Tuesday, May 23, 2006
Monday, May 22, 2006
Thursday, May 18, 2006
For Not Us - Rewrite
VIII
for P.C.
There's a lattice
of steel bars
as your voice
in me:
all meaning
fails itself
you can say
trade the wind
like a point
bloated with principle
I'm here
you're there
just beyond
green lines
show how holy
blood each day
is wasted on
prophet tongues
not here—not for
rubble hordes
a grip of stone
pebble pastiche
stoned fiction
for a time
the story seemed
to hold by name
a siege enthroned
ad hominem
ecce homo
ex nihilo.
for P.C.
There's a lattice
of steel bars
as your voice
in me:
all meaning
fails itself
you can say
trade the wind
like a point
bloated with principle
I'm here
you're there
just beyond
green lines
show how holy
blood each day
is wasted on
prophet tongues
not here—not for
rubble hordes
a grip of stone
pebble pastiche
stoned fiction
for a time
the story seemed
to hold by name
a siege enthroned
ad hominem
ecce homo
ex nihilo.
Tuesday, May 16, 2006
Euphemisms
Why can't we say "died"? Why do people pass? Pass sounds like a voluntary choice to me. You pass on seconds at a dinner table, you pass a road sign to where you're going while your distracted by the beautiful blonde in the BMW passing you, you pass the greay poupon, pass the carrots, you pass your glass for a refill, you pass on condoms because you're too drunk to keep it up with that much latex. In all these things pass is voluntary except when most people die. Now we can make an argument that suicides should be the model for voluntary death, but you know there's a sticky gray area there too.
I'm still uncomfortable with relying on the 12th definition of the verb form of pass in reference to a person's death. I might prefer the 1st definition of the word's noun form as being closer related to coins for Charon than the act of transition. However, why can't we say died or death? Is there something to permanent in those two words that there isn't in pass? Is passing away imply a passage to someplace? Is there a destination in pass that you don't get in death or died?
I've always been curious about this. I find it hard to use the term passed away, I just say died. I feel more comfortabl with the absolute nature of that phrase than with the nebulous and implied potentials with passing away. I don't like to think that my loved ones passed away, willingly or otherwise, and that they may be in some thick reality definied by the faithful and instituted by zealots in an afterlife church of eternal exclusivity. No, I want to think of them as having expired, used this flesh up and finally it or whatever passes for soul or spirit, relinquished it's grip and expired. That seems like an equally euphemised way of looking at something for which we have a perfectly good term, yet it still doesn't quite satisfy.
Why do we want to pass away? Why can't we just come to grips with dying? "The dead look so very dead when they're dead." wrote Sommerset Maugham in The Razor's Edge. The statement seems to plant the dead where they should be, not among the living, but dead, in a state other than living. If the path to that state weren't important, then they can't have passed into a state where they look very dead as the dead tend to be when they're dead. It seems that death, in this case, is evoked for three senses or means by which we understand the world: the dead (noun) look so very dead (appearance) when they're dead (being). Language vs. the appearance of reality vs. that thing in itself concept that Schoppenhauer talked so much about.
Perhaps we can find a reason for our need to put choice into the equation whose result is death: "The dead only know one thing: it's better to be alive." These words came from the internal monologue like narration of Mathew Modine's character in Full Metal Jacket as he stood over a pit full of corpses covered in lime. Private Joker muses that the state of death has a knwoledge in it, something that we can say is similar to willing passage, that the dead know something we the living don't. Is it that are privy to the great mystery of the beyond before we are? Is there a certainty in the state of being dead that the living only guess at, or in a complete abandonment of empirical rationality, embrace whole heartedly regardless of the possible dissapointment? The dead, if they knew that living was better, might make the choice of passage even more difficult to stomach.
The sad fact is that we need to pass, we need transition to represent something. As myth is as much to explain natural phenomenon as to place an individual into the constructed cosmology and realize the self in terms of "other" according to Jung, then death has to have a meaning and a continuity through human history. Our greatest fear is falling out of the thread, so we pass, from one thread to another, from memory to memory like a photograph carried through a sea of people. We have to have our loved ones pass from this place to the kingdom du jour so that we can still feel like potentn creatures capable of affecting positive changes in the world around, because there is a choice.
I'm still uncomfortable with relying on the 12th definition of the verb form of pass in reference to a person's death. I might prefer the 1st definition of the word's noun form as being closer related to coins for Charon than the act of transition. However, why can't we say died or death? Is there something to permanent in those two words that there isn't in pass? Is passing away imply a passage to someplace? Is there a destination in pass that you don't get in death or died?
I've always been curious about this. I find it hard to use the term passed away, I just say died. I feel more comfortabl with the absolute nature of that phrase than with the nebulous and implied potentials with passing away. I don't like to think that my loved ones passed away, willingly or otherwise, and that they may be in some thick reality definied by the faithful and instituted by zealots in an afterlife church of eternal exclusivity. No, I want to think of them as having expired, used this flesh up and finally it or whatever passes for soul or spirit, relinquished it's grip and expired. That seems like an equally euphemised way of looking at something for which we have a perfectly good term, yet it still doesn't quite satisfy.
Why do we want to pass away? Why can't we just come to grips with dying? "The dead look so very dead when they're dead." wrote Sommerset Maugham in The Razor's Edge. The statement seems to plant the dead where they should be, not among the living, but dead, in a state other than living. If the path to that state weren't important, then they can't have passed into a state where they look very dead as the dead tend to be when they're dead. It seems that death, in this case, is evoked for three senses or means by which we understand the world: the dead (noun) look so very dead (appearance) when they're dead (being). Language vs. the appearance of reality vs. that thing in itself concept that Schoppenhauer talked so much about.
Perhaps we can find a reason for our need to put choice into the equation whose result is death: "The dead only know one thing: it's better to be alive." These words came from the internal monologue like narration of Mathew Modine's character in Full Metal Jacket as he stood over a pit full of corpses covered in lime. Private Joker muses that the state of death has a knwoledge in it, something that we can say is similar to willing passage, that the dead know something we the living don't. Is it that are privy to the great mystery of the beyond before we are? Is there a certainty in the state of being dead that the living only guess at, or in a complete abandonment of empirical rationality, embrace whole heartedly regardless of the possible dissapointment? The dead, if they knew that living was better, might make the choice of passage even more difficult to stomach.
The sad fact is that we need to pass, we need transition to represent something. As myth is as much to explain natural phenomenon as to place an individual into the constructed cosmology and realize the self in terms of "other" according to Jung, then death has to have a meaning and a continuity through human history. Our greatest fear is falling out of the thread, so we pass, from one thread to another, from memory to memory like a photograph carried through a sea of people. We have to have our loved ones pass from this place to the kingdom du jour so that we can still feel like potentn creatures capable of affecting positive changes in the world around, because there is a choice.
