I know not whence possessed you

the closer you are to caesar,

2012-02-23T20:11:00.001-08:00

the greater the fear.

St.

2012-02-23T18:40:00.000-08:00

Happy (Freytag's Pyramid)

2012-02-21T09:01:00.001-08:00

In One we met. The conflict
was my old one, love. I had it for him.
He had it for him, too.

In Two the conflict entered stage left:
another woman. There was some lively dialogue
to represent sex.

In Three he chose against me—the other girl
had some get-up of veils, and smoke wafted in from the wings
when she appeared. Even I was beguiled.

The intermission offered no relief;
I spent it locked in a bathroom,
lying on the comfort of cold tile.

In Four I walked around a pretend meadow
as I monologued on and on
about how hard it is to be me—

it's what I thought a sad girl
is supposed to do for her audience.

In Five it was over,
and the audience filed out, orderly;
the cast shared cabs to the wrap party.
By then, everyone had either been murdered or married.

Courtney Queeney

Amen, Sister.

2012-02-21T08:59:00.001-08:00

She's already mine...

2012-02-20T18:21:00.002-08:00

Julian.

2012-02-20T18:21:00.001-08:00

Unions.

2012-02-20T17:59:00.000-08:00

Derp.

Spare Us

2012-02-19T21:19:00.000-08:00

Spare us the spring.
Spare us its garish light.
Spare us the nerve-thumping
rhythms of hopping balls:
empty vessels, sterile leather eggs.

Spare us the false optimism,
the short-term vision, the hint
that winter has been dealt a fatal blow,
that days will keep on stretching,
an economy in boom.

Spare us the emotion of
the choked-up lawnmower
champing at resurgent grass.

And spare us, no less, the need
for wonder: it demands
too much suspension of belief.

Spare us our jaundiced view
of daffodils, those clichéd ingénues
that wizen limply into spineless stalks.

Spare us the tawdry pink
of cherry blossoms,
so precariously attached
to branches
they are bound to fall to pieces,
crumble at the first
blusterings of a gale.

Spare us the shivering snowdrops,
paling quickly to insignificance,
their holier-than-thou aura
melting like Communion hosts.

Spare us the scare tactics
of invading dandelions,
that urine splash from which
no clump of grass,
no roadside verge is safe.

Lump in the leaves—it will be left to us
to pick up their pieces, rummage
through their trash when the tree market
crashes and stocks are in freefall.

And spare us lilacs, scent so over-ripe
suspicion of some cover-up is strong.

Spare us the lambs—bouncing
with complete abandon, needing
no counsel of a carpe diem nature,
peeking from the milk-white fleece
of their mothers’ blanket coverage,
or savouring mint-green grass
—on whom we pin dark,
raddle-marked declarations of intent.

Spare us the ardent couples
conferring at the paint store, torn
conspiratorially between Dewberry Frost
emulsion and velvet-finish Moonlight Bay.

Spare us the bees raiding every flower in sight,
leaving no anther pocket unturned.
And the tantrum-throwing wasps,
in venomous mood, headbutting glass.

Spare us the spurned bird, egg on its face,
its singsong persistence in soliciting a mate,
its loutish whistling at wing-batting females.

And spare us the dawn chorus
that outwears its welcome
like a loquacious breakfast guest.

Spare us, therefore, the spring,
its fake sincerity, its unethical
marketing strategies, its deceptive
pledges, its built-in obsolescence,
its weeds breeding like flies.

Dennis O'Driscoll

2012-02-18T13:47:00.001-08:00

Élan Vital

2012-02-18T13:43:00.000-08:00

In case you can imagine
a time when the cattail
marsh goes silent
and blackbirds
forget to flex their
red-winged armor
and insects
no longer live
to flicker
like ghosts adrift
in slants of crepuscular
light, beg the wind
which right now
sucks your hair
out the window
of this speeding
red car
while one hand
strives to gather
and the other
to control
to keep pumping
the bellows
fueling whatever it is
that keeps us aflame,
tongues licking
for its fire.

Denise Banker

2012-02-18T00:04:00.000-08:00

I don't even tag,

2012-02-17T17:38:00.001-08:00

but this gives me chubs.

2012-02-17T17:34:00.001-08:00

Internet

2012-02-15T11:15:00.003-08:00

The medium does matter. As a technology, a book focuses our attention, isolates us from the myriad distractions that fill our everyday lives. A networked computer does precisely the opposite. It is designed to scatter our attention ... Knowing that the depth of our thought is tied directly to the intensity of our attentiveness, it's hard not to conclude that as we adapt to the intellectual environment of the Net our thinking becomes shallower.

Linguistics

2012-02-15T08:33:00.001-08:00

i.
The orderly aisle: fettuccini, fusilli, rigatoni,
round, folded orecchietti, edible ears;
cappellini's wispy strands, trumpets, wagon wheels, screws;
for white clam sauce,
I choose linguini.

ii.
In amphibia—the frog who nestles her filmy eggs
in your koi pond, the toad hunched among your hostas—
it is fixed at the front, free behind, the better
to dart forward, lick up mosquitoes, gnats,
curl itself around black flies. In the house sparrow
you overlook, searching
for finches, orioles, ladderback woodpeckers, it is pointed,
hard as a toenail. In anteaters it wriggles,
wormlike, burrowing toward lunch.
In humans it tapers, muscular, fleshy, permits us
to invent words: luculent, disciple, nocturnal, to label
our opponents taciturn.

iii.
Moses objected that his slow tongue
stumbled over strong words,
urged God to find another
prophet, but God
suggested Aaron speak
for Moses—Aaron, eloquent as a poet
though but a priest.

iv.
She sells seashells by the seashore.
The sixth sick sheik's sixth sheep's sick.
A shoot shall sprout from the stump of Jesse.

v.
For no good reason, I'm skeptical
of Pliny's legend, gluttonous Romans
dining sumptuously on flamingo tongue.
I believe I've seen
colonies glide into brackish Florida estuaries,
dip their beaks, hunting, hunting.
Once I woke from a dream,
panicked shrimp roiling in my mouth, my lips
slick with brine. But didn't I see
a crèche of five thousand young, their plumage
deeply pink, their eager bills, though each
seems more impression than memory.
Haven't we all seen rotting herds
shot from trains,
taken for their tongues alone? We shot
nothing, refuse
our ancestors' guilt, yet every night our dreams
resound with the gavel's bang.

