AFTER SUMMER
The moon will never be my Duncan yo-yo
except in theory or in my memoirs
or whenever I’m passing through Wichita,
which is not a bad town, all in all,
discounting the prairie blight
that no one seemed to notice
or fret much over in those sky
swaddled months. There was good barbeque
if you were earnest in your hunt
and a lot of trees. People
seemed to think the town was loaded
with sparrows or wrens
bathing in the dust. Try figuring that out
and you won’t have success
or at least very little—
one more monstrous failure
your pillows taunt you with
when you’re in the mood
for narcoleptic mercy. When your face
like a wind-up toy is cranked
all the way past speed to corrosive grief.
It ruins a date. Trust me,
that town is not one
to forget the public scuttling of one’s sex life.
Not that I tried. People talked
when all the other silences
had been used up, so I took copious notes
when I had paper and pen,
meaning never
due to my life-threatening allergy
to crucial advances in Western civilization
like cursive handwriting and formaldehyde and the cotton gin.
Eli Whitney seems popular with children
but not the surly amputees
I tried to comfort in my spare time
by letting them know
there is a secret to successful suffering.
That ruin can be crossed
like a pond in winter. That cold beyond the cold
happy people can imagine
has something to do with it
and that science wants to build a better numbness
just as badly as anyone.
When that’s all figured out
and tested on small animals,
too polite or too weak
to wage cartoonishly lethal civil disobedience against us,
to the satisfaction of secret cabals
who don’t seem to know there is a concept called
Wichita, let me tell you
the first endless drink is on me.
Thursday, May 31, 2007
Multitudes
Almost forgot about it this year: I broke my neck twenty-one years ago today. I hadn't thought about it until my dad mentioned it; for him, I think, the date is holographic. He could never not remember it. For me, though, there isn't especially any added significance, no call to introspection. Though last year, the twentieth anniversary, I guess you'd say, did have a certain weight that snuck up on me. I wrote a long post describing the accident that I didn't expect to write.
So, rather than more of that, let's remember this randy old fellow on the day of his birth:
I depart as air--I shake my white locks at the runaway sun;
I effuse my flesh in eddies, and drift it in lacy jags.
I bequeathe myself to the dirt, to grow from the grass I love;
If you want me again, look for me under your boot-soles.
You will hardly know who I am, or what I mean;
But I shall be good health to you nevertheless,
And filter and fibre your blood.
Failing to fetch me at first, keep encouraged;
Missing me one place, search another;
I stop somewhere, waiting for you.
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
Do-over
I'm writing a lot. Maybe you've noticed. But I've also been revising a lot, going back to poems that never quite satisfied me, reworking them. Two of these have finally unlocked for me. The first, "At Night, In November, Trying Not to Think of Asphodel," over a year old, was a bit unwieldy, in construction and conception; now I'm really pleased with it.
AT NIGHT, IN NOVEMBER, TRYING NOT TO THINK OF ASPHODEL
I’m no use for parties, for the idle language
which is all how hellish are the days
and dark or where did I find
that thread count or what do I think must be
done about whatever. So I smile
and nod and never say much,
happy to be thought impaired
or mute and when asked
to name what I couldn’t live without
were I marooned on a desert island,
I say oxygen. Not a book and its pages
slipping from cheap binding
and not an album
that’s not an album
but summer’s totem forever
and not one deft lover
and not the red ringlets
of her hair let down in a grotto beside the sea.
To be consigned there,
to that island, that home
to the fetish of consolation,
is nothing I ever want
to want. To be stripped of desire
as if it were a bandage.
But here in the night made of alarms,
a train shambles
through the dark
and it’s hard to hear the trees speaking
the language we made
for them. Or I did,
thinking of you
who taught me regret.
There are nights when I dream
of stolen oranges.
How we ran away with the sun in our arms.
And there are nights
when I cannot speak,
not even to the wind
in the strange tongue of the dark pine trees.
***
The other, "Laws," is more recent and also unwieldy, in that it's out of control, jumbled. Similarly happy with its new form.
LAWS
I forget where it is that ice cream is illegal
if carried in one’s pocket but I love
such a plague. That time was spent
codifying the acceptable methods of melting.
That I’m saved from the mess
I might make of myself
and summer and denim
were I free to stuff my pants with vanilla,
whipped cream, a candied cherry
so deeply unnatural
in its siren red, its off-world sweetness.
And then in San Francisco
we could never roll
down Telegraph Hill
the brass bed your mother gave you
like a burnished anchor
to fix your bedroom with the weight of sentiment.
We could never do that,
not in body armor
or in dragon scales
or invisibly bubbled in comic book pseudo-science.
We could never do it.
But permission might come
were we insured
to experimental levels
and every living limb strictly evacuated
and left alone to begin
breaking one law by observing another,
gravity, were all this
to come to us
just as we wanted,
I would lie down
beside you and dare the morning to push.
AT NIGHT, IN NOVEMBER, TRYING NOT TO THINK OF ASPHODEL
I’m no use for parties, for the idle language
which is all how hellish are the days
and dark or where did I find
that thread count or what do I think must be
done about whatever. So I smile
and nod and never say much,
happy to be thought impaired
or mute and when asked
to name what I couldn’t live without
were I marooned on a desert island,
I say oxygen. Not a book and its pages
slipping from cheap binding
and not an album
that’s not an album
but summer’s totem forever
and not one deft lover
and not the red ringlets
of her hair let down in a grotto beside the sea.
