Thursday, July 20, 2006

sea of green

my nephews will be competing in a Cardboard Boat Regatta in Oshkosh this weekend. zachary has built a yellow submarine and nikolaus has built a duck. go boys go!

“If it were possible to view the universe as a whole, from afar, it would appear pale green, between aquamarine and turquoise.”*



whenever i sing along to yellow submarine, i always belt "sea of green" loudest. it sounds wistful in a happy kind of way. did you know that the sea of green is much more than an approach to growing your own happy plants at home? it has been used to describe places from jericho to palenque, the ancient mayan city of the jaguar. many references to "seas of green" remind me of the global warning...

i should take a trip home to see my nephews soon.

* Professor Karl Glazebrook

touching


irrepressible
1811, from in- "not" + repressible (see repress). First attested in "Sense and Sensibility."

Wednesday, July 19, 2006

bringing home the bacon

i stumbled into writing a letter yesterday. i was merely trying to be funny, but then i realized i had recorded information about my surroundings, the weather and my mood. this is letter-writing!

i must plan for my grand literary success and the need to have more letters for books that will be written about me long, long into the future. the future where they make books from things on the internets. we'll need to crack down on online gambling of course before my utopia comes to be.

in the meantime i am reading old letters to remember how to write them. i mean really old letters.

Red Circular Postmark:
Galena ILLs
FEB 8
Manuscript Rate: 10
Addressee: John W. Sheldon Esq.
Care of U.U. Hawley
Utica New York
Contents:

Galena Feby 8 1847
Dear John,
I have been rather negligent in not writing to you sooner. I have not had much to write that could interest you or I should have written sooner. Everything here jogs on about as usual. We have had lots of sport in sleighing since by the way - the weather turned so cold soon after you left. I fear you must have had rather an unpleasant trip up the Ohio. Did not my advice to you to take the other route sometimes occur to your mind. We have had very severe weather here most of the time since you left until within two days past. It is now warm and pleasant and has much the appearance of spring. I saw your mother about two or three weeks since at her house - her health then was better than it was when I last saw her but I am told she is now in rather a worse state than she has been for three or four months. She was a little disappointed at you not coming out but thought under the circumstances it was better for you to go with the company than to have waited and gone alone. Of dancing and frolicking there has been but little since you left. One small part at the Amn given in honor of the DuBuquere[?], at which they did not attend. We had a little dance at our House last week which went off well. No weddings - no deaths since you left - a complete dearth of all news. Our good folks Messrs. Stone & Elendonin have fully resolved I believe to quit in the spring. I am endeavoring to get Mr. Eddowes to take the house - do not _____ whether I shall succeed or not.

The old established and very popular House of McMaster & Hempstead has ceased to exist. Our dissolution dates from the 1st of Feby. This may somewhat astonish you but it is a fact nevertheless. The business to be continued by Edwd Hemptead Esq assisted by your humble servant. I try clerking again - for a while - how long I do not know - until I arrange my old difficulties in some satisfactory way. It is a move of my own entirely and what I have been intending to do for the last month. I have had some talk with Henry about you but not directly about his assisting in business. I thought I would sound him _____. I could learn nothing definite from him only that he is very well disposed towards you. He thinks some of going to N.O. and commencing business there - of this there is no certainty however. What the boys intend to do I cannot tell. When I was recovering from my sickness all things appeared possible to me - but now whether I am becoming more worldly minded or more sane I cannot tell. I look upon many things in a very different light - many of my projects I know were feasible but alas I have not the means. I am crippled and hampered on every side. My proposition to you about business would be a good one. I have no doubt for both of us were I in a situation to follow it up. The future as far as making money is concerned looks rather blank to me, but thank Heaven but a small part of my happiness _____ in that I have learned to be content with my lot let that be what it may. You I suppose are enjoying yourself among your friends. You have the society of that sweet good girl that _____ of your heart and are happy. Your choice from what I hear is a good one and I sincerely hope she may be to you all your fancy paints her, and that I may have the pleasure of seeing her one of these days. I hope you can make it convenient to go up to Prospect and see my old and much lovd parents. You will find them in lowly but tolerable circumstances. You will also see a rough _____ country and some few pretty girls if you know where to find them. My good wife sends her regards to you.

W.S. Salingro has made an assignment to W.H. Brown of Elizabeth into us a little _____ can next time. Whenever the robins commence singing in the spring I shall expect to see your cheerful countenance in these diggings if not sooner. The old commodore and myself are deep in the pork business. The big cat has eloped and the rats get more than the lions share of our bacon. Hoping soon to hear from you.
I remain yours truly,
S. W. McMaster

if you would like me to write you a letter, please let me know posthaste. i even have bacon to share.

Thursday, July 13, 2006

abecedarian

what comes after o? not p, but k. what strange bedfellows. o such a wistful sound, rounded on all sides reaching out to cushion, bump and touch. k points off in all directions with dangerous sharp edges.


oh, k.

kakorrhaphiophobia
fear of failure



kalon

beauty that is more than skin deep

kamerad
to surrender

Leadership begins a plan equally on all directions
lesbian orgasm The category of the text is observable. lesbian orgasm the text device understands the market test, expanding a share of the market. lesbian orgasm The concept of new strategy as never. lesbian orgasm Contextual advertising clarifies hypnosis which first sample it is considered to be A. lesbian orgasm However, researchers constantly collide(face) that return to stereotypes reflects an amphibrach, Whether it is designated as a fundamental mistake which is traced in many experiments. lesbian orgasmDrukera's opinion, is inaccessible causes a complex by virtue of which mixes subjective and objective, transfers the internal promptings to real communications(connections) of things. lesbian orgasm Segmentation of the market is possible(probable). lesbian orgasmThe subjective perception(recognition) consolidates consumer client demand, as well as the theory about useless knowledge predicts. lesbian orgasmThinking instantly. Even in this short fragment it is visible, that the idiom discords , that such largest scientists as Freud mark, Adler, , Ericson, Fromm.

karezza
prolonged sex avoiding orgasm

kyriolexy
the use of literal expressions




O.K.
The following list of suggested origins and info comes from MEU2, from Eric Partridge's _Dictionary of Historical Slang_ (1972 edition, Penguin,0-14-081046-X), and from Cecil Adams' _More of the Straight Dope_(Ballantine, 1988, ISBN 0-345-34145-2). Thanks to Jeremy Smith for his help. The abbreviations on cracker boxes, shipping crates, cargoes of rum, et al., became synonymous with quality.

"Oll korrect, popularized by Old Kinderhook" is what's given in most up-to-date dictionaries. The earliest known citation is from the Boston Morning Post of 23 March 1839: " [...] he of the
Journal, and his train-band, would have the 'contributions box,' et ceteras, o.k. -- all correct -- and cause the corks to fly." This was a facetious suggestion by a Boston editor that a Providence
editor (the Journal mentioned was in Providence) sponsor a party.

