CONTACT

I forgot what a kiss is – the taste of an afternoon coffee. So as the waves pulled from the land, I feel like a desert ship.

Contact, I forgot what that word means, Shipwreck for months In books.

I look for a meaning to embrace me, to tell me everything will be fine .. To go and leave those roses in my father’s memory, To light a candle to the Virgin Mary.

Contact, To be in your dream hug. Let me see your eyes, To smell your perfume. I’m looking for that word in that old dictionary.

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Eva was born in Xylokastro where she completed her basics studies. She loved journalism by small and attended journalism lesson at the ANT1 School. In 1994 she worked as a journalist in French newspaper “Le LIBRE JOURNAL,” but her love for Greece won and returned to her sunny home. Since 2002, she lives and works in Athens. She works as a web radio producer reading fairy tales at Radio Logotexniko Vima every Sunday. Recently she became responsible for the children’s literary section of Vivlio Anazitiseis Publications in Cyprus.

She published books and ebooks: ” I and my other avenger, my Skia publications Saita.” “Zeraldin and The elf of the lake” in Italian and in French as well as “The daughter of the Moon” in 2 languages ​​English and Greek. The Moon Daughter published by Ocelotos 4 times, received best reviews for author’s writing and writing style.

She is a member of the UNESCO Logos and Art Group, Writers of Corinth, and Panhellenic Writers Association. Also, her work is mentioned in the Known Greek awarded encyclopedia for Poets and authors, Harry Patsi, page 300.

Her books have been cleared by the Ministry of Education of Cyprus.

Eva’s recent work includes: “The water Amazon fairy called Myrtia”, illustrated by Vivi Markatos, dedicated to a girl that become handicapped after a sexual assault, the translation of stories by Lafcadio Hearn, “Fairy travel with stories from Far East” – an idea that she worked on for more than 6 months – illustrated by Ms. Ntina Anastasiado, a very well-known sculptor and sumi e painter in Greece. 

Blog: http://evalianou.blogspot.gr

E-mail: eviepara@yahoo.fr

The Mob    

April 4, 1968   

Emmett Till, a 14-year-old young black male was beaten, mutilated, and lynched, and shot in the head. He was tied down to a cotton gin-fan and thrown in the Tallahassee River near Money, Mississippi. His crime was that he was accused of flirting with a white woman in a family grocery store. He was abducted four days later. Emmett Till was murdered on August 28, 1955. The lynching of black people (men and women) by the Ku Klux Klan is a great part of America’s history. The lynching of Emmett Till brought lynching to the forefront in America’s national conscience. What has provoked such resentment towards nonwhite races? Issues of injustice, racism, and violence have always been directed towards black Americans. Yet, many black Americans, fought, suffered, and died, for the honor to be an American citizen.  The country learning of Emmett’s fate was outraged. If one is lynched, then no American is safe. Over the years people forgot about the difficulty of the Black Americans.

I was ten years old at the time. The fear and the tightness in my stomach caused me to vomit violently. The mob prowled the city with taunts of “Burn this motherfucker down, burn baby burn!” was the rallying cry, in addition, they repeated “if you don’t have “soul brother” on your door, we’ll burn your house down.” It was April 14, 1968, Martin Luther King had been assassinated. Days later blacks looted and set fire throughout neighborhoods in the nation’s capital. The police and national guards watched the mob devastate the community. The mob set out to destroy and threaten to kill other blacks. My foster father frantically used one sheet of my notebook paper and wrote the words with black shoe polish. “Soul brother” taping it to the front door. Like in the capital riots the mob menaced everyone in the capital that day. 

The Mob    

January 6^th, 2021   

“Hang Mike Pence!” they hollered repeatedly. A mob of white supremacists and white nationalists. All of them sent to the nation’s capital by former president Donald J. Trump. The violence and racism have grown in America under the presidency of Donald Trump. Now not only nonwhite races but our government leaders are targets of aggression.   