To be consigned there,
to that island, that home
to the fetish of consolation,
is nothing I ever want
to want. To be stripped of desire
as if it were a bandage.
But here in the night made of alarms,
a train shambles
through the dark
and it’s hard to hear the trees speaking
the language we made
for them. Or I did,
thinking of you
who taught me regret.
There are nights when I dream
of stolen oranges.
How we ran away with the sun in our arms.
And there are nights
when I cannot speak,
not even to the wind
in the strange tongue of the dark pine trees.
***
The other, "Laws," is more recent and also unwieldy, in that it's out of control, jumbled. Similarly happy with its new form.
LAWS
I forget where it is that ice cream is illegal
if carried in one’s pocket but I love
such a plague. That time was spent
codifying the acceptable methods of melting.
That I’m saved from the mess
I might make of myself
and summer and denim
were I free to stuff my pants with vanilla,
whipped cream, a candied cherry
so deeply unnatural
in its siren red, its off-world sweetness.
And then in San Francisco
we could never roll
down Telegraph Hill
the brass bed your mother gave you
like a burnished anchor
to fix your bedroom with the weight of sentiment.
We could never do that,
not in body armor
or in dragon scales
or invisibly bubbled in comic book pseudo-science.
We could never do it.
But permission might come
were we insured
to experimental levels
and every living limb strictly evacuated
and left alone to begin
breaking one law by observing another,
gravity, were all this
to come to us
just as we wanted,
I would lie down
beside you and dare the morning to push.
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
Hit
MY LUCK
That day I spilled milk with crossed fingers
didn’t make sense but the tears did
even though the laws of science insist
there’s no sense in mourning
waste. At least, I think it’s science
but it could be philosophy
though I hated all of it
and tried to think of a world
where wisdom was optional,
a kind of intellectual dessert,
sugar-free, safe for diabetic friends,
of which I have one
toiling away in a land
where sunlight is also optional. Named
Minnesota a long time ago
everyone attempted not to weep
or blaspheme or run screaming
into the scarred arms of the past
waiting in official gloom like an abusive lover
and though I wasn’t there
the day was ruthlessly pleasant
and not many died
unless it was an option
they’d been considering for a long time
and what I mean to say
is that I’m capable of Truth.
You might doubt me. The veracity of all this.
So many times I’ve lied
my way into your beds and back out again,
it isn’t funny. Except it’s hilarious
and painful and exhausting and cathartic and untrue.
All at once,
a metaphysical hernia.
I’m not even sure why I’m here
or how the air can seem to scald everyone,
everyone in plain sight,
so I wait out the day’s thin patience
playing card games
I’m not sure I fully grasp
or even enjoy distracted as I am
by the mutter of rust,
the mewl of stolen kittens,
the sky punctured by blunt star light.
That day I spilled milk with crossed fingers
didn’t make sense but the tears did
even though the laws of science insist
there’s no sense in mourning
waste. At least, I think it’s science
but it could be philosophy
though I hated all of it
and tried to think of a world
where wisdom was optional,
a kind of intellectual dessert,
sugar-free, safe for diabetic friends,
of which I have one
toiling away in a land
where sunlight is also optional. Named
Minnesota a long time ago
everyone attempted not to weep
or blaspheme or run screaming
into the scarred arms of the past
waiting in official gloom like an abusive lover
and though I wasn’t there
the day was ruthlessly pleasant
and not many died
unless it was an option
they’d been considering for a long time
and what I mean to say
is that I’m capable of Truth.
You might doubt me. The veracity of all this.
So many times I’ve lied
my way into your beds and back out again,
it isn’t funny. Except it’s hilarious
and painful and exhausting and cathartic and untrue.
All at once,
a metaphysical hernia.
I’m not even sure why I’m here
or how the air can seem to scald everyone,
everyone in plain sight,
so I wait out the day’s thin patience
playing card games
I’m not sure I fully grasp
or even enjoy distracted as I am
by the mutter of rust,
the mewl of stolen kittens,
the sky punctured by blunt star light.
Shiny
Today's suggested awesomeness is Terrible Mother over at Offsprung, Neill Pollack's new website that is about, I believe, ironically procreating. Or procreating ironically. Maybe both.
Monday, May 28, 2007
When your train gets lost
MY PAST
I was young and needed the porn but not
the money or the long seasons
of shame or whatever was the burning
sensation I felt in my head
trying to sleep or pretend
I was dead as kids pelted me
with chalky gravel or home-brewed
napalm that I could not,
even in the invidious gravity of such pain,
deny was impressive. Skin
grew back like the grass
in which I slept with all my green
dreams, all my terror
and my pockets full
of stolen salt and the crushed grub
of acorns, poisonous
to humans. There are things
I know of so little worth
I resent them their place
in this pot of meat I go about with
saying my head needs
a hat or a scented pillow
stuffed with the extravagance
of goose flight. So close then to the sky
would not be only blue
pain or the ocean poured
from the nub of a child’s crayon.
I could dream of
one or the other.
Once I wanted wings
and once a getaway car
not to mention
the jet-pack cobbled from a broken vacuum
or the millions needed
for bon voyage
on my own manned luxury submersible
or a zeppelin parked
above our heads and
wavering in the air like escape.
