Saturday, October 29, 2005
I have a very hard time watching/hearing a person knuckle-under to another person. I think it's difficult for me to see/hear/experience this as I often find that one is just trading one's assertion for someone else's, often without any sense of "improvement". I wince at what that's doing to the person who does it.
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Cultural lesson: writing about or to one's self is normal; talking about or to one's self is not. In addition, this is called logical.
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For me, it becomes a relief when I can actually begin writing something. The "thinking" of the project/book takes a pretty long time. I am impatient at times with the process but also not, really, as I am confident that it will come when it wants to. It seems like a bizarrely abstract and non-tangible thing to be confident about, but I am.
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He would never go over to their house because they simply had too many mirrors hanging. One couldn't forget one's self for even a moment.
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Cultural lesson: writing about or to one's self is normal; talking about or to one's self is not. In addition, this is called logical.
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For me, it becomes a relief when I can actually begin writing something. The "thinking" of the project/book takes a pretty long time. I am impatient at times with the process but also not, really, as I am confident that it will come when it wants to. It seems like a bizarrely abstract and non-tangible thing to be confident about, but I am.
*
He would never go over to their house because they simply had too many mirrors hanging. One couldn't forget one's self for even a moment.
Friday, October 28, 2005
Because I work in the field, people sometimes ask me which manufacturers of lighting fixtures I like. Hubbardton Forge, Framburg, Tech Lighting, I.E., and Arroyo Craftsman are some of my favorites.
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Listening to Sade's Lover's Rock.
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Superman/Wonder Woman Complex. A person who feels the need to constantly defend others even when not asked to do so. Often the person will mistake silence as a nonvocal plea for help.
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Listening to Sade's Lover's Rock.
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Superman/Wonder Woman Complex. A person who feels the need to constantly defend others even when not asked to do so. Often the person will mistake silence as a nonvocal plea for help.
Wednesday, October 26, 2005
MR. WEBER
It was too early to remember much of the evening previous. There were deer in the road. He was alone. In the night air, which was somehow brightly black, he couldn’t see a thing. He was in the country. He was drunk, or so someone else would say. There was a time when he would be young again, he was telling himself. He said that to the moon, which didn’t care.
He had somehow forgotten how the back of the church had opened up, and there was the young woman in the place where the papers were. He called out to her, but she didn’t hear. He moved back out of the doorframe, and drove home again.
There was a television show about bears and how most men think they can probably kill one if they had to. Mr. Weber never thought that way. He thought that if something impossibly large and looming, ready to crush your mind and skin and organs, was coming toward you, it was not the time to think of masculinity.
His father, Matt, had said that "Whoever or whatever comes for you, make sure that nothing gets in the way of their stopping." So, Mr. Weber understood this to mean that you just let things pass by, just let them go around you. Stay calm. Don’t budge. And don’t let them see you.
It was too early to remember much of the evening previous. There were deer in the road. He was alone. In the night air, which was somehow brightly black, he couldn’t see a thing. He was in the country. He was drunk, or so someone else would say. There was a time when he would be young again, he was telling himself. He said that to the moon, which didn’t care.
He had somehow forgotten how the back of the church had opened up, and there was the young woman in the place where the papers were. He called out to her, but she didn’t hear. He moved back out of the doorframe, and drove home again.
There was a television show about bears and how most men think they can probably kill one if they had to. Mr. Weber never thought that way. He thought that if something impossibly large and looming, ready to crush your mind and skin and organs, was coming toward you, it was not the time to think of masculinity.
His father, Matt, had said that "Whoever or whatever comes for you, make sure that nothing gets in the way of their stopping." So, Mr. Weber understood this to mean that you just let things pass by, just let them go around you. Stay calm. Don’t budge. And don’t let them see you.
Monday, October 24, 2005
From Pema Chodron's Comfortable With Uncertainty:
Contentment means that we no longer believe that escaping our loneliness is going to bring happiness or courage or strength.
*
At the dinner party, he walked over to the mantle, away from the crowd. There were photographs in whimsical frames. There were probably ten in total. He couldn't help noticing the consistency, in more than a few, of some kind of beer bottle or wine glass dangling from the hands of the photographed.
