Thursday, December 26, 2002
GENERAL UPDATE:
Immune System:
In a stand-off with a common head-cold. Symptoms include stuffy nose, sinus pressure, "old man" aches.
Mood:
lethargic, icy, looking for distractions.
Music:
Bowie "Word on a Wing" from Station to Station, a song I've really grown to love, even though the lyric I thought went "sweeeeet angel....born once again for me" REALLY goes "sweet name, you're born once again for me"
Beck "Paper Tiger" and "Debra" (from Sea Change and Midnight Vultures, respectively). "Debra" has been a classic screech-along song for a couple years, especially from this past summer at Flynn Pool.
Books: Cashing in a Salmon Run Mall certificate from grandparents at the brand new BORDERS, I picked up some books of poetry from their incredibly well-stocked selection (maybe because it's a new store?), including Frank O'Hara's Meditations in an Emergency, the Rainer Maria Rilke classic Letters to a Young Poet, and Repair by C.K. Williams. I had a copy of Robert Hass' Praise, too, but opted for books from poets I don't have in my collection already. These should come in handy for both my creative writing class, AND my upcoming Enrichment Course: Modern/Contemporary American Poetry. I'm also still plowing through Calvino.
Images: I'm halfway through Altman's commentary track to Gosford Park. He's probably the best commentator-of-own-work I've heard: down-to-earth, maybe not humble but surely not egotistical— he's done some incredible work, why SHOULDN'T he elaborate— and highly enlightening. He has a simple vocabulary and measured pace when speaking, but every word he says has importance, just like a Carver story.
Christmas Candy: Kookaburra Liquroice, made in Australia, but purchased in Clayton, NY (North of Watertown, on Lake Ontario); Wrigley's Spearmint Gum.
Immune System:
In a stand-off with a common head-cold. Symptoms include stuffy nose, sinus pressure, "old man" aches.
Mood:
lethargic, icy, looking for distractions.
Music:
Bowie "Word on a Wing" from Station to Station, a song I've really grown to love, even though the lyric I thought went "sweeeeet angel....born once again for me" REALLY goes "sweet name, you're born once again for me"
Beck "Paper Tiger" and "Debra" (from Sea Change and Midnight Vultures, respectively). "Debra" has been a classic screech-along song for a couple years, especially from this past summer at Flynn Pool.
Books: Cashing in a Salmon Run Mall certificate from grandparents at the brand new BORDERS, I picked up some books of poetry from their incredibly well-stocked selection (maybe because it's a new store?), including Frank O'Hara's Meditations in an Emergency, the Rainer Maria Rilke classic Letters to a Young Poet, and Repair by C.K. Williams. I had a copy of Robert Hass' Praise, too, but opted for books from poets I don't have in my collection already. These should come in handy for both my creative writing class, AND my upcoming Enrichment Course: Modern/Contemporary American Poetry. I'm also still plowing through Calvino.
Images: I'm halfway through Altman's commentary track to Gosford Park. He's probably the best commentator-of-own-work I've heard: down-to-earth, maybe not humble but surely not egotistical— he's done some incredible work, why SHOULDN'T he elaborate— and highly enlightening. He has a simple vocabulary and measured pace when speaking, but every word he says has importance, just like a Carver story.
Christmas Candy: Kookaburra Liquroice, made in Australia, but purchased in Clayton, NY (North of Watertown, on Lake Ontario); Wrigley's Spearmint Gum.
Tuesday, December 24, 2002
What's Insipid Today?:
I'm just like a documentary camera rolling here. It's particularly ironic to think about people not "getting" The Matrix while they're not detecting the insipidity they're transmitting.
I'm just like a documentary camera rolling here. It's particularly ironic to think about people not "getting" The Matrix while they're not detecting the insipidity they're transmitting.
Reading:
Thanks to Gary, who turned me on to Italo Calvino, I found this remarkable description (emblematic of all his work that I've read)
from If on a winter's night a traveller:
...in other words, there is a veil of other images that settles on her
image and blurs it, a weight of memories that keep me from seeing
her as a person seen for the first time, other people's memories
suspended like the smoke under the lamps.
Thanks to Gary, who turned me on to Italo Calvino, I found this remarkable description (emblematic of all his work that I've read)
from If on a winter's night a traveller:
...in other words, there is a veil of other images that settles on her
image and blurs it, a weight of memories that keep me from seeing
her as a person seen for the first time, other people's memories
suspended like the smoke under the lamps.
Merriness Report:
I had a festive Hyundai-ride with Laura down to Pulaski, NY (halfway between Watertown and her family's new hometown of Oswego) to meet her father for lunch. Pulaski has a surpringly charming strip for a small town (much like the new Hamilton) and we had an incredible brocolli and cheese quiche/potato and ham soup special and chatted about the Season, Colgate, family, and other topics in tones intermittently genuine and sarcastic. Driving back North solo, I cranked Kid A and Bing Crosby (not at the same time). With several inches of lake effect already on the ground, another foot expected in the next two days, a "white christmas" just about garaunteed.
A Colgate Education:
Laura and I had another great "dialogue"/discussion this morning in bed, this time about sociology, classism, high school, and her plans to create the perfect government/economic system that is a cross-breed of democratic consumerism and some strain communism/socialism (she does not get over-technical or name-droppy, either, her appeal comes equally from her own heart and head— kinda like how apparently Freddie Mercury only had a dozen records when he was growing up and started to write songs like "Bicycle" and "Killer Queen" (not to force an analogy between Laura and Fredie Mercury)); I'm so amazed and happy to see her find an academic area that challenges/invigorates her intellect so fully, and she's definitely raising my consciousness. I love it when Colgate works (I don't know how much to credit the school in proportion to the effort and talents of the student) for someone.
I had a festive Hyundai-ride with Laura down to Pulaski, NY (halfway between Watertown and her family's new hometown of Oswego) to meet her father for lunch. Pulaski has a surpringly charming strip for a small town (much like the new Hamilton) and we had an incredible brocolli and cheese quiche/potato and ham soup special and chatted about the Season, Colgate, family, and other topics in tones intermittently genuine and sarcastic. Driving back North solo, I cranked Kid A and Bing Crosby (not at the same time). With several inches of lake effect already on the ground, another foot expected in the next two days, a "white christmas" just about garaunteed.
A Colgate Education:
Laura and I had another great "dialogue"/discussion this morning in bed, this time about sociology, classism, high school, and her plans to create the perfect government/economic system that is a cross-breed of democratic consumerism and some strain communism/socialism (she does not get over-technical or name-droppy, either, her appeal comes equally from her own heart and head— kinda like how apparently Freddie Mercury only had a dozen records when he was growing up and started to write songs like "Bicycle" and "Killer Queen" (not to force an analogy between Laura and Fredie Mercury)); I'm so amazed and happy to see her find an academic area that challenges/invigorates her intellect so fully, and she's definitely raising my consciousness. I love it when Colgate works (I don't know how much to credit the school in proportion to the effort and talents of the student) for someone.
Weigh-In on The David Lynch Debate over at Joblo.com; share opinions with intelligences and agendas of all colors and shapes.
Sunday, December 22, 2002
Bing 'n Bowie:
I'm watching an 80s Christmas special on (where else) VH1, and up next is that mind-fucking David Bowie/ Bing Crosby collaboration "Peace on Earth/Littel Drummer Boy" video that seems to be filmed in my step-grandmother's living room where I took piano lessons at ages 7 and 8. Seeing/hearing this classic never stokes the Holiday spirit in me as much as it hits the Lynch-centers in my brain. I ask "why?" silently, and stare at two icons in all their icon-dom. One the golf-crazed, Irish American, deep-velvet voiced, classic crooner; the other...well, is David Bowie. I wonder who approached whom for this duet? There's ACTING too, before they start singing. Interaction! Script! ARCGGHH! "I'm Bing" "Oh the singer!" "Well, right or wrong, I sing either way." WHAT?? There is a chemistry here that has yet been defined. Embedded in this video is the molecular structure of plasma, or something. The greatest feature of this combo is that it is COMPLETELY void of irony, facetious-ness, or any other post-modern effects: the entire clip is 100% sincere, genuine, and intended to be taken thus. And then Bing died a month after they recorded it! Like his whole life was in preparation to pass some sort of icon-torch to Bowie, not knowing that Bowie would find a way for fire to burn in space.
I'm watching an 80s Christmas special on (where else) VH1, and up next is that mind-fucking David Bowie/ Bing Crosby collaboration "Peace on Earth/Littel Drummer Boy" video that seems to be filmed in my step-grandmother's living room where I took piano lessons at ages 7 and 8. Seeing/hearing this classic never stokes the Holiday spirit in me as much as it hits the Lynch-centers in my brain. I ask "why?" silently, and stare at two icons in all their icon-dom. One the golf-crazed, Irish American, deep-velvet voiced, classic crooner; the other...well, is David Bowie. I wonder who approached whom for this duet? There's ACTING too, before they start singing. Interaction! Script! ARCGGHH! "I'm Bing" "Oh the singer!" "Well, right or wrong, I sing either way." WHAT?? There is a chemistry here that has yet been defined. Embedded in this video is the molecular structure of plasma, or something. The greatest feature of this combo is that it is COMPLETELY void of irony, facetious-ness, or any other post-modern effects: the entire clip is 100% sincere, genuine, and intended to be taken thus. And then Bing died a month after they recorded it! Like his whole life was in preparation to pass some sort of icon-torch to Bowie, not knowing that Bowie would find a way for fire to burn in space.