I was young and needed the porn but not
the money or the long seasons
of shame or whatever was the burning
sensation I felt in my head
trying to sleep or pretend
I was dead as kids pelted me
with chalky gravel or home-brewed
napalm that I could not,
even in the invidious gravity of such pain,
deny was impressive. Skin
grew back like the grass
in which I slept with all my green
dreams, all my terror
and my pockets full
of stolen salt and the crushed grub
of acorns, poisonous
to humans. There are things
I know of so little worth
I resent them their place
in this pot of meat I go about with
saying my head needs
a hat or a scented pillow
stuffed with the extravagance
of goose flight. So close then to the sky
would not be only blue
pain or the ocean poured
from the nub of a child’s crayon.
I could dream of
one or the other.
Once I wanted wings
and once a getaway car
not to mention
the jet-pack cobbled from a broken vacuum
or the millions needed
for bon voyage
on my own manned luxury submersible
or a zeppelin parked
above our heads and
wavering in the air like escape.
To leave my blues behind
Thanks to these cute kids, Taylor and Rebecca, for treating me to dinner and Pirates the other night. Dinner was here and great; we were lucky that our waiter was an old friend of Taylor's as we jabbered forever before managing to decide on our orders. Love you guys.***
I never chimed in on my font of choice: Times New Roman since I've had a computer. It used to be that I wrote in 10 pt. but now that my monitor is about the size of a pool table, 12 pt. looks the same and saves me the step of changing everything over from 10. So I send out in 12 pt. Times New Roman, everything, poems and manuscripts alike. To fret over it beyond that seems to me overly fastidious.
***
Happy Memorial Day
Sunday, May 27, 2007
Can't hear it on the radio
MY CRUSH
I never saw more of your unsunned skin than
the bus driver or the chainsaw salesman
or that waitress in that barely possible town,
unless they saw more than me
by accident or arrangement
or some other calculus of random passion
I don’t even want to consider
and yet here I’ve invited
all of us into the present tense
as though it were a garden party
exploding with gladiolas
and polite sipping and pained
concern for the lacerated kidneys
of someone distant, half-known but in that light
assigned a measure of imminence
which seems proper
to everyone in accord
before that pain is exhausted
as pain always is
and everyone begins to shimmer
in their own pains,
the knees in name only,
spines full of wire, fused bone and pain management,
vein stripped
from the arm
like a black weed,
and wherever I am in all of this or
wherever all of this
is within me,
through the gate into dusk you’ve gone like the day.
I never saw more of your unsunned skin than
the bus driver or the chainsaw salesman
or that waitress in that barely possible town,
unless they saw more than me
by accident or arrangement
or some other calculus of random passion
I don’t even want to consider
and yet here I’ve invited
all of us into the present tense
as though it were a garden party
exploding with gladiolas
and polite sipping and pained
concern for the lacerated kidneys
of someone distant, half-known but in that light
assigned a measure of imminence
which seems proper
to everyone in accord
before that pain is exhausted
as pain always is
and everyone begins to shimmer
in their own pains,
the knees in name only,
spines full of wire, fused bone and pain management,
vein stripped
from the arm
like a black weed,
and wherever I am in all of this or
wherever all of this
is within me,
through the gate into dusk you’ve gone like the day.
Friday, May 25, 2007
Mine is Wingdings
My initial reaction was to laugh at and mock this article about writers and their favorite fonts. But then I thought, wait, that sounds interesting.
Damn it.
What's your favorite font? What do you write in?
Damn it.
What's your favorite font? What do you write in?
Matey
HERE BE SPOILERS:
There's a daft artiness to Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, to its composition in early scenes, the white desert nothingness of Jack Sparrow's limbo especially, and the ravishing squalor of Sao Feng's watery stronghold. Notable also is the film's darkness and the really questionable PG-13 rating: it's not an R, certainly, but it's hard to say it's PG-13 either. For example, when violence breaks out in Sao Feng's stronghold there's a bullet to a woman's forehead and later, sailing through frigid arctic waters, a crew member frantically rubs his frozen foot only to have his big toe snap off in his hand. And so on. It's never gratuitous, it isn't gore, but you feel it. Nobody's goofing around.
Except the whole series is a goof, this generation's Star Wars in a way, and always fun. Halfway through this installment, it occurred to me that this may be the first series to invent its mythology in reverse. And invent they do. My God, At Worlds End is less a narrative and more a perverse experiment in plotting -- and I don't really mean that as a criticism. Allegiances shift like sunlight on a cloudy day, betrayals are arranged that may only betray the betrayal. I think it goes further than that sometimes. It's dense and dizzying so prepare to for a certain degree of confusion. It seems to me a purposeful dizziness.
I still thought it was pretty great, the only big movie this year to deliver the goods or not embarrass itself (Spider-Man 3, you know who I'm talking to). It looks and sounds amazing, Depp is still Depp, Geoffrey Rush continues to push pirate-speak ever farther into a near surreal tongue of YARRRRR, and the rest of the gang is on board as well.
Things I liked:
the homage to Return of the Jedi in the opening scenes;
the pebble and the peanut;
a certain cameo that I will not spoil;
the dwarf pirate with the huge gun;
the ballsy resolution of one character's fate: perfect and essential, but rare in big budget fare;
Sao Feng;
one pirate lord's completely daffy voice;
a climactic kiss, in the best of Hollywood traditions;
Davey Jones;
a monkey fired from a cannon.
