FULL CALENDAR * REFLECTIONS ON 9/11 * THANK YOU * BILL'S COFFEESHOP NEWSLETTER * Vol. 12 * November 10, 2011

THANKS TO
EVERYONE
This year's Labor Day event was a great success. Thanks to all who came to see us -- and to all who helped make it possible. Let's do it again next year. 

LOOK WHAT'S
COMING UP...
Saturday, Sept. 10, 7 pm. Saturday Night Music: Jeff Leonard, singer/songwriter from Wisconsin

Wednesday, Sept. 14, 7 pm: Spoken Word Open Mic. (Readers & Writers Group at 6 pm)
Thursday, Sept. 15, 6 pm: Art Night. 7 pm: Open Mic. After Open Mic: Folk/blues singer Frank Strong                                                                 
(presented in cooperation with Access 2 Independence).
Saturday, Sept 17, 7 pm. Saturday Night Music: Terrapin Isle

Tuesday, Sept 20, 6:30 pm. Film Night: The Field. (Hosted by "Global Aging" class)
Wednesday, Sept. 21, 7 pm: Spoken Word Open Mic (Readers & Writers Group at 6 pm)
Thursday, Sept. 22, 6 pm Art & Music Night: Singer/songwriters Sarah Pray and Thomas Kivi. 7 pm: Open Mic.
Saturday, Sept. 24, 7 pm. Saturday Night Music: Karla Miller

Wednesday, Sept. 28, 7 pm: Spoken Word Open Mic (Readers & Writers Group 6 pm)
Thursday, Sept. 29, 6 pm: Art Night. 7 pm: Open Mic. Singer/songwriter Jessica Smucker plays after Open Mic
Saturday, Oct. 1 4:30 to 6 pm: Irish Sessions. 7 pm: Saturday Night Music with Marc and Brandi Janssen

Wednesday, Oct. 5, 7 pm: Spoken Word Open Mic (Readers & Writers Group at 6 pm)
Thursday, Oct. 6, 6 pm: Art Night. 7 pm: Open Mic
Saturday, Oct. 8, 7 pm: Saturday Night Music with Ben Schmidt and Larry Mossman.

Wednesday, Oct. 12, 7 pm: Spoken Word Open Mic (Readers & Writers Group at 6 pm).
Thursday, Oct. 13, 6 pm: Art & Music Night. Local musicians The Sideman will perform.

READER REACTIONS
TO SEPT. 11 ATTACKS
Friends of Bill's Coffeeshop filled this Newsletter with their thoughts after the tragedies of Sept. 11, 2001. Here are some excerpts from the reflections published ten years ago:

Words do not come easily when we are faced with horror as large as that of this past week. It is a tragedy far too big for our words. Yet there is an urge to speak. Perhaps it is a way to try to make sense of what seems senseless. Each day and each night I have heard people near and far try to do this. Here is a sampling of the voices heard since last Tuesday, Sept. 11 ~ Tom Gilsenan

+From Bill's in Italy...

Carissimi Amici, 11 Settembre ha lasciato un mondo diverso. Non ho parole.
Sono vicino a voi tutti. Che la speranza non ci abbandoni.
               -- Giovanni Ardissone
(Sept. 11 has shaken the whole world. I do not have words. We are with
you. Do not give up hope. Giovanni.)

+From Maria Kummer, coordinator of the local Million Mom March chapter...

We did have a Million Mom March table on the Ped Mall on Friday. We put up a
large poster that said: "Alternatives to violence/Compassion for victims and
families." ...We wanted to be a peaceful presence and give people an
opportunity to talk.

+From young people who organized a memorial Friday night downtown on the
Ped Mall....
The way to have peace is to be peaceful

+From Craig Mosher, who teaches social work at Iowa State..

[Craig forwarded a petition on responses to terrorism. This is an excerpt]
We implore the powers that be to use, wherever possible, international
judicial institutions and international human rights law to bring to
justice those responsible for the attacks, rather than instruments of war
violence or destruction.