Contentment means that we no longer believe that escaping our loneliness is going to bring happiness or courage or strength.
*
At the dinner party, he walked over to the mantle, away from the crowd. There were photographs in whimsical frames. There were probably ten in total. He couldn't help noticing the consistency, in more than a few, of some kind of beer bottle or wine glass dangling from the hands of the photographed.
Saturday, October 22, 2005
The crawl space beneath the house was not 30 inches in height...it was 16 inches in height. A very tight fit. Wriggling in dirt with a flashlight, drill, screws, metal mesh, wire snips, and rat poison pellets. Another beautiful Saturday afternoon.
Some reader of this blog got here by googling "testicular strangulation stories".
I have no idea how someone could plumb a house and leave a 1 ft. by 6 in. gap in the floorboard beneath the closet that contains the water heater and furnace. This happened years ago, I guess, and was never fixed. Some animal--a rat, presumably--was chattering away earlier. I will have to crawl under the house tomorrow--it's about 30 inches in height.
This reminds me of my former neighbor in Syracuse. He was an artist in his 60s who taught at Syracuse University. He hated wasting time on fixing his house--pruning shrubs was on top of the list. I spoke with him early on, right after we had bought our first house across the street from him. I was painting the exterior of it, complaining along the way of all the other things that needed fixing. He nodded in peeved agreement and said, "What you'll find, James, is that there's always a broken basement window somewhere. It really never ends." I liked him immediately.
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There is a considerable difference between a poet who writes and arranges words into a poem and another who merely arranges another writer's words into a poem. The former is doing double the work, and one knows this just as one can always tell when someone's doing more work than another.
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Unable to restrain himself, he continued to talk not of life's narrowness but of life's narrowhood.
This reminds me of my former neighbor in Syracuse. He was an artist in his 60s who taught at Syracuse University. He hated wasting time on fixing his house--pruning shrubs was on top of the list. I spoke with him early on, right after we had bought our first house across the street from him. I was painting the exterior of it, complaining along the way of all the other things that needed fixing. He nodded in peeved agreement and said, "What you'll find, James, is that there's always a broken basement window somewhere. It really never ends." I liked him immediately.
*
There is a considerable difference between a poet who writes and arranges words into a poem and another who merely arranges another writer's words into a poem. The former is doing double the work, and one knows this just as one can always tell when someone's doing more work than another.
*
Unable to restrain himself, he continued to talk not of life's narrowness but of life's narrowhood.
Thursday, October 20, 2005
Speaking with M. last night, listening to him talk about all of the books he's been reading. Growing envious of the time he has to do so. Also remembering my early twenties and all the time I spent reading. Whole days spent just reading.
Wednesday, October 19, 2005
Living in California, it is sometimes frustrating not being able to complain about the weather, but one finds other avenues eventually.
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No one could live up to his standards, including himself.
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"Okay, you're right. How does this become something, though?"
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No one could live up to his standards, including himself.
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"Okay, you're right. How does this become something, though?"
Tuesday, October 18, 2005
From Eléna Rivera's Suggestions At Every Turn:
"Somehow 'I' remain outside."
nothing said nothing, no
words of praise remained
for the children waiting --
a station, a dock, a ditch,
an airport the site of flight,
duty-free hell disturbed
nothing on a dark night,
windy night, scary night
In the night wheels go round
The square of time in neon
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Received Craig Dworkin's Strand (Roof Books)
Received Denver Quarterly Volume 40, No. 1
Failed to mention that I had received Chuck Stebelton's Precious (Answer Tag Home Press)
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Cheap Thrill Two. I like listening to people carry over a pseudo-professional work voice--with all its plastic concern and false optimism/"That sounds so wonderful"--into conversations unrelated to work.
"Somehow 'I' remain outside."
nothing said nothing, no
words of praise remained
for the children waiting --
a station, a dock, a ditch,
an airport the site of flight,
duty-free hell disturbed
nothing on a dark night,
windy night, scary night
In the night wheels go round
The square of time in neon
*
Received Craig Dworkin's Strand (Roof Books)
Received Denver Quarterly Volume 40, No. 1
Failed to mention that I had received Chuck Stebelton's Precious (Answer Tag Home Press)
*
Cheap Thrill Two. I like listening to people carry over a pseudo-professional work voice--with all its plastic concern and false optimism/"That sounds so wonderful"--into conversations unrelated to work.