Monday, May 15, 2006
reflections in perspective
Delillo wrote about in white noise, the most important unifying trait between humans is their ability to communicate their fear and wonder at death through language. We're brothers and sisters because we can talk about death.
But is it possible that death can make us want to feel more than we should? Is it possible that between head and heart there exists an exterior syntax of emotion that we can only understand through an empathic vernacular that gives us pause? I didn't know him that well, but I can't stop thinking about him. I see the tattoos on his arms taking flight, lifting off his skin, pealing away, and I miss the potential of running into him again and sharing a pint of whiskey. There's nothing touching about my emotions here, only their genuine quality is what's striking and I sit here and curse the almighty for being a poor steward and all those other things as pointless as tears but just as necessary.
I wonder if we need to feel other than ourselves sometimes.
But is it possible that death can make us want to feel more than we should? Is it possible that between head and heart there exists an exterior syntax of emotion that we can only understand through an empathic vernacular that gives us pause? I didn't know him that well, but I can't stop thinking about him. I see the tattoos on his arms taking flight, lifting off his skin, pealing away, and I miss the potential of running into him again and sharing a pint of whiskey. There's nothing touching about my emotions here, only their genuine quality is what's striking and I sit here and curse the almighty for being a poor steward and all those other things as pointless as tears but just as necessary.
I wonder if we need to feel other than ourselves sometimes.
Friday, May 05, 2006
From the time (in anticipation -edited)
from the time
you landed maybe until you might wake up knowing night was figment the buildings tall sleekness etched chunk architectures borrowed and built to remain civil in the way that organisms take space and grow from center out stalin marked his mass with bigger blocks in an older strain not of this century but the river’s ice can support the city in times of need large trucks rolled across frozen water the worst floods are marked with iron quarters were germans got their own high water line russian corners in this room and that still painting over twelve languages of graphiti to rosko’s murder happened in a book but the stairs will echo his steps exhaustive walking wears away what can be written into stones zdes ohn napisal prestuplenya e nakazanya or its not his city in the seems bursting countryside clerks there’s twenty thousand memoires floating in the pages of zapiski iz podpolya the thing is its not about hiding if it weren’t for ownership the flats we used as temporary housing for the jet set elite in soviet times mark this hall with exposed piping set out with brass knobs to look less shoddy shoe repair is tops in small wooden shacks on the street is something missed in every museum you just can’t take in whole stories here rolling on the grass with a chain collar his claws haven’t quite learned how deadly we have become speaking candidly my favorite club was underground they called boonkar on its roof was patio far at street level jenya came back from chicago at twelve she came back here knowing the lingo can make money lips drunken the closer we spoke and scream she leaning forward just far enough and tight top low vee-cut I couldn’t not bare but stare back to the subject of literary stigmatas shelves in every pub crawl with books and zoom cafes the check on page thirty-six now mates with lenin and maybe the waitress borrowed her mother’s dress to pioneer the new western freedoms here’s a tv with cherenko walking by and zip to fucking forms in soft core shells landed in spilled blood’s fifth dome knocking down a big chunk o jesus was originally of three domes for father son and holy coat of arms triangulated on their gold crowns until mountain men painted heaven’s glorylaid out on every corner unlike other churches sasha said you have to be dressed prelechnya what you choose to wear is your business but take off the star five points to it and its everywhere like mars field flames to fan it still burns in everything never is forgotten time memorials 1881 at 20:36 someone had to stop the rain which keeps it all green and the water was high enough to submerge the first floor cellars where the best eats still sink down under the building just far enough for the stray dog to seem filled with smoke and the green fumes of absinth fueling liberation’s freedom from lucid resignations for the dead like vrubel’s lavender gestalt generally understood you have to come to terms with food and the power wielded by grocery stores have now succumb to supermarkets and dixie lies around every corner shops stay open all the time and each one has a state sponsored drunk across from my hotel his name was kolya and looked like he was close to sainthood at twenty three for the solstice and the last bell where they give them the city that he hasn’t yet returned for their own uses can you tell that things revolve and you can live for celebration and acceleration while moods are not advised for foreigners there are still niggers and a nigger is a nigger he tried to tell the cop that they were cousins and he was a racist because he was the only black man on the streets while making quick work of something that should be kept indoors the goom displays cases against the jews because sasha couldn’t understand why they died the same but death isn’t unknowable and he knew that they were dead but still reviled even in death there’s no such thing as a jewish hero of the soviet and something like perestroika enduring the longest hatred has got to be a civil duty to serve at eighteen while vera asked her to go na belayi notche and we were followed by body guards for ten days of canon’s hand and the huge motif of what’s really quite a small head in exaggerated relief aid was something that a people must do for themselves while shostokovich wrote a symphony under siege this city is always playing even when you can’t stop looking look again at your watch telling you one thing and if it were the 19th centuries’ clock faced grin you’d wonder if he’s the worst sort of man that can’t even hold his liquor while you’re sitting on the shitter when the revolution came the aurora glowed on nevya where she rusts to the racket of a nearby caravan of busses in five indo-european peoples we were fucked by the mongols and then took turns being done and doing sweeden declared in olden times the worst enemy but it was not a crime open to imagination you think if they see it somehow reversed like a dove flying through a mirror and every square has been mistranslated into its current form zamak and zamok mean they have a natural and integral link if you could unlock one to get to the other side of the river isn’t quit the same here in the center of the city you’ll be kept well and hospitable and for fifty bucks she’ll make you orgasm all night long listen you call me next time you come here as the rain fell I thought back to his job and couldn’t help but chuckle that everyone thinks they’ve been deceived s’mokrayi dela the cops will leave you be for fifteen hundred it’s the most expensive piss you’ve ever given that the west doesn’t understand the beauty of birch in the thickest of ancient slavic bath houses its purely a russian phenomenon to want something more you ask in metrics drink in english pubs around the world are just as bad outside of england similarly overpriced markets for colorful knick knacks patty whack this old night went rolling into that bronze horseman on the whicker rock he rode down but as you enter the place where five million people dwell and you can’t help but feel that devastation was built into the design of the city
Tuesday, May 02, 2006
27th & Fulton
What were you thinking?
I was making up for something I should’ve done.
That was your thinking?
No, that’s just what I did.
So you just picked her up?
She stopped me as I was getting out of the car. I had just pulled up to my building with a belly full of Filipino delicacies and a head full of nostalgia. She asked me where the 2000 block of 44th was. I pointed toward the ocean and said across the park she said that she was scared to cross the park. It was 11 already.
So it was dark and she didn’t want to walk a few blocks?
Could you blame her?
Was she pretty?
