There are many elements of my childhood that I find it almost impossible to abandon. Some of them I even enjoy - reading aloud, or being read to is definitely at the top of the list.
Winter evenings my father read to us from Tom Sawyer and the Laura Ingalls Wilder books (in the living room by the fireplace as we sat on the floor in our pajamas with the dog and our stuffed animals (you may now gag, but remember - this is my reality)) (also, hot cocoa). In the third grade, our teacher read Caddie Woodlawn to us, and my young adulthood holds afternoons spent with friends and The Phantom Tollbooth and The Princess Bride floating around in words that landed on the walls and the chairs and our hearts more real than laughter.
I loved La Lectrice (The Reader) almost instantly because of the whimsical nature of the serious business of reading aloud from the page to someone else in the room. Also, it's just funny. (aside: I saw a lot of really good movies one spring. Just a thought.)
Knitting and crochet and macrame and all of those crafts that end in -ay or something like it are enjoyable and productive and creative and kind of quiet. I am not so enamoured of my own voice that I have to be surrounded by it at all times, but I do like the sound of someone's voice. Music is almost too intense to hear while creating, but learning or landscape or mystery or magic, these are welcome to my home - not through earbuds, but played out to fill the space.
O Jerusalem turned the futon on which I knitted my poncho into a goat-skin tent with cups of gritty coffee and air thick with stories so layered no one knows where one tradition could even begin to begin.
Inkspell is sheer ear candy. The story is dark and difficult and weighty with storytelling matters and yarn turns to lace very easily to Brendan Fraser's voice.
I'd been reading the Lectures volume of the Harvard Classics out loud in the house in Maryville. The cats were not so fond of it, but I liked the exercise of speaking well turned sentences and different rhythms. My writing got better and my voice started finding more creative ways of interpreting the words on the page. I miss it.
It is a very grounding experience, something that cannot be pretended
away: the sound of a voice, a human voice, making human sounds out of
humanly created letters and words and sentences. It is always around a
fire/kitchen table/hearth.There is a magic to the noises made, to the act of making them - I am not alone when I am reading out loud the words of someone I will never meet.
I am excited to try to participate in the BYOB events at Subterranean Books once I get to St. Louis. I loved the day long reading of Paradise Lost at UNL to commemorate Milton's 400th birthday. One of these days, I will find the time and resources to read for Librivox. The last time I checked, there were still very many titles in the public domain without recordings in the archive.
We read silently. We read publicly. We read dispassionately. There is difficulty reading aloud, it is a thing to be practiced. Fortunately, even though the cats don't like hearing me read aloud, I can always scratch that up to a deficiency in feline nature. :)
Monday, 5 September 2011
Sunday, 4 September 2011
Durant & Bohemian cave artists
Once upon a time, 2009, I think it was, when I was still writing the fictions, I came up with a story for the origin of the 7 Dwarves. It fit into a poem thing, like a ballad or a really long story-song only fit for performance by Arlo Guthrie, you know? It was not long after that I found that I had been preceded in telling that story (not entirely the same, but close enough) by someone much more well known that I ever hope to want to be. (also, dead, so, yeah) Unintentionally derivative. There were feverish texts to a friend (it warranted that level of immediate attention) and finally it occurred to me that it is no shameful thing to have found a similar narrative question answerable in a similar way. Storytellers do not have the luxury of copyright on asking and answering narrative questions - we come and go, the stories last.
I read of young scholars consulting texts at random as part of a kind of prophetic parlor game with much the same sense of wonder at connection. It pleased me more than sherbet. I picked up the habit from Next Stop Wonderland, although it struck me as an entirely correct thing to do when I saw it happen in Career Girls, a movie I saw while I was trying 'dating' after my first divorce. The movie was delightful, even though the company was a bit, um, dull.
Prophecy bores me. I can never see the point of caring much how the story claims to end as eventually all books must be closed and life continues regardless. I am much more interested in the turning of the tides and the pages and all the wonderful things that get in the way while the writer is desperately trying to make an end viable or at least less contrived than the one she knows will win her an audience. Turning the pages of a book to wherever they will open allows me to delve quite briefly into something I may or may not want to pursue - it is how I decide which of two novels to purchase, whether I will commit to all of the poems in a collection or exactly how well decorated 5 or 10 minutes of my life will be in someone else's words.
All of my books thus far have one slight disadvantage: someone else wrote them or arranged them. There is this pervasive sense of order in things that gets a bit chafing. I see no reason not to discuss Egyptian philosophy and romantic capers from the 1970's in the same breath (provided a random and suspect connection). As I haven't got around to making myself a book of my own words (that I'm willing to flip through at will without the aid of tequila and King Arthur - i.e. journals don't count), I've turned one of my blank books into a quotation and bibliography collection.
This is not an academic sort of thing; there is no consistent style of bibliography and the passages I've written down are not the stuff of papers or presentations, they just make me happy.
Also, I can open the book almost (as it is not yet full) anywhere and read something like this:
Bogin, Meg. "The Women Troubadours: An Introduction to the Women Poets of the 12th-century Provence and a Collection of their Poems." WW Norton & Co. 1980 - Someone wrote this book, and it can be bought and read. What joy!
I've begun Volume I of Durant's The Story of Civilization and while there are 80 very meaningful years between him and me, I get to find and save little (some less little than others) nuggets for future random inspiration.
** see page 45
Open Library: I love that you exist.
Molly Crabapple puts elephants on the door.
Geeks are made of win at Dragon Con.
Be well, beloveds.
I have more date with learning.
I read of young scholars consulting texts at random as part of a kind of prophetic parlor game with much the same sense of wonder at connection. It pleased me more than sherbet. I picked up the habit from Next Stop Wonderland, although it struck me as an entirely correct thing to do when I saw it happen in Career Girls, a movie I saw while I was trying 'dating' after my first divorce. The movie was delightful, even though the company was a bit, um, dull.
Prophecy bores me. I can never see the point of caring much how the story claims to end as eventually all books must be closed and life continues regardless. I am much more interested in the turning of the tides and the pages and all the wonderful things that get in the way while the writer is desperately trying to make an end viable or at least less contrived than the one she knows will win her an audience. Turning the pages of a book to wherever they will open allows me to delve quite briefly into something I may or may not want to pursue - it is how I decide which of two novels to purchase, whether I will commit to all of the poems in a collection or exactly how well decorated 5 or 10 minutes of my life will be in someone else's words.
All of my books thus far have one slight disadvantage: someone else wrote them or arranged them. There is this pervasive sense of order in things that gets a bit chafing. I see no reason not to discuss Egyptian philosophy and romantic capers from the 1970's in the same breath (provided a random and suspect connection). As I haven't got around to making myself a book of my own words (that I'm willing to flip through at will without the aid of tequila and King Arthur - i.e. journals don't count), I've turned one of my blank books into a quotation and bibliography collection.
This is not an academic sort of thing; there is no consistent style of bibliography and the passages I've written down are not the stuff of papers or presentations, they just make me happy.
Also, I can open the book almost (as it is not yet full) anywhere and read something like this:
Bogin, Meg. "The Women Troubadours: An Introduction to the Women Poets of the 12th-century Provence and a Collection of their Poems." WW Norton & Co. 1980 - Someone wrote this book, and it can be bought and read. What joy!
I've begun Volume I of Durant's The Story of Civilization and while there are 80 very meaningful years between him and me, I get to find and save little (some less little than others) nuggets for future random inspiration.
The whole interpretation of history as progress falters when we consider that these statues, bas-reliefs and paintings, numerous though they are, may be but an infinitesimal fraction of the art that expressed or adorned the life of primeval man. What remains is found in caves, where the elements were in some measure kept at bay; it does not follow that pre-historic men were artists only when they were in caves. They may have carved as sedulously and ubiquitously as the Japanese, and may have fashioned statuary as abundantly as the Greeks; they may have painted not only the rock in their caverns, but textiles, wood, everything - not excepting themselves. They may have created masterpieces far superior to the fragments that survive. In one grotto a tube was discovered, made from the bones of a reindeer, and filled with pigment*; in another a stone palette was picked up still thick with red ochre paint despite the transit of two hundred centuries**. Apparently the arts were highly developed and widely practised eighteen thousand years ago. Perhaps there was a class of professional artists among paleolithic men; perhaps there were Bohemians starving in the less respectable caves, denouncing the commercial bourgeoisie, plotting the death of academies and forging antiques. (97-98)* see page 17
** see page 45
Open Library: I love that you exist.
Molly Crabapple puts elephants on the door.
Geeks are made of win at Dragon Con.
Be well, beloveds.
I have more date with learning.
Saturday, 3 September 2011
Foggy Day. With damp
Stillness is an ever absurd event. There is paralysis in stillness, and also landscape and surface and the smell of peas.
Yes. Peas.
The library is closed until Tuesday, but nothing closes sidewalks or hides the outside walls of buildings and the walking is pleasant. It is only a few blocks to the river and the lighthouse and the pier and the freezing plant for peas.
The experience of 'getting focused' is one that does not always take a whole lot of energy, but does take time and patience. I miss the writing of the last few years where words happened in a rhythm that led itself into images and impossibilities and ridiculous metaphors that required nothing more of me than my hands and a few bits of technological magic to share with the world, or whatever part of the world happened to land here for a while before heading off on stumble to some other set of recipes or book reviews or art work. It will not happen again simply because I wish it, and there is no magic spell that will turn the heartbeat back into a poetic foundation for the larger thoughts of the larger world that find such outlet in the marketplace of my inner mind and have such difficulty finding their feet in the air. Even in the air of typing.
Outside was damp. Cool and quiet. The whole town is shutting down for the weekend. Not just one day, but the whole weekend. I am unaccustomed to such diligence and find it more aggravating than I need. Next weekend sees Sputnikfest, Lobsterfest and the 9/11 Remembrance ceremony. Perhaps the town, not unlike the people in it, finds stillness in focus the way to face the days ahead.