There's a daft artiness to Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, to its composition in early scenes, the white desert nothingness of Jack Sparrow's limbo especially, and the ravishing squalor of Sao Feng's watery stronghold. Notable also is the film's darkness and the really questionable PG-13 rating: it's not an R, certainly, but it's hard to say it's PG-13 either. For example, when violence breaks out in Sao Feng's stronghold there's a bullet to a woman's forehead and later, sailing through frigid arctic waters, a crew member frantically rubs his frozen foot only to have his big toe snap off in his hand. And so on. It's never gratuitous, it isn't gore, but you feel it. Nobody's goofing around.
Except the whole series is a goof, this generation's Star Wars in a way, and always fun. Halfway through this installment, it occurred to me that this may be the first series to invent its mythology in reverse. And invent they do. My God, At Worlds End is less a narrative and more a perverse experiment in plotting -- and I don't really mean that as a criticism. Allegiances shift like sunlight on a cloudy day, betrayals are arranged that may only betray the betrayal. I think it goes further than that sometimes. It's dense and dizzying so prepare to for a certain degree of confusion. It seems to me a purposeful dizziness.
I still thought it was pretty great, the only big movie this year to deliver the goods or not embarrass itself (Spider-Man 3, you know who I'm talking to). It looks and sounds amazing, Depp is still Depp, Geoffrey Rush continues to push pirate-speak ever farther into a near surreal tongue of YARRRRR, and the rest of the gang is on board as well.
Things I liked:
the homage to Return of the Jedi in the opening scenes;
the pebble and the peanut;
a certain cameo that I will not spoil;
the dwarf pirate with the huge gun;
the ballsy resolution of one character's fate: perfect and essential, but rare in big budget fare;
Sao Feng;
one pirate lord's completely daffy voice;
a climactic kiss, in the best of Hollywood traditions;
Davey Jones;
a monkey fired from a cannon.
Thursday, May 24, 2007
Chill
MY HELL
Is probably different than yours, as we keep
meeting for the first time, the exquisite
first, in the magazines aisle
of the drug store and we never speak
or even seem to notice each other,
at least you don’t, though I’m dressed
to be seen, rolled neck to knee
in duct tape and not because I love pain
or even like it but philosophically speaking
what does it matter to add more
to so much and, anyway, the idea
is visual, my pale flesh constrained
by the tape with which people’s voices are always blockaded
in movies, when Fate’s day calendar
suddenly pencils in bank robbery
or kidnapping or some other distasteful felony—
but I apologize, this has nothing
to do with anything, except maybe fear,
which is everything, the whip to the restive nerve,
and I’m reminded of horses racing,
when one’s leg explodes like an M-80
there in the midst of speed
and if the injury is too grievous
there in the dirt he’s put down
and everyone in the stands
must decide whether to weep or applaud
this newly dead thing
as though the noise, any noise, could ever be noble
and this seems like another
hell, a small one, maybe, conceptually fleeting,
not the one guttering
throughout a good chunk of Western civilization,
not to mention my apple-cheeked
childhood liberally salted
with fear, to taste, you might say
in a fit of cleansing pique,
this hell sold on TV by men
so powder-white, so gravely coiffed, so wholly lard,
it was a difficult thing
not to perversely love all that flash
flood of magma streaming
from the vents of their mouths,
difficult not to itemize so much
gnashing, wailing, darkness, damnation, et cetera,
on insurance forms or income
tax returns or handmade Valentines
or even the crappy Batman ones I bought you
here in this hoard
of condoms and laxatives
where I come to look on you like another thwarted urge.
Is probably different than yours, as we keep
meeting for the first time, the exquisite
first, in the magazines aisle
of the drug store and we never speak
or even seem to notice each other,
at least you don’t, though I’m dressed
to be seen, rolled neck to knee
in duct tape and not because I love pain
or even like it but philosophically speaking
what does it matter to add more
to so much and, anyway, the idea
is visual, my pale flesh constrained
by the tape with which people’s voices are always blockaded
in movies, when Fate’s day calendar
suddenly pencils in bank robbery
or kidnapping or some other distasteful felony—
but I apologize, this has nothing
to do with anything, except maybe fear,
which is everything, the whip to the restive nerve,
and I’m reminded of horses racing,
when one’s leg explodes like an M-80
there in the midst of speed
and if the injury is too grievous
there in the dirt he’s put down
and everyone in the stands
must decide whether to weep or applaud
this newly dead thing
as though the noise, any noise, could ever be noble
and this seems like another
hell, a small one, maybe, conceptually fleeting,
not the one guttering
throughout a good chunk of Western civilization,
not to mention my apple-cheeked
childhood liberally salted
with fear, to taste, you might say
in a fit of cleansing pique,
this hell sold on TV by men
so powder-white, so gravely coiffed, so wholly lard,
it was a difficult thing
not to perversely love all that flash
flood of magma streaming
from the vents of their mouths,
difficult not to itemize so much
gnashing, wailing, darkness, damnation, et cetera,
on insurance forms or income
tax returns or handmade Valentines
or even the crappy Batman ones I bought you
here in this hoard
of condoms and laxatives
where I come to look on you like another thwarted urge.
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
Funf
I think it was ODLP who tagged me for this. And maybe somebody else. It was, I think, during the time of the Roman Empire. So I'm slow. 5 songs with the power to knock my socks off. Or sandals, in this case.
Ok, there's just no way to do some all-time list. I'll stick to songs currently speaking to me.