The white mob erected a gallows on the capitol grounds, while they continued to search the capital looking for Vice president Pence and Speaker Nancy Pelosi to murder them both. Lawmakers were also sought by the intruders in the capital that dreadful day. No one was safe from certain death. This coup led by Donald Trump to maintain power as he was voted out of the presidency in the November elections of 2020. The white mob attacked law enforcement officers on the capitol grounds leaving one officer killed and many severely injured all in the name of white nationalism.   

Adolf Hitler told the German people the lie that it was the Jewish people who were responsible for the predicament of the German nation. Six-million Jews died in concentration camps known as death camps. Adolf Hitler used this hate of the Jewish people to be a dictator. Donald Trump uses the dogma that other races are the enemy. Fear and hate are used by Trump to usurp our democracy. Trump uses deception, hatred, and dread to be a clone of Adolf Hitler.    

 I remember hiding from the black mob in 1968 was a horrific experience. Hearing the story of those lawmakers and staff and others in the capital on January 6^th and their recounting the “booming” sounds of glass breaking and banging on the doors by a rabid mob of the crazed white supremacists. Many said that they called their love one to say a final goodbye.

The trauma of facing death as a mob searched for them while destroying everything in their path. It is this violence that never resends in one’s memories. It is sadness and anger that I feel for all those that had to endure such an event in their lives. I walked through the rubble of the riots in a state of shock for years to come. Life seemed surreal to me and death was intimate at that time.  My world had been ravaged by the mob like those in the capital on January 6^th.    

The white supremacist destroyed many irreplaceable artworks in the house of the people. Leaving urine and feces on the walls and floors and artwork as reported. Reminding me of the night that the black mob ravaged my neighborhood. Recalling the shouts “Burn this motherfucker down!” Those words echoed in my thoughts for many decades. The insurrectionist shouted for what seemed like an eternity to hang Mike Pence. Hunting our elected officials to hang or execute them is the action of barbarians to commit atrocities against Americans. Led by a psychopathic and sociopathic, and egomaniac racist Donald J. Trump. It does not take courage to be a racist it takes valor to uphold the virtues of being a patriotic American.    

It was revealed that a black capital police officer broke down and wept after the melee said, “Is this America?” Men and women of the capitol police and metropolitan police braved the onslaught of a “murderous” mob of violent white extremists.  Three officers ended up dead from that day. Many survived because of the heroism of those officers protecting them and our capital and democracy.  This “Is America.” An America where courage and dedication to protecting our democratic way of life. The insurrection on January 6^th, 2021 will remain one of America’s harrowing moments.   

      Note: Black Americans have lived through the nightmare of being murdered for decades. Black Americans’ pleas have gone unheard. Martin Niemöller wrote, “First they came for the Socialist, and I did not speak out….”     Black Americans have been speaking out for decades and now that the violence has come to the capital of the nation. People now realize that white supremacist are a menace to our nation. Martin Niemöller continued, ‘…when they came for me there was no one left to speak out.”      

The Tomb

The fascination invested all around

Beguiled and made our trust diverted

Made the air poisonous

The fascination invested all around

Hacked and made our breath infected

Humanity today on the verge of jeopardy

Can’t shake our hands, stand in front of

Not to kiss nor to exchange love and hug

Remain one from the other apart

An unseen danger more than a tiger shrouded all over

How calamitous the present civilization!

Children getting admired afar from their father, mother, near and dear ones

Wives from husbands, fathers from mothers,

Brothers from sisters, lovers from the beloveds

Oh! The poor, helpless body trembling in temperature

Lips and hearts

Water rolling down on cheeks

How hungry, the pathetic world!

What do you teach us, dear?

Moving towards the sky the journey of the tempered body

Looming out of the darkness

We all go through

But the trance appears to be larger

Fly over the open blue sky

Twinkling the stars.

Chapainawabganj, Bangladesh

01/04/2020

The Sky at Noon

Suddenly the sky covered with darkness

Possibly it may rain very soon

The shady world focus a glimpse of light

The sky appeared to be whiter and at same time darker

Sparking and roaring with thundering

Birds are flying and chirping and in the nest taking their shelter

Over my head, so many petals and cottons

Walking as if it was a moonlit night

Soft as like as this

You held my hand and stepped out

We sat for enjoying the light.