As for me, I read.
I will grab my quote-book and add to its pages.
And occasionally find myself here, checking to see what Molly Crabapple is doing during her week in hell.
Yes. Peas.
The library is closed until Tuesday, but nothing closes sidewalks or hides the outside walls of buildings and the walking is pleasant. It is only a few blocks to the river and the lighthouse and the pier and the freezing plant for peas.
The experience of 'getting focused' is one that does not always take a whole lot of energy, but does take time and patience. I miss the writing of the last few years where words happened in a rhythm that led itself into images and impossibilities and ridiculous metaphors that required nothing more of me than my hands and a few bits of technological magic to share with the world, or whatever part of the world happened to land here for a while before heading off on stumble to some other set of recipes or book reviews or art work. It will not happen again simply because I wish it, and there is no magic spell that will turn the heartbeat back into a poetic foundation for the larger thoughts of the larger world that find such outlet in the marketplace of my inner mind and have such difficulty finding their feet in the air. Even in the air of typing.
Outside was damp. Cool and quiet. The whole town is shutting down for the weekend. Not just one day, but the whole weekend. I am unaccustomed to such diligence and find it more aggravating than I need. Next weekend sees Sputnikfest, Lobsterfest and the 9/11 Remembrance ceremony. Perhaps the town, not unlike the people in it, finds stillness in focus the way to face the days ahead.
As for me, I read.
I will grab my quote-book and add to its pages.
And occasionally find myself here, checking to see what Molly Crabapple is doing during her week in hell.
Friday, 2 September 2011
Blog of love, anyone? Oh, Yeah...
Found this at Wooster Collective. I've watched it multiple times. Because it is beautiful.
Discovered that 9 Chickweed Lane is syndicated in the St. Louis paper. SWOONTIME. I mean, if I could find Pibgorn in print everyday, now that would be ... crazy talk. I have mad cartoon-succubus-crush on Dru.
Don Cheadle as Captain Planet. Best. Thing. Ever.
Warren Ellis tells me/us about a tomb found at Stonehenge's quarry site. Which prompts me to remember that I need to go to the library soon and swim about in Archaeology and also Biblical Archaeology Review and also History Today. Brain crack! BRAINCRACK.
This is happen now:
Also, remember this guy? The one who's been traveling like a crazy person? Turns out, yesterday was the day to be stuck in Milwaukee. My mother and I lost about an hour of travel time there and this guy lost rather more than that, more importantly, his travel plans got all borked.
I've been thinking about how I finally made the decision to stop making plans and replace them with goals. It sounds all sorts of business, I know, and I can't really deny it. But here's the thing: making plans is how you make the Goddess laugh, right?
Um.
So.
I watched this.
Coilhouse also has this to watch, but I wouldn't if I were you. Or me. Or anyone, really.
(I've also taken time to assure Miss Ethel that I will not have her stuffed.)(...)
PINA - Dance, dance, otherwise we are lost - International Trailer from neueroadmovies on Vimeo.
Discovered that 9 Chickweed Lane is syndicated in the St. Louis paper. SWOONTIME. I mean, if I could find Pibgorn in print everyday, now that would be ... crazy talk. I have mad cartoon-succubus-crush on Dru.
Don Cheadle as Captain Planet. Best. Thing. Ever.
Warren Ellis tells me/us about a tomb found at Stonehenge's quarry site. Which prompts me to remember that I need to go to the library soon and swim about in Archaeology and also Biblical Archaeology Review and also History Today. Brain crack! BRAINCRACK.
This is happen now:
"Welcome to the Big Experiment...here, twice weekly, you'll thrill to the ongoing exploits of Asher and Spittle in their yet-to-be-officially-titled comic by Scott Morse and Skottie Young. We've decided to make a departure here at SkottieScott from the re-imagined character designs you've come to know and love. Instead, we're opting to CREATE. We're opting to OWN. We're opting to contribute to the entertainment spectrum with something original and hopefully a load of fun for everyone. It is for us, anyhow."It is looking delightful fun.
Also, remember this guy? The one who's been traveling like a crazy person? Turns out, yesterday was the day to be stuck in Milwaukee. My mother and I lost about an hour of travel time there and this guy lost rather more than that, more importantly, his travel plans got all borked.
I've been thinking about how I finally made the decision to stop making plans and replace them with goals. It sounds all sorts of business, I know, and I can't really deny it. But here's the thing: making plans is how you make the Goddess laugh, right?
Um.
So.
I watched this.
Coilhouse also has this to watch, but I wouldn't if I were you. Or me. Or anyone, really.
(I've also taken time to assure Miss Ethel that I will not have her stuffed.)(...)
Tuesday, 30 August 2011
The propitiation continues
The Moving Gods are fickle and demanding things that follow more closely Douglas Adams' theory ("There is a theory which states that if ever anybody discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened.") than the changeless nature of changeable things. You know you will sweat. You know something will be broken. You know that there is such a thing as things going too well. You know this.
But you have no idea how any of these things will manifest.
People whose moves are always easy are people that I cannot bring myself to trust; they do not move through the same dimension of this world that I do and are suspect. Usually I run into problems of time and space - needing more of the former and not quite enough of the latter. I start packing too late and do not enlist enough help to make the move timely.
We started packing in June and half of my things were already in boxes.
Everything of mine (with the exception of the backseat's worth of things traveling with me and the cats (not owned by me, but traveling with me (can't own cats)(they are the rulers of the living space)) is in one of two storage units.
There is also a discomfiting amount of stillness in moving: sitting in cars, waiting in lobbies, filling out applications at tables, hoping for phone calls, etc. When all of that is added to the frenetic race to get all of the boxes up the stairs before your legs fall apart and all of the kitchen stuff unpacked before your stomach growls through your colon that it is revolting and will now start eating your brain and all of the bathroom stuff out so that you can take that shower that you've been promising yourself for the past I don't know how long and finding all of the screws that put the bed together because there will be sleep tonight, dammit! - it seems like a balance, but it isn't. This is the closest that most of us will ever get the constant imbalance of a life unplanned and unscheduled but very definitely lived.
Will Durant provides me with a certain degree of background awesome.
The cats have learned to hate their afternoon walks, except for Horace who is constantly in need of going to the other side of the front door and then just not really doing anything.
And tonight, there is a social event. Mama made deviled eggs. I haven't eaten any of them.
Yet.
But you have no idea how any of these things will manifest.
People whose moves are always easy are people that I cannot bring myself to trust; they do not move through the same dimension of this world that I do and are suspect. Usually I run into problems of time and space - needing more of the former and not quite enough of the latter. I start packing too late and do not enlist enough help to make the move timely.
We started packing in June and half of my things were already in boxes.
Everything of mine (with the exception of the backseat's worth of things traveling with me and the cats (not owned by me, but traveling with me (can't own cats)(they are the rulers of the living space)) is in one of two storage units.
There is also a discomfiting amount of stillness in moving: sitting in cars, waiting in lobbies, filling out applications at tables, hoping for phone calls, etc. When all of that is added to the frenetic race to get all of the boxes up the stairs before your legs fall apart and all of the kitchen stuff unpacked before your stomach growls through your colon that it is revolting and will now start eating your brain and all of the bathroom stuff out so that you can take that shower that you've been promising yourself for the past I don't know how long and finding all of the screws that put the bed together because there will be sleep tonight, dammit! - it seems like a balance, but it isn't. This is the closest that most of us will ever get the constant imbalance of a life unplanned and unscheduled but very definitely lived.
Will Durant provides me with a certain degree of background awesome.
The cats have learned to hate their afternoon walks, except for Horace who is constantly in need of going to the other side of the front door and then just not really doing anything.
And tonight, there is a social event. Mama made deviled eggs. I haven't eaten any of them.
Yet.
Monday, 29 August 2011
Plan ... Fibonacci
For the last few days, I've been very aware that I am starting a whole new thing in the life of me without a backup plan. I am not known for being excessively controlling, but I do like to be aware of my circumstances and the options that are available to me should the airplane I'm jumping out of decide to blow up with my purse in it. You know?
I forget about Mother Nature. She does not care that my backup plan was about a place to live. She delivered the smack down to Nodaway County in the form of a hail storm that devastated crops; dented homes, cars and picnic tables; ripped rag top roofs on cars and soaked the floor of my former workplace.
The domino effect of which is that moving is put on hold for a bit.
Not long, just a bit. (Given the struggles that many people that I know and love have to know by name, this is hardly a tragedy for me.)
It feels like one of those "One of These Days" kind of times - you know, for when you need to go through old files, or read Tolstoy, or memorize the monasteries of Ireland in the 8th century. There's that list of extremely specific things to do that require special circumstances outside of one's control. Time that is not to be spent doing anything else, as there is not enough time for it.
I have no idea what to do with the time. My list is in a box. In a storage unit (that did not get its roof blown off, thankfully).
This is the part where my issues are the most well-defined. The part where I get too thinky and not do-y enough.
Altho, there are nine more books in the series of Durant left to read, and I've got an Eco and a Le Guin in my bag.
I miss my typewriter right now.
Something a bit more personally creative may be in order.
Anyway, best to all who are packing today!
Best to all who start back to school today!
I forget about Mother Nature. She does not care that my backup plan was about a place to live. She delivered the smack down to Nodaway County in the form of a hail storm that devastated crops; dented homes, cars and picnic tables; ripped rag top roofs on cars and soaked the floor of my former workplace.
The domino effect of which is that moving is put on hold for a bit.
Not long, just a bit. (Given the struggles that many people that I know and love have to know by name, this is hardly a tragedy for me.)