1. "It Tears Me Up," by Percy Sledge: majestic heartbreak.
2. "Black Star," by Gillian Welch: 58 hours since I last slept with you. 59. 60...
3. "I'm Always in Love," by Wilco: pop so sweet your brain will get cavities.
4. "Holdin' on to My Baby's Love," by Bobby Womack: criminally under-appreciated 60's and 70's R&B artist; great guitarist.
5. "I'd Rather Go Blind," by Etta James: Etta James. Enough said.
Ok, there's just no way to do some all-time list. I'll stick to songs currently speaking to me.
1. "It Tears Me Up," by Percy Sledge: majestic heartbreak.
2. "Black Star," by Gillian Welch: 58 hours since I last slept with you. 59. 60...
3. "I'm Always in Love," by Wilco: pop so sweet your brain will get cavities.
4. "Holdin' on to My Baby's Love," by Bobby Womack: criminally under-appreciated 60's and 70's R&B artist; great guitarist.
5. "I'd Rather Go Blind," by Etta James: Etta James. Enough said.
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
$$$
Congrats to Mr. Eliot K. Wilson for, lo, he is awesome and a frightener of small children and verily I say unto you he must pay unto me a reasonable percentage of his windfall for the generally prompt removal of this picture.
Monday, May 21, 2007
Friday, May 18, 2007
My first letter to the editor
In today's Chattanooga Times Free Press, after I shortened it by 68 words to fit their space:
Tuesday’s testimony by former deputy attorney general James Comey should strike a chord of mortal fear in Americans. Under the direction of this failed and miserable President, Alberto Gonzales and Andrew Card attempted to prey on John Ashcroft, suffering in intensive care with pancreatitis, in order to strongarm the re-certification of President Bush’s warrantless wiretapping program. That both Ashcroft and Comey had determined the program to be illegal did not seem to matter. That Ashcroft could not even re-certify the program, as Comey was then acting attorney general, also didn’t seem to matter. Vulture-like, Gonzales and Card descended. The story could hardly be more cinematic but sadly it isn’t a movie. At long last this administration’s epic contempt for the rule of law, for democracy itself, even as they buffoonishly, disastrously attempt to spread it in Iraq, is coming into a harsh light. This sorry episode only adds to the sad infamy George W. Bush seems hellbent on perfecting. That Alberto Gonzales hasn’t displayed enough decency to slink away says much about the man. That our President continues to endorse him, to enable him, says far, far more about himself than we should ever be forced to know.
***
Looking forward to seeing it in print.
Tuesday’s testimony by former deputy attorney general James Comey should strike a chord of mortal fear in Americans. Under the direction of this failed and miserable President, Alberto Gonzales and Andrew Card attempted to prey on John Ashcroft, suffering in intensive care with pancreatitis, in order to strongarm the re-certification of President Bush’s warrantless wiretapping program. That both Ashcroft and Comey had determined the program to be illegal did not seem to matter. That Ashcroft could not even re-certify the program, as Comey was then acting attorney general, also didn’t seem to matter. Vulture-like, Gonzales and Card descended. The story could hardly be more cinematic but sadly it isn’t a movie. At long last this administration’s epic contempt for the rule of law, for democracy itself, even as they buffoonishly, disastrously attempt to spread it in Iraq, is coming into a harsh light. This sorry episode only adds to the sad infamy George W. Bush seems hellbent on perfecting. That Alberto Gonzales hasn’t displayed enough decency to slink away says much about the man. That our President continues to endorse him, to enable him, says far, far more about himself than we should ever be forced to know.
***
Looking forward to seeing it in print.
There's a light
Thank God for the chance to proof the galleys of one's book. It isn't that I've found many typos, or any, really, but a few spots where italics weren't quite right, or a poem no longer in the book still listed in the acknowledgments. A quotation mark missing. A word I forgot to delete. Small stuff. But things you'd want to be right.
Also, I received a pdf of the final cover, spine, and back cover and it's just awesome. I love it. I couldn't be happier with the job the University of Nebraska Press is doing with my book.
***
Wilco's new album Sky Blue Sky seems to be surprising some people in its straightforward style: there's no Yankee Hotel Foxtrot here, with its analog racket, but A Ghost is Born was already heading that way, or hinting that way in between its many weirdnesses. Sky Blue Sky sounds like a bit more mellow Being There, less kaleidoscopic.
Another great album. Incidentally, I saw Jeff Tweedy in Chicago at AWP back when his book of poems had just come out with Zoo Press. He was wearing a toboggan. He scowled at me.
***
Two poems accepted by Ecotone. That makes up for the other day's rejection which had no rejection slip, note, letter, no nothing, not even a return address. Anonymous rejection is the new trend, apparently.
Also, I received a pdf of the final cover, spine, and back cover and it's just awesome. I love it. I couldn't be happier with the job the University of Nebraska Press is doing with my book.
***
Wilco's new album Sky Blue Sky seems to be surprising some people in its straightforward style: there's no Yankee Hotel Foxtrot here, with its analog racket, but A Ghost is Born was already heading that way, or hinting that way in between its many weirdnesses. Sky Blue Sky sounds like a bit more mellow Being There, less kaleidoscopic.
Another great album. Incidentally, I saw Jeff Tweedy in Chicago at AWP back when his book of poems had just come out with Zoo Press. He was wearing a toboggan. He scowled at me.