Sunday, October 16, 2005
Butte Canyon
Was it he or she who was profoundly false?
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There is an area on the way to Paradise, CA, where one can pull off onto a dirt rest area. This rest area is above a canyon. There are no guardrails there. One could literally pull off the highway and drive right off the cliff, which is a sheer drop, like 90 degrees. Some people do this, I guess. I was with L. and a friend of hers, and we walked to the edge. I had no desire to do myself in, but the feeling was still there. Of almost this kind of desire to experience what that would feel like, if I could live through it. There was also a great mixture of fear at the distance down, and I slowly pulled away, feeling the ground might crumble beneath us. There were hawks flying, hovering and gliding, diving and rising, across the wide expanse of canyon and open air.
*
To lessen one's aggression in thought and action. One point.
*
There is an area on the way to Paradise, CA, where one can pull off onto a dirt rest area. This rest area is above a canyon. There are no guardrails there. One could literally pull off the highway and drive right off the cliff, which is a sheer drop, like 90 degrees. Some people do this, I guess. I was with L. and a friend of hers, and we walked to the edge. I had no desire to do myself in, but the feeling was still there. Of almost this kind of desire to experience what that would feel like, if I could live through it. There was also a great mixture of fear at the distance down, and I slowly pulled away, feeling the ground might crumble beneath us. There were hawks flying, hovering and gliding, diving and rising, across the wide expanse of canyon and open air.
*
To lessen one's aggression in thought and action. One point.
Thursday, October 13, 2005
Cheap thrill. I always enjoy reading interpretations of some event or idea that is really quite uninteresting/normal being given extra significance, being imbued with metaphor, for instance, etc., so that the writer him- or her-self can vainly feel more comfortable in that setting, in that banal idea or event.
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Waking up with nearly no memory of a vivid dream except some character saying to someone that that someone should go fuck a shovel.
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"Slicing light"--what the Schonbek rep said they were trying to do with the crystals--to create color.
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Waking up with nearly no memory of a vivid dream except some character saying to someone that that someone should go fuck a shovel.
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"Slicing light"--what the Schonbek rep said they were trying to do with the crystals--to create color.
Wednesday, October 12, 2005
Well, it was a beautiful Monday evening...watching the New York Yankees lose in the playoffs is always a joy. Particularly ridiculous are the Yankees' fans and announcers complaining about individual calls as if the completely out-of-whack payrolls between the Yankees and the rest of baseball isn't the most egregious example of unfair advantage. This always gets swept under the rug. Here's the list for this year:
2005 MAJOR LEAGUE TEAM PAYROLLS
(As of April 7, 2005)
Team Payroll
1. New York Yankees $208,306,817
2. Boston Red Sox $123,505,125
3. New York Mets $101,305,821
4. Los Angeles Angels $97,725,322
5. Philadelphia Phillies $95,522,000
6. St. Louis Cardinals $92,106,833
7. San Francisco Giants $90,199,500
8. Seattle Mariners $87,754,334
9. Chicago Cubs $87,032,933
10. Atlanta Braves $86,457,302
11. Los Angeles Dodgers $83,039,000
12. Houston Astros $76,779,000
13. Chicago White Sox $75,178,000
14. Baltimore Orioles $73,914,333
15. Detroit Tigers $69,092,000
16. San Diego Padres $63,290,833
17. Arizona Diamondbacks $62,329,166
18. Cincinnati Reds $61,892,583
19. Florida Marlins $60,408,834
20. Minnesota Twins $56,186,000
21. Texas Rangers $55,849,000
22. Oakland Athletics $55,425,762
23. Washington Nationals $48,581,500
24. Colorado Rockies $48,155,000
25. Toronto Blue Jays $45,719,500
26. Cleveland Indians $41,502,500
27. Milwaukee Brewers $39,934,833
28. Pittsburgh Pirates $38,133,000
29. Kansas City Royals $36,881,000
30. Tampa Bay Devil Rays $29,363,067
Of the eight playoff teams, five were in the top ten for payroll. Seven of the eight were in the top thirteen in payroll. San Diego, at 16, was the lowest payrolled team to make the playoffs. The teams below that really don't stand much of a chance.