You don’t have to be attractive to fear for your skin. She asked me if I’d give her a ride. I’d just popped the trunk to fetch my bag and some goodies I bought earlier. I paused and choked down a mouth full of um’s and uh’s. Without really thinking the whole thing through a yeah came rolling off my lips. So I walked to the otherside of the car, cleared my stuff from the passenger seat, she saddled up with her three bags, all small handbag things that looked like canvas even though they were some hybrid leather thing. I didn’t bother closing the door for her.
She wasn’t pretty.
That’s not the point. I just climbed into the driver seat half expecting her to be holding a derringer to my head. She held her bags close and I fired up the car and started down Fulton. She asked me if I was from New York, I told her people get that impression, it must be the jewish father in me. She didn’t get it.
Get what?
I barreled down Fulton cause I had a date, see, I had to get back cause she was coming over. I wasn’t even really sure what I was doing at that point. I hung a left on 43rd and when we reached that first intersection I said, did you know there’s buffalo in the park? What do you mean she said. I said, there’s a buffalo paddock in the park, its just one of those things that people don’t know or realize. That’s crazy she said. So I shifted down into third and hurried it along.
What else did she say?
Not much really, she was quiet in that way that you’re quiet when you really don’t know what you’re doing. She thought San Francisco was full of do-gooders.
Why’d she think that?
Cause I gave her a ride I suppose.
You’re a regular mighty mouse.
I know, I told her she caught me on a good day, that’s all. She said she was from San Diego and that people weren’t quite so nice. I told her that she’s probably walking on a borrowed carpet of luck. About this time I made the left on 44th at Lincoln. It was the 1000 block.
Did you drop her off?
No, felt bad, it was cold, damp, you know the way that summers get, early on, the nights and that neo-gothic-fog thing that happens as a way of pretending that the rest of the world isn’t enjoying a bit of warmth.
Yeah.
I decided to keep driving. We went by one hundreds, each block a bit closer, each distance marked by an ever thicker silence until finally she opened her mouth and said that she didn’t know the people she was going to stay with very well. We crossed Taraval at that point and I was just a couple blocks off. I ran a stop sign and pulled up at the end of the next block, 2100. I said to her that we had arrived. She opened the door, and I was about to take that sigh…
Relief?
Something less pure… Fuck, it’s over.
So did she get out?
She looked down at her feet. Maybe the revolver was in her leg warmer, or maybe she had a shiv poked up in that furry knit cap she wore. I started to get into my mental bruce lee posture for whatever was coming. No one’s really happy she asked me.
So what did you say?
I agreed with her…
but…
I didn’t say it, I just said, I am.
That’s not like you.
No, it really isn’t. But the free ride didn’t include a chat about the world’s inclination toward unhappiness and false senses of security. So she got out of the car and said thanks as the door was closing. I pulled away as soon as she had cleared the rear tire.
Was it worth it?
I think I’m still in debt.
You know anything could’ve happened, she could’ve called the cops, and…
Yeah I know, but she didn’t seem the type.
So why’d you do it?
I think I want to live in a place where that’s possible.
What’s possible.
Depending on strangers.
But you didn’t talk to her.
I know, that’s too personal.
I was making up for something I should’ve done.
That was your thinking?
No, that’s just what I did.
So you just picked her up?
She stopped me as I was getting out of the car. I had just pulled up to my building with a belly full of Filipino delicacies and a head full of nostalgia. She asked me where the 2000 block of 44th was. I pointed toward the ocean and said across the park she said that she was scared to cross the park. It was 11 already.
So it was dark and she didn’t want to walk a few blocks?
Could you blame her?
Was she pretty?
You don’t have to be attractive to fear for your skin. She asked me if I’d give her a ride. I’d just popped the trunk to fetch my bag and some goodies I bought earlier. I paused and choked down a mouth full of um’s and uh’s. Without really thinking the whole thing through a yeah came rolling off my lips. So I walked to the otherside of the car, cleared my stuff from the passenger seat, she saddled up with her three bags, all small handbag things that looked like canvas even though they were some hybrid leather thing. I didn’t bother closing the door for her.
She wasn’t pretty.
That’s not the point. I just climbed into the driver seat half expecting her to be holding a derringer to my head. She held her bags close and I fired up the car and started down Fulton. She asked me if I was from New York, I told her people get that impression, it must be the jewish father in me. She didn’t get it.
Get what?
I barreled down Fulton cause I had a date, see, I had to get back cause she was coming over. I wasn’t even really sure what I was doing at that point. I hung a left on 43rd and when we reached that first intersection I said, did you know there’s buffalo in the park? What do you mean she said. I said, there’s a buffalo paddock in the park, its just one of those things that people don’t know or realize. That’s crazy she said. So I shifted down into third and hurried it along.
What else did she say?
Not much really, she was quiet in that way that you’re quiet when you really don’t know what you’re doing. She thought San Francisco was full of do-gooders.
Why’d she think that?
Cause I gave her a ride I suppose.
You’re a regular mighty mouse.
I know, I told her she caught me on a good day, that’s all. She said she was from San Diego and that people weren’t quite so nice. I told her that she’s probably walking on a borrowed carpet of luck. About this time I made the left on 44th at Lincoln. It was the 1000 block.
Did you drop her off?
No, felt bad, it was cold, damp, you know the way that summers get, early on, the nights and that neo-gothic-fog thing that happens as a way of pretending that the rest of the world isn’t enjoying a bit of warmth.
Yeah.
I decided to keep driving. We went by one hundreds, each block a bit closer, each distance marked by an ever thicker silence until finally she opened her mouth and said that she didn’t know the people she was going to stay with very well. We crossed Taraval at that point and I was just a couple blocks off. I ran a stop sign and pulled up at the end of the next block, 2100. I said to her that we had arrived. She opened the door, and I was about to take that sigh…
Relief?
Something less pure… Fuck, it’s over.
So did she get out?
She looked down at her feet. Maybe the revolver was in her leg warmer, or maybe she had a shiv poked up in that furry knit cap she wore. I started to get into my mental bruce lee posture for whatever was coming. No one’s really happy she asked me.
So what did you say?
I agreed with her…
but…
I didn’t say it, I just said, I am.
That’s not like you.
No, it really isn’t. But the free ride didn’t include a chat about the world’s inclination toward unhappiness and false senses of security. So she got out of the car and said thanks as the door was closing. I pulled away as soon as she had cleared the rear tire.
Was it worth it?
I think I’m still in debt.
You know anything could’ve happened, she could’ve called the cops, and…
Yeah I know, but she didn’t seem the type.
So why’d you do it?
I think I want to live in a place where that’s possible.
What’s possible.
Depending on strangers.
But you didn’t talk to her.
I know, that’s too personal.
