Saturday, February 08, 2003
I've had a strange day:
Below I will paste a rather large something that was channeled today. I apologise for length, lack of clarity, and candor contained within. This is not a cry for help, because I'm aware of it's possibly being a cry for help, and in my current mindgame, awareness negates actuality.
Hours Of Saturday Mind/ Mined Hours/ Complaint Season
Lately I’ve been obsessively self-diagnosing myself. I’m a postmodern psychiatrist; if I can give a name and a motivation to my neuroses and tendencies, then perhaps they will go away. But there a new layer is created: once I admit that I’m aware of my means of dealing with my frustration with self-doubt, I realize that it’s all a lot of noise and distraction. Once I realize that I’m creating my own distraction, it’s hard for me to admit to my logical mind that I’m making positive progress away from lethargy and failure. For example, I have developed a fixation with Minesweeper, the small game that comes free with Windows. I play mechanically, but with passion. I may listen to music or the television (an NCAA game or Nick @ Nite), but my own system resources are focused intently on the mine grid. I need to win, and I just can’t. Numerous metaphors of chance and fate occur to me when I’m playing, but above all, I’m psycho-analying my addiction: I play because I want control in my life. I project my anxieties about instability into this easier-to-manage pastime, where I can concievably relieve them as soon as