vi.
Every gift of tongues
shall be accompanied
by the gift of interpretation.

vii.
Ancient bestiaries reveal how serpents
sting with their tongues' fiery edge. A boy's skin
burns, flame rippling up his forearm, the scar
crimson, undulant. Serpents
die ten thousand times but die finally
if a birthmarked girl drips her thimbleful
of blood outside its den.

viii.
Pentecost, the sanctuary swirled
with red-and-yellow banners as gossamer doves
swept over our heads. Veni Sancti Spiritus
we heard, each in our own language.
Weren't we each lighted with fire, weren't we each
burnt, consumed, our tongues
tongues of flame?

ix.
Today, English serves
as lingua franca for those who profess
a common language. I mention
Lake Michigan, remembering
its endless cool invitation, my urge
to drift, oblivious of shore or depth,
waves lifting my shoulders, then hips, my thighs,
currents tugging my body away, away, but you
grimace, for your brother
did drown, tempted by your dare:
dive right in. You imagined
his blond hair flashed red with blood
before the lake washed him clean.
Because your mother never speaks
his name, you whispered it once, then swore
me to silence.

x.
Too often I've held my tongue, afraid,
aswarm with darkness. Here
are all the ways you could do it—No,
I won't say it.

xi.
Medieval monks slept
in their coffins. Cash Bundren sawed
planks for his mother's coffin, planed their edges
as Dewey Dell fanned flies from her face, and she lay
remembering why she named one son Jewel.
No one has written
why I followed a man I knew
only as Mr. Jewel into his barn,
how he pointed out the forged, square nails, each stall's
tongue-and-groove construction, how the next day he looped
his rope over a weathered beam, climbed
onto a milk crate, kicked
it away.

xii.
When the man asked
to be cured of his faulty speech, Jesus
touched his tongue, pressing his calloused forefinger
against its fleshy center. The man felt
words well within him, words
of the law and prophets; he felt
creatures swirling in his mouth, and when he opened
his lips, they soared like doves, their soft feathers
brushing his neighbors' ears, every word
perfectly clear and yet still
sounding like miracle, miracle, miracle.

Lynn Domina

Would.

2012-02-14T11:48:00.001-08:00

Social Network

2012-02-13T20:23:00.000-08:00

These events in the early sixties became a civil rights war that engulfed the South for the rest of the decade—and it happened without e-mail [sic], texting, Facebook, or Twitter.

Some of this grandiosity is to be expected. Innovators tend to be solipsists.

The platforms of social media are built around weak ties. Twitter is a way of following (or being follow by) people you may never have met. Facebook is a tool for efficiently managing your acquaintances, for keeping up with the people you would not otherwise be able to stay in touch with. That's why you can have thousands of "friends" on Facebook, as you never could in real life.

But how did the campaign get so many people to sign up? By not asking too much of them. That's the only way you can get someone you don't really know to do something on your behalf... In fact, it's the kind of commitment that will bring only social acknowledgement and praise.

I love Malcolm Gladwell more, all the time.

Late

2012-02-10T13:19:00.001-08:00

Derived from the Latin word meaning to put off for tomorrow.

It's a powerful example of what the Greeks called akrasia–doing something against one's own better judgment.

van Gogh

2012-02-09T15:37:00.000-08:00

Greek code or Latin Cry?

Let's not forget that small emotions are the great captains of our lives.

from The New Yorker's Annals of Anthropology

2012-02-08T11:34:00.001-08:00

"Drinking Games: How much people drink may matter less than how they drink it,"

by Malcolm Gladwell

2012-02-07T21:03:00.001-08:00

2012-02-07T15:15:00.001-08:00

Faulkner

2012-02-03T09:09:00.000-08:00

"Any character that you write takes charge of his own behavior.
You can't make him do things once he comes alive and stands up and casts his own shadow."

"Rain is only heard,

2012-02-02T23:30:00.001-08:00

as it ceases to fall."

Picasso

2012-02-02T23:21:00.000-08:00

"The chief enemy of creativity is good taste."

2012-02-02T23:20:00.000-08:00

2012-02-02T23:13:00.000-08:00

When you write a novel you should be trying to write your own favorite book.

open

2012-02-02T23:06:00.000-08:00

Look at, observe, everything we don't know about the people around us.

What little twist would it take to determine whether we are a hero or villain?

Zounds

2012-02-02T23:00:00.000-08:00

God's wounds.

the

2012-02-02T22:57:00.000-08:00

things we can intuitively recognize, but are unable to articulate.

2012-02-02T20:41:00.001-08:00

2012-02-02T20:40:00.000-08:00

2012-02-02T19:06:00.001-08:00

2012-02-02T17:36:00.001-08:00

Freedom is not a license for chaos, he observed.

2012-02-01T19:04:00.000-08:00

Found Notes.

2012-02-01T12:18:00.001-08:00

With arguments of definition, what comes between is and is not.

formal definition, what is found in a dictionary.
operational definition, identify an object by what it does rather than by what it is.
definition by example, define a class by listing its individual members.

developing a definitional argument > formulating claims, crafting definitions, matching claims to definitions.

essential conditions: elements that must be a part of a definition, but that – in themselves – aren't enough to define a term.
sufficient conditions: any element or conjunction of elements that is enough to define a term.
accidental conditions: elements that are often associated with a term but are not present in every case, or sufficient to identify it.

key features of a definitional argument, a claim involving a question of definition, a general definition of some key concept, a careful look at your subject in terms of that general definition, evidence for every part of the argument, a consideration of alternative views and counterarguments, a conclusion which draws out the implications of the argument.

guide to writing an argument of definition, finding a topic, researching your topic, formulating a claim, examples of definitional claims, preparing a proposal, thinking about organization, getting and giving response: the claim; evidence for the claim; organization and style; spelling; punctuation; mechanics; documentation; format.

researching your topic, use academic dictionaries & encyclopedias, unabridged dictionaries, specialized reference works and handbooks, such as legal & medical dictionaries, textbook glossaries, newsgroups and listservs.

formulating a claim, begin with the following types of questions of definitions: genus; species; conditions; fulfillment of conditions; membership in a named class.

preparing a proposal, outline in Toulmin terms: claim; reason/s; warrant/s.

