Firstly, there is some very good news coming across the e-waves as we write. Charles Anthony Nealy has been granted a reprieve by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals while an investigation is launched into Prosecutor Misconduct in his case.

Please drop a note to Anthony Nealy to let him know that he's not alone. Here's his address:

Charles Anthony Nealy #999289
Polunsky Unit D.R.
3872 FM 350 South
Livingston Texas
77351 USA

And now, a bit of fun for you all. Today in the Robert Duncan seminar we will be looking at RD's late works, collected in Ground Work II: In the Dark. We thought you might like to see what RD was reading during the composition of those poems. Here's a sampling of texts that he writes about in his notebooks, ca. 1978-1988:

(You'll see the New College class readings scattered throughout here):

Noam Chomsky. “On the Biological Basis of Language Capacities.”
Enid Starkie. Baudelaire.
Umberto Eco. The Role of the Reader.
Piaget. Structuralism.
Piaget. The Origins of Intelligence in Children.
George Mills Harper. Yeats’s Golden Dawn.
Ducrow/Todorov. Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Sciences of Language.
Robert Darnton. Mesmerism and the End of the Enlightenment in France.
Jacob Bronowski. William Blake and the Age of Revolution.
James M. Redfield. Nature and Culture in the Iliad.
Karl Popper. Quantum Theory and the Schism in Physics.
Joseph Agassi. Farady as a Natural Philosopher.
Julia Kristeva. Revolution de Language Poetique.
Martin Gardiner. “The Hole in Black Holes.”
Ronald Johnson. Wor(l)ds.
Annemarie Schimmel. The Triumphant Sun. (on Rumi)
Tzvetan Todorov. Theories of the Symbol.
Susan Friedman. Psyche Reborn. (on H.D.)
Jaques Scherer. Le “Livre” de Mallarme.

Regarding Revolutionary Mexico, here are a couple good links that we're sending out in Memory of Brad Will:

New York Metro Alliance of Anarchists

Rainforest Relief Organization

Friends of Brad Will (with ongoing news from Oaxaca regarding the struggle of the APPO).

Finally today, a note regarding Peak Performance. We're at mid-month and we know that November can sometimes get you down. It's dark and rainy and these days in New York we have a bit of global warming fog to add to the gloom. But the weather is no excuse to give in to whatever ails your body and/or your mind. In fact, you should be thinking around this seasonal change with some flexible-optimism. Days will begin to get longer again in about six weeks. That is something to look forward to. And why not use the winter months to get yourself in shape for the spring? Use the gloomy season as a training ground from which to bloom into a beautiful oak tree or butterfly or black belt. You'll be happy that you did.

Need more inspiration? As Sempai Joseph over at the Dojo says, it's your movie, you decide the character you want to play. James Bond? Maybe. How about Neo? You are the star of your own movie. You are the star and you are the director. Do you have a vision statement? Then you have a script!

Still need more inspiration? Keep the Navy Seal Motto in your head: The Only Easy Day Was Yesterday. It sounds harsh, but it's life-changing.

Take it from the good people of Lisablog, if you can do fifty push-ups today, you can do one hundred push-ups tomorrow.

If you can run three miles today, you can run six miles tomorrow.

If you can do the dishes and take the dog for a walk, you also have time to listen to a webcast of a college course, learn five words of a new language (or even ten), and write a letter to a death row prisoner.

Don't think you have time? You do. You can easily do 50 push ups while your coffee is brewing. (Do them in sets of 10 if you are feeling awkward and tired.) You can listen to that college course webcast on the subway on your way to work.

Start integrating this kind of thinking into your life. Start integrating the "doing" as in "Just Do It". Pretty soon it will come naturally and you'll be saying "That was totally easy!" (That's when you move on to the next challenge.) You will re-wire your mind and body into a natural Peak Performance Mode. You will find yourself more happy, more hungry, more awake, more focused, and more prepared for everything the world has to offer.

Peace people, and happy Tuesday.

And for those of you who are ready to go back to college, here's the link:

University of California at Berkeley Virtual Cornucopia of Online Learning. We recommend General Human Anatomy. The Professor is a real Peak Performer.