Welcome to Maoist Orange Cake. Each week one of our Divas posts a thoughtful (but not necessarily serious) essay on whatever calls forth her Voice or strikes her Fancy. We invite you to join us wherever the discussion leads.
Motto of the MOC: Sincere, yes. Serious? Never!

"I would also like to add that ‘Maoist Orange Cake is possibly the best name for a blog ever. Just my twopence." -- The Sixth Carnival of Radical Feminists, 1 October 2007


The Twelfth Carnival of Radical Feminists is up at The Burning Times blog and mentions one of our posts, Helen 'Wheels' Keller, for recommendation. Orangeists spreading our zest!

Thursday, November 29, 2007

More about Anne Frank's tree

The local board of whatever has decided to keep the tree, bracing it somehow to keep it together.

At annefrank.org. the offical website of the Secret Annex, they express worry. They believe there is no way to make the tree safe from falling. Worse, when it does fall theree's a chance that it may fall on the Secret Annex and destroy it.

The have a new tree ready, a graft from the original(not a seedling). It's about 2 meters tall and they expect it could grow to 10 metres in less than 10 years.

The Secret Annex people think a live "child" of the tree would make a better memorial than a preserved dead tree. Safety aside, I agree with them, and the safety issue worries me too.

I've checked the tree on the site's webcam recently on a windy day. Other trees were swaying in the wind, but the sick tree stood rigid, which is very bad. This indicates it's unhealthy and likely to break.

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Sunday, November 18, 2007

Of Hope And Trees...

They're cutting down Anne Frank's tree.

The one she looked at while in hiding in Holland. The one she looked at nearly every day she was there, imagining what it would be like to be outside, under it's spreading branches, walking free.
Of course there's a compelling reason. The tree, a one-hundred and fifty year old chestnut, is slowly dying, rotting from a fatal, incurable fungus. It is very large, and is potentially dangerous; it could fall on persons or property at anytime. So I can see why it has to come down, but it makes it none the less sad.
Anne believed as long as her tree lived, so would she. And in a metaphorical way, that has been true. Anne's words and thoughts continue to live, louder many say, than any other of those voices silenced by the Shoah. I must confess, when I first read her diary, that time in history was not on my mind so much as that she was a kid like me; wanting to play, to have fun, to dream; getting her period, fighting with her mother, putting pictures of movie stars above her bed. I sympathized with her greatly when the dentist moved in---who would want to share a room with some old man--gross! (I'm channeling my inner thirteen year old here). I would've spent much of that time up in that attic, drawing that tree, yearning to get away.
Anne's tree puts me in mind of some other "literary" trees that kept their characters going; Francie's tree from "A Tree Grows In Brooklyn", or even the the little bit of "foliage" in O. Henry's "The Last Leaf", that kept a young girl from dying. But Anne's tree is real---Anne was real. For me, that makes the death of the tree just a little more heartbreaking.
Reports are that saplings have been taken from the original tree, and will be planted in it's place. Perhaps that is some comfort.


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Saturday, November 10, 2007

Belated Día de los Muertos

Feminista of Maoist Orange Cake has requested a post about the Calexico/Mexicali Day of the Dead, a Border Wall art show recently reported on at the Portland (Oregon) Independent Media Center. Kim Alphandary has a lovely set of images up at her blog, along with excellent cultural explanations which begins with:

"Here on the border fence between Calexico and Mexicali, cities that emerge on both sides of the US-Mexican Border paintings were on display for the Day of the Dead Celebration Nov. 1 and 2, 2007.

Day of the Dead images usually consist of a skull or skeleton dressed as living beings, acting out various real life activities. Some of the more common images depicted are: Catrina, Mariachis, the Reaper, the revolutionary/outlaw Pancho Villa, and Jesus. Here in Mexicali, virtually all the paintings made depicted border stories. Death and rebirth, what the border gives us (them)."

(Feminicidios)














(The Thinker)


















(Christ and the Border)



(Climbing the Wall)









(Statue of Liberty/Death)













Para los
Muertos vivos
Para los muertos
que no se han
ido; y para los gone;
vivos que siguen
Muertos
a los que en-
comiendan su
Muerte a la vida
y para los que
mueren Viviente
La Vida

For the
Living Dead
For the dead
that have not
gone; and for the
living that continue
living dead
to those who
entrust their
Death to Life
and for those who
die living
Life

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Monday, November 5, 2007

More Halloween stuff


Type your summary here

Type rest of the post here


So here I am, trying to see if I can add photos on my own. In case you didn't know, you can click on the table of pumpkins in the previous post and see them enlarged. Mr Gator did the ship and wave. I did white skull, star-eyes, square-tooth bat, small circle eyes and red snake.

I'm especially pleased with the skull and am adding another image of it.

I hope you like the enclosed link-I'm not sure how this link addition thing works.

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