Back from a job interview.
***
Ok, people, what is the freaking deal with gifts of bread to poets? I want to know. Tell me.
Thursday, April 26, 2007
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
WTF
While out for a walk today, from behind me I heard the approach of something really massive, like those star destroyers in Star Wars, but it turned out to be, of course, only one of those obscenely oversized SUV's people drive to soccer matches and Starbucks and, eventually, Hell. It passed me by in its seismic wake, pulled over with its break lights on. I slowed down, stopped. A man's arm reached out of the window. He was holding a loaf of bread.
"Would you like some raisin bread?"
He was holding raisin bread out the window. Sunmaid raisin bread in its distinctive red plastic bag. Nevermind I'd stopped a good ten feet behind his vehicle.
Call me crazy, but that just seemed strange. Who decides to tool around offering raisin bread to guys in wheelchairs?
Luckily, I could turn right down a side road. And I did.
"Sir?" I heard him call out. I sped up.
"Would you like some raisin bread?"
He was holding raisin bread out the window. Sunmaid raisin bread in its distinctive red plastic bag. Nevermind I'd stopped a good ten feet behind his vehicle.
Call me crazy, but that just seemed strange. Who decides to tool around offering raisin bread to guys in wheelchairs?
Luckily, I could turn right down a side road. And I did.
"Sir?" I heard him call out. I sped up.
Monday, April 23, 2007
Sooner or
THE NUCLEAR OPTION
In my closet there are clothes older than certain
pesticide-resistant species of insects
and I’m told I should throw them out
or donate so that another soul might feel
a kind of nagging shame, as I do,
that from this largeness of spirit comes yet
more largeness of spirit, a kind of moral priapism,
I guess, and in the sentiment I see
the sense. Yet there is a Berlin
Wall hidden between Thinking Good
and Doing Good and though all my long childhood
could be distilled down to sex
should be relied upon only as a last resort,
what movies call the nuclear
option, I find good almost never felt good,
a cruel trick played by lexically perverse gods
and befrocked teachers counting
down the days to their ends, their somnolescent ends,
with idle cruelties. Tell me how
marred was my soul when I refused
to travel to Mexico, to Juarez, I think it was,
in order to have one kidney
scooped from my side like cold melon
and given to stunted puppies, barking morosely,
their lives in front of them like rawhide
bones, made to be gnawed away. Happy
with money, she cantered
off into the night and in all the stupid world
I seemed the smallest thing,
blinking into the sun flare of a microscope,
a nematode or diatom or God
knows what. The idea is smallness,
a tattoo stippled across my neck which read
Made in Japan. In my heart
I wanted to die. The small death,
what everyone is always saying the French word
for orgasm means though
I’m not sure I believe it,
as some don’t believe man ever walked on the moon—
it was filmed by Orson Welles,
a last, great prank, yes, yes, yes—
and suddenly this does seem
an orgasm, or a stroll on the scarred moon,
both of them a floating,
a cessation, a suspension, for a time, of gravity,
of disbelief.
In my closet there are clothes older than certain
pesticide-resistant species of insects
and I’m told I should throw them out
or donate so that another soul might feel
a kind of nagging shame, as I do,
that from this largeness of spirit comes yet
more largeness of spirit, a kind of moral priapism,
I guess, and in the sentiment I see
the sense. Yet there is a Berlin
Wall hidden between Thinking Good
and Doing Good and though all my long childhood
could be distilled down to sex
should be relied upon only as a last resort,
what movies call the nuclear
option, I find good almost never felt good,
a cruel trick played by lexically perverse gods
and befrocked teachers counting
down the days to their ends, their somnolescent ends,
with idle cruelties. Tell me how
marred was my soul when I refused
to travel to Mexico, to Juarez, I think it was,
in order to have one kidney
scooped from my side like cold melon
and given to stunted puppies, barking morosely,
their lives in front of them like rawhide
bones, made to be gnawed away. Happy
with money, she cantered
off into the night and in all the stupid world
I seemed the smallest thing,
blinking into the sun flare of a microscope,
a nematode or diatom or God
knows what. The idea is smallness,
a tattoo stippled across my neck which read
Made in Japan. In my heart
I wanted to die. The small death,
what everyone is always saying the French word
for orgasm means though
I’m not sure I believe it,
as some don’t believe man ever walked on the moon—
it was filmed by Orson Welles,
a last, great prank, yes, yes, yes—
and suddenly this does seem
an orgasm, or a stroll on the scarred moon,
both of them a floating,
a cessation, a suspension, for a time, of gravity,
of disbelief.
