May 28, 2025
Reinaldo Arana has come often to mind, somehow, as I treat with those who talk about a ‘Three-Front War’. Reinaldo, who built with his partner Norman the first Community Garden on New York City’s Lower East Side, was victim of that War which Big Media called ‘A.I.D.S.’—and yet never a victim to despair or acceptance in any moment that our brief friendship saw of his life.
Below, the much-enriched ‘oasis’ that Norman’s and Reinaldo’s Garden became. The paragraphs tell in detail what lines from the poem seek to express regarding how hopeful and magical was the Garden from its first thought/best thought onward.
Finally, again, and with immeasurable gratitude, Dhyani Dharma Mas and his guitar.
While remastering (that is, working with it second-by-second in Audacity freeware this evening), I asked Maryse if she’d ever heard anyone play guitar like Dhyani.
She said: “No.”
His teacher, Segovia, and his fellow student, Paco de Lucia, must both be glad at what Dhyani has given us!
I wrote ‘About Reinaldo, Mourning and Outrage’ in February 1988, the month after my sister’s message on my tape told me the news of his passing, and the third month of my thriving daughter with Sydney, Paloma, in this world.
Dhyani and I rehearsed for 18 months, every Friday afternoon faithful as hermits over sessions at least 90 minutes, in his garage-studio of San Francisco’s Outer Sunset By December 1994 we were ready and enlisted Myles Boisen as our engineer for a session at Guerrilla Euphonics downtown Oakland. One take.
Tomorrow I’ll most two more recordings of the remembrance of Reinaldo, the latest with Kidd Jordan and Morikeba Kouyaté here in New Orleans.
Thank you!
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