2005 MAJOR LEAGUE TEAM PAYROLLS
(As of April 7, 2005)
Team Payroll
1. New York Yankees $208,306,817
2. Boston Red Sox $123,505,125
3. New York Mets $101,305,821
4. Los Angeles Angels $97,725,322
5. Philadelphia Phillies $95,522,000
6. St. Louis Cardinals $92,106,833
7. San Francisco Giants $90,199,500
8. Seattle Mariners $87,754,334
9. Chicago Cubs $87,032,933
10. Atlanta Braves $86,457,302
11. Los Angeles Dodgers $83,039,000
12. Houston Astros $76,779,000
13. Chicago White Sox $75,178,000
14. Baltimore Orioles $73,914,333
15. Detroit Tigers $69,092,000
16. San Diego Padres $63,290,833
17. Arizona Diamondbacks $62,329,166
18. Cincinnati Reds $61,892,583
19. Florida Marlins $60,408,834
20. Minnesota Twins $56,186,000
21. Texas Rangers $55,849,000
22. Oakland Athletics $55,425,762
23. Washington Nationals $48,581,500
24. Colorado Rockies $48,155,000
25. Toronto Blue Jays $45,719,500
26. Cleveland Indians $41,502,500
27. Milwaukee Brewers $39,934,833
28. Pittsburgh Pirates $38,133,000
29. Kansas City Royals $36,881,000
30. Tampa Bay Devil Rays $29,363,067
Of the eight playoff teams, five were in the top ten for payroll. Seven of the eight were in the top thirteen in payroll. San Diego, at 16, was the lowest payrolled team to make the playoffs. The teams below that really don't stand much of a chance.
Sunday, October 09, 2005
Christine Hume reads "Hume's Suicide Of The External World":
Christine's most recent work is Alaskaphrenia.
I bought the new Harper's to read Ben Marcus' folio on experimental fiction and Jonathan Franzen's crusade to narrativize (narcotize?) reality. It's a fairly long essay, and one I wish Marcus hadn't written, just so he could spend time elsewhere. I realize one has to choose one's battles, but the sham drivel that Franzen continues to leak out in essays and reviews is not worth commenting on. It's seriously blinkered, pitifully sarcastic, and generally mean-spirited, on top of making one wonder, What's behind all this Necessity? (That's where the "real" story is, by the way.) But, frankly, it's a place I don't care to go to.
Of the novels, I've only read Franzen's The Corrections, which I found fairly well-written but imaginatively stunted (a dysfunctional family + Christmas = an SNL skit). About midway through the folio, I felt it was a waste of time for Marcus, even though he obviously didn't think so, as he continued on for four or five more pages. On the final page of the essay, Marcus hits the elephant in the room and on one of the continual errors of humans, thinking that one's experience is everyone's, as he asks, "Why can't Franzen just say that his own brain is so wired?" (This should have been the first and only sentence of the folio, followed by ten necessary blank pages, for note-taking). But then Marcus goes on, almost pleadingly, and asks a question not necessary to ask, because its answer is obvious: "If he's speaking about our brains, then how does he account for the human ability to read and enjoy poetry, which his Status fiction can much more closely resemble?"
I'm also willing to bet that Franzen doesn't read poetry.
Of the novels, I've only read Franzen's The Corrections, which I found fairly well-written but imaginatively stunted (a dysfunctional family + Christmas = an SNL skit). About midway through the folio, I felt it was a waste of time for Marcus, even though he obviously didn't think so, as he continued on for four or five more pages. On the final page of the essay, Marcus hits the elephant in the room and on one of the continual errors of humans, thinking that one's experience is everyone's, as he asks, "Why can't Franzen just say that his own brain is so wired?" (This should have been the first and only sentence of the folio, followed by ten necessary blank pages, for note-taking). But then Marcus goes on, almost pleadingly, and asks a question not necessary to ask, because its answer is obvious: "If he's speaking about our brains, then how does he account for the human ability to read and enjoy poetry, which his Status fiction can much more closely resemble?"
I'm also willing to bet that Franzen doesn't read poetry.
