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CHATGPT

I’ve been reading poetry by Catullus and Juan Ramón Jiménez in Latin and Spanish. In the old days, if I wanted to read and translate and take a walk, I would put into my backpack a dictionary of the language, a grammar of the language, and the poetry in the language as well. If I were reading Catullus and Jiménez, that would double the load. And if I added Baudelaire, well, you can imagine.

All those books, and a notebook included too, could really weigh you down, especially if you were climbing up a mountain. Now I have my phone. When there is a line of poetry I’m not so sure about, I bring it up with my ChatGPT and we discuss.

I know people think that AI is taking away our ability to think, but so far it is like I have a partner who I can talk to about ideas or problems or worries I’m having. We’ve discussed WordPress, we’ve discussed my computer, we’ve discussed my camcorder.

GETTING ANGRY

SEE THAT MY GRAVE IS KEPT CLEAN

“Well, there’s one kind of favor I’ll ask of you
Well, there’s one kind of favor I’ll ask of you
There’s just one kind favor I’ll ask of you
You can see that my grave is kept clean.”

Yesterday at 3, I walked to the Temperance Fountain in Tompkins Square Park to meet my friend Roberta Schine. There is a plaque at the fountain in remembrance of our friend John Mangano who died of AIDS in August of 1991. It was covered with dirt and Roberta wanted to clean it up.

At the Temperance Fountain, the plaques at the northern section of the fountain are clean. They must be washed clean by the rain, but the southern section seems to be where all the rain swept dirt settles and remains.

I brought a broom and a dustpan and swept the place clean. Roberta brought a bucket and brush and washed it.

Our friend John Mangano wrote a musical called “Reefer Madness” that had a long run at Theater for the New City and he knew more about the history of Broadway musicals than anybody I knew. Look for and name an obscure song from some obscure 1930s show, and he’d sing it.

Roberta says, “My friend, John Mangano, died of AIDS 34 years ago. He was wickedly funny, brutally honest, kind, brilliant, great at creating community, a passionate writer, heavily invested in being outrageous and infuriating. I still miss him. He was 36. Fuck you, Ronald Reagan.”

Silence = Death is as relevant today as it was back then. The truth is the truth and it never goes away.

I’ve included a few photos of us cleaning, and a few more now of Roberta in 1967 frolicking with her then beau Abbie Hoffman, and at her Karate school in the West Village. There is John before AIDS and with Roberta shortly before he died.

Roberta taught karate for many years. When she closed her school in 1995, the NY Times wrote an article about her that follows. These days, Roberta has been helping immigrants in NYC and she has gone to the border too. She’s very hands on. When West Africans populated Tompkins Square looking for shelter and work, Roberta brought them cold Cokes to let them know they weren’t alone. People even sent her Cokes via Amazon. With Roberta—and I love her—the work is love and the work never stops.

Sixties Pioneer Trades Martial Art for a Healing One

By ANDREW JACOBS

In the late 1960’s, Roberta Schine was studying modern dance and — like most of her peers — protesting the war in Vietnam, agitating for civil rights in the South and living “here and there” around the East Village. Then she visited a friend’s karate class.

“Dance suddenly struck me as incredibly bourgeois, and karate seemed like a practical way to protect myself during civil disobedience,” said Ms. Schine, a 52-year-old self-described “aging hippie” who went on to found one of the city’s first karate schools for women. Now, after 20 years of running the Karate School for Women at 149 Bleecker Street, Ms. Schine will close her studio next week to teach a far less martial art — yoga.

Karate, she says, no longer fills a need in her life, and the drive toward physical self-empowerment has been supplanted by a need for self-healing. Ten years ago, Ms. Schine was found to have breast cancer. Yoga, she says, helped her deal with the pain and trauma of treatment.

Two decades ago, when Ms. Schine told her karate instructor about plans to start her own school, he laughed, then forbade her to do so. Women, he said, do not do that sort of thing. Not one to be deterred, Ms. Schine started the Karate School for Women anyway but under a pseudonym: Florence Flowerpot.

In a field long dominated by men, she created a place for thousands of women to kick, punch and spar with one another. “I can’t tell you how much sexism and abuse women had to endure in those early days,” said Annie Ellman, executive director of Brooklyn Women’s Martial Arts.

Ms. Schine said she had survived three eviction attempts by her landlord and harassment by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. (Her phone number was in the pocket of Kathy Boudin, the Weather Underground leader, when Ms. Boudin was arrested in 1981 in a fatal Brink’s robbery.) “I guess the F.B.I. wasn’t pleased because I refused to talk to them,” Ms. Schine said. “All I knew about this woman was that she was a lovely, extremely passionate student.”

Over the last few years, Ms. Schine, who has a second-level black belt, began teaching yoga and meditation to women with breast or ovarian cancer. Now, she will teach the healing arts full time.

Although saddened by Ms. Schine’s early retirement, some of her karate students are hoping to continue the school in another space. Her quirky teaching style and acceptance of any student — no matter what her level — will be sorely missed, they say. “There’s no one like Roberta — humorous and irreverent without taking away the reverence for karate,” said Betty Ann Bannon, a lawyer who started at the school in 1978. “Besides teaching me to get a brown belt, Roberta taught me self-confidence and taught all of us a sense of belonging.”

I saw this dance piece by Yoshika Chumo that I’d like to include here.

49 reactions | Yoshiko Chuma on Reels

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Trust me. I’m not on acid or anything, but everything is art. East 12th Street approaching First Avenue.

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The Prologue. Be on the lookout for my book coming soon, Fucking and Other Poems. Published by Indolent Books: https://www.indolentbooks.com/ The poems here are the first in the book. Hope you enjoy.

The Prologue

AGOSTO MACHADO AT GORDON ROBICHAUX

Went to Agosto Machado's opening at Gordon Robichaux last night. The show goes on until October 26th and it's the sort of show where you can bring some children along; they'll have fun. Over the summer, while the gallery was closed, Agosto created his shrine installations on the spot. The show, though coming from the past, meets you in the present, here and now. It runs till October 26th and the gallery is open Friday, Saturday and Sunday from noon to 6 PM. On Fridays, enter at 41 Union Square West, 9th floor, gallery room 907. On Saturday and Sunday, enter at 22 East 17th.

Agosto Machado | Gordon Robichaux

Agosto Machado, Through October 26, 2025