It feels like one of those "One of These Days" kind of times - you know, for when you need to go through old files, or read Tolstoy, or memorize the monasteries of Ireland in the 8th century. There's that list of extremely specific things to do that require special circumstances outside of one's control. Time that is not to be spent doing anything else, as there is not enough time for it.
I have no idea what to do with the time. My list is in a box. In a storage unit (that did not get its roof blown off, thankfully).
This is the part where my issues are the most well-defined. The part where I get too thinky and not do-y enough.
Altho, there are nine more books in the series of Durant left to read, and I've got an Eco and a Le Guin in my bag.
I miss my typewriter right now.
Something a bit more personally creative may be in order.
Anyway, best to all who are packing today!
Best to all who start back to school today!
Digital Alphabet in Stone - Dom Hans van der Laan/Autobahn 2011 from autobahn on Vimeo.
Found at Wooster CollectiveUntitled from Timothy Lane on Vimeo.
Found at Subterranean Books. It's a snippet from their first Whirling Gypsy Comicarouselesque Revue & Burlesque: "Featured St. Louis graphic novelists will read their works in character while projecting the novels slide by slide. It's like story time with pictures!" (The calliope music is a bit loud, but the content is good.)Sunday, 28 August 2011
Two and a half days
I am revising cover letters today and doing internet research on book stores and other possible places of employment.
The laundry is done.
The list of items that must be not left behind is made.
We have a plan of driving and where to stay.
Tomorrow I make phone calls.
Lists exist and are relevant.
My nerves are not buying it. This is not the normal move. There is usually this zen that follows the zany of finding a place to live and budgeting and finding a new job and meeting new people -
wait, what?
I don't have time to think about meeting new people, I've got way many other things to worry about!
And yet.
My zen tells me that it's on vacation and I need to find some other coping mechanism. Most of my best friends are also moving or going through massive life shifts. The cats do not let me too far out of sight most of the day. I keep reorganizing things and packing things and we are not in a place that has all of my/their/our stuff.
I keep channeling thoughts of my friend who is so excited about working with other scientists that she joyfully introduces herself at conferences and writes emails with enthusiasm and I believe I'm going to try it. I may not get any jobs out of it, but I may very well meet some people who are doing things that I want to be a part of.
My parents are off on a drive in their new town that has welcomed them gently and with ice cream.
It is time for a shower and then some more tea and then I will write.
My best to all.
Carravaggio, The Calling of St. Matthew
1599-1600; Oil on canvas, 10' 7 1/2" X 11' 2"; Contarelli Chapel, Church of San Luigi dei Francesi, Rome
The laundry is done.
The list of items that must be not left behind is made.
We have a plan of driving and where to stay.
Tomorrow I make phone calls.
Lists exist and are relevant.
My nerves are not buying it. This is not the normal move. There is usually this zen that follows the zany of finding a place to live and budgeting and finding a new job and meeting new people -
wait, what?
I don't have time to think about meeting new people, I've got way many other things to worry about!
And yet.
My zen tells me that it's on vacation and I need to find some other coping mechanism. Most of my best friends are also moving or going through massive life shifts. The cats do not let me too far out of sight most of the day. I keep reorganizing things and packing things and we are not in a place that has all of my/their/our stuff.
I keep channeling thoughts of my friend who is so excited about working with other scientists that she joyfully introduces herself at conferences and writes emails with enthusiasm and I believe I'm going to try it. I may not get any jobs out of it, but I may very well meet some people who are doing things that I want to be a part of.
My parents are off on a drive in their new town that has welcomed them gently and with ice cream.
It is time for a shower and then some more tea and then I will write.
My best to all.
Carravaggio, The Calling of St. Matthew
1599-1600; Oil on canvas, 10' 7 1/2" X 11' 2"; Contarelli Chapel, Church of San Luigi dei Francesi, Rome
Friday, 26 August 2011
The cat, she makes me nervous with her calm
First and foremost: please be safe in the path of bad weather!
The Beat has an article about the hurricane with useful sorts of links.
In other news, Ali Ferzat, a Syrian cartoonist, was attacked by thugs who beat him and broke his hands. As stated in The Beat's article: "Ferzat is recovering. In the meantime, please visit his website, and do what you can to promote and protect freedom of speech, even in countries where the government actively suppresses this freedom."
Artist stuff: My friend Christopher Wilson's photographs are now available for purchase through his Capture My Chicago page. Go there! Buy some! Send me one!
Today I write more cover letters. I've decided to write one to my potential future landlord as well. I think it smacks of over-doing it. Which is a thing at which I excel.
Researching where I want to work (not who is hiring, where I want to work) has fired my enthusiasm for my not-yet-city.
Subterranean Books! Their events are worth the drool I dripped, and I haven't even been there yet. BYOB is inspired. I am so jazzed to explore this place.
These days are going to be tense ones. I've just eaten the leftover Hamburger Pie. Out of the dish in which my mother cooked it. At the computer. Shameless, I know. Planning forays into the outer world and reading of the possible joys and horrors I may find there do not help to end the tension, but they do help spend the time less unwisely.
Speaking of unwise: I am Still Not Done with the damn book*. I have like 20 pages to go and just can't get there - it's like there's this sense that once this is finished, everything changes. Which is so silly, because everything changes all the time no matter what, so what the hell do 30 pages mean more or less? Anyway, I have another book to finish after that, so the cycle remains, as ever: unbroken.
The British Library maintains a number of blogs through its website. One of them speaks of science fiction. Today, specifically, of library and science fiction. Through the magical realism of Borges. And it gives me this beautiful parting line:
*just Vol. 3 of the set.
The Beat has an article about the hurricane with useful sorts of links.
In other news, Ali Ferzat, a Syrian cartoonist, was attacked by thugs who beat him and broke his hands. As stated in The Beat's article: "Ferzat is recovering. In the meantime, please visit his website, and do what you can to promote and protect freedom of speech, even in countries where the government actively suppresses this freedom."
Artist stuff: My friend Christopher Wilson's photographs are now available for purchase through his Capture My Chicago page. Go there! Buy some! Send me one!
Today I write more cover letters. I've decided to write one to my potential future landlord as well. I think it smacks of over-doing it. Which is a thing at which I excel.
Researching where I want to work (not who is hiring, where I want to work) has fired my enthusiasm for my not-yet-city.
Subterranean Books! Their events are worth the drool I dripped, and I haven't even been there yet. BYOB is inspired. I am so jazzed to explore this place.
These days are going to be tense ones. I've just eaten the leftover Hamburger Pie. Out of the dish in which my mother cooked it. At the computer. Shameless, I know. Planning forays into the outer world and reading of the possible joys and horrors I may find there do not help to end the tension, but they do help spend the time less unwisely.
Speaking of unwise: I am Still Not Done with the damn book*. I have like 20 pages to go and just can't get there - it's like there's this sense that once this is finished, everything changes. Which is so silly, because everything changes all the time no matter what, so what the hell do 30 pages mean more or less? Anyway, I have another book to finish after that, so the cycle remains, as ever: unbroken.
The British Library maintains a number of blogs through its website. One of them speaks of science fiction. Today, specifically, of library and science fiction. Through the magical realism of Borges. And it gives me this beautiful parting line:
... there is no higher life form than a librarian."
THE SCIENCE OF DISCWORLD: Terry Pratchett, Jack Cohen, and Ian Stewart, p. 10.
*just Vol. 3 of the set.
Thursday, 25 August 2011
The thing where nothing is really happening. Yet
Because it will be happening. It will be happening in carloads - quite physically. There will be mapping directions and planning interviews and apartment viewings and then interior figuring and domestic economy engineering and finding places for all of the books (mind you, I am only bring 9 (maybe 10) boxes of books to the new place)(not including the ones that have books as padding). This will all happen.
Starting Wednesday. Not yesterday Wednesday, next week Wednesday.
I'm also less than one hundred pages from the end of the Big Book that I'm reading and less than 200 pages from the end of the Other Big Book that I'm reading and have resorted to writing letters and thank you notes. I rewrote my cover letter once this week, and will spend time this evening and tomorrow doing the same. Probably Saturday, as well. Resumes are flexible. I am happy about this.
I don't even have enough dirty clothing to justify the 2USD expense and time of doing the laundry.
This is not my favorite thing in the world. I did this for months last fall and it was not good. People didn't like talking to me very much, or, more like, the talking to me was just confirmation that I was not enjoying things like I like. As I am not in a position to indulge in long-term bleh, I self-medicate with cat-cuddling, gentle thinking and wandering around twitter and Whitechapel for electric jolts of "If you want to do a thing, then do it" and that helps. The doubt thing - it waits outside the office door and slides in like Ethel when she wants to get something you don't want her to have. Ethel is furry and warm and sweet to me. Doubt is infinitely less so, and a terrible conversation partner.
I think it is time to see if I can find something beautiful to look at and share it. Yes?
Good.
Here: Aljoun Castle in Jordan.
Robin LeBlanc took a picture with a mantis in it.
Kickstarter shows me fun card games.
There.
Go.
Live.
Starting Wednesday. Not yesterday Wednesday, next week Wednesday.
I'm also less than one hundred pages from the end of the Big Book that I'm reading and less than 200 pages from the end of the Other Big Book that I'm reading and have resorted to writing letters and thank you notes. I rewrote my cover letter once this week, and will spend time this evening and tomorrow doing the same. Probably Saturday, as well. Resumes are flexible. I am happy about this.
I don't even have enough dirty clothing to justify the 2USD expense and time of doing the laundry.
This is not my favorite thing in the world. I did this for months last fall and it was not good. People didn't like talking to me very much, or, more like, the talking to me was just confirmation that I was not enjoying things like I like. As I am not in a position to indulge in long-term bleh, I self-medicate with cat-cuddling, gentle thinking and wandering around twitter and Whitechapel for electric jolts of "If you want to do a thing, then do it" and that helps. The doubt thing - it waits outside the office door and slides in like Ethel when she wants to get something you don't want her to have. Ethel is furry and warm and sweet to me. Doubt is infinitely less so, and a terrible conversation partner.