Thursday, April 20, 2006
Chicago, the art institute...
To _________,
long ago
I went to the museum
to see Van Gogh's self
portrait,
the one without
bandages
and remembered--
how small a drop
of paint lasts
to be itself
remembered
and removed
from withholding
too much
--unwinding
long ago
I went to the museum
to see Van Gogh's self
portrait,
the one without
bandages
and remembered--
how small a drop
of paint lasts
to be itself
remembered
and removed
from withholding
too much
--unwinding
Sunday, April 16, 2006
Paradise Now
There's a feeling of helplessness as the camera pans and tightens on Said's (Kais Nashef) eyes in the last frames of the film. You want so very much to prevent the inevitable but his eyes, his very fierce eyes might as well lull you into complacency as you're split into the part of you that agrees and accepts and the other part that is balanced with horror and is preparing to mourn.
Is Paradise now a call for peace? Perhaps, there's the voice of Suha who advocates other forms of resistance, she's the rational one. There's Said who has a hidden past that seems to foment his actions and there's Khaled (Ali Suliman), the hot-head, the one you're sure will be dependable right until the end. But Khaled's dependability is ultimately at question in this film as he's the character hat has the greatest change of heart or turn around. Its this turn of heart makes me question the believability of this film. Can it really happen like that? Someone who has pledged to be a human weapon, resolving to carry out an operation of martyrdom, sees that there are other options?
I really want to believe this is possible, but the conversion is too fast and too easy. I don't see where there's a real problem with what he has chosen to do and a kind of realization of what one isn't supposed to do. There's a heated conversation with Suha, the daughter of a respected resistance fighter, who is for the cause, but not the actions of her countrymen. She believes in a war of morals, one where the Palestinians have to stop the violence, so that there's never a justification for Israeli violence and then let the battle be an ideological one where the world will see the Palestinian cause as grounded in a peaceful effort toward coexistance. Her strongest argument, the one that if I suspend my doubt as to her effectiveness in changing Khaled's mind, is the question of "what about us, the ones you leave behind? what are we to do?" This question about the martyr's families, the survivors, the women who have historically born the brunt on the homefront of any armed conflit, resistance or offensive, is poignant. It is asking Khaled to step outside himself, to see a picture that is larger than his narrow view of the world and ultimately, his narcissism about paradise.
"What will happen after?" asks Khaled as he rides in a car toward the launch point of his mission "two angels come down and bring you up to paradise" answeres Jamal. "Really?" asks Khaled with a certain tinge of uncertainty. That uncertainty is ultimately his undoing, but it seems that its minor as Jamal explains it away as 'of course' in his very certain and religiously dogmatic attitude.
Both Khaled & Said's features and acting are excellent, but its the women that steal this show. Said's mother played by Hiam Abass and Suha, Lubna Azabal, are marvelous in their ability to let silence speak volumes. Hiam has a small part, something, fleeting, but in those moments she eats up the screen with the simple and quotidian act of preparing a dinner, and later, talking to her son. There's a part of you that very much wants to sit at this woman's table as she chops fresh vegetables for mezedes and hands it to Said to be carried out for the family to eat.
You can eat this piece alive as you watch the struggle, as you cry out in silence hoping to change what you know has a trajectory and life of its own, or you can sit back and wonder if this kind of moral drama does play out, or if the decision to kill yourself and other people along with you is an easy one to make and that the ritual around the martyr is nothing more than window-dressing for a factory operation called suicide bombing.
Is Paradise now a call for peace? Perhaps, there's the voice of Suha who advocates other forms of resistance, she's the rational one. There's Said who has a hidden past that seems to foment his actions and there's Khaled (Ali Suliman), the hot-head, the one you're sure will be dependable right until the end. But Khaled's dependability is ultimately at question in this film as he's the character hat has the greatest change of heart or turn around. Its this turn of heart makes me question the believability of this film. Can it really happen like that? Someone who has pledged to be a human weapon, resolving to carry out an operation of martyrdom, sees that there are other options?
I really want to believe this is possible, but the conversion is too fast and too easy. I don't see where there's a real problem with what he has chosen to do and a kind of realization of what one isn't supposed to do. There's a heated conversation with Suha, the daughter of a respected resistance fighter, who is for the cause, but not the actions of her countrymen. She believes in a war of morals, one where the Palestinians have to stop the violence, so that there's never a justification for Israeli violence and then let the battle be an ideological one where the world will see the Palestinian cause as grounded in a peaceful effort toward coexistance. Her strongest argument, the one that if I suspend my doubt as to her effectiveness in changing Khaled's mind, is the question of "what about us, the ones you leave behind? what are we to do?" This question about the martyr's families, the survivors, the women who have historically born the brunt on the homefront of any armed conflit, resistance or offensive, is poignant. It is asking Khaled to step outside himself, to see a picture that is larger than his narrow view of the world and ultimately, his narcissism about paradise.
"What will happen after?" asks Khaled as he rides in a car toward the launch point of his mission "two angels come down and bring you up to paradise" answeres Jamal. "Really?" asks Khaled with a certain tinge of uncertainty. That uncertainty is ultimately his undoing, but it seems that its minor as Jamal explains it away as 'of course' in his very certain and religiously dogmatic attitude.
Both Khaled & Said's features and acting are excellent, but its the women that steal this show. Said's mother played by Hiam Abass and Suha, Lubna Azabal, are marvelous in their ability to let silence speak volumes. Hiam has a small part, something, fleeting, but in those moments she eats up the screen with the simple and quotidian act of preparing a dinner, and later, talking to her son. There's a part of you that very much wants to sit at this woman's table as she chops fresh vegetables for mezedes and hands it to Said to be carried out for the family to eat.
You can eat this piece alive as you watch the struggle, as you cry out in silence hoping to change what you know has a trajectory and life of its own, or you can sit back and wonder if this kind of moral drama does play out, or if the decision to kill yourself and other people along with you is an easy one to make and that the ritual around the martyr is nothing more than window-dressing for a factory operation called suicide bombing.
Wednesday, April 12, 2006
Tuesday, April 11, 2006
[untitled]
Did you say
solipsistic
i love that
word
gently used
reeds and
willows
face me
speaking
about face
condensed
bread crumb
back toward
this way
walk this way
like the walk
of this road
will lead you
back to me.
