I Love You Something

This Blog Has Moved Something

2011-04-16T19:27:00.000-07:00

This blog now has another permanent location. Older entries on this site will remain, but please go to the new site for future updates and blog posts. Thank you!

Go there now: I Love You Something Dot Com

Technical Misunderstandings

2011-03-27T16:12:00.000-07:00

So I got a Google Voice account about a year ago. One of its features is that when someone leaves you a voice mail, it will automatically try to transcribe it for you. But Google Voice doesn't know that my parents are speaking Cantonese. So its transcriptions of their messages turn out to be quite entertaining:

Mom (cell): When our mom. He did not send a deadly man planned to do that. They that happy that they might be Hall I. I don't know. Bye bye.

Here is the audio:

Interestingly, she actually said the English word "plan" in that message, but in the form of "planning" not "planned". She also ended her message with the English "bye bye", which Google was able to transcribe correctly. I don't know about this whole deadly man business, though. What are you trying to tell me, Mom?

Mom (cell): Way it out. I'll email and I like that. They they Lisa. If you have about the he had bought the house. I need to have dot, com The. Online. I don't know the phone.

Mom (cell): Hey, if you got busy. My whole life. I cut them. I had a AT from, so on. So in case on and so being from anything on Sunday. So on a thing on the bye bye.

Mom (cell): Maria, pack and I've been on my last. I owe you guys. Okay so my ass a whole. It's on 7 May, lem. I'm 050. I think I'm gonna have to get the not off right there on time on Monday at home today. I'm with us on the hope upon the tower on the mould and everything like that feed off, i'm just towel, so now I'm doing fine looked out it without it up so my god bless. Bye bye.

I started not answering the phone on purpose when my mom called, just to see the transcriptions of her messages and the weird poetry I could get from them.

Mom (cell): May not on the the garbage in my life. The by, that if I don't know. I got bye.

Mom (cell): Went on on it, but I thought the most central data and just well it off, but I'm not goodbye.

Dad (cell): Right. Jimmy Jimmy about not ready. Lila if you got a phone call and give me a joke and bye bye.

Mom (cell): Hello hello hello. All of that on mon. Hey Dad, It's me back bye bye bye hey there. Bye bye bye hi.

Mom (cell): Hey my mom and I'm A, I don't tell you not be able to 1,000 I intended. I expected to see if I don't know if you don't mind it is not the Done. Hi. The. I think that the other thing is that they they said they liked homa la. Simon lack of my house I. I hope that you got it. I have but it's about 510. I'm on my cat harness is 11 films talk to them so important. How fine. A Hi Donna, hey Chinese. Anyway, talk to you at the intended. Hello. I'm not. Bye bye.

Mom (cell): The maximum 10 the Martha. Or might be a M. One last question and some.

Mom (cell): Yes, and on it and I hope that I'm not yet they got it in my on, Hey Jimmy, Lo. Bye.

That last one was weird, because it interpreted something which sounded nothing like "Hey Jimmy, Lo" as "Hey Jimmy, Lo" and why the hell would it think that she said that? Jimmy Lo is my name. So does Google Voice just think that my mom would say my name at this point? Probably Google guesses things based on what it knows about me so things sounding even remotely like my name would probably be guessed as my name. But yeah, weird. Here is the audio of that message:

Mom (cell): Rachel not they come out Sunday and I'm gonna with anyone. They are be 45. Okay, see you about the Monty Hall feedback on the can do. A message that part of it might be in my mouth. I will talk to you or that was the one here are you standing there. I don't know. Bye bye.

Dad (cell): Gimme a. So go ahead. I'm gonna. Thank you. Hi.

Dad (cell): Jimmy call back. Looks good about other.

Mom (cell): Hello. Indiana. You don't have it in my our deadline little now. Bye bye.

Dad (cell): Jimmy, bye bye. Something tells me that and envelope. We're going to have a lot, so you guys are going to send this is the last.

Dad (cell): David about where if you're not gonna behind and stop by pick up the most and that.

Mom (cell): Went along with the S E dot baby are doing on our. I know it by E. I'm on my photo. Yeah savings say bye Walton face. I don't think I found.

Dad (cell): Gary about list from Google, and maybe we can. I love. Pre-approved.

One thing you should probably know is that when it says "Jimmy" at the beginning of these transcripts, that actually is my parents calling me that. They call me by my English name Jimmy sometimes, and sometimes by my Chinese name "Nam Nam". Although in one of those messages up there it transcribed it as "Gimme". Also, my dad doesn't leave as many messages as my mom, and generally when he does, he doesn't say as much. Also, interesting that Google thinks my Dad said "Google" when he said no such thing.

Mom (cell): My name is that may be right. So iPods all but in Idaho and good luck and I. You'll you'll be available date I thought. I hope goes all the with the light up pen back, almost, William comes up and I don't know the new vehicle Golden Gate Dr. So. I'm sorry if I don't know. Hi will give up on it and coming in front of a going fine, I don't know and I thought I'd see if I think. Yeah. Bye bye.

Dad (cell): Okay, I got a lot. Bye bye Seattle purebred haven't bye.

Mom (cell): Bye and I'm dating my last night and hung up. Goodbye.

Mom (cell): Hello help wanted a lot. Bye. Hello testing process. Hello. All, Hello okay. Okay, bye bye.

Mom (cell): Hey. Hello, Well hello.

Mom (cell): The dear. I might be back or what but think about it bye bye.
Mom (cell): Bye, hey i hall. Hey the, well, the telephone with voice up so case with the potluck. Does that sit down with such a fun in fact and where you left. So, is the third party. My not. Bye bye.

Mom (cell): But it on them. I just want to go. It is doing that on something or not it at and Brendan refund that the most. I did lose so I'm glad to drive you know it is man. Bye Daisy's night Sunday that if I miss him on my side. Hey, Chucky, and I've put all I get a basement. At this the program. And I said, I guess I need to know if I I got the reply.

Mom (cell): Waiting on on the history I hit him. Hey, Linda gate and I wanted to see and tell him that bye bye.

Dad (cell): Thank you, that they are doing well and It's other. Do not call her. Hello.

Unfortunately, at this point Google must have changed their algorithm. Now it won't transcribe anything that it recognizes is in another language. Instead, it just says "Unable to transcribe this message." How lame!

Yesterday, I received a voice mail from a computer automated system from Kaiser Permanente. Google Voice took the call and transcribed it. The idea of Google (a computer) transcribing what Kaiser (a computer voice) was saying made my head go in loop de loop circles, but also seemed very poignant. The machine miscommunicating with the machine. Here is what Google transcribed:

Kaiser: Hello Yeah, this is Kaiser Permanente, you calling for you. Yang. Hello we're calling to share some important information, to help make sure you're getting the most out of your new benefits. Yeah, he's call us back yo free. Yeah one. Yeah. 877. You re 57. Yeah 7626. Again, your number is 1. Yeah. 877. You re 57. Yeah 7626. Thank you for your time. And remember. Today is a good day to thrive. Bye bye.

And here is the audio:

Why did Google keep thinking Kaiser was saying 'Yeah'?

The Moscow Dogs

2011-03-05T20:15:00.001-08:00

"the silence will begin full of dogs" —Julio Cortázar

I've been reading articles on the web about this phenomenon in Moscow. Apparently there is a steady population of stray dogs in Moscow who have evolved several different survival strategies. Some primarily hunt mice and other animals, some scavenge for food in dumpsters. But there is one group of strays in particular who have learned how to navigate the city. Every day they commute into the city via the subway. They know when to get on and when to get off the trains, moving alongside humans, and once in the city they know how to cross the street by waiting for the pedestrian light to turn green. They've also developed a very intuitive sense of who to beg for food and who to leave alone. Here is a good story about it (but the first part about the crazy woman (though interesting) is kind of distracting to the main point which is how amazing these dogs are): Moscow's Stray Dogs: Exiled or Admired?

Favorite Books Read in 2010

2011-01-01T13:00:00.001-08:00

(full reviews of all these books can be found on my Goodreads page)

NONFICTION

The Shadow of the Sun by Ryszard Kapu?ci?ski
in which Ryszard shows us Africa around the end of colonialism (not that it ever ends). He makes it a great read as it is satisfying in many ways: as history, as memoir, as anthropology, and as travel writing.

Kabloona by Gontran de Poncins
in which Gontran, being French, and the year being 1938, travels to arctic Canada to study the Eskimos and writes this piece of anthropological gem, both interesting as a study of his whitey attitudes and as a study of the local population and their strange habits. This one is special, people… a highly entertaining book.

Broadsides from Other Orders: A Book of Bugs by Sue Hubbell
in which each chapter is lovingly dedicated to explaining away one little critter, often as common as the daddy longlegs or the less heard-of camel cricket which I'm sure lives in your basement as we speak, although "explain away" is inaccurate as there's still so much we just don't know about them.

ALMOST NON-FICTION

Emigrants by W.G. Sebald
Austerlitz by W.G. Sebald
Vertigo by W.G. Sebald
in which Winfried Georg, being German, being inscrutable, lulls me into deep meditative conversation in which I stop caring what is being talked about. He often writes from a very serious place, of memory and architecture and place; his fiction is a combination of essay, memoir, old photos, and a lot of walking.

I Love Dick by Chris Kraus
in which Chris and husband decide to woo an acquaintance, Dick, by writing him love letters. This novel, which is obviously thinly veiled nonfiction, soon leads to a series of postmodern investigations taking the form of epistolary novel, feminist manifesto, art criticism, tell-all memoir, critical theory, personal essay, and diary. Bonus: makes for great reading in the men's locker room.

FICTION

Recollections of Things to Come by Elena Garro
in which magical realism was written before magical realism was even defined. And oh she does it so well, so much better than mr. marquez. This story, a political one but not in an annoying way, is told by the town itself. It is a devastating story, and one that made me read nonstop.

The Confusions of Young Törless by Robert Musil
in which you will think it is another coming of age boarding school novel, but this one searches so deeply it reminds me of Rilke's poetry, in its ability to wrestle with the most complex spiritual, philosophical, and psychological themes.

Go Tell It On the Mountain by James Baldwin
in which Fate smiled down on me and told me I had to read it as the copy I bought for $5 in Chicago was SIGNED by JB himself with the note: "for Jimmy or be that James". A novel about religion but also about many things, he goes down deep into the empathy of every character and the result is powerful.

The Summer Book by Tove Jansson
Sun City by Tove Jansson
in which Ms. Jansson writes about childhood and old age with equal skill and a light touch; this writing serves its function without an ounce of fat. The episodic tales unwind around flawed yet human and lovable characters.

The Time of the Doves by Mercè Rodoreda
in which she writes about devastation in a series of incremental impressions from a naive character, but one whose grief, though she doesn't understand it herself, also catches the reader by surprise.

Skylark by Dezs? Kosztolányi
in which a very ugly daughter and her parents have their routines disrupted when said ugly daughter leaves to visit a relative. A funny, sad book.

Pan by Knut Hamsun
in which Mr. Hamsun outdoes his own masterpiece Hunger, having written here an even better, more complex portrait of the mind's infatuation and raw feverish irrationality.

SHORT FICTION

Selected Prose of Heinrich von Kleist
in which so much is merciless and violent, and the people in these stories, poor things, are moved around by cosmic forces into monsters without their knowing it, swept up in the reconfiguration like a bit of bread in the bowels. The Marquise of O… in particular is one of the best stories I've ever read.

Errata Slip (a found poem)

2010-10-11T15:14:00.000-07:00

Page 32, line 3	Insert comma after come
Page 44, line 16	veer and strut and saunter for veers and struts and saunters
Page 51, line 17	exciting for existing
Page 52, line 6	Delete a
Page 53, line 14	shifty for shift
Page 53, line 17	effulgent for efflugent

The light in my bathroom

2010-09-28T06:08:00.000-07:00

"It is in the realm of the abstract that the more important things happen in these times, and it is the unimportant that happens in real life." - RM

Free Poems Blog

2010-09-20T08:57:00.001-07:00

For those of you who enjoyed my last post here, please note that Free Poems on Demand now has its own blog (as it is becoming its own thing, with multiple events), so I will not be writing anymore about that project here.

Write-up: FREE POEM Days

2010-09-13T21:34:00.000-07:00

FREE POEMS ON DEMAND was a success at the Decatur Book Festival. We collectively wrote more than 100 poems over two days on topics as diverse as: "neon broken arm", "cannibalism", "how to tell your grandmother you're pregnant", and "wow!"

Participants included: me, Jeff Dahlgren, Zac Denton, John Selvidge, Mary Richardson, Michele Rozga, Allison & Ping Pong, and a random stranger who wanted to try her hand at it (she wrote a good poem about "corners").

