TheBanyanTree: [Fwd: SAY what???!!!]

Tue Nov 1 16:48:58 PDT 2016

Tobie, most wonderful Tobie, I am so happy to hear from you!  5737 unread e-mails so I don't always read all TBT stories  but when I saw your name, my heart "leapt up" as Wordsworth said, and I had to open it!  I've thought of you so often, and wondered what and how you were doing.  I, too, have been mostly absent from TBT, but do keep up with many on FB a bit.  I love you, dear one!  You make my heart smile!
Jana From: Tobie Helene Shapiro <tobie at shpilchas.net>
 To: Jena Norton <eudora45 at sbcglobal.net>; A comfortable place to meet other people and exchange your own *original* writings. <thebanyantree at lists.remsset.com> 
 Sent: Tuesday, November 1, 2016 2:43 PM
 Subject: Re: TheBanyanTree: [Fwd: SAY what???!!!]

Yes indeed, I lost the house in the fire.  That was 25 years ago!  Three years of moving from rental to rental with four kids and a stiff lipped husband (the divorce came later).  Three years of suing the insurance company.

    But a lot has happened since then, my dear.

    I think I posted a looooooong series of what, for lack of a better title, I called: "Life Stories".  I sent them in every single day, and that was in 2007.  That’s the last you may have heard from me on the Banyan Tree.  The entries just went ON and On and On.  So, when people got sufficiently bored shitless with my recollections of whatever the hell I remembered at the time about my life, and I stopped hearing even a word from anyone on the list, I just quietly walked across the hall, went into my bedroom, closed the door and haven’t come out or written a word since.

    So be careful what you don’t say to me.  In other words:  always pay attention to what you don’t do, and you may make a metaphor of that.  

    It was the mention of Youngblood that brought me out of my life here as a voyeur.

    Thank you Paul for posting my message.  And thank you for not being an anti-semite, and thank you for hiding the fact if you are.  We’re very sensitive about that, you know.  I mean, how was I to know that I was married to one, and thank God he walked out on us!          sort of

    Carry on.

Love,

Tobie

> On Nov 1, 2016, at 2:20 PM, Jena Norton <eudora45 at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> 
> I wondered what happened to Tobie. Used to see posts from her on other lists. Glad she's on the exception list! I'm trying to remember if it was her, but I think she lost her home in the fire in the Oakland hills in the early 90s.  Jena Norton
> 
> 
>      From: paul <paul at remsset.com>
> To: The Banyan Tree <thebanyantree at remsset.com> 
> Sent: Tuesday, November 1, 2016 2:05 PM
> Subject: TheBanyanTree: [Fwd: SAY what???!!!]
> 
> I'm laughing here. I think I have a mail list rule set so that mail
> from non-members is vaporized. "tobie at lmi.net" is not a list member
> but is now added to the exception filter.
> 
> As for anti-semitic, I had a Jewish grandfather and yeah, granmama was
> a good Catholic and kept a kosher kitchen. :)
> 
> Here it is!  Incoming from Tobie!!!
> 
> paul
> 
> 
> -------- Original Message --------
> Subject: SAY what???!!!
> Date: Tue, 1 Nov 2016 13:24:27 -0700
> From: Tobie Helene Shapiro <tobie at shpilchas.net>
> To: thebanyantree-owner at lists.remsset.com
> 
> 
> 
> Hey! Why was my message rejected?
> 
> 
> I know I haven’t posted for years, but I still read all the stories.
> You mean I’ve been discontinued?!
> 
> It’s because you’re anti-semitic, isn’t it!!! That’s it! You don’t
> like me because I’m a Jew. RATS!
> 
> C’mon, be a dear. Post my message. I was wondering why it didn’t show
> up in the inbox. It’s about YB. Way back to Spoon days, too.
> 
> 
> Are you there?
> 
> Am I here?
> 
> 
> Here’s my message as I wrote it:
> 
> 
> *From: *Tobie Helene Shapiro <tobie at lmi.net <mailto:tobie at lmi.net>>
> *Subject: **Re: TheBanyanTree: STARGAZR*
> *Date: *October 31, 2016 at 8:57:14 AM PDT
> *To: *"A comfortable place to meet other people and exchange your own
> *original* writings." <thebanyantree at lists.remsset.com
> <mailto:thebanyantree at lists.remsset.com>>
> 
> 
> Oh yes! Youngblood!
> 
> 
> Remember the call for donations to make a gift for Youngblood? Not
> money, no. The gift involved everyone sending in souvenir spoons
> from all over? I fashioned them onto a large poster-board and made a
> giant artwork for her which I carried on an airplane to Houston and
> presented to her in person.
> 
> I was sitting in the airport looking conspicuous waiting for her to
> pick me up. It was overcast with smog. I can’t even recall the time
> of year. When she walked up to me, we both had a moment of cautious
> recognition, you know, like a blind date smoking over the population
> for the correct stranger? (the correct stranger. I’ll have to write
> that down). At the time, Youngblood was not happy about things and
> confessed feeling like a burden to everyone around her. AH BUT
> NO!!!!!!! She was a blasting flame of energy to everyone around her,
> even in her depleted state of mind.
> 
> Seeing the woman after reading her prodigious brilliant spirit in
> words for so long was a deep slow thrill that I can’t explain. What I
> can explain is that their apartment was so thick with cigarette smoke
> that I had to sit outside the sliding window-doors that opened to the
> yard. I felt like such a petty Berkeleyite and I suppose I still am.
> But they both understood and we conversed through the doors.
> 
> I wish I could find her last email to me. I know it’s here someplace
> on this mac, hiding among other less important stuff. At the point
> that she wrote it she told me that she was barely capable of writing
> anymore because her mind was so woven crazy from the brain tumor. But
> it was one of the most eloquent woven crazy writing I’d ever gotten
> from her. One phrase referred to the chronic grass smoking and was
> worded like this:
> 
> ……….. purling roll joints …………
> 
> I’ll have to look for it harder and report back. It does the heart
> good to hear that her ashes were distributed so widely and so
> lovingly. What a quirky prophet she was.
> 
> Tobie
> ever in Berkeley
> rarely elsewhere
> lacking the ticket
> the time
> too much tethered
> but grinning
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Keep your eye out and note everything you say and everything you do,
> and ABSOLUTELY everything you put in writing, because you never know
> when someone will come after you. And no matter what you know you
> did, said or meant, they may prove you wrong in a court of law. And
> that's the only truth that matters. THS 2014
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Tobie Shapiro
> mailto:tobie at shpilchas.net
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> _____________________________________
>    http://remsset.com
> 
> 
>    I wish there was a knob on the TV to turn up the intelligence.
>    There's a knob called "brightness", but it doesn't work.
> 
> 
> 
> 

"Perfection is an illusion."
Meyshe Benyomen Shapiro-Nygren

Tobie Shapiro
mailto:tobie at shpilchas.net