XCVIII
3 were charged after messages striking a chord in the prime of youth – their youth wasn't in question – but 18 more than the previous year reported – in an underage way – under reporting absence clearly states – there's more – to be dragged 3 miles till the arms teeter out and depending on the road – this is where it might seem redundant – 63 incidents are collectively enshrined – 34,000 destroyed after they were already destroyed in 2 days no less – on this site there will be a monument – for the numbers were a record – and the 1 was stoned by many on the seventh day in accordance – something written ends relation – 6 million weren't all sacrificed – or by fire – to forget the 20 million trampled by steel – 6,000 lined the Via Appia in 72 – years before 3 on the hill – and later in nome de patre – or it's what you oughtn't to do but you do anyway – some dispute differences between 100,000 gone in prison and another 10,000 at the stake – but revision is modernity's sole resolve toward enlightenment – the figures say now that maybe 31,912 over 400 years – young governments came and went and took with them 1 million or so Anatolians – it was around the 1st great one the record clearly states 9 million fighting men and boys and 7 million others – and every generation is supposed to out do the one before – when everything became possible after Auschwitz – 937,000 laid to waste in 100 days – so many Cain's and even more Able – to understand the origin – 10-20% never made it sailing the ocean blue – another 15-33% couldn't be seasoned out – this season's ripe count measures success totally unaware that eye deep in hell an abacus still clicks and counts.
3 were charged after messages striking a chord in the prime of youth – their youth wasn't in question – but 18 more than the previous year reported – in an underage way – under reporting absence clearly states – there's more – to be dragged 3 miles till the arms teeter out and depending on the road – this is where it might seem redundant – 63 incidents are collectively enshrined – 34,000 destroyed after they were already destroyed in 2 days no less – on this site there will be a monument – for the numbers were a record – and the 1 was stoned by many on the seventh day in accordance – something written ends relation – 6 million weren't all sacrificed – or by fire – to forget the 20 million trampled by steel – 6,000 lined the Via Appia in 72 – years before 3 on the hill – and later in nome de patre – or it's what you oughtn't to do but you do anyway – some dispute differences between 100,000 gone in prison and another 10,000 at the stake – but revision is modernity's sole resolve toward enlightenment – the figures say now that maybe 31,912 over 400 years – young governments came and went and took with them 1 million or so Anatolians – it was around the 1st great one the record clearly states 9 million fighting men and boys and 7 million others – and every generation is supposed to out do the one before – when everything became possible after Auschwitz – 937,000 laid to waste in 100 days – so many Cain's and even more Able – to understand the origin – 10-20% never made it sailing the ocean blue – another 15-33% couldn't be seasoned out – this season's ripe count measures success totally unaware that eye deep in hell an abacus still clicks and counts.
Wednesday, April 05, 2006
Away but back...
So its been a bloody long time since I postd anything. I think I need a break from thinking out loud. Now that I've taken a break from thinking to myself, or maybe for myself, or maybe not, I don't know; it
On Broadway at Columbus
you can drink a lesson
like loitering for shadows
when the drummer vanishes
ice melts faster in liquor
first the fingers and then
the fingers
might feel a stab of cold
when you’re crazy
you don’t miss the sun
if you weren’t paying attention
let’s fake letters in lights
park the rhythm in back
inviolate clocks
the violence’s been timed
four-four swings the sound
while sips turn to pound
standards are foreign
friends have come far
On Broadway at Columbus
you can drink a lesson
like loitering for shadows
when the drummer vanishes
ice melts faster in liquor
first the fingers and then
the fingers
might feel a stab of cold
when you’re crazy
you don’t miss the sun
if you weren’t paying attention
let’s fake letters in lights
park the rhythm in back
inviolate clocks
the violence’s been timed
four-four swings the sound
while sips turn to pound
standards are foreign
friends have come far
Friday, November 18, 2005
Translating Miss Atomic by Jason Flick
Cut of the whole looked at mouth learning-dissolute kinder they both had been. S. long as our double leftist her waging the mensch, flirtation or homely. Too toe fathoms pleather flings stood delicately. all the grooms, all the racks, carved up. It’s off those pallbearers heads gotten or interned. Romantico, held me or for twixt us smashed et all to __c, housing slash proto-kid like crustaceans and flanged sponges pitied the short hem out her indecision durst the lentil place, e_c. your. hindering resembles and no.
Thursday, November 17, 2005
For Litopolis
There’s a socially acceptable way of being crazy
when it’s in the public interest to keep everyone comfortably numb
lets just say I needed a walk around the block
hustling the sand for a stake next to the weeds
a yellow you can’t quite rub off the curb
tawny until you spend an hour at an angle
there’s the ruins and the way new things ruin
every good old thing you ever came to depend on
when you dimmed the lights and your room crept in
or sometime later you learned to sneak out
your window’s not only a west facing portal
the best sex ever had was across the street
totally impressive how far the softest cry might
just carry if the moon weren’t so loud
nothing particularly fantastic in a name
it’s the kind of place to hide in your pocket
hoping to fill another page of a journal
that refuses to write itself
you could burry a poet there and watch the sand
scribble a note from the one in his breast pocket
that he kept hidden so that when he died
he’d have something to say to the ocean
while sitting at the beach you forget
all roads eventually lead you to roaming
the thing is that its all quite literally behind you
something is planned mathematically
and eventually appears flawed
when the maps are straighter than the streets
you can’t quite depend on human hands
and you’re content to trace a word in the sand.
when it’s in the public interest to keep everyone comfortably numb
lets just say I needed a walk around the block
hustling the sand for a stake next to the weeds
a yellow you can’t quite rub off the curb
tawny until you spend an hour at an angle
there’s the ruins and the way new things ruin
every good old thing you ever came to depend on
when you dimmed the lights and your room crept in
or sometime later you learned to sneak out
your window’s not only a west facing portal
the best sex ever had was across the street
totally impressive how far the softest cry might
just carry if the moon weren’t so loud
nothing particularly fantastic in a name
it’s the kind of place to hide in your pocket
hoping to fill another page of a journal
that refuses to write itself
you could burry a poet there and watch the sand
scribble a note from the one in his breast pocket
that he kept hidden so that when he died
he’d have something to say to the ocean
while sitting at the beach you forget
all roads eventually lead you to roaming
the thing is that its all quite literally behind you
something is planned mathematically
and eventually appears flawed
when the maps are straighter than the streets
you can’t quite depend on human hands
and you’re content to trace a word in the sand.
Wednesday, November 16, 2005
Montreal and back to the grind
I wasn't at all prepared for what I found in Montreal. Yeah, I'll be quite honest, I wasn't. I had no clue the extent to which it was a liberal city and at the same time, extremely religious. Quebecoise slang, or expressions employed in hitting your thumb with a hammer, are derived from the church: "tabernac!" "sacremen!" (tabernacle and sacrement). Its an odd place.
Before I get into that I suppose I should back up and tell you about the 1 hour of sleep I had on my way into Montreal. You heard right, 1 hour. I slept 1 hour in Beantown before I roused and showered and caught a shuttle from the less than stellar holiday inn where I was staying back to Logan and then on a tiny two by two plane up north. I arrived and took a "car" to the hotel, yeah so I splurged and took a ride in a nice leather lincoln, I'm trying to learn from my very well travelled collegue, DF.