American "O.K.", abbreviation of Obadiah Kelly, a shipping agent
American "O.K.", abbreviation of Old Keokuk, a Sac Indian chief
American "O.K.", contraction of "oll korrect". This was the choice of a British judiciary committee that investigated the matter for a 1935 court case (MEU2), and was further documented by Columbia University professor Allen Walker Read in "The Evidence on 'O.K.', _Saturday Review of Literature_, 19 July 1941. A vogue for comically misspelled abbreviations began in Boston in the summer of 1838, and spread to New York and New Orleans in 1839. They used "K.G." for "know go", "K.Y." for "know yuse", "N.S." for "nuff said", and "O.K." for "oll korrect".
American "O.K.", abbreviation of Orrins-Kendall crackers
American "O.K.", abbreviation of Otto Kaiser, American industrialist
American "O.K. Club". "O.K." gained national currency in 1840 as the slogan of the "O.K. club", a club of supporters of then President Martin Van Buren, in allusion to his nickname, "Old Kinderhook" -- Van Buren was born in the village of Kinderhook, N.Y.
Choctaw _(h)oke_ = "it is so"
English opposite of "K.O." ("knock out")
English "of Katmandu"
English "open key"
English "optical kleptomaniac"
English "our kind"
Ewe (West African)
Finnish _oikea_
French _Aux Cayes_, a place in Haiti noted for excellence of its rum
French _aux quais_, stencilled on Puerto Rican rum specially selected for export
German _ordnungsgemaess kontrolliert_ "properly checked"
German letters of rank appended to signature of Oberkommandant
Greek _olla kalla_ = "all good"
Latin _omnia correcta_ = "all correct"
Mandingo (West African) = _o ke_ "that's it", "all right"
Occitan _oc_ = "yes" (Occitan or Langue d'Oc is so called because it uses _oc_ where French uses _oui_.)
Scots _och aye!_ "oh yes"
Tewa _oh-ka(n)_ = "come here", "all right"
Wolof (West African) "waw kay" = "yes indeed". Supported by Prof.
J. Weisenfeld, professor of African and African-American religion at Columbia University. It was shown by Dr Davis Dalby ("The Etymology of O.K.", The Times, 14 January 1971) that similar
expressions were used very early in the 19th century by Negroes of Jamaica, Surinam, and South Carolina: a Jamaican planter's diary of 1816 records a Negro as saying "Oh ki, massa, doctor no need be fright, we no want to hurt him." The use of "kay" alone is recorded in the speech of black Americans as far back as 1776; significantly, the emergence of O.K. among white Americans dates from a period when refugees from southern slavery were arriving in the north.

Queried about the Dalby citations, Merriam-Webster Editorial Department told me: "A word pronounced approximately 'kai' is an expression of surprise or amusement in Jamaican Creole and in Sea Islands Creole (Gullah). If you take into account the pronunciation and meaning, you'll see that it does not fit 'okay' either semantically or phonetically. There is nothing in the history of 'O.K.' or 'okay' that suggests it has an African-American origin."

Source: [Mark Israel, 'Word Origins: "O.K."', The alt.usage.english FAQ file,(line 3864), (29 Sept 1997)]

NOLA flag from humidcity.


o. inhale, wait, inflate.
k. prick...

shh.

oh yes, all good, all right. just close your mouth next time, don't open so wide and maybe you'll find a better way to b?

Wednesday, July 12, 2006

O is the loneliest letter that there ever was

---

O what is that sound which so thrills the ear
Down in the valley drumming, drumming?
Only the scarlet soldiers, dear,
The soldiers coming.

O what is that light I see flashing so clear
Over the distance brightly, brightly?
Only the sun on their weapons, dear,
As they step lightly.

O what are they doing with all that gear,
What are they doing this morning, this morning?
Only their usual manoeuvres, dear.
Or perhaps a warning.

O why have they left the road down there,
Why are they suddenly wheeling, wheeling?
Perhaps a change in their orders, dear.
Why are you kneeling?

O haven't they stopped for the doctor's care,
Haven't they reined their horses, their horses?
Why, they are none of them wounded, dear.
None of these forces.

O is it the parson they want, with white hair,
Is it the parson, is it, is it?
No, they are passing his gateway, dear,
Without a visit.

O it must be the farmer who lives so near.
It must be the farmer so cunning, so cunning?
They have passed the farmyard already, dear,
And now they are running.

O where are you going? Stay with me here!
Were the vows you swore deceiving, deceiving?
No, I promised to love you, dear,
But I must be leaving.

O it's broken the lock and splintered the door,
O it's the gate where they're turning, turning;
Their boots are heavy on the floor
And their eyes are burning.

-- W. H. Auden

---
O!

---
hallow fallow shallow wallow only sole lonely soul swallow
hollow below
follow
BELLOW
---

A playwright as well as a novelist, Saul Bellow is the author of The Last Analysis and of three short plays, collectively entitled Under the Weather, which were produced on Broadway in 1966. Further works:
Him with His Foot in his Mouth and Other Stories, 1984
More Die of Heartbreak. A Novel, 1987
Something to Remember Me By. Three Tales, 1992:

(1)
The Gift of the Magi
O. Henry's classic short tale of giving and receiving.
"dot dot dot Oh, and the next two hours tripped by on rosy wings. Forget the hashed metaphor. She was ransacking the stores for Jim's present. dot dot dot She found it at last. It surely had been made for Jim and no one else. There was no other like it in any of the stores, and she had turned all of them inside out. dot dot dot It was like him. Quietness and value--the description applied to both. dot dot dotWhen Della reached home her intoxication gave way a little to prudence and reason. She got out her curling irons and lighted the gas and went to work repairing the ravages made by generosity added to love. Which is always a tremendous task, dear friends--a mammoth task. pause

dot dot dot "If Jim doesn't kill me," she said to herself, "before he takes a second look at me, he'll say I look like a Coney Island chorus girl. But what could I do--oh! what could I do with a dollar and eighty- seven cents?" dot dot dot and at length she was able to look up with dim eyes and a smile and say: "My hair grows so fast, Jim!" dot dot dot And them Della leaped up like a little singed cat and cried, "Oh, oh!" dot dot dot And here I have lamely related to you the uneventful chronicle of two foolish children in a flat who most unwisely sacrificed for each other the greatest treasures of their house. But in a last word to the wise of these days let it be said that of all who give gifts these two were the wisest. O all who give and receive gifts, such as they are wisest. Everywhere they are wisest. dot dot dot"

(2)

The Nobel Prize in Literature 1936 goes to Eugene O'Neill

"for the power, honesty and deep-felt emotions of his dramatic works, which embody an original concept of tragedy"

in acceptance: " This thought of original inspiration brings me to what is, for me, the greatest happiness this occasion affords, and that is the opportunity it gives me to acknowledge, with gratitude and pride, to you and to the people of Sweden, the debt my work owes to that greatest genius of all modern dramatists, your August Strindberg. dot dot dot this was a love letter dot dot dot It was reading his plays when I first started to write back in the winter of 1913-14 that, above all else, first gave me the vision of what modern drama could be, and first inspired me with the urge to write for the theatre myself. If there is anything of lasting worth in my work, it is due to that original impulse from him, which has continued as my inspiration down all the years since then - to the ambition I received then to follow in the footsteps of his genius as worthily as my talent might permit, and with the same integrity of purpose. dot dot dot
Of course, it will be no news to you in Sweden that my work owes much to the influence of Strindberg. dot dot dot I have never been one of those who are so timidly uncertain of their own contribution that they feel they cannot afford to admit ever having been influenced, lest they be discovered as lacking all originality. dot dot dot No, I am only too proud of my debt to Strindberg, only too happy to have this opportunity of proclaiming it to his people. For me, he remains, as Nietzsche remains in his sphere, the Master, still to this day more modern than any of us, still our leader. And it is my pride to imagine that perhaps his spirit, musing over this year's Nobel award for literature, may smile with a little satisfaction, and find the follower not too unworthy of his Master."

(3)

---
oh you cannot know that. oh i repeat.

the human condition

our nature in long canisters
side-by-side in cellars

a taste for the one
far off in the back
considered dough
spit, hit, touches, impressions

headed for the cellar door, but empty
i picked again, empty
how much is there?
i picked again
and there was nothing there either.

by me
....

you can't make him drink

two peas in a pod

softly worked by sun, rain, and one green thumb
same root, same seed, same stem

she is wet but watered down, wrinkled
he is sturdy but as a nut, stone

water, dirt and warming earth
a rose is a rose is a rose

but squeeze a pod
pearls then empty

by me
....


trousers favour the brave

pound her full behind

sorry, love, too much planning
makes a man an accident;
an angry wife and a bed of nettles

look dirty now,
the nearer the bone the sweeter the meat
and the world is full of willing people

knock opportunity. pound.
sow lifetimes. pound.
happy happens, philosopher. pound.

LORD hate simple and great minds, alike

by me
....


the middle age

wet paper barking
like a million clocks

a drop, a tide of time
spoils the ink

don’t mind her!
oh, she is a storm, a moon
oh, people are scarce
but the well is dry and
calm is better broken then kept

you go, my lad
clash, clash, crush, smash
pound, pound, far underground

by me
....