Come on without
Life is always good when you're in a Dylan mood. I think that's pretty much an inalterable law of nature: death, taxes, Dylan = awesome. What I love most about him is that his body of work gets pretty close to bottomless: there's no reason to get bored or not find some new gem. I'm no completist by any means, but I could be fairly painlessly.
***
In a funk continuing from yesterday: Saturday night I couldn't get to sleep, was cold, finally drifted off around 4:30 to nightmare-filled sleep. I stumbled around all day, muttering dire things, not eating much. Today's better by far after great sleep but I still feel stumbly wumbly.
***
Vacancy has the best title credits in years, worthy of Hitchcock. The movie isn't.
***
Sending One More out today, following days of manic revision. One more poem picked up by the good people at the Burnside Review. A fine journal and they accept submissions by email, so you've no excuse not to send.
***
In a funk continuing from yesterday: Saturday night I couldn't get to sleep, was cold, finally drifted off around 4:30 to nightmare-filled sleep. I stumbled around all day, muttering dire things, not eating much. Today's better by far after great sleep but I still feel stumbly wumbly.
***
Vacancy has the best title credits in years, worthy of Hitchcock. The movie isn't.
***
Sending One More out today, following days of manic revision. One more poem picked up by the good people at the Burnside Review. A fine journal and they accept submissions by email, so you've no excuse not to send.
Sunday, April 22, 2007
Friday, April 20, 2007
36
Bob Dylan's rootsy love song "The Man in Me" is really about erectile dysfunction. Sample lyrics:
The man in me will hide sometimes
To keep from being seen
But that's just because
He doesn't want to turn into some machine
Takes a woman like you
To get through
To the man in me
Discuss amongst yourselves.
The man in me will hide sometimes
To keep from being seen
But that's just because
He doesn't want to turn into some machine
Takes a woman like you
To get through
To the man in me
Discuss amongst yourselves.
Pretzel
There is a terrible, mean, little cruel part of me that adores Alberto Gonzales with mindless ferocity. I love to watch him. I do. I admit it. They say the first step on the path to healing is admitting you have a problem, but if loving Alberto is wrong, readers, I don't ever want to be right. His boyish voice, his requisite Bush-loyalist smirk that sneaks out once in a while, but behind it all, yes, that stark recognition he's caught like a bug on a pin. I'd been looking forward to his hearing for weeks, rehearsed in my mind how I'd pop popcorn, settle in, and just wallow. But I didn't. Pop popcorn, I mean.
My friends, Clinton was widely, rightly criticized for the lawyerly parsing of his answers at times. At least he was skilled at it. Alberto, on the other hand, well, I'm trying to decide if his testimony was some kind of strange performance art. An epistemological freak show. It was beautiful.
It is a testimony to every senator's parents: only adamantium manners could have prevented them from flaying this little weasel alive. His answers, his "explanations," turned in on themselves like the unholy spawn of Dali and Escher in its first freshman comp. class. Essentially, it boils down to I can't remember being at all the meetings I previously stated I had not attended, was not involved in the deliberation process, trying to plot a nebulous position in which he could simultaneously claim to have nothing to do with the decision and everything to do with the decision.
It's apt, even poetic, that a man so enamored of torture would himself be forced to employ torturous techniques upon his "memory," upon himself.
That he's lying is a foregone conclusion. That, in the end, he just doesn't appear to be all that smart is the real news.
My friends, Clinton was widely, rightly criticized for the lawyerly parsing of his answers at times. At least he was skilled at it. Alberto, on the other hand, well, I'm trying to decide if his testimony was some kind of strange performance art. An epistemological freak show. It was beautiful.