Toulmin Argument - a method of informal logic first described by Stephen Toulmin in The Uses of Argument [’58]. Toulmin describes the key components of an argument as the claim, reason, warrant, backing and grounds.

the Ipsiad, Can. II

2012-01-30T16:16:00.001-08:00

"Of all the people on the scene,

some are betwixt and

some between."

You begin to feel what you have always felt...

2012-01-30T11:52:00.001-08:00

"... the inexplicable attraction of intellectual suicide by means of the intellect itself. The scorpion stabbing itself in the neck, tired of being a scorpion but having to have recourse to its own scorpionness in order to do away with itself as a scorpion."

But let's not get things confused.

2012-01-29T23:18:00.000-08:00

"You have seen very well that misfortune is, let's say, tangible, perhaps because out of it comes the separation into subject and object. That's why memory is so important, that's why it's so easy to describe catastrophes."

Cantilever

2012-01-29T20:42:00.000-08:00

Mama Cass

2012-01-28T09:28:00.000-08:00

While an urban legend maintains that Mama Cass Elliot died choking on a chicken bone, her death was actually the result of heart failure – for obvious reasons.
For the same reasons, the public latched on to the idea that Cass died while eating a sandwich, even playing it up to have been a ham sandwich in some variations of the tale.
From this rumor came the joke that, if Mama Cass had given Karen Carpenter the ham sandwich, they'd noth be alive today.

Cass died in 1974, at the height of her career, having just finished performing at the London Palladium Theatre.
Cass' heart failure occurred while lying in the same bed, in the same room, where Keith Moon had died four years earlier. The apartment was owned by Harry Nilsson.

Claustrophilia - Alice Fulton

2012-01-27T23:54:00.001-08:00

It’s just me throwing myself at you,
romance as usual, us times us,

not lust but moxibustion,
a substance burning close

to the body as possible
without risk of immolation.

Nearness without contact
causes numbness. Analgesia.

Pins and needles. As the snugness
of the surgeon’s glove causes hand fatigue.

At least this procedure
requires no swag or goody bags,

stuff bestowed upon the stars
at their luxe functions.

There’s no dress code,
though leg irons

are always appropriate.
And if anyone says what the hell

are you wearing in Esperanto—
Kion diable vi portas?—

tell them anguish
is the universal language.

Stars turn to train wrecks
and my heart goes out,

admirers gush. Ground to a velvet!
But never mind the downside,

mon semblable, mon crush.
Love is just the retaliation of light.

It is so profligate, you know,
so rich with rush.

Art of the Left

2012-01-27T18:35:00.000-08:00

The Napoleonic Wars ushered in Romanticism and the birth of the Bohemians, the first to create the notion of artists as liberals, leftists or anarchists.

From the social unrest of a series of riots in European capital cities, between the late 1840s & early 1850s, sprang Marx & Engels and the Communist Manifesto. For idealistic / utopian minded artists, this signaled a cure-all for political evils.

The Franco-Prussian War in 1870 reignited these revolutionary beliefs and sparked the commune tragedy in Paris. Going forward, liberal & artistic sympathies embraced the communist agenda.

WWI was the catalyst of the lost, or Beat, generation. By the 50s, when Russia was launching its similarly named ship, the group earned the nickname, "Beatnik."

The non-leftist, early 20th century movement, futurism, began in Paris with Italian artist, Marinette. The intended message was that man is inferior to machines, and reflected the ideology of fascism. The movement was inspirational to Mussolini and Hitler, later on.

Another exception to leftist art was Salvador Dali who was thrown out of the surrealist movement as a result of his praise for Spanish dictator, Generalissimo Franco, as well as Dali's supposed tolerance for Hitler.

While bikers lean naturally toward conservative beliefs, they are also proud to live the lives of libertines, and thus fall into the category of Bohemian culture. An example of this paradoxical type is Von Dutch who enjoyed an existential life of drunkenness, drug use and lechery, while simultaneously espousing a social policy of population control:
"Anyone who is incapable of creating something for society should be executed."

Nelle

2012-01-26T20:39:00.000-08:00

Harper Lee didn't use her first name in print because she didn't want it to be pronounced, "Nellie."

Lee and Truman Capote grew up as neighbors and playmates in Monroeville, Alabama. She would later accompany him to Kansas to assist with research for In Cold Blood.

Her father, A.C. Lee, was a lawyer, newspaper editor and politician.

The manuscript was originally titled Atticus, and Lee wanted Spencer Tracy to play the lead.

"When you're at the top, there's only one way to go. I said what I had to say."

PKD

2012-01-26T19:52:00.000-08:00

When he began writing in the fifties, he went unpublished because American publishing companies did not know what to make of his work.

He died at the age of fifty-three in 1982. He was buried alongside his twin sister, who died as an infant.

The year of his death was also the year of Bladerunner's theatrical release. The film was dismissed by critics and was a box-office flop, but later went on to success.
The adapted screenplay, in terms of the story on which it was based, is least faithful to the letter, but most faithful to the spirit of Dick's stories: the tears in the rain soliloquy exemplifies everything Dick's work is about. The android has a soul because he has memories, and his memories are real not because he ever actually experienced them, but because he feels them.

Japan

2012-01-26T19:46:00.001-08:00

Kyoto, the capital city is over twelve-thousand years old.

Japan's two major religions are Buddhism and Shinto:
Shinto is the native religion and holds that all things have a spirit. It's shrines possess simple, two-tiered gates known as torii, which are usually painted red;
Buddhism arrived in the sixth century, from India, via China and Korea. Inside each temple is an image of Buddha, and other images include a dragon, the animal that fought off the demons plaguing Buddha, allowing him to achieve enlightenment, and the lotus, a symbol of purity. On January 1st, at midnight, temple bells across the nation toll one-hundred & eight times for the number of Buddha's positive attributes.
Most Japanese identify, to some degree, with both religions, and find it unreasonable that a person should have to choose one.

Ikebana, the art of flower arrangement.