I got out there around 3PM and wrote nonstop until 8PM. Various people joined me in the task throughout the day. I found these sales slips at Wal-mart that let you write things on the top sheet and it will transfer to the carbon copy on the bottom. We used these sometimes to get an instant copy of the poems we wrote for people. The pad had 50 sheets, but we ran out of sheets about half-way through.

Some people asked for silly topics like Hippopotamus. But some people, you can really tell they needed a poem to get through whatever they were going through. You got to learn a lot about people sometimes, like the woman who asked for a poem about "the end of an affair". Or the older man who asked very genuinely for a poem about "hope".

Those vague words are the hardest to write, (we got "hope", "true love", "life", "determination", "perseverance"). There's an impulse to undercut the subject with cleverness, but if the person looks like they really meant it, then you don't want to do that. You want to write a genuine sincere poem about hope. Now, all you ironic poets out there can smirk all you want, but that is fucking hard.

Overall, though, writing instant poems is fun and easy. It's much easier than writing a real poem simply because nobody expects a good poem to be written in 5 minutes. So if you write a bad poem, that's par for the course. If you write a mediocre poem, that's considered wonderful, fantastic! This way of thinking about it really freed me up to write whatever crap came into my head.

I got so many encouraging responses. One woman even said she will frame it on the wall, and some just said thanks over and over again. One boy said "thanks, i really like it" then later "It's really a good poem". He was so sweet.

Some people had special requirements for their poem. Like this following one, in which I was instructed to include the words turquoise, sun, detritus, monkey, fresh-cocoonut, chanting, hand-spun, and moon:

Turquoise and blue, natural colors
filling up the stream. Nearby
detritus ends up in Detroit
where the monkeys wear suits,
teleconferencing. But here, only
the din of traffic reaches me
as I crack fresh coconuts,
drinking its contents, its
flesh regards me, chanting.
The clouds look hand-spun,
custom made for the moon.

Many people asked for personalized poems, dedicated to someone. Like this one for Elsa, who just turned 2½:

Ode to Elsa and fingers
and O's where Elsa steps
and sunshine swings Elsa's mom
to Elmo here and Elsa there
does hops with Elsa's hair
here there and everywhere Elsa.

And this one for Grant who his father claims never listens to anyone. His father gave me a $10 tip for this poem!

A book of poems
for Grant who doesn't listen.
Nobody listens, though, right?
Grant is listening now
just because. He likes
to talk the big talk.
Talking is when words
come out of your mouth.
Grant is a big boy
so big words come out of
his big mouth. Everything
is quiet now. Silent night.
Perfect opportunity.

It is hard to resist the urge to revise these now. A tweak here or there could make it so much less cringe-worthy, but then again I have to remember it is not about the poems, but the process.

I thought writing poems for 5 hours straight would exhaust me but it just kind of put me in this weird state of mind. At the end of the first day, I was a little bit ecstatic. The second day was less busy, but my mind was also less fresh.

There were many people who wanted to know who we were. "Are you poets?". A lot of interest in Eyedrum was generated from these encounters as well. I thought above all that it was really good for cloistered experimental poets to do this as a way to get out of our own headspace a little. We complain that nobody reads our poems, but I've been surprised by the amount of receptiveness that most people have shown.

There was also someone who asked, unbelievingly, "do you use some kind of template, or formula". No, we don't. That would defeat the whole purpose. If the purpose was to always safely hand the audience a pretty good poem, then that would be a good strategy. But the purpose was to challenge ourselves to go outside of our comfort zones, to risk writing that bad poem, writing 50 bad poems. No, we didn't have a formula or a strategy, and that can be why it's such an awful project or an awesome project, depending on which end of the lens you're looking through

We're thinking about doing it again sometime soon. We need to find a place with a lot of foot traffic in Atlanta, maybe L5P or East Atlanta Village… or Piedmont Park. It would be nice to get a totally different crowd, to see how different the experience is.

Much thanks to Eyedrum Lit Committee for being open to this idea, and to Bill and Amy and the Seen Gallery for opening up their space for us.

Time of the Doves

2010-07-31T05:18:00.001-07:00

I read this book for the Spotlight Series (which puts the spotlight on small press publishers by having bloggers read and review a book by a small press that they have chosen to feature for that month. The current spotlight is on Graywolf Press).

Time of the Doves
by Mercè Rodoreda

"And as he was talking he'd run his fingernail along the crack in the table and dig out breadcrumbs that had gotten stuck there, and it seemed strange to me that he'd do something I did sometimes but that he'd never seen me do."

This book is about the experience of something big in the body of something small, small as a woman named Natalia. Because all big experiences, even marriage, even children, even war, even despair—because all of these big things are also little things, or it comes one little thing at a time—doves and eggs and the name Colometta or the smell of hydrochloric acid.

And though something big can be forgotten, can be silenced, can be inside deep like termites going from inside out instead of outside in, something small like blue lights or a cork or a picture of some lobsters, they stay with you in tiny shards just quiet-like. This book is about how to forget them.

"I'd learned to read and write and my mother'd gotten me used to wearing white clothes. I'd learned to read and write and I sold pastries and candy and chocolates and bonbons filled with liqueurs. And I could walk through the streets like a human being surrounded by other human beings. I'd learned to read and write and waited on people and helped them…"

All these small things are like a cork to stop up the big things but the big things get through anyway. The things not said, because it's too painful, or simply because our narrator is not very eloquent. She's in-eloquent not because she's stupid but because she's not totally aware of her feelings, at least through most of the novel. But that doesn't mean she's not able to move you, the reader, all the more for it.

So that's what this book felt like—just tiny experiences that slowly build up, with a whirlwind of characters and things and thoughts all written in a style that seems slightly dizzying because the sentences are long but not complicated, they are long in the way a Frank O'Hara poem is long, where you run out of breath by the end of the sentence with that inexplicable breathless urgency.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book and was glad that Spotlight on Small Presses gave me the extra nudge in the rear-end to finally read this wonderful Graywolf Press book (since it was already on my "to read" list).

Lay hold of that symbol

2010-06-12T12:49:00.000-07:00

September 15th, 1917

“You have the chance as far as it is at all possible, to make a new beginning. Don’t throw it away. If you insist on digging deep into yourself you won’t be able to avoid the muck that will well up. But don’t wallow in it. If the infection in your lungs is only a symbol, as you say, a symbol of the infection whose inflammation is called X and whose depth is it’s own deep justification, if this is so, then the medical advice (light, sun, rest) is also a symbol. Lay hold of that symbol.”

from Kafka's Diary

2666

2010-05-03T09:56:00.001-07:00

Reading 2666 is like trying to appreciate the Sistine Chapel from up close. I wanted constantly to step back in order to get some bigger-picture perspective, and because it is so hard to do this with a work of literature (basically you have to contain the whole thing in your mind and try to imagine it from afar) it makes certain sections (let's say almost all of it) frustrating, or slightly unsatisfying. But by the end, you start to see some connections, though they are not simple connections. It is more like a feeling of a worldview, than any kind of easy conclusion. If there is any big picture, it is very hard to encapsulate without trying to re-tell the whole thing. Or drawing rather meaningless diagrams, as I have done below:

This makes sense to me, even though I feel like I'm still leaving out a whole bunch, and even though it might not make any sense to anyone else.

I don't think it is a great novel, although I think its strongest point is creating an internal logic so full that it approaches madness. I think the book lacks some basic things like joy, humor (there was humor, but not the type of humor that sustains one in the act of reading), and characterization. The people in the book seem flat and do not develop; they are almost like chess pieces Bolaño uses to illustrate his points. On the plus side, the book is unlike any other book I've read and its strengths are very different from those that I'm used to. I feel that this is a very difficult book to think about in terms of "good" or "bad". I honestly did not enjoy reading most of it, but I did feel compelled to continue. There is a sense that I am not immersed in the novel's world, but am only reading a synopsis of 'what happens', almost like reading a list of ingredients. There is something enticing about lists to me, perhaps that's why I kept reading.

2666 Group Read Experience:

I was excited to read 2666 partially because of the Group Read aspect. I like that there is not one forum for discussion, but rather everyone uses their own modes (whether it be twitter, blogs, forums, GoodReads, etc.). But while I found a lot of interesting perspectives, the book seems so open-ended that I started to not really get too much out of these perspectives, but instead felt an overwhelming sense of becoming a book-hermit. This book especially, while going outward, has a spiraling down and inwards feeling to me, akin to becoming slightly insane and illogical. What I didn't expect was that I liked not explaining or reading others explanations the more I got into the book, and felt a sense of guardedness towards the experience of reading rather than an expansion outwards. My gut feeling is that this would have been different with another book. I can't explain why. I remember after finishing The Brothers Karamazov, that I wished to discuss it with people. But with this book, I didn't have that feeling at all. Partly, I think any discussion of this book—which seems to have an infinite number of nodes for making connections—would be at least 80% bullshit, but maybe that's the cynic in me speaking.

The Bus Stop

2010-04-30T08:52:00.000-07:00

Another great Radiolab podcast. It's not one of their hour-long shows; this one is just under 15 minutes and is well worth listening to. It hits close to home for me because my recent trip to Hong Kong was partially to visit my grandfather, who now lives in an old folk's home. His memory is almost gone now, though he has good days and bad days. He acts like a quiet child, and is very fond of eating. At night, they have to tie him up because he often gets up to steal food from the kitchen, and his balance is not well, so he could easily fall.

Festival

2010-04-25T04:14:00.000-07:00

Festival celebration footage I shot in Hong Kong.

Micro Texts

2010-04-11T08:15:00.001-07:00

Working on a visual poetry project with the help of Nisa Asokan and her microscope. Here are some of the images we captured from household items.

Law Less Ness

2010-03-10T10:51:00.000-08:00

I'm in love...

On Usefulness

2010-02-23T06:34:00.000-08:00

Is 2666 a useful book? I set out to test its usefulness last night when I used one of the recipes provided in the Part About Fate, when Mr. Seaman preaches about usefulness to his congregation. And I quote:

I see lots of fat people in this church, he said. I suspect few of you eat green vegetables. maybe now is the time for a recipe. The name of the recipe is: Brussels Sprouts with Lemon. Take note, please. Four servings calls for: two pounds of brussels sprouts, juice and zest of one lemon, one onion, one sprig of parsley, three tablespoons of butter, black pepper, and salt. You make it like so. One: Clean sprouts well and remove outer leaves. Finely chop onion and parsley. Two: In a pot of salted boiling water, cook sprouts for twenty minutes, or until tender. Then drain well and set aside. Three: Melt butter in frying pan and lightly saute onion, add zest and juice of lemon and salt and pepper to taste. Four: Add brussels sprouts, toss with sauce, reheat for a few minutes, sprinkle with parsley, and serve with lemon wedges on the side. So good you’ll be licking your fingers, said Seaman. No cholesterol, good for the liver, good for the blood pressure, very healthy.

Verdict: Yes, 2666 is indeed a very useful book. I was able to make the above dish without too much effort. Although I had some brussel sprouts lately that were much more delicious, it would probably not be fair to compare the usefulness of 2666 with a proper recipe book. The ones I made last night were also very good, slightly lemony and oniony, although my stomach felt a bit weird after eating way too much of it.

I'm not the first one to do this, I found another blog post and their photos look much more fingerlicking than mine :)

The Part About Amalfitano

2010-02-15T09:15:00.000-08:00

There's a Group Read going on for the book 2666, and I've been following along on the forums and stuff, but here is my first blog post about it. I've never read Bolano before and I find it alternating between engaging and frustrating. Often, I have no idea what he is trying to get at mainly because there is just so much there. He throws so much at the book (it is 900 pages long) that it seems inevitable to make connections, but are the connections really there? Or is it just the result of there being so much there?

I kept most of my comments on The Part About the Critics on the forums or to myself, but here are a few things I noticed about the Part About Amalfitano (please excuse the messiness of these notes)

Parallels with Part 1: Right off we start in a similar territory as part 1. Instead of the critics going from Europe to Latin America to look for Archimboldi, we have Lola going to ??? looking for the poet. Interesting: Amalfitano says there is no way she really met him since he introduced him to her. So (knowing this) the long passages where she writes of meeting him and making love to him at a party read to me almost like one of the dream sequences. Also: parallel with part 1 in that a woman (Lola in part 2, Norton in part 1) is leaving/abandoning a man (or 2 men, in part 1) and writing to him/them from the new location.

What strikes me about these looking-for-a-writer scenes: these people don't know who they are, and they are invested in this other thing that defines them, because they can't define themselves. The critics write ABOUT Archimboldi's writings. It seems like a modern condition Bolano is highlighting, wherein people's identity is so lost and so caught up and dependent on others... but it's dependent on others not in a close-knit-community kind of way... there is a very ego-centric, selfish neediness in their searches and reliance on some kind of literary hero.