My driver clued me into something I didn't know up until that moment: Montreal is an Island. So I wasn't asleep as we flew over the St. Lawrence, but I didn't quite take note that it was a giant island we were passing over. What I saw was a river, and that it looked as if it split here and there. I had no clue that it wasn't a choice of "river banks" but rather mainland vs. island.
The trip to the hotel took markedly longer "inbound" than it did on the way out. It was morning about half past eight and people were on their way to work. I cursed and I spit and I wished that I had made that morning flight. My skin was crawling with caffeine poisoning already. I made a pot at the hotel, bought a cup at the airport and could already feel the need, the hunger, the absolute mania that comes with knowing that it will do nothing but knowing that its better than just that, nothing.
I checked in, the woman behind the desk was cute and her french accent made her even cuter. It was my first "run-in" with the cute french accent. It became old after a while, or rather I didn't notice it, it just became something very pleassant, hearing mixed francaphone and englephone conversations.
The room was great, a wonderful view of the city from the 16th floor and out to the river. I dropped my things and jumped into the conference. I'm not going to go into great detail about the MAAWG conference, only that it was an illuminating experience and I have a stack of great business cards. I met people that I had spoken to on the phone, via email, and in some cases only read and hear about. Scott Richter, one of the most notorious spammers, was there. When asked about his past he responded: "I was a high volume mailer at one time, but now I'm a low volume mailer." (second hand from Kate). I mean the guy's whitelisted at AOL even though he was prosecuted under CAN-SPAM. Yeah, many interesting and intriguing people crossed my path. I think it was wednesday night though that takes the cake. Not sure quite how, but I know that it had something to do with a tall brunette from RBC (royal bank of canada), that I wound up on the 28th floor in the suite of Johnathan, the cat from Bell Canada, for the VIP after gala reception, party party. He was wandering around the mezzanine. Most of the folks either left after the free booz dried up, or went to the bar, or to bed, but a few brave souls were definately around. He gathere all that were left on the mezzanine and heareded us up to this suite that had an entire bathtub full of beer. People began to arrive, two large bottles of bacardi materializeed, a case of wine became fair game and I just continued to drink beer ontop of the gawd awful canadian club whiskey I had downstairs. While avoiding a particularly drunk woman from RSA I found my "friend" for the night, Foy. A good ol' boy from the south who did his time in the military, and then had a kind of spiritual awakening. We spent hours talking. People would come to our corner, where we made a makeshift ashtray, and stood discussing Nietzsche, hesse, nabokov and anything else we could sink our teeth into. We crossed the proverbial good conduct lines and discussed religion and politics, two things that should never be discussed at either the dinner table, or the bar.
The following morning was very painful. As a matter of fact I'm just going to pretend it didn't happen. Woke, showered, packed, checked out, missed all important conferences to medicate with ginger ale and catching up on email. Said adieu to new found friends and hopped the metro for St. Henri and Fiona.
Turns out I was maybe 10 - 12 minutes by train from her nieghborhood, Place St. Henri, which also happens to be the neighborhood where Oscar Peterson came from. I arrived to a large and modern metro station, hopped the escalator heading up and heard from above my name "Shneyder!" I turned round and round and finally found the bouret wearing speck that grew larger as I rode skyward. It was a hug and we were off for the pad. As we stepped outside the station the first snow began to fall. It was, well it wasn't quite snow, it like glitter, or maybe it was my imagination, but something passed through the air that Fiona called snow and it fluttered around, swirled a bit even, and then vanished as if it hadn't ever been there. That was the first snow.
We dropped my things, had a pot of tea and then headed out. Our first stop was Cafe Popolo where I met several of her friends: Heater and her beau Neal, both students, one at Concordia and the other at an engineering school, McGill I think. From the cafe we went to shopping, oh yeah, it was Fi's birthday and she had geld to spend from her vati. We eventually found our way to a shop, the name escapes me, but where the clothes are all hand made by the propieter who spent a good half hour talking music and playing different CDs for my eager ears. I took three of them with me "Len, you're single handedly supporting the independant music scene here in Montreal." I know, what can I say, I'm a whore for new music at all times.
From there it was off to another cafe, this time the name I can't even begin to recall, bumped into another classmate (this was to become a routine, in a city of 3 million its pretty common), and sat around waiting for Richard to return from visiting his father in Ottowa. Richard is Fi's boyfriend, they live together and I'm quite fond of both of them. I had met Fiona in St. Petersburg and had some rather great conversations, not to mention a fabo dance partner at "The Bunker". You know how you meet two people and there's something about their dynamic, about the simplicity of it, or maybe the way their personalities magnify each other, that seems perfect? yeah, that was kinda the two of them. It was fun hanging out with them for that reason alone.
Richard arrived and we were off to a Peruvian restaraunt to meet Sam, the other dinner guest. He was already there when we arrive and sit down to learn that almost half the menu is unavaialable because a massive group came in without phoning ahead, in the range of 30 - 40 people, when we arrived they were wrapping up, and the restaurant was a desolate place once they had departed. Anyway, there was no fish, there was no chorizo, there was... well what, I had... heart ke-bobs or chicken. I settled for a beef soup that was out of this world and the heart kebobs which were tasty if you like liver as much as I do. During dinner another concordia classmate joined, us Katia. She ordered a plate of veggies hung out.
From the restaurant it was off to a brew pub that amazing beer while merrily walking through the streets rasta style, yeah, its quite liberal there. As a matter of fact, its very liberal there in that regard. The pub was incredibly small and corwded and it seemed as if everyone in the area and beyond wanted to go exactly there and drink the same thing. Conversations flowed through the room on the breath of the heavy smoke in fractured forms of English and French. It was wonderful.
Eventually, the overwpowering smoke, drove Fiona out, she can't really take it, but by that point, I was fealing the night hanging heavy and was happy to go.
And that's how I closed out my first night in Montreal, free of the MAAWG. Part two and three will have to wait until the morrow, I'm tired and its time to head to Ireland's 32 for the Torri release party reading with friends Kris & John.
I'll end this post with a photo of Piere Trudeau, the JFK of Canada if you will. He was a wildly populare primeminister and something of an icon. He was caught at Buckingham palace, while the Queen's back was turned, doing a pirouette. The airport is named after him.
Before I get into that I suppose I should back up and tell you about the 1 hour of sleep I had on my way into Montreal. You heard right, 1 hour. I slept 1 hour in Beantown before I roused and showered and caught a shuttle from the less than stellar holiday inn where I was staying back to Logan and then on a tiny two by two plane up north. I arrived and took a "car" to the hotel, yeah so I splurged and took a ride in a nice leather lincoln, I'm trying to learn from my very well travelled collegue, DF.