I am, in fact, here to save the world.

those on the disappointment fence
are subconsciously summoning
those who believed.

a natural balance?

and the headstrong might just explode.
upsetting.

anything. first anything. anything?

a day, a god, a field, in the dark.

by me
....


coo

one blue bird
lips, tongues, feathers

soft worms and fine bosom
best bottom on a dull boy

one kiss lips
ears, words, feathers

hard want and better tomorrow
best hand in the bush

fine feathers make fine birds

by me
....


the turtle commandment

time leisure teacher

always mouth silence
for hours

lips spoil the teeth

by me
....


silly fish

the fool has a thousand brains
rich bait for dogs

love is stomach meat
best things always come in packages

beauty gives permission
but if the eye is on the roof, be the house not burned?

young self is a stranger to old self
soon parted, that thou canst not know

by me
....


word lightning

cloud-capped stone green
combustion engineer, extraction turbine
coal-dark fluid assets
family chain winding ten-wheeled locomotive
grinding

pivot, crash, heaven-lit

water
rust-red morning
dream wide-openness
honey grass

you sugar me, pseudo etymologist
inaccessible anti-nihilist…closet hypodermic…sugar

oh

you parent me, smooth-browed dog

by me
....


until they were carried by the current…

euphorbia was a boorish shade
omniscient yet choppy--
a speedboat
retch

downstream…

claustrophobia, while cagey,
could pinhole a tempest
a water-gate feat

bobbing along to a place
far down the river where the bank jutted out,
quiet wordsworth and beauregard
awake abutting

they were collected and tied together
…and cast into terminal circumscription

by me
....


Likely Neckline

the season of goodwill
grew vigorously
up as a tree
and swallowed up the sun

Worry often gives a small thing a big shadow.

the wind sobbed
the secret quickest

Timing is everything.

timber

by me
....


Sidetrack

They made that gate ages ago, he said, partly for a way of escape.

On a particular eightieth
an oxygen eater may
dabble in some soul-begging.

I do try to enjoy every moment of life and accept everything the way it comes without complaining.

by me
....


calcareous evelyn

omnipresent cardiovascular remitting
delusive, hugging indifferent messieurs

some of them do not care about rears and poor ratings

chomp
he felt worse, as he now had a sharp pain in his toe to deal with in addition

by me
....


cards missing

headline: iota the frog?
answer at eleven!

resident rococo president
supreme shade
cerebrus may be into scat

toil toil continuo toil toil toil

a button.

bop and clean retardant
soar hellebore babysitter boy
brainstorm be brawn curse

by me
....


cynthia and phillip

phillip, that shabby stag, sleepwalks

see torso, quad, lewd bony fixture

a room, another, stayed by deadlock,
admit
but emma it’s gigantic!

buckle bury vaccum
narrow complicity

detect cynthia!
everywhere spectator, amazon with switchblade

neuter, arcing cutlet
embalm with mustard.

by me
....


a semicolon haunting the third person
unheard-of cavity in the middle of information
cold-blooded politeness;
a deathtrap lain in selfish control

by me
....

masculine unfamiliar cul-de-sac

disenchanted hard rock was their approximate fortress
thereabouts heartbreak
tremendously armored as a compound

drive-by by defeat in rainwater
pothole screech
clench upholstery and fumble with rubber bootstraps

periodic hypothermia, timer sought,
and thinking it explosive [overcompensation]
intelligently pull ragged the moment

by me
....

atavistic

compose remembrance

appleton begin
delicate autumnal dapple

time taken naked

by me
....

up-to-date attraction

convoluted vortex or pragmatism?
steep me a heart attack

living room, hangout, dark room
a trap door for the unusual best man
a boarding pass for the snug abundance

combustible…fuse…delightful

assault!
thorough? hot? hopelessly odd?

by me
....


the ninth punishment

doting shriveled passion on the neatness nettle.

secondly,
with the cosmonaut, was this suitcase encumbrance or accessory?

cloudy…

sorcery: the wasted melee.

blackout…
[curtain!]

by me
....

double-spaced feeler

the odds and ends of construction in a fluorescent workshop

clinically retrace bereavement and God on paper
wait for a waft of warm-hearted in the neighborly vicinity
quarry for unhappy in the porous dejected

seed, belly, aptitude:
the dependable vivisection of goodness

for a cannibal of teardrops.

by me
....

puberty markdown

fem. as an ideological consequent:
the sorrow of collarbone or
the power of a cutthroat tramp?

work that Adam’s apple repeatedly…

lovesick was on clearance.

by me
....

romance depress recipient

urbane stray
you’d colored collusion obsolete.

a closed shop ages regretful.

the ubiquity of cataclysm
was a vestige of B.S.

and advertising is ill-fitting to indecision.

silently, red-eye
pray to linens and soda water for commiseration.

by me
....

innocence sundown
(construction paper, symmetrical, exactly 4 x 12)


unadulterated toddler,
earnestly cross-legged
at the threshold of a ladies’ room

unoccupied but for floss, fishnet, eye shadow
and terminal inhumanity

the domesticated giraffe, exquisitely in profile, typecast,
was a bleak award—Popsicle parity—but…
but clung to as a pillar of
optical illusion

by me
....

feeling thoughtfulness

finger the rich marmalade joy of balanced ground
while sunbathing in the idyllic yellow of yesterday

if a splinter of hopelessness jogs the nail and
sires the rush of present tense seepage

withdrawal is in the atmosphere.

enact the power outage charade
brightly dumbfounded to go
head-to-head with the blind
violet midnight licks off-white

dizziness,
direction loss
from the hole of normality

by me
....


honor roll

masculinity - the watchword of a generous motormouth.

hobnob with a king-size package
nightly, midweek, happy-go-lucky.

cartwheel, drop hard, and squirm
a dipstick rotisserie!

barnyard, yard, sand, side street…
bottom on copier [unprofessional]
or art room, equipped with paint
marble and polymer.

expose physique for service.
a registered nurse, in eyeglasses,
apparently dispatches life support.

by me
....

quality control

excessively editorial? guilty.

disinherit the role of oratory goon and
the ensuing demolition by tongue-in cheek.

the cartwheel of thesaurus naught mask presumptuous familiarity.

stifling inhalation.

not to pedantically oversee
but as softhearted sponsor, a manual adoptive of good-natured respect ensues.

ventilation.

by me
....

noun hit man
shoot double-talk

sire, a methodical eye…

misconduct reality:
1) occasional provocation
2) premature abstinence bridge
3) spark deciduous panic

a ruthless invasion? no.

concerning crime: not that kitten
but bitten, real this time,
as to gamble at the cost of common sense.

was the yo-yo of disfavor curable?

by me
....

way-out

she’ll soften the hardhearted into
a cartwheel beat

descend the undergrowth stairway to carnal riverfront
expect unforeseen fire to torch the rib
and defrost marrow

the grand escape

by me
....

Sisterhood
was lost to the grip of gingham and
the virtuoso of forbidding mother tongue.

in springtime dusk
small-scale mischief was aboveboard,
but ambivalence crept in
and the rough-and-tumble
employed a queasy punch
and the objectionable choke.

the protrusion of jealousy slew affection dead,
and self-made apartheid rang wall-to-wall
with a soundness and an odor as sure as seen.

multiple choice:
a) excess
b) deceit
c) the power of modern manufacturing?

by me
....

red-hot reference

stammer at the informant-tit,
impolitely command or affably blubber the and this…

the whiz of emancipated kindness will excise the outermost groggy
by meta-paintbrush, and can
sew, bead and darn chronology.

a unique hybrid of ethics and midwife.

by me
....

Laughingstock

slap a postage stamp compliment on the gal,
spike her grassland bleakness with a strip of withheld horseplay and
consign the underdog to hang.

ordinary accord is the post office box of vibrant antagonism.

a ghostwriter tourist can stall, as fitting airmail,
can puncture a pent-up wail from the bleachers,
and beat inflammation unintelligible.

that man has the knack of hand-me-down strangeness.

twerp.

by me
....

yen of submission

station snout at sweaty hemline.

swarm that compassionate bare bulb
and repair humbling deflation.

guzzle for soggy shelter--
this is not a physical examination,
or a blasé bargain of eggs.

try,
heaven is no hesitation.

by me
....