***
Two poems accepted by Ecotone. That makes up for the other day's rejection which had no rejection slip, note, letter, no nothing, not even a return address. Anonymous rejection is the new trend, apparently.
Thursday, May 17, 2007
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
Want
What would be really awesome is if a great white shark exploded into view....
***
What, our definitions of "really awesome" are radically divergent? Hmm.
***
What, our definitions of "really awesome" are radically divergent? Hmm.
Monday, May 14, 2007
Neither rain nor sleet nor a guy in a wheelchair
I walked up to check the mail a bit ago. The box held the usual junk (I really should start cashing in these free bras) but still in the box were the two copies of my manuscript I intended to go out today -- one has to be postmarked today. There's no way you can miss two 64 page manuscripts in bulky white envelopes right there. So I look down the street and see the mailman tearing ass from box to box like it's the 24 seconds of Le Mans or something. And so, in the same way a chihuahua can be said to be dogged, I took ofter him. Doggedly. He'd stop at one mailbox and for a glorious few seconds, in which his truck was mirage-like, I'd nearly draw even with him. Then he'd peel off down to the next mailbox and would shrink in the distance. As I roundly cursed him. And all his male heirs. His sickly aunt Flo.
This continued all the way down my street.
Around the corner.
And down that street.
Lest you see this in your mind's eye too dramatically, keep in mind The Worst Race Ever.
At last I caught him, making notes of some sort. I stopped in front of him, glaring a little bit. It isn't every day you're tailed through an entire neighborhood by a guy in a wheelchair. I think you'd notice.
He rolled his window down. "Can I help you," he said.
"Yeah, you dropped off the mail at my place but didn't pick up the outgoing."
"Oh, I guess I didn't see it, man. I'm sorry."
"Would you mind picking them up? These two large white Priority envelopes which you put my mail on top of?"
"Sure thing, man. Sure thing. I'll finish up and head right back."
I walked back and waited on him. At this point, if he didn't show, phone calls would be made. I rehearsed them in my mind. They were sweet.
Soon enough, he ripped back around and reached in to get them. He had to struggle a bit because of their bulk wedging them in. I realized that's why he'd left them the first time: he didn't want to bother.
Grumble cubed.
After he had them, he breezily said, "Got you now, hoss!"
This continued all the way down my street.
Around the corner.
And down that street.
Lest you see this in your mind's eye too dramatically, keep in mind The Worst Race Ever.
At last I caught him, making notes of some sort. I stopped in front of him, glaring a little bit. It isn't every day you're tailed through an entire neighborhood by a guy in a wheelchair. I think you'd notice.
He rolled his window down. "Can I help you," he said.
"Yeah, you dropped off the mail at my place but didn't pick up the outgoing."
"Oh, I guess I didn't see it, man. I'm sorry."
"Would you mind picking them up? These two large white Priority envelopes which you put my mail on top of?"
"Sure thing, man. Sure thing. I'll finish up and head right back."
I walked back and waited on him. At this point, if he didn't show, phone calls would be made. I rehearsed them in my mind. They were sweet.
Soon enough, he ripped back around and reached in to get them. He had to struggle a bit because of their bulk wedging them in. I realized that's why he'd left them the first time: he didn't want to bother.
Grumble cubed.
After he had them, he breezily said, "Got you now, hoss!"
Pawn it, babe
AWP '08 reservations = made.
As ever, best to swoop in early if you want to stay in the conference hotels. I meant to do this a month or so ago. Thank God for the AWP rate: otherwise, it's 400+ a night.
As ever, best to swoop in early if you want to stay in the conference hotels. I meant to do this a month or so ago. Thank God for the AWP rate: otherwise, it's 400+ a night.
Croco
Last week Nightline hosted the first of a series of debates on contentious issues, this one focusing on the divide between evolution and Christianity. In this corner, the Rational Response Squad, two snarky Gen X atheists. In the other corner, uh, Kirk Cameron. And his pal. Before diving in, let me offer Nightline a bit of advice: if this is the best you can do for your big debut, just pack it in. Save me, I beg you, the grief. Please.
In his opening remarks, Kirk claimed God can be proved, 100%, by science. Which was a pretty astounding revelation, considering that an 80's sitcom actor had figured out what thousands of years of philosophers and scientists and artists had failed to do. Of course, the 100% scientific reasoning he would go on to employ would be anything but scientific or even rhetorically sound. He claimed that any "self respecting" biologist would tell you that evolution as theory was suspect, that the fossil record contained no examples of transition species (I'm guessing Neanderthal, Cromagnon, etc., just don't count) -- this led to one of my favorite parts, where he held up drawings of croco-ducks, a willfully obtuse misrepresentation of the ideas we're discussing. Even better, Kirk himself brought up the platypus, the very sort of creature he claims just would never possibly exist, saying, "Isn't God wonderful?"
I want this guy to be my lawyer. "Yes, we have high definition video with Dolby True HD Sound of my client taking a hybrid flamethrower-chainsaw-loofa to the so-called 'victim' but we're all imagining it, so I move for all charges to be dropped."
The atheists partly annoyed me, often too snarky by half. But they made quick work of Kirk, piledriving him at every turn. He could never mount a particularly cogent response to, say, snakes with vestigial legs, male nipples and mammary glands, the appendix, and on and on. The mention of carbon dating drew amazed disdain from Kirk and cohort not because it's a wildly inaccurate means of determining something's age but because it has to be in their hypothesis of creation.