Ryokan, Japanese style inns.

the whale.

2012-01-26T18:24:00.000-08:00

Ultra Violence

2012-01-25T06:11:00.000-08:00

In 1943, Burgess' pregnant wife, Lynne, was robbed and beaten by four US GI deserters in a London Street, causing a miscarriage and subsequent gynecological problems.

Nadsat is a transliteration of the Russian suffix, fourteen, invented in order to avoid dating the novel with contemporary slang.

Anthony Burgess originally sold the story to Mick Jagger for $500; Jagger hoped for the Stones to play the roles of Alex & his Droogs.

Korova Moloko, or Cow and Milk, in Russian.

The milk bar sculptures are based on the work of Allen Jones.

The footage of the bride falling through the gallows trapdoor is from the 1965 film, Cat Ballou.

Only three of the M-505 Adams Brothers Probe 16s were ever produced.

David Prowse, who plays the bodyguard, is also the body of Darth Vader.

Along with Midnight Cowboy, one of two originally X-Rated films to be nominated for Best Picture. It lost to The French Connection

The 9th represents Beethoven's attempt to find a universally acceptable message.
The first movement reflects the desperate condition of mankind and alludes to Tartarus – home to Hell's worst offenders.
The second movement depicts the search for happiness, with diversions along the way.
The third emotes piety, a turning toward religion.
The finale arrives at fulfillment, recounting all that has gone before.
In the film, the audience is shown a reverse of the development of society, moving from a universal dystopia, toward individual fulfillment, universal in the everyman. One of the film's driving forces is that this fulfillment is only for the individual and not for the masses.

On April 13th, 1945, Kubrick had the opportunity to put his ever-present Speed Graphic camera to use, photographing a corner news vendor surrounded by papers announcing plans for FDR's funeral. He sold the photo to Look, making it his first paying gig.

Had a habit of checking out the medicine chests of anyone whose home he visited, out of curiosity over what medications they were taking.

Bert Stern, hired to take publicity shots for Lolita, purchased the heart-shaped glasses, impromptu, at a local five-and-dime in Sag Harbor.

Marginalia

2012-01-24T11:38:00.000-08:00

Three dog night is an eskimo expression in response to night's so cold, they necessitate huddling with three dogs in order to keep warm.

The Canary Islands were named for the large dogs that lived there in ancient times. Canariae Insulae or Island of Dogs.

The Romans believed that the dog star, Sirius, added greatly to the heat of the summer between June & August, creating dies caniculares, otherwise known as the dog days of summer.

Generally speaking, herbs are the leaves of plants from temperate zones, while spices are ground up bits of bark (cinnamon), seeds (cumin), roots (ginger), pods, husks and stalks, often from tropical plants.

Popeye Doyle wears a pork-pie.

Europeans collected scalps of Native Americans to collect their bounty, and thus introduced the practice. Similarly, Spaniards are responsible for bringing horses to the Indians.

Passer Pipiabat

2012-01-24T11:36:00.000-08:00

Better a sparrow, living or dead, than no birdsong at all.

Recent Pleasures

2012-01-24T09:37:00.000-08:00

Godard's Week-End

Waters' Pink Flamingos

Zwigoff's Crumb

"Last Year's Man" by Leonard Cohen

"Lone Runner" by Dirty Beaches

"Snow & Taxis" by Gold Panda

"The Offbeat" by FLYamSAM

"I Wish You Would" by David Bowie

"Tongue Tied" by Wanda Jackson

Versed

2011-07-05T16:05:00.000-07:00

Codex

Even

2011-06-30T07:38:00.001-07:00

Be like the jutting rock against which waves are constantly crashing, and all around it the frothing foam of the waters then settles back down. "Oh, I am so unfortunate that this has happened to me." Not at all, but rather "How fortunate I am that, even though this has happened to me, I continue uninjured, neither terrified by the present, nor in fear of the future." So such a thing could happen to anyone, but not just anyone would persevere unharmed. So why is this considered bad fortune instead of good fortune? And do you think something to be wholly unfortunate for a man when it is not even a defect in his nature? And would that which is not contrary to the plan of his nature seem to you a defect in his nature? What then? You have already learned this plan; does what has happened to you prevent you from being just, great-soulled, self-controlled, considerate, deliberate, honest, modest, independent, and all other such qualities which, when present, allow us to realize our true nature? For the remainder of your life, whenever anything causes pain for you, make use of this principle: "This is not unfortunate. Indeed, to bear such things nobly is good fortune."

Go ahead, soul, be destructive, but you may not have another opportunity to honor yourself, for each person has only one life--and yours is almost finished; yet you still do not respect yourself, but locate your happiness in the minds of others.

-Marcus Aurelius

Lot 49

2011-05-31T22:49:00.001-07:00

It plays, as Metzger remarked later, like a Road Runner cartoon in blank verse.

She couldn't stop watching his eyes. They were bright black, surrounded by an incredible network iof lines, like a laboratory maze for studying intelligence in tears. They seemed to know what she wanted, even if she didn't .

"You see, in spring, when the dandelions begin to bloom again, the wine goes through fermentation. As if they remembered."
No, thought Oedipa, sad. As if their home cemetery in some way still did exist, in a land where you could somehow walk, and not need the East San Narciso Freeway, and bones still could rest in peace, nourishing ghosts of dandelions, no one to plow them up. As if the dead really do persist, even in a bottle of wine.

She knew, because she had held him, that he suffered DT's. Behind the initials was a metaphor, a delirium tremens, a trembling unfurrowing of the mind's plowshare.

"The historical Shakespeare," growled one of the grad students through a full beard, uncapping another bottle. "The historical Marx. The historical Jesus."

But should Bortz have exfoliated the mere words so lushly, into such unnatural roses, under which, in whose red, scented dusk, dark history slithered unseen?

World War II era Japanese Enigma Machine

2011-05-24T13:04:00.001-07:00

Words of Wisdom

2011-05-23T14:27:00.001-07:00

(Lets not fall, in love, with ourselves, but our souls and musical memories!!)
- Howard Strum

Gorgeous

2011-05-05T20:20:00.000-07:00

Attempting to understand our chatter, my mother said, was like trying to eavesdrop on someone sleeptalking, when the words are still untraslated from their dream state—achingly familiar, but just beyond one's grasp.

Makes the musics

2011-04-25T22:03:00.000-07:00

Endless Fun

Pearls Melt in Vinegar

2011-04-23T19:16:00.001-07:00

Untitled

2011-04-21T23:32:00.000-07:00

Those were sad
times
When without
you
I watched worlds
and days
Come up
And then again
go down.

Izumi Shikibu

Well. Rad.

2011-04-19T21:55:00.001-07:00

This is gorgeous.

2011-04-19T17:04:00.000-07:00

Symmetry from Everynone on Vimeo.

Give it a look-see.

and you will know me by

2011-04-10T14:22:00.000-07:00

Surly? Surely.

2011-04-09T21:52:00.001-07:00

Reassurance.

2011-04-05T15:42:00.000-07:00

By a workshop instructor, about my writing:

“a talented and subtle writer, whose work stands out from that of many other young writers for its mature and intensely nuanced approaches to characterization and setting.
[His] stories frequently are written from the point of view of female characters. Uneasy in their skin, these characters find themselves in urban and suburban settings that, while ordinary, through the detailed attention given them, function as alien environments implicitly thwarting these characters' struggles to express desire. The settings are richly tonal, tonal shading creating mood that arrestingly contributes to the unusual circumstances and relationships of the women characters. Their indecision and ambivalence in these circumstances is persuasive. While this approach to characters provides them with believable complexity, they achieve further memorability by a willingness to be unkind. I found I was always a little taken aback by the ways in which these characters departed from expected models of female behavior - a very good thing.
He was, in short, that rare person in an undergraduate writing workshop, a writer with a vision.”

That Hood Mentality

2011-04-04T16:56:00.000-07:00

Shut up or get cut up.

Thomas Ott

2011-03-28T10:21:00.000-07:00

Stories like this renew my faith.

2011-03-27T22:35:00.000-07:00

True love.

It's only unfortunate that this sort of thing happens so seldomly.

Holy shit.

2011-03-24T01:13:00.000-07:00

If anyone can find me a physical copy of this poster,

I will marry you.

Done.

Peep

2011-03-21T14:10:00.001-07:00

Truth Windows

That makes me a sad panda.

2011-03-19T18:39:00.000-07:00

In the places between our eyes

2011-03-19T14:16:00.000-07:00

Winter quarter has ended. I took my last final, for Chekhov in translation, yesterday afternoon and turned in the last few assignments due for my poetry workshop.
This quarter has been a bit of a shit-show, with everything that has gone down in my life outside of school, and as a result, I've been playing catch-up the whole time. I feel relieved to have completed everything and confident that, despite the obstacles I had to deal with, I've earned all A's yet again.
The highlight of my day, to be sure, was my Russian Lit instructor [who is a muthafuckin G, as far as Russian Literature is concerned — Dude is responsible for the published translations of all of Chekhov's plays that we read for the course] commenting on my extra credit, creative writing assignment:
"Your writing is very reminiscent of Dostoyevsky; have you read Notes from the Underground?"
What a compliment.

Addendum - later, a grad student in the Slavic Languages department told me my Chekhov prof had complimented me, and my creative piece, by name.

Correspondence between Gandhi & Tolstoy

2011-03-03T13:35:00.000-08:00

Westminster Palace Hotel
4, Victoria Street,
LONDON, W.C.
10.11.1909.
Dear Sir:
I beg to tender my thanks for your registered letter in connection with the letter addressed to a Hindu, and with the matters that I dealt with in my letter to you.
Having heard about your failing health I refrained in order to save you the trouble, from sending an acknowledgment, knowing that a written expression of my thanks was a superfluous formality, but Mr. Aylmer Maude, whom I have now been able to meet reassured me that you were keeping very good health indeed and that unfailingly and regularly attended to your correspondence every morning. It was very gladsome news to me, and it encourages me to write to you further about matters which are, I know, of the greatest importance according to your teaching.
I beg to send you herewith a copy of a book written by a friend - an Englishman, who is at present in South Africa, in connection with my life, insofar as it has a bearing on the struggle with which I am so connected, and to which my life is dedicated. As I am very anxious to engage your active interest and sympathy I thought that it would not be considered by you as out of the way for me to send you the book.
In my opinion, this struggle of the Indians in the Transvaal is the greatest of modern times, inasmuch as it has been idealised both as to the goal as also the methods adopted to reach the goal. I am not aware of a struggle, in which the participators are not to derive any personal advantage at the end of it, and in which 50 % of the persons affected have undergone great suffering and trial for the sake of a principle. It has not been possible for me to advertise the struggle as much as I should like. You command, possibly, the widest public today. If you are satisfied as to the facts you will find set forth in Mr. Doke's book, and if you consider that the conclusions I have arrived at are justified by the facts, may I ask you to use your influence in any manner you think fit to popularise the movement? If it succeeds, it will be not only a triumph of religion, love and truth over irreligion, hatred and falsehood, but it is highly lilely to serve as an example to the millions in India and to people in other parts of the world who may be down-trodden, and will certainly go a great way towards breaking up the party of violence, at least in India. If we hold out to the end, as I think we would, I entertain not the slightest doubt as to the ultimate success; and your encouragement in the way suggested by you can only strengthen us in our resolve.
The negociations [sic] that were going on for a settlement of the question have practically fallen through, and together with my colleague I return to South Africa this week, and invite imprisonment. I may add that my son has happily joined me in this struggle, and is now undergoing imprisonment with hard labour for six months. This is his fourth imprisonment in the course of the struggle.
If you would be so good as to reply to this letter, may I ask you to address your reply to me at Johannesburg, S.A. Box 6522.
Hoping that this will find you in good health, I remain
Your obedient servant,
M K Gandhi

To Gandhi,
I HAVE just received your very interesting letter, which gave me much pleasure. God help our dear brothers and co-workers in the Transvaal! Among us, too, this fight between gentleness and brutality, between humility and love and pride and violence, makes itself ever more strongly felt, especially in a sharp collision between religious duty and the State laws, expressed by refusals to perform military service. Such refusals occur more and more often.
I wrote the 'Letter to a Hindu', and am very pleased to have it translated. The Moscow people will let you know the title of the book on Krishna. As regards 're-birth' I for my part should not omit anything, for I think that faith in a re-birth will never restrain mankind as much as faith in the immortality of the soul and in divine truth and love. But I leave it to you to omit it if you wish to. I shall be very glad to assist your edition. The translation and diffusion of my writings in Indian dialects can only be a pleasure to me.
The question of monetary payment should, I think, not arise in connexion with a religious undertaking.
I greet you fraternally, and am glad to have come in touch with you.
LEO TOLSTOY.

To Count Leo Tolstoy, Yasnaya Polyana, Russia.
JOHANNESBURG, 4th April 1910.
Dear Sir,
You will recollect my having carried on correspondence with you whilst I was temporarily in London. As a humble follower of yours, I send you herewith a booklet which I have written. It is my own translation of a Gujrati writing. Curiously enough, the original writing has been confiscated by the Government of India. I, therefore, hastened the above publication of the translation.
I am most anxious not to worry you, but, if your health permits it and if you can find the time to go through the booklet, needless to say I shall value very highly your criticism of the writing.
I am sending also a few copies of your letter to a Hindoo, which you authorised me to publish. It has been translated in one of the Indian languages also.
I am,
Your humble servant, M. K. GANDHI.

To Mahatma Gandhi.
YASNAYA POLYANA. 8th May 1910.
Dear friend,
I have just received your letter and your book, Indian Home Rule.
I read your book with great interest because I think the question you treat in it: the passive resistance — is a question of the greatest importance, not only for India but for the whole humanity.
I could not find your former letters, but came across your biography by J. Doss, which too interested me much and gave me the possibility to know and understand your letter.
I am not quite well at present and therefore abstain from writing to you all what I have to say about your book and all your work, which I appreciate very much, but I will do it as soon, as I will feel better.
Your friend and brother
Leo Tolstoy

To Gandhi, Johannesburg, Transvaal, South Africa.
KOCHETY. 7th September 1910.
I received your journal, Indian Opinion, and was glad to see what it says of those who renounce all resistance by force, and I immediately felt a wish to let you know what thoughts its perusal aroused in me.
The longer I live-especially now when I clearly feel the approach of death-the more I feel moved to express what I feel more strongly than anything else, and what in my opinion is of immense importance, namely, what we call the renunciation of all opposition by force, which really simply means the doctrine of the law of love unperverted by sophistries. Love, or in other words the striving of men's souls towards unity and the submissive behaviour to one another that results therefrom, represents the highest and indeed the only law of life, as every man knows and feels in the depths of his heart (and as we see most clearly in children), and knows until he becomes involved in the lying net of worldly thoughts. This law was announced by all the philosophies- Indian as well as Chinese, and Jewish, Greek and Roman. Most clearly, I think, was it announced by Christ, who said explicitly that on it hang all the Law and the Prophets. More than that, foreseeing the distortion that has hindered its recognition and may always hinder it, he specially indicated the danger of a misrepresentation that presents itself to men living by worldly interests- namely, that they may claim a right to defend their interests by force or, as he expressed it, to repay blow by blow and recover stolen property by force, etc., etc. He knew, as all reasonable men must do, that any employment of force is incompatible with love as the highest law of life, and that as soon as the use of force appears permissible even in a single case, the law itself is immediately negatived. The whole of Christian civilization, outwardly so splendid, has grown up on this strange and flagrant- partly intentional but chiefly unconscious-misunderstanding and contradiction. At bottom, however, the law of love is, and can be, no longer valid if defence by force is set up beside it. And if once the law of love is not valid, then there remains no law except the right of might. In that state Christendom has lived for 1,900 years. Certainly men have always let themselves be guided by force as the main principle of their social order. The difference between the Christian and all other nations is only this: that in Christianity the law of love had been more clearly and definitely given than in any other religion, and that its adherents solemnly recognized it. Yet despite this they deemed the use of force to be permissible, and based their lives on violence - so that the life of the Christian nations presents a greater contradiction between what they believe and the principle on which their lives are built: a contradiction between love which should pre scribe the law of conduct, and the employment of force, recognized under various forms-such as governments, courts of justice, and armies, which are accepted as necessary and esteemed. This contradiction increased with the development of the spiritual life of Christianity and in recent years has reached the utmost tension.
The question now is, that we must choose one of two things-either to admit that we recognize no religious ethics at all but let our conduct of life be decided by the right of might; or to demand that all compulsory levying of taxes be discontinued, and all our legal and police institutions, and above all, military institutions, be abolished.
This spring, at a scripture examination in a Moscow girls' school, first their religious teacher and then an archbishop who was also present, questioned the girls on the ten commandments, especially on the sixth. After the commandments had been correctly recited the archbishop sometimes put a question, usually: 'Is it always and in every case forbidden by the law of God to kill?' And the unfortunate girls, misled by their instructor, had to answer and did answer: 'Not always, for it is permissible in war and at executions.' When, however, this customary additional question-whether it is always a sin to kill-was put to one of these unfortunate creatures (what I am telling you is not an anecdote, but actually happened and was told me by an eyewitness) the girl coloured up and answered decidedly and with emotion - 'Always!' And despite all the customary sophistries of the archbishop, she held steadfastly to it-that to kill is under all circumstances forbidden even in the Old Testament, and that Christ has not only forbidden us to kill, but in general to do any harm to our neighbour. The archbishop, for all his majesty and verbal dexterity,was silenced, and victory remained with the girl.
Yes, we may write in the papers of our progress in mastery of the air, of complicated diplomatic relation, of various clubs, of discoveries, of all sorts of alliances, and of so-called works of art, and we can pass lightly over what that girl said. But we cannot completely silence her, for every Christian feels the same, however vaguely he may do so. Socialism, Communism, Anarchism' Salvation Armies, the growth of crime, freedom from toil, the increasingly absurd luxury of the rich and increased misery of the poor, the fearfully rising number of suicides-are all indications of that inner contradiction which must and will be resolved. And, of course, resolved in such a manner that the law of love will be recognized and all reliance on force abandoned. Your work in the Transvaal, which to us seems to be at the end of the earth, is yet in the centre of our interest and supplies the most weighty practical proof, in which the world can now share, and not only the Christian but all the peoples of the world can participate.
I think it will please you to hear that here in Russia, too, a similar movement is rapidly attracting attention, and refusals of military service increase year by year. However small as yet is with you the number of those who renounce all resistance by force, and with us the number of men who refuse any military service-both the one and the other can say: God is with us, and God is mightier than man.
In the confession of Christianity-even a Christianity deformed as is that taught among us-and a simultaneous belief in the necessity of armies and preparations to slaughter on an ever-increasing scale, there is an obvious contradiction that cries to heaven, and that sooner or later, but probably quite soon, must appear in the light of day in its complete nakedness. That, however, will either annihilate the Christian religion, which is indispensable for the maintenance of the State, or it will sweep away the military and all the use of force bound up with it-which the State needs no less. All governments are aware of this contradiction, your British as much as our Russian, and therefore its recognition will be more energetically opposed by the governments than any other activity inimical to the State, as we in Russia have experienced and as is shown by the articles in your magazine. The governments know from what direction the greatest danger threatens them, and are on guard with watchful eyes not merely to preserve their interests but actually to fight for their very existence.
Yours etc., LEO TOLSTOY.

Musicology

2011-02-24T15:37:00.000-08:00

The Smiths Project

This girl is fuckin' rad.

Castle of Shadows

2011-02-24T14:22:00.000-08:00

"That's your shadow on the wall.
Can't escape your shadow, can you, Wayne?"

I'm no scientist, but this is fascinating.

2011-02-24T12:50:00.001-08:00

On the prowl.

2011-02-22T22:24:00.000-08:00

Relevant, via Connie Eggers

2011-02-21T15:50:00.001-08:00

"Evil is unspectacular and always human, and shares our bed and eats at our own table."

-W. H. Auden

From a book published in Germany, 1933

2011-02-17T13:29:00.000-08:00

On the dangers of electricity -

Pride

2011-02-10T11:27:00.000-08:00

"I'm (re)reading the work you sent me [...]
It's an incredible thing that every woman you come across does not fall madly in love with you, desirous to be the subject of your poetry and prose that you speak so passionately and honestly about."

"Dear Johnny,
Just to indicate that you should push forward, since all the poems I've skimmed tell me you are the genuine article--a poet with enormous talent. Clearly working in the A or better range. More comments, though I'm slower than anticipated, and I want to focus on other projects/papers where more direction may be needed. You're so clearly self-motivated that it's a pleasure to simply be invited along for the read."

"I see no problem here with anticipating the quality of your work or your ability to pursue successfully a self-generated creative project. You clearly set your own bars high enough to keep pushing yourself-and that's an intrinsic motivation to write poetry that no one can teach."

Chekhov

2011-01-26T22:21:00.001-08:00

He had never lived in the city and never read books, but had collected various erudite words somewhere which he loved to use in conversation, and for this he was respected, although not always understood.

Maupassant was as overrated in the Russia of Chekhov's time as he later was in America; the more myopic French and American critics have repeatedly suggested that Maupassant is Chekhov's Western counterpart, even though his shallow despair and misanthropy are the very opposite of Chekhovian depth and compassion.

I love Chekhov.

I was always more of a Sulu fan.

Study

2010-12-26T19:35:00.000-08:00

Syracuse University says it takes 1/5 of a second to fall in love.
"In that split second ... twelve areas of the brain work together to release euphoria-inducing chemicals such as dopamine, oxytocin, and adrenaline"

John Berryman

2010-11-30T11:30:00.000-08:00

from tonight's Westwind meeting, poetry.

2010-11-23T18:52:00.000-08:00

"Why can't you fuse sentiment & irony?"

"I may as well read The Odyssey as a post-modernist romance."

from Table Talk

2010-11-21T21:50:00.000-08:00

... and after we all talked and ate and lifted our glasses,
we left the restaurant and said goodbye on the street
then walked our separate ways in the world where things do arrive,

where people get where they are going—
where the train pulls into the station in a cloud of vapor,
where geese land with a splash on the surface of the lake,
and the one you love crosses the room and arrives in your arms—

and yes, where sharp arrows will pierce a torso,
splattering the groin and the bare feet of the saint,
that popular subject of European religious painting.
One hagiographer compared him to a hedgehog bristling with quills.

- Billy Collins

Bamford

2010-11-17T14:27:00.001-08:00

A series of quotes I enjoy, for the hell of it.

2010-07-31T21:38:00.001-07:00

“...the relationships worth having, demand that we delve ... deeper.
The possibilities that exist between two people ... are a kind of alchemy. They are the most interesting thing in life. The liar is someone who keeps losing sight of these possibilities.
When relationships are determined by manipulation, by the need for control, they may possess a dreary, bickering kind of drama, but they cease to be interesting. They are repetitious; the shock of human possibilities has ceased to reverberate through them.
When someone tells me a piece of the truth which has been withheld from me, and which I needed in order to see my life more clearly, it may bring acute pain, but it can also flood me with a cold, sea-sharp wash of relief. Often such truths come by accident, or from strangers.
It isn’t that to have an honorable relationship ... I have to understand everything, or tell you everything at once, or that I can know, beforehand, everything I need to tell you.
It means that most of the time I am eager, longing for the possibility of telling you. That these possibilities may seem frightening, but not destructive, to me. That I feel strong enough to hear your tentative and groping words. That we both know we are trying, all the time, to extend the possibilities of truth between us.
The possibility of life between us.”
Adrienne Rich

"a capacity for detachment from the self and its emotions without which no art is possible”
T.S. Eliot

"If there were no eternal consciousness in a man,
If at the bottom there were only a wild ferment,
A power that twisting in dark passions produced Everything great or inconsequential;
If an unfathomable, insatiable emptiness lay hid Beneath everything,
what would life be but despair?"
Kierkegaard

"To be modern means to understand that there is ultimately only the present moment with all it contains: juxtaposition, contradiction, unexplained phenomena. To understand that the past cannot save nor the future promise; that we can never explain; that all we can hope to do is see. To see as clearly, as objectively, as remorselessly as possible, and to accept what we see without regret or judgment. To understand there there is nothing more to life - nothing at the back of the mind, at the bottom of the pit, at the end of the orgy, at the end of the world. Nothing. Nothing at all. And that out of nothing, if only we can acknowledge it, pure possibility might arise. Something new. Something modern."   
Paul Schmidt

"Drunkenness is temporary suicide: The happiness that it brings is merely negative, a momentary cessation of unhappiness."
Bertrand Russell

"I think modern art's almost total pre-occupation with subjectivism has led to anarchy and sterility in the arts. The notion that reality exists only in the artist's mind, and that the thing which simpler souls had for so long believed to be reality is only an illusion, was initially an invigorating force, but it eventually led to a lot of highly original, very personal and extremely uninteresting work. In Cocteau's film Orpheé, the poet asks what he should do. 'Astonish me,' he is told. Very little of modern art does that -- certainly not in the sense that a great work of art can make you wonder how its creation was accomplished by a mere mortal. Be that as it may, films, unfortunately, don't have this problem at all. From the start, they have played it as safe as possible, and no one can blame the generally dull state of the movies on too much originality and subjectivism."  
Stanley Kubrick

“Much harder to believe than not to believe. A God you understood would be less than yourself.”
Flannery O’ Connor

“Imagination … That awful power rose from mind’s abyss / Like an unfathered vapour.”
William Wordsworth

"One method Nazis used to control Jews was to present them a series of meaningless choices. Red identity papers were issued to one group, while another received blue. Which will permit my family to survive another selection? Are identity papers with or without photographs safer? Should I declare myself a shoemaker or a clothier? When the line splits, do I step to the left or to the right? In making these choices victims felt the illusion of control over their destinies, and often failed to reject the entire system. Resistance to exploitation was diminished."
Derrick Jensen

"After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music."
Aldous Huxley

"Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction."
Blaise Pascal

"Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves."
Carl Jung

"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross."
Sinclair Lewis

"Forgive your enemies, but never forget their names."
John F. Kennedy

"Suburbia is where the developer bull-dozes out the trees, then names the streets after them."
Bill Vaughan

"Hope is the denial of reality."
Margaret Weis

"A common view among voluntary simplicity advocates is that there is a vicious cycle in which the materialistic drive to acquire consumer goods forces people to work long hours and sacrifice personal relationships. Moreover the sacrificing of personal and other relationships for income creates a void that people attempt to fill, paradoxically, by acquiring more consumer goods. This vicious cycle was termed affluenza by de Graff, Wann and Naylor in several PBS programs. Key advocates [...] argue that to live more simply involves working less, wanting less, and spending less. This life-style is easier to maintain when it is reinforced through social interactions of like minded people."
Steven Hackett

“The artist is a receptacle for emotions that come from all over the place: from the sky, from the earth, from a scrap of paper, from a passing shape.”
Pablo Picasso

"If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense. If, however, the existence of such a teapot were affirmed in ancient books, taught as the sacred truth every Sunday, and instilled into the minds of children at school, hesitation to believe in its existence would become a mark of eccentricity and entitle the doubter to the attentions of the psychiatrist in an enlightened age or of the Inquisitor in an earlier time."
Bertrand Russell

Stir Fried

2010-07-30T08:56:00.000-07:00

According to Hawthorne.

2010-05-06T09:08:00.001-07:00

All other pleasures are not worth its pains.

Oh, there is poisonous stuff in any man's heart sufficient to generate a brood of serpents.

Twain

2010-04-11T09:38:00.001-07:00

He warn't a boy to meeky along up that yard like a sheep; no, he come ca'am and important, like the ram. When he got afront of us, he lifts his hat ever so gracious and dainty, like it was the lid of a box that had butterflies asleep in it and he didn't want to disturb them.

Nightwood

2010-03-04T13:35:00.000-08:00

As an amputated hand cannot be disowned because it is experiencing a futurity, of which the victim is its forebear, so Robin was an amputation that Nora could not renounce. As the wrist longs, so her heart longed, and dressing she would go out into the night that she might be 'beside herself,' skirting the cafe in which she could catch a glimpse of Robin.

Heart Faulkner

2010-02-23T12:09:00.000-08:00

that liquor teaches you to confuse the means with the end

Then they talked about what they would do with twenty-five dollars. They all talked at once, their voices insistent and contradictory and impatient, making of unreality a possibility, then a probability, then an incontrovertible fact, as people will when their desires become words.

iron curtains

2010-01-18T17:11:00.000-08:00

You must not become a mere peddler of words. The thing to learn is to know what people are thinking about, not what they say.

He could draw well enough and he had many odd delicate thoughts hidden away in his brain that might have expressed themselves through the brush of a painter, but he was always a child and that was a handicap to his worldly development. He never grew up and of course he couldn't understand people and he couldn't make people understand him. The child in him kept bumping against things, against actualities like money and sex and opinions.

Sherwood Anderson.

Boswell

2010-01-09T16:15:00.000-08:00

Very often we have more pleasure in reflecting on agreeable scenes that we have been in than we had from the scenes themselves.

Oh, Boswell. You keen bastard, you.

Lorrie Moore

2009-12-27T15:55:00.001-08:00

The life expectancy of a cloud is supposed to be only twelve hours.

Milton professor

2009-11-12T12:03:00.000-08:00

Satan functions as first name and last name. You see, Satan needs only one name, like Cher.

Dante

2009-10-26T10:34:00.001-07:00

Now you understand / how much my love for you burns deep in me, / when I forget about our emptiness / and deal with shadows as with solid things.

Cervantes

2009-10-05T13:06:00.000-07:00

Not everything that happens makes good telling, and there are things one could let pass untold without diminishing the story; there are acts that precisely because of their great consequences ought to be passed over in silence, and others so insignificant they shouldn't be mentioned. The outstanding thing about history is that anything written in it is made palatable by the taste of truth it brings with it. Fiction doesn't have that advantage, and its action must be prepared with such accurate details and good taste, and with such an appearance of fact, so that notwithstanding and despite its untruth, which unavoidably generates some dissonance in the mind, its structure may be truly harmonious.

Art

2009-08-12T12:01:00.001-07:00

Flannery

2009-08-05T12:29:00.000-07:00

A burning arm slid down Tarwater's throat as if the devil were already reaching inside him to finger his soul.