It is a testimony to every senator's parents: only adamantium manners could have prevented them from flaying this little weasel alive. His answers, his "explanations," turned in on themselves like the unholy spawn of Dali and Escher in its first freshman comp. class. Essentially, it boils down to I can't remember being at all the meetings I previously stated I had not attended, was not involved in the deliberation process, trying to plot a nebulous position in which he could simultaneously claim to have nothing to do with the decision and everything to do with the decision.
It's apt, even poetic, that a man so enamored of torture would himself be forced to employ torturous techniques upon his "memory," upon himself.
That he's lying is a foregone conclusion. That, in the end, he just doesn't appear to be all that smart is the real news.
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
Sweet
Back to my non-rage fueled posts here. Though I'm making no promises: each time I think about that post I'm astounded anew by its ghoulish indecency. Regardless of whether the issue posited is valid, politically, philosophically, it's just plain rude. Rude isn't strong enough a word. But that's enough of that.
***
I have an interview next week.
***
Still working on the manuscript for One More Theory About Happiness. I'll be durn if it ain't pretty good, if I do say so myself. Hard to get my head around the fact I might very well have a viable manuscript here, one that operates like a cohesive unit should, like a book. Spending time every day revising, tightening. Notes had been done, basically, for so long that I forgot the fun of this stage -- a heady, fun time.
I used to walk around Tuscaloosa with a spiral bound copy of the manuscript of my first book. Always at my side. In between classes, while my students worked on in-class assignments, whenever I could find a moment, I'd pull it out, making mental notes as I read. Each time the manuscript changed enough to warrant a new copy (which was pretty much all the time), I'd have a new copy printed, bound. Crimson Tide red covers. I still come across them from time to time.
I don't do that anymore but the thought is tempting.
***
Congratulations to Eliot for his top secret secret.
***
Off to wash my mouth out with soap.
***
I have an interview next week.
***
Still working on the manuscript for One More Theory About Happiness. I'll be durn if it ain't pretty good, if I do say so myself. Hard to get my head around the fact I might very well have a viable manuscript here, one that operates like a cohesive unit should, like a book. Spending time every day revising, tightening. Notes had been done, basically, for so long that I forgot the fun of this stage -- a heady, fun time.
I used to walk around Tuscaloosa with a spiral bound copy of the manuscript of my first book. Always at my side. In between classes, while my students worked on in-class assignments, whenever I could find a moment, I'd pull it out, making mental notes as I read. Each time the manuscript changed enough to warrant a new copy (which was pretty much all the time), I'd have a new copy printed, bound. Crimson Tide red covers. I still come across them from time to time.
I don't do that anymore but the thought is tempting.
***
Congratulations to Eliot for his top secret secret.
***
Off to wash my mouth out with soap.
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
When all you know about the unspeakable killings at Virginia Tech comes from a little box called a television or a computer or maybe a newspaper, I think it's wise to shut the fuck up.
Monday, April 16, 2007
Heartsick over the Virginia Tech shootings. I have friends there, Rebecca and Taylor, who are grad students, Rebecca an engineering student where, apparently, many of the shootings took place. And Bob teaches there. And I read there last year with Eliot and chatted with some of the MFA students again at AWP. Luckily, I managed to reach Rebecca and they're ok.
Saturday, April 14, 2007
Have you come for me?
Rain, go away. Actually, kind of nice to hear the pour across the roof. Still, annoyed, just a bit, with the up-down weather.
***
Three poems accepted today by The Southern Review, which was exciting. 18 poems now from One More accepted, which is awfully close to that magic number of 20: it's around that number where manuscripts seem to reach a kind of critical mass where they'll begin to get play/traction with presses. We'll see.
Listening to music and rain revising: I fixed one poem that had bothered me. Sometimes it's a matter of losing one line, in this case the last. Amazing how a few words can be like the turn of a lock.
***
Three poems accepted today by The Southern Review, which was exciting. 18 poems now from One More accepted, which is awfully close to that magic number of 20: it's around that number where manuscripts seem to reach a kind of critical mass where they'll begin to get play/traction with presses. We'll see.
Listening to music and rain revising: I fixed one poem that had bothered me. Sometimes it's a matter of losing one line, in this case the last. Amazing how a few words can be like the turn of a lock.
