Arts & Culture

You may be wondering what happened to the front page of Synapse this week.  This artsy stuff is cool and all, but does it really have to bump the news off the front page? 

I would argue that not only does it have a place next to news and science, but that we need our art and literature more than ever.  In a field where ambition and emotional detachment are necessary for success, this “artsy stuff” is a reminder of our shared humanity, our shared hopes and disappointments and solitude. And in light of recent events, I think we need this now more than ever.

Robin Williams said it best in Dead Poets Society: “We read and write … because we are members of the human race, and the human race is filled with passion. Medicine, law, business, engineering — these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life.  But poetry, beauty, romance, love — these are what we stay alive for.”

By Ilka Felsen
Staff Writer

In its only concert appearances of the season, UCSF’s a cappella group, Vocal Chords, will be performing a new and eclectic mix of pop music on campus next month.

The two concerts are scheduled for Thursday, May 2, at 7:30 p.m. at Genentech Auditorium, and Monday, May 6, at 7 p.m. at Health Sciences West (HSW) 303. The performances last about 90 minutes, with an intermission and refreshments.

These are performances not to be missed, as the group takes off in a new direction. Vocal Chords will perform songs by Missy Higgins, Ne-Yo and Kelly Clarkson, as well as a variety of Spanish and Australian arrangements.

Dawn Gross

 “There was this liii-yit,” she says, with her Southern accent lingering on the “iii” as if a boomerang going round and round, away and back again, trying to find its way home.  “I mean I think it was a liii-yit.”  Her eyes searching the sky overhead, stare straight into the sun without blinking.

 “Then, my chickens,” she continues without pausing for breath, “literally flew the coop.  They jus’ picked up and left as if a caa-yote had broken through the hen house, but no four-legged creatures were arooound.  I mean I could seeee eeevereeethin’ because of the liii-yit, ya know.”

I nod and keep my pen dutifully to pad.

“I called to Hank. Ya’ know my husband Hank?  He was out bowlin’ all night and came back late.  Went straight to bed so was sound asleep, not even the roosters’ crow would a woken him, ‘cept this one.  This one did.  He was by my side, shotgun in hand, before my second holler for ‘Hank’ came out my mouth.” 

Terri Mason

Everything is on the brink
hesitation, soft horn
the fog is hanging on

Morning tea at the cafe
plum blossoms on the street corner
watching for the light to change
petals drift to pavement

Her voice answers the phone
but it is out of time
I've left two messages

What is the distance between being and non?

The blossoms are predictable
though I never know when they will appear
I call them cherry and plum interchangeably
the small notch of difference, unimportant

Our brain cells are alive for some time
after our heart stops and breathing ceases
When are we really gone?

Jenny Qi

You wonder if they ever really existed
because how can anything
exist so briefly,

like putting a lighter to incense
at dusk and letting go before it lights,
watching faint smoke vanish
so artless you might have imagined it.

I imagine they folded up
their secret selves
like origami cranes, launched
into the bazooka sky
of an alternate universe,
where every day is a holiday
and no one is forgotten.
I hope they grow old there.

I hope their voices deepen and they sprout
hair in funny places.  I hope they fly
too high and fall too hard
and get drunk off cheap boxed wine
so their wings flutter fast like a hummingbird’s,

and you wish for a breathless moment
you could always be there
to catch them.

Eric Chang

These are my thoughts. Be honest.
If we get to exist together in a different
plane, do you find that sad, like I do? Here
I am growing older and more tolerant. But
sometimes I wish a whisper would come
into my ear and say, I adore you, and that
is what you think you want out of today. Is
this all going in OK?

I’m still probably going to decline, though
I’m shocked and almost flattered when
paragraphs touch. Is that how you were
made? Some day we might be able
to turn each other into a sentence. I know
your ugly, too.

Alice Cabotaje

It’s raining cherry blossoms!
The ground is awash
with droplets
of pink and mauve.

Alice Cabotaje is a staff member in the Spiritual Care Services at the UCSF Medical Center.

Sarah Paris

after the rain           a trace of smoke

          tinting the air          sliver of twilight

street lights              glistening

          on the road              a red car

speeds past              where

          are you headed       this Friday night

looking for love        sex      chasing

          the dream again

another         hungry coyote

          hypnotized               by a hole

long since      abandoned

          might as well           hope for 

a rattlesnake           to twist

          into one last             rope dance

Sarah Paris is a staff member in the School of Medicine and a poet and photographer.

Yi Lu

I remembered reading in one of my mother’s medical textbooks that back when medicine was first beginning to chart the dark expanses of the human body, enterprising men would dredge up the dearly and recently departed to sell to medical schools for the study of anatomy. These unwilling recruits were usually conscripted from the ranks of the poor and the black, the desecration blunted by the utilitarian logic of medical progress.

Did my mother meditate on her profession’s sordid legacy when she cut into a cadaver for the first time? Did she offer a silent prayer to these nameless and faceless ancestors who were yanked from their beds of pine and unceremoniously laid on the dissection table, their silent repose belying the violence of their procurement? Or did she just listen to her scalpel sing as it sliced through skin and fat and sinew, its pitch as pure and precise as a quartz tuning-fork?

过香积寺 - 王维
 
不知香积寺， 数里入云峰。
古木无人径， 深山何处钟。
泉声咽危石， 日色冷青松。
薄暮空潭曲， 安禅制毒龙。
 
Going Right Past the Temple of Accumulated Fragrance
Wang Wei
 
I can’t find the temple.
Several miles in, clouds and cliffs,
Ancient trees, no one on the trail.
Deep in the mountains  — is that a bell?
Just the sound of a creek, rushing
Down steep rocks.  Sunlight
Through cold pines, shades of dusk
At forgotten pond’s edge:
Meditation subdues the poisonous dragon.
 
 
寻隐者不遇 - 贾岛
 
松下问童子，言师采药去。
只在此山中，云深不知处。
 
 
Seeking the Hermit and Not Finding Him
Jia Dao
 
Under the pine, I ask the acolyte:
“Master’s gone for herbs, over there …”
A hidden spot, deep up in the hills,
Clouds are thick, no idea where.