Character notes: we know so little about these characters... who is Lola and what is her background, why did she suddenly leave so mysteriously? Who is Imma and what is her motivation for going along with Lola? We know very little about Amalfitano, though this section is about him... it gave him a page or two and then went head first into Lola's adventures. Only later in the section do we get more into his head. Also: Lola is an interesting choice of name... traditionally Lola is a name of a prostitute or a drag queen... just based on many songs with the name Lola in it... I've actually thought about this before encountering the name here. It's interesting here considering Lola's relationship with the poet is through sex, and also how she implicitly allowed the guy who hangs out at the cemetery to pay her for sex.

Stylistic notes: why is part 2 suddenly devoid of paragraph breaks? Except in the last page, where Yeltsin speaks in the dream to him, that is the only paragraph break.

"Madness is contagious"

Neighbor's fort-like walls w/ broken glass on top. This part compares Amalfitano to a medieval lord. I found this metaphor kind of curious, and out of nowhere, but Bolano returns to it a few times.

A quote:

Anyway, these ideas or feelings or ramblings had their satisfactions. They named the pain of others into memories of one's own. They turned pain, which is natural, enduring, and eternally triumphant, into personal memory, which is human, breif, and eternally elusive. They turned a brutal story of injustice and abuse, an incoherent howl with no beginning or end, into a neatly structured story in which suicide was always held out as a possibility. They turned flight into freedom, even if freedom meant no more than the perpetuation of flight. They turned chaos into order, even if it was at the cost of what is commonly known as sanity.

p. 189. If you didn't know he was talking about Amalfitano's ideas on jet lag, you'd think he was talking about the role of novels like 2666 here.

Testamento geometrico:

"three books 'each independent, but functionally correlated by the sweep of the whole'" (sounds like 2666, with its 5 independent parts)

"the friends' last names had been printed in capitals while the name of the man being honored was in small letters." (ego? sounds familiar to the Critics)

Book hanging on line = symbolism too much? i.e. literature meets the elements/real world. For those of you wondering, yes I did hang 2666 on the clothesline in the photo above. It seemed a good tribute.

"We're not animals" Rosa says, about the book hanging on line

"I take it back" p 191, weird rhetorical device here. Anyone get this?

Random thought: I think Bolano is trying to say you can look to art and literature for your answers all you like, you can worship art and forget what you were looking there for to begin with, you can become a professor of literature and scrutinize a piece of text for years, you can even follow the writer, the originator of the art, the questions, but there are some things--in the real world--that you can never understand. (like the murders)

chincuales - 1 flea or bedbug bites 2 a restless scratcher 3 a restless mind

Books It is interesting that in the first part about the critics, we don't get any sense what Archimboldi's books are like. And yet in the second part, we get the nitty gritty of 2 books Amalfitano is reading. At least more nitty gritty than the ones mentioned in part 1. The book on Araucanians is described in detail in terms of how Amalfitano is reading it, and I found especially interesting his imagination while reading it, imagining even scenes of the writer trying to publish the book and get a discount (which goes into this region of is-it-imagined or did-it-really-happen-this way). p224. The other book of course is the geometry book, which he hangs out in the elements (also a way of reading?). And which pervades his thoughts in a totally different way, perhaps influencing him to draw geometrical shapes with names of thinkers at different intersections of these diagrams. Maybe Bolano is highlighting the way Amalfitano is "reading" these books and how it is different and unconventional compared to the way the critics are reading their books (which aren't even worth mentioning in depth). Perhaps Amalf. is the active reader as envisioned by Cortazar, and referenced on p. 224. And then he goes on to imagine Kilipan to have not existed at all, he imagines him as all these other people writing under the name Kilipan. This person who was just made so real to us a second ago by the same imagination.

Young Guerra:
Not sure what I think of this yet. Or how he fits in. He's a little off his rocker. But then so is Amalfitano. Is it just 2 ways of being mad/dealing? Lola was a little mad too.

Naw! Thee!

2010-02-07T08:04:00.000-08:00

I found this postcard yesterday. Caption on back reads:

Story-picture drawn by Lewis Carroll (Charles L. Dodgson) at the age of 9 (1841). The Rosenbach Foundation Museum, 2010 DeLancey Place, Philadelphia.

Old Photos

2010-01-24T17:55:00.001-08:00

Some photos I found at Kudzu Antiques recently:

I love how it looks like the mom is lowering the kid into the puddle. "Go play with your brothers in the mud!" The photo is dated September 1963.

Anyone have any ideas where this could have been taken? Seems like a nice scene.

Photo dated February 1952, San Antonio Texas.

Now for some animals:

To An Artificer

2010-01-19T07:22:00.000-08:00

Not of silver nor of coral
But of weather-beaten laurel
Carve it out.

II
Make a body long and thin
And carve hairs upon the skin.
Make a snout.

III
On the order of a tower
Faintly wrinkled like a flower
On the paws

IV
Carve out heavy feline toes
Make each claw an eagle's nose.
Carve great jaws.

—Marianne Moore

Bonus: this from a letter Marianne Moore wrote to Robert McAlmon on September 2, 1921, found on page 179 of her Selected Letters:

You are right; the intellect has not the last word today—any more than it ever had. Sophistication is no match for nature and as I have written Bryher, I have a respect for nature, blind or conscious. The blind instinctive behavior of old fashioned unenlightened society has many advantages over our conscious behavior today; psychoanalysis is a fascinating study and in some ways a useful one but it pre-empts too much of the mind and people tend to feel that a situation analyzed is a situation solved. In rapping marriage on the head as it sometimes does, it is unscientific—when you consider the evolution of the marriage relation and the instinctive tendency to idealize it, and to explain religion away is ludicrously superficial. Religious conviction, art, and animal impulse, are the strongest factors in life, I think, and any one in the ascendant can obliterate the others. We see different phases of them, for example, Bryher's interest in education and in securing freedom to the race, are a tangent of religion. Religion may be pigeonholed as a transference but religious conviction in operation has always made room for itself over the head of every obstacle. It is apparent that sincerely religious people are contented and are not easily at their wit's end.

2009 Reads

2010-01-06T09:51:00.001-08:00

Novels

An Episode in the Life of a Landscape Painter by Cesar Aira, and...

How I Became a Nun by Cesar Aira

in which Argentinian writer (and we all know about them Argentinian writers) takes us on adventures involving surreal shape-shifting narratives, philosophical insights, and much attention to language (yes, it's well translated).

The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge by Rainer Maria Rilke

in which I emerge from a fog of folklore and historic tangents infused w/ personal memories of a little boy Malte (read: Rainer in feeble disguise) all grown up and wandering the streets of Paris having excessive thoughts on death, poverty, and ghosts. WTF, Rainer? Is this really what you call a novel? Whatever, at least it's fucking great.

A High Wind in Jamaica by Richard Hughes

in which a bunch of pirates end up accidentally kidnapping a bunch of kids. Poor pirates. These kids are merciless. Forgive them, for they know not what they are doing. I recommend this book for people who love kids. Bonus: many animals, death, and various other perfundities. Is that a word?

Two Serious Ladies by Jane Bowles

in which two serious ladies engage in various random acts of nonconformity in order to escape from their dull lives. Many strange people met on the way. Funny and charming and sad and indeed.

Frances Johnson by Stacey Levine

in which one, Frances Johnson, is introduced wherein she is worried about various contrivances say her warts or some other thing or where oh where her bicycle takes her. A very experimental novel, but also a touching and soft one too, which is nice to know: that that is still possible I mean.

Stoner by John Williams

in which a most boring college professor's life is recounted in bibliographic and chronological order which sounds really boring but actually I have no idea how it snuck up on me and was just the most powerful book ever and made me cry and cry and cry.

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith

in which a little girl grows up in the slums, and finds ways to be positive around every corner, and somehow almost always evading sentimentality.

Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert

in which Gustave my man Gustave writes his tercid prose is that a word tercid? does it mean turd-like? Well, no matter, this book that bowled me over with passage after passage, is about a woman who is never satisfied and almost never happy. Sweet lord, what a book.

Moviegoer by Walker Percy

in which something happens in New Orleans inside of the head of Binx Bolling who happens to have some ideas in there as well, and they knock around, and this book came out. Funny, I remember hardly anything about this book anymore.

Non-Fiction

The Story of Mary Maclane by Mary Maclane

in which Mary Maclane, a nineteen year old girl stuck in Butte Montana in 1901, writes a sort of definition of herself... or a manifesto, of sorts. She is a genius! She has a "peripatetic" philosophy inside of her "wooden heart". She has a crush on a lady friend. She worships Napoleon and has 17 portraits of him.

Cries Unheard: Why Children Kill: The Story of Mary Bell by Gitta Sereny

in which the true story of Mary Bell, an 11-year old girl who killed 2 boys ages 3 and 4 many years ago, is finally revealed through intense writing and recounting of the events that followed the events preceeding, as well as through personal interviews with Mary Bell, who is now out of jail and has children of her own. Did I mention "intense"? This book is enough to give you a fever, and make you think twice about why children do the things they do. Was Mary Bell evil? Or was something else at work here?

Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

in which the secret of happiness is revealed to be a state of mind achieved through unriveted attention, well-defined goals, clear feedback, and the perfect level of difficulty (not too hard, not too easy). A very interesting book, which doesn't just stop at the science, but includes very human elements.

Breaking the News by James Fallows

in which the horrid state of journalism is detailed in every way possible. Just when you thought it couldn't get worse, you realize that this book was written during Clinton's era, and that things have gotten much worse with Fox News, Reality TV, and a bunch of other things that I don't even want to think about. Someone kill me now.

Poetry

Selected Poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke translated by Stephen Mitchell

in which Rainer Maria Rilke is very poet-like in the traditional sense of being inspired by angels while holing up in a castle for ten years. The Duino Elegies blew my mind, and I can't believe I had not discovered Rilke until 2009. Get this translation, especially, it is superb, if I can say that.

The Making of Pre by Francis Ponge

in which Francis Ponge, being French, labors over the phenomenological atoms of rivers and plains, coming up with a meadow on which theoretical swords are crossed and yet one is felled in practice. Mr. Ponge, you killed me on the Pre, but this is a very interesting read. Bonus: lots of words vehemently crossed out.

Isle of the Signatories by Marjorie Welish

in which nobody else got it but I did and started reading it all the way from the bookstore till I got home. Something about words or signs and what they pointed to, and how pretentious that is, and how like an academic with a tenure track going round and round. But more visceral, in my opinion, more stabby.

The Romance of Happy Workers by Anne Boyer

in which no word is the blip of its own passing, and Anne Boyer is a woman of sufficient means moving over the page with slight curtsies because, well, just because. I think I'm turning into Dawn with this review.

Surprise + Traffic Jam

2010-01-04T07:08:00.000-08:00

Favorite Movies of the Decade

2009-12-29T12:28:00.000-08:00

1. Yi Yi (Edward Yang)

I try to watch this movie about once a year, and every time, I see something new to admire in it. It's hard to sum up, because it has so much in it, but Reverse Shot has written a really good article on it.

2. What Time Is It There? (Tsai Ming Liang)

Its humor and its sadness seem interconnected, or seem to flourish from the same place, making both emotions more painful. A film about alienation, as only the Taiwanese can do it. When I saw it last, I wrote this review:

A re-watch. This time, the movie was less funny, but more tender, and even sadder than before. I was struck by the sadness of seemingly awkward private gestures, the girl stuffing her face with crackers and bananas in a hotel room in Paris… the mother masturbating with the container of her dead husband’s ashes. The silence is not really silence but tapestries of odd rhythms. Sounds emanating from all corners to penetrate and intrude the characters. In fact, everything is a form of penetration while on the surface looking rather harmless: penetration as a substitute for connection. I was also a bit surprised by how much I related to the girl this time, more so than the other two characters. I thought her scenes were the saddest and most awkward. I imagined the movie as a musical composition (keeping tune to the odd beat of a watch being smashed against the railings) with 3 different parts (bass, alto, tenor?) played by the three different characters, all separate (and separated) but in synch, crescendoing almost literally as all three are brought to a sexual climax, although one that is illusively disappointing, perhaps inherently so because of what they’re expecting from it: human connection. And yet these three musical parts always remain alone. The last shots of this movie are some of the most memorable and affecting I have seen, with the father walking into a sunset… or what stands for a sunset in this movie: the carousel in the fairground, perhaps the same fairground that 400 Blows was shot, when Jean Pierre Leaud was pushed against the wall.

3. Syndromes and a Century (Apichatpong Weerasethakul)

Weerasethakul is one of the most promising new directors. I'm excited to see what he comes up with next. I wrote a short review of this movie on this blog before.

4. Bamako (Abderrahmane Sissako)

A film from Mali by a director I haven't seen enough of yet. One of the few movies I loved despite political themes being explicitly stated (here it is not preachy). I remember only the invigorating feeling of the narrative told in a jagged inventive manner, with all the energy of a new way of making movies.