Saturday, October 08, 2005
L. and I went to A History Of Violence last night. Cronenberg's latest. Based on a graphic novel, it does seem framed for action (there are quite a few storyboard moments). It is violent and obsessed with blood and guts at times, like many of Cronenberg's films--Crash is one of my favorites. It's hard to say that I liked a film (History...) with such brutality, but the acting was understated, almost bored, brooding, and quirky. The son's speaking parts were written by an older writer who couldn't keep out of his own way and write it as a teen would talk, not as a much older writer would speak. The little girl was impossibly cute and, according to L., very annoying. Still, I enjoyed the performances of the lead actors (not the miswritten/underdeveloped female lead so much). William Hurt's character stole the show.
Friday, October 07, 2005
Harper's excerpt of Ben Marcus on Jonathan Franzen.
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Began writing new book last night, after a couple of years of thinking about it, divided by my strict regimen of laziness.
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Began writing new book last night, after a couple of years of thinking about it, divided by my strict regimen of laziness.
Thursday, October 06, 2005
First sign of a red flag: "I'm being sincere".
Monday, October 03, 2005
I received bad news yesterday. 3rd bed will cease publication after its next issue, 11. I hope Vincent and the others will continue it online.
3rd bed founding editors, Left to Right (2003): M.T. Anderson, James Wagner (back), Vincent Standley, Christopher Kennedy
3rd bed founding editors, Left to Right (2003): M.T. Anderson, James Wagner (back), Vincent Standley, Christopher Kennedy
Gabcast! Esther Press #6
Eléna Rivera reads a selection from "Mistakes, Accidents and A Want of Liberty"
Eléna Rivera reads a selection from "Mistakes, Accidents and A Want of Liberty"
Sunday, October 02, 2005
Everyone's a narcissist--the worst is the one who thinks he or she isn't.
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The conspiracy between the medical community--psychiatrists, namely--and the drug companies in the production, implementation, sanctimony, certainty of psychological branding--borderline personality, schizophrenic, etc.--doesn't suggest black helicopters as much as it suggests black mail.
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Candomblé
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The conspiracy between the medical community--psychiatrists, namely--and the drug companies in the production, implementation, sanctimony, certainty of psychological branding--borderline personality, schizophrenic, etc.--doesn't suggest black helicopters as much as it suggests black mail.
*
Candomblé
Saturday, October 01, 2005
A going-away present from Syracuse just now looked at. It's an oversized softcover book of photographs and some text called Step Inside Syracuse--A photographic look at our friends and neighbors. It's 160 pages. Having lived in Syracuse for nine years, I can say that I don't recognize the city. There are more pictures of blue skies and soft sunshines in the book than I could possibly have seen while living there. Seemingly, this book is a photographic propaganda vehicle as it was a joint effort with the City of Syracuse and Syracuse University. Nowhere does it tell a person that Syracuse is the second-most overcast city in the country, that it averages 118 inches of snow, that the economy has been in freefall since the 80s, that it has the highest property taxes--triple the national average--in the country, and so on. One of the photos, for instance, shows a large contingent of Korean-Americans eating on picnic tables near the supposedly beautiful Onondaga Lake, which is one of the most heavily polluted lakes in the country--no one would swim in it. Another photo shows a dog jumping into an inlet of the same lake, as if it's just good, oldfashioned times. Poor dog. I'm not going to deny that the skies were blue in the photographs, but the overall depiction is just miles off from what Syracuse really is, which feels a lot like lying.
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Earlier today I was trying to find L.'s mother's bean recipe in a box and came upon a bunch of photographs. One of them showed my first time going to Manhattan. I had stayed with a friend on Staten Island. I took the ferry over and snapped a photo from it. The photograph shows the skyline, which still included the World Trade Center buildings.
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Guy pulled over on side of 880 North, taking a leak, in rush hour.
*
Earlier today I was trying to find L.'s mother's bean recipe in a box and came upon a bunch of photographs. One of them showed my first time going to Manhattan. I had stayed with a friend on Staten Island. I took the ferry over and snapped a photo from it. The photograph shows the skyline, which still included the World Trade Center buildings.
*
Guy pulled over on side of 880 North, taking a leak, in rush hour.