And therein is the great foible of the modern hyper-evangelist: his rationale, invariably, because it can't, by definition, be scientifically proven, falls back upon God said it so it's true. Which isn't scientific or provable or 100% anything.
In other words, it's the essence of faith and, also by definition, it is, or should be, if you believe, enough. There's no need to go head to head with science: they aren't even concerned with the same things. It isn't a value judgment on either. It just speaks to a weird complex in this section of Christianity that is alternately over the top aggressive or plagued with an inferiority complex.
Jesus called people, including Kirk, to do far better things than look like fools on national television.
In his opening remarks, Kirk claimed God can be proved, 100%, by science. Which was a pretty astounding revelation, considering that an 80's sitcom actor had figured out what thousands of years of philosophers and scientists and artists had failed to do. Of course, the 100% scientific reasoning he would go on to employ would be anything but scientific or even rhetorically sound. He claimed that any "self respecting" biologist would tell you that evolution as theory was suspect, that the fossil record contained no examples of transition species (I'm guessing Neanderthal, Cromagnon, etc., just don't count) -- this led to one of my favorite parts, where he held up drawings of croco-ducks, a willfully obtuse misrepresentation of the ideas we're discussing. Even better, Kirk himself brought up the platypus, the very sort of creature he claims just would never possibly exist, saying, "Isn't God wonderful?"
I want this guy to be my lawyer. "Yes, we have high definition video with Dolby True HD Sound of my client taking a hybrid flamethrower-chainsaw-loofa to the so-called 'victim' but we're all imagining it, so I move for all charges to be dropped."
The atheists partly annoyed me, often too snarky by half. But they made quick work of Kirk, piledriving him at every turn. He could never mount a particularly cogent response to, say, snakes with vestigial legs, male nipples and mammary glands, the appendix, and on and on. The mention of carbon dating drew amazed disdain from Kirk and cohort not because it's a wildly inaccurate means of determining something's age but because it has to be in their hypothesis of creation.
And therein is the great foible of the modern hyper-evangelist: his rationale, invariably, because it can't, by definition, be scientifically proven, falls back upon God said it so it's true. Which isn't scientific or provable or 100% anything.
In other words, it's the essence of faith and, also by definition, it is, or should be, if you believe, enough. There's no need to go head to head with science: they aren't even concerned with the same things. It isn't a value judgment on either. It just speaks to a weird complex in this section of Christianity that is alternately over the top aggressive or plagued with an inferiority complex.
Jesus called people, including Kirk, to do far better things than look like fools on national television.
Friday, May 11, 2007
Brains
Thinking about catching 28 Weeks Later. I never saw the first but I have a limited fondness for zombie flicks. I liked Zach Snyder's (300) Dawn of the Dead remake, for example.
***
Hot in the city.
***
I can't get anything done lately. I don't care.
***
Hot in the city.
***
I can't get anything done lately. I don't care.
Wednesday, May 09, 2007
Monday, May 07, 2007
Saturday, May 05, 2007
More than 3
Some of you may recall my near obsessive concerns with Battlestar Galactica spoilers (at the end of the season, I didn't read C. Dale's blog for a week until I could watch the finale), so here is a very big SPOILER caution right now. I'm going to dive into the mess of Spider-Man 3 and you are warned if you want to avoid any details of the movie being ruined. Here goes.
Despite some truly spectacular action scenes, some of the best and most exciting I've seen, Spidey 3 is, no doubt about it, almost unbelievably lame. Before this began to be apparent, the first ten minutes or so I wanted to cry, seeing Mary Jane and Peter on a web watching the night sky, the shooting stars. O redheads. Soon, though, the movie is meandering, checking in with the gang, and this is ok, but the feeling is of undeniable aimlessness. Soon, there's an awesomely dizzying fight between Peter and Harry, who is now the Green Goblin, and in this fight Harry is injured, losing his memory to a certain degree. He forgets his hatred for Peter and grooves around completely blissed out. Which is kind of cute and funny. Meanwhile, Peter and MJ are estranged due to an Idiot Plot. Peter finds out information which calls into question his entire ethos as a hero and continues to push MJ away. The black suit comes into play through one of 8000 contrivances and suddenly your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man is your Completely Not Believably Lecherous Though Pretty Much A Dickhead Spider-Man. Peter combs his hair down in his eyes, his new superpower apparently the ability to be so totally emo, and buys some crappy suit to jaunt through Manhattan checking out every woman passing by, giving her the finger-guns. This culminates in a scene that I swear is lifted from Anchorman, the jazz flute scene, except here Peter hops on stage to jam on the piano then dance across the table tops.
It shouldn't be a surprise to say that a weird hush had fallen over the audience.
Now, a different actor could probably have pulled off making Peter either believably sexy and dangerous or just plainly out of his fucking gourd, which I'm sure is the intent considering the black costume's malicious influence, but Tobey with his sleepy aspect and doughy face, his utterly sexless vibe, well, it just comes off as really, really weird. Soon, Peter comes to his senses, doffs the black suit, and isn't Creepy Robo-Playah anymore. The movie is back to watchable at this point, but aside from some great action set pieces never feels more than perfunctory or slapdash.