My driver clued me into something I didn't know up until that moment: Montreal is an Island. So I wasn't asleep as we flew over the St. Lawrence, but I didn't quite take note that it was a giant island we were passing over. What I saw was a river, and that it looked as if it split here and there. I had no clue that it wasn't a choice of "river banks" but rather mainland vs. island.
The trip to the hotel took markedly longer "inbound" than it did on the way out. It was morning about half past eight and people were on their way to work. I cursed and I spit and I wished that I had made that morning flight. My skin was crawling with caffeine poisoning already. I made a pot at the hotel, bought a cup at the airport and could already feel the need, the hunger, the absolute mania that comes with knowing that it will do nothing but knowing that its better than just that, nothing.
I checked in, the woman behind the desk was cute and her french accent made her even cuter. It was my first "run-in" with the cute french accent. It became old after a while, or rather I didn't notice it, it just became something very pleassant, hearing mixed francaphone and englephone conversations.
The room was great, a wonderful view of the city from the 16th floor and out to the river. I dropped my things and jumped into the conference. I'm not going to go into great detail about the MAAWG conference, only that it was an illuminating experience and I have a stack of great business cards. I met people that I had spoken to on the phone, via email, and in some cases only read and hear about. Scott Richter, one of the most notorious spammers, was there. When asked about his past he responded: "I was a high volume mailer at one time, but now I'm a low volume mailer." (second hand from Kate). I mean the guy's whitelisted at AOL even though he was prosecuted under CAN-SPAM. Yeah, many interesting and intriguing people crossed my path. I think it was wednesday night though that takes the cake. Not sure quite how, but I know that it had something to do with a tall brunette from RBC (royal bank of canada), that I wound up on the 28th floor in the suite of Johnathan, the cat from Bell Canada, for the VIP after gala reception, party party. He was wandering around the mezzanine. Most of the folks either left after the free booz dried up, or went to the bar, or to bed, but a few brave souls were definately around. He gathere all that were left on the mezzanine and heareded us up to this suite that had an entire bathtub full of beer. People began to arrive, two large bottles of bacardi materializeed, a case of wine became fair game and I just continued to drink beer ontop of the gawd awful canadian club whiskey I had downstairs. While avoiding a particularly drunk woman from RSA I found my "friend" for the night, Foy. A good ol' boy from the south who did his time in the military, and then had a kind of spiritual awakening. We spent hours talking. People would come to our corner, where we made a makeshift ashtray, and stood discussing Nietzsche, hesse, nabokov and anything else we could sink our teeth into. We crossed the proverbial good conduct lines and discussed religion and politics, two things that should never be discussed at either the dinner table, or the bar.
The following morning was very painful. As a matter of fact I'm just going to pretend it didn't happen. Woke, showered, packed, checked out, missed all important conferences to medicate with ginger ale and catching up on email. Said adieu to new found friends and hopped the metro for St. Henri and Fiona.
Turns out I was maybe 10 - 12 minutes by train from her nieghborhood, Place St. Henri, which also happens to be the neighborhood where Oscar Peterson came from. I arrived to a large and modern metro station, hopped the escalator heading up and heard from above my name "Shneyder!" I turned round and round and finally found the bouret wearing speck that grew larger as I rode skyward. It was a hug and we were off for the pad. As we stepped outside the station the first snow began to fall. It was, well it wasn't quite snow, it like glitter, or maybe it was my imagination, but something passed through the air that Fiona called snow and it fluttered around, swirled a bit even, and then vanished as if it hadn't ever been there. That was the first snow.
We dropped my things, had a pot of tea and then headed out. Our first stop was Cafe Popolo where I met several of her friends: Heater and her beau Neal, both students, one at Concordia and the other at an engineering school, McGill I think. From the cafe we went to shopping, oh yeah, it was Fi's birthday and she had geld to spend from her vati. We eventually found our way to a shop, the name escapes me, but where the clothes are all hand made by the propieter who spent a good half hour talking music and playing different CDs for my eager ears. I took three of them with me "Len, you're single handedly supporting the independant music scene here in Montreal." I know, what can I say, I'm a whore for new music at all times.
From there it was off to another cafe, this time the name I can't even begin to recall, bumped into another classmate (this was to become a routine, in a city of 3 million its pretty common), and sat around waiting for Richard to return from visiting his father in Ottowa. Richard is Fi's boyfriend, they live together and I'm quite fond of both of them. I had met Fiona in St. Petersburg and had some rather great conversations, not to mention a fabo dance partner at "The Bunker". You know how you meet two people and there's something about their dynamic, about the simplicity of it, or maybe the way their personalities magnify each other, that seems perfect? yeah, that was kinda the two of them. It was fun hanging out with them for that reason alone.
Richard arrived and we were off to a Peruvian restaraunt to meet Sam, the other dinner guest. He was already there when we arrive and sit down to learn that almost half the menu is unavaialable because a massive group came in without phoning ahead, in the range of 30 - 40 people, when we arrived they were wrapping up, and the restaurant was a desolate place once they had departed. Anyway, there was no fish, there was no chorizo, there was... well what, I had... heart ke-bobs or chicken. I settled for a beef soup that was out of this world and the heart kebobs which were tasty if you like liver as much as I do. During dinner another concordia classmate joined, us Katia. She ordered a plate of veggies hung out.
From the restaurant it was off to a brew pub that amazing beer while merrily walking through the streets rasta style, yeah, its quite liberal there. As a matter of fact, its very liberal there in that regard. The pub was incredibly small and corwded and it seemed as if everyone in the area and beyond wanted to go exactly there and drink the same thing. Conversations flowed through the room on the breath of the heavy smoke in fractured forms of English and French. It was wonderful.
Eventually, the overwpowering smoke, drove Fiona out, she can't really take it, but by that point, I was fealing the night hanging heavy and was happy to go.
And that's how I closed out my first night in Montreal, free of the MAAWG. Part two and three will have to wait until the morrow, I'm tired and its time to head to Ireland's 32 for the Torri release party reading with friends Kris & John.
I'll end this post with a photo of Piere Trudeau, the JFK of Canada if you will. He was a wildly populare primeminister and something of an icon. He was caught at Buckingham palace, while the Queen's back was turned, doing a pirouette. The airport is named after him.