Thursday, April 12, 2007
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
Suppose
My top songs on iTunes currently:
1. "Hold Tight!" Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick and Tich
2. "Hide Away," Rock Kills Kid
3. "Kiss the Sky," Shawn Lee's Ping Pong Orchestra
4. "Fidelity," Regina Spektor
5. "Landed," Ben Folds
6. "Comfortably Numb," Van Morrison
7. "Can't Get Out of What I'm into," Liz Phair
***
Last Thursday night in Carrollton, walking back to my hotel, graciously accompanied by Chad and Greg Fraser, we were stopped by a train. Which was itself stopped. And did not appear to be in any great hurry to get moving again. Cars pulled up, waited for a moment, then turned left, heading to the ancient looking wooden bridge, the planks of which move in response to the weight of a passing car. Decided to pass on that. So we waited. And waited. Which would be quite nice in spring in Georgia, except for the cold snap. Finally, the train shuddered with a surprisingly deafening blam and was on its way.
Of course, we were immediately almost run over by some drunken hoodlum on the the wrong side of the road. In passing, he yelled slurry displeasure.
***
10 poems from One More Theory About Happiness have been published, 15 if you count those that appeared in Exit Interview. I'm not sure if you do.
I haven't been very aggressive in sending out these poems but that's turning around. The manuscript is currently too long at 65 pages but that will shake out with time.
***
Hayden's Ferry Review asked me to read next year at AWP. Which is very cool. I'll also be reading for the Prairie Schooner Prize, so it looks like AWP will be that much more frantic next year. Excellent.
1. "Hold Tight!" Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick and Tich
2. "Hide Away," Rock Kills Kid
3. "Kiss the Sky," Shawn Lee's Ping Pong Orchestra
4. "Fidelity," Regina Spektor
5. "Landed," Ben Folds
6. "Comfortably Numb," Van Morrison
7. "Can't Get Out of What I'm into," Liz Phair
***
Last Thursday night in Carrollton, walking back to my hotel, graciously accompanied by Chad and Greg Fraser, we were stopped by a train. Which was itself stopped. And did not appear to be in any great hurry to get moving again. Cars pulled up, waited for a moment, then turned left, heading to the ancient looking wooden bridge, the planks of which move in response to the weight of a passing car. Decided to pass on that. So we waited. And waited. Which would be quite nice in spring in Georgia, except for the cold snap. Finally, the train shuddered with a surprisingly deafening blam and was on its way.
Of course, we were immediately almost run over by some drunken hoodlum on the the wrong side of the road. In passing, he yelled slurry displeasure.
***
10 poems from One More Theory About Happiness have been published, 15 if you count those that appeared in Exit Interview. I'm not sure if you do.
I haven't been very aggressive in sending out these poems but that's turning around. The manuscript is currently too long at 65 pages but that will shake out with time.
***
Hayden's Ferry Review asked me to read next year at AWP. Which is very cool. I'll also be reading for the Prairie Schooner Prize, so it looks like AWP will be that much more frantic next year. Excellent.
Monday, April 09, 2007
Sunday, April 08, 2007
Machete
I was worried Grindhouse might come off as some huge wankfest, an inside joke, one that I'd be sadly way, way in on, for all the hours of my life spent watching the z-grade fodder Rodriguez and Tarantino are mining here. It is still, mostly, an in-joke, or, not an in-joke, but a valentine composed in a very specific foreign (to most) language. And I thought it was great. Even Planet Terror, which I expected to not care for. Aside from Sin City, most of Rodriguez' films have been clunky exercises. PT is beamed straight in from 80's sci-fi/horror schlock, movies which tried to capitalize on films like Total Recal, The Terminator, The Thing and a zillion others. It's a near perfect recreation of those knock-offs, which got by on gore, sleaze, nudity, sadism, and when possible, all those combined. I had to laugh early on for all the dead-on wooden line readings, the pointlessly ugly digressions, and the manic stabs at humor. All perfectly rendered. That said, PT's title credits are the sexiest I've seen in some time with Rose McGowan as a go-go dancer. Yikes. New crush #1 launched by these movies. I'll keep the rest of this on PT brief, but it's really kind of amazingly deft and skillful and way more clever than you might think. It's runs low on gas towards the third act but soon picks back up. Great flick. Perfect slice of 80's cheese.