5. Ten (Abbas Kiarostami)

A mother drives around town and has ten separate conversations. Kiarostami's digital camera focuses on half of the story at any one time, but delivers so much raw emotion from these performances.

6. Bemani (Dariush Mehrjui)

Can't find much on the internet; can't even find a decent screenshot. I saw this at the Iranian film festival at the High Museum a few years back. On the surface it was about a few women and their struggles, but the way it was told was what impressed me. I can't point to a single thing, but just the whole attitude and style towards filming reminds me of many other Iranian films where I feel like they are making movies for the first time, without relying much on staid conventions.

7. Innocence (Lucile Hadzihalilovic)

If you watch movies for mood, then run out and watch this. It's got plenty of story too: but one that is amorphous, mysterious, constantly on the line between creepiness and commonplace. Is it an allegory? A fairy-tale? A dream?

8. 2046 (Wong Kar Wai)

A sequel, of sorts, to In the Mood for Love. The first time I saw it I didn't like it as much. ItMfL was a straight forward restrained love story. This movie, by contrast, was complicated and confusing. And what was up with those scenes of the future? But every time I watched it, I understood more of what was going on and loved it more as well. This is a wild tangled investigation of memory that grows on you the more you watch it. It is serpentine and layered and full.

9. Kandahar (Mohsen Makhmalbaf)

A film set in and about Afghanistan directed by one of my favorite Iranian directors. Really beautiful and depressing, it's hard to describe the feeling this movie gives me. Why am I even trying to write about any of these movies? They are all so hard to describe with these damn words.

10. Mulholland Dr. (David Lynch)

This film needs no description. You've probably already seen it and hate it.

11. The Visitation (Nathaniel Dorsky)

Screenshot Not Available.

One of the few shorts by Dorsky I was able to see at Andy Ditzler's Film Love. This one is "about" aliens!

Remaining on the West Coast (once again San Francisco, specifically), next is Nathaniel Dorsky, an artist whose devout approach to the cinematic image transforms daily sights and sounds into wondrous moments of reverential contemplation, embodied through the use of "polyvalent" montage, which seeks to "redirect editing away from the dialectics that energized the Russian films of the 1920s and from the narrative demands of pop cinema, toward a refinement of viewers' ability to perceive the subtleties of particular images and the complex webbing of interconnections between them." (A Critical Cinema 5 pg. 79)

12. All the Real Girls (David Gordon Green)

Quirky indie-flick about young people angst, but actually good. There's something amateur about it that I love, and something Terrence Malicky about the cinematography. Also, it has some seriously funny dialog.

13. Talk to Her (Pedro Almodovar)

Twisted love. Almodovar can be too heavy handed sometimes, or too dramatic, or his plots too contrived. But still, you gotta love this movie, which made me forget about all those flaws.

14. Half Moon (Ghobadi)

A surreal journey to find death, where moments of reality and moments of dream are indistinguishable in the vast landscape, and left open to interpretation. I loved this movie. Also from Iran. If you watch the YouTube video above, try to ignore that ugly name that scrolls across the screen. Whoever made that video put that in, but it wasn't in the movie.

15. Punch Drunk Love (Paul Thomas Anderson)

My favorite PT Anderson movie.

16. La Pianiste (Michael Haneke)

Brutal and depressing. Not for the squeamish. Isabelle Huppert gives a great performance. I really liked Cache by the same director, but one Haneke is enough for any list.

17. L'Intrus (Clair Denis)

Obscure as fuck, but really good if you're not too concerned with figuring out what everything means.

18. Inland Empire (David Lynch)

David Lynch at his scariest and rawest. I saw it in the theater when it came out and it was one of the most visceral experiences ever.

19. The Gleaners and I (Agnes Varda)

Agnes Varda makes movies like nobody else. Her charm is too big to be contained off camera, and in this documentary about the history and continuation of gleaning her stamp is all over, which is the way I like it.

20. Old Joy (Kelly Reichardt)

A subtle and slow film. Relaxing with just enough tension to form the tatters of a story. More films should be like this, where the story unfolds so organically from the characters, the scene, and the mood.

21. Profit Motive and the Whispering Wind (John Gianvito)

“The day will come when our silence will be more important than the voices you are throttling today.”

A simple concept and restrained execution. It’s a documentary with no voice-over narration; a chronological tour of important gravestones, from labor leaders to civil rights leaders to people who sacrificed themselves for these causes. These are mixed in with beautiful shots of trees rustling in the wind, and little pencil sketch animations. It sounds pretty lame in words, and perhaps for some it would be lame. It's definitely not for everyone. It lasts for an hour but I felt like it was only 20 minutes. I highly recommend you try it and see if it’s for you.

22. The Wayward Cloud (Tsai Ming Liang)

A sequel of sorts to What Time Is It There? in which things get a lot weirder. You'll never look at a watermelon the same way again. Oh yeah, did I mention there are musical numbers?

23. All About Lily Chou Chou (Iwai)

Japanese school kids can be mean. It's all those uniforms they're forced to wear.

24. Triplets of Belleville (Chomet)

Beautiful old-style animations, strange somewhat creepy story with an off-kilter sense of humor, and a happy ending. All you can ask for in a movie!

25. Five Dedicated to Ozu (Kiarostami)

This movie is five scenes, all with a static camera capturing things coming in and out of the frame. A good movie to meditate to.

My Newest Book

2009-12-28T16:07:00.000-08:00

From Duplex Planet

2009-12-22T20:46:00.000-08:00

From Duplex Planet 174 (a zine that collects interviews with elderly people):

DBG: What kind of animal would you be if you had to be one?

HELEN FOSTER: Me? I have no idea. I never thought of that. I have no idea. What kind I would want to be? Oh, I don't know... (thinking)... You would think I'd want to be powerful, but I wouldn't. No, I'd want one that other people would be comfortable with, I think, whatever kind of animal that is. A lot of people don't like cats, but I think a cat is comfortable. Most people would like a dog, but a dog is too mindless. A cat is a little more selective. I don't know if I'm right or wrong, but that's just my opinion. I don't know if I answered your question.

DBG: No, that's good. They're all just food for thought.

HELEN: So what do you have there now--is that what they call a tape recorder?

DBG: Yep. One microphone is hooked on to you there, and this one is just picking up anything I say.

HELEN: Mmm-hmm. So what did you study in college?

DBG: Painting. I went to art school.

HELEN: You're kidding! I have an artist in the family, too. Do you play an instrument?

DBG: I played for a long time in bands--I was a bass player.

HELEN: Ohhh!

DBG: I haven't done that much since the eighties.

HELEN: Well, my son, he's still in the process of retiring--the 26th of September he'll retire--and he just took a year's piano lessons. I said, "I didn't know you wanted to play the piano!" He says, "I didn't either, but it's something I decided I was gonna do and I'm doin' it." I think that's wonderful.

DBG: It's good to start on something new.

HELEN: I don't know if he's got it in him like you do. Why don't you come around and play the band here?

DBG: I need to play with other people. I'm a bass player.

HELEN: Oh, okay.

DBG: But I haven't played much in years.

HELEN: Well I'm sure you have a lot of creativity inside that head of yours, so put it to good use. Are you altruistic, would you label yourself as altruistic, David?

DBG: To a point, yes.

HELEN: I think so

DBG: I'm fairly pragmatic.

HELEN: That's what I thought I was, too. But see--when you look in the mirror, deep down, I bet you are.

DBG: Well, that's part of me.

HELEN: Don't worry about anything. It's a waste. It's a waste, don't worry, I learned that. Of course, it's okay for me to say that, now that I've got one foot in the grave! (laughs) But really, worry is wasteful.

DBG: There're parts of it that are unavoidable and come from concern, like I'd worry about my wife or my daughter.

HELEN: No, we can't cut that out of our lives, that's right.

DBG: But worrying about what I am going to do ten years from now.

HELEN: Yeah, needlessly.

DBG: I'm confident I'll figure it out.

HELEN: Well, gee, I'm so glad to have met you.

DBG: It was great to meet you too.

HELEN: And I wish you well with this work in progress.

DBG: Thank you.

HELEN: That's what you'll have to call it, Work in Progress.

DBG: Oh it is. I've been doing this for twenty-five years.

HELEN: Good for you. Let me tell you, you know what I do? I collect, in my lifetime, I collect naughty stories. Well I heard a story two days ago. (looks over at tape recorder) Is it off?

DBG: It's running out of tape.

HELEN: Oh no, turn it off, turn it off! (tape stops)

Begone Dull Care

2009-12-16T18:48:00.000-08:00

Corporate Mantra of Non-Chosen Words

2009-11-20T13:35:00.000-08:00

It was most important that no-one had to take responsibility. That these words were not chosen by any individual, that they just happened to be a certain way, just like a certain mountain range happened to be shaped like a horse or a human head, that they were only the chance fabric of the corporation was tantamount. These words were just any words. Everyone's shoulders were squarely untainted. Furthermore, no new decisions had to be made. That all decisions were inherent in the mantra, the creation of the corporation already guaranteed the right answer to every situation. That, now, it was only a matter of careful interpretation.

Gertrude and Agnes

2009-10-30T14:59:00.000-07:00

Something wonderfully mountainous captured in these playful portraits of two very different artists (Gertrude Stein on the cover of Stanzas in Meditation and Agnes Varda on the cover of Beaches of Agnes):

I like thinking of the artist in old age as mountainous, like an accumulation of stubborn-nesses. (Oh, you know I mean that in the best of ways)

Anne Frank and Windows

2009-10-26T12:57:00.000-07:00

This short videoclip is the only existing footage of Anne Frank. It was released recently. Stefany Anne Golberg has written a good short essay on it.

Mourning Photos

2009-10-05T11:29:00.000-07:00

"The painting may cheerfully portray the life of the deceased, but to nineteenth-century eyes, the daguerreotype, in showing the moment of death, or one just afterward, does a better job at portraying the person, the essence of the child, his soul."

Links:

Build Your Own Time Machine: A Science Project

2009-10-02T21:19:00.000-07:00

Many people have tried to build a time machine. You can buy one off e-bay but it won't work. I will tell you how to build one that works. Let's start with Einstein. Einstein said that time is related to space. Therefore a time machine must also be a space machine. Like a space ship or something. Einstein said that as speed increases through space, time slows down. Unfortunately, the effect is relatively minor if you're going very slow. And even 200 MPH is slow, because Einstein says you need to approach the speed of light in order to make any dent on time.

Do you know how fast the speed of light is? Me neither.

Light is very very fast. Well, one problem is making a space ship that goes that fast. Another problem is that even if we did make a spaceship that fast, our bodies would not be able to withstand that kind of speed. Think if you went all the way around the world in a fraction of a second. You'd probably be a little dizzy. Also, your body would probably wither away because all your body atoms are banging against all the air atoms until you are no more. This is called friction or air resistance or something. Even in space, there will be things to bang against.

Not only is it hard for your body to withstand going so fast, it would be near impossible to build a spaceship out of metal that can withstand that as well. But you know what goes the speed of light? Yes, light does! So let's build a spaceship out of light. The smallest spaceship in the world.

You'll need:

A light particle.
A brand new carbon particle.
Superglue.
Superglue anti-dote.
A mirror. (optional: 2 mirrors).

Duration: about 100 years

Now we learned in science class that light is both a particle and a wave. Well, what we need to do is catch a light particle while it is a particle instead of a wave. Or catch a light particle while it is a wave and wait till it looks kind of like a particle. Then take your carbon particle and superglue it onto the light particle. We chose a carbon particle because it can be dated. This is called carbon dating, and this way you can tell how old your carbon atom has gotten while going through the time machine.

Now what we want to do is go to the end of the universe and place your mirror there. Make sure it's very very far away, to give your spaceship some time to get there. Now, release your light-particle spaceship in the direction of your mirror.

Wait about 100 years, but be ready to catch your light particle when it comes back. Once you've caught it, take your superglue anti-dote and pour it on the spaceship. Now the carbon atom should be free. Take it and send it to a lab to be carbon-dated (I don't know what this means, but a little mystery is sometimes good). If everything works as planned, your carbon atom should have only aged a few minutes.

Another option, if you don't feel like going all the way to the end of the universe, is to place two mirrors close to each other and make sure the light-particle spaceship is bouncing between them over and over again. Let this happen for about 100 years.

I hope you enjoyed this science project.