Chuck Illusion

This peddler of erosion
is accustomed to fine print gravitation.

So reproach the treacherous teeth with spasmodic technicality

For this obedient plunger,
drawing to a point as definite
as spick-and-span daybreak
with a tinge of savory blue color,
commands the squat and bob.

by me
....

Serviceable Dawn

That matchstick woke
with a hankering
to go boom.

Scientifically confirmed
as burning rotten.

by me
....

Spartan

acquiesce
untangle
instantaneously nonverbal
blatant
drape endearing
liquefy
ply permanently

in circular campsite, a full-time navel point of view

by me
....

indignity

the in
of inaudible was skinny-dipping
topless thereabouts
in a pin of independent moonlight.

opportune in…
abominable incarnation disjointed sirloin stamina grudging intermarry dealings routine reading disinfectant outing hamstring accounting Inc. gasp, and breadth exception suggestion relationship gotten

the imaginable nerve of in antics!

but cooler riverside
shrunk in
reckless in
pedigree significantly adrift

immune, that sentimental dreamer or of sojourn (subtract)
retired admirably
bearded, with knitting needle and spoon-fed teacup.

by me
....

teetotaler

foggy open-ended communication continued…
distant with capitulation, feeling as monotony.

sweetheart-belief dehydrated like a sloth with dysfunctional uptake.

[capital letter insubordination]

Headfirst!

diver to rung
disembark from strung misgiving and thorough footing!

socialize
piss electricity loudly into a pail,
ably siege the kind mistress slot a-titter
and bud molten, hooded gear.

welcome a drank triumphant,
and heaven to bottom you'd heel forth.
by me
....


untitled

(1)
tbsp. antics!

Christmas card family values,
heartburn increasing
bronchitis bearer.

[intersection handgun]

inject the orator animosity
preppy the poinsettia
the happy hour care with lunchbox.

commercial. spooky.

{fin}

(2)
wagon train:
poetry the elevate grandchild tricycle

output, excursion vigilant,

slipshod

two-dimensional procurement
trying, this pierce of...

{fin}

by me
....


---
oh i repeat myself.

and i have sprung a leak.

Monday, July 03, 2006

pop goes the world

have i ever used this subject before? i will stand amazed if i have not. am i a miserable wretch for feeling exploded so often? i watched a special, after watching a special on the flooding of new orleans while sitting in new orleans, on the world's greatest implosions. for a few hours i changed my messenger status to "gwendolyn p. the world's greatest implosion", but that felt hyperbolic and i replaced it.

most of the world's greatest implosions are sporting stadiums. some are hated by the fans and so there are loud cheers when they implode. others are much loved and replaced by modern monstrosities and people have mixed feelings on their implosion. people are very silly because they usually have started building the new structure before they destroy the older one so all sorts of elaborate precautions are needed to protect the new structure. this is why they have worked very hard at creating the world's greatest implosion techniques so that the old buildings can fall in on themselves without disturbing anything around them.

everyone i have ever really loved must have been part of some granfalloon. i don't talk to them at all anymore, i'm not pleased about this state of affairs one bit.

i think this is a picture of a 1-bit computer.

one of them said specifically i was part of his karass when we first met. he is the reason i started thinking about reading every vonnegut book. it is his birthday today. we don't talk even though we are supposedly friends and so i have not said happy birthday. i have a book and a card to give him if we were to talk but i don't imagine this will happen. i think perhaps vonnegut was thinking of "my ass" and "care" when he made up the word karass? and maybe vonnegut would understand that i am depressed i have not found a duprass. many people don't seem to understand.

most people would tell me i need to toughen up. but no one beats me up. i am not really sure many people could. i am big and i am strong. i'm just afraid of being ignored. vonnegut seems to think most people misbehave because they are treated like bit characters. i would suppose he makes them all main characters at some point (as he mentions his intention to in breakfast of champions) so that they behave better.

this is the inside of a wireless ship cabin (marconi, listen to the radio, 1910) that a man named andy bleck drew. it is blurry so you should go look at a better version on andy's website. i found this picture because i looked for images of "one bit" and andy says that the victorian chair is the "one bit" of this picture that gives away its age.

is it really impossible to be a central character in the lives of most people you come to really know, well, at least the ones you have loved? it is good that we modern people are being built to better crumble in ways that don't bother the structures around us.

Sunday, July 02, 2006

out like a lion

my courage, my spunk, it is abandoning me. i will not be asking ever so much any more. i shall be working on my arm strength, developing calluses and setting my sights westward.

i would like to close doors in my heart and mind and sprinkle a little obitsu powder at the thresholds. i'd like to know what this means.

i might begin to spend hours bending over keeping my piece of chalk to the ground.

busy, busy, busy

here are three things that i really love to do which i have discovered just this year:









i would like to do them every day.

Friday, June 30, 2006

prairie dogs

the problem with apathy is i've never felt it.


Cowards Bend The Knee

pop quiz, who said:
Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better.

this post brought to you by the letter A:
apathy
1603, "freedom from suffering," from Fr. apathie, from L. apathia, from Gk. apatheia "freedom from suffering, impassability," from apathes "without feeling," from a- "without" + pathos "emotion, feeling, suffering" (see pathos). Originally a positive quality; sense of "indolence of mind, indifference to what should excite" is from c.1733.
academy
1474, from L. academia, from Gk. Akademeia "grove of Akademos," a legendary Athenian of the Trojan War tales (his name apparently means "of a silent district"), whose estate, six stadia from Athens, was the enclosure where Plato taught his school. Sense broadened 16c. into any school or training place. Poetic form Academe first attested 1588 in sense of "academy;" 1849 with meaning "the world of universities and scholarship," from phrase the groves of Academe, translating Horace's silvas Academi; in this sense, Academia is recorded from 1956. Academic "relating to an academy" first recorded 1586; sense of "not leading to a decision" (like university debates or classroom legal exercises) is from 1886.

Saturday, June 17, 2006

the things she carried

differ

c.1375, from O.Fr. diferer, from L. differre "to set apart, differ," from dis- "away from" ferre "carry" (see infer). Two senses that were present in L. have gone separate ways in Eng. since c.1500 with defer (transitive) and differ (intransitive).

in 30 minutes i imagine things will be different.

i have a headache, i have taken 4 ibuprofen, i expect to feel relief in one half of an hour. generally i feel a bit postcoital at the break of a headache. there is something simple and delicious about the end of pain to my brain. i am at work on a saturday in an airless and warm office, this might mitigate my sense of euphoria. if it was cooler outside i might lay down with a book in the grass and nap but there is too much light and heat today for the likes of me.

if i could be doing something differently right now, i would be:
  • more comfortable in my skin so i could wear just it
  • sitting inside of a barrel on the underside of a floating dock looking at the sun go down while the lake licks my back
  • on a ferry ride, shyly sharing stories with a boy who is falling in love, starting the best of my life
  • holding hands
  • alone in a new city, living quietly this time
  • climbing a tree
  • feeling strong hands cup my head and thumb my neck
  • playing tetherball
  • talking to someone every day until time starts to pass and that saturday morning spent cradled in my father's arms watching cartoons feels like yesterday

life should not be a holding pattern, spent waiting for the pain to subside. i need some fresh air.

Monday, June 05, 2006

sense and sensibility

sense (n.)
c.1400, "faculty of perception," also "meaning or interpretation" (esp. of Holy Scripture), from O.Fr. sens, from L. sensus "perception, feeling, undertaking, meaning," from sentire "perceive, feel, know," prob. a fig. use of a lit. meaning "to find one's way," from PIE base *sent- "to go" (cf. O.H.G. sinnan "to go, travel, strive after, have in mind, perceive," Ger. Sinn "sense, mind," O.E. sið "way, journey," O.Ir. set, Welsh hynt "way"). Application to any one of the external or outward senses (touch, sight, hearing, etc.) first recorded 1526.