I think it is time to see if I can find something beautiful to look at and share it. Yes?
Good.
Here: Aljoun Castle in Jordan.
Robin LeBlanc took a picture with a mantis in it.
Kickstarter shows me fun card games.
There.
Go.
Live.
Wednesday, 24 August 2011
How I find myself on Google
I am not always super brilliant (never dull, but sometimes not entirely brilliant) and when I created my blog's URL was a not-super-brilliant moment. Not because it isn't hipster level clever, but because it's so freaking long.
Have you ever read it?
I mean, really read it?
www.independentthoughtavailable.blogspot.com
Do you see how rife with possible misspelling that is? Not to mention that I never remember what order the bits go it.
Generally this is not an issue, but a few weeks ago, I discovered a way to get around the not remembering. And I discovered it quite by accident.
We were talking to friends about a thing called a Toad Suck Shake. It is a kind of food that exists in Missouri (yes, near the Ozarks). I went looking for what it is by Googling "Toad Suck Shake" and did not find the makings right away. Right away I found myself.
Yes.
My blog is the first entry under Toad Suck Shake.
I can't find the description, but from what I remember, it's a Mason (or Ball) jar with layered BBQ and more BBQ and some brisket and I think there's fries involved, and you can eat it in the jar or spread it out on a plate and eat it that way.
Mind you, I keep Googling Toad Suck Shake and then following the link to my blog because, hey - I will make my 15 minutes out of a Ball jar if I damn well feel like it!
In other news:
Want. Go. London this fall/next spring.
Also - everyone is still talking about Rome and Carthage. STILL?
And, Happy 112th Birthday to Jorge Luis Borges.
It is kind of humid here after the rain and gray of last night and yesterday. I am in the mood to wander to the library and remind myself that here there is a lake, and there are bridges and the world is on the outside. It smells so different that I am never certain which way my feet are supposed to land on the ground and I cannot get to comfortable, because soon there will be all new ways to learn to walk and to see and to find the outdoors.
Also, I saw this and my day got better.:
Found at Whitechapel.
Life is good.
Have you ever read it?
I mean, really read it?
www.independentthoughtavailable.blogspot.com
Do you see how rife with possible misspelling that is? Not to mention that I never remember what order the bits go it.
Generally this is not an issue, but a few weeks ago, I discovered a way to get around the not remembering. And I discovered it quite by accident.
We were talking to friends about a thing called a Toad Suck Shake. It is a kind of food that exists in Missouri (yes, near the Ozarks). I went looking for what it is by Googling "Toad Suck Shake" and did not find the makings right away. Right away I found myself.
Yes.
My blog is the first entry under Toad Suck Shake.
I can't find the description, but from what I remember, it's a Mason (or Ball) jar with layered BBQ and more BBQ and some brisket and I think there's fries involved, and you can eat it in the jar or spread it out on a plate and eat it that way.
Mind you, I keep Googling Toad Suck Shake and then following the link to my blog because, hey - I will make my 15 minutes out of a Ball jar if I damn well feel like it!
In other news:
Want. Go. London this fall/next spring.
Also - everyone is still talking about Rome and Carthage. STILL?
And, Happy 112th Birthday to Jorge Luis Borges.
It is kind of humid here after the rain and gray of last night and yesterday. I am in the mood to wander to the library and remind myself that here there is a lake, and there are bridges and the world is on the outside. It smells so different that I am never certain which way my feet are supposed to land on the ground and I cannot get to comfortable, because soon there will be all new ways to learn to walk and to see and to find the outdoors.
Also, I saw this and my day got better.:
Found at Whitechapel.
Life is good.
Tuesday, 23 August 2011
Sitting in a office where there are litter boxes
It isn't quite time for food for the cats here Chez My Parents.
They are, of course, dying of neglect and lack of laps and the seemingly endless work of other people unpacking boxes.
You would think the world had ended. It has. But that's really not the point.
My move happens next week. I like referring to it that way. Next week.
*shivers of joy*
Everything is basically up in the air about the move. I do not have a job, I do not know where I am going to live, and I do not know anyone.
13 years ago, I moved to Lincoln in the same situation. Except for the part where I had three times the money I do now and a car and lots and lots of hiding and healing to do.
I feel like the intervening years have been good to me, and I'm pretty stoked about the idea that even if they don't hire me to do minimum wage paying grunt work, the St. Louis Public Library system has got it going on. Holy Master's Degrees! They hire actual librarians to do library work. What?!? I was shocked. Shocked, I tell you.
Also, Laurie R. King is going to be speaking at one of the branches next month. Guess where I'm going to be? Yep - smack dab middle and center. Best view, you know.
I'm taking a book out of my cousin Heather's page and have decided to give STL & I five years to learn each other and see what kind of a life we can make.
People ask me (okay, like 2, but it's still plural) if I'm excited, and the thing is that I'm not, because it's just what is happening next: my life. If I spend a ton of energy getting excited about it, I'll just spin in circles with the excess and make a lot of noise and maybe miss the thing that gets me where I need to be.
Speaking of. It is time to feed the cats. I know this, because they have all flopped on floors, convinced that nothing good can come of bubble warp and cardboard boxes.
Blessings, beloveds.
Be well.
They are, of course, dying of neglect and lack of laps and the seemingly endless work of other people unpacking boxes.
You would think the world had ended. It has. But that's really not the point.
My move happens next week. I like referring to it that way. Next week.
*shivers of joy*
Everything is basically up in the air about the move. I do not have a job, I do not know where I am going to live, and I do not know anyone.
13 years ago, I moved to Lincoln in the same situation. Except for the part where I had three times the money I do now and a car and lots and lots of hiding and healing to do.
I feel like the intervening years have been good to me, and I'm pretty stoked about the idea that even if they don't hire me to do minimum wage paying grunt work, the St. Louis Public Library system has got it going on. Holy Master's Degrees! They hire actual librarians to do library work. What?!? I was shocked. Shocked, I tell you.
Also, Laurie R. King is going to be speaking at one of the branches next month. Guess where I'm going to be? Yep - smack dab middle and center. Best view, you know.
I'm taking a book out of my cousin Heather's page and have decided to give STL & I five years to learn each other and see what kind of a life we can make.
People ask me (okay, like 2, but it's still plural) if I'm excited, and the thing is that I'm not, because it's just what is happening next: my life. If I spend a ton of energy getting excited about it, I'll just spin in circles with the excess and make a lot of noise and maybe miss the thing that gets me where I need to be.
Speaking of. It is time to feed the cats. I know this, because they have all flopped on floors, convinced that nothing good can come of bubble warp and cardboard boxes.
Blessings, beloveds.
Be well.
Sunday, 15 May 2011
Not exactly sure what's going on out there
The weather and the calendar and my expectations for what they mean are all not matching up. It is May. It is raining, but it is not the beautiful welcoming rain of last summer and the air is cold and still requires blankets at night and slippers in the day.
The beginning of the week was so hot that the cats in our house did not even yell for food from our house/cat-sitter, and Boris is now shedding great clumps of fur at the slightest move. His sister keeps trying to eat them. Cats are not normal creatures.
Today my father and I wandered up into the attic to look at what all we've got stored up there. It is time to start bringing it all back down and sorting it out. Most of my things are still in boxes, or are monstrous pieces of furniture acting useful around the house.
Next week begins my summer schedule. This week my co-worker leaves and another co-worker arrives. People do not replace other people. Our hours are shifting, our responsibilities will also. I will miss my friend. I wonder if I am conserving energy, or at least not using my full allocation in the deluded hope that I can shunt some of it her way as she will need it to entertain and say her farewells.
Much has happened in the last month. There are many words to add to the things that have happened. Today is for some quiet reassessment and observation. We've seen the shelves in the attic and now have a better idea what it will take to get things begun. Tomorrow my parents begin looking for our storage unit. Tomorrow our new co-worker begins. Today I must do laundry and read some more and pet the cats and enjoy dinner with my mother and father as it is my mother's birthday.
These deadlines are always such odd things. They are there for a reason - they define beginnings and ends and that is completely acceptable, but they hum like some over-zealous magnet and it is not always easy to stay out of their way.
The beginning of the week was so hot that the cats in our house did not even yell for food from our house/cat-sitter, and Boris is now shedding great clumps of fur at the slightest move. His sister keeps trying to eat them. Cats are not normal creatures.
Today my father and I wandered up into the attic to look at what all we've got stored up there. It is time to start bringing it all back down and sorting it out. Most of my things are still in boxes, or are monstrous pieces of furniture acting useful around the house.
Next week begins my summer schedule. This week my co-worker leaves and another co-worker arrives. People do not replace other people. Our hours are shifting, our responsibilities will also. I will miss my friend. I wonder if I am conserving energy, or at least not using my full allocation in the deluded hope that I can shunt some of it her way as she will need it to entertain and say her farewells.
Much has happened in the last month. There are many words to add to the things that have happened. Today is for some quiet reassessment and observation. We've seen the shelves in the attic and now have a better idea what it will take to get things begun. Tomorrow my parents begin looking for our storage unit. Tomorrow our new co-worker begins. Today I must do laundry and read some more and pet the cats and enjoy dinner with my mother and father as it is my mother's birthday.
These deadlines are always such odd things. They are there for a reason - they define beginnings and ends and that is completely acceptable, but they hum like some over-zealous magnet and it is not always easy to stay out of their way.
Thursday, 7 April 2011
Smell of a drizzly morning
It was that first feel of ozone as I left work this morning. A greeting so familiar and hoped for and so surprising.
Today would be good for ...
Icelandbob's Music mix.