I've got a lot more thoughts on PT. Rodriguez is most slavishly devoted to to the gimmick here, scratching up the print, throwing in a missing reel, etc.
Tarantino's Death Proof, however, is the one that's clearly not really content to just be fond homage. It's pushing back at the whole Grindhouse idea: the first thirty or forty-five minutes is all dialog, talk between girlfriends about boyfriends, sex, other girls, scoring weed. It's a summery, top-down, 70's vibe. It's an ill fit, sort of, following PT, and with the aesthetic Grindhouse aims to present. None of these films, the originals, took their sweet time talking, hanging out in bars, watching rain from the porch. Tarantino is just making a Tarantino movie here. There's no gimmicky digital aging of the print, though there are a few moments of juddery frames, dropped dialog. A reel is missing here as well. But all these feel like perfunctory nods to the project.
Kurt Russell is Stuntman Mike, and he hits several notes, all of them golden: dangerous bad boy, kind of lame guy hitting on girls one third his age, psychopath, and one last twist that I'll leave unsaid.
New crush #2 is Zoe Bell, as herself, a Kiwi stuntwoman. I've sent a telegram to her, proposing marriage. I'll keep y'all informed.
Death Proof has a killer, epic car chase, ripping through the backroads of Lebanon, Tennessee. It's here the 70's is practically reconjured.
Death Proof is more problematic than PT, which shouldn't be surprising, given Tarantino's particular gift for taking genre convention and dropping real life inside it. I need to see it again to get a handle on it. As canny as PT is, there's no real difficulty in "getting it."
I can't see Grindhouse being a hit. It takes a kind of film literacy most people are quite happy to do without. But, if you do, it's three hours of awesome.
I've got a lot more thoughts on PT. Rodriguez is most slavishly devoted to to the gimmick here, scratching up the print, throwing in a missing reel, etc.
Tarantino's Death Proof, however, is the one that's clearly not really content to just be fond homage. It's pushing back at the whole Grindhouse idea: the first thirty or forty-five minutes is all dialog, talk between girlfriends about boyfriends, sex, other girls, scoring weed. It's a summery, top-down, 70's vibe. It's an ill fit, sort of, following PT, and with the aesthetic Grindhouse aims to present. None of these films, the originals, took their sweet time talking, hanging out in bars, watching rain from the porch. Tarantino is just making a Tarantino movie here. There's no gimmicky digital aging of the print, though there are a few moments of juddery frames, dropped dialog. A reel is missing here as well. But all these feel like perfunctory nods to the project.
Kurt Russell is Stuntman Mike, and he hits several notes, all of them golden: dangerous bad boy, kind of lame guy hitting on girls one third his age, psychopath, and one last twist that I'll leave unsaid.
New crush #2 is Zoe Bell, as herself, a Kiwi stuntwoman. I've sent a telegram to her, proposing marriage. I'll keep y'all informed.
Death Proof has a killer, epic car chase, ripping through the backroads of Lebanon, Tennessee. It's here the 70's is practically reconjured.
Death Proof is more problematic than PT, which shouldn't be surprising, given Tarantino's particular gift for taking genre convention and dropping real life inside it. I need to see it again to get a handle on it. As canny as PT is, there's no real difficulty in "getting it."
I can't see Grindhouse being a hit. It takes a kind of film literacy most people are quite happy to do without. But, if you do, it's three hours of awesome.
Fidelity
Back from reading at the University of West Georgia with Terri Witek. A really good time, hanging out with the Chad Davidson and the gang, and interesting, too, because I have lots of relatives there in Carrollton. Two of my grandfather's brothers, their children and grandchildren. It had been some time since I'd been there. The weird thing is figuring out my uncle Don used to live on the same street as Chad. The ever smaller world strikes again.
***
Off to see Grindhouse here in a bit, even in this absurd cold snap.
***
Off to see Grindhouse here in a bit, even in this absurd cold snap.
Tuesday, April 03, 2007
Monday, April 02, 2007
Wires
One More Theory About Happiness is now out to two contests/presses. The next deadline isn't until the month's end, I think, so I'll use that time to continue revising, reworking, writing new poems. It's enjoyable work, this. A luxury.
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