+From Michael Lerner, Jewish rabbi and editor of Tikkun magazine...

We should pray for the victims and the families of those who have been
hurt or murdered in these crazy acts. We should also pray that America
does not return to "business as usual," but rather turns to a period of
reflection, coming back into touch with our common humanity, asking
ourselves how our institutions can best embody our highest values.

+From Bob Vander Beek in the school of social work...

I think Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) is especially important this
year. We have immediate reason to celebrate the dead while celebrating
living. The task of building respect and love between communities seems to
me to have become all the more important.

+From Lynn Mennenga, an MSW student...

[Lynn forwarded a letter from the Dalai Lama to President Bush. This is an
excerpt.]

I personally believe we need to think seriously whether a violent action
is the right thing to do and in the greater interest of the nation and
people in the long run. I believe violence will only increase the cycle of
violence. But how do we deal with hatred and anger, which are often the
root causes of such senseless violence? This is a very difficult question.

+From Elizabeth Salines Newby, head of Iowa's Division of Latino Affairs..

It was a very difficult day and many, many lives and events have been
affected beyond our understanding. Our lives will never be the same
again...It is out of respect, support and reverence that... [we] postpone
the Latino Heritage Festival that was to be held Sept. 13 and 15.

+From Julie Dreschler, a friend in Australia...

I can't describe the horror that came over me; the country I love was
being attacked. Luke and I stayed up watching in horror most of the night.
The kids found me in the morning watching TV on the couch. They wanted to
know what was happening. I tried to explain it in the best way I could to
a six and eight year old. The thing they couldn't get over was that they
did it on "purpose."

+From Carolyn Lieberg at the UI Center for Teaching...

[Carolyn forwarded messages from teachers. This is an excerpt from one.]
I had class at 11 am today. I didn't know what to do, but I knew I could
not go into that room and teach as if nothing had happened. I asked if
anyone wanted to talk, and was met with a deafening silence. I
acknowledged that we don't really know each other yet, and it might be
hard to talk in a room full of 40 strangers.

Then someone asked, in a small voice, what it all meant. And I realized
that my students were looking to me for answers that I don't have. I said:
"I don't know." And then they started to talk. And talk. They told stories
of people they know whose lives have changed forever.

+From Stephanie Salter, writer for the San Francisco Chronicle...
As you watch first one and then another 110 story building crumble and
dissolve into apocalyptic clouds of dust, you keep hoping the words
"computer simulation" will flash across the screen. Instead, it just says,
"live."

You try, for a few seconds, to imagine what it feels like to harbor the
magnitude of hate that the human beings -- oh, yes, they are made of flesh
and blood just like all the rest of us -- must hold to dream and executive
this nightmare. You can't imagine. You never want to imagine.
You remember Gandhi's absolute: "There are many causes for which I would
die, but none for which I would kill.

You wonder if George W. Bush, with his initial vow to "hunt down...the
folks" who are responsible, has ever heard the Gandhi quote. For the first
time since he assumed leadership of the United States, you deliberately
short-circuit your customary anger and malice toward him. Instead, you
start to pray.

Through the ether, you beg him to believe in the God he says he believes
in, to ask himself -- before he decides anything -- the question he swears
he often asks: "what would Jesus do?"

+From Fran Hawthorne, longtime friend of coffeeshop manager Tom Gilsenan.
She is a writer and lives in Brooklyn. Joey is her son...

I appreciated the words from people in the Wild Bill's Newsletter. Perhaps
you'd like to hear from someone who was in New York and saw the
aftermath.

I think the thing I think about most often is the faces.

Joey's first grade classmate, James, and his mother, Lisanne. Lisanne's
boyfriend worked at Cantor Fitzgerald on one of the high floors of the
World Trade Center and hasn't been heard from since the explosion. They
just had a baby this summer.