Keats' Endymion
Fellini: I'm a Born Liar
wings at Carson's
Cardamom tea
Charles Lamb's Essays
Monster Commute from the beginning
Blank-it from the beginning
OR
...adventure with ninja electron wearing galoshes and rain-proof capes with neon goggles - we go to find the perfect person to run a by-the-cup tea and coffee shop in Brownville who will also have granola bars and fruit and sometimes some bean soup with carrots in it that tastes of thyme and parsley and bay leaf and who grows basil in the window for the love of it. we fly on her unicorn cat steed named Claude. we end the day with cocoa, bitter and thick, and croissants and also lasagna that someone else cooks for us. and then someone we know will draw the whole thing and then we will make it a poster and then never be recognized on account of our face-covering, but not really hiding, clever masks. maybe with feathers. made of old yarn and pipe cleaners and starch paste.
i really need to write more.
I think I will do ALL OF THIS. except for the part about all of the reading - that shit just gets in the way.
Today would be good for ...
Icelandbob's Music mix.
Keats' Endymion
Fellini: I'm a Born Liar
wings at Carson's
Cardamom tea
Charles Lamb's Essays
Monster Commute from the beginning
Blank-it from the beginning
OR
...adventure with ninja electron wearing galoshes and rain-proof capes with neon goggles - we go to find the perfect person to run a by-the-cup tea and coffee shop in Brownville who will also have granola bars and fruit and sometimes some bean soup with carrots in it that tastes of thyme and parsley and bay leaf and who grows basil in the window for the love of it. we fly on her unicorn cat steed named Claude. we end the day with cocoa, bitter and thick, and croissants and also lasagna that someone else cooks for us. and then someone we know will draw the whole thing and then we will make it a poster and then never be recognized on account of our face-covering, but not really hiding, clever masks. maybe with feathers. made of old yarn and pipe cleaners and starch paste.
i really need to write more.
I think I will do ALL OF THIS. except for the part about all of the reading - that shit just gets in the way.
Wednesday, 6 April 2011
An open apology
I know that I said I would send the check today, but that was before I knew that I would sit on a bench in a park reading Keats to a frog croaking in the creek.
There was chocolate.
The sunshine was warmer than the breeze and the only other people in the park were pleasant and headed to a bench to be with not me, just themselves.
This morning brought work, this evening brings more, and I am content.
If this is what my life leads me toward, this self-scheduled mess of cleaning and eating and reading and writing and Keats and Strunk & White and tater tots and cool water and work that makes sense to me - then it is good to keep working to live it.
I do not think you will be angry.
I saved some birdsong and some of the frog's croaks for you. I have put them near the dappled sun you saved for me so many miles ago.
This evening I may venture out again and see about evening mists in the trees down the street. You never know what bench may need a reader, or what reader I may need to be.
Much love,
Me
Also - This is the funniest thing I have read in a very long time. If we ever hang out, remind me, and I'll read it aloud.
There was chocolate.
The sunshine was warmer than the breeze and the only other people in the park were pleasant and headed to a bench to be with not me, just themselves.
This morning brought work, this evening brings more, and I am content.
If this is what my life leads me toward, this self-scheduled mess of cleaning and eating and reading and writing and Keats and Strunk & White and tater tots and cool water and work that makes sense to me - then it is good to keep working to live it.
I do not think you will be angry.
I saved some birdsong and some of the frog's croaks for you. I have put them near the dappled sun you saved for me so many miles ago.
This evening I may venture out again and see about evening mists in the trees down the street. You never know what bench may need a reader, or what reader I may need to be.
Much love,
Me
On Seeing the Elgin Marbles for the first time
by John Keats
My spirit is too weak; mortality
Weighs heavily on me like unwilling sleep,
And each imagin'd pinnacle and steep
Of godlike hardship tells me I must die
Like a sick eagle looking at the sky.
Yet 'tis a gentle luxury to weep,
That I have not the cloudy winds to keep
Fresh for the opening of the morning's eye.
Such dim-conceived glories of the brain
Bring round the heart an indescribably feud;
So do these wonders a most dizzy pain,
That mingles Grecian grandeur with the rude
Wasting of old Time - with a billowy main,
A sun, a shadow of a magnitude.
Also - This is the funniest thing I have read in a very long time. If we ever hang out, remind me, and I'll read it aloud.
Thursday, 24 March 2011
Ah, summer. Ah, summer chick flicks ...
Okay, that's not entirely true. Or fair. For two reasons: 1) Not all buddy road trip moves are chick flicks, and 2) that is not the blog I'm writing right now. I will write it (the one about how 'chick flick' as a referenced genre needs to be redefined to include those of us 'chicks' who would rather soak in lime than watch yet another normative romantic comedy with deeply troubled stereotypes and predictably bad plot turns, and who choose to enjoy their celluloid porn in the form of men getting sweaty and trying to kill each other with swords, or dusty and deeply angry about something, or, you know, well written assassins being flawed and more flexible than me (damn you, George Clooney!!!). You know, that blog) eventually, but not right now. And probably not until I've seen Cowboys & Aliens. Because you know they made that movie just for me, right? I mean, it's all over the trailer: The silent punchy type with odd jewelry as Daniel Craig and the very interesting Olivia Wilde (too thin, but then again, aren't they all?) and Harrison Ford. AND ALIENS.
*sigh*
This is one of the many reasons why I really enjoy science fiction movies. There are some issues (metal bikini, anyone?) that are not, I repeat, NOT omnipresent (Miss Piggy in Space, folks, come on) and they are mostly buddy movies. With ships and guns and muppets and things, and that is always a good way to fill in the necessary back drop for the standard buddy movie plot.
Humans love buddy road trip stories: Gilgamesh and Enkidu travel around and fight each other and then become besties and then fight other people and then *AACK, No Spoilers* Sorry. Right. Moses and Aaron and all of their friends wander around the desert for a really long time and they got a movie. Jesus and his friends got super famous for being really good friends and also really good storytellers (re-read The Gospels and then tell me I am wrong). Star Wars is a brilliant buddy road trip movie. The Muppet Movie: one of the best movies ever made, again, same thing. Galaxy Quest, Star Trek(s), Lord of the Rings, Erik The Viking, Condorman, RED: all of them, buddy road trip movies. (Side note: RED also happens to be a wonderful movie about a really fucked up first date. But, hey, it's Bruce Willis.)
We make friends and we walk around. It's kind of a thing with humans. We always look for these grand differences between humans and every other life form ever and sometimes, I think that the simple things are the most beautiful and to be encouraged: the ability to be friend; the physical freedom to change geographical location (a thing which ought not be taken for granted as it has not always been, and is still not always a right that is available to every human being).
I tend to compare my very favorite novels with very long walks during which you meet everyone on the road and get to know them really really well. It's a form of buddy road trip story, just fewer buddies. The quest thing tends to get a bit grating after a while, but I love the way that groups build during stories. Blazing Saddles has one of the best making-of-a-friend-groups ever. It's straightforward and believable.
And here's where I get all torqued - I despise buddy movies where I don't believe that there is anything like friendship between the characters, or where I believe the friendship is toxic. I do not want to see that. I do not care about it, and more importantly, at the happy ending, I am not happy. I invent story lines where Shirtless Jason Statham shows up, pissed off and drenched in motor oil and goes all River Tam focused and homicidal on everyone. Sometimes, this is my happy ending. (see why I choose to redefine 'chick flick' to fit into a different paradigm?)
So, I'm in a new town, and I'm finally getting around to making some friends. It's not a short process and not one that I take lightly. As you might have noticed. Tonight, I went with two of my new friends to see the movie Paul.
And I remembered why I love The Movies. I love trailers on the big screen. I love pre-show chatter in the seats. I love movie theater popcorn. I love that I get the kid's size snack thing with an Icee and a bag of M&M's and that's exactly enough. I love the dimming of the lights and the sense that I always get of being four years old and knowing that not long after the lights go dark, the world will be filled with Star Wars and John Williams and that I can relax and escape into such wonder as we humans have in it us to create and to share. The older I get, the more I notice the four year old swinging her feet and losing herself in the screen, and I am beyond content. Especially when I am watching a buddy road trip movie where one of the buddies is not a human. I love that I got to share that with two people who enjoyed it as much as I did. This is making friends.
I will not review the movie here. Except to say that I enjoyed it. I enjoyed watching a movie written by people who really sold it - the friendship, the travel, the adventure, the silliness, the dialogue (oh, the dialogue), and the respect for all of the movies that came before. It is often attempted and rarely accomplished - the well-done homage, the awareness of your cultural foundation, I believe we have a bad habit of calling it post-modern because we are pretentious fucks who think that all we will ever be is what we have now.
The future gave me tonight. And I laughed at it. Lots.
Also, I would like to apologize again to the 6 other people in the theater for the roller-coaster arms + scream. it was undignified. i will probably do it again. it was totally worth it.
*sigh*
This is one of the many reasons why I really enjoy science fiction movies. There are some issues (metal bikini, anyone?) that are not, I repeat, NOT omnipresent (Miss Piggy in Space, folks, come on) and they are mostly buddy movies. With ships and guns and muppets and things, and that is always a good way to fill in the necessary back drop for the standard buddy movie plot.
Humans love buddy road trip stories: Gilgamesh and Enkidu travel around and fight each other and then become besties and then fight other people and then *AACK, No Spoilers* Sorry. Right. Moses and Aaron and all of their friends wander around the desert for a really long time and they got a movie. Jesus and his friends got super famous for being really good friends and also really good storytellers (re-read The Gospels and then tell me I am wrong). Star Wars is a brilliant buddy road trip movie. The Muppet Movie: one of the best movies ever made, again, same thing. Galaxy Quest, Star Trek(s), Lord of the Rings, Erik The Viking, Condorman, RED: all of them, buddy road trip movies. (Side note: RED also happens to be a wonderful movie about a really fucked up first date. But, hey, it's Bruce Willis.)