Monday, November 07, 2005
On the road again
Boston... I don't know what the nickname of this city is, like Philly being the city of brotherly love, but I'd like to think of it as long vowels and chowder. Made it in, but didn't make it out. Well let me back up... Morning started well enough. I arrived to the airport and hopped on my plane. I had a window seat. A gent sat down in the aisle seat on my row and said "I've a treat for you, I bought the middle seat. Its so cheap to fly Jetblue I like the extra room, makes the flight more pleasant, so enjoy." I thanked him profusrely for his random act of kindness. I heard that there was a strong wind coming in from the west, perfect I thought, a tail wind. Captain came on and said that our time to Boston was going to be under five hours! Magnificent! I pulled out a paper and began to grade it. Time went by and I realized we were long overdue to leave, yet we were still at the gate. Our advantage and lead time was dissapearing and with it my hopes of making my connection to Montreal. Finally, an hour after the plane was supposed to depart we finally taxied onto the runway and left the ground.
The flight was unneventful, fast and turbulence free. We arrived, I had about 30 minutes from the time we touched down. The captain's voice came on the loudspeaker once more, this time I knew the news was bad as the pane had come to a standstill just a few meters from turning left into the gate: "There's a plane at our gate that's running behind schedule so we'll just sit here for a bit until it leaves." When the doors finally openned and the 13 rows ahead of me filed out, I broke out down the gangway and began a fruitless dash to the Air Canada counter. I arrived with aout 7 minutes left and was told what I had known before I began my mad dash: "your SOL."
Its now 1 in the morning and I can't sleep. Still on PST and I have to be up in 3 hours to catch my connection to Montreal. This trip has been a quiet disaster. My partner has the flu and left a message on my mobile while I was in the air saying he wasn't going to make it to the conference. I dropped my bags at the hotel, made some calls, some arrangements and then caught the train into downtown. I arrived at the state street station and found the Union Oyster House, a true colonial restaurant, owned by Hancock at one time if I remember correctly. Next door is the Green Dragon, one of the planning spots of the revolution. Dinner at the oyster house was fabo, yeah, I can't complain. Lobster and chowder, I mean I'm here, I might as well indulge a bit. It was pricey but I didn't regret it.
After dinner I mosied back to the hotel laughing all the while that the outbound destination of the train is "WONDERLAND" all kinds of connotations there. I like the feel of the cobblestones under my feet, walking through the brick walled alleys. The taverns are fabulous, I peaked inside: all wood panelled and bursting with history. I like this town already and I've only seen a fraction. I'm looking forward to seeing it on the way back and experiencing a bit of the history during the daylight hours. Sleep would be nice, but its not coming any time soon, which really sucks for me and being conscious during tomorrow's conference. I have a feeling drinking and fraternizing will have to wait until wednesday night and I'll just get to bed early, or so I hope.
I scribled some stuff for NOT US tonight. I'm being workshopped next week when I get back. Last thursday Duncan McNaughton read with Lews McAdams and as Duncan said "its a gas." I lifted one off his lines, its burried in this poem... like everything else written before, its burried and steeped in something that came before and in perfect reverse harmony is a manefistation of what was once written, writing it again anew.
XCIV
to d.m. (maybe) as l.z.
Calling down
the downs
drown out
the rounds
which must’ve
left the hounds
nothing quite
like nature
for hellfire
quickly appeasing
luck being
a weirdo tonight
old jig and song
not yours
are your dead
counted (2x)
where it stands
where it stood
fore gone to sea
enough clay
bones to shore
foundation’s drilling
into soils
it’s a rotten thing
when you can’t
depend on the dead
to hold up living
omits the light
where the moon
wears a human
ambiguous face
seems as young
as some might’ve
seemed to have
been happening
to understood
what’s come.
The flight was unneventful, fast and turbulence free. We arrived, I had about 30 minutes from the time we touched down. The captain's voice came on the loudspeaker once more, this time I knew the news was bad as the pane had come to a standstill just a few meters from turning left into the gate: "There's a plane at our gate that's running behind schedule so we'll just sit here for a bit until it leaves." When the doors finally openned and the 13 rows ahead of me filed out, I broke out down the gangway and began a fruitless dash to the Air Canada counter. I arrived with aout 7 minutes left and was told what I had known before I began my mad dash: "your SOL."
Its now 1 in the morning and I can't sleep. Still on PST and I have to be up in 3 hours to catch my connection to Montreal. This trip has been a quiet disaster. My partner has the flu and left a message on my mobile while I was in the air saying he wasn't going to make it to the conference. I dropped my bags at the hotel, made some calls, some arrangements and then caught the train into downtown. I arrived at the state street station and found the Union Oyster House, a true colonial restaurant, owned by Hancock at one time if I remember correctly. Next door is the Green Dragon, one of the planning spots of the revolution. Dinner at the oyster house was fabo, yeah, I can't complain. Lobster and chowder, I mean I'm here, I might as well indulge a bit. It was pricey but I didn't regret it.
After dinner I mosied back to the hotel laughing all the while that the outbound destination of the train is "WONDERLAND" all kinds of connotations there. I like the feel of the cobblestones under my feet, walking through the brick walled alleys. The taverns are fabulous, I peaked inside: all wood panelled and bursting with history. I like this town already and I've only seen a fraction. I'm looking forward to seeing it on the way back and experiencing a bit of the history during the daylight hours. Sleep would be nice, but its not coming any time soon, which really sucks for me and being conscious during tomorrow's conference. I have a feeling drinking and fraternizing will have to wait until wednesday night and I'll just get to bed early, or so I hope.
I scribled some stuff for NOT US tonight. I'm being workshopped next week when I get back. Last thursday Duncan McNaughton read with Lews McAdams and as Duncan said "its a gas." I lifted one off his lines, its burried in this poem... like everything else written before, its burried and steeped in something that came before and in perfect reverse harmony is a manefistation of what was once written, writing it again anew.
XCIV
to d.m. (maybe) as l.z.
Calling down
the downs
drown out
the rounds
which must’ve
left the hounds
nothing quite
like nature
for hellfire
quickly appeasing
luck being
a weirdo tonight
old jig and song
not yours
are your dead
counted (2x)
where it stands
where it stood
fore gone to sea
enough clay
bones to shore
foundation’s drilling
into soils
it’s a rotten thing
when you can’t
depend on the dead
to hold up living
omits the light
where the moon
wears a human
ambiguous face
seems as young
as some might’ve
seemed to have
been happening
to understood
what’s come.
Tuesday, November 01, 2005
The San Francisco Quiz - How about you?
| Da Mayor You scored 82 barbary coastal! |
Congratulations! You know your stuff when it comes to San Francisco. You know how to stay away from the tourist traps, and where to find lots of the cool hidden secrets tucked inside this city. You might even be a real live NATIVE! Native San Franciscans are slightly less rare than thylacines, you know. |
 |
My test tracked 1 variable How you compared to other people your age and gender:
|
| Link: The San Francisco Trivia Test written by abracadaver on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the 32-Type Dating Test |
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