Joey's preschool friend Duncan, his mother Suzanne, his father Jeff. Jeff
was a chef at Windows on the World at the top of the World Trade Center.
He, too, hasn't been heard from since last Tuesday.

I also think about Jakub, a boy now in Joey's second grade class. He and
his family are, I assume, Muslim. I'm not sure Jakub has been in school at
all since Tuesday.

It hurts to think about all of them.

I walked home Tuesday night across the Manhattan bridge from Manhattan to
Brooklyn. Stretched across part of the evening sky was a cloud -- a cloud
unlike any I had ever seen. It was deep, mud-brown, and huge. It must have
stretched for miles, from the site of the World Trade Center deep into
Brooklyn. The air was caked with smoke, of course. We all breathed it in,
like smoke from an overburned barbecue. Burnt papers, burnt steel, I
assumed. Until I read the newspapers: I was also breathing in the smoke of
burnt flesh.

Thursday I was able to get within a few blocks. This time, instead of
brown, the dominant color was grey: air, street, debris, everything was
grey. As I looked down Church Street, two blocks away, there was this
thing on the ground. Did you ever see the first Planet of the Apes movie?
It reminded me of that famous last scene: It was a huge, jaggedly
triangular hunk of latticed steel, sticking up taller than the debris
around. It used to be part of the structure of the World Trade Center.

Everywhere you walk now you see American flags. On our block, we have
"adopted" the local fire station and are collecting food for each change
of shift. (Half the firefighters in the station have been lost in rescue
efforts.) I am glad to do something to help. There are no words for the
bravery of those firefighters.

But I am scared. Not so scared of war, but scared of what is happening to
America. Will it be possible to be a political liberal and also a
patriotic American anymore? Can we mourn the dead, condemn the killers, and
celebrate the brave and also criticize George Bush?

[Editor's note: Fran has visited Bill's twice in recent years to talk about her

books. She was at Uptown Bill's this past summer to talk about her newest

book, "Overloaded Liberal."]

+From Sue Rebedeau:
I have vacillated between feeling the numbness of shock, feeling
vulnerable, feeling sorrow and anger, feeling relief that my family is
safe and sound, and feeling some degree of guilt that we are all well.
So the sun shines differently, the rain felt different as I stood at our
high school football game Friday night, and I know that my children and
grandchildren will grow up in a different world than the one I grew up in.

***Your thoughts and comments are welcome. You can simply hit
reply and start writing. Or send your message to tomgilsenan@gmail.com

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Bill's Coffeeshop Newsletter is a virtual extension of Wild Bill's Coffeeshop and Uptown Bill's Coffee House. Published since 2000, the Newsletter is written by Tom Gilsenan, a former manager of Wild Bill's and now director of Uptown Bill's. You can write to him at tomgilsenan@gmail.com

Wild Bill's Coffeeshop is a project of the School of Social Work at the University of Iowa. It has been a part of campus life in Iowa City for more than 35 years. Located in North Hall, the coffeeshop is open weekdays from 8 am. For more information, check the Friends of Bill's Coffeeshop page on Facebook. You can call the coffeeshop at (319) 335-1281. Donations to support the work of the coffeeshop may be sent to: Bill's Coffeeshop Fund, University of Iowa Foundation, P.O. Box 4550, Iowa City, IA 52244. Contributions are tax deductible.

Uptown Bill's is the crosstown cousin of Wild Bill's. Now in its 10th year, it includes a bookstore, performance venue and other businesses in addition to a coffeeshop. Located at 730 S. Dubuque, Uptown Bill's is open Monday through Saturday from 7 am. For more information, check the Uptown Bill's website or Facebook page. You can call Uptown Bill's at (319) 339-0401. Donations to support the work of Uptown Bill's may be sent to: Extend the Dream Foundation, Uptown Bill's, 730 S. Dubuque St., Iowa City, IA 52240. Contributions are tax deductible.