We make friends and we walk around. It's kind of a thing with humans. We always look for these grand differences between humans and every other life form ever and sometimes, I think that the simple things are the most beautiful and to be encouraged: the ability to be friend; the physical freedom to change geographical location (a thing which ought not be taken for granted as it has not always been, and is still not always a right that is available to every human being).
I tend to compare my very favorite novels with very long walks during which you meet everyone on the road and get to know them really really well. It's a form of buddy road trip story, just fewer buddies. The quest thing tends to get a bit grating after a while, but I love the way that groups build during stories. Blazing Saddles has one of the best making-of-a-friend-groups ever. It's straightforward and believable.
And here's where I get all torqued - I despise buddy movies where I don't believe that there is anything like friendship between the characters, or where I believe the friendship is toxic. I do not want to see that. I do not care about it, and more importantly, at the happy ending, I am not happy. I invent story lines where Shirtless Jason Statham shows up, pissed off and drenched in motor oil and goes all River Tam focused and homicidal on everyone. Sometimes, this is my happy ending. (see why I choose to redefine 'chick flick' to fit into a different paradigm?)
So, I'm in a new town, and I'm finally getting around to making some friends. It's not a short process and not one that I take lightly. As you might have noticed. Tonight, I went with two of my new friends to see the movie Paul.
And I remembered why I love The Movies. I love trailers on the big screen. I love pre-show chatter in the seats. I love movie theater popcorn. I love that I get the kid's size snack thing with an Icee and a bag of M&M's and that's exactly enough. I love the dimming of the lights and the sense that I always get of being four years old and knowing that not long after the lights go dark, the world will be filled with Star Wars and John Williams and that I can relax and escape into such wonder as we humans have in it us to create and to share. The older I get, the more I notice the four year old swinging her feet and losing herself in the screen, and I am beyond content. Especially when I am watching a buddy road trip movie where one of the buddies is not a human. I love that I got to share that with two people who enjoyed it as much as I did. This is making friends.
I will not review the movie here. Except to say that I enjoyed it. I enjoyed watching a movie written by people who really sold it - the friendship, the travel, the adventure, the silliness, the dialogue (oh, the dialogue), and the respect for all of the movies that came before. It is often attempted and rarely accomplished - the well-done homage, the awareness of your cultural foundation, I believe we have a bad habit of calling it post-modern because we are pretentious fucks who think that all we will ever be is what we have now.
The future gave me tonight. And I laughed at it. Lots.
Also, I would like to apologize again to the 6 other people in the theater for the roller-coaster arms + scream. it was undignified. i will probably do it again. it was totally worth it.
This is just how it is
My Lent-like ends on April 3. I've already decided on the meal that will break my Lent-like-en fast: Singapore Noodles from Happy Garden, the Chinese take-out on the corner. Even in a town this small, there is a corner Chinese take-out.
I gave up drinking, meat, smoking and not practicing yoga for my Lent-like (so-called because I defined the dates of beginning and end and do not observe the Sabbath or Easter, except in respect to friends who are of faith)(I probably ought to write something more explanatory (I really want 'explicatory' to be a word, btw) but now it is not the time). The length of my fast was planned to be 42 days. (This is not accidental) I have observed all of my prohibitions, except for 2 days (which I planned into the experience because of the knowledge that Stuff and Things happen and sometimes, that pork cutlet is just what you need to eat) and for the most part, it has been relatively unstressful. I went vegetarian in order to spur some creativity in my diet. I went dry because why the hell not? I quit smoking because practicing yoga is easier when your lungs work and your breath smells better than an ashtray filled with cat piss. All of these things were very simple decisions to make and they have been simple enough to keep making.
Last week I noticed that I miss chicken wings. That's really all. I mean, I miss a hamburger for a moment every now and again, but I really miss chicken wings. I don't even eat them all that often. Like once a year, maybe. Apparently, this is my once a year and I'm not gonna have them for 2 more weeks. When they will be et in honor of someone else's birthday.
Yesterday I noticed that I miss alcohol. I like wine. I like beer. and I would like to have some. And I am not going to until probably Tuesday or Wednesday after my fast is broken. (I am not punishing myself with these prohibitions, and I am not suffering, just realigning my life)
The world is a not so cuddly place right now for many people. Jobs have been denied, relationships have ended and I've been denied to graduate school. Earthquakes and cyclones and unrest abound. Today would be a really good day to buy a bottle of wine and sit around and vetch with friends.
I am sad that that cannot happen.
I am sad that so much depended on all of the things that did not happen.
I am sad for the people that I love who hurt.
I am sad for the people that I do not know who hurt.
My response to these sorrows must be different that I am used to. They are all part of life. This is what happens. The immediate effects will fade, all the immediate sadness and frustration and anger.
Here are the words I have to rely on to give my mind its vent. And then the practice that builds my back muscles and reminds me that things change. It is new.
Everyday is the worst day of someone's life. Thoughtfulness and kindness travel well in small doses.
So, if y'all go out and have a beer today, would you raise a toast to the health and well-being of loved ones? And laugh together, and be gentle with each other. Resilience is one thing, but damn if the world isn't a fragile place right now.
I gave up drinking, meat, smoking and not practicing yoga for my Lent-like (so-called because I defined the dates of beginning and end and do not observe the Sabbath or Easter, except in respect to friends who are of faith)(I probably ought to write something more explanatory (I really want 'explicatory' to be a word, btw) but now it is not the time). The length of my fast was planned to be 42 days. (This is not accidental) I have observed all of my prohibitions, except for 2 days (which I planned into the experience because of the knowledge that Stuff and Things happen and sometimes, that pork cutlet is just what you need to eat) and for the most part, it has been relatively unstressful. I went vegetarian in order to spur some creativity in my diet. I went dry because why the hell not? I quit smoking because practicing yoga is easier when your lungs work and your breath smells better than an ashtray filled with cat piss. All of these things were very simple decisions to make and they have been simple enough to keep making.
Last week I noticed that I miss chicken wings. That's really all. I mean, I miss a hamburger for a moment every now and again, but I really miss chicken wings. I don't even eat them all that often. Like once a year, maybe. Apparently, this is my once a year and I'm not gonna have them for 2 more weeks. When they will be et in honor of someone else's birthday.
Yesterday I noticed that I miss alcohol. I like wine. I like beer. and I would like to have some. And I am not going to until probably Tuesday or Wednesday after my fast is broken. (I am not punishing myself with these prohibitions, and I am not suffering, just realigning my life)
The world is a not so cuddly place right now for many people. Jobs have been denied, relationships have ended and I've been denied to graduate school. Earthquakes and cyclones and unrest abound. Today would be a really good day to buy a bottle of wine and sit around and vetch with friends.
I am sad that that cannot happen.
I am sad that so much depended on all of the things that did not happen.
I am sad for the people that I love who hurt.
I am sad for the people that I do not know who hurt.
My response to these sorrows must be different that I am used to. They are all part of life. This is what happens. The immediate effects will fade, all the immediate sadness and frustration and anger.
Here are the words I have to rely on to give my mind its vent. And then the practice that builds my back muscles and reminds me that things change. It is new.
Everyday is the worst day of someone's life. Thoughtfulness and kindness travel well in small doses.
So, if y'all go out and have a beer today, would you raise a toast to the health and well-being of loved ones? And laugh together, and be gentle with each other. Resilience is one thing, but damn if the world isn't a fragile place right now.
Sunday, 20 March 2011
Light thoughts on tactile living
This has been wandering around in my thoughts since Friday, just waiting to build up enough steam and shape to get me to the internet and let me write.
It is lovely and new and very very real to hold conversation with awareness instead of fear or paranoia or irritation, no matter the other person. There is much to be said for the quality of conversationalists in my life, and for that I am deeply grateful. Also, the adorable skinny art boy? Yeah, he totally hung out and read Yeats. Like we aren't in a small town in Missouri. Pshaw, baby, pshaw.
We spoke of Zarathustra and The Book of Kells and going to see Paul and of Martha Nussbaum and of William Goldman and birth rates and living with pets and Community Supported Agriculture and breakfast and cinnamon rolls and graduating and being named 'Sarah' and the challenge of course work that requires reading in almost direct opposition to the reading you'd find more meaningful and potentially more enlightening and the frustration of a longer view than can be seen from safely within the confines of an Ivory Tower, no matter how beloved it is (as a genetic academic, it cannot be otherwise, but that doesn't make higher education infallible) and being a mercenary agnostic and there were chocolate chip cookies.
I ate many of them. Also: zucchini squash & shredded carrot quiche.
As I am still unaccustomed to working long hours, I find that my efforts to reduce some of that fatigue leave me with an equally perplexing situation: what to do with my time now that I'm good and awake and don't have to be in bed for another hour or so. Netflix is always available to me, and relatively consistent, especially if I want to watch Cosmos or don't mind that Primeval will have to be buffered.
None of anything that involves a screen is of much interest to me at the moment. I am content in the world of voices and coffee cups and tables that need to be cleaned and genuine smiles on the faces of people sharing space with my space. The cats are in places they need not be. More books lines my long shelf and the project of a year of missing my friend is moved to a wall instead of the chalkboard it's been protecting from the onslaught of my need to list everything.
This week, I saw a copy of The Nuremberg Chronicle that was printed in 1493. We stood there and I covered my mouth as if breathing too much would alter the sense of the thing, the woodcuts perhaps of Durer, beautiful regardless. On a shelf, my mother noticed a book on a stand, its pages edge-blackened and curled, its shape disastrous. Brother Thomas told us it is Ethiopian, my new brother's face lit up to see the Amharic - he got a picture.
There is much happening in the house these last few days, with spring break happening and none of us actually packing to move, and all of preparing to pack to move and I've opened windows and can smell the world from my bed, resting easily on familiar pillows, contemplating the use of space and how lovely it is to share it with such as are these of my beloveds.
The entertainment and information and connection of screens and networks and characters are all meaningful, and they are real. My eyes are geared somewhat differently these days. The change of world calls them to textures unseen in two dimensions.
It is lovely and new and very very real to hold conversation with awareness instead of fear or paranoia or irritation, no matter the other person. There is much to be said for the quality of conversationalists in my life, and for that I am deeply grateful. Also, the adorable skinny art boy? Yeah, he totally hung out and read Yeats. Like we aren't in a small town in Missouri. Pshaw, baby, pshaw.
We spoke of Zarathustra and The Book of Kells and going to see Paul and of Martha Nussbaum and of William Goldman and birth rates and living with pets and Community Supported Agriculture and breakfast and cinnamon rolls and graduating and being named 'Sarah' and the challenge of course work that requires reading in almost direct opposition to the reading you'd find more meaningful and potentially more enlightening and the frustration of a longer view than can be seen from safely within the confines of an Ivory Tower, no matter how beloved it is (as a genetic academic, it cannot be otherwise, but that doesn't make higher education infallible) and being a mercenary agnostic and there were chocolate chip cookies.
I ate many of them. Also: zucchini squash & shredded carrot quiche.
As I am still unaccustomed to working long hours, I find that my efforts to reduce some of that fatigue leave me with an equally perplexing situation: what to do with my time now that I'm good and awake and don't have to be in bed for another hour or so. Netflix is always available to me, and relatively consistent, especially if I want to watch Cosmos or don't mind that Primeval will have to be buffered.
None of anything that involves a screen is of much interest to me at the moment. I am content in the world of voices and coffee cups and tables that need to be cleaned and genuine smiles on the faces of people sharing space with my space. The cats are in places they need not be. More books lines my long shelf and the project of a year of missing my friend is moved to a wall instead of the chalkboard it's been protecting from the onslaught of my need to list everything.
This week, I saw a copy of The Nuremberg Chronicle that was printed in 1493. We stood there and I covered my mouth as if breathing too much would alter the sense of the thing, the woodcuts perhaps of Durer, beautiful regardless. On a shelf, my mother noticed a book on a stand, its pages edge-blackened and curled, its shape disastrous. Brother Thomas told us it is Ethiopian, my new brother's face lit up to see the Amharic - he got a picture.
There is much happening in the house these last few days, with spring break happening and none of us actually packing to move, and all of preparing to pack to move and I've opened windows and can smell the world from my bed, resting easily on familiar pillows, contemplating the use of space and how lovely it is to share it with such as are these of my beloveds.
The entertainment and information and connection of screens and networks and characters are all meaningful, and they are real. My eyes are geared somewhat differently these days. The change of world calls them to textures unseen in two dimensions.
Wednesday, 16 March 2011
Quietly eventful Wednesday
It is the kind of a day that shows me the dust on the screen of my laptop like so many grains of the finest glass-making sand.
It is a day for thinking of Disaster Fatigue and how it is possible to approach such overwhelming chaos with gentleness and very deliberate energy allocation and love. Joyfulness is not merely the desperate laughter of morbidity overload, it is not the decision to turn pain into art. It is correct to find joy where it is to be had. It is correct to love and to be loved. It is correct to stop and to think of the plight of others and to think of your own life and to think of how it is lived and to decide if it is how life is lived best. It is correct to face tomorrow's headlines without fear or anxiety or hopelessness. The language of energy and resource responsibility extends to emotion and to thought and to personal action. If it does not, then we are entirely without agency, living at the mercy of a world that does not acknowledge or recognize compassion.
The breeze of an unexpected spring blows over my shoulders and through my hair and I think of Coleridge and his prose and his observation that many shoemakers are philosophers and poets and I think of Daniel Day-Lewis and a shoemaker made old before time began by the ceaseless demands of princesses careless of his craft and his hands and his supplies, who must have shoes, whose shoes are the stuff of tragedy, doomed and made more exquisite for it. There are no elves in this story, the requirement drives the work, the credit is paid for the supplies, the workshop is clean and the shoemaker is left in silence serving an unseen destroyer of craft. One pair only, made of the last thing in the house on a day of bereavement and loneliness, the pair made from a carpet or a wedding dress or a child's blanket. A night spent sleepless watching without movement the shoes self-constructing, slicing through the remnant of a love, of a life, the heart of the shoemaker brutalized and made vengeful long years before the end of his life searching for the shoes that disappeared as every shoe did, before the fullness of morning, before his hands could find them, to touch, to examine, to steal and hide away.
I wonder if this is a story I can bring myself to write. Perhaps this is the work of character development - the character never known, only recognized as an archetype, but the actor has the story, and it is more than you will ever articulate, though it is all there for you to read.
The house is welcoming house guests these two days, and I am glad of the company and the weather and the adventure of visiting. My window is open and the blankets pulled from their winter's home still creased with folds or crumpled from the dryer. Gentleness finds me here, hands on keyboard instead of rushing about. The world's gravity does not have to be heavily borne.
It is a day for thinking of Disaster Fatigue and how it is possible to approach such overwhelming chaos with gentleness and very deliberate energy allocation and love. Joyfulness is not merely the desperate laughter of morbidity overload, it is not the decision to turn pain into art. It is correct to find joy where it is to be had. It is correct to love and to be loved. It is correct to stop and to think of the plight of others and to think of your own life and to think of how it is lived and to decide if it is how life is lived best. It is correct to face tomorrow's headlines without fear or anxiety or hopelessness. The language of energy and resource responsibility extends to emotion and to thought and to personal action. If it does not, then we are entirely without agency, living at the mercy of a world that does not acknowledge or recognize compassion.
The breeze of an unexpected spring blows over my shoulders and through my hair and I think of Coleridge and his prose and his observation that many shoemakers are philosophers and poets and I think of Daniel Day-Lewis and a shoemaker made old before time began by the ceaseless demands of princesses careless of his craft and his hands and his supplies, who must have shoes, whose shoes are the stuff of tragedy, doomed and made more exquisite for it. There are no elves in this story, the requirement drives the work, the credit is paid for the supplies, the workshop is clean and the shoemaker is left in silence serving an unseen destroyer of craft. One pair only, made of the last thing in the house on a day of bereavement and loneliness, the pair made from a carpet or a wedding dress or a child's blanket. A night spent sleepless watching without movement the shoes self-constructing, slicing through the remnant of a love, of a life, the heart of the shoemaker brutalized and made vengeful long years before the end of his life searching for the shoes that disappeared as every shoe did, before the fullness of morning, before his hands could find them, to touch, to examine, to steal and hide away.
I wonder if this is a story I can bring myself to write. Perhaps this is the work of character development - the character never known, only recognized as an archetype, but the actor has the story, and it is more than you will ever articulate, though it is all there for you to read.
The house is welcoming house guests these two days, and I am glad of the company and the weather and the adventure of visiting. My window is open and the blankets pulled from their winter's home still creased with folds or crumpled from the dryer. Gentleness finds me here, hands on keyboard instead of rushing about. The world's gravity does not have to be heavily borne.
Monday, 14 March 2011
The cat is having a much needed time out
No Shadow Conspiracy Allusions today. I am working on it, but between one thing and another thing and blonds showing up at the door, the day got away from me.
Just when I was starting to forget to think about it, my friend Chris posted a link to photos of the devastation in Japan on the Boston Globe's site. Slab gone is a phrase I never thought I'd know. Much less use again and again and again and again.
*******
My Other Other and I worked in the periodicals stacks at the public library for long enough that it was completely accepted that to her, paper dust has a different smell depending on the day. Some days it was chocolate. Other days it smelled of lemon drops. It was something that I didn't notice, always figuring that it had to do with 20+ years of smoking (off and on, people, off and on!) and that on top of what was not a great olfactory sensitivity to begin with. (It is balanced: I hear incredibly well at certain ranges) One of the things that we've been discussing over the last few months has become something of a goal reality for me of late, and I've begun collecting books with the intention of using them in a small privately funded public library. There are still many many questions that must be asked and answered before it is a physical reality, and I'm willing and happy to do that: it is part of the art of the becoming, but I do need books for the thing. And today I added a bunch of them to my LibraryThing catalog, in my new Other Library collection. I was sitting in my chair by the open window, laptop on my lap, books an the footstool, happily entering information, when it struck me that I smelled the dust - for the first time ever, I could tell the smell of the dust in the sunshine, and it was cardamom.
My Other Other understands the periodicals stacks of that public library better than anyone I know. She anticipates questions and organizational issues; she is weirdly able to find orphan issues and can spot volume and issue information hidden running perpendicular to the text in a box the size of a thumbnail in the space of 2 seconds after you've been looking for 5 minutes with a magnifying glass. It is right that she knows the smell of the dust they sloughed off - she is connected to the material. And now, so am I.
And I was happy in that place, and taking a break to let my eyes cool down a little bit and stop making decisions or lifting boxes when I wandered over to Whitechapel and found the monthly link to Webcomics. Fucking Warren Ellis, Internet Frost Swami!!!
There are already over 70 fantastic sites listed there. I've eyeballed at least 5 that I'ma have to feed to my Reader. And they all have archives, too. I am conflicted: ecstatic and dismayed allatonce.
Comics are now like some kind of very specific drug for me. And I do mean specific. I have said before that I don't read or very much like superhero stuff, and there are very few people who can write vampires without losing me completely. (I can think of three: Christopher Moore, Richard Kadrey and J.K. Rowling. So. You know. No one sparkling. Or angsty. I am so over the angsty.)
I get hooked, fast. I've said before that I read archives - in order to get my fix. Now you have an idea about why it was necessary for me to just link the damn thread everywhere and then find some other outlet. But that didn't happen. No. Instead, I saw that an old friend of mine was interviewed in one of his local papers about his new comic book venture Nix Comics Quarterly. He sent me the first issue in trade for a shout-out, which I did, although it was not as shouty or as outy as I think it deserved. Fortunately, he decided to do a Kickstarter project for the #2 issue. So, of course, I backed it. I backed it enough for a damn t-shirt. Because it is a good publication and it's locally funded and distributed. By local I do not mean only "sharing geography" as we live in the age of the internet which defines shared spaces more by use and combined traffic routes than by actual GPS points or physical destinations. It is not enough to say: "Someone is doing something around the corner and shouldn't we go because, hey, it's local." It is enough to say "This is a good bit of work. It is funny and it's dark and the stories are classically twisted and the artwork is varied and this author is fucked in the head in many good ways. Oh, and, hey - it's self-published and distributed - Well fucking done."
My fix was fed.
At least until I saw the super cool project that Lex Machina has going on Kickstarter! I love this! I think that this would be a fantastic reason to get a bunch of bellydancers together and head to Detroit and get decked out and photographed in a world of zeppelins and maybe even ray guns and jet packs. Jet Packs! I need to make more money so that I can spend it on all of this wonder.
There is too much horror in the world to ignore the potential for beauty in every possible place.
Although I still haven't had a chance to read any of my damn books today. I skipped chorale and everything.
PS: The cat is out of the room. She needed to cool down. There were blonds in the house.
Just when I was starting to forget to think about it, my friend Chris posted a link to photos of the devastation in Japan on the Boston Globe's site. Slab gone is a phrase I never thought I'd know. Much less use again and again and again and again.
*******
My Other Other and I worked in the periodicals stacks at the public library for long enough that it was completely accepted that to her, paper dust has a different smell depending on the day. Some days it was chocolate. Other days it smelled of lemon drops. It was something that I didn't notice, always figuring that it had to do with 20+ years of smoking (off and on, people, off and on!) and that on top of what was not a great olfactory sensitivity to begin with. (It is balanced: I hear incredibly well at certain ranges) One of the things that we've been discussing over the last few months has become something of a goal reality for me of late, and I've begun collecting books with the intention of using them in a small privately funded public library. There are still many many questions that must be asked and answered before it is a physical reality, and I'm willing and happy to do that: it is part of the art of the becoming, but I do need books for the thing. And today I added a bunch of them to my LibraryThing catalog, in my new Other Library collection. I was sitting in my chair by the open window, laptop on my lap, books an the footstool, happily entering information, when it struck me that I smelled the dust - for the first time ever, I could tell the smell of the dust in the sunshine, and it was cardamom.
My Other Other understands the periodicals stacks of that public library better than anyone I know. She anticipates questions and organizational issues; she is weirdly able to find orphan issues and can spot volume and issue information hidden running perpendicular to the text in a box the size of a thumbnail in the space of 2 seconds after you've been looking for 5 minutes with a magnifying glass. It is right that she knows the smell of the dust they sloughed off - she is connected to the material. And now, so am I.
And I was happy in that place, and taking a break to let my eyes cool down a little bit and stop making decisions or lifting boxes when I wandered over to Whitechapel and found the monthly link to Webcomics. Fucking Warren Ellis, Internet Frost Swami!!!
There are already over 70 fantastic sites listed there. I've eyeballed at least 5 that I'ma have to feed to my Reader. And they all have archives, too. I am conflicted: ecstatic and dismayed allatonce.
Comics are now like some kind of very specific drug for me. And I do mean specific. I have said before that I don't read or very much like superhero stuff, and there are very few people who can write vampires without losing me completely. (I can think of three: Christopher Moore, Richard Kadrey and J.K. Rowling. So. You know. No one sparkling. Or angsty. I am so over the angsty.)
I get hooked, fast. I've said before that I read archives - in order to get my fix. Now you have an idea about why it was necessary for me to just link the damn thread everywhere and then find some other outlet. But that didn't happen. No. Instead, I saw that an old friend of mine was interviewed in one of his local papers about his new comic book venture Nix Comics Quarterly. He sent me the first issue in trade for a shout-out, which I did, although it was not as shouty or as outy as I think it deserved. Fortunately, he decided to do a Kickstarter project for the #2 issue. So, of course, I backed it. I backed it enough for a damn t-shirt. Because it is a good publication and it's locally funded and distributed. By local I do not mean only "sharing geography" as we live in the age of the internet which defines shared spaces more by use and combined traffic routes than by actual GPS points or physical destinations. It is not enough to say: "Someone is doing something around the corner and shouldn't we go because, hey, it's local." It is enough to say "This is a good bit of work. It is funny and it's dark and the stories are classically twisted and the artwork is varied and this author is fucked in the head in many good ways. Oh, and, hey - it's self-published and distributed - Well fucking done."
My fix was fed.
At least until I saw the super cool project that Lex Machina has going on Kickstarter! I love this! I think that this would be a fantastic reason to get a bunch of bellydancers together and head to Detroit and get decked out and photographed in a world of zeppelins and maybe even ray guns and jet packs. Jet Packs! I need to make more money so that I can spend it on all of this wonder.
There is too much horror in the world to ignore the potential for beauty in every possible place.
Although I still haven't had a chance to read any of my damn books today. I skipped chorale and everything.
PS: The cat is out of the room. She needed to cool down. There were blonds in the house.
Friday, 11 March 2011
William Carlos Williams: Tract
Tract
I will teach you my townspeople
how to perform a funeral-
for you have it over a troop
of artists-
unless one should scour the world-
you have the ground sense necessary.
See! the hearse leads.
I begin with a design for a hearse.
For Christ's sake not black-
nor white either-and not polished!
Let it be weathered-like a farm wagon-
with gilt wheels (this could be
applied fresh at small expense)
or no wheels at all:
a rough dray to drag over the ground.
Knock the glass out!
My God!-glass, my townspeople!
For what purpose? Is it for the dead
to look out or for us to see
how well he is housed or to see
the flowers or the lack of them-
or what?
To keep the rain and snow from him?
He will have a heavier rain soon:
pebbles and dirt and what not.
Let there be no glass-
and no upholstery phew!
and no little brass rollers
and small easy wheels on the bottom-
my townspeople what are you thinking
of?
A rough plain hearse then
with gilt wheels and no top at all.
On this the coffin lies
by its own weight.
No wreaths please-
especially no hot house flowers.
Some common memento is better,
something he prized and is known by:
his old clothes-a few books perhaps-
God knows what! You realize
how we are about these things
my townspeople-
something will be found-anything
even flowers if he had come to that.
So much for the hearse.
For heaven's sake though see to the driver!
Take off the silk hat! In fact
that's no place at all for him-
up there unceremoniously
dragging our friend out to his own dig-
nity!
Bring him down-bring him down!
Low and inconspicuous! I'd not have him
ride
on the wagon at all-damn him-
the undertaker's understrapper!
Let him hold the reins
and walk at the side
and inconspicuously too!
Then briefly as to yourselves:
Walk behind-as they do in France,
seventh class, or if you ride
Hell take curtains! Go with some show
of inconvenience; sit openly-
to the weather as to grief.
Or do you think you can shut grief in?
What-from us? We who have perhaps
nothing to lose? Share with us
share with us-it will be money
in your pockets.
Go now
I think you are ready.
First thing read when I opened my father's old textbook:
Interpreting Literature, 3rd edition. K.L. Knickerbocker, W. Willard Reninger, eds. Holt, Rinehart and Winston pubs, New York, 1965. Page 299.
(We call it playing The Game)
I will teach you my townspeople
how to perform a funeral-
for you have it over a troop
of artists-
unless one should scour the world-
you have the ground sense necessary.
See! the hearse leads.
I begin with a design for a hearse.
For Christ's sake not black-
nor white either-and not polished!
Let it be weathered-like a farm wagon-
with gilt wheels (this could be
applied fresh at small expense)
or no wheels at all:
a rough dray to drag over the ground.
Knock the glass out!
My God!-glass, my townspeople!
For what purpose? Is it for the dead
to look out or for us to see
how well he is housed or to see
the flowers or the lack of them-
or what?
To keep the rain and snow from him?
He will have a heavier rain soon:
pebbles and dirt and what not.
Let there be no glass-
and no upholstery phew!
and no little brass rollers
and small easy wheels on the bottom-
my townspeople what are you thinking
of?
A rough plain hearse then
with gilt wheels and no top at all.
On this the coffin lies
by its own weight.
No wreaths please-
especially no hot house flowers.
Some common memento is better,
something he prized and is known by:
his old clothes-a few books perhaps-
God knows what! You realize
how we are about these things
my townspeople-
something will be found-anything
even flowers if he had come to that.
So much for the hearse.
For heaven's sake though see to the driver!
Take off the silk hat! In fact
that's no place at all for him-
up there unceremoniously
dragging our friend out to his own dig-
nity!
Bring him down-bring him down!
Low and inconspicuous! I'd not have him
ride
on the wagon at all-damn him-
the undertaker's understrapper!
Let him hold the reins
and walk at the side
and inconspicuously too!
Then briefly as to yourselves:
Walk behind-as they do in France,
seventh class, or if you ride
Hell take curtains! Go with some show
of inconvenience; sit openly-
to the weather as to grief.
Or do you think you can shut grief in?
What-from us? We who have perhaps
nothing to lose? Share with us
share with us-it will be money
in your pockets.
Go now
I think you are ready.
First thing read when I opened my father's old textbook:
Interpreting Literature, 3rd edition. K.L. Knickerbocker, W. Willard Reninger, eds. Holt, Rinehart and Winston pubs, New York, 1965. Page 299.
(We call it playing The Game)
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