Some Answers Questioned

2009-09-26T14:55:00.001-07:00

This was a freewrite I did a while ago, as-is... i.e. unedited. I re-read it recently and it still interests me. I was just asking questions and coming up with answers on the fly. Not knowing who the characters were beforehand made this a very fun exercise.

q: when were you born?
a: In 1967 I was already a 5 year old girl. My mother picked me up after school, she would wear a light blue scarf around her head, that is how I spotted her immediately. Back then the roads didn't yet have names and all you could do was count the trees before the next block.
q: did you like doing that?
a: a little. It wasn't a matter of liking it. Time made me more aware of my surroundings.
q: what do you mean?
a: I should say that I was incredibly precocious. Because of that, I felt like I only had a few more weeks to live. I felt old.
q: do you still feel old?
a: no
q: go on
a: I don't. I feel out of time. But back then, back then we would go to the green grocers after school. The man who sold us large stalks of celery was called Mr. Lobsterlove.
q: you remember his name?
a: oh yeah. I loved Mr. Lobsterlove. He had this train collection, model trains mind you. Some nights I would go over to his house, he lived just next door, and mother would sometimes tell me to deliver some money for previous purchases.
q: it was a credit system?
a: well yeah. We didn't always carry around the heavy coins. Anyway, I remember his door was unfinished wood, this was the second floor right above his business. I'd knock and he'd open and inside was a city made of traintracks. The trains would go in and out of the bookcases, through the vents, come back out the other side and into the bathroom. Mr. Lobsterlove always had classical music playing in the background. Usually Bach. Sometimes Mozart. At first he would talk to me, try to ask me questions. Then he would say "you're pretty smart for a little girl" and soon he would be lost in his music, moving his hands like that of a conductor, his eyes closed.
q: tell me about your mother
a: my mother was severe. She was nice too, but she had a very specific set of beliefs.
q: like what?
a: well... she kept to herself, a very quiet woman, but she wasn't shy. I don't know why she kept to herself. Somehow she always knew what was happening, she'd tell me who Mrs. Greenberg was having an affair with. I don't know how she knew this. Also, she liked to play mindgames with me, but for no particular reason.
q: mind games?
a: like, she'd say "I'm going out to get some milk" and then she wouldn't. She would act like she never said anything. I never figured that out.
q: what did you do after school?
a: We would have the window open all the time, and underneath our apartment was a cafe. I would sit in my bedroom and listen to all the conversations people had. Sometimes I would write them down, if they were interesting enough, but most times they weren't very interesting. People falling in love and out of love, that kind of stuff is so boring to me even then.
q: you're not interested in love?
a: I wouldn't say I'm not intersted in it. It's interesting, yes, it is. It's interesting the way organized religion is interesting, it's just a thing. You know? Like, it's interesting in an anthropologic way. It's interesting in that it helps you understand people. But it's not very useful.
q: useful?
a: hmm.. maybe that doesn't make sense. I guess it is useful, but it doesn't really go anywhere. Anyway, once you decide on it, that's that.
q: what else did you like to do?
a: I went up to the roof sometimes, after dinner. Mother wouldn't let me, but sometimes when she was on the phone
q: with whom?
a: my father. My father was overseas. I think I've seen him twice in my life. Not a very interesting man.
q: you mean you aren't interested IN him...
a: yeah, that too. No, that's not entirely true. I WAS interested, but I figured him out in the first half hour.
q: what did you figure out?
a: well, a lot of things. He was a hopeless romantic.
q: why was he overseas?
a: I'm getting to that. My father was a very skinny man. He was tender, I'll give him that. Not one to raise his voice ever. He was also completely loyal. He's from the small island of Tuvalo where they make fishing nets. His whole family did I mean. Anyway, I don't know why he ever left, but after he got married, his mother got really sick. He couldn't stand not being by her side.
q: what did you do up on the roof?
a: I cataloged.
q: Cataloged?
a: yes. I was making lists. It is easier to make a list comprehensive when you're up high. You can see more things. You FELT more comprehensive because of what you could see. All the buildings were the same height back then, or similiar heights, and you could see for miles, all the different roofs with vines growing and the stuff people stored up there, boxes, bicycles, bird cages.
q: what did you wish to accomplish with your lists?
a: I don't understand that question.
q: what was the purpose of those lists.
a: there is no purpose. To make a list is to make a statement. A statement with no purpose, other than that of existence.
q: what were they lists of?
a: everything inside my hometown. A list of all the widows. A list of shops that sold fishing line. A list of dates that were considered auspicious for marriages and childbirths. The locals were very superstitious.
q: were you?
a: never.
q: did you have a favorite number?
a: well, yes. But that's not a superstition.
q: what was your favorite number?
a: one.

The Story of Mary MacLane by Herself

2009-09-08T06:17:00.000-07:00

"Napoleon was a man, and though sensitive, his flesh was safely covered"

Yes, but who was Mary MacLane? Mary MacLane was a truly extraordinary nineteen-year old with a "fine young body that is feminine in every fiber" and a brain that is "a conglomeration of aggressive versatility". She is "a fantasy--absurdity--a genius!" with no parallel, "a genius, with a wondrous liver within". But she lives in Butte Montana in 1901, and stuck there, she writes this "Portrayal" of herself, in which she is very honest (though she is also "a liar") about her obsession with the devil, her desire for Fame and Happiness (always the Devil brings Happiness), her seventeen pictures of Napoleon that she stares at daily, her (then, and even now) unconventional views of marriage, her liver, her crush on the "anemone lady" and so on.

It may be tempting find her exaggerated way of phrasing things amusing and quirky, but they also communicate some incredible and unique insights. I do think she was a genius, in her own odd way, and I found myself agreeing to (and feeling deeply with) a lot of what she says. Her repetition bordered on poetic at times, and her mysterious use of certain phrases (her heart is always a "wooden heart" and her philosophy is always "peripatetic", she lives in perpetual "sand and barrenness" and always the "red red line of the sky" is a symbol of Happiness to come). Mostly, she writes about how lonely she is, stuck in Butte Montana, and how she would give anything for 3 days of Happiness. For some more history on Mary MacLane's life before and after this book, visit this website.

"But no matter how ferociously pitiable is the dried up graveyard, the sand and barrenness and the sluggish little stream have their own persistent individual damnation. The world is at least so constructed that its treasures may be damned each in a different manner and degree." p.16

Should I Call Alex?

2009-09-03T13:40:00.001-07:00

Saw this the other day at a coffeeshop:

I think Alex would make a pretty picture of Wendell.

I blurred out the phone number since I'm not sure Alex wants his phone number all over the internet. If you want to call Alex, e-mail me privately and I can get you in touch!

Tatou

2009-08-31T11:29:00.000-07:00

I had a great weekend with M & D in Milledgeville, GA. One of the highlights is seeing this armadillo by the train tracks. Luckily, I had my little video recorder with me:

From wikipedia:

Armadillos are often used in the study of leprosy, since they, along with mangabey monkeys, rabbits and mice (on their footpads), are among the few known non-human animal species that can contract the disease systemically. They are particularly susceptible due to their unusually low body temperature, which is hospitable to the leprosy bacterium, Mycobacterium leprae. (The leprosy bacterium is difficult to culture and armadillos have a body temperature of 93°F, similar to human skin.)

The Nine-banded Armadillo also serves science through its unusual reproductive system, in which four genetically identical quadruplets are born in each litter.[4][5][6] Because they are always genetically identical, the group of four young provides a good subject for scientific, behavioral or medical tests that need consistent biological and genetic makeup in the test subjects. This is the only reliable manifestation of polyembryony in the class mammalia, and only exists within the genus Dasypus and not in all armadillos, as is commonly believed. Other species which display this trait include parasitoid wasps, certain flatworms and various aquatic invertebrates.[5]

Armadillos (mainly Dasypus) make common roadkill due to their habit of jumping to about fender height when startled (such as by an oncoming car). Wildlife enthusiasts are using the northward march of the armadillo as an opportunity to educate others about the animals, which can be a burrowing nuisance to property owners and managers.[4]

Read more...

Update September 4, 2009
When I saw this armadillo, I was thinking of a passage in a book I read recently (I highly recommend it by the way) called Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience by Mihaly Csikszentmihaly:

Animals' skills are always matched to concrete demands because their minds, such as they are, only contain information about what is actually present in the environment in relation to their bodily states, as determined by instinct. So a hungry lion only perceives what will help it to find a gazelle, while a sated lion concentrates fully on the warmth of the sun. Its mind does not weigh possibilities unavailable at the moment; it neither imagines pleasant alternatives, nor is it disturbed by fears of failure.

Animals suffer just as we do when their biologically programmed goals are frustrated. They feel the pangs of hunger, pain, and unsatisfied sexual urges. Dogs bred to be friends to man grow distraught when left alone by their masters. But animals other than man are not in a position to be the cause of their own suffering; they are not evolved enough to be able to feel confusion and despair even after all their needs are satisfied. When free of externally induced conflicts, they are in harmony with themselves and experience the seamless concentration that in people we call flow.

The psychic entropy peculiar to the human condition involves seeing more to do than one can actually accomplish and feeling able to accomplish more than what conditions allow. But this becomes possible only if one keeps in mind more than one goal at a time, being aware at the same time of conflicting desires. It can happen only when the mind knows not only what is but also what could be. (p. 228)

Theme De Yoyo

2009-08-21T08:18:00.000-07:00

Your head is like a yoyo
Your neck is like a string
Your body's like Camembert
Oozing from its skin
Your fanny's like two sperm whales
Floating down the sand
Your voice is like a long fuck
That's music to your brain

One of the greatest songs I've heard recently is by the group The Art Ensemble of Chicago. Theme De Yoyo is the first song off their album Les Stances a Sophie which was made in 1970 as a soundtrack album for a film, but the whole album is great. As I understand it, I don't think the music was actually ever used in the film. I've bought several other Art Ensemble of Chicago albums and they have all been a little too noise/experimental for me. I think they strike the perfect balance here between chaos and melody (at least for my taste).

Download: Theme De Yoyo (mp3)

My Life with Mannequins

2009-08-16T10:10:00.001-07:00

As a boy, I was unusually obsessed with mannequins. I used to beg my parents to take me to Sears just so I could stand next to one of them. I remember once I got too close and tipped one of them over; I was terrified but the department store staff were all very nice and told me it was okay. The above photo is the only remaining picture of this early obsession.

don't clown you me

2009-08-15T07:29:00.001-07:00

Reverse: John Jaccoud, Bonnots Mill MO.

(thanks, Dawn.)

An Episode in the Life of a Landscape Painter

2009-08-09T12:24:00.001-07:00

An Episode in the Life of a Landscape Painter by Cesar Aira

Part fiction, part non-fiction, part poetic description, part philosophy. Aira examines the depths of history, the meaning of repetition, reproductions and its role in art, compensation, and much more, and in the context of a very specific, relatable person and his predicaments. Often zooming into an idea or description with intense precision, then moving on, this book is able to contain big ideas without sounding pretentious, or bloated. In fact, the book is less than 90 pages, though it tells a story that could be told in 500 pages. It's really some of the best writing I've read. Also, I had no idea it wasn't a completely true story, because it was told as if it was pieced together from accounts and letters. But there were points where he could not have been so intimately in the character's head. Only after I read it did I find out that this is a perfect combination of history and novelistic invention. Some excerpts:

Peaks of mica kept watch over their long marches. How could these panoramas be rendered credible? There were too many sides; the cube had extra faces. The company of volcanos gave the sky interiors. Dawn and dusk were vast optical explosions, drawn out by the silence. Slingshots and gunshots of sunlight rebounded into every recess. Grey expanses hung out to dry forever in colossal silence; airshafts voluminous as oceans.
p. 14

A drove of mules the size of ants appeared in silhouette on a ridge-top path, moving at a star's pace. The mules were driven by human intelligence and commercial interests, expertise in breeding and blood-lines. Everything was human; the farthest wilderness was steeped with sociability, and the sketches they had made, in so far as they had any value, stood as records of this permeation. The infinite orography of the Cordillera was a laboratory of forms and colors.
p. 16

Today I Learned: Portuguese man-of-war

2009-08-04T20:17:00.000-07:00

From a novel I'm reading now called The Ten Thousand Things by Maria Dermout:

"'Holothuriae, the 'mizzen': they have many names, small galleon, Portuguese man-of-war, sea cucumber'--they have little sails, wide at the bottom, small at the top--listen to this! 'The mizzen can lower or raise this little sail when it feels the wind and wants to sail. Under water a mass of streamers, four or five feet long, hang down from it; the color is a beautiful blue, through which however something green plays. The body is transparent, as if a crystal bottle had been filled with blue-green aqua fortis.
"'The sails are milk-white with an upper edge of purple or violet, beautiful to behold, as if the creature were a precious jewel.'
"And this: 'it is miraculous to see a whole fleet of them, a thousand little ships--all together!'"

I looked online for this creature and of all its names referenced above, the only one that fit the description was the Portuguese man-of-war:

I think it rather looks like a human brain! Here is what that website says about this creature (I wonder if this information was known at the time (1955) the above novel was written):

The Man-of-War (also known as a bluebottle) is not one creature, as it is commonly assumed, but a complete colony of numerous polyps...each performing their own functions. There are polyps which do nothing but digest the captured food and distribute nutrients to polyps which are not capable of digestion on their own. There are polyps which produce the Medusa, a disc shaped organism which produces eggs and sperm. This organism breaks away from the main Portuguese Man-of-War and floats off to produce many more polyps which, in turn, gather together to form another complete creature. There could be hundreds of polyps which make up the creature we know as the Portuguese Man-of-War.