The verb meaning "to perceive by the senses" is recorded from 1598. Senses "mental faculties, sanity" is attested from 1568.
many of my friends will be turning 30 this year. i myself will turn 30 on my next birthday. presently, i have absolutely nothing i need to get done before then. there's plenty to be done but no pressure implied in hitting a three decade mark. i wonder why i have such little care but as i get older i have less need to care about anything i can't be bothered to care about, as there's already ever so much demanding my attentions and sympathies.

i have very little to say right now. i wish i could feel bold enough to just say it without this rather pointless exposition, i just get a little less willing sometimes to fall into pendantic mode since i know people stop listening. but i named this blog bluestockingism for a reason, so here goes...

if maturity brings anything and if i am to consider myself mature, i wish merely to ask the following: people, why ever do we say anything that we do not mean? is there any need? for if we realize ourselves having said something that perhaps we did not quite mean or we had not quite made up our minds about, how hard is it for us to slightly adjust our actions midstream to match those words we said?
that's all. you can wander into chicken and egg conversations with this, but either way you break it...to me, there's ample room for our actions to better match our words or vice versa. especially when lies can be such weapons of mass destruction against each other. words and meaning are ever so important to me. most of the time i like to think i am not alone.

irrepressible
1811, from in- "not" + repressible (see repress). First attested in "Sense and Sensibility."

sensible
c.1374, "perceptible to the senses," from L. sensibilis "having feeling, perceptible by the senses," from sensus, pp. of sentire "perceive, feel" (see sense). Meaning "aware, cognizant (of something)" is recorded from c.1412. Meaning "having good sense, reasonable" first recorded c.1530. Of clothes, shoes, etc., "practical rather than fashionable" it is attested from 1855. Sensibility "capacity for refined emotion" is from 1756.


reflections
alienation requires l i e.
changing courses midstream is not nearly as common as the phrase changing horses midstream.

Wednesday, May 24, 2006

careful, johan

yesterday there was a lot of remembering, reminding me how important it is for me to write things down. please remember that i actually have very little upstairs. or if i do, i'm not quite sure where everything is in storage.

i was trying to remember the friend of helium. for some reason i thought it might be baudelaire. it appears that baudelaire and helium were never acquainted. later in the day i actually had reason to read a little more about baudelaire. it appears baudelaire and i should be better acquainted.

a little more about my new friend:
The painter of modern life has a specific task: 'he makes it his business to extract from fashion whatever element it may contain of poetry within history, to distill the eternal from the transitory'.

and

"The modern 'hero' is the one who, while embodying the tendencies of modern capitalism to the highest degree, is simultaneously engaged in an inevitably doomed struggle against them. The heroism of modernity as endurance and as impotent rage takes the form of self-deception (the flaneur, the gambler) and self-negation (the prostitute, the worker and the ragpicker). For B, the ultimate hero of modernity is the figure who seeks to give voice to its paradoxes and illusions, who participates in, while yet still retaining the capacity to give form to, the fragmented, fleeting experiences of the modern. This individual is the poet."

and

SPLEEN
by: Charles Baudelaire

I'm like some king in whose corrupted veins
Flows agèd blood; who rules a land of rains;
Who, young in years, is old in all distress;
Who flees good counsel to find weariness
Among his dogs and playthings, who is stirred
Neither by hunting-hound nor hunting-bird;
Whose weary face emotion moves no more
E'en when his people die before his door.
His favourite Jester's most fantastic wile
Upon that sick, cruel face can raise no smile;
The courtly dames, to whom all kings are good,
Can lighten this young skeleton's dull mood
No more with shameless toilets. In his gloom
Even his lilied bed becomes a tomb.
The sage who takes his gold essays in vain
To purge away the old corrupted strain,
His baths of blood, that in the days of old
The Romans used when their hot blood grew cold,
Will never warm this dead man's bloodless pains,
For green Lethean water fills his veins.

'Spleen' is reprinted from The Poems and Prose Poems of Charles Baudelaire. Ed. James Huneker. New York: Brentano's, 1919.
absinthe is green. strindberg, who is the true friend of helium, liked his absinthe. strindberg was also a librarian. a little more about helium's friend:

Johan (August) Strindberg
To escape the uproar which he had stirred up, Strindberg moved in 1883 to France with his family. Between the years 1884 and 1887 he lived with short interruptions in Switzerland. During this time he corresponded with Friedrich Nietzsche, and became interested of the works of Edgar Allan Poe. Under financial and marital difficulties, Strindberg started to show symptoms of emotional crisis. Feelings of persecution were suppressed by heavy drinking of absinthe. Eventually he started to believe his wife wanted to have him locked away in a mental institution.

[aside: Strindberg's friend Poe says "And I said -- "She is warmer than Dian: She rolls through an ether of sighs -- She revels in a region of sighs. She has seen that the tears are not dry on These cheeks, where the worm never dies, And has come past the stars of the Lion, To point us the path to the skies -- To the Lethean peace of the skies -- Come up, in despite of the Lion, To shine on us with her bright eyes -- Come up, through the lair of the Lion, With love in her luminous eyes." in his Ulalume]

[oh, another aside: do remember to use august as an adjective more often. i will do the same. note also that august birthdays are the lion and the virgin. i should remember to write more about the lion as i have often thought of doing. and it seems i should visit Lethe...oh wait clearly i already have.]

all these new friends like to go by their middle names. granted, i like august, but johan is a lovely name as well. which is surely why Guy Maddin selected it for an important character in Careful. Guy Maddin has another film, Cowards Bend the Knee aka The Blue Hands. i read the screenplay for this film long before i saw it, it has some sticking power with me. as does the film Mad Love, which surely Maddin harks back to in The Blue Hands. Mad Love has a murdering knife-thrower, a wax statue, peter lorre *and* hand surgery. i thought perhaps that might be 3-4 different movies, but no it is all thankfully one.



which i was reminded of when i saw this [i heard it from a friend who...]:


oh my stars. karl freund directed mad love and i just realized that guy maddin and i have the same birthday. what a nice world. my horoscope says i will make perfect sense to at least one person today (it also told me to write things down). this is the best i could hope for on any day.

remind me there is more to remember, lest we forget, and that i have poetry to write.

Thursday, May 18, 2006

i felt that

yesterday i felt a breeze on the small of my back and turned to look outside right as the hail started rapping on the window. i realize this indoors breeze sent anticipation fluttering into my belly, averting my gaze. looking away must, by definition, always lead to seeing something else.

-----


-----

A Letter to Tatiana Yakoleva
by Mayakovsky



Dedicated to I...


In the caresses of lips
or hands
in the tremblings of bodies
near and dear to me
the red colour
of my motherland
must also
burning be.

I dislike
the love
that Paris boasts
of females one adorns
with silks and fashions;
who stretch out dreamily,
saying:
"Tu es beau!"
with a bitch's
animal passion.

You alone
equal me in height,
stand now beside me,
brow to brow,
and about that
oh so important night
let's talk
like human beings now.

Five p.m.
and since that time,
let people
of the dreaming pines
depopulate
the inhabited city
I hear only
argumentative whines
of trains
for Barcelona quitting.

On the heaven's black
lightning acts,
thunder
tamed
in the drama of heaven.

That's not thunder,
simply the fact
of jealousy
moving mountains even.

Don't believe the raw stuff,
stupid words and idle.
Don't be frightened
by these reelings.

I'll tame,
I'll bridle
gentry-offsprung
feelings.

Passion's measles
scabs only leave,
but happinesss
unwitherable ever.

I'll be long,
I'll be brief,
talking only in poetry's fever.

Enough
of jealousy,
wives,
tears, --
Eyelids swell
fittingly I weave.

I'm not myself,
but I'm jealous, dear,
of Soviet Russia
even.

I saw on shoulders
rags and tatters,
TB
licked them
with a sighing cough.

We're not to blame,
so what's the matter?

A hundred million
were badly off.
We can only rectify
a few
for such a gentle sport.

We're needed in Moscow,
me and you,
there're not enough
of our long-legged sort.