Chapainawabganj, Bangladesh

02/04/2020

In This Lockdown World

In this lockdown world

Deer and dogs comes out to the paths

The trees make sound of the spring breeze

Blooming flowers spreading sweet scents

Birds and butterflies with their colorful feathers

Enjoy the beauty with new sights and spirits

Infatuated in love in this new world

I see and come back to my work

From the very noon this garland made for you

Dear, how can I reach?

I know you are on the other side waiting for me.

Chapainawabganj, Bangladesh

03/04/2020

My Bygone Pastime

Chemicals sprayed all over the fields

On the wheat seeds

At the evening when they came back

All the hens, cocks and ducks at a time got attacked

Made me stunned, thundered down

They are lying dead before my eyes

Feel offended I failed to take the right care

When all my poultries became empty

I only stared at the sky

They’re floating on the white-colored feathers

I see the ducks on the water

I see the hens and cocks on my yard

Still now after so many years

O my love, can I let you go?  

Chapainawabganj, Bangladesh

04/04/2020

How I am

How do you do?

It’s difficult to answer straight ‘fine’

My heart is losing, breaching and beating

Though no singing or beating the drums outside

You do, I do and certainly we do our daily walks of life

But the strength of mind the gig gag lights inside or outside

We really miss, an unknown fear hovers around

My brother is dying

My sister is dying

What is it flying around?

Bounds all to stay at home

How many more days should we stay

No one advances to make it out

Pains my heart

Listless to work

Can I say I am safe and sound?

Chapainawabganj, Bangladesh

05/04/2020

I Stand Still

The sky seems to be deep and darker

A windy light peeps through

The leafs of the trees growing greener than yesterday

A silent breeze makes the leafs dance 

The birds are flying here and there

Busy with the nestles in the nest to feed and care

I stand still

No storm or thundering to become worried

Softens the world day by day

My heart leaps up with joy

A heavy rainfall we may enjoy

The fields clothed with the green grasses

We can walk through all the way

The moon always smiles on. 

Chapainawabganj, Bangladesh

06/04/2020

THIS ARDENT REST




      This ardent rest breeds continuity 
 Allowing a passionate insight before
 the beginning.


     I imagine sight as lost yet the eyes 
 were open while lids were closed.


    The paralysis that never happened as
 inspiration marches the sightless draw
 in joyful repute.
 
     My song pulls from within. Vibration 
 requires no host only the Love that
 begins all things.


     I knew you were there all the time,
           Before time ever existing,
 As before finds no home in our past.


The magnitude
     As options build excitement
         Rest again, 
            For strength is found in the moment.


The process never left us behind


    Taste and smell, the hands speak,
       As ultra trillions sing a single stand
           Lifting to open skies.

Synchronized Chaos is sharing a notice about this upcoming virtual theater show and will review it after opening night.

Yiddish Theatre EnsemblePresents… God of Vengeance (Got Fun Nekome)

An artful online video adaptation of Sholem Asch’s groundbreaking 1906 Yiddish play

Directed by Bruce Bierman / English translation by Caraid O’Brien

Streaming Saturday, March 20 thru Tuesday, March 23, 2021

Tickets ($18 – $54): klezcalifornia.org/yiddish-theatre-ensemble • www.Eventbrite.com

Berkeley, CA… The Yiddish Theatre Ensemble (YTE) planned on presenting the English language translation of the 1906 controversial Yiddish play God of Vengeance (Got Fun Nekome) by Sholem Asch in September 2020 at a theater in Berkeley, California but had to halt production due to the pandemic. Dedicated to this endeavor, YTE devised an innovative approach to presenting theater during this unprecedented time. The play will now be mounted on Vimeo on March 20-23, 2021 as an artful video adaptation with actors from around the country. Due to COVID restrictions, the actors were rehearsed and filmed on Zoom in full character and costume from their respective locations.  (The cast was never actually in the same room together).

The multi-cultural, multi-generational and diverse LGBTQ cast of 17 actors, many of whom had never spoken a word of Yiddish before, comes from the San Francisco Bay Area and beyond (New York and Las Vegas) and includes nonagenarian veteran of stage, Naomi Newman, co-founder of The Traveling Jewish Theater. Local Treasure Naomi Newman: 90 Years Old and Still Acting

As the play has been re-set in New York’s Lower East Side during the Depression, digital set designs (or backdrops) were added creating the 1930’s atmosphere with a distinct graphic novel style. The sets, designed by Production Designer, Jeremy Knight, of West Edge Opera, are inspired by photographs courtesy of the Tenement Museum collection with period costumes coordinated by Wardrobe Consultant, Suzanne Stassevich, formerly of San Francisco Opera. The play will be enhanced by an original score, by San Francisco Bay Area Klezmer musician, David Rosenfeld, anchoring the emotional voice of this evocative family drama. 

This adaptation based on the English translation (but including some Yiddish language and idioms) by Caraid O’Brien stays close to the script with new interpretations of character portrayals and plot development. Themes explored include: issues of domestic violence, dignity and portrayal of sex workers, freedom of expression and acceptance of LGBTQ relationships. As with many of Asch’s plays, powerful female characters give voice and agency to women. The themes speak directly to the inequities of human and civil rights still being fought for today. The play is peppered with humor.

ABOUT THE PLAY:

God of Vengeance tells the story of a seemingly observant Jewish couple and their daughter Rivkeleh who live upstairs in their Lower East Side apartment during the Great Depression. Yankl and Soreh do their best to protect their only child from mixing with their bustling livelihood—a thriving ‘brothel’ business downstairs in the basement. Rivkeleh is at a marriageable age and plans for a future husband are being made.  She is ensured an attractive dowry when her father commissions a Torah scroll, worth thousands, to be written just for her.  Supposedly, the hand-written scroll is believed to protect her and keep her kosher. Meanwhile young Rivkeleh has fallen in love with Mankeh, one of his prostitutes and a tender relationship blossoms. Tensions mount and soon life upstairs and downstairs begin to entangle. As Yankl’s plans are threatened, he begins to unravel.

The themes of this play are deep and resonate today: can money buy salvation, happiness, holiness? All are explored in this family drama story that has extraordinary tenderness, elements of Greek drama —and a bisl (little) Yiddish. — Laura Sheppard, Producer

Audiences should know this is not, God forbid, a moralistic play! Sholem Asch himself said he didn’t care if he wrote a moral or immoral play. He only cared about writing a good play that had an impact and spoke to people. — Bruce Bierman, Director

HISTORY:

After the play’s opening in Berlin, God of Vengeance had tremendous success throughout Europe and was translated into many languages. Upon arriving in New York, it was first seen in Yiddish at the Provincetown Playhouse in the West Village. The 1923 production in English at the Apollo Theatre in New York was the first to portray a lesbian relationship in a sympathetic light and included the first lesbian kiss on Broadway. That production was assailed by members of the religious and cultural establishment and was charged with obscenity and shut down. The producer and company members were arrested and found guilty.

The history of Asch and this play was inspiration for the 2015-2017 Tony award-winning Broadway production Indecent which was also seen at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival for which Director Bruce Bierman served as Yiddish Dance Dramaturge. This production only scratched the surface of the original play. Yiddish Theatre Ensemble would like audiences to experience the power of the characters and immediacy today. Yiddish Theatre Ensemble is particularly interested in Sholem Asch because he was the first playwright to incorporate modernity into his plays, mirroring 20^th century life in cities and towns rather than focusing on Biblical stories or folk tales of the past.

ABOUT THE PLAYWRIGHT:

Sholem Asch (1880–1957). Although he penned several of his 18 plays, shorts stories and novels in the US on New York City’s Lower East Side and at his home in Staten Island, Asch wrote only in Yiddish. Asch is often mentioned in the same breath as other modern Yiddish fiction writers like Sholem Aleichem and I.L. Peretz. The Polish-born author and playwright is the first Yiddish writer to be widely translated into English and to gain worldwide renown, and to have a bestseller in English (The Nazarene). The star literary contributor of the Yiddish newspaper, The Forward (Forverts) from 1915-1940 was the most widely reported and caricatured writer in the Yiddish press from 1915-1950.

ABOUT YIDDISH THEATRE ENSEMBLE:

Laura Sheppard, Producerand Bruce Bierman, Director, have collaborated for twelve years to create community-based productions in affiliation with fiscal sponsor KlezCalifornia. Their collaborations include the popular Yiddish musical Di Megileh of Itzik Manger, produced as part of the Jewish Music Festival (2014, 2015), as well as KlezCalifornia’s Cabaret by the Bay. Yiddish Theatre Ensemble is dedicated to producing the rich, rarely performed repertory of the Yiddish theater as well as new works by living artists.

This production is part of the 40^th Anniversary of the Yiddish Book Center (Amherst, MA), the nation’s acclaimed center for the preservation of Yiddish literature and culture and their Year of Translation. This production is fiscally sponsored by KlezCalifornia and supported in part by a Civic Arts Grant from the City of Berkeley.

CAST/LEAD ACTORS (See attached bios): Roni Alperin –Yankl | Jill Eickmann – Soreh | Elena Faverio – Rivkeleh | Zissel Piazza – Mankeh | Simon Winheld – Shlomo | Esther Mulligan – Hindl | Naomi Newman – Reb Eli | Josiah Prosser – A Scribe | Rebekah Kouy-Ghadosh – Basha | Frances Sedayao – Rayzel

Announcement: Our March issue of Synchronized Chaos will be an ekphrastic issue, where we encourage you to create written work inspired by some other art form (a piece of music, a painting or graphic image, a sculpture, etc). Here’s an article that outlines what ekphrastic writing is and gives some examples.

Our co-editor, Kahlil Crawford, and I believe this will inspire and encourage fresh ideas and be a fun experiment. So please send ekphrastic submissions our way at synchchaos@gmail.com before February 27th and they will go in the issue!

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Welcome all to Synchronized Chaos’ February issue, ‘Polish and Refine.’ This month, each of our many and varied contributors takes some sort of thought or experience and turns it over in their mind, rendering it into a piece of craft.

D.S. Maolalai charms the little afternoon dramas of everyday life – squirrels in the park, remodeling the kitchen – into poetry. Joan Beebe laments the enforced stillness of her socially distanced winter suburban neighborhood, while J.K. Durick evokes the way grey winter days can merge and flow into one another.

Susie Gharib turns human venality, decay, and even dental malpractice into elegant verse, and Shelby Stephenson reviews Sherry Siddall’s Sweet Land, the poetry collection of a writer who loves language.

Mahbub covers diverse subject matter: wonderment and horror at the power of the Covid-19 virus, the power of intellectual community and literary inspiration, and symbiotic growth in nature. Ike Boateng also writes poetry on the community we find enjoying and sharing the gifts of nature, cocoa among them.

Eva Lianou illustrates in a folktale how care for a delicate flower transforms a carpenter’s life, and Ahmad Al-Khatat mourns a love that makes his speaker forget the war all around him. Norman J. Olson reminisces on the uncommon kindness and humor of a professional he admires, while Jake Cosmos Aller encourages kindness towards the homeless and expresses dismay at the Christmas Day bombing in Nashville.

Elizabeth Hughes reviews David Myles Robinson’s legal drama Tropical Doubts in her monthly Book Periscope column.

J.D. Nelson experiments with words in his subterranean laboratory, while Jack Galmitz contributes a set of wry, random ramblings and J.J. Campbell expresses his loathing of racism while writing of aging, loneliness and death.

Rikki Santer’s poems burst forth with nostalgia and lush worldbuilding.

In the same spirit, Mark Young contributes paintings that reveal more about the effects of line and color on our psyches than literal subjects.

Some pieces address politics: Michael Robinson evokes the horror of the Capitol attack for a Black person in America, John Most crafts a satirical version of Amazing Grace inspired by Donald Trump, Patricia Doyne protests the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol while Arthur Ford’s shanty decries the same event.

Michael Robinson speaks to the Black male experience in the United States, inspired by Amanda Gorman’s reading at the U.S. presidential inauguration.

Lorena Caputo elegizes lives lost to the Contra fighters decades ago in Nicaragua, while Coco Kiju declares the doomsday of a dead love.

Chimezie Ihekuna renders the Biblical tale of Lucifer’s rebellion and expulsion from Heaven as a fantasy tale, while Hongri Yuan creates a heavenly vision of orderly, glistening orchards and cities in a world that began before humanity came on the scene and will continue long afterwards.

Jeff Bagato writes of our human strength and of nature’s resilience, while I RΛM 0 opines about humanity’s joining with artificial intelligence to co-create the next stage in evolution.

Stephen Williams presents a psychological odyssey through fear, condemnation, grace, and liberation.

John Culp celebrates the joy of getting your heart and mind focused and open to positivity and learning.

Thank you very much for reading Synchronized Chaos! We encourage you to leave comments for our contributors, they appreciate feedback and discussion.

A Valentine’s Affection

It was Valentine’s afternoon

Just before the Arts Faculty Gate of Dhaka University

While walking towards the Dhaka Book Fair

The couple standing face to face

And thousands were running and walking around them

The eyes of the girl wet in eye drops

No sooner had my eyes blinked on the second time

The girl in the flower round her head

Slapped him on two times

And again repeatedly

Then her boyfriend getting nothing to say or doing

In his bewilderment he stopped for a while

And blew a big slap on her face

From beside their another friend came in

Turned them away and walked to the other

The two young boys passing me

Went away saying and laughing

“O Ma, What I looked!”

“O Ma, What I heard!”

NAEM Hostel, Dhaka,

14/02/2020

How to Write

It stops my breath standing on the long line to pass the gate

In such a jam-packed condition

I turn back myself whether I am Ok or not

In this huge gathering my body sometimes gets twitched and switched off

It is as if the whole people of the world were joining one by one

In this Dhaka Book Fair the young and the old,

The boys and the girls like the flock of birds flying from here to there

Again like the swarm of bees

Getting together they like to meet each other in the Book Stalls

Not a single face I can recognize here

But the faces and the eyes glitter before me

I see the stars in the sky

I see the stars before me

Walking alone all the way

To save the moment in ray

I bought a book about ‘How to Write.’

NAEM Hostel, Dhaka,

14/02/2020

Interaction

What is the interaction between plants and animals?

We, the teachers and the students

Interact in the classroom

Outside the classroom

Engaged in same as the ecological balance

With the attentive mind following the eye contact

The learning outcome compared to the transpiration process

A touching relationship throughout the whole life

Sharing ideas and thoughts like oxygen and carbon dioxide

One leaves and the other receives

What a wonderful physiological growth!

Exchanging life to each other

Throughout a magnifying glass

Spreads its range of love and respect as the day advances more.

Chapainawabganj,Bangladesh
10/03/2020

Covid 19

I think of what I write

No subject or field I find that I cultivate

So many subjects to work with

But no more speed my hands over

Stand still face to face we realize

What it actually happens in Wuhan City of China?

And gradually the whole earth mesmerized

By inhaling – exhaling breath

By sneezing and loving hands spread death

I am now confined to bed or home, walk round the walls

Try to be safe from this virus

O life – dark and death

Beauty goes so far tight in the abyss of thought and anxiety

Body shakes, heart gets barred suffocating breath

Eyes burns to the long line deaths in the world’s hospitals.

Chapainawabganj, Bangladesh

27/03/2020

The Corona Island

The world has turned into a single Island

Or a no man’s land

A swarm of bee

People would run through too much busy

How does it look now?

You can say a ghostly one

Miles after miles the roads are like —-

T. S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”

The smoggy, lurid streets of the modern city

Thwarts at him “Overwhelming questions”

Losing in thought to express the nature of his crisis

All offices, schools, colleges or universities go off

Only a few while necessary out

People are like the birds shot

Try to fly out but scared 

Ever and anon

We like to obey the rules of isolation.

Chapainawabganj, Bangladesh

30/03/2020