So the Portuguese man-of-war is large, it contains multitudes. Also, those streamers are poisonous so avoid.

Feral Houses

2009-08-04T16:36:00.000-07:00

More here.

Triangulation And Consciousness

2009-08-04T16:18:00.000-07:00

Have you ever wondered, like Elizabeth Bishop did: "Why should I be my aunt,/or me, or anyone?" I was wondering about this and I was dorky enough to google it. I came across an interesting thread in some message board, unusually insightful perspective of consciousness, and from the internet no less:

If you use a pen to make a dot on the surface of a perfect sphere, that dot has no identity, it is simply The Dot. If you make another dot, they still lack identity, except for the fact that one is not the other; but you still can't tell which is which. Now add a third dot near the second one, and suddenly all three dots become individual, in the sense that you can spin the sphere and still recognize each of them by their relative distance to the other two.

(I believe this is also a hint as to why we perceive the universe in three dimensions: it's the minimum number of dimensions necessary to establish the identity of objects. But that's way out of topic...)

And later in that same thread:

Now if I am a collection of ideas, what makes "I" "me", or rather why is it that I am this collection of ideas and not that other collection, I believe the only possible answer is: mere chance. You can only develop your identity as a result of mere chance. This is where the perfect sphere analogy comes in.

If someone asks you to select a collection of points on the surface of a perfect sphere, the first point can only be chosen at random. The second point must be chosen based on the first, but other than that, it's still a random choice, with the sole exception that it cannot be the position defined by the first point (even with two points, you can't still tell one from the other - they still don't have identity). Only when the third point is chosen is the symmetry of the situation broken, and now all points have their own identity which is their relative position to the other two.

So the first being who became conscious had no problem understanding "why am I me", since he could not be anybody else, for there was nobody else to be. The second being could conceive of being the first one, but would realize being the other and being himself are essentially the same thing, so the question "why am I me" was meaningless for him. Only from the third being on did the question of one's identity become meaningful, but it is still a meaningful question without a meaningful answer other than "mere chance". Which is why I said this was known since the beginning but at the same time it's an eternal mystery.

It's interesting to think of identity as triangulation. It doesn't explain the "why" of anything, but the "why" of anything can't be answered because it's an invalid question. It's the wrong question to ask. It only seems valid because you are you, and this randomness seems so much like fate.

Yesterday I Learned: Juggernaut

2009-07-30T19:22:00.000-07:00

I was at the Decatur Farmer's Market (local organic stuff every Wednesdays at Church and Commerce) yesterday and one of the sellers had on a hat with this symbol on it:

I mentioned that it was interesting, and he started telling me about how it is the symbol of a Hindu god named Jagannath... which is also the word that "juggernaut" is derived from because of this ceremony:

The english word juggernaut means "a force regarded as unstoppable, that will crush all in its path."

Actually the above clip is from Phantom India, which I've linked to before on this blog. I guess it keeps coming up.

Today I Learned: Crows

2009-07-27T18:39:00.000-07:00

Heard this story on NPR this morning about crows. It talks about how humans have not evolved brains that would allow us to distinguish one crow from another. Even crow researchers who have studied them many years cannot tell them apart. They have a test on the site which you can take to see if you can tell one from another. Crows, on the other hand, have a special ability to tell one human from another, and it is based on facial recognition. The scientists say that crows have traditionally had to tell humans apart because some humans were mean to crows and would shoot them while others were nice and would feed them, so it became a survival skill.

Yesterday I learned some things about Joan of Arc after watching La passion de Jeanne d'Arc (Dreyer) played in the Acapella parking lot with live backing musicians (Hubcap City). Joan was executed when she was just 19. And she was a key military figure (claiming to recieve directions from God). She led several key French victories in the Hundred Years' War (which lasted 116 years, off and on) and helped Charles V to the throne. The movie itself was amazing, and now that I know the context more, it makes more sense. Most of the dialogue in the movie was taken directly from records of her actual trial and execution.

Today I Learned: "Influenza"

2009-07-25T10:36:00.000-07:00

I'm starting a new series of posts, one for every day (until I give up like I do most things)... where I'll post one thing I learned on that day. Hopefully I'll have learned at least one thing a day, though I reserve the right to not learn anything.

I was reading a webpage about the Flu Pandemic of 1918 today (after reading the excellent book Charlotte Sometimes which is partially set in 1918) and I learned that kids used to sing this rhyme while skipping rope:

I had a little bird,
Its name was Enza.
I opened the window,
And in-flu-enza.

A High Wind in Jamaica

2009-06-27T12:04:00.000-07:00

A great book I read recently was A High Wind in Jamaica by Richard Hughes. Everyone should read this book. It's got pirates! And tigers! And kids! Here is a passage that I especially loved:

In short, babies have minds which work in terms and categories of their own which cannot be translated into the terms and categories of the human mind.

It is true they look human--but not so human, to be quite fair, as many monkeys.

Subconsciously, too, every one recognizes they are animals--why else do people always laugh when a baby does some action resembling the human, as they would at a praying mantis? If the baby was only a less-developed man, there would be nothing funny in it, surely.

Possibly the case might be made out that children are not human either: but I should not accept it. Agreed that their minds are not just more ignorant and stupider than ours, but differ in kind of thinking (are mad, in fact): but one can, by an effort of will and imagination, think like a child, at least in a partial degree--and even if one's success is infinitesimal it invalidates the case: while one can no more think like a baby, in the smallest respect, than one can think like a bee.

How then can one begin to describe the inside of Laura, where the child-mind lived in the midst of the familiar relics of the baby-mind, like a Fascist in Rome?

When swimming under water, it is a very sobering thing suddenly to look a large octopus in the face. One never forgets it: one's respect, yet one's feeling of the hopelessness of any real intellectual sympathy. One is soon reduced to mere physical admiration, like any silly painter, of the cow-like tenderness of the eye, of the beautiful and infinitesimal mobility of that large and toothless mouth, which accepts as a matter of course that very water against which you, for your life's sake, must be holding your breath. There he reposes in a fold of rock, apparently weightless in the clear green medium but very large, his long arms, suppler than silk, coiled in repose, or stirring in recognition of your presence. Far above, everything is bounded by the surface of the air, like a bright window of glass. Contact with a small baby can conjure at least an echo of that feeling in those who are not obscured by an uprush of maternity to the brain.

Of course it is not really so cut-and-dried as all this; but often the only way of attempting to express the truth is to build it up, like a card-house, of a pack of lies.

Sometimes Behaves So Strangely

2009-06-14T18:25:00.000-07:00

Download and listen to at least the first four minutes of this mp3 from the RadioLab podcast (or listen to it directly on their page). It is a segment that illustrates the musicality of language in a most remarkable way. The rest of the program is interesting too, especially the Musical DNA segment.

About A Boot

2009-06-12T08:20:00.001-07:00

(11:34:39 AM) silvergeek000: sorry about your loss

(11:35:42 AM) PigeonClubATL: Good morning!

(11:35:47 AM) PigeonClubATL: yeah, we are on the hunt for it!

(11:35:53 AM) silvergeek000: good morning

(11:36:01 AM) silvergeek000: have you called the police?

(11:37:04 AM) PigeonClubATL: they have no been notified, i think it was one of those things that just magically vanish.

(11:37:34 AM) PigeonClubATL: maybe it will magically reappear? or maybe the police would just laugh to see the picture of a missing boot.

(11:37:48 AM) silvergeek000: a missing boot is nothing to laugh at

(11:38:29 AM) PigeonClubATL: that is my sentiment as well.

(11:39:05 AM) silvergeek000: what park was it headed for?

(11:39:59 AM) PigeonClubATL: there were many parks. piedmont, chandler, ansley...

(11:40:28 AM) PigeonClubATL: park hopping promises some fast times. and a lost boot.

(11:40:36 AM) silvergeek000: oh... so it was doing a boot tour!

(11:41:29 AM) PigeonClubATL: oh that is one way to think about it! what an exciting adventure!

(11:42:27 AM) silvergeek000: boots just wanna have fun

(11:43:03 AM) PigeonClubATL: haha they should have it. but they should come home, too.

(11:43:19 AM) silvergeek000: at what point did the boot gain full autonomy from your foot?

(11:44:38 AM) PigeonClubATL: well, park demand no shoes because breezes and grass need to be felt. so sometimes when you take one off, its difficult to find one.

(11:45:38 AM) silvergeek000: a very interesting case indeed.

(11:45:54 AM) PigeonClubATL: So where did you stumble upon the lost boot flier?

(11:46:14 AM) silvergeek000: what do you mean? the lost boot was not flying

(11:46:37 AM) PigeonClubATL: the posting! How did you come about this screen name?

(11:47:04 AM) silvergeek000: there was a dim recollection of a poster somewhere... at an intersection

(11:48:03 AM) PigeonClubATL: Where about the city?

(11:48:09 AM) silvergeek000: where did you leave the flier? did you lose the flier as well? losing a lost boot flier is very sad

(11:48:36 AM) silvergeek000: i don't recall, i wish i could help you... i am retracing my steps and cannot remember where i last saw your lost boot flier

(11:48:50 AM) PigeonClubATL: well they were lots of places!

(11:48:59 AM) PigeonClubATL: we are not messing around about this boot, you know!

(11:49:08 AM) silvergeek000: oh no! scattered? if i find it i will definitely return it.

(11:49:20 AM) silvergeek000: the flier that is

(11:49:26 AM) silvergeek000: the boot is another matter, i may keep it to myself

(11:49:29 AM) PigeonClubATL: That is much appreciated!

(11:49:30 AM) PigeonClubATL: oh!

(11:49:31 AM) PigeonClubATL: no!

(11:49:38 AM) PigeonClubATL: you must not do that!

(11:49:48 AM) silvergeek000: why not?

(11:49:51 AM) PigeonClubATL: the boot is what we are after! it needs to be returned!

(11:49:58 AM) silvergeek000: oh, not the flier?

(11:50:15 AM) PigeonClubATL: nono. we are just looking for the boot!

(11:50:16 AM) silvergeek000: i am rather confused

(11:50:25 AM) silvergeek000: you asked me where the flier was!

(11:50:35 AM) PigeonClubATL: what would you do with one boot!?

(11:50:47 AM) PigeonClubATL: and i was wondering where you saw our flier

(11:51:02 AM) silvergeek000: good question. i'm sure i could think of something. afterall, those boots were made for walking

(11:52:05 AM) PigeonClubATL: thats just what they'll do.

(11:53:47 AM) PigeonClubATL: oh that quick quip of confusion (kind of like an alliteration?) was kind of funny to look back on.

(11:53:57 AM) silvergeek000: something seems fishy about this case

(11:54:49 AM) silvergeek000: if you lost the boot, how were you able to take a photo of it and put it on a flier? obviously you took it before you lost it. But how did you know you needed a photo of it before you even lost it? I think you set this whole thing up!

(11:55:37 AM) PigeonClubATL: OR we have the other boot, took that picture and flipped it in Photoshop to represent the missing boot.

(11:56:10 AM) silvergeek000: WHAT!? the other boot has nothign to do with this. Stop changing the subject

(11:57:17 AM) silvergeek000: you're obviously hiding something!

(11:57:22 AM) PigeonClubATL: :0 the boot has everything to do with it! but what is the subject you would like to move to again?

(11:57:31 AM) silvergeek000: the missing boot!

(11:58:43 AM) PigeonClubATL: that's what i said! ohhh your tactics will not work on me sir or madam!

(11:59:35 AM) silvergeek000: no, you were talking about the other boot, the one that's not missing!

(11:59:40 AM) silvergeek000: sir or madam!

(12:00:49 PM) PigeonClubATL: but by recognizing there is one boot here and not two, we now know there is a missing boot (not pictured in the flyer, but still an actual photo)

(12:01:11 PM) PigeonClubATL: its a roundabout way of talking about the missing boot.

(12:01:20 PM) silvergeek000: an actual photo, yes, but of the non-missing boot! isn't that irrelevant to the subject at hand, sir or madam?

(12:02:16 PM) PigeonClubATL: but sir or madam, boots work in matching and the actual photo is a perfect example of what to look out for, though there should be a right boot and not a left one.

(12:02:45 PM) PigeonClubATL: it was the best we could do, we didnt know one boot was going to come up missing!

(12:03:14 PM) silvergeek000: i'm afraid we'll have to start from square one... if i am hearing you correctly, you are saying that the missing boot is identical to the non-missing boot? and so they are almost like... twins?

(12:04:58 PM) PigeonClubATL: they are so alike it is frightening, there is one tale tell that they are partners--one is right and the other left. so they must be be reunited.

(12:05:53 PM) silvergeek000: strange. i've never heard of boot twins! in this case, i don't see why you are so hell-bent on possessing the missing boot.

(12:06:30 PM) PigeonClubATL: because they are a pair! two of a kind! they must be reunited so that they can be together forever! And then my feet can match.

(12:07:56 PM) silvergeek000: sir or madam! I beg to differ. You have said in your own words that the boots are identical. And that you already own one of these so-called boots. In this case, would it not be reasonable to let someone else enjoy the other boot? Or do you think that the rich should get richer and the poor poorer!!!?!

(12:10:48 PM) PigeonClubATL: nownow, it's not about acquiring wealth, but it is about wearing a boot. and the problem with items that come in pairs means if one goes missing, everyone is poorer! if, perhaps, you come across this missing boot, sharing could potentially happen and then two people would be richer.

(12:10:58 PM) PigeonClubATL: now that is spreading wealth!

(12:12:21 PM) silvergeek000: So you only believe in sharing when someone is giving you a boot. Not when you are giving a boot (that you already own 2 of) to someone less fortunate?

(12:13:16 PM) PigeonClubATL: but maybe if we can reunite the pair, we can all wear them and share and be happy! perhaps if you find the boot you should return it to its owner so that we may then share the pair with you!

(12:13:40 PM) silvergeek000: Preposterous! Sir or madam!

(12:14:02 PM) PigeonClubATL: You dont believe in sharing?!

(12:14:05 PM) PigeonClubATL: Sir or madam!

(12:14:07 PM) silvergeek000: I will have to do a full write-up on your strange ways of thinking immediately.

(12:14:21 PM) PigeonClubATL: I will be extremely interested to read such write up!

(12:14:53 PM) silvergeek000: I would also like to know who this "we" is that you keep referring to

(12:15:36 PM) silvergeek000: perhaps i should say Sirs or Madams?

(12:16:00 PM) PigeonClubATL: You are very crafty. And yes, this is a two person endeavor to find the boot. This conversation has been tag-teamed! ha!

(12:16:43 PM) PigeonClubATL: but really, this was a two person job. not because one isnt capable, but because two care equally.

(12:18:09 PM) PigeonClubATL: honestly, because you seem to be so on the ball with this investigation, i wonder if you could catch the subtleties of change in tone.

(12:18:19 PM) silvergeek000: ah... two people... i see why you need two boots now... why didn't you tell me earlier? one for each person.. you DO believe in sharing afterall!

(12:18:46 PM) silvergeek000: oh, but how i wish there were a third boot!

(12:18:55 PM) PigeonClubATL: hahah you're stuck on this one boot per person thing

(12:19:15 PM) PigeonClubATL: ill share my boot.

(12:19:51 PM) silvergeek000: which one of you is the one who looks like a splitting image of audrey hepburn?

(12:21:37 PM) PigeonClubATL: maybe there is a collective hepburn aesthetic.

(12:22:13 PM) silvergeek000: one can be aubrey and one can be katharine... that way you can share a last name

(12:22:57 PM) silvergeek000: a last name and a boot to boot!

(12:23:46 PM) PigeonClubATL: but katherine, while a wonderful actress, was not quite the face comparable to audrey and it would not be as nice on the bottom of an IM.

(12:25:01 PM) PigeonClubATL: haha "a boot to boot"--how often does one get to say something like that?

(12:26:17 PM) silvergeek000: "a boot" -- that's how some people say "about"... so if they said "about a boot" they're saying "a boot a boot"

(12:27:34 PM) PigeonClubATL: I suppose the irish would be very apt to follow this conversation then!

(12:28:58 PM) PigeonClubATL: For now, we must be heading out for a bit! We had a lovely time talking to you.

(12:28:59 PM) silvergeek000: very well, Sirs or Madams! I am off. but fear not, I will follow this case closely. your boot will be found, although I may end up keeping it. have a jolly day.

(12:29:12 PM) silvergeek000: aha i see that your minds are thinking samely as mine

(12:29:30 PM) PigeonClubATL: Sounds like a plan! Indeed. Perhaps you will find the boot!

(12:29:35 PM) PigeonClubATL: and have a nice afternoon!

(12:29:41 PM) silvergeek000: you can boot on it!

The Great Escape

2009-05-11T08:06:00.000-07:00

Found

2009-04-13T14:41:00.000-07:00

Outline Address Mom's Better

Did what she wanted live life ->
us, piano & not what we wanted
had much potential - did not care
-selfish-

Did not encourage us rather us
have low-esteem, then being ("better
than stone")

No respect for self now
I must struggle w/ greater curse

Gave almost $1,000 & not like I
owed more & had no problem until,
you had a gran as man living in the
home free charge getting any grocery
rented & thought it was cool.

All for the sake of a man

Handmade Film

2009-03-30T09:08:00.000-07:00

I made a short film this weekend. See below:

This was part of a class at wonderroot... the other students did some great work too... see them on my Vimeo page

Sick of thinking

2009-03-13T18:47:00.000-07:00

The flu has kept me in bed for the past four days, and it's also kept me to my own thoughts. I began getting sick of my voice, not my physical one (that too), but the imaginary one I actually hear when I'm thinking. Is it possible to think without words, without language? How peaceful would that be. I think as children we probably all thought without words much of the time, or at least I'd like to imagine I did, as I was never very good at words. But I've become more and more reliant on it. Maybe the reason we're such muddled-in-the-head people is because of the way we think. Dr. Temple Grandin, who is autistic, and whom I found on Google by searching "thinking without words" has written a very interesting article. She describes the way she thinks as a series of images as in a flip book. All her thoughts are this way, some are videos and three dimensional models that she can manipulate in a very detailed and complex fashion. Images trigger other images in a succession to form a thought. When she thinks "dog" she automatically sees a bunch of pictures of every single specific dog she's ever known, not some general abstract "dog".

The Robots Have Taken Over

2009-02-22T08:00:00.001-08:00

These pictures taken at the Exxon on Candler St and Memorial. I think it hasn't opened yet, but all the LCD panels were turned on last night. Strangely creepy.

Big Ball

2009-02-20T16:35:00.001-08:00

Short Shrift

2009-01-26T19:04:00.000-08:00

from the American Heritage Dictionary online:

NOUN:1. Summary, careless treatment; scant attention: These annoying memos will get short shrift from the boss. 2. Quick work. 3a. A short respite, as from death. b. The brief time before execution granted a condemned prisoner for confession and absolution.

WORD HISTORY: To be given short shrift is not the blessing it once was. The source of our verb shrive (shrove, shriven) and noun shrift, which have technical meanings from ecclesiastical Latin, is Classical Latin scribere, “to write.” Shrive comes from the Old English verb scrifan, “to decree, decree after judgment, impose a penance upon (a penitent), hear the confession of.” The past participle of scrifan is scrifen, our shriven. The noun shrift, “penance; absolution,” comes from Old English scrift with the same meaning, which comes from scriptus, the perfect passive participle of scribere, and means “what is written,” or, to use the Latin word, “what is prescribed.” Theologians and confessors viewed the sacrament of penance as a prescription that cured a moral illness. In early medieval times penances were long and arduous—lengthy pilgrimages and even lifelong exile were not uncommon—and had to be performed before absolution, not after as today. However, less demanding penances could be given in extreme situations; short shrift was a brief penance given to a person condemned to death so that absolution could be granted before execution.

Favorite Movie Discoveries of Oh Eight

2009-01-07T08:43:00.000-08:00

This isn't really an end of the year list, as these aren't 08 movies (I only saw one 08 movie in 08) but rather movies I watched in 08.

Syndromes and a Century (Apichatpong Weerasethakul)

The strangest and best film I saw in 2008 is this little Thai film from 2006. It's a beautiful, meditative, funny, weird experience... completely unique, it's one of those movies that absolutely cannot be described.

Variations (Nathaniel Dorsky)

This was an amazing and blissful movie. I saw this along with the other 3 excellent Dorsky shorts that Andy Ditzler showed at the Eyedrum for his Film Love series. Abstract juxtaposition of images that are oddly emotive and effective. Editing, pace, colors and light.

Harlan County, USA (Barbara Kopple)

One of the very best documentaries. You feel like you really went through it all by the end; it's ugly and brutal and dirty, and features some of the most interesting people you wish you had met.

Other great discoveries:

Vagabond (Varda)

Profit Motive and the Whispering Wind (Gianvito)

Innocence (Hadzihalilovic)

Ritual in Transfigured Time (Deren)

Nanook of the North (Flaherty)

Hoop Dreams (James)

It's a Wonderful Life (Capra)

Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors (Paradjanov)

Planet Earth TV series

Film Ist (Deutsch)

Turtles Can Fly (Ghobadi)

When Father Was Away on Business (Kusturica)

Forces, The Will & The Weather

2008-09-29T17:59:00.000-07:00

At the time of nougats, the peer yellow
Sighed in the evening that he lived
Without ideas in a land without ideas,
The pair yellow, the peer.

It was at a time, the place, of nougats.
There the dogwoods, the white ones and the pink ones,
Bloomed in sheets, as they bloom, and the girl,
A pink girl took a white dog walking.

The dog had to walk. He had to be taken.
The girl had to hold back and lean back to hold him,
At the time of the dogwoods, handfuls thrown up
To spread colors. There was not an idea

This side of Moscow. There were anti-ideas
And counter-ideas. There was nothing one had. There were
No horses to ride and no one to ride them
In the woods of the dogwoods,

No large white horses. But there was the fluffy dog.
There were the sheets high up on older trees,
Seeming to be liquid as leaves made of cloud,
Shells under water. These were nougats.

It had to be right: nougats. It was a shift
Of realities, that, in which it could be wrong.
The weather was like a waiter with a tray.
One had come early to a crisp cafe.

by Wallace Stevens

Phantom India

2008-09-18T06:15:00.000-07:00

This amazing footage is from the film Phantom India by Louis Malle:

Two Essays

2008-09-15T20:54:00.001-07:00

Two essays for thought...

1.) "Is Poetry a Job, Is a Poem a Product?" by Murat Nemet-Nejat

Not your typical why-can't-poets-make-money type of whiny essay, he draws some really cool parallels between poetry and money, observations about class, and audience.

2.) "Sucking" by Ariana Reines

Went to see her read this past week, and came across this essay when I googled her beforehand. Intelligent, funny, personal. I like what she says about shit. And the French.

Cinemama!!! A new Film Series

2008-03-21T13:50:00.001-07:00

This is a new FREE film series I'm starting. Click on the image to go to the webpage (the image here is too small to see all the dates and films, unfortunately). It will be held at New Street Gallery

a FALSE event

2008-03-15T07:33:00.001-07:00

Top 25 Favorite Films I Saw in 2007

2008-01-04T10:15:00.000-08:00

(not necessarily movies released this year, in fact, most weren't)

1. A Moment of Innocence (Makhmalbaf)
2. Dust in the Wind (Hou)
3. Bamako (Sissako)
4. Celine and Julie Go Boating (Rivette)
5. Color of Pomegranates (Paradjanov)
6. Eternity and a Day (Angelopoulos)
7. Samurai Rebellion (Kobayashi)
8. Bemani (Mehrjui)
9. A Summer at Grandpa's (Hou)
10. Inland Empire (Lynch)
11. Half Moon (Ghobadi)
12. Kandahar (Makhmalbaf)
13. To Be or Not To Be (Lubitsch)
14. End of Summer (Ozu)
15. All About Lily Chou Chou (Iwai)
16. Old Joy (Reichardt)
17. Love Film (Szabo)
18. Sansho the Bailiff (Mizoguchi)
19. Some Like It Hot (Wilder)
20. I'm Not There (Haynes)
21. Network (Lumet)
22. The Shop Around the Corner (Lubitsch)
23. Tokyo Twilight (Ozu)
24. When a Woman Ascends the Stairs (Naruse)
25. A Man and a Woman (Lelouch)

Story of Stuff

2007-12-26T12:23:00.000-08:00

Click the above image to see the Story of Stuff, a very creative way of explaining a pretty complicated cycle of problems.

Positives

concise, lighthearted, good animation, not too emotional, keeping with the basic facts
you probably already know all this stuff, but it's nice to be reminded, and it's also nice to see the "big picture" which it keeps in perspective here
links on the website show you things you can do to combat the problems

Negatives

although I admire the initiative, the main problem is that we have a paradigm of consumption. The solution to this problem is not make people feel bad for consuming so much, not because it's not true, but because it's not gonna do any good. Though we ARE guilty, guilt (as an emotion and as a motivator) is not a good way to enact change; plenty of people feel guilty for eating fatty foods, but they still do it. Likewise, some of the solutions in this video are too reactionary and "easy".
every part of the "cycle" needs attacking, but how do we do it? "Change" still seems very out of reach other than those things we've all heard a million times... recycle, don't waste, etc. What can we actually do to reverse the process, to change the paradigm?

Unfortunately, I don't have any of the answers. This is still a good video and a good first step.

She was growing out of Playskool

2007-12-13T10:20:00.000-08:00

One of my new favorite songs:

Avey Tare and Panda Bear - Chocolate Girl (mp3, 12.9MB)

Spam of the Day

2007-12-10T07:18:00.000-08:00

Date: Mon, 10 Dec 2007 07:46:31 +0000
From: ailbert rex
To: vroom@clockwatching.net
Subject: How are you?

I'm ok!!! (as usual), because I'm very funny person and I often have a good mood. My mood happens a different. Without in dependence good or bad it varies very quickly. I am very lovely and attractive girl. There were many pleasant moments in life which it will be pleasant for me to share with you. Yes it so. Certainly you also would like to see my appearance and appeal, all my merits and demerits:). I will be very glad to send you my photo in the next letter . Than you could see my appearance:). I have started to use the Internet recently and so I have a small experience. I am assured that you wish to find out where we could get acquainted with you. I know that the Internet very big and a lot of interesting it is possible to find in it. But I have not remembered all. But I know only one that you have
written the electronic address for me on a dating site. Forgive that I can not write you the site name. Because I looked many dating sites. But when you have written the electronic address than I was understood that I wish to correspond only with you
and you are very interesting to me.

Well, now i should finish my letter because I have to work again, I hope you'll answer my letter and I thing you are pleased to make friends with me. With a good-natured smile I wait your letter. And with the big pleasure I will be glad to write to you to the answer. bye. Here my e-mail address: kiskayoul@gmail.com

Word Collection #1

2007-12-03T14:10:00.000-08:00

A while back, I started collecting words with two consecutive letter pairs. For example, balloon... two l's followed directly by two o's. Please let me know if you find any more. I'm not googling them or anything, cause that'll take all the fun out of finding them because I'm sure there is a comprehensive list somewhere on the web:

balloon
coffee
roommate
tattoo
lessee
committee
buffoon
wheelless
whippoorwill
tattoo
unneeded
Van de Graaff generator
greenness
pollee
barroom
bassoon
toffee
raccoon
spittoon
suttee
coolly
woolly
succeed
galloon
addressee
halloo

Words that I found in an old dictionary that may not be words anymore cause I can't find them in my other newer dictionary:

burreed (sometimes spelled as bur-reed)
shalloon
raggee (alt. spelling of ragi)

Also, the only one with three consecutive letter pairs I've found so far: bookkeeping.

I'm Not There (Todd Haynes)

2007-12-01T06:05:00.000-08:00

Dylan's not there--he doesn't appear in the movie (well, except for a small clip at the end, as a shadow of himself, almost). A series of actors who "weren't there" play him, a series of substitutions. The movie reproduces and quotes numerous other movies from other Dylan documentaries to Fellini's 8 1/2, and in a way, referencing these highlights the fact that we weren't there. A reference is an acknowledgement of existence, of knowledge, but also an acknowledgement of absence.

You start to realize that the actors playing him aren't all trying to act like him. Exact replication isn't the goal here (except for Cate Blanchett who does an excellent job). When you have a black boy play Dylan, it makes relating to him as Dylan, as "there", that much harder, and that is part of the point of the film. Richard Gere doesn't even TRY! He acts exactly like Richard Gere in all his other shitty movies. But it's this quality that makes the movie unique and much more interesting than other biopics.

It shuffles between reference points as well as styles. A black and white scene reminiscent of 8 1/2 is followed by an interview with Julianne Moore in full color, reminiscent of a mockumentary. Though the film is so restlessly shuffling, it manages, amazingly, to capture something about Dylan. The nonconventional storytelling style really benefits here in being enigmatic and revealing at the same time. Who is this person? We are asked to do the other half of the work, to place ourselves there in our minds.

It's not without fault. The performances were spotty. Some were amazing, like Cate Blanchett who was really great at her role about 90% of the time, Charlotte Gainsbourg, who gave a real standout performance here, even though she didn't really do anything that spectacular. She was just very convincing and lovable and real. There were bad performances too, Richard Gere was awful, the black boy was good when he was playing the charismatic Dylan, but he was awful when he tried to act meditative, David Cross as Allen Ginsberg was so much of a joke that it was hard to judge how well he played the role. But in a way it doesn't really matter, the format of the film absorbs the bad performances because the film itself draws attention to the fact that none of this is real, you're constantly aware of the fact that this is acting, and that's part of the point. It's almost like an exercise, but one in which there is a little bit of heart, which is what redeems it. The incredibly generous heart of Dylan, or part of it at least, comes through all the noise and makes the film that much more convincing. He's hiding in the film, even though he's not there.

Calder's Miniature Circus

2007-11-29T07:05:00.000-08:00

See a video of Calder's Circus in action!

The Strawberry

2007-11-19T05:55:00.000-08:00

after Francis Ponge, master poet of things

A morning fruit, the strawberry is adorned by dew. Like shy red bells with a down-turned tip, they shiver as you reach for one in your clumsy way. But deception. The two halves of the strawberry, so much like the unknowing heart, though it would be immodest for me to say so, is not a smooth object. In fact, it is covered with poppy seeds, almost imperceptible to the eye. Yet the tongue approves, for it is also not a homogeneous mass, but a sensitive beast fit through a tight hairnet, it senses the individual points, the crosshairs of taste and texture. The surface of a strawberry, likewise, has a map wrapped around it with longitudes and latitudes, points evenly spaced apart where they meet. These are like the far away figures dotting the country landscape. Who are they anyway, approaching now in pilgrim clothes?

(initially published in The Grove Review)

Armed Thus, God Could Only Make a Cabinet

2007-11-13T07:45:00.000-08:00

Stiff armed boy, your hollow
body goes a long ways
over the surface of the lake,
bass over bass.
I am open in your presence,
then I am closed. Two reeds
of the same speech middling.
A vibration means a yes,
then silence, no. Clouds
scroll by. The water
returns my advances,
souvenir for souvenir. Boy,
if you love me
squeeze my hand. Move your eyes
something if indeed
I am here, deaf and filled
with water. I am yours, open
and so close.

* title taken from a line in Arcadia, a play by Tom Stoppard

Questions about Beetles

2007-11-09T09:30:00.000-08:00

1. Are these even beetles? Why do they come out before it starts to rain? Do they live underground? Do they live in the trunks before trees? Do they have their own water supply or is that why they come out? What do they slave for with?

2. Do they have social patterns? Do they nest in the season? Why does it sound like that and then stops? What it like, a wind up toy or something? Is this even how one works?

3. How does one work? What do you drink of them? Do they only good for show or else wedged between the stones, an inkling of an apparition? Do they have eyes? What are their eyes? How come the skin-layer so winged?

4. Where are the aperture of the neck? The color of a beetle, is that fixed? What are the qualities of its light? Can somebody kill my beetle? Please? What is a beetle good for? What do we see in the lily-white? What should we call this one? Is a mating partner forever? Is nightwork long and tedious, without one click of light to calm the soul? Are these beige beetles? Why not? What is a little one called opposedly?

5. Does famine affect it? Does sitting do anything?

6. Is this a group or just one beetle? How can you tell? What is the sign for? In addition to any breakable parts, are there any other things? How does a beetle smell? How does a beetle feel? But how does a beetle feel when you do that? Are beetles in eternity?

7. Are beetles, after such bad weather, in seasonal display across the washway any blacker? How is my fingernail. What do you mean, “beetle”?

8. Does the desert they is friendly at? Careful the frontal lobes. What does a limb count say? What use, afterall, a beetle? Does a beetle have a body? Does a beetle have a physical location? Even so, is this also not a beetle?

Wally

2007-11-07T08:01:00.000-08:00

Ummm apparently Wallace Steven's birthday was in October (so is mine, I'm 30 now). While I was googling a Steven's poem (the nougat poem, unfortunately, is not on the web in full text, I'll have to wait till I get home to type it out from the book) and found this most amusing of blogs... the whole month of October seems to be one Wallace-orgy-fest!

Emperor of Ice-Cream Cakes probably the most genius blog I've ever read in the last 5 minutes!

2007-04-05T10:09:00.000-07:00

nights
a lone cricket
________goes--
by the rush

of tall trucks
______--that
decibel

in the long dead
________grass--

House and Mine

2007-04-04T12:27:00.000-07:00

I lied. There will be no more pictures of my roadtrip or of Hong Kong posted here. I did not want to lie. I was forced to. They put me in a bad position, and the little yellow in me got up and wobbled on its knees. I could put pictures up here. It would be easy. But I will not, preferring to stick to my lying ways. I will not back down from this responsibility of lying, I will not deny any longer and on and on that I am indeed a liar. There will be no more hedging around the lie. There will be the lie and nothing else. The lie sits ribald in the center. In the very center of my lie. It is the lie that made me lie about the pictures. I wanted to lie but the lie won't let me. I have run out of truths to tell and all there is remains. Another thing. I have run out of good lies. There will only be bad lies from here on out, lies that have obviously not been thought over, no research-driven lies, no more fanning the lies until they are bigger lies eating up the pie. There will be dirt and dung and not much more, not even shamefulness. It wasn't a choice, as I said. They told me to, they told me if I didn't I would not even have the choice. So I did. I did but now what am I? What does it mean to live within the lie, to be the lie? Is it much different? Is it like a yellowing plant that sits by my window continuing to yellow despite daily nurturing? No. It's not like that at all. It's more bumbling and I don't want you to think there is any malice in the lie. No, not that at all, it is in fact a very innocent lie, one with good intentions only, but even good intentions can be taken to extremes. Even good intentions can leave a man eating lime jell-o in the middle of the courtyard while the head of the tornado bares itself. What I am trying to say is that the intention was there, and it was good intent that placed it there, straight in the path of the lie. The lie didn't have anything to do with it. The lie was innocent in this good intent, the lie was just minding its own business. The lie would've given all it had just to be left alone, about and about. There is a point in time in our lives where we have to ask ourselves what does it mean? How does it feel to be lied to and lied to and lied to. I was lied to once. I was continually lied to. There was a lot of spit involved, and then the process started all over again, organically. It was admirable in that way. It was very deserving of some major Pats. For in this process, the process that drives the process of the lie making machine, it is built -- what I am saying is that -- it is built on this trust. It is built on trust and encouragement from your peers, a network thus established that can continually support the lie like a flange. In the end what matters is the lie, and here we have it, sitting pretty pleasing, scolded out of its ribboned shell, organically produced and delivered with clipped nails, what you see is not any ordinary person, it's a manner of speaking, a mode of carrying on, a lurching every few inches away from a truth. What I'm trying to say is that it takes much courage.

Make

2006-09-13T07:07:00.000-07:00

Used to be
possible

see to it
I felt--

able it
to seem--

Things I Saw in SanFran

2006-08-28T21:49:00.000-07:00

Saneesh:

Karma:

Just Another Bridge:

Some Peaceful Hills:

Some Books at City Lights Bookstore:

Matthew Barney's Drawing Restraint at the MOMA:

Best Lollapalooza Performances

2006-08-18T21:40:00.000-07:00

5. Of Montreal

4. Violent Femmes

3. Broken Social Scene

2. The Dresden Dolls

1. Andrew Bird

List Poem for Todd and Sarah and Baby Oskar

2006-08-15T23:03:00.000-07:00

- and me of a width and height
______and a different width
- carrying horses to the shore
- by the inlet where the baby was stiff
- intent on the Puget Sound
- of horses baying
- sound & Squawmish
- I was stiff in the width and height
- such was
- Orcas driven around the Isle
______of Hope
- my tender foot intended stiff
- was I, carried through finishing school
- a battery of roses
- carniverous
- Old Money
- made flighty among a pod of Orcas listening
- a different width
- intent on the Puget Sound
- with horses dimly ashore
- O which they
______had always caused me salmon!
- along such widths a different height
- shooing horses & bees
- a battery of Orcas sounding Squawmish
- at Rainier Pk.
- cavernous
- carried through the height & width
- The Isle of Hope
- intent
- through and through
- a silvery spread

note: photos of chicago, sanfran, and washington coming soon. I'm in Portland right now.

Top 3 Things about Walnut Grove, CA

2006-08-07T08:59:00.000-07:00

3. Visiting Isaac's Pear Packaging Plant and Thousands of Acres of Pears, Asparagus, Grapes, Safflower, etc.

2. Watersports on the River by Isaac's House (swimming, kayaking, boating, picking blackberries)

1. Hanging out with Isaac (sleeping, eating).

Top 3 Things About L.A.

2006-07-30T11:00:00.000-07:00

3. The Rauschenberg Combines exhibit at the MOCA

2. Theresa recites "Prufrock"

1. Walking along the shore eating funnel cake!