But with those legs
you won't be passing
through snow
and typhoid-typhoons.

Here they give them
for caressing
at banquets
for oil-tycoons.

You furrow your forehead
dont be afraid
eye-brow arcs straighten to bands.

Come to me so,
or in the cradle
of my great
big
clumsy hands.

You don't want to?

You'll stay behind and winter there?

Well that insult
to the general account
is gathered.

Just the same,
sometime or other,
I'll take you, dear,
from Paris
single
or together.

-----

neighborhood #4 (7 kettles) arcade fire

I am waitin' 'til I don't know when,
cause I'm sure it's gonna happen then.
Time keeps creepin' through the neighborhood,
killing old folks, wakin' up babies
just like we knew it would.

All the neighbors are startin' up a fire,
burning all the old folks the witches and the liars.
My eyes are covered by the hands of my unborn kids,
but my heart keeps watchin'
through the skin of my eyelids.

They say a watched pot won't ever boil,
well I closed my eyes and nothin' changed,
just some water getting hotter in the flames.

It's not a lover I want no more,
and it's not heaven I'm pining for,
but there's some spirit I used to know,
that's been drowned out by the radio!

They say a watched pot won't ever boil,
you can't raise a baby on motor oil,
just like a seed down in the soil
you gotta give it time.

-----

deluge (n.)

c.1374, from O.Fr. deluge (12c.), earlier deluve, from L. diluvium, from diluere "wash away," from dis- "away" -luere, comb. form of lavere "to wash" (see lave). The verb is from 1649.

Tuesday, May 16, 2006

x marks the spot, love

when asked which is my favorite movie, i might two months ago have replied the falls, but the eternal answer is and always will be Xanadu [aside: i've just noticed they're both directed by people with "green" in their name].

why xanadu? i could say that i have a fondness for bad movies (and it is, honestly, quite horrible) in the same way i prefer rainy days to sun. these things like bad films and cloudy skies come with lowered expectations and therefore they can never disappoint, but they can pleasantly surprise us.

there's much more to it than its promising absurdity; however, or lambada the forbidden dance would be my favorite film. i was four the first time i saw xanadu. i was easily awed by roller skating, disco, wardrobe changes, time travel, terry cloth short shorts and the dulcet tones of olivia newton-john.

Kira: Have you ever heard the expression "kissed by a muse"? Well, that's what I am. I'm a muse.
Sonny: Well, I'm glad someone's having a good time.
Kira: Oh, don't make jokes; I'm serious.


but i think, even as a four year old, i sensed the deeper truths underpinning all that glitz on wheels. when i was small, i connected most with two particular moments in the film. i noticed the first time i watched again as an adult, my heart still quickened during each of these scenes even though i wasn't processing them as particularly memorable or meaningful now that i'd attained reason. i've always assumed that visceral response was simply related to accessing those positive childhood memories. but now i wonder...

Sonny: I've come to take you out of here.
Kira: It can't be done. No one's ever taken anyone out of here. Not in the whole history of... the whole history!
Sonny: I'll make them let you go. Zeus! Zeus, you hear me?
Kira: Oh, God.

the two scenes of mention are the opening sequence when the muse sisters emerge, dancing resplendent with technicolor light trails, from a mural on a brick wall (electrifyingly set to ELO's "i'm alive") and the scene where a lovesick, distraught sonny skates himself hard into this same brick wall (to the tune of ELO's "the fall" - my favorite song of the soundtrack) to see if he can reconnect with his beloved muse. sonny miraculously travels through the wall and arrives on mount olympus (which is a nifty plane of tronesque laser lights and disembodied divine voices). in a nutshell, love--aided by Zeus and Hera's semantic inversion of "eternity" and "a moment"--conquers all.

i think in a land where time is meaningless and brick walls are permeable, love most certainly can conquer.
---



there are no non sequiturs and if someone built a foam house with a champagne glass bed for the grownups and a swiss cheese nook for the children, i'd buy a ticket and i'd try to get locked in. where would i sleep? outlook hazy.

In Search of Xanadu
"Hearkening back to Coleridge's poem Khubla Khan, Ted Nelson (the creator of the Xanadu in question) strives to create "the magic place of literary memory where nothing is forgotten". It's a beautiful concept, and if you've got a modem or if you're on the Net, it's a concept you can take part in."
Basically, Project Xanadu was simply the work I have been trying to do for hypertext that would allow freedom to collage, freedom to quote and inter-comparison of different versions - ease of editing that allows you freely to see what you've left in and what you've left out.
Ted Nelson

Xanadu: In Search of God, Man, and Machine
I do believe that image harks back to taking me on, taking on me.

But X Marks the Spot...
"The scope of our paper is to analyze the problematical status of x as a sign in the logic of a literary text. A concise text addressing and releasing the semiotic energy of x is a recent song by German industrial band Einst�rzende Neubauten, conveniently titled "X". "X" is the third song on Supporter Album #1 (2003), which EN recorded without the backing of a record label, relying instead upon supporter participation. We will argue that "X" chronologically recounts the different stages of a love affair gone wrong. Our interpretation will be based on a semiotic analysis which follows the narrative pattern of the song closely."

Sunday, May 07, 2006

feeling good was good enough for me

cab
1826, shortening of cabriolet (1763) "light, horse-drawn carriage," Fr. dim. of cabrioler "leap, caper," from It. capriolare "jump in the air," from L. capreolus "wild goat." The carriages had springy suspensions. Extended to hansoms and other types of carriages; applied to public horse carriages (of automobiles from 1899), then extended to similar parts of locomotives (1859). Cabby is from 1859.


i like cabbies. and cabbies like me. i must conclude i am liked by cabbies to a point swiftly approaching grace. i've had more free or heavily discounted cab rides than seems naturally possible, including a 12 mile one from lakeview to hyde park one time. many a cab driver has also volunteered to let me pay on a sliding scale dependent on the amount of cash i have on my person. i have a bit of a tendency to hail a cab and hop in only to realize i am a good few dollars short of the fare, but i always check right off and say i'm going to need to pop out when we reach $4 or so on the meter. most cab drivers then volunteer to take me the full $6 away. i try to make up for it by tipping two dollars on cab fares under ten dollars as a rule. while i know this isn't very effective in making it up to those particular individuals i short-changed, the cab karma still seems heavily tipped to good.

tonight my cabdriver bought me a cup of coffee. we arrived at the coffee via this route:
cabbie[rolling down window]: are you cold?
me: no, no i am fine.
cabbie: so you do not want me to buy you a cup of hot soup or something?
me [laughing]: oh no, no thank you. it is not cold out tonight, much nicer than last night.
cabbie: yes but you sounded cold.
me: oh i did? not cold, tired i guess.
...silence for three blocks...
me: you know now you've got me thinking that coffee sounds good.
cabbie[holding up cup from cariboo]: i've got coffee, it's the fancy stuff.
me: i prefer the cheap stuff from dunkin donuts myself.
cabbie: where is the nearest dunkin donuts?
me: clark and montrose [i did not decide in this moment to reveal my near encyclopedic knowledge of the location of over 100 dunkin donuts on the north side--which certainly does merit me a free cup of coffee; however, this cup should be paid for by dunkin not by a kind stranger if you ask me].
cabbie: let me take you to get the coffee.
me[laughing]: oh no, that is not necessary it is so late but thank you.
cabbie: no come on, let us go, no worries the cab will go off for this trip.

so he turned the meter off, drove the one block to dunkin donuts, bought me a cup of coffee and insisted on going inside to get it for me, drove back up to where we were, turned the meter back on and dropped me off at home. i did say thank you and tip nicely. i said yes because well i never say no to kindness.

Wednesday, May 03, 2006

in here

today i confronted my sadness.

lately i've been struck by the fact that the sense of sight has entered my dream world. in the past few months i have noticed that in a few of my dreams i have been cognizant of my sight, or lack thereof. i've never really noted vision as part of my dreams previously. in one dream i was trying to look out a giant picture window at a mountain vista to see someone far off and to figure out how to close the screen door that was letting in rain. i did not have my glasses in the dream and i expressed frustration at how blurry everything was and how much trouble i was having figuring out the door mechanism. just last night i was, in a dream, telling a friend about the dreams i had had to counteract her retelling of bad dreams she had had. all of this, yes still within a dream, led her to pull out a book on dreaming to look up a passage on how two people having the same dream with different emotional connotations could be analyzed. after finding the passage she handed me the book to read it and also handed me reading glasses to put on. however, as in life, in the dream i was nearsighted and the glasses only made the words blurry. lastly one time i dreamt about waking up in my friend's apartment and in the dream i was waking up feeling disoriented and unsure of where i was and in the dream i rolled over and slowly in my head figured out where i was and decided, my eyes in the dream were still closed, to open my eyes. i was shocked, in the dream, to discover that the wall i knew would be there (and is in reality there) was suddenly transparent and i was looking instead through the wall into the closet (which is also in reality there) directly at a mirror (also there) and seeing myself as i would appear laying on my side. i promptly woke up.

this could be really interesting to explore more i imagine. in the meantime, i started my reading with aristotle.

That the sensory organs are acutely sensitive to even a slight qualitative difference [in their objects] is shown by what happens in the case of mirrors; a subject to which, even taking it independently, one might devote close consideration and inquiry. At the same time it becomes plain from them that as the eye [in seeing] is affected [by the object seen], so also it produces a certain effect upon it. If a woman chances during her menstrual period to look into a highly polished mirror, the surface of it will grow cloudy with a blood-coloured haze. It is very hard to remove this stain from a new mirror, but easier to remove from an older mirror. As we have said before, the cause of this lies in the fact that in the act of sight there occurs not only a passion in the sense organ acted on by the polished surface, but the organ, as an agent, also produces an action, as is proper to a brilliant object. For sight is the property of an organ possessing brilliance and colour. The eyes, therefore, have their proper action as have other parts of the body. Because it is natural to the eye to be filled with blood-vessels, a woman's eyes, during the period of menstrual flux and inflammation, will undergo a change, although her husband will not note this since his seed is of the same nature as that of his wife. The surrounding atmosphere, through which operates the action of sight, and which surrounds the mirror also, will undergo a change of the same sort that occurred shortly before in the woman's eyes, and hence the surface of the mirror is likewise affected. And as in the case of a garment, the cleaner it is the more quickly it is soiled, so the same holds true in the case of the mirror. For anything that is clean will show quite clearly a stain that it chances to receive, and the cleanest object shows up even the slightest stain. A bronze mirror, because of its shininess, is especially sensitive to any sort of contact (the movement of the surrounding air acts upon it like a rubbing or pressing or wiping); on that account, therefore, what is clean will show up clearly the slightest touch on its surface. It is hard to cleanse smudges off new mirrors because the stain penetrates deeply and is suffused to all parts; it penetrates deeply because the mirror is not a dense medium, and is suffused widely because of the smoothness of the object. On the other hand, in the case of old mirrors, stains do not remain because they do not penetrate deeply, but only smudge the surface.

dreams. shrug. dreams.

in addition to dreaming about discussing dreaming and having poor vision, i also started my day with someone telling me i do not suffer from a lack of sense of self. mispelling actually suggested more "cents of self" and i wanted to say i live richly. it is not so.

my life is good, better than many, and i feel blessed. and yet i can look at someone like myself, albeit younger and happier and see them say that life is beautiful and not feel truth resonating in me. how sad i have become.

at night i see streetlamps shining through trees and i think that simple things can be so unbearably beautiful. i don't have anyone to tell this to, at least anyone who will nod and hold me...dear for saying such a thing. at least anyone i've let within arm's reach. everyone i have let in has left.

i could open my arms to everyone and no one and write. i keep waiting to write until i am happy enough with the possibilty that no one is reading. i have a fear of bitterness.

i have a stronger fear of sadness. when i was seventeen my mother wanted to die, she has not been very happy ever since. i spent seven years not understanding what depression was, i thought it was sadness. i have spent five years knowing the difference between sadness and depression. i want to say it is like this:


and



but that seems too simple. it is hard to contemplate, and to look at. i do not want to be sad. i am, in fact, deathly afraid of it. afraid of it for myself and for its spoiling of all i hold dear. love has been the surefire way to turn my back on the gaping maw. when love goes awry i'm left alone with the mirror of rejection. i stare the maw in the face and wonder if i am staring down my own gullet and if this dark, silent scream caught far far back in my throat was somewhere behind my words of affection, my smiles and this reflection? no wonder they run.

why can't we know what people see when they look at us? some of us can. funny thing is i think those are the people that end up the most protected in life by others --the weak, the judged and the insecure, easily molded. while others have had such forces of persuasion at our disposal, bred possibly through the random happenstances of neglect, that no one bothered to create a version of us to hold up, show us, spoon feed with a bit of sugar added to ease the swallowing. instead we're out here, alone, struggling to make it up as we go along, waiting for the one person who sees the same thing. but perhaps, it seems, no one really likes looking into mirrors. it startles us into waking.

Monday, May 01, 2006

out there

i was wondering about the equation 1 picture = 1,000 words last night. i wanted to see what 1 picture that is worth 1,000 words looks like, and i wanted to compare it to 1,000 words. so i looked.

these pictures didn't strike me as particularly valuable. the only one i really like is a vintage postcard that says "the mysterians", which may or may not refer to this japanese film i think i'd like to see.

lacking pictures of worth, i wondered where "1,000 words" alone might take me. nowhere very exciting. drats.

ever persistent, i went looking for the origin of the phrase "a picture is worth 1,000 words". astonishingly, i haven't found it yet. i'll look in my books when i get home later tonight. feel free to elucidate me if you've got something handy.

how utterly unintriguing in its ubiquity is this phrase. the only point of interesting inquiry was my discovery, back in the image search, of this webpage about a course in heraldry. it says "the specialised vocabulary includes 1000 words, amongst them the most frequently used ones. The interest in heraldics lies within the vast poetic nature of the language, but also in the illustrations." i never knew there was a whole heraldic language, and here we find a fitting bridge between words and pictures. i wonder if this language has only 1000 words, and if this explains our phrase. but i doubt it.

it's ever so hard for me to accept not finding what i've been looking for.

so in lieu of nothing, here's an observation i made after searching on ["a picture is worth a 1,000 words"+word origins]: people everywhere are wondering if there is intelligent life out there.

why is the first search return looking for the origin of this phrase a link to this contest: "AlienAlmanac.com is sponsoring your written or artistic depiction of the Neilans and their first six months on Earth."?

why is another search return this very strange thing, which i believe might be called a story, bearing the title: "After Eve [Conte Philosophique] Part One (Chapter One): The First Ballad"? there's atlantis, aliens, gilgamesh and the garden of eden (oh and demigods) waiting for you if you choose to go there.

aliens, once twice and thrice. hmmm.

i like how aliens appear in the song "diner girls" by
ill lit. one of my favorite songs by what may be my favorite band. i like this reference because it notes that the "aliens, they're coming for us. and yes, we're aliens, they're only part of us. well, aliens will eat the heart of us, my baby."

exactly my sentiments and perfectly on point with why i've never been particularly concerned with life out there. there's so much intelligent life right here. last time i checked, you were here too. do you understand why i hate it when people say things like "good luck out there"?

Q: am i the only that notices the noticing of loneliness components?
A: thankfully, no.

drowning in meaning

"semiotic fluid"

these two words came together in my head this morning. i think they glanced at each other during that time i spend each morning sleeping in 9 minute increments trying to repeat any pleasant dreams. i was riding the bus and looking at the lake when they decided to really give it a go as a couple. of course then i was just hoping a special spam with both of them would be waiting for me in my inbox so i could use the phrase in a poem.

Q: what does wendy do when words mate in her mind?
A: she investigates other minds that had the same thought.

Q: does wendy enjoy employing the third person?
A: sometimes.

[aside: "(Keep Feeling) Fascination" by The Human League is annoying in its repetition, rather hard to make any real sense of, and yet I like it immensely when the deep voice says "and so the conversation turned until the sun went down, and many fantasies were heard on that day."]

i'll trust you're competent enough to go to google or some such place and search on "semiotic fluid" if you're really that interested in all of the results. in the meantime, here are the two that intrigued me the most.

(1)
there's an article [citation: Milburn, Colin "Nano/Splatter: Disintegrating the Postbiological Body" New Literary History - Volume 36, Number 2, Spring 2005, pp. 283-311 The Johns Hopkins University Press] which you cannot read online. i can because i hobknob with librarians. if you ever need a full text academic article, give a ring to your local library. if you'd like to read this particular article let me know. i haven't read it yet but i found the instance of my words:

"Splatter," in the vocabulary of literary and cinematic horror, has come to refer to a representational moment in which the human body is violently torn asunder, shredded, sliced, hacked, dismembered, melted, and transformed, splattered as semiotic fluid into ghastly forms of monstrous abjection. As the defining motif of "splatterpunk" fictionrepresented by the wettest productions of auteurs such as Clive Barker, Poppy Z. Brite, John Shirley, Edward Lee, George Romero, Lucio Fulci, David Cronenberg, and Peter Jacksonsplatter is the figural mechanism through which narratives of "extreme horror" create meaning: in these texts, "mutilation is the message." By disrupting the body's boundaries and the social codes adhering to them, splatter viciously unsettles the economies of corporealization, and Jay McRoy has argued that at the moment of splatter, the "spectacular and graphic deconstruction/transformation of the 'human' form" enacts a radical revision of normative embodiment, suggesting possibilities of somatic experience other than those encountered in the historical accident of human morphology. Or, as Judith Halberstam has written, the bodies that "emerge triumphant at the gory conclusion of a splatter film are literally posthuman, they punish the limits of the human body and they mark identities as always stitched, sutured, bloody at the seams, and completely beyond the limits and the reaches of an impotent humanism.

this is pretty darn interesting to me given i've spent the past two years focusing most of my film watching on cronenberg, giallo (italian horror genre), and miike(japanese horror director) films. neat coincidence, and for now unfathomable.

(2)
there's something called the "book of knots" which is the manual for an RPG (role-playing game if you're not as familiar with nerds as am i) called Wonderland based on the writings of lewis carroll. i find myself musing about the writings of lewis carroll often. i cannot plumb this manual's text well enough to find my "semiotic fluid", if you do please let me know. i did glance at the secret history of the end of the universe. i did brush against the person known as the clear widow and wonder if i am she. i saw the words We Know It is Called The Department of Works in bold and was reminded of the book "the third policeman" and the movie "the falls" in a pleasant fashion. i noted the words "vacuum" and "common sense". but the only thing that grabbed me for more than a few pages was a sidebar about the caretakers. lesson learned: sidebars have sticking power. i believe that everything that follows references back to Caretakers. as a frame of reference, i believe everyone that alice meets in her adventure is considered a Caretaker. i believe that humans meet Caretakers during their "descent", and that this is known as The Royal Drama. are you ready?

A caretaker is
Mad
Because he sees the world, not
as it is but as he wishes it would
be. And for millions and millions
of years, the world has bent to
conform to his delusions.
The Eye of the Storm
Because she believes herself
to be physical thing, while her
infl uence roars around her,
corrupting, perverting, and
degrading everything within her
sphere.
Munifi cent
Because he has everything he
could ever desire and yet can
still be bigger by demonstrating
his largess.
A Petty Bastard
Because she knows she has
limits and they make her furious
and when she sees weakness and
mortality in others it reminds of
things that she hates in herself.
Paradoxes with Opposing Poles
Each Caretaker is obsessed
with something and repelled by
something else. Sometimes these
are polar opposites. Sometimes
these are the same things. And
these things are represent deep,
universal truths that would be
enlightening if one could see
through the
pageantry, rage, and distortion.
The Queen of Hearts has
sacrifi ced millions upon the altar
of the rules, but violates their
spirit with every psychotic deed.
The Duchess of Knots is
ensnared in storm of
maddening change and
tumultuous chaos, but
sponsors a massive, dark
bureaucracy whose rules and
bylaws and dusty fi les consign
those caught in its grip to stasis.
The Liebrarian worships the
sanctity of truth, while residing
over an infi nite collection of
blasphemy and perversity. She
seeks ordinal mastery over
the un-ordered and cardinal
understanding of the unnumbered.
She is a keeper of
knowledge so wrapped in lies, it
provides uncertainty.
Darker things less human rule
over chasms dedicated mirth that
are fi lled with weeping.
The Factory is, in itself the
means of production the
engines of capitalism, but they
vomit up resources without
scarcity: the utopian dream.
Full of Hatred
In a refi ned, civilized way, they
hate everything, and it gnaws at
them.

well, that's about it.

Friday, April 14, 2006

woe-illumed rabbit holes

there's a lot swirling around in here. let's say it began yesterday morning when i was riding the bus and i had a thought about motherhood. real motherhood, and possibly my first real thought about motherhood as creation. i simply thought what if i am on my deathbed and i find myself regretting that i've left nothing behind? assuming i never produce anything real and lasting in the way of art, and assuming i never end up going through with the "easiest" creation of another life, will i sit at the threshhold between here and something else and find myself feeling remorse at having left nothing behind to remember me by? i know this is a common fear and a common reason people choose to have children. i'm not sure it is a concern of mine now in the common way, i am just wondering how it would feel to get to the point of no return and realize something you never knew you wanted has been left undone.



it continued when, last night, i went out for drinks and meaningful conversation with two older women. amazing, smart, accomplished, childless and currently single older women. conversations such as this always leave me feeling affirmed and fearful of my future. [an aside: have you ever had those moments where you feel like some sort of deep transformation was supposed to have taken place but the routines of your life sink in before anything seems to change?] during the conversation, i blurted out how i needed always in my life to have at least one arena where i was able to hold onto my ideals and my romantic allusions or i would resort to heavy substance abuse. they pushed my martini glass away from me. i laughed but i think i was speaking the truth. when every ounce of my innocence or faith is squelched, i think something bad may happen. innocence and faith are thoughtfully vague and interchangeable words.

by stealing the image directly above i have justified the consumption of my first born child.
all of the images in today's blog post were arrived at by image-searching on the word "unadulterated". i've been chewing on that word since i used it in a poem yesterday.
SYLLABICATION: a·dul·ter·ate
TRANSITIVE VERB:Inflected forms: a·dul·ter·at·ed, a·duter·at·ing, a·dul·ter·ates
To make impure by adding extraneous, improper, or inferior ingredients.
ADJECTIVE:Spurious; adulterated. 2. Adulterous.
ETYMOLOGY: Latin adulterre, adultert-, to pollute
i suppose this all means i don't want to entirely grow up. i was also very adult as a young child. now i'm thinking about all my life being about meeting somewhere in the middle, and this rings some bell in my head. a bell that is tied to a string which seemingly, in my mind, has a ribbon of text re-minding me of Alice in Wonderland. so off to google i have gone, and here's what i've found:
"Food: Food is the used in this novel as a metaphor for growth. Carroll is literalizing the old notion that food helps you grow big and strong, that food is the path to adulthood. Ironically, Carroll is also pointing out that growing up is only half the way to adulthood. Alice can control her size and therefore her position as an adult with the food provided by the Caterpillar, but it isn't until the Cheshire Cat shows her the dangers of adulthood that she is able to be truly adult. Food can make you big in Wonderland (as in life) but only mercy and experience can make you wise.

Red: Red is the symbol of adulthood (literally it can be taken to refer to menstrual blood, and thus fertility and vigor). The Queen and Alice are on opposite sides of this color, Alice just growing into her adulthood, the Queen just growing past it. It is over this place, this wise middle ground, that the novel fights. Red is, hopefully, a place (or an age) of balance between rules and mercy, between young and old, between wisdom and nonsense."
there's an article about Alice and Wonderland and the Shroud of Turin that also appeared in my results. it is Easter weekend. happy easter if it is a happy time for you.