The transformation of Flint Marko into the Sandman is harrowing and haunting, even beautiful, but he's really only needed to show up and be Bad Guy. It's always pretty awesome but it never means anything: he says he just wants to help his dying daughter. Rather, he says it maybe twice. The rest of the time he's bored, I guess, making sand castles or burying himself in himself. Which sounds kind of dirty. Later, he teams up with Venom in an alley. I forget why. They go do stuff their mothers would disapprove of.
Battle is done and I think everybody cries. Peter does. Flint does. I am right now.
Despite some truly spectacular action scenes, some of the best and most exciting I've seen, Spidey 3 is, no doubt about it, almost unbelievably lame. Before this began to be apparent, the first ten minutes or so I wanted to cry, seeing Mary Jane and Peter on a web watching the night sky, the shooting stars. O redheads. Soon, though, the movie is meandering, checking in with the gang, and this is ok, but the feeling is of undeniable aimlessness. Soon, there's an awesomely dizzying fight between Peter and Harry, who is now the Green Goblin, and in this fight Harry is injured, losing his memory to a certain degree. He forgets his hatred for Peter and grooves around completely blissed out. Which is kind of cute and funny. Meanwhile, Peter and MJ are estranged due to an Idiot Plot. Peter finds out information which calls into question his entire ethos as a hero and continues to push MJ away. The black suit comes into play through one of 8000 contrivances and suddenly your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man is your Completely Not Believably Lecherous Though Pretty Much A Dickhead Spider-Man. Peter combs his hair down in his eyes, his new superpower apparently the ability to be so totally emo, and buys some crappy suit to jaunt through Manhattan checking out every woman passing by, giving her the finger-guns. This culminates in a scene that I swear is lifted from Anchorman, the jazz flute scene, except here Peter hops on stage to jam on the piano then dance across the table tops.
It shouldn't be a surprise to say that a weird hush had fallen over the audience.
Now, a different actor could probably have pulled off making Peter either believably sexy and dangerous or just plainly out of his fucking gourd, which I'm sure is the intent considering the black costume's malicious influence, but Tobey with his sleepy aspect and doughy face, his utterly sexless vibe, well, it just comes off as really, really weird. Soon, Peter comes to his senses, doffs the black suit, and isn't Creepy Robo-Playah anymore. The movie is back to watchable at this point, but aside from some great action set pieces never feels more than perfunctory or slapdash.
The transformation of Flint Marko into the Sandman is harrowing and haunting, even beautiful, but he's really only needed to show up and be Bad Guy. It's always pretty awesome but it never means anything: he says he just wants to help his dying daughter. Rather, he says it maybe twice. The rest of the time he's bored, I guess, making sand castles or burying himself in himself. Which sounds kind of dirty. Later, he teams up with Venom in an alley. I forget why. They go do stuff their mothers would disapprove of.
Battle is done and I think everybody cries. Peter does. Flint does. I am right now.
Friday, May 04, 2007
Suddenly, you know they're real, they mean it
A prize to whoever guesses which song the above line is from. It always crack me up.
***
Reading over the galleys is a strange, strange experience. When the Fed Ex guy handed me the package, I felt a weird, almost light headed feeling, even in my legs. I asked him to open it for me, saving me half an hour of struggle to get it open myself, and dumped out the contents. Letters and the galleys. Rubber-banded. Damn it. So I went and had copies made, spiral bound so I could manage all those pages.
Seeing the poems in galleys, reading the poems from a growing distance, not only temporally but also emotionally, I'm struck by how sad a book it is. Mortally wounded, almost. It's interesting to see how One More Theory About Happiness begins going in other directions.
It's also scary seeing these pages: before very long, it'll be out there in the world. Eek.
***
Already working on my classes for the fall. Crazy.
***
Reading over the galleys is a strange, strange experience. When the Fed Ex guy handed me the package, I felt a weird, almost light headed feeling, even in my legs. I asked him to open it for me, saving me half an hour of struggle to get it open myself, and dumped out the contents. Letters and the galleys. Rubber-banded. Damn it. So I went and had copies made, spiral bound so I could manage all those pages.
Seeing the poems in galleys, reading the poems from a growing distance, not only temporally but also emotionally, I'm struck by how sad a book it is. Mortally wounded, almost. It's interesting to see how One More Theory About Happiness begins going in other directions.
It's also scary seeing these pages: before very long, it'll be out there in the world. Eek.
***
Already working on my classes for the fall. Crazy.
Thursday, May 03, 2007
Wednesday, May 02, 2007
All the
More cool stuff: in the mail, yesterday, the fall catalog for the University of Nebraska Press and right up front a whole page for my book, all glossy and full color with a write-up and blurbs and an excerpt. Kind of neat, I must confess. Plus, tomorrow I'm getting the FedEx of the final page proofs to go over, comb for any stray typos, last minute changes, though presses aren't crazy about those, understandably. I don't have any in mind.
Very close now, very close.
***
Holy crap: I had no idea Dylan's "The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll" was so immediate, that it referred to events in the same year it was written and recorded. Jesus, imagine Bob Dylan, at his height, taking aim at you. Zantzinger is lucky he wasn't vaporized on the spot.
Very close now, very close.
***
Holy crap: I had no idea Dylan's "The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll" was so immediate, that it referred to events in the same year it was written and recorded. Jesus, imagine Bob Dylan, at his height, taking aim at you. Zantzinger is lucky he wasn't vaporized on the spot.
Tuesday, May 01, 2007
Wolf
Guess who will be a visiting assistant professor at the University of West Georgia beginning this fall?
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