Commonplace Book

Movies I Have to See

2012-02-26T23:38:00.000-05:00

Jane Eyre
The Artist
Hugo
Avatar
Anonymous
My Week With Marilyn
The Iron Lady
Albert Nobbs
The Help
Undefeated
The Black Swan
Brave
The Muppet Movie
Ides of March
Money Ball
Crash
Brokeback Mountain
Beginners
Adventures of Tin Tin
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
Precious
The Help
The Social Network
A Thousand Acres

Kitka, Encounters at the End of the Word, and the Most Beautiful Music I've Ever Watched

2012-02-18T09:46:00.001-05:00

Five of my favorite minutes from any movie I've seen--scenes that stay with me well after the fact--are from minute 6:30 to 11:20 on this clip of the Werner Herzog documentary "Encounters at the End of the World." Under the icy ocean in Anarctica is a strange world of colors and creatures you'd think were other-worldly if you didn't know better.

There is no soundtrack to this film, but through the magic of the internet, I found that the song played during this part is Bulgarian, called "Tsmindao Gmerto Orovela". I couldn't find the version that was played in the movie, by the Female Chorus Group by National Music School of Telavi. However, I did find a version by a female vocal group called Kitka who performs Eastern European songs.

ADD and My Book Shelves

2012-02-11T23:12:00.000-05:00

I really do think I have mild ADD. I just cleaned my room up in an overhaul type way and found so many abandoned books. List of books I need to finish:

~~How the Irish Saved Civilization~~ been on the list since March but finished today
Zen and the Art of Making a Living
Elements of Style (rereading with an eye to making a "junior" version for teachers of younger writers)
Wishes Lies and Dreams
Sun Out
Talking to the Sun (went on a K Koch bender)
707 Scott Street
Digressions on Some Poems by Frank O'Hara (seriously voted for Obama the day I started this and now we are at the end of the first term, so that says a lot)
Piece by Piece - been piecing my way through this since it came out back in 05
The Diary of Anais Nin (the first one), honestly I like it but I keep diverting to other things
A Season in Hell (trans Wallace Fowlie) - I'm writing this one out by hand since last February. I do it when I want to do something poem-y but can't think of my own thing
Gaia's Garden
The Four Agreements
Punished by Rewards
Angel Monster
Sherlock Holmes

How the Irish Saved Civilization by Thomas Cahill

2012-02-11T13:09:00.000-05:00

It's over 15 years old, but this non-fiction "popular" text (though much scholarly work certainly went into its creation) of a history of Ireland is a fantastically written book. Not only are there histories covered that are often neglected, like the section on Irish monasteries founded all over Europe during the emergence of Medieval times from the Dark Ages, but Cahill does a seamless job interweaving historical fact with stories, tales and poetry to bring into a context the main theme, from the title, of how the Irish saved civilization. And not just by transcribing the books of early Christianity, ancient Greece and Rome, but also by breathing a new vivacious and inclusive life into how Christianity could "be." It is clear to a reader that this book was a labor of love, love for the book itself and love for the subject matter at hand.

For my part, it highlights all the affinities I have for Christianity and often illuminates where all of my scruples may lie.

Reality is a continuum and all God's creatures are theophanies of God himself, for God speaks in them and through them. p.209

This is Cahill's summary of "The Division of Nature" by John Scotus Eriugena (b. 810), whose name means "John the Irishman, Irish-born", a man who probably live in England first, born of Irish descent, who then moved to France in his early 30s. He is, asserts Cahill, the first Christian philosopher in almost 400 years, "since the death of Augustine in 430." And the philosophy highlighted above would later "sound suspiciously like pantheism, the heresy that God is not just in all things but is all things..." Eriugena also wrote, "Every authority that is not confirmed by true reason seems to be weak, whereas true reason does not need to be supported by any authority." In 1225 all copies of "The Division of Nature" was ordered to be burned by Pope Honorius III. And that, in a nutshell, sums up where my affinities and scruples with the Church come from.

There are quotes like this, focusing on the goodness of the faith, throughout the book. I quoted from the book previously when I wrote about St Bridget of Kildare, who is mentioned in this book.

The book also put much of its information in historical context to its later effect on history. For instance, when describing how those who worked on transcribing the ancient books did not just copy and paste but interact with the text, seeing their work with it as part of a continuum as well. I posted about that previously, too, and how such a mindset could be the forerunner to James Joyce's Ulysses.

I like best the end to chapter 5, "A Solid World of Light." After comparing the pre-Christian world of the Irish, where human sacrifice was considered a necessity to appease the gods, Cahill explains how liberating and uplifting the message is that Patrick brings to the people he loves so much, the Irish, as the first missionary bishop in history. (Side note: Patrick is a Celt, a Romanized British Celt). No longer is human sacrifice needed. Instead

the God to whom [the intricately decorated Ardagh Chalice] is dedicated no longer demands that we nourish him and thus become his godhead. The transaction is reversed: he offers himself to us as heavenly nourishment. In this new "economy," we drink the Blood of God, and all become one by partaking of the one cup, the one destiny.

Even if you are a modern-day atheist or agnostic or non-Christian, you can see how a conversion of mindset from fear of the gods, sacrifice to them, and an overall pessimistic view of earth and other-worlds to one where "God's pleasure and man's are reunited, and the earth is shot through with flashes of heaven," is an important step for the development of humanity. It's rooted in a philosophy that God is in everything and therefore we are all connected.

I know this idea isn't exclusive to Christianity either. And thank goodness for that. For the more philosophies and religions that can emphasize such an idea, the better off the world-at-large is. Because this idea isn't emphasized often enough these days! But it is what I loved learning about in my religious education growing up Catholic. And thinking about how un-catholic Catholicism and many sects of Christianity are these days is what I find most regrettable and lamentable and why, despite such admirable human beings to look to for inspiration such as St Patrick, St Brigid and St Francis of Assissi, I want nothing to do with the Catholic Church these days. I've heard it said, and I agree, "I didn't leave the Catholic Church, the Catholic Church left me," when it emphasized exclusion and dogmaticism over charity and love.

"How the Irish Saved Civilization" -and- "Ulysses"

2012-02-08T20:19:00.003-05:00

From "How the Irish Saved Civilization", on what it was like to be a scribal scholar in Ireland, circa 9 c.

They did not see themselves as drones. Rather, they engaged the text they were working on, tried to comprehend it after their fashion, and, if possible, add to it, even improve on it. In this dazzling new culture, a book was not an isolated document on a dusty shelf; book truly spoke to book, and writer to scribe, and scribe to reader, from one generation to the next. These books were, as we would say in today's jargon, open, interfacing, and intertextual--glorious literary smorgasbords in which the scribe often tried to include a bit of everything, from every era, language and style known to him. No one would see their like again till James Joyce would write Ulysses.

Codex Usserianus Primus

Hildegard von Bingen

2012-02-07T00:15:00.000-05:00

The other day I watched a German film titled Vision about the German nun Hildegard von Bingen.

In college, as part of Athena Consort, University of Maine's all women's choir, we sang a cycle of hymn/chants composed by the unorthodox "seer" who lived a little under a thousand years ago. I believe it was Kyrie Eleison which I barely remember, but I do remember them sounding very beautiful in the somber way that such old music does.

The movie makes Hildegard out to be more benevolent and hippie than I think she actually was. From what I have read in historical texts, while she did have visions and say some pretty far out stuff, she was not a kind old mother to her daughter nuns. She was fairly conservative in that area and could be, in fact, very cruel.

Still, it was interesting to have that memory loosed from so long ago. Especially the slightly "blue" things she said about sex, which made our conductor blush and refuse to repeat what he'd found in his research. "You're just going to have to find it for yourselves, because I am not reading this aloud."

If you want to hear some of her music, I like this music in this video most of the ones I found on YouTube. There are also plenty of albums to purchase or borrow from the library if you search for her name.

Things I Am Doing in Penance for Enjoying This Week's Jersey Shore: A List

2012-02-02T23:28:00.001-05:00

Well, I did it again. I wasted another hour of my life watching Jersey Shore, even though I said I was going to cut back on TV this month. It just happened. I don't feel well, you see. It's hard to--whatever. No excuses. Anyway, as Snooki talked about self-medicating for a UTI by taking tequila shots, "with salt" I said right then and there, I was going to have to so some serious extra brain recovery work to make up for this. So, here it is:

1. Stream a mix of Bartok, the chants of Hildegarde von Bingen, Brahms, and Nina Simone to recover the bits of my brain, my soul and my spirit that died a little while watching Ronnie smear soot on Snooki's face during "Warm Beer".

2. Take an extra Flaxseed pill for Omega 3s to replace whatever was lost while hearing Dina ask "Is ransack a word?"

3. Read something very challenging. Haven't decided what yet. Going to look through the Harvard 5 feet of books collection.

4. Watch a documentary. Something about monetary systems or birds or fractals. Something produced by Nova or Frontline. Anything to bleach my brain of the scene where Snooki pees like a dog on the back fence.

5. Go to a theater production of a biographical play about an Abstract Expressionist painter. (Done, earlier this week...)

UPDATE: I chose my Harvard Classic to read: Vol 11: Origin of the Species by Charles Darwin. It's like looking into the future for the Jersey Shore cast members. *Spoiler alert* they die off due to immense stupidity.

Feast of St Bridget - Feb 1

2012-02-01T23:50:00.001-05:00

"God bless the poor/ God bless the sick/ And bless our human race..." My friend Kara Beth, though Protestant, loves stuff about Saints and reminded me that today is my namesake's Feast Day. St. Bridget of Kildare is the patron saint of, of all things, POETRY!

I fricken love my saint. Her and St Francis of Assissi--crap if they ruled the Catholic Church, it'd be...well, probably it'd be the modern day Episcopalian church, if not the Unitarian!

Anyway, she's the patron saint of a bunch of weird stuff like dairy maids and kids with dads who beat them (seriously). Here's an excerpt from the book "How the Irish Saved Civilization" by Thomas Cahill, about Brigid of Kildare.

"In these new monastic city-states, a woman could reign as Medb had once done over Connacht. Brigid of Kildare, a convert of Patrick's, (and, perhaps, the noblewoman he describes as 'pulcherrima' [most beautiful, apropos! ;) ]), ruled as high abbess of an immense double monastery--that is, a foundation that admitted both men and women...Brigid [had] druidical associations...she is reputed to have taken the veil on the Hill of Uisnech, Ireland's...mythical center of its cosmic mandala. Her monastery began...under a huge oak, the sacred tree of the druids..."

You know, when I was little, hardly anyone else had my name and it drove me crazy. My name was never on those souvenir mugs and whatnot. But as I got older and learned about the history and significance of my name, I grew to love it. Did my name fit me, or did I fit my name? I don't know. But I do know we are of one mind and spirit.

More from "How the Irish...": "Bridget's monastery was famous for it's hospitality. This is the table grace associated with her name:

I should like a great lake of finest ale,
for the King of Kings.
I should like a table of the choicest food,
for the family of heaven.
Let the ale be made from the fruits of faith,
and the food be forgiving love.

I should welcome the poor to my feast,
for they are God’s children.
I should welcome the sick to my feast,
for they are God’s joy.
Let the poor sit with Jesus at the highest place,
and the sick dance with the angels

God bless the poor,
God bless the sick,
and bless our human race.
God bless our food,
God bless our drink,
All homes, O God, embrace.

Several deaths in the art-at-large world today, Feb 1, 2012

2012-02-01T21:15:00.002-05:00

Today offers a sad and strange co-incidence of reports of the deaths of several well-known people in the world-of-all-things-considered-art: artist and, of lately, poet Dorothea Tanning at 101, Polish poet and Nobel prize winner Wislawa Szymborska at 88, Soul Train founder, host and producer Don Cornelius at 75 (of suicide in LA) and artist and punk musician Mike Kelley at 57 (also of sucide, also in LA).

Harriet Blog has posts of Dorothea Tanning and Wislawa Szymborska.

One of Tanning's most popular paintings was Eine Kleine Nachtmusik. Tanning also had many books including two memoirs, Birthday, named after a famous painting (I picked this link even though it veers from the topic of the painter and more towards how people can respond to her work. It was an interesting post.) of hers, and Between Lives. Read an excerpt from her poetry book on her publisher's page at Graywolf Press.

Some of Wislawa Szymborska's writings translated into English can be found at the following link: her Nobel Pize speech, her poetry from the Nobel site, and poetry and reading from Harriet.

Read about Don Cornelius's important and culture changing public life and sometimes troubled private life at the Huffington Post. I'm grateful for what Soul Train brought to American and World Culture and music.

The intriguing work and sad end to controversial installation artist Mike Kelley is covered at the Guardian. "It is totally shocking that someone would decide to do this, someone who has success and renown and options," said Helen Winer, who used to represent Kelley. But I just saw the play "Red" last night, about the painter Mark Rothko who also ended his own life back in 1970, and upon the tails of that script, to me it is not surprising. Kelley was the artist who created the strange doll pictured here on this post. This thing stared at me (always catching my attention for a moment before getting to the music inside) from the cover of my Sonic Youth CASSETTE TAPE of the album "Dirty."

The thing about deaths of artists, or anyone, is that it brings to light things we all should have been paying attention to and honoring before the deaths of the people. I'm sorry I wasn't more aware of the work of some of these artists. It shows how much there is out there to learn about and learn from, before the artist is gone.

I will end with a poem titled "On Death, with Exaggeration" by Szymborska, retrieved from her Nobel Prize page.

On Death, without Exaggeration

It can't take a joke,
find a star, make a bridge.
It knows nothing about weaving, mining, farming,
building ships, or baking cakes.

In our planning for tomorrow,
it has the final word,
which is always beside the point.

It can't even get the things done
that are part of its trade:
dig a grave,
make a coffin,
clean up after itself.

Preoccupied with killing,
it does the job awkwardly,
without system or skill.
As though each of us were its first kill.

Oh, it has its triumphs,
but look at its countless defeats,
missed blows,
and repeat attempts!

Sometimes it isn't strong enough
to swat a fly from the air.
Many are the caterpillars
that have outcrawled it.

All those bulbs, pods,
tentacles, fins, tracheae,
nuptial plumage, and winter fur
show that it has fallen behind
with its halfhearted work.

Ill will won't help
and even our lending a hand with wars and coups d'etat
is so far not enough.

Hearts beat inside eggs.
Babies' skeletons grow.
Seeds, hard at work, sprout their first tiny pair of leaves
and sometimes even tall trees fall away.

Whoever claims that it's omnipotent
is himself living proof
that it's not.

There's no life
that couldn't be immortal
if only for a moment.

Death
always arrives by that very moment too late.

In vain it tugs at the knob
of the invisible door.
As far as you've come
can't be undone.

New Book: Saul Alinsky's Rules for Radicals

2012-01-28T20:11:00.000-05:00

When it comes to book purchases, I try not to let Newt Gingrich influence me. But when I came across Saul Alinsky's Rules for Radicals at the thrift store for 50¢ (btw I just learn that you press ALT+0162 on the number pad to get the cents sign), I decided to add it to my purchase. Chances are, if Newt doesn't like it, I reeeeeaaalllly really like it.

And I bought it at a thrift store that benefits AIDS patients. Lefty books, charitable giving, helping the less fortunate...oh man. I hope Newt never reads this post. He'll have a kitten!

More on the whole Newt/ Alinsky thing at the Christian Science Monitor.

Bert MacNeil was Herald’s larger-than-life heart

2012-01-22T12:16:00.000-05:00

Bert MacNeil was Herald’s larger-than-life heart

This is a very nice column about Bert MacNeil, former night city editor for the Boston Herald, who was a close friend of my sister-in-law's family. He died last weekend from pancreatic cancer. Really sucky. I knew him from the times we were both at family parties and he was always such a cool person to talk to. Lots of funny stories and interesting insights. He will be missed by lots and lots of people.

In Search of Shakespeare on Netflix

2012-01-17T22:42:00.001-05:00

In Search of Shakespeare is a nice, mellowing documentary to watch while settling down to sleep. The series is hosted by Michael Wood. It starts with Bill's (that's "Shakespeare" to those not as intimate as I am with him) childhood and family history, then to his young life as an aspiring artist and then explores the prolific existence of one of the most important non-religious, non-political figures of modern history.

http://www.pbs.org/shakespeare/theshow/

And yes, I made a Blingee for Shakespeare. It's hawt.

A person-oriented society - MLK's "Beyond Vietnam" Speech

2012-01-17T00:41:00.001-05:00

...we must rapidly begin the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society...

In light of the movements that have occurred in the past 12 months, I wanted to take a moment to highlight some paragraphs from Martin Luther King Jr's speech titled "Beyond Vietnam - A Time to Break Silence" delivered on April 4, 1967. (That is exactly one year before he was assassinated.) This is only an excerpt. The full text is available to read online at

http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkatimetobreaksilence.htm

This speech is less often quoted and noted, but I think today is perhaps more relevant than when first delivered. He speaks about civil rights, non-violence, peace instead of war and equality instead of greed. The lines in bold were added by me.

...It is with such activity in mind that the words of the late John F. Kennedy come back to haunt us. Five years ago he said, "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable."

Increasingly, by choice or by accident, this is the role our nation has taken, the role of those who make peaceful revolution impossible by refusing to give up the privileges and the pleasures that come from the immense profits of overseas investments. I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin...we must rapidly begin the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.

A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies. On the one hand, we are called to play the Good Samaritan on life's roadside, but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho Road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life's highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.

A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. With righteous indignation, it will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa, and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say, "This is not just." It will look at our alliance with the landed gentry of South America and say, "This is not just." The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just.

A true revolution of values will lay hand on the world order and say of war, "This way of settling differences is not just." This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation's homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into the veins of peoples normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice, and love. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.

America, the richest and most powerful nation in the world, can well lead the way in this revolution of values. There is nothing except a tragic death wish to prevent us from reordering our priorities so that the pursuit of peace will take precedence over the pursuit of war. There is nothing to keep us from molding a recalcitrant status quo with bruised hands until we have fashioned it into a brotherhood.

He was planning, at the point of his death, a march to be called "The Poor People's March" as part of his "Poor People's Campaign". It has been logically surmised and suggested by those commentators in the know, that the overriding sentiments of Occupy Movements are trying to pick up where that movement left off.

More on that at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poor_People's_Campaign

Further Update on Filling non Downton Abbey Hours

2012-01-14T03:01:00.002-05:00

This just in, fresh from the internet, there are not one, not two but count them THREE versions of "Lady Chatterly's Lover" available on Netflix streaming, in case you're wondering what happens after Lady Mary marries Matthew, they inherit Downton, but they're miserable, and instead of Turks, she picks up with the groundskeeper, because Matthew is crippled from a WWI injury.

1981 movie: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082640/

1993 miniseries: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0104666/

En Francais: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0459880/ (be aware that they mean more than just a rooster when they say 'zat 'zis one 'as 'ze coq)

Ways to Fill Non-Downton Abbey Hours

2012-01-12T17:48:00.000-05:00

Addiction is a painful thing to overcome. If you are like me and struggling to fill your time from Sunday night to Sunday night now that Downton Abbey is back, here are some ways in which you can fill your time, if you have Netflix streaming. Be prepared to be disappointed that once you get really hooked on something, there are no more episodes, though.

the first season of the original Upstairs Downstairs
the 80s episodes of Inspector Poirot starring David Suchet
Geraldine McEwan Miss Marples from ITV (mid-00s)
The Forsyte Saga, season one
Poldark, season one

Once your British fix options have been depleted, all the Mad Mens are on Netflix as well. Watching them four or five times is completely acceptable: once for plot, again for costumes, another for character development and a fourth for clues as to what in tarnation might happen once this freakin' 5th season gets under way and a fifth before the fifth season to remember everything forgotten in the year plus hiatus. I've gotten off track, from Downton, to Mad Men but I think they're similar in their strange pandemographic appeal and the fact that they're "period dramas".

New Books from June 2011 to Jan 2012

2012-01-12T16:56:00.002-05:00

Fiction

The Green Fairy Book - Dover Publications - own
Emma - Jane Austen - ebook
Sherlock Holmes - Little Leather Library Edition - own
Angelmonster by Veronica Bennett - silly little YA novel that dramatizes and romanticizes the relationship of Mary Shelley and Percy Bysse Shelley - borrowed
Kali and the Geekettes by Ellie Green - an even sillier YA novel I received as a PDF for free from LibraryThing early reviewer program

Non-fiction

Sexually I'm More of a Switzerland: more personal ads from the London Review of Books - gag gift
Garden Witchery: Magick from the Ground Up by Ellen Dugan - own
Zen and the Art of Making a Living by Laurence G. Boldt

Poetry or Poetry-Related Books

One and Only: the untold story of On the Road by Gerald Nicosia and Anne Marie Santos - an audio book I received for free from LibraryThing Early Reviewers
Lungfull #19 - own
Wishes, Lies and Dreams by Kenneth Koch - It's nice to read a book about a meeting of two things that occupy a bunch of my time: elementary school students and their education and "avant garde/experimental" (for lack of a better term) poetry - borrowed, but my own is on the way
The New Old Paint by Susie Timmons

The Joy of Books - Animated Short Film

2012-01-10T17:55:00.000-05:00

This is a dazzling short animated film about what happens after hours in the book store. Apparently this was made by the people who run Type books in Toronto.

See the video and learn more about it at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKVcQnyEIT8

Downton Abbey Is Back

2012-01-09T23:28:00.000-05:00

It's very awesome, as well. Love the character developments that have occurred. Super annoyed with Mr. Bates's shady wife. My favorite tweet about Downton was from comedian Patton Oswalt, who live tweeted the West Coast premiere. As O'Brien hovers in the doorway while Lady Sybil talks about becoming a nurse:

"Nobody lurks like O'Brien." https://twitter.com/#!/pattonoswalt

Downton will air until February. I'm so very contented.

Rachel Totally Looks Like Harry

2012-01-07T22:28:00.000-05:00

I forgot I did this a while back for the Cheezburger Network (failblog, there I fixed it, lolcats):

http://cheezburger.com/View/4147074048

Things I Did to Restore Brain Cells Lost While Watching This Week's Jersey Shore

2012-01-06T14:25:00.001-05:00

1. Finish re-reading Pride and Prejudice for the something-th time

2. Watched several hours of news programs

3. Listened to NPR

4. Added flax seed to oatmeal to help with Omega-3 brain health

5. Played a plethora of word games

Next Masterpiece Drama Series: Comment Threads

2012-01-04T14:34:00.000-05:00

Goodness this comic is so beautifully spot on.

Advice from Jane

2012-01-03T16:04:00.000-05:00

I'm re-reading Pride and Prejudice again. Started just before Christmas and have been reading it for free from Google books off of my phone. This read-through, I am noticing the differences, particularly the omissions, of the various movie versions as compared to the original text. The other wonderful thing about a book over a movie is the ability to ponder, chew over, re-read and review. Like this paragraph, which I have done just such meditating of:

If gratitude and esteem are good foundations of affection, Elizabeth's change of sentiment will be neither improbable nor faulty. But if otherwise--if the regard springing from such sources is unreasonable or unnatural, in comparison of what is so often described as arising on a first interview with its object, and even before two words have been exchanged,--nothing can be said in her defence, except that she had given somewhat of a trial to the latter method in her partiality for Wickham, and that its ill success might, perhaps, authorise her to seek the other less interesting mode of attachment.

So, a better way to fall in love is through gratitude and esteem rather than dazzling smiles and first impressions. In other words, nice guys ought to finish first.

Please, Sir, May I Have Some More? - On Artists and Earnings-

2011-12-17T12:50:00.000-05:00

Oh, Oliver Twist, you silly little boy. Asking for seconds at the orphanage!

And you, silly little artist, whether dancer or poet or musician, you want to earn a decent wage for your creative efforts?!

A brave new post at "The New Inquiry" from performance artist Sarah Wookey addresses just such a situation. The gist is that she was asked to do a great deal of work for very little compensation at a MOCA LA event as part of a Marina Abramovic piece. Instead of agreeing to it, she turned down the offer. And she also spoke up about the inequity of it. From the article:

I am a professional dancer and choreographer with 16 years of experience working in the United States, Canada, and Europe, and I hold a Master of Fine Arts degree in Dance from the University of California, Los Angeles. As a professional artist working toward earning a middle-class living in Los Angeles, I am outraged that there are no official or even unofficial standard practice measures for working conditions, compensation, and benefits for artists and performers, or for relations between creator, performer, presenting venue, and production company...

Artists of all disciplines deserve fair and equal treatment and can organize if we care enough to put the effort into it. I would rather be the face of the outspoken artist then the silenced, slowly rotating head (or, worse, “centerpiece”) at the table. I want a voice, loud and clear.

There isn't a lot of money to go around out there, but that doesn't mean there should be nothing. Money is a funny subject for people though. We are so delicate about it and don't want to seem like we're only in our artistic endeavors for the money. But it isn't so much about cash as it is about value. Good work should be valued and appropriately compensated, whether it's nice tile work in the bathroom or a thought-provoking, physically demanding performance piece at a museum.

Sarah Wookey's article: http://thenewinquiry.com/post/13507216662/art-work-and-refusal

LA Times article: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/culturemonster/2011/11/marina-abramovi%C4%87s-silent-performers-speak-out.html

NY Times artice: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/20/fashion/marina-abramovics-crossover-moment.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all

The Next Step

2011-12-09T00:37:00.001-05:00

I like the imaginative next steps Occupy movements have taken across the country--"Occupy Movement Targets Foreclosed Homes", using their imaginations to creatively continue the movement. "You can't evict an idea," says one of the banners of a Boston Occupier. It's past midnight and nothing yet has happened in Dewey Square, but when it does, let's hope we can further things along. Let's

Moh's NEW Hard Rock Scale

2011-12-07T01:08:00.000-05:00

Third grade science inspires me once again:

Mohs New Rock Scale

Don't Call It a Comeback, I Been here Fah Yeerz - Poetry Is Everywhere

2011-12-03T11:42:00.000-05:00

I will not say that poetry is making a "comeback" because somethign has to go away before it can come back. And I don't think poetry has ever or will ever go away. But I am seeing it pop up in more public places.

A couple month's ago, it showed up in a Target mailer, in the form of a coupon book called "Haikupons" which I wrote a post about.

There have also been commercial about Citizen's Bank in which "Alexander Hamilton" reads his poems about banking. Ezra Pound would be so proud.

I'm particularly tickled by the "slam poetry" style poems from Coors Light. It's a series of commericals in which poetry slam participants come up with clever rhymes in loving odes to ice cold Coors.

But the piece de resistance has been featured this week on both Rachel Maddow's "Best New Thing in the World" and at NPR: haiku traffic signs. The signs and haiku are actually very clever and artfully done. I am appreciative of the functionality and aestheticism of the series of 12 traffic signs commissioned by NYC Dept of Transportation. And I love that poetry is popping up in places where one wouldn't normally expect it.

2011-11-28T16:34:00.000-05:00

I just read a very emotional post from the public radio show "OnBeing's" blog. It was written by Emily Rapp, who is a mother of a terminally ill child. The post touches on many subjects within the realm of death and dying, caring for the sick, grieving, illness, and most poignantly, compassion. Here is a brief excerpt:

We know so little about people’s lives, about what they go through. At least at the family conference where we huddle together and try to figure out how to manage and eventually eliminate all these terrible, insane diseases, everything is out in the open — all the misery, gallows humor, joy, fear, dread. As one mother said, “People talk about living each day as if it were your last, but that’s a completely exhausting way to live.” Indeed it is.

There's more to read, if you are so inclined:

http://blog.onbeing.org/post/13343947636/into-the-wilderness-parenting-a-terminally-ill-child

Update on Occupy Wall Street Library

2011-11-23T19:55:00.001-05:00

Very sad news and very striking pictures from the Village Voice on the People's Library. Say what you will about the articulation, or lack thereof, of some of the protestors. This library was a statement, and a wonderful one at that. Seeing books in this condition breaks my heart.

http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/2011/11/the_occupy_wall.php

Resolution from the American Library Association regarding this destruction:

“The American Library Association deplores the destruction of the OWS movement People's Library, all libraries, all library collections and property, and the disruption of the educational purpose by that act, whether it be done by governments or governmental agencies, individuals or groups of individuals and whether it be in the name of honest dissent, the desire to control or limit thought or ideas, or for any other purpose.”

Full statement here.

Ted Enslin

2011-11-23T19:15:00.000-05:00

News just came via the National Poetry Foundation's post on Facebook that poet Ted Enlsin has died.

http://poetryproject.org/project-blog/ted-enslin-1925-2011.html

It was right around this time four years ago that the man who introduced Ted Enslin to me, and my fellow ENG 308: Writing Poetry classmates at UMaine, also died, Sylvester Pollet. Sylvester was friends with Ted Enslin, who agreed to come visit and teach a few classes that semester, back in Spring 1999.

I was a "baby" in the world of poetry at the time. It was my second creative writing class ever. I had no idea how special my experiences were at UMaine. I didn't realize that not every poetry student had poets like Ted Enslin guest teach their undergraduate writing class. Still, I was able to appreciate it very much, simply as a someone new to the idea of calling herself a poet, even if I didn't realize how fortunate I was.

What I remember from the reading he gave during that visit, because it was a funny thing to say, was that he didn't believe in saying "one" or "two", etc. if a poem were in sections. "So I'll just pause," was what he said.

No one ever likes the name of the group they're lumped in, it seems, but I will go ahead and finish up by saying now that I have come to understand and love the entire spectrum of the work that came out of the "Objectivist" movement, my young encounters with Enslin have become even more meaningful. I am sad to hear of his passing.

Later on, when I have access to them, I will post some poems from "From Near the Great Pine", published in 1989 by Spoon River Poetry Press. I picked up a copy at Gulf of Maine books in Brunswick a while ago. It is a good book.

Corn Bread Pudding - so yummy

2011-11-22T22:10:00.000-05:00

1/2 c. butter (1 stick)
2 eggs, beaten
1 (18 oz.) can corn
1 (18 oz.) can cream style corn
1 (8 oz) container sour cream
1 (8 1/2 oz.) box Jiffy cornbread mix

In a mixing bowl, combine butter, eggs, cans of corn and sour cream. Add the cornbread mix and stir well. Pour into a long shallow baking dish. Bake in a 350 degree oven for 45 minutes. Serves 8.

The Gift of Everything - a picture book

2011-11-20T16:57:00.001-05:00

I wrote a book as a present for my friend's daughter's birthday. It's called "The Gift of Everything" about a princess who asks for "everything" for her birthday. Her fairy godmother figures out just how to grant her wish...

The Gift of Everything - Public

Occupy Poetry Anthology from The People's Library

2011-11-16T19:01:00.000-05:00

Stephen Boyer and Filip Marinovich have been and continue to compile the Occupy Poetry Anthology. Recently the anthology, in its current state (though it is constantly growing) was posted online.

http://peopleslibrary.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/occupypoems1.pdf

More about the anthology at HuffPo:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/feliz-l-molina/occupy-wall-street-poetry_b_1023161.html

Follow the People's Library at:

https://peopleslibrary.wordpress.com/

I think I might write a completely separate entry about the People's Library, but I will have to do it after some sort of meditation session in which I focus on hope rather than despair, because the state of the library is despairing but the knowledge that its existence is powerful and important (enough to be destroyed by those in opposition) gives me hope.

"How To" Writing Books I Like

2011-11-15T18:03:00.001-05:00

I put this list together to recommend titles for the library where I work. It's everything from middle school to advanced level, easy reference to long chapters, busness writing to poetry.

THE LIST

Why does my boss hate my writing? : 20 questions that can help you improve your business writing 100 percent! / Becky Burckmyer.

Writers inc : a student handbook for writing and learning / written and compiled by Patrick Sebranek, Verne Meyer, Dave Kemper. - Writer's INC is often used for middle school/high school but would be useful for new students at the community college level as well.
On writing : a memoir of the craft / by Stephen King.

The elements of style / by William Strunk, Jr. and E.B. White ; illustrated by Maira Kalman. -- I went to look at the illustrated version, which is the newest edition and listed as "available" in the catalog but it is not there. We have the old editions from 1979.

Do not have:

Simon & Schuster Handbook for Writers (9th Edition) Lynn Q. Troyka, Doug Hesse - I really like the layout for Simon & Schuster Handbook for Writers because it breaks everything down to very basic terms. It's the best one on the list as far as being a reference book.

Style: The Basics of Clarity and Grace (4th Edition) Joseph M. Williams

Painless Grammar (Barron's Painless Series) Rebecca Elliott Ph.D. - This one is a high school level one, but would definitely be useful for new college students, too. I haven't looked at the "Painless Writing" but I really really like the Painless Grammar, so if it's as well reviewed as that one, then it might be worth checking out.

Bird by bird : some instructions on writing and life / Anne Lamott. - This one is for creative writing but is one of the most engaging writing instruction books I've read and can help with developing style and voice in writing.

The Teachers and Writers Handbook of Poetic Forms Edited by Ron Padgett - I can't include a fiction writing guidebook without including a poetry one, too. So here it is. I like this one because it is simple and straightforward and includes a diversity of types of poetry.

Ira Glass on Taste and Creativity

2011-11-09T17:04:00.000-05:00

“What nobody tells people who are beginners — and I really wish someone had told this to me . . . is that all of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, and it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not.

But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase. They quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know it’s normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story.
It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through.”

Words denied

2011-11-09T16:26:00.000-05:00

An incident that occurred at the library got me searching the Workplace Bullying Institute website. I came across this quote from Tom Engelhardt which the WBI applies to circumstances in which bullying is not labelled as such ("euphemisms intended to trivialize bullying and its impact on bullied people"), but it applies to many other circumstances:

"Words denied mean analyses not offered, things not grasped, surprise not registered, strangeness not taken in, all of which means that terrible mistakes are repeated, wounding ways of acting in the world never seriously reconsidered. The words' absence chains you to the present, to what's accepted and acceptable."

Catsup - mushroom, walnut, cockles and mussels & more

2011-10-28T20:39:00.003-04:00

As I took one of my usual walks through Minute Man National Park the other day, strolling by some old house or tavern that stood even back on the first (well, impetus for) Patriot's Day (April 19, 1775), all of the sudden I remembered a funny factoid I'd heard on NPR once about catsup barely ever being made of tomatoes back in Revolutionary Times. Apparently back in the day, when ketchup was called catsup and not commonly made of tomatoes, people made all types of catsups including mushroom, walnut, fish and celery. Having just experienced my first OysterFest in Wellfleet I have decided to share the recipe for Oyster Catsup, excerpted from the catsup recipe blog post I found on a Civil War website (not the same war but the just as appropo) called Blue and Gray Daily.

Civil War Ketchups: http://www.civilwarinteractive.com/Ketchup.htm

Excerpt...

OYSTER CATCHUP (from Kitchiner again, p. 285)

1 qt. oysters
1 pint sherry (wine)
1 oz. salt
2 drachms mace (about 1/4 tsp.)
1 drachm Cayenne pepper (about 1/8 tsp.)
1 glass brandy (1/4 c. )

Take fine fresh Milton oysters; wash them in their own liquor; skim it; pound them in a marble mortar; to a pint of oysters add a pint of sherry; boil them up, and add an ounce of salt, two drachms of pounded mace, and one of Cayenne; let it just boil up again; skim it, and rub it through a sieve, and when cold, bottle it, cork it well, and seal it down. Obs.--This composition very agreeably heightens the flavour of white sauces, and white made-dishes; and if you add a glass of brandy to it, it will keep good for a considerable time longer than oysters are out of season in England.

Unexpected and Notable Children's Books about Poets

2011-10-24T21:40:00.001-04:00

Unexpected books about poetry, for kids:

Lawrence Ferlenghetti
http://www.amazon.com/Mr-Ferlinghettis-Poem-David-Frampton/dp/0802852904/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1319499907&sr=1-1

Sor Juana
http://www.amazon.com/Library-Juana-World-Sor-Ines/dp/0375806431/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1319505633&sr=1-1

Basho
http://www.amazon.com/Grass-Sandals-Travels-Dawnine-Spivak/dp/1442409363/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1319501689&sr=1-1

William Carlos Williams
http://books.google.com/books?id=FVjWeHdOn_IC&lpg=PP1&dq=Bryant%2C%20Jen%20A%20River%20of%20Words%3A%20The%20Story%20of%20William%20Carlos%20Williams&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q&f=false

Marianne Moore
http://books.google.com/books?id=J_ljSKyJKSgC&lpg=PP1&dq=Bryant%2C%20Jen%20Call%20Me%20Marianne&pg=PT43#v=onepage&q&f=false

Rumi by Demi
http://www.amazon.com/Rumi-Persian-Poet-Whirling-Dervish/dp/0761455272/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1319505085&sr=1-1

May Swenson
http://www.abebooks.com/Wonderful-Pen-Swenson-Knudson-R-R/1405368818/bd
"Will You Read to Me"
Hamlet the pig's family isn't interested in poetry, so he reads his poems to his reflection in the pond. His sensitive works draw an audience of all the animals within listening distance. The be-your-own-pig message isn't subtle, but the text's creative imagery will appeal to budding poets, and the pastoral illustrations add personality to Cazet's characters and setting.
http://www.amazon.com/Will-You-Read-Denys-Cazet/dp/1416909354/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1319504989&sr=1-1

Hopkins, Lee Bennett Days to Celebrate: A Full Year of Poetry, People, Holidays, History, Fascinating Facts, and More
(3) 4-6 Illustrated by Stephen Alcorn. A useful, attractive compendium of poetry and facts celebrating holidays, inventions, famous people, historical events, and, mostly, poets. Whatever the subject, Hopkins offers an appropriate poem--for Mother's Day, for instance, Langston Hughes's "Mother to Son"; for Edward Lear's birthday, two limericks. A spacious design accommodates the disparate elements; Alcorn's illustrations, though large and cheerful, don't overwhelm the poems. Ind.
http://www.amazon.com/Days-Celebrate-Holidays-History-Fascinating/dp/0060007656/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1319505541&sr=1-1

Notable (amongst the many many) - an abundance of books about Langston Hughes, Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, Pablo Neruda, Maya Angelou, Robert Frost, Phyllis Wheatley, Emma Lazarus, and Shakespeare are available to those interested. I picked 3 titles from that "widely discussed" category that I thought looked the most interesting.

Langston Hughes
http://www.amazon.com/Love-Langston-Tony-Medina/dp/1584302836/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1319505452&sr=8-1#_

Emily Dickinson

Uncle Emily by Jane Yolen
http://www.amazon.com/My-Uncle-Emily-Jane-Yolen/dp/0399240055/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1319503924&sr=1-1

Spires, Elizabeth The Mouse of Amherst
1-3 Illustrated by Claire A. Nivola. Emmaline, a white mouse, takes up residence in the wainscoting of Emily Dickinson's bedroom, discovering a kindred soul as well as her own talent for penning poetry. Mouse and "Myth," as the townspeople of Amherst called Dickinson, share their verse back and forth; in Emmaline's writings Spires cleverly mimics Dickinson's style. Fanciful line drawings illustrate this small, charming introduction to the work of a great poet.
http://www.amazon.com/Mouse-Amherst-Elizabeth-Spires/dp/0374350833

For the Teens - YA books about poets

Wildly Romantic: The English Romantic Poets: The Mad, the Bad, and the Dangerous
http://www.amazon.com/Wildly-Romantic-English-Poets-Dangerous/dp/B0046LUQB2/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1319504652&sr=1-1

Snyder, Jane McIntosh Sappho

YA Lives of Notable Gay Men and Lesbians series. The biographers forthrightly discuss how their subjects' homosexuality may have informed their professional achievements and affected their lives on the whole. At the same time, readers are made aware of the difficulty of consigning people to such rigid categories as 'gay' or 'straight.' Thoughtful teens, regardless of their sexual orientation, should find themselves enlightened. Bib., ind.
Mary Shelley and Percy Bysshe Shelley (I just requested this one ILL)

Angelmonster by Veronica Bennett
"Sixteen-year-old Mary elopes with an older (and married) poet, forsaking her family to bear his child. But her passionate life of ideals is undercut with a darkness that erupts in scandal, heartbreak, and the nightmarish imaginings that will become Frankenstein. Rather than developing its historical underpinnings, this dramatic reinvention of Mary Shelley's life explores the Romantic concepts of love and creation. "
http://www.amazon.com/Angelmonster-Veronica-Bennett/dp/B0058M50R8/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1319504766&sr=1-1

Fun With Homophones/Homonyms - Leak/Leek

2011-10-20T22:07:00.000-04:00

My cartoon inspiration isn't limited to whales.

I should pick up some leek soon and make potato leek soup. It's so yummy.

Right Whale Cartoon

2011-10-20T22:05:00.000-04:00

A right whale cartoon:

You can click the image to make it bigger.

I did a few whale cartoons last spring during the 3rd grade whale unit but I didn't do a permanent drawing of this one until just now. It's a right whale, who eat copepods. As soon as I heard about copepod, all I could think was the 80s Cocoa Puffs commercials.

The New Old Paint

2011-10-17T20:22:00.001-04:00

It's been a while since I purchased any poetry books. I've been doing a lot of library reading of non-fiction and trying to catch up on my already very big, only partially read existing collection. But I was reminded of a book that came out last year that I have been meaning to get but hadn't yet, which is Susie Timmons "The New Old Paint".

I saw Susie Timmons read with CA Conrad back in October of 2009 and she was so so so very good. Both poets, of course, were great readers of their work and had fantastic poetry to read. CA Conrad puts on a show, makes and event. Susie Timmons just reads, natural and captivating for the ease of it. The poetry speaks the loudest because it is so "right there", so memorable. So it was about time I got this book, considering how much I admire the author.

The Lanterns Along the Wall by John Wieners

2011-10-11T15:19:00.000-04:00

Poetry is the most magical of all the arts. Creating a life-style for its practitioners, that safeguards and supports them.

Along the way to becoming an artist are many pitfalls. For those who do not write do not know what true magic is.

Many today become artists by adopting their looks, and gear, or else adhering around or to those who do practice this satisfaction. I cannot imagine a single day, when I have not spent dreaming or conjuring certain habits of the poet. Fortunate the few who are forced into making things surrounding the poets come true. Even though at one time, I believed there would be no reward, for poetic industry and still do, there is immediate response. Things change in proximate location to poetry. There seems to be an aura, or softness as of a romantic glow, or of an enchantment, definitely, as if going back to a children's story, when an adult, or contemplating children. Women possess this nature, when surrounded by their own things, feelings, as a man does, who is within the spell of understanding what is happening to him; they grow wider, broader, and even are able to support profession and others along with it. Trees are stripped, the sky deepens.

Even oceans, strange from eternity, become more homely with a lovely person, at that moment, within their shore's tides. But does the land belong to the ocean, or the surf? Sunlight, that supports us, contains like proposition.

One must not give up. It could be dangerous and facing a hostile world, to accept in failure.

There is no age for a poet, that he exists outside of time, and is its watchdog. There is love for the strange, the morbid and possessed. We do not give enough joy in our work. Even the act of doing it savors well for the god, but within us and not still to it, must be realized, and attended to as one does infest an absent mind. There is every love for each sensory apparatus, for each one's being. Not as homeless skeletons do await the hospitalized release. There is some love for every loving poet. No man dies loveless.

There are words and they govern. I wrote go on, as infinite aspersions toward the absolute, desired kiss. And I found out, while writing this, even at the risk of putting all my eggs in one basket, that each man does have his own language, particular to himself. It is us, who put the details of morbidness, or perversion upon it.

I can only say real happiness yields from the world of poems And its practitioners are secret, sacred vessels to an ancient divinity.

And referring back earlier, only I can read my own writing. In the way, it exists in that helio-centric condition around the cosmic orbit.

Poetry exists mainly because of those who practice it. Too often we are reminded that poets are only vehicles for this instrument. It does not matter that poets create the art, in dank rooms, or the poet retreats into shadowy places, to call forth the spirits that minister his rhythm or meter. Bearing the repetition, the spirit or substance remains the same.

Unconsciously, or self unknowing, not to confuse the two, preferring the latter, we are instruments for another order, as say, for example, we allow, rather that is to say, let the ancient, over-presuming over trees be our guide. Poets are under magical orders.

They can illumine besides themselves and others, in the moment. Creating infinite allure towards those beings and things they most admire.

The magical descent of sunlight is not more holy than the apparent interruption, though and or despite the need for ever-present human beings to present desires. For who can say what I can say? What more is there to add, except I am very glad to have the backlog or pillow of a previous-achieved poetry, or even poetry being cogitated now, as a form wherein or by I may attain some soft definition of myself.

According to others, as well as to myself, alone. If it's melodious, one will accept it. The continuous provision of goods and food, design, order and loving habits awaits one. I owe poetry for itl it is a pleasure, yes and on the point of contradiction, a reward to work for them, in the ground-level area of good verse. An exciting age perpetuates quality and harmony.

There is a pause in our lives, and to call it loneliness or possession with the minority points of others is no retreat, only reflection.

What comes then to fill the emptiness, or solitariness
Eventually an abundance of beauty and tranquillity.

Within generalized states, as just listed, lies the true presence of what is termed 'white magic.' There are no other forms as far as ultimately I am concerned. No drunkenness can equal purity. Or, other forms, simple address to the prime force of love. Love, not in the sense of kindness or patience, but sometimes trespassed sensual energy.

All these pretensions about the literary life; do they exist, can they be true, by candleight, or in the small ballroom, under the moon, creeping down between apartment buildings. Yes, poetry is magic, is a pool by which we bathe ourselves, aurally, orally; and what the sound is much closer than one would suspect.

MUTHOS-LOGOS. "The what is said of what is said."
For what we dream does not exists except in our mind.
Or does it? The subterranean rises and creates our reality. May

my dreams come true and yours.

The mind-expanding experiences seem to cognate each excitement, that is ours. Not illogically. I have received enough distinction on each one of them, to collate a man' subconscious as equal to the fact, itself. PROPRIO-CEPTION.

Intermittently I lose my family, within my own seld. Too little time and too much rest require for reparation of one's energies. I would rather replace them with the peers of my own craft. Any contact with them seems raging and unstable. At other times they are straight and we are on an even keel. It's some interior nature of ours, the whole familial relationship, that determines its beings. I would much rather be with someone else, yourselves for instance.

Written for Robert Creeley's class of

August 17/72 - -

Naomi Klein's "Occupy Wall St" Speech at the Nation

2011-10-08T10:56:00.000-04:00

Here's an excerpt from the piece:

We all know, or at least sense, that the world is upside down: we act as if there is no end to what is actually finite—fossil fuels and the atmospheric space to absorb their emissions. And we act as if there are strict and immovable limits to what is actually bountiful—the financial resources to build the kind of society we need.

The task of our time is to turn this around: to challenge this false scarcity. To insist that we can afford to build a decent, inclusive society—while at the same time, respect the real limits to what the earth can take.

Full text: http://www.thenation.com/article/163844/occupy-wall-street-most-important-thing-world-now

A Poem a Day for a Year, etc.

2011-10-05T22:09:00.000-04:00

Well, as of October 19, I will be half through with my journey of writing a poem a day for a full year. I am posting them on a private blog and I am not sure if I will make them public in the future or not. But at least I have the option if I do want to. The practic has been fruitful and I'm pleased--more than pleased, at times--with the results. Lots of different themes have come up and it will be exciting to look back on 365 new pieces of material to decide whether they're something more or just what was good for the day. To see the range of what can come out of practicing, what my mind and the world and the hum of creativity can collaborate to create, is fun and exciting.

Steve Jobs has died, as many in the OnLine and Real Life world have been talking about since the news was released about an hour ago. Tributes and old audio and video of sage things he once said and did is circulating fluidly throughout the internet. I bring this up because I did take time to listen to a commencement speech he gave at Stanford, in which he talked about death. How knowing you are going to die should make you certain you should do the things that make you want to live.

I thought about my year-long task of writing a poem for every day from April 19 to April 19. I thought about all my writing of children's stories and poems and whatever else I've embarked upon. I thought about the naysayers and how somehow I've really let them get to me. That's what I thought about as I listened to that Steve Jobs speech.

It's October. Usually I love this month more than anything but there's something funny about it this time around and I can't put my finger on why I'm not gushing with lvoe for the sights of New England in Autumn. Maybe it will catch on when the leaves really start to pop with color.

Anyway, all of that -- the writing every day, the motivational speeches from now-deceased innovators, the month of October -- feels like seeds to something. Not sure what. But I'm ready for a techtonic kind of shift.

Hi, Coupons AKA Haiku-Pons from Target

2011-10-04T23:30:00.001-04:00

Oh hey look at that. Today I got a mailer from Target that was full of coupons and haiku about the things that were in the coupon book. A packets of haiku-pons. They were not the best haiku I've ever read and probably Basho and Kerouac are rolling over in their graves or whatnot. I suppose I should object to the commercialization of poetry or something, but I appreciate the nod to the ancient poetic form. I guess. It's creative and silly and it caught my attention. Plus it's coupons. Those are fairly benevolent things.

SAMPLES

(for toilet paper coupons)

a soft, cushy roll
is a cozy, happy joy
sweet squares of heaven

(for laundry detergent)

super-powered suds
mighty matador for stains
look! it's good as new

And so on and so forth. Interesting.

Hmm..."My Country Tis of Thee"

2011-10-02T01:47:00.000-04:00

My Country Tis of Thee and God Save the Queen have very interesting (if you are a history nerd) wikipedia pages. I was thinking about the two songs as I heard an instrumental it and thought how it's funny that one country thinks one set of lyrics while another thinks a completely different set.

The whole bottom section from the Hingham Antislavery Society (yes, THAT Hingham, the snobby one) created these extra verses during the abolitionist movement. I didn't know you were allowed to be "edgy" if you lived in Hingham, but I guess you could back in Antebellum Hingham...

Additional Abolitionist Lyrics 1843 A. G. Duncan Jarius Lincoln, [ed.] Antislavery Melodies: for The Friends of Freedom. Prepared for The Hingham Antislavery Society. Words by A. G. Duncan. (Hingham, [Mass.]: Elijah B. Gill, 1843), Hymn 17 6s & 4s (Tune – America.) pages 28–29. Some of these verses can be heard in the Arizona State University recording of the Antislavery Ensemble.

8: My country,' tis of thee,; Stronghold of slavery, of thee I sing;; Land where my fathers died,; Where men man’s rights deride,; From every mountainside thy deeds shall ring!

9: My native country, thee,; Where all men are born free, if white’s their skin;; I love thy hills and dales,; Thy mounts and pleasant vales;; But hate thy negro sales, as foulest sin.

10: Let wailing swell the breeze,; And ring from all the trees the black man’s wrong;; Let every tongue awake;; Let bond and free partake;; Let rocks their silence break, the sound prolong.

11: Our father’s God! to thee,; Author of Liberty, to thee we sing;; Soon may our land be bright,; With holy freedom’s right,; Protect us by thy might, Great God, our King.

12: It comes, the joyful day,; When tyranny’s proud sway, stern as the grave,; Shall to the ground be hurl’d,; And freedom’s flag, unfurl’d,; Shall wave throughout the world, O’er every slave.

13: Trump of glad jubilee!; Echo o’er land and sea freedom for all.; Let the glad tidings fly,; And every tribe reply,; “Glory to God on high,” at Slavery’s fall.

Why's JGL haunting me?

2011-10-01T12:35:00.000-04:00

Oddest thing, I watched "500 Days of Summer" this morning and stopped almost at the end to go make some brunch and turn on public radio only to hear Joseph Gordon Leavitt being interviewed by Terri Gross.

That guy follows me around everywhere. Like in New Orleans, when Mom and I kept seeing him in the street in after the Crewe de Vieux parade. He was wearing a weird lion mane hat wig made of yarn. It occurs to me now that he might have been because he had no hair as he was portraying a cancer patient in the movie he was filming.

I will leave you with this heartbreaking scene from the end of the movie, which makes me cringe and hurt inside, as if thunderstorm clouds have just smothered rainbows and leaping unicorns from the sky.

"I just woke up one day and I knew."
"Knew what?"
"What I was never sure of with you."
}}Ice pick through heart{{

Ouchies.

Not done: First she goes on to say that he was right about fate and love and all that wonderful stuff. Then she says, "It just wasn't me that you were right about."

Now she's done.

The Ephemera Society

2011-09-28T19:13:00.000-04:00

Holy geeky heaven in a website! The Ephemera Society has all kinds of obscure ephemera listed on their site. The interesting junk years gone by is some fascinating, fascinating stuff if you are a geek like me:

http://www.ephemera-society.org.uk/index.html

I was thinking about court plaister because in Jane Austen's Emma, which I am reading right now, Harriet burns the bit she has that reminds her of Mr Elton. I didn't know exactly what court plaister was so I looked it up and that's how I came across this website. Fantastico!

Brain Candy Books -- Louise Rennison

2011-09-24T11:55:00.001-04:00

It's all well and good to go about the world reading books on the history of Ireland, great novels by classic authors, books exploring assumptions in education and of course lots nad lots of poetry, contemporary and classic. Which is what I am currently and often currently reading. But it's also fun to indulge the brain in some candy, and that's why I like the YA novel series by Louise Rennison, the Georgia Nicholson books.

1. Angus, thongs and full-frontal snogging: confessions of Georgia Nicolson

2. On the bright side, I'm now the girlfriend of a sex god: further confessions of Georgia Nicolson

3. Knocked out by my nunga-nungas: further, further confessions of Georgia Nicolson

4. Dancing in my nuddy-pants: even further confessions of Georgia Nicolson

5. Away laughing on a fast camel: even more confessions of Georgia Nicolson

6. Then he ate my boy entrancers: more mad, marvy confessions of Georgia Nicolson

7. Startled by his furry shorts

8. Love is a many trousered thing: more mad, marvy confessions of Georgia Nicolson

9. Stop in the name of pants: the confessions of Georgia Nicolson

10. Are these my basoomas I see before me?: final confessions of Georgia Nicolson

I haven't read them all yet but they're a delight. I am not the only adult who likes them. They're so popular with older readers that, like with the Harry Potter series, they made more mature looking covers for them. They're like teenage Bridget Joneses. Silliness, wit, incredulity, ridiculousness with a sweet little story line and a heart of gold to give it that touch of depth that makes it more than just some dumbed down crappy derivitave of the classic sort of literature it was inspired by (lady authors as opposed to chick lit).

Color Palettes

2011-09-24T09:28:00.001-04:00

Hmmm...now that I've changed my hair back to black again, I am apparently a "Clear Winter" according to the thechicfashionista.com seasonal color palette test. I'm a "clear" as opposed to a "cool" or "warm" or "soft" because I have bright colored eyes. I'm a Winter Going Into Spring because of my dark hair and light eyes. An example of a celebrity Clear Winter is Meghan Fox. Yes, because I look EXACTLY like her!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Or not. At all. I was having a hard time deciding what colors to wear, which is why I googled this in the first place. It's silly but fun nonetheless.

Hooray for Girlie Girls!

2011-09-21T19:05:00.000-04:00

Zooet Deschanel on female empowerment and girlie-ness:

Her feminist rant about being girlie as she wants to be, in full: “Here’s the thing about being a girlie girl. I think there was a generation before us that felt like they needed to act like men to be taken seriously, like they had to use their sexuality to take control of people. I don’t judge people for that. But I don’t want to take all my clothes off and use myself as an object. It’s part of the machine and I don’t think that necessarily pushes us forward as women. I think you can still be girlie and maintain your power. The fact that you associate being girlie with being non-threatening, that is … I mean, I can’t think of more blatant example of playing into exactly the thing that we’re trying to fight against. I can’t be girlie? Why do I need to be defined aesthetically by someone else’s perceptions of what makes me seem like someone who should be taken seriously? I’m going to wear whatever I want to wear, because I’m expressing myself, and I deserve that right. And I like the way that looks. You’re not demeaning yourself by acting girlie. I think the fact that people are associating being girlie with weakness, that needs to be examined. Not me dressing girlie. I don’t think that undermines my power at all.

from "Things You Learn After a Lot of Time Spent With Zooey Deschanel" at http://bit.ly/pLSd1P

My New Bedroom

2011-09-18T02:10:00.001-04:00

I have a lot more windows but not enough sets of curtains to go on every one of them. Yet I love the curtains I have, so I got all "outside of the box" and put a different set on each window/door. Here's pictures of those windows, plus other little things around my room that I like.

I am liking my new space in my apartment and should have converted this rarely used dining room ages ago! The fact that there's no closet is really not that big of a deal. The color and space are better. I have cool things on the wall to look at and inspire me.

And a bit more space for a bed area, dressing area and library/office area.

My bedroom is where I do most of my writing. Usually sitting on the bed with four or more books scattered about, the laptop open, one or two notebooks and my trusty thin Crayola markers. That's how I roll. (Durrr)

My "About Me" on Facebook

2011-09-17T23:38:00.000-04:00

I'm about to delete this (old) "About Me" section on my Facebook profile but wanted to save it here on the blog for posterity:

Mother of 13 hideously deformed children. Collect redemption cans and bottles fer werk and spend it on Dunkin Donuts coffee, rib eye steak and Funyuns. Drink Carlo deRossi or Franzia for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Smoke Basic Menthol in between meals. Hate them smart people. Love makin' moose hot dogs for my family. Books are stoopid. Favorite shows: Rock of Love &/or Rock of Love Charm Shool, Maury Povich and My Big Redneck Wedding. On Facebook tah git me husband # 5. Five time's a charm. Hollah back at me if yer intrestid. No fatties.
UPDATE: Rock of Love is no longer my favorite show. It been replaced by Jersey Shore. I now have 14 kids, and 2 grandbabies (I think they're my grandbabies; me 'n my boyz, ages 18 and 16, are waiting for the results with their slut baby mommas when we go on Maury Povich). And I definitely like Franzia more than Carlo Rossi. I kent lift them effin jugs no more, now that the muscles in my arms have been eatin' away by lack of food due to crystal meth addiction.

Books I Am Reading Right Now

2011-09-10T11:00:00.000-04:00

Some people are one book at a time people. Some, like me, are dozens at a time and pick up and leave off in spurts and sputters. Here's what's on my list right now:

Bridget Jones: Edge of Reason by Helen Fielding
Emma by Jane Austen
Tao Te Ching trans Jonathan Star
Tao of Pooh (though it is falling apart from fifteen years of love)
American Montessori Manual (was about to shelve this book at the library but started flipping through it and decided to borrow it instead)
The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz
The Letters of Robert Duncan and Denise Levertov
How the Irish Saved Civilization by Thomas Cavill
Gaia's Garden by Toby Hemenway
Punished by Rewards by Alfie Kohn

Picture books I've heard or read this week (surrounded by them at both jobs as there's a huge ECE program at MassBay and the primary school is a primary school so of course it has them!):

Chrysanthemum by Kevin Henkes
What Planet Are You From Clarice Bean? by Lauren Childs
I Am Not Sleepy and I Will Not Go To Bed by Lauren Childs
Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Busy by Mo Willems

This Flutter and Its Fall Out

2011-09-10T09:29:00.001-04:00

This is my online notebook where I keep track of things that capture my attention and note them here for the sake of posterity. I keep it public in case anyone else is interested, too. But it's not a "Blog" blog where I usually think about people reading it and try to introduce something new or some commentary on things. That's not a condemnation of blogs like that, though. Some that are like that I do enjoy and find worth reading, some I don't (so I don't read them). All that in place, simply for the provocation of thoughts that it has incurred, I wanted to post links to the recent controversy over BlazeVOX books and editor Geoffrey Gatza's "co-operative publishing " appeal letter.

First, what Brett Ortler posted, that started the dust-up: The Half-Hearted Acceptance Letter

HTML Giant picked up the "story" asking "BlazeVOX goes Vanity Press?"

BlazeVOX responds via their blog. First saying they rescind the program then in the next post announcing the closing of the press at the end of the year.

At this point, activity in part the "poetry world" over the internet via Facebook, other blogs and comment threads is all up and down the issue, some defending BlazeVOX, some outraged, some skeptical but still appreciative of the work that BlazeVOX does in publishing very good but not as "usual" writing.

As a result...all sorts of stuff happened.

Brett Ortler writes a post, which isn't a mea culpa for airing the sort-of acceptance letter that upset him in the first place. It was instead a posting of his opinion on the fall out and how it needn't be as extreme as it was. "Blazevox Doesn’t Need to Go Under"

BlazeVOX reverses its decision to close down. (Thank goodness.) Geoffrey Gatza gets a huge outcry of support from lots of people so he changes tack and posts this note to the BlazeVOX community.

Then he posts another note clarifying things in an Action Plan of not having a co-operative model and instead finding other ways to fund the press.

So......

Things seemed to work out for the best, maybe even for the better, for everyone. The comments section of these posts can get pretty nasty if you look through them. People are very passionate on both sides. For my part, I agree with the person who said that what Geoffrey Gatza was doing with the co-operative model was completely rational and understandable but it should have been noted publicly on the BX website. I hope that Brett Ortler doesn't face a backlash, because I think he was justifiably upset, not expecting such a letter to begin with. Many people seemed to be annoyed with the fact that he was upset and didn't think it was justified. Perhaps the way he went about it could have been handled better, with more contemplation, less tone of outrage.

I think it's hard to be a poet or any type of artist and navigate your way through all the weird twists and turns out there. Speak up? Stay quiet? Send out work? Just share it with friends? Share it with no one and just enjoy writing? Get an MFA? A PhD? Skip it and teach yourself poetry and get a degree in something more concrete (ie useful, ie something that has a more solid chance of helping you make money -- though making money seems to be a very difficult thing in any field these days...) Everyone has to forge their own path or skip it altogether and do something else. However it goes, it's not easy one way or the other.

I hope that the results of this blow up are that any co-operative presses are very clear in their practice. Conversely, it would also be good if people gave it a good think before airing grievances. It's good to be hyperaware of people who try to prey on aspiring artists, but it's also important to call the right people out for such behavior. Geoffrey Gatza isn't Poetry.com. Not by a mile.

Another thing that came out of this that was good was a discussion of funding, availability and the future of "experimental poetry" (for lack of a better term) in a world where money for the marginal arts no longer comes in the way it used to. But there are plenty of people who continue to live in and want to support this world and there are lots of ways to go about staying afloat.

And finally, one of the best things to come from this was an acknowledgement of the good work BlazeVOX has done, publishing work that perhaps wouldn't get known but really really should because, though it's different, or especially because it's different, it should be out there.

Suspended Imagination, by Florine Melnyk is a very good example.

Netflix Netflix Netflix for da RomComs

2011-09-05T19:51:00.001-04:00

Now that my charges have doubled on Netflix, I'm taking them for all they've got when it comes to streaming options. This weekend's Rom Com movie marathon:

Muriel's Wedding - do you think I look like Toni Colette? I get that about once a season, someone saying that I do. Anyway, this movie is cute and my mom's been recommending it for ages so I'm glad I finally had a chance to see it.

Sirens - Netflix knows I like a period piece. This was fine. It was more about the "lust" aspect than of the "lust in art" aspect that it's premise says it's based on. Pretty fun to watch though the nudity was constant and really gratuitous, not titillating.

In a Day - a sweet little indie flick with some very interesting scene and an odd premise. I thought the two main characters were acted perfectly. I loved the saxophone part.

I Love You Phillip Morris - is the real reason that Jim Carey left Jenny McCarthy because of Ewan MacGregor, because their loved seemed awfully genuine in the weirdest, wackiest yet funnest romantic dramedy I've ever seen.

Jude Law's Alfie - You know, I haven't seen the original. I'm sure it's way better, though there was nothing wrong, per se, with this one. It was just a little too pat, as can happen with a remake.

Then She Found Me - I have no idea why this wasn't more popular when it came out. Perhaps because it goes about the Rom Com formula in the most circuitous route you can imagine. But I love it for it's unprecedented storylines (when it comes to its genre of Rom Com) and honesty. And you can't go wrong with Colin Firth, since he is my husband.

Now I'm a quarter of the way into Flakes, which is an indie flick about a unique, odd restaurant in New Orleans that serves only breakfast and the funky customers that it serves. So far, I'm loving it. Doesn't take much to do that, but it, of course, makes me miss my mom.

Smart phone notes during Tchaikovsky* at the Hatch Shell

2011-08-31T19:44:00.003-04:00

I'm sitting on my beach chair at Boston Landmark Orchestra's free Tchaikovsky concert. This performance also include appearance from dancers of Boston Ballet.

For some reason Tchaikovsky is making me think of the last cultural swaree I went to, which was Andre Codrescu's talk on Olson in Gloucester called, of course, "Olson in Gloucester."

Why? I think it's because the links from Romanticism to Modernism to Postmodernism to whatever now is (Post-Postmodernism???) are becoming clearer, as opposed to how one period is so differed from the one before (esp thanks to Reconfiguring Romanticism...)

The world is changing in the same way as it was in the 1890s. Innovations were upon us. England's long reigning queen was at or near an end. The shift in who was the super power of the world was felt in the air. The rich were way too rich. The poor were way too poor. The artists were a class of bohemians, some with money, some without--like today's hipsters.

And Tchaikovsky with his ideas on ballet...an 'if you build it they will come' philosophy: write the good music, get the good choreographers and dancers, and big new things will happen.

What does this have to do with Olson? Not much, not directly, I don't think. But for the sweeping epic innovation-ness of both.

(*I spelled Tchaikovsky correctly without spell checking it. Whoa.)

JP Music Fest 2011

2011-08-22T11:41:00.003-04:00

The first annual JP Music Festival was this scorching Saturday. When the cloud cover came out to cool things down, it was a lovely venue. When the sun beat on us, I preferred sitting far away from the stage in the acorn strewn shade. The acts were good and varied, especially wonderful was Gordon Gano of Violent Femme's appearance midway through. To the planners, I would ask for more shade and more vendors. No place to get water, only one (though very yummy) food truck just wasn't cutting it.

I hope there will be more to come, though, because it was such an enjoyable day of sunny weather, good music and fine hipster hunting. (This being JP, they were rampant! It was lovely, Men in kilts. Women wearing majorette hats. Teeny boppers ironically wearing Heart tshirts. Justin Beiber-esque adorable lesbians a la Chrissy. Dudes with cheeky facial hair and grampa hats and canes. God, I'm obsessed with hipsters lately!)

http://www.jpmusicfestival.com/

Hipsters

2011-08-17T18:22:00.001-04:00

I don't know what my problem is but lately I'm obsessed with hipsters. I love their funky beards and stupid clothes and geeky black frame glasses. Just now I spotted one at North Station and followed him on the train to Gloucester so that I could sit across the aisle and observe him. Ever since that video came out, "The Evolution of the Hipster" (see previous post) I'm just fascinated. I mean they really do wear winter clothes in summer and grandpa hats. This guy kinda has a hat like Tevye in Fiddle. And he is totally wearing a sweater--in August! (Now I have "Antetevka" in my head.) And a bowling bag for his travel case. And Chucks the color of Skittles. Good times. Hot stuff. I can't tell from my seat but he probably smells like garbage, too.

Rick Perry Is Treasonous for Endorsing Veggie Corndogs

2011-08-17T04:32:00.000-04:00

Look at this! Rick Perry walks right past a vegetarian corndog stand in Iowa and DOES NOT YELL AT THEM FOR NOT LOVING AMERICA by bastardizing the hot dog. WHAT TREASON!!!

Do you think I'm being extreme? I don't. I think I'm being about as reasonable and presidential sounding as Rick "D Average" Perry. This man scares the shaboobie out of me. Especially since it seems like lots of people like him. How is this possible?

Emma Time

2011-08-12T16:42:00.001-04:00

The biography/ literary criticism I read of Jane Austen's this past spring extolled the virtues of the craft of Emma above all the completed novels of Jane Austen. Its protagonist is such a twit that I was only able to get half way through, right before the poop hits the fan with Mr Elton and Harriet, the first time I read it. I had already seen the Gwenyth Paltrow version so I knew the general gist. Oh, and I'd seen Clueless. (Really, I think it's a very cute and clever modern day adaptation.)

So, I'm having another go because I like to read Jane Austen at these down times like summer vacation and when things are up in the air in life and I need a little escape. This time, however, instead of reading a regular old paper book, I realized I didn't have a paper version. So, I downloaded it off Google books for free and am reading it off my smart phone. What a twist of Regency to contemporary times all in one.

Do I see, yet, what Jane Aiken Hodge was addressing in her book "Only a Novel; the Double Life of Jane Austen" in the sophistication of observation and critique of manners in the book? The maturity of the author through the wry observations of the novel? I'm still stuck on what a snob Emma is, actually. (And, frankly, a little creeped out by Mr Knightley's feelings, seeing as he's so much older...but, as Aaliyah and R Kelly said, age aint nothing but a number...oh...wait, bad example.)

More as I go along...

Kwame Anthony Appiah -or- "Some of my best friends are Republicans"

2011-08-10T16:52:00.001-04:00

OnBeing, formally known as Speaking of Faith, is one of my favorite programs on NPR. Instead of going to church on Sunday, I listen to the program and that gets me the contemplative space I need for the week. I wanted to share this quote from the OnBeing blog, written by Krista Tippet about her interview with Kwame Anthony Appiah. He is president of the PEN American Center and a Princeton philosopher. The movie 'Guess Whose Coming to Dinner?" was based on his parents biography.

What we need more than agreement, he says, are simple habits of association with different others, encounters that breed familiarity. There is real social and even moral value to be had, he suggests, when we connect with others even on the most mundane topics of who we are and how we spend our days — whether it be soccer or football, shared hobbies or parenting. In fact, Anthony Appiah says, this kind of human exchange — as much a matter of presence as of words — is the old-fashioned meaning of the word “conversation.”

Cool. If you'd like, read more here: http://blog.onbeing.org/post/8729918988/the-key-to-relationship-good-old-fashioned

2000 Again... ish

2011-08-09T18:55:00.000-04:00

Oh boy. I hate this feeling. The feeling that my Democratic president is way too middle of the road and doesn't actually stand for my progressive beliefs like I had hoped he did when he nattered on back in the day, when he campaigned for my vote.

I had this feeling back in 2000, hence my membership in the Green Party and my support of Ralph Nader. And all the while it turned out Al Gore was a fiesty green peacenik hippie who likes to call "Bullsh*t!" on all the pseudoscientists of the world that proclaim climate change is not a man-made phenomenon. If only he'd been more like that on the campaign trail. But he wasn't.

Instead there was only a thin veil of difference in the things that Candidate Gore and Candidate Bush were saying about how they would govern. What they said and what they did turned out to be completely different things. I witnessed that way after the fact--when it was most certainly too late.

And here I am again. Disappointed in my not-lefty-enough president and feeling very down indeed about it. Only back then, more than 10 years ago, I was younger, more hopeful that things could change and more certain that if you worked hard and did your best, you would be rewarded with a decent living and a decent job and a decent income.

I don't feel that hopeful anymore. And without a strong leader to believe in and to try to lead the country into being fixed, it's hard not to want to run away to some cozy island that has a AAA credit rating.

Here's some very smart articles articulating the particulars of why I'm feeling so very blue over my not-so-blue Democratic president. (More like lavender with very aubergine tendencies).

Robert Reich "Why the President Doesn’t Present a Bold Plan to Create Jobs and Jumpstart the Economy"

(via Senator Bernie Sanders's webpage) Drew Westen "What Happened to Obama?"

Only compared to the other candidates for president in 2012, he's definitely the best bet. I mean, Michelle Bachman? As unprofessional and petty as that Newsweek cover was, there's a hint of the truth of why she scares the crap out of me in the fact that it illustrates she is bat shit crazy. Rick Santorum? Google it. Rick Perry? Has not read the part of the Constitution that says the US shall take no official religion. Mitt Romney? Well, who is he? Is he a middle of the road guy like when he was governor here in MA? Is he conservative, like when he campaigned in 2008? I don't know. I don't care to find out either.

So, what to do besides just be angry and sad? I'm not sure. I'll have to think about it.

Just LOVE This Thing

2011-08-08T19:27:00.001-04:00

The Evolution of the Hipster from Glove and Boots. http://www.facebook.com/?ref=home#!/gloveandboots

More videos: http://www.youtube.com/user/gloveandboots#p/a

Carol Berg Shares Good Things

2011-08-03T18:36:00.000-04:00

My friend Carol Berg has a blog, with a post today bearing good news that her chapbook will be published. Yay Carol!
http://carolbergpoetry.blogspot.com/

Carol was nice enough to let me publish two of her poems as a broadside for my first foray into small publishinghood. The poems are from the voice of Ophelia of Hamlet and have stunning words and phrases. She's a very good poet. I gave away a bunch at the Boston Marathon Poetry Reading (which for some unknown reason I have completely forgotten to talk about here in the notebook. I'll fix that soon I hope) with good feedback from other poets.

The other thing I read about on Carol's blog was a link to a very useful site that is a collection of literary publications called Duotrope. http://www.duotrope.com/index.aspx A great resource for writers trying to figure out where to send work; very helpful for publisher and writer alike.

Thanks for sharing, Carol!

Congenial Letter to Senator Scott Brown

2011-07-30T02:05:00.000-04:00

There's no need for me to email any of my other representatives in Congress, since they're all certainly of the same mindset as I am. Senator Scott Brown is different... special... ripe for being replaced by Elizabeth Warren... funny and charming in person, as I witnessed when he came to Hanscom to read a story to us members of the third grade

Here is the letter I wrote to him tonight, encouraging him to be normal and sane and bi-partisan when it comes to this silly debt ceiling malarkey. (I've also called it fiasco, fandango, and rigmarole.)

Dear Senator Brown,

I hope you're surviving through the dramatic time in Congress. Make sure some of your pizza crust is whole wheat. It's pretty good when done correctly and better for you, as I'm sure you know, since you keep fit.

That being said, I am writing to ask you to work with Democrats for a practical, bi-partisan and speedy raising of the debt ceiling and elimination of this "crisis."

My druthers would be no cuts to anything, an expansion of taxes on the wealthiest and a jobs plan that gets the unemployed to work on badly needed education, infrastructure and energy development but that's more like a fantasy than a real thing to ask for.

Instead, I'm resigned to asking you to merely negotiate with the Democrats, break whatever threat of a filibuster there is and get stuff done. Please and thank you.

I hope you have planned a nice vacation on the Cape or in the Berkshires for once this rigmarole is over. Maybe you can visit some of your fellow Middle of the Road Republican Senator Friends up in Maine. Olympia and Susan, from all the times I've run into them out and about when I lived in Maine, seemed very hospitable. And it's beautiful up there this time of year.

Good luck and please, please, fight to save our country from needless turmoil. End the debt ceiling debate and let's move on to bigger and better things!

Sincerely,

Bridget Madden
West Roxbury, MA

Feel free to copy and paste into your own email. It'd be really funny if this became a boiler plate copy and pasted email: http://scottbrown.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/contactme .

Someday - someday soon - I hope, I will stop being a wimp

2011-07-25T17:49:00.001-04:00

I have a mountain of work that I barely ever share and am very skiddish about exposing. I hold the cards close, as they say. The reason is because I didn't really feel very good the first time around when I tried to share whatever I was creating. The sharing didn't inspire me to create more and work harder. In fact, it did the opposite. Made me doubt myself to the point of almost giving up altogether. Then I said, "Screw that," and instead just created because that's what I wanted to do, that's what felt right and good. And now, so many years after that cocooning, am I ready to come out? Still don't know. Still don't know. But I like reading about other people who do and do it fearlessly.

This link, from "Raising My Boychick" website, is a post about embracing rejection letters as a positive:
http://www.raisingmyboychick.com/2010/10/i-have-started-a-rejection-collection/

Sample quote: "I want the human experience, the beauty not of blankness could’ve-been-greatness but the tangible paper in my hand saying girl, you tried."

I like it. Affirmational and inspirational.

=sigh= so sad

2011-07-25T12:09:00.002-04:00

Amy Winehouse, from her first album "Frank", the song "What Is It About Men".

A lot of people have been posting their favorite of her more popular songs. My friend Neil posted this one and it's lesser known but no less great.

It is so so so stupid and sad when young talent dies. She obviously struggled and lots of us do. Some people succumb, one way or another, some make it through to a longer life. Still hate it when it happens. Still wish it could have been different.

I can't say she's my favorite performer to come out of the BRIT School recently, I leave that to Adele, but she was so very good and unique when it came to singer-songwriters.

707 Scott Street

2011-07-20T17:34:00.001-04:00

I was just reading my copy of 707 Scott Street (the Journal of John Wiener's is to be called...for Billie Holiday 1959) yesterday, thumbing over the part on the spine where I had removed the LC call number tag from the Boston Public Library and feeling a tinge of guilt. I had borrowed the book for so long, accidentally, that Boston had charged me a $35 replacement fee. I paid the fee. I found the book. I kept the book. It was out of print and I loved it! Still, all those other Bostonians who would now only have access to the reserve copy...
And now, it was as if the waves at Nantasket* washed away all my poetic sins today, for the good news is: EVERYONE can access it FOR FREE!

http://www.greeninteger.com/pdfs/wieners_707_scott_street.pdf

Thanks Green Integer!

*I went to Nantasket Beach today. As in "Yes the same boy that rode the swings at Nantasket Beach..." as referenced below in the John Wiener's poem "Playboy" from Cultural Affairs. He's my favorite poet because he is the best, but it's also nice that we have so much in common, like childhoods spent at the same tacky beach.

Gardening, Sweat and Emily D

2011-07-11T18:43:00.001-04:00

From "Emily Dickinson's Garden:
The Poetry of Flowers" at the NYBG

There was all kinds of speculation as to why Emily Dickinson would garden so late at night, but after sweating my brains out from 2-2:45 this afternoon in the 92 degree sun while wearing shorts and a tshirt, my guess is that it was just a lot more comfortable to wear that Victorian getup outside at 6 or 7 than at noon. Here's some VERY COOL (zing! pun!) links I found today about Emily Dickinson's garden and botanical interests:

Emily Dickinson's Herbarium
http://www.earlywomenmasters.net/dickinson/herbarium/index.html#plantlist

Article on her herbarium
http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/21410

Facsimile from Harvard of her Herbarium
http://pds.lib.harvard.edu/pds/view/4184689?n=1&imagesize=1200&jp2Res=.25&printThumbnails=no

Neat-o, man. Neat. O.

My Life in France by Julia Child

2011-07-06T19:39:00.000-04:00

I made sure to have some tasty-enough wine with me at the beach (Bota Box travel packs Chardonnay, no glass allowed on Beach!) as I started my Summer 2011 Beach Read "My Life in France" by Julia Child. I knew it would be important to have something pleasant to sip as I envied her her bottles of classic French wine over dinners in Paris and thereabouts in the late 1940s. This book is the perfect, lighthearted summer read. I haven't really put it down since I started it on Sunday.

Things I must remember to use more often when cooking: butter (diplomatically, though--not in everything but a little more often at the right time, because it is delicious!), champignons because I love them and I hardly ever buy them for some reason, and wine to cook with. It makes things taste yummier.

(Can you believe I will be 33 next week and The Republic of France will be 222 on the same day and WE STILL HAVEN'T MET IN PERSON??!!! Even though I love her? What is wrong with me? Je suis très pauvre is it what is wrong. Mais bien sur. This is the way for le poete maudit. And the bibliotecaire maudit. And the maitre d'ecole maudit. Etc etc etc.)

Nashville Cats by the Lovin' Spoonfuls

2011-07-06T18:45:00.000-04:00

This song keeps going through my head. You ever get an earworm for no good reason? I was in Nashville for dinner yesterday, last year. Maybe that's why it keeps popping up. I know there's something funny about the time signature on this or something...

Yeah just dug through my brain and the internet and here is a link to a music rundown of a 2007 episode of Schickele Mix called "We Never Make Misteaks." http://www.schickele.com/cgi/playlist.pl?program=113
I guess I won't know exactly what the deal was with The Lovin' Spoonful's Nashville Cats because Schickle Mix isn't available for download. I think I remember Peter Schickle pointing out that during the chorus there was an extra beat that wasn't supposed to be there.

Maybe now that I've digressed and researched and posted about the song here on the creativity notebook, it will stop entering my brain and invading the silence. Argh.

Alternative Gardening Ideas - Wicking Beds

2011-06-28T21:13:00.002-04:00

Global Buckets from
http://www.globalbuckets.org/

Came across these links which are helpful to any urban dweller looking to grow veggies and other plants. People are so creative. Talk about eating local and recycling materials.

In depth article on wicking beds - what they are, how to build them links to other sites for suggestions, from the Permaculture.org.au website.
http://permaculture.org.au/2011/06/20/from-the-bottom-up-a-diy-guide-to-wicking-beds/#more-5795

These two teenage brothers are so fricken awesome and adorable. They remind me of Keanu Reeves! But they're way smarted because they came up with these handy, inexpensive ways to grow a garden using cheap buckets, PVC pipe, Solo cups, trash bags and some tools:
http://www.globalbuckets.org/

This lady has a bunch of how-to videos on urban/ container gardening:
http://youtu.be/3INoLKg555w

This is a $30 product you can buy to set up your own wicking bed easily and without the tools required for the DIY efforts listed above. There's lots of accessories, too. http://www.earthbox.com/

Some more links to other wicking bed ideas:
http://www.biovertical.com/
http://www.theruralindependent.com/garden-projects/wicking-beds

Things To Do This Summer

2011-06-21T17:59:00.001-04:00

Summer is here. (Won't feel official until the 3rd graders are DONE, which is Thursday...if I can make it that much longer???) What's on the agenda?

Free Events in Boston:
http://www.celebrateboston.com/events.htm

NOFA Mass Confrence at UMass Amherst, which I might attend for a day in August this year:
http://www.nofamass.org/

I didn't swim in one fresh water swimming spot last year! Preposterous!
http://www.mass.gov/dcr/recreate/swimming.htm

I want to ride my bicycle. It needs some maintenance though:
http://bikesnotbombs.org/

Plus READING READING READING (see: New Book as of 6/18/11 post) and WRITING WRITING WRITING!

Not to mention visits from Mom, visits to Big Baby Lucas and all the friends on the South Shore and in Maine, working on the garden and learning more about gardening and actually eating food at my house, which doesn't happen with this crappy schedule, I tell you.

PLUS, the extra fun thing for this summer: My Historical Literary Tour of Massachusetts with Florine.

And I have a lot of spring cleaning that never got done in the spring, so it will have to be summer cleaning.

Fine and Mellow

2011-06-19T01:19:00.002-04:00

New Books as of 6/18/11

2011-06-18T15:44:00.000-04:00

NON-FICTION (of which there are many; I have been on a "kick")

Summer and Fall Wildflowers of New England by Marilyn Dwelley
Spring Wildflowers of New England by Marilyn Dwelley (did you know there's wildflower called "Jack in the Pulpit" and it EATS BUGS?!)
Trees and Shrubs of New England by Marilyn Dwelley
(borrowed all of these but want to own--used copies are $$ though)

Gaia's Garden: a guide to home-scale permaculture by Toby Hemenway

The Okinawa Program by Wilcox, Wilcox, and Suzuki
The Okinawa Diet by Wilcox, Wilcox and Suzuki

Punished by Rewards by Alfie Kohn (borrowed)

The S Factor: Strip Workouts for Every Woman by Sheila Kelley (gift from Jenny)
Captivating Couples: celebrating love on the silver screen by David Baird

POETRY - all chapbooks from cannot exist http://cannotexist.blogspot.com/

MUGGED into poetry by CA Conrad
the hallucinated by Sara Larsen
bridge of the world by Roberto Harrison
How's the Cows by Jess Mynes
cannot exist no. 7

also
20012 http://20012.tumblr.com/

A Whale of a Pun

2011-06-16T13:52:00.000-04:00

Third graders are studying whales right now. As I helped with research, I kept coming up with whale puns:

George Foreman Krill

Krill Cheese Sandwich

Existential Killer Whale

Mad Men Re-Runs OnDemand

2011-06-11T00:07:00.000-04:00

I can't believe there won't be any new Mad Men to watch this summer. I'm watching season 3 from OnDemand right now--to help distract me from the Bruin's loss to Vancouver tonight.

I just watched "My Old Kentucky Home" and googled "book Sally read to Grandpa Gene".

I found two interesting links and the name of the book as a result.

First, an article about a Battery Park librarian who keeps a "Mad Men" book list: http://articles.nydailynews.com/2010-10-03/entertainment/27077049_1_betty-draper-don-draper-librarian

And a bookstore that has a Mad Men Book Club:
http://blog.shakeandco.com/2010/07/mad-men-bookclub.html

The book Sally reads in "The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" by Edward Gibbon. (That goes well with "How the Irish Saved Civilization" by Thomas Cahill, which I am almost finished with.)

TV inspiring reading! What a concept.

Don't Quote Me on This

2011-06-10T19:58:00.000-04:00

Almost famous!

I was quoted on NPR's "Here and Now" today on their segment about sonnets.

About 40 seconds into the piece: http://www.wbur.org/media-player?url=http%3A%2F%2Fhereandnow.wbur.org%2F2011%2F06%2F08%2Fsonnet-rhyme-poetry&title=Is+A+Sonnet+That+Doesn%26%238217%3Bt+Rhyme+Still+A+Sonnet%3F&segment=sonnet-rhyme-poetry&pubdate=2011-06-08&source=hereandnow

Full story: http://hereandnow.wbur.org/2011/06/08/sonnet-rhyme-poetry

Original page, with the "heated" exchange:
http://hereandnow.wbur.org/2011/06/08/hn-poetry-challenge

And the contents copy and pasted below:

Other person: If it's unrhymed, it isn't a sonnet. You can't redefine words to suit your private meaning and then expect the rest of us to go along.

Me: The definition of a sonnet has changed from its original almost since people began writing sonnets. Shakespearean, Petrachan, Occitan, Spenserian--as language and conventions evolve and revive, ebb and flow, trend and lose favor so do structures and forms of poetry. If you really want to lose your head, you should read Bernadette Mayer's sonnets. Those will make you grumpy for weeks, Mr. Other Person

OP: I have no objection to blank verse, but it isn't a sonnet. I can even tolerate free verse, on the rare occasions that it's done well, but the point is that we need to call things according to their correct names.

Me: The definition of any particular form of poetry, like with many other forms of art, exists as a liquid thing, not something written in stone. As humanity evolves, so do the aspects of language, art, traditions and culture. A "sonnet" has never had a solid definition of "it must rhyme this way" and "it must be metered that way"; therefore, it is a futile cause to claim what a poet deems a sonnet is not as such because it doesn't fit the definition you attribute to the form. The form's definition has constantly and will constantly change.

OP: Sorry, but a sonnet in English is fourteen lines of iambic pentameter. There are several rhyme schemes, Shakespearean being the best known. My point is that a dog is a dog, and calling a lizard a dog doesn't do either any justice.

Me: hahahahaahahahahah that is soooooooo funny! The way you make everything in the art of the written word seem so rigid and evoke Shakespeare to make your point when he was the one who put the fiercest tweak on the liquidity of the language in the first place. Well, I can see this is an exercise in futility. Have fun in your boring world of Everything Staying Exactly The Same Forever and Ever. I'm sure it's rather thrilling.

OP: Please show me where I said that everything has to stay the same. Unrhymed verse is something new, so it deserves a new name. The reason that communication is possible is that words retain their meanings over time. Arbitrary changes in the definitions when there's no need is just laziness.
I will admit that if every innovator wrote with the brilliance of Shakespeare, I'd have fewer objections. As for Bernadette Mayer, you're right. She reminds me of Oscar Wilde's observation that all bad poetry is sincere.

And then I dropped it. Once someone insult Bernadette, there's just no point.

Coded Messages...

2011-06-07T18:46:00.001-04:00

The following message is written in code. Perhaps a secretary who makes many typos could crack it easily.

di,,rt od s;,pdy jrtr

tr,r,nrt yp esrt upit dimdvtrrm

It's been a while since I've made up a coded message but I have done it a few times this year for the 3rd graders, ever sicne a bunch of girls decided they were going to play "spies" at rcess and asked if I'd be their commander. I was like, "Duh. Of course! I LOVE spy shows." So, as Commander Ten, I issue coded messages from time to time, usually related to math but this time, this one is related to their computer typing skills. Can you crack the code?

Here and Now Sonnet Challenge and My Big Mouth

2011-06-06T19:20:00.000-04:00

I got into a silly though interesting comment exchange with another commenter on WBUR's "Here and Now" show's webpost on an American Sonnet Poetry Challenge. The other commenter was adamant that a sonnet must have 14 lines, rhymes and be in iambic pentameter. I wholeheartedly disagreed. We went back and forth for about 3 comments from me before I gave up.

http://hereandnow.wbur.org/2011/05/29/hn-poetry-challenge

So, a Here & Now producer contacted me because they wanted to quote me from my comments for a story they should be doing on Wednesday about poetry. If it airs, I'll post the link. I hope they don't quote the part where I got frustrated and called his world "boring." Actually, I said, "Have fun in your boring world of Everything Staying Exactly The Same Forever and Ever. I'm sure it's rather thrilling." Because I have a hot Irish temper sometimes that gets the best of me. ;-)

The Garden for 2011

2011-06-05T18:49:00.002-04:00

The garden is completely finished and ready to grow. It was lots of work but, oh my, did I enjoy the effort. The slide show features about 25 pictures. And below are some more details:

This is the full view of the garden. It's a smallish space but I planned and planned so I could pack in as much as possible for the summer.

This is a "keyhole" though is looks more like a champagne glass. The idea is that instead of having rows you have a fan-shaped garden with a keyhole in the middle from which to harvest/plant from. That way, you maximize the available space for planting. For more about how to make a keyhole garden, see this site from Porchside Gardening.

Detail 1: front left side. From left to right - Border: veronica. First row: Yellow, Blue, White and "Matrix Morpheus" violas. Second row: Fragrant Sumac, Calamint, Indian Carpet Dianthus, Russian Sage. Third section: wildflower seed mix from dollar section of Target (can't tell if it's just weeds growing there or actual flowers. Time will tell...), Dreams Red Petunias. Fourth section: cilantro. Shrub: ?hemlock?

Border: Sundial mix. Front: Cilantro, Kale, Parsley. Back: White Phlox, Sumac, Hosta, Primrose, Violet, Orange Viola, ?Daisies? (though they might have been drowned by the gutter run off?). Underneath (already bloomed): Mini Daffodils, Blue Hyacinths, Purple Tulips

Back wall perennials, close up

Rain collection corner. The gutter overflows. I've dug a hole in the corner and lined it with rocks so the water heads downward away from the rest of the garden area when the overflow occurs. I put a bucket and the watering can to collect the runoff. There's a little plastic white fence and these tin butterflies to protect the garden from the backsplash. That gutter has killed too many plants and it has already been "fixed" so it's just going to stay that way. Permaculture talks about working with the elements, so that's what I've done. I've also planted Lemon Balm near it, since they're resilient and really like water.

Right side of garden: Back to front - sweet peppers, basil, thyme, sage, dill, chive. Also: Grandpa Ott's Morning Glories along the fence, black dahlia up front, Clear Crystal Mix along border and veronica as ground cover.

Front to back: Welcome Frog, chive, scallion, lemon balm, in planters further back: Cherokee Purple Tomatoes

Planter: according to the mailing I got from Mahoney's Garden Center, planters are supposed to "Thrill" with something tall, "fill" with something lush, and "spill" with something that flows out of the sides of the planter. I chose sundial mix to thrill, Dreams Red Petunia to fill and Clear Crystal Mix to fill. For $5! (Total $10 for the plants but only used half of each in planter, put the rest in the garden.)

Hello Welcome Gnome. You are so cute. If I put batteries in him, he'd talk and say things like, "Some gnomes get to travel around the world. Look what I get: THIS!" and another pithy things.

THE END -- but really, THE BEGINNING

I hope harvesting is as yummy as it looks to be.

This years garden, a list, left to right in fan formation:

veronica ground cover
yellow violas
blue violas
white violas
"Matrix Morpheus" violas
fragrant sumac
calamint
Indian Carpet dianthus
Russian sage
wildflower mix
butterfly and humming bird mix
Dreams red petunias
cilantro
White Phlox
mini daffodils
blue hyacinth
sundial mix
kale
purple tulip
hosta
parsley
mini daffodil
blue hyacinth
primrose
violet
orange viola (per.)
?daisies?
sweet red peppers
lemon balm
scallions
thyme
basil
chive
sage
dill
black dahlia
clear crystal mix
Grandpa Ott's Morning Glories
veronica groundcover
Cherokee Purple Tomatoes

Time to eat some dinner and then hit the showers! I'm a dirt filled mess. But I love it.

This Year's Crop

2011-06-05T12:45:00.000-04:00

Been working on the garden all weekend, trying to incorporate ideas from Gaia's Garden. I'll have pictures when everything's complete. For now, I wanted to keep a list of sites I find useful for this year's crop of herbs and veg:

Cilantro: http://www.amazon.com/Gaias-Garden-Second-Home-Scale-Permaculture/dp/1603580298/ref=dp_ob_title_bk

Kale: http://usagardener.com/how_to_grow_vegetables/how_to_grow_kale.php

Thyme: http://www.gardeningknowhow.com/herb/tips-for-growing-thyme-in-your-garden.htm

More to come. Off to put this knowledge into action!

New Mallarme translations

2011-06-02T17:45:00.000-04:00

This post on Jerome Rothenberg's "Poems and Poetics' blog features two new translations of Mallarme poems by Scottish poet Peter Manson. I enjoyed both thte translations and the commentary following by the translator.

http://poemsandpoetics.blogspot.com/2011/05/two-mallarme-poems-newly-translated-by.html

The Story that Started It All

2011-06-02T17:34:00.002-04:00

A while back, the thing that finally made me take the plunge into gardening (after seeing friends and family members who'd been so into it) was an episode of WBUR's "OnPoint" featuring Robert Pogue Harrison who was promoting his new book “Gardens: An Essay on the Human Condition.”

http://onpoint.wbur.org/2008/06/20/the-gardening-art

Figured I woudl re-listen before completing the rest of my plot this weekend.

New inspirations for the garden

2011-06-01T21:52:00.001-04:00

I haven't set up the veggie and herb garden yet. That's this weekend's task. And i'm glad I waited becasue I am currently reading "Gaia's Garden" by Toby Hemenway, which is about "homescale permaculture". It's given me good ideas about what I'd like to do to maximize the benefits of having a garden.

I have also come across these website, which I liked:

http://www.motherearthnews.com/Organic-Gardening/1999-04-01/Lasagna-Gardening.aspx?page=2

http://porchsidegardening.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/sheet-mulching.pdf

http://porchsidegardening.wordpress.com/2010/09/10/keyhole-garden-making-the-bed/

http://transitionmassachusetts.ning.com/events/whole-systems-permaculture

Spelling with Double Consonants

2011-05-31T18:21:00.002-04:00

ima priddy gud spellar moste ove th timm.

But for some reason, certain words with double consonants, especially two sets of double consonants, trip me up: Renaissance, harassment, embarrassing, millennium, parallel, Mediterranean, misspelled.

R e n a i s s a n c e - Renaissance Renaissance Renaissance
h a r a s s m e n t - harassment harassment harassment
e m b a r r a s s i n g - embarrassing embarrassing embarrassing
m i l l e n n i u m - millennium millennium millennium
p a r a l l e l - parallel parallel parallel
M e d i t e r r a n e a n - Mediterranean Mediterranean Mediterranean
m i s s p e l l e d - misspelled misspelled misspelled
What's funky--what trips me up--is that, even though I know these words have double consonants, sometimes in the moment of writing them, I freeze up and can't remember which consonant is (FOOLISHLY!) there twice. It's just bugging me because I have to look up 'renaissance' titles a bunch and keep mis-typing it and getting the wrong or no result in my search as a result. thought I'd stop and practice my double consonant words so I wouldn't have to constantly face this problem!

UPDATE: der, forgot one of the most prominent ones considering the spring weather
p e r e n n i a l - perennial perennial perennial

A Literary Tour of Massachusetts

2011-05-21T15:30:00.000-04:00

This summer the plan is to do a literary tour of Massachusetts towards the end of July. Here's the tentative agenda:

-Day 1-

** Head first thing in the morning to Amherst to make to Emily Dickinson's house and museum in Amherst for morning
** Early afternoon in Amherst/North Hampton then on the road to
** Lowell (pun! zing!) for a visit with Jack Kerouac then head to
** Concord for a picnic dinner at Walden Pond and a visit to the Alcott and Emerson homes and other sites

Then home to sleep for

-Day 2-

** Forest Hills Cemetery in the morning to visit edward estlin, the train & head to
** Boston Common and Public Garden for all sorts of things from Robert McCloskey to Robert Lowell and of course John Wieners. Then to North Station to catch the commuter rail to
** Gloucester for the late afternoon to romp around and then
** Salem for dinner and witch-hunting then hom

-Day 3-

** Cambridge to Mt Auburn Cemetery, Harvard, stuff like that then
** the MFA or ISG

Florine should be coming from Buffalo and we shall Thelma and Louise our way through the high and low ways of Mass but it will not end with us going off a cliff or anything like that. Probably end with a long nap since that's a lot of traveling.

THE END

Takei Pride in Your Fellow Beings

2011-05-20T01:20:00.001-04:00

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Rachel Maddow did a story on Star Trek's George Takei's campaign to combat Tennessee's absolutely ludicrous proposed law to ban the merest mention of homosexuality in schools. It's the Takeist thing I've ever ever ever heard and it makes me want to A) scream and B) annex the South to its own land of Ignoramusia, with New Orleans, Austin and Ashville allowed to be annexed city-state territories of the Real America.

Hm, was that harsh of me? Mm-hmm. Because I'm angry.

May 21 - The End

2011-05-20T00:44:00.000-04:00

Vitamin String Quartet's cover of REM's "End of the World" for your listening pleasure. It's a good way to kick off the up coming End of Days weekend.

More VSQ albums here:

http://vitaminstringquartet.com/albums.html

Happy Apoplectic Apocalypse Weekend, Everyone!!!

Adele

2011-05-17T14:42:00.000-04:00

I've known her music for a while and I'm glad to see that she is rapidly gaining in popularity with all the passing days. She seems to be all over my radar lately.

Here's a link to her cover story from Out magazine:
http://www.out.com/features/2011/05/Adele-Lady-Sings-The-Blues/index.asp?

Bon Iver in Boston

2011-05-11T19:08:00.000-04:00

Oh oh oh how I want to go to this show. Hmm...tickets on sale Friday.

http://www.livenation.com/event/010046A1283D970F?crosssite=TM_US%3A1195873%3A9044

SKINNY LOVE

Come on skinny love just last the year
Pour a little salt we were never here
My, my, my, my, my, my, my, my
Staring at the sink of blood and crushed veneer

I tell my love to wreck it all
Cut out all the ropes and let me fall
My, my, my, my, my, my, my, my
Right in the moment this order's tall

I told you to be patient
I told you to be fine
I told you to be balanced
I told you to be kind
In the morning I'll be with you
But it will be a different "kind"
I'll be holding all the tickets
And you'll be owning all the fines

Come on skinny love what happened here
Suckle on the hope in lite brassiere
My, my, my, my, my, my, my, my
Sullen load is full; so slow on the split

I told you to be patient
I told you to be fine
I told you to be balanced
I told you to be kind
Now all your love is wasted?
Then who the hell was I?
Now I'm breaking at the britches
And at the end of all your lines

Who will love you?
Who will fight?
Who will fall far behind?

Scores of Scoria

2011-05-10T20:16:00.001-04:00

I was thinking about my good fortune in having a garden that is somehow part of the Mattapan Volcanic Complex of the Roxbury Conglomerate. I dig up scores of Scoria, a mafic volcanic rock, and use it to border the garden and line drainage beds. Very pretty stuff. And volcanic soil is a fertile gold mine when it comes to soil. I am not sure I have such a green thumb as I do very good luck to have nutrient rich soil. Whatever I put in my teeny plot, I get it back in abundance! Lucky me.

Here's a link to topographical map of the Boston area, from a Geography blog called "Written in Stone...seen through my lense."

I think science stuff is on my brain since we're wrapping up our "The Poetry of Science" unit at the school. We're going to have a poetry reading and everyone will get their books. Very fun! I stressed to the kids, and I practice what I preach, the beauty of "science" words and how they enhance a poem because they're very specific, descriptive and concrete, so they give a strong image and feeling.

Grass Isn't Really Greener

2011-05-09T20:47:00.001-04:00

Now that things are in bloom, I'm back to noticing the amazing grassless lawns in my neighborhood. People mix edibles, ground cover, perennials, shrubs, trees, and stone to create front lawn without the merest speck of a blade of grass. I heard somewhere, and it makes good sense to me, that grassless yards are much cheaper and environmentally friendly. I'm not in the market to buy any new books right now, having 5 out of the library and 5 chapbooks just arrived in the mail yesterday, but someday, I may consider these titles:

Food Not Lawns: How to Turn Your Yard into a Garden And Your Neighborhood into a Community This one sounds the most subversive and belligerent in the fight against grass. (I hope H C Flores, the author, isn't into golf. From what I can tell, golf courses take their turfgrass composition very seriously.) Anyway, excerpted review says: For activist readers who believe activism is a political pursuit, FOOD NOT LAWNS: HOW TO TURN YOUR YARD INTO A GARDEN AND YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD INTO A COMMUNITY offers a different viewpoint, maintaining that growing food where you live is a key method of becoming a food activist in the community

Front yard gardens: Growing More than Grass -- from Booklist: Alternatives to the traditional lawn effectively cut down on water usage and may also play host to beneficial insects and birds. Once the desire to do away with grass takes root, readers can turn to Primeau for help in rejuvenating a front yard so that flowers, foliage textures, and hardscaping come together in inviting swaths to both beautify and benefit the environment.

Getting Started In Permaculture: 50 Practical Projects to Build and Design Productive Gardens -- excerpted review: Permaculture is based on the ethics of caring for people and our planet. It is about growing your own healthy food, being resourceful and environmentally responsible. Permaculture concepts and ideas can be applied successfully from small suburban units to large farming properties....Getting Started in Permaculture delivers step-by-step knowledge for a variety of useful projects including: making herb fertilizers, compost, organic sprays for pest control, and much, much more. It also includes how to recycle your soft drink bottles, waste paper, and tires in a number of useful projects such as ponds, fruit fly traps, retailing walls, and solar stills.

The Urban Homestead (Expanded & Revised Edition): Your Guide to Self-Sufficient Living in the Heart of the City -- excerpted description: This celebrated, essential handbook shows how to grow and preserve your own food, clean your house without toxins, raise chickens, gain energy independence, and more. Step-by-step projects, tips, and anecdotes will help get you started homesteading immediately.The Urban Homesteadis also a guidebook to the larger movement and will point you to the best books and Internet resources on self-sufficiency topics.

The One-Straw Revolution: An Introduction to Natural Farming -- excerpted description (this sounds more like a manifesto than a guidebook) Call it “Zen and the Art of Farming” or a “Little Green Book,” Masanobu Fukuoka’s manifesto about farming, eating, and the limits of human knowledge presents a radical challenge to the global systems we rely on for our food. At the same time, it is a spiritual memoir of a man whose innovative system of cultivating the earth reflects a deep faith in the wholeness and balance of the natural world. As Wendell Berry writes in his preface, the book “is valuable to us because it is at once practical and philosophical. It is an inspiring, necessary book about agriculture because it is not just about agriculture.”

Gaia's Garden, Second Edition: A Guide To Home-Scale Permaculture -- Many people mistakenly think that ecological gardening which involves growing a wide range of edible and other useful plants can take place only on a large, multiacre scale. As Hemenway demonstrates, it's fun and easy to create a backyard ecosystem by assembling communities of plants that can work cooperatively and perform a variety of functions, including:

Building and maintaining soil fertility and structure
Catching and conserving water in the landscape
Providing habitat for beneficial insects, birds, and animals
Growing an edible forest that yields seasonal fruits, nuts, and other foods

What Happened to Kerouac? the documentary

2011-05-09T00:46:00.000-04:00

I'm watching the documentary "What Happened to Kerouac?" before bed tonight.

It's a good one. I like the biography and commentary intertwined. And I'm learning a few more new names of interest. This Joyce Johnson lady who wrote "Minor Characters". First impression is that she has made a writing career from writing about bopping a famous writer. Hmm...Not that nice of an idea. I baulk at it because...Why can't we ever just BE the ones doing the action that the men write about? Ha!

The Ocean Poems for Elementary School Lesson

2011-05-08T21:58:00.000-04:00

These are three poems I used last year to go with a unit on poetry and the science unit on the ocean. The poems are "The World Below the Brine" by Walt Whitman, "I started early..." by Emily Dickinson and "Poem: a nothing day" by James Schuyler.

Name:________________________

OCEAN POETRY

The World Below the Brine
by: Walt Whitman (1819-1892)

The world below the brine,
Forests at the bottom of the sea, the branches and
leaves,
Sea-lettuce, vast lichens, strange flowers and seeds, the
thick tangle openings, and pink turf,
Different colors, pale gray and green, purple, white, and
gold, the play of light through the water,
Dumb swimmers there among the rocks, coral, gluten,
grass, rushes, and the aliment of the swimmers,
Sluggish existences grazing there suspended, or slowly
crawling close to the bottom,
The sperm-whale at the surface blowing air and spray,
or disporting with his flukes,
The leaden-eyed shark, the walrus, the turtle, the hairy
sea-leopard, and the sting-ray,
Passions there, wars, pursuits, tribes, sight in those
ocean-depths, breathing that thick-breathing air, as so many do,
The change thence to the sight here, and to the subtle
air breathed by beings like us who walk this
sphere,
The change onward from ours to that of beings who
walk other spheres.

520.“I Started Early–Took My Dog”
by Emily Dickinson

I started Early–Took my Dog–
And Visited the Sea–
The Mermaids in the Basement
Came out to look at me–

And Frigates–in the Upper Floor
Extended Hempen Hands–
Presuming Me to be a Mouse–
Aground–upon the Sands–

But no Man moved Me–till the Tide
Went past my simple Shoe–
And past my Apron–and my Belt
And past my Bodice–too–

And made as He would eat me up–
As wholly as a Dew
Upon a Dandelion’s Sleeve–
And then–I started–too–

And He–He followed–close behind–
I felt His Silver Heel
Upon my Ankle–Then my Shoes
Would overflow with Pearl–

Until We met the Solid Town–
No One He seemed to know–
And bowing–with a Mighty look–
At me–The Sea withdrew–

New Books Arrived from cannot exist press

2011-05-08T13:31:00.000-04:00

Oh yay. New books arrived yesterday in the mail from cannot exist press. Very exciting. Here's what I got:

cannot exist no. 7
Mugged into Poetry by CA Conrad
bridge of the world by Roberto Harrison
the hallucinated by Sara Larsen
How's the Cows by Jess Mynes

Reviews to follow as I get through my new gems. Here's a taste of one I found yesterday as I flipped through them when I first got them. This is from Jess Mynes's "How's the Cows":

trophy crude

strong scattered middle
mild Catskill lows
walk this ounce right tact
April halt lapsing droplet
starts considered flames
found out ever of lilac
into well after should be
systemic indent district
wants narrow check
fewer crude regret
swearing bilge ends
uncertain Summer idylls erupt
scars you mark met in the hurt then

and this excerpt from CA Conrad's "Mugged":

i thought about getting
lipsuction and having
the fat cremated
but it's not
the same because i can
eat more
delicious
donuts and
grow it back

it doesn't count

it HAS to be
something
missing for
good you
know

but to
spread my
own ashes is something
i love thinking about
and the cheerful
sound of my
peg legs on
Philadelphia
sidewalks

Get your own! From what I see so far, it's worth it!

http://cannotexist.blogspot.com/

One for every day of the year?

2011-05-02T19:46:00.000-04:00

Can I do it? I can write one poem for every day of the year. A new poem, that is. I started with a poem a day thing with SC friends. But now, after Catherine Meng's poetry reading last month in Cambridge, where she read from her work that was generated by writing every day, I'm thinking I want to do that. To see what happens. Life gets so impossibly busy, though. I will only do my best to try.

EVEN DIRTY BIRDS by Dorothea Lasky

2011-05-01T22:31:00.002-04:00

EVEN DIRTY BIRDS

by Dorothea Lasky (from BLACK LIFE)

Sun on the shadows, even dirty birds are nice when they brush up against you
Like the pigeons in the park when they come whirling at you they are nice
To feel their wings and necks against you, like wind only better
Because they are living
Grey birds because they are dirty
With city soot, the smokestacks
Of living in a sour time, the way that we breathe so
In every city legend we work
Too fast to be part machine but only part of it
That we are machines only in that we are not birds
I am part of this world but I am not
What you thought I was, and when you stand next to me
You will feel my aura of this time but a timeless times
That is always new because it is water and air
And when I speak, it is a new voice but it is not a new voice
No, it is an old one, no it is present so
That you find yourself in love with me
Well who could blame you, I can't stop you
From loving a ghost of yourself that was willing to speak
Of living things that you so readily had forgotten when you yourself so was
so living so living so that you forgot how to breathe and you died
I will not let you die, no
So there are ghosts that are not me but that I am a reflection of
In that I am living, water, and air, part lime in that I am a woman
But I am not a woman so much so that I am air
And air that breathes through you giving you a home that I will never
take away
I will never take this home away, soft bed that is my voice
And hot chili in the dinner I make for you
You have come back from working all day with coal and ice
Come back, I will take you back to what you once knew

DOKUMENT 1 BETWEEN TWO SHAPES by Catherine Meng

2011-05-01T22:21:00.002-04:00

DOKUMENT 1
BETWEEN TWO SHAPES

by Catherine Meng (from 'Dokument')

nothing moving a spoken movie
balance like wize found between trees
sky & rain
as neighbors argue
the dog finds a place to lie down
beyond one mess & on the bring of another
collection of streets intersecting where water
pools & drags the traffic
death will happen in the morning or February
but also at other time no one has named
springing up making nonsense
the way a stone leaves the surface round
beyond round
the dog tramps the grass
so beginning is bedfellow with tail

St Felix Street for Tamar Grimm by Kimberly Lyons

2011-05-01T21:56:00.003-04:00

ST FELIX STREET
for Tamar Green

by Kimberly Lyons (from 'Phototherapique')

Some itchy about vines
rid of their leaves, like hairs
invisibly cling to brick's
matted tributaries. Renata at the Opera
a man says, head bent over coffee. Later,
in this metallic valley, fumes have arranged to
meet for a cinematographic witches' Sabbath
write Breton and Soupault. I feel like
I haven't looked at anything for a long time.
Today, a feeling for the inwardness
of everything pulls thoughts
out of the spidery nexus
broken up by orange plastic chairs turned over on the cement.
Leaves float in a cupful of water and dirt.
On St. Felix Street, the antique shadows
make plum colored velvet
withered as these berries fallen off the vine.
Convergence comes at the Sabbath
on Tuesdays
in the rain.
On a bicycle
after the dentist and
before the Iron Age.