranoia of the ruling establishment ... well, we write what we like and we will continue to do so."

Right now Christopher Mlalazi is working on a new novel about political violence in Zimbabwe seen through the eyes of a young boy.

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