The F-Word: Forgiveness

Their stories share the same elements: loss, grief, anger, intolerance, pain. They share the same ending and the same message to the reader: in order to heal thyself, you must forgive those who have caused you harm.

The Forgiveness Project aims to share modern-day stories of individuals who chose the path of understanding and forgiveness to repair lives torn apart by conscious acts of evil. Some acts of violence are wrapped in ideology. Many of the acts were state sanctioned. Others are utterly random crimes without purpose, without logic.

There is Andrew Rice, who has dedicated himself to trying to understand the underlying causes of violence after his brother, investment banker David Rice, was killed when the World Trade Centre collapsed.

Ghazi Briegeith, a Palestinian electrician living in Hebron, and Rami Elhanan, an Israeli graphic designer from Jerusalem, met through the Parents’ Circle – a group of bereaved families supporting reconciliation and peace.

The stories emerge from diverse lives: a nurse who treated innocent victims of sectarian violence and a former paramilitary in Belfast, Bishop Desmond Tutu and a former prison guard in South Africa, former rival gang members in Los Angeles, Palestinians, Isrealis, parents, siblings, children, survivors, killers.

That F-word, forgiveness, is the crux of the crucifixion at the center of Christianity. It is at the heart of Buddhist compassion; of the Torah's stories of family strife healed by fraternal empathy; of the Muslims' peace in the knowledge that Allah is gracious and they need not earn His forgiveness.

To atone means to make amends, to repair a wrong done. Biblically, it means to remove sin. In life, it means having the courage to say--and the patience to hear--those healing words: "I forgive you."

100 Miles for Kids (Update)

Many of you have asked for updates on Zach Warren, former Alphachimp intern who has been helping the Afghani Children's Circus in Kabul.

The full article contains a letter detailing his travels to Bamyan bazaar, a site where Buddhists and spiritual seekers have lived, studied, and gathered from all around the world since the 5th century (AD); the site of the famous Buddhas that were destroyed by the Taliban because they were considered images/false idols.

It is hard to imagine that a year ago, we saw Zach performing in West Park on Pittsburgh's North Side at a community arts fair. He was riding a 7-foot unicycle, juggling flames and inspiring awe and admiration from tough Northside kids.

In March, I was in Boston on business and walking away from Harvard Square when I spotted the inimitable profile of a skinny, bespeckled man with a flaming red beard and brilliant smile on an enormous unicycle (a sight one usually does not encounter outside Harvard Stadium on a blustery Spring afternoon). It was at that chance meeting that Zach announced his intentions to beat the World Record for the fastest 100 miles on a unicycle.

Well, read on for more interesting details in Zach's own words.
A brief slideshow of photos from performances in Europe and Afghanistan are here.
Zach Warren's first missive from Afghanistan is posted here.

_______________________________
from Zach Warren:

Salaam from Karte Seh, Kabul,

I hope this finds you safe and in good spirits.

Nearly one month ago, what little I knew of Afghanistan I knew by pictures and words, maybe a couple good books, like Kite Runner or An Unexpected Light and sound bites from the Boston Globe or Washington Post.

Even if I knew better, I still had in my mind images of stoic-faced men with turbans and rocket launchers hiding in caves.

The news wasn't pretty specific.

"17 suspected dead in helicopter crash...explosion in internet cafe kills several foreign NGO workers...U.S. forces growing closer to Osama... Concerns for escalated violence as Parliamentary elections approach...Hamid Karzai to root out "foreign spies" in government..."

What it didn't, and doesn't, convey about Afghanistan is what I consider so far to be at the heart of my experiences here: the laughter, tenderness, hospitality, and religious and ethnic diversity in daily life.

I hope I can share some of that with you, to round out the news reports.

A week ago I found myself bouncing around in a van with a cracked winshield on the famous road between Kabul and Herat with seven married Afghan men for ten hours at a time.

We passed through the former Kush Empire, through lands once under Greek rule by Alexander the Great, past the mysterious caves and mountain-castle of Zoroaster, through herds of goats and dozens of streams, past upside-down tanks and empty roadside rocket shells, and finally through the remains of the Bamyan bazaar, a site where Buddhists and spiritual seekers have lived, studied, and gathered from all around the world since the 5th century (AD).

This was the site of the famous Buddhas that were destroyed by the Taliban because they were considered images/false idols.

Along the way, Hamid, Du'ad, Nadir, Asad, Jamil, and Sher Khan have more than a dozen laughing fits.

I'd never seen a group of Afghan men laughing playfully until this trip, even though it happens all the time here.

They sing to the radio and clap until my ears echo with Indi and Afghan pop music. We stop along the way and squat by a river, eating fresh mangoes and watermelons, then for daily prayers.

They tease me like a close friend and we break bread together at every meal, eating naan flat bread for breakfast, then potatoes, rice, oils, and naan for lunch and dinner.

In Bamyan, we gave six performances in different schools, for both boys and girls. One of the MMCC girls even gave a juggling performance at a girls school. (Imagine the impact on a young girl's sense of self confidence and self agency from juggling three clubs in front of hundreds of her peers, meeting great applause and laughter!)

Attached are a few pictures from the Bamyan performances, including one where you can see the smaller Buddha in the background (or the great rock inset where it used to stand over 100 feet tall.

It is said to have had a gold plated face that reflected light onto the town of Bamyan in the morning sunlight).

We also performed beside the green waterfalls of Banda-amir, and at schools in Shaidon and Didir.

These performances were entertaining for the audiences, but they always deliver important messages in powerful ways.

Skits include, for instance, a piece on conflict resolution that uses a frog, a horse, and a bear, where the frog and the horse can't get along, and the bear enters as the peace-maker.

Since it would be inappropriate for the MMCC performers to speak about conflicts between Afghan ethic groups directly, the metaphorical use of animals conveys the same message indirectly. Other skits teach about hygeine, malaria prevention, and safety measures to avoid land mines.

In a region where culture and custom is often said to trump laws and rules, the use of persuasion through circus arts is an especially pragmatic method of promoting social change. Simply handing out brochures, posting posters, or talking to local elders seems to change very few minds alone.

Now I'm back in Kabul, training a group of Afghan kids for an upcoming tour of Germany and Denmark, beginning August 3rd. For most of them, this is the second time out of the country.

The first time was when they fled to Pakistan or India during the Taliban regime.

Nearly all of the MMCC kids are refugees, and the population of Kabul continues to soar as Afghan families return to their native lands (some ethnic groups have waited generations for this chance).

In other interesting and unusual news -- I received a call from the White House in May, to my surprise. They wanted a performance in June, but because I was out of the country, my friend Ben Sota (www.zanyumbrella.com) went in my place. Now he tells a good tale of having a food fight with a few Senator's children, at least until their parents intervened...

I'll likely perform there over Christmas instead, if exams allow it.

Also, the www.Unicycle4Kids.org website has been updated, and so has the MMCC's website: www.AfghanMMCC.org .

If you're curious, I invite you to check them out, and of course feedback is always welcome.

Hodahafez, blessings, and care,

Zach

zach.warren@gmail.com
zwarren@hds.harvard.edu

The Eve of Genetic Construction

Ah, who knew genetic slicing could be so fun? Perhaps, for example, the artist Alexis Rockman, whose nouveau-dioramas depict pernicious acts of cross-breeding and super-engineered sports stars.

So, what happens when the Adam of the future cuts out the middleman (aka God) and creates his own helpmate and romantic interest, Eve, through genetic re-engineering?

Eve: The Novel by Aurelio O'Brien is no slickly-oiled vision of the future, but a throw-back to the monster truck playing cards of the '70s: walking eyeballs, multi-headed deer, a stink-on-demand skunk, and a real, live beetle car.

The characters in the novel are described as "the same ones who use supercomputers to make cartoons, Hummers as commuter cars and think actors should lead governments; who are simultaneously clever and idiotic, charming and vulgar, childlike and childish."

O'Brien's promo site, www.evethenovel.com, is one of the best use of Flash-as-teaser I've ever seen.

From Lee Potts' blog, The Eyes Have It:

In order to promote his book, Eve: The Novel, Aurelio O'Brien created a number of bizarre animations illustrating some of the more mind-blowing (and humorous) possibilities of genetic manipulation in the forth millennium. It looks like a good story but I can't be the only one who finds that sink animation seriously disturbing.

From the author's description of the novel:

The time is the fourth millennium. The storyteller is a robot, Pentser, a lone relic of times lost, a museum piece of electronic memorabilia, an automated antiquarian of long forgotten information and, in his own humble opinion, mankind's most perfect creation. The premise is simple: what if you created your perfect mate?

Pentser's user, a 600-year-old-but-doesn't-look-a-day-over-twenty man, Govil, is unhappy. Although he--and everyone else on Earth--lives in a luxurious, genetically designed paradise of eternal health and ceaseless pampering, Govil wants something more. He doesn't know what it is, but he wants it anyway.

The Farm, 2000 by Alexis Rockman,
oil and acrylic on wood panel, 96 x 120 in.

Listen to Rockman talk about his art and his creative process.

Monkey Mind

From News.com.au:

'Human-Brained' Monkeys by Nick Buchan

Scientists have been warned that their latest experiments may accidently produce monkeys with brains more human than animal.

In cutting-edge experiments, scientists have injected human brain cells into monkey fetuses to study the effects.

Critics argue that if these fetuses are allowed to develop into self-aware subjects, science will be thrown into an ethical nightmare. READ FULL ARTICLE

[via Jarrell McAlister of Donkey Top]

Full article available at:
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,15891104-13762,00.html#1

Security Data Maps

There are two ways to use data: (1) to reveal a story about the past, the present or the future; and (2) to hide the truth.

Worldchanging.com has a combo of data visualization tools that reveal a story along the vectors of location, time and crime.

From Mapping Politics: The Means of Expression - Media, Creativity and Experience:

Maps are not neutral -- or, rather, the creation of maps is not a neutral process. The choice of what the map covers, and what details to include or exclude, is an inherently subjective process.

~ Jamais Cascio, www.worldchanging.com

We've been waiting to see a modern version of Minard's data map portraying Napoleon's catastrophic march to Moscow in 1812.

Designed by Tim Klimowicz, The Iraqi War Fatality map is as poignant as it is elegant.

Built in Flash, the animation charts the US and coalition military fatalities that have occurred in the war in Iraq since March 2003. As a counter ticks off the days of conflict (well past the May Mission Accomplished mark) black dots and red flashes appear on the map indicating the death of a coalition soldier.

There are no marks for wounded, for killed international contractors, for Iraqi civilians or for Iraqi civil security forces. That would result in a very different map.

This map, however, drives home the message that every day is a dangerous day in Iraq. Data is taken from www.icausulties.org with geological information from www.globalsecurity.org. The Project plans to continue as long as the war does.

In Simming the City, Cascio discusses the uses of data and simulations, ala real life SimCity, to guide city and community leaders in real life American cities. Chicagocrime.org is a freely browsable database of reported crimes in Chicago.

In a unique integration of resources: Google maps and the Chicago police department's website.

With the SimCity model in mind, a wealth of new ideas for GoogleMap applications spring to mind, both directly taken from the game and simply inspired by it. School ratings, fire scenes, public transit outages, Critical Mass events, recent store closures (perhaps mapped against big box retailer locations), LEED-certified and registered buildings... A key step to making a change to a system is seeing its underlying patterns. GoogleMaps may well turn out to be a critical tool for recognizing where action is needed as we reinvent our urban environments.

For six years, I lived on the 800 block of Buena Avenue in the Lakeview neighborhood on Chicago's northside. It's a half mile from Al Capone's old gin joint in Uptown, The Green Mill, now a popular site for brutal poetry slams.

When our landlord, a retired fire chief, bought the building it was an abandoned structure across the street from a deserted lot filled with crack vials. Around the back was a burned out church which was a favorite hangout for transvestite hookers.

Thanks to rampant yuppization of the area around Wrigley Park, things have tamed. When I checked out the RSS feed of crimes on my former block, I found only five crimes committed, most of them sounding like scenes from a 1950s film on street racing: motor vehicle theft, criminal damage, criminal trespass, reckless conduct, and, the most innocuous-sounding of all, deceptive practice.

Funny how one becomes nostalgic for depravity.

For a glimpse of the truly bad old days of Chicago, complete with the windiest politicians, rollicking red-light districts and most notorious vice games, you can always book a ticket on the Chicago Untouchables Tour.

Let's Go Logo

Every kid with a Mac and a pirated copy of Photoshop eventually gets asked to design someone's logo.

Whether the request comes from family, a good friend, or friend-of-the-family, the assumption is: "Hey now, don't all you graphic types just know how to shake a logo outta that there electronic box of yours?"

Truth be told: No, but we know how to fake it!

If we can't fake it, then we rip stuff off. As Pablo Picasso is said to have said, "All artists borrow; real artists steal."

Creating a corporate identity is as challenging for the family-owned pizza shop as it is for a newly formed global conglomerate; the client is usually inarticulate as to their expectations or what direction to take, and yet they seem categorically opposed to actually listening to the opinion of the designer whom they have contracted for the job.

Oft times the client feedback sessions come close to echoing the words of Homer Simpson's boss, Monty Burns: "I don't know what I want, but I know what I hate. And I hate that!"

And what's more, a swank logo does not a brand make.

For the latest trends in logo design, check out the Third Annual Visual Trends Report at Graphic Design USA by Bill Gardner of LogoLounge.com. Bill writes:

The word “trend” seems to raise the little hairs on the back of some designers’ necks. Everybody wants to be a you-know-what-setter; no one wants to acknowledge the aftermath. But as we march toward LogoLounge.com’s fifth anniversary, we’ve discovered that trends have become something impossible — and maybe unwise — to ignore.

Some of the 15 trends include leaves, weaves, dots, blurs, washouts, whips and more.

[via Mark Hurst at Good Experience]

Also at LogoLounge, Rob Camper, Principal and Creative Director for Times Infinity
(www.thebrandiseverything.com), writes a guest editorial Brand Discipline Redux: Beyond Brand Identity.

Camper writes of the need for designers to expand--and standardize--their branding language lexicon. He sees The Brand as having multidimensional and constructed of different companents: the Concept, the Promise, Identity, Personality and Values:

Making Design Relevant
So how is a discipline that is more neural psychology than visual imagery supposed to benefit designers? First, the work gets focused, targeted, uber-revelant, and is turned out much more efficiently. We have also seen that an otherwise overly fussy client will bow to a design that might be outside of their personal tastes, when they recognize the opportunity of a greater good being served.

Second, the savvy designer will know when to steer a client toward a real branding regimen when the problems run deeper than needing a new logo. Several years back, Sean Adams (AdamsMorioka) did that for a music video network (VH-1) that was primarily interested in a new visual identity. His recommendation: conceptual ownership. Adams and his team came back with a tighter focus, new programming ideas and a comprehensive visual makeover. The network wanted a Band-Aid; Adams performed a triple-bypass and followed up with serious group therapy.

And third, if designers are to reclaim their position up the food chain with other executives, we need to become more relevant – and that means understanding 'brand discipline'.

For a dose of the counter-branding counter-culture, there is Naomi Klein's No Logo.

Favorite American Movie Posters

From our pal, Bo “The Hip-Hop Hillbilly” Maupin, we learned about Internet Movie Poster Awards:

I figured most folks might like this link. It’s a really well organized reference to a deep selection of movie posters from 1974 until now. Of course there are commercial links, but still a nice source none the less. I still have my original Scarface poster. I didn’t know it was going to be a requirement in everyone’s house on MTV Cribs.

I am lucky to have a group of friends from my home town who continue to harrass each other via email.

We heard about this poster resource when another hip-hopping hillbilly, Craig Bates of Knoxville, sent an image that looks remarkably similar to one of the crew.

The poster is for the upcoming film The Forty-Year-Old Virgin starring Steve Carrell, currently the star of the American version of "The Office".

We Miss You, Milosz

Thanks to the daily message from Garrison Kiellor at The Writer's Almanac, I am reminded that it's the birthday of the poet Czeslaw Milosz, Nobel Prize-winning poet and survivor of the vivisection of Poland by Germany and Russia during World War II.

During my time as a student in Krakow, I witnessed Milosz's return to the country he had left 44 years earlier. The school I was attending had arranged for a special meeting with the man; so, a hundred of us foreigners crowded into a lecture hall to hear him read his work and answer questions.

By that time (1994), the poet was in his 80's and sharp as a tack, but deaf as a stone. A persnikity Polish professor served as moderator and translator. Two friends, first generation Chicago Polaks, elbowed me in the ribs until I stood to ask a question.

In my garbled Polish, I attempted to ask him how he felt coming back to his country after so many years in exile. I mentioned that he and anothe Nobel Laureate, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, had both returned to their respective homes that spring after decades in the West.

Slozhenitsyn had spent roughly a third of his life in the Russian army, a third in the dismal Russian prison system, and a third in exile. His observation of the vast Soviet prison network are detailed in Gulag Archipelago.

In the lecture hall, the Polish professor sneered at my butchering of the past perfect tense but passed on the question; my friends snickered.

Milosz replied that Slozhenitsyn was returning as a prophet, a saint, a guru; Milosz felt he was just and old poet coming home.

Later that week, I spotted Milosz in the literary cafe that has been around since he was a student at Jagiellonian University in the 30's. He was seated with a young student in the back courtyard at a small table nestled in an overgrown garden, laundry strung out between two pear trees and stray cats on the prowl. They were debating about poetry, about words.

The old man had seen so many people shot, bombed, imprisoned, exterminated, rubbed out--all because of language, because of ideas. The young man was coming of age during a time a vast awakening, of falling walls, of widening horizons, of increasing freedoms, of new dangers.

Eleven years later, I'm sitting in my own overgrown urban garden, ivy assaulting a three-story brick wall, crazy gee-gaws and wind chimes fluttering, a tight formation of invasive orange Tigerlillies. So much of my work has been to recreate that space in which I saw the ancient, venerated poet passing on a bit of electricity to the clean shaven young romantic, telling him: "Language is the only homeland."

Encounter

We were riding through frozen fields in a wagon at dawn.
A red wing rose in the darkness.

And suddenly a hare ran across the road.
One of us pointed to it with his hand.

That was long ago. Today neither of them is alive,
Not the hare, nor the man who made the gesture.

O my love, where are they, where are they going
The flash of a hand, streak of movement, rustle of pebbles.
I ask not out of sorrow, but in wonder.

~ Czeslaw Milosz, Wilno, 1936

From The Writer's Almanac:

Born in Szetejnie, Lithuania (1911), Milosz grew up in a Polish-speaking family. He studied law rather than literature, but co-founded a literary group in 1931. The group was so pessimistic about the future, it was nicknamed the "Catastrophists." They predicted a coming world war, though nobody believed them.

Czeslaw Milosz wrote anti-Nazi poetry after the invasion of Poland in 1939. He witnessed the genocide of the Jews in Warsaw. He was one of the first poets to write about it in his book Rescue in 1945.

After the war, he got a job as a diplomat for communist Poland, though he was not a member of the communist party. One night, in the winter of 1949, on his way home from a government meeting, he saw jeeps filled with political prisoners, surrounded by soldiers. He said, "It was then that I realized what I was part of." He defected two years later and went to Paris.

Most intellectuals in Paris were pro-communist at the time. They thought of Milosz as a traitor. The poet Pablo Neruda attacked him. In 1953, Milosz published a book about communism called The Captive Mind. He moved to the United States and started teaching at Berkley in 1960. He had mixed feelings about the United States. He kept writing poetry in Polish, although almost nobody was reading it. His books had been banned in Poland, and his poems weren't translated into English until years later. In 1980, he got a phone call at three in the morning telling him that he'd won the Nobel Prize for Literature.

100 Miles for Kids

Zach Warren, former Alphachimp intern, is a divinity student and circus performer with a social mission.

After his first year at Harvard, Zach and his friends have been preparing for a massive trip to Afghanistan in order to support the Afghani Mobile Mini Circus for Children. Zach has been raising money through his 100 Miles for Kids Campaign.

To raise $10,000 for the Circus, Zach will attempt to break the GUINNESS WORLD RECORD™ for the “FASTEST 100 MILES ON A UNICYCLE”! One wheel, one clock, one pair of legs, one time to beat!

The current world record for 100miles on a unicycle was set in 1987 by Takayuki Koike of Japan. His average speed was 14.85 mph, resulting in a time of 6 hours, 44 minutes, and 21.84 seconds.

Currently, there is an international competition to break the record, including an attempt made in February of 2005, by Ken Looi in New Zealand. Looi failed to break the 100-mile record but succeeded in breaking the 24-hour distance record. Looi will reattempt the record later this year, explaining that "I can't stand unfinished business."

Though the official attempt is Oct. 11, Zach is doing a pilot trial this Thursday, May 19, between 7am-2pm, on the 400m Kissena Velodrome Track, Queens, NY. The track was generously donated by the NYC Cycling Club.

“We cannot take the gift of laughter for granted. Thousands of children in Afghanistan have to relearn how to play because the line for them between playful imagination and violent reality is so fragile.

The Afghan Mobile Mini Circus for Children is an established "Child-Protection" NGO that helps Afghani kids relearn how to play. More than a circus, the MMCC empowers children to develop their own sense of identity and meaning through the arts."

- David Mason and Zach Warren, MMCC

The story that follows details his adventures with special needs kids in Ireland who are entertaining and delighting crowds. The real star of the show is Eogan, a great kid who plays the Devil and challenges members of the audience to wrestle.

For more detail and photos, read on!

From an email sent to Alphachimp Studio by Zach Warren:

After a string of circus adventures in the UK, Switzerland, and Italy, I'm back in Cambridge (USA) for a brief moment to collect my thoughts, and my belongings. In a few hours, I leave again for Delhi, India, to meet with some street performers, then head off to Kabul, where these bones will be living and learning the next ten weeks.

I'm feeling a bit uneasy about going just before elections, for fear that the violence will escalate, but am relieved to know that I will be in good hands with the circus and a longtime friend who's in Kabul now. I never expected to be doing anything quite like this, but I feel drawn to this work in this place.

In 2001, President George W. Bush stood amid the fallen towers of the World Trade Center and said, "They will hear from us." And he's right. The world is a connected place, and the "they's" and the "us'es" must hear from each other. In two hours, I am heading toward Afghanistan with a duffle bag full of juggling equipment, camera equipment for research on the healing effects of circus interventions, and a desire to listen, learn deeply, and share the transformative power of circus arts with children who have grown up with war, drought, poverty, and other forms of violence.

I'll arrive with aid in the form of circus donations, too. Steve Ragatz, an international circus performer and juggler in Cirque du Soleil, constructed juggling boxes, clubs, torches, and rings for me to give to the MMCC (see www.stevenragatz.com). David Ascroft of the Cirque Uplands Circus in Canada, another children's circus, sent over to Kabul $600 of circus equipment, including a custom unicycle (www.drkaboom.com). It's not enough for the nearly 50 kids in the circus, but every bit helps in a big way. I will send another email after I arrive and have settled.

But what happened to June, you may ask? How did the street performing experiment with special needs adults work out? If you're curious and have a moment, read on. I also invite you to check out a few photos.

Let's imagine, for a moment, that you are a circus performer and a divinity student. Imagine that tomorrow morning you will wake up not in your normal abode, but in a special needs community in Dingle, Ireland. Eogan, a 25-year old Irish lad with Downs Syndrome, sideburn chops, and an infectious sense of humour, taps you on the shoulder to wake you up. "Wake up or I'll arm wrestle you, I will," he quips with a thick accent. Eogan is a natural entertainer, and a character. He'll chat up nearly anyone on the street.

After raking the dust off your eyeballs, you rise, then glance out the window at cow pastures and the distant sea. It's beautiful. Rediculously green. Hobbling to the kitchen table, you meet John, a 29-year-old special needs man with a red beard, a slender frame some six feet tall, and the sort of facial expression you'd expect from someone who's just woken up. (John's not a morning person.) "Hi," he says in monotone, scraping some fresh strawberry jam onto white bread, always with intensity in his eyes. John is the philosopher in the group. Not the kind of philosopher who writes, reads heavy books, and wears black turtle necks, but the kind who makes those basic statements about life that are at once remarkably ordinary and remarkably profound. To get him talking, simply ask him about the meaning of life, and he'll give you a long soliloquoy, sometimes stuttering, sometimes changing his mind mid-sentence, but always with a sense of fervor and existential urgency.

At the breakfast table to your right sits Duncan, a dear friend from Harvard, also a talented musician and a philosopher-theologian in his own right. After college, Duncan lived with these two fellows -- John and Eogan -- for two years in a Camphill special needs community in Callan, Ireland. This week, all four of you are taking a holiday -- not as tourists, but as street performers. A rare bunch. The likes of you may never come together again in this way, but the experience is built to be memorable.

Today, and each day, you spend a few hours dancing, whistling, singing, juggling, arm wrestling, and storytelling on the street. What's your act?? The goal for this experiment is to have something performative in which everybody can participate -- the four performers, and the audience, too. After a few days of planning and more than a few rounds of Guinness, you have it: a story to tell and a series of songs to narrate along the way. More importantly, you have roles that befit each of your strengths and personalities. Duncan sings with his guitar. John plays "The Meaning of Life." Eogan plays "the Devil." And you... you're the juggler.

Juggler Man sets out on a quest to find The Meaning of Life. Behind him, Duncan sings, Eogan blows into a recorder, and John looks at the audience with his typical intensity. Along the way, Juggler Man encounters the Devil, who tries to keep him from the Meaning of Life. Eogan seizes the imaginary stage wearing a full-body red wetsuit, a costume he picked out from a second-hand store. After a series of challenges -- juggling baseball bats, tennis rackets, even flaming torches -- Eogan calls you to an arm wrestling match, one of his favorite pasttimes. Inevitably, you lose, and must call to the audience for help. "You, sir, do you want to wrestle with the Devil?"

Someone, eventually, beats Eogan, who takes it all in good fun. Later, the Devil and Meaning of Life have a stare-down, a staring contest judged by the audience, after which John demonstrates his magical prowess as the Meaning of Life, balancing two spinning plates simultaneously atop long sticks, then giving an always impromptu piece of wisdom or poem, like, "Love, love, why the love?" A finale to celebrate the ending might be juggling knives, or balancing Duncan's guitar on your chin. At least, that was our story. John and Eogan loved it, and so did Duncan and me. For John and Eogan, it was a chance to show off just a few of their skills, proving that special needs can also come with special talents, and also nurturing their natural spirit of play. As performers, each of us can be special, and in ways that bring confidence and sociability rather than a sense of isolation or aloneness.

I better finish packing and scoot out the door. Forgive me if I haven't responded to your email, but know that I do read all my emails, even if there's no time to reply. Thanks for keeping me in your heart! You're certainly in mine.

Samantha Appleton, Photojournalist

There comes a time when you just have to brag about cool people you know.

One of them in our life is Samantha Appleton. Though she looks like a kind-hearted, easy-going young woman from Maine (she is), Samantha is a brave photojournalist who gets close--not just too the action, but to the humans at the center of the drama.

Whether she is photographing firefighters at ground zero, insurgents in Iraq, or Nepalese circus girls, Samantha's images uncover the very human elements beneath the headlines. She shows us the anxiety, the worry, but she also shows us the kindness, the unexpected joy, the gestures of empathy.

Her photos capture the vulnerability beneath the hard shell titles of Outsourcing, Insurgent, Resue Worker, Security Forces, Immigrant, Refugee.

Visit www.samanthaappleton.com to see photo essays: Nepali Circus Girls, Iraqi Militias and Civilians, Mexico's Southern Border, 9/11, Maine Handicapped Skiing, Lubec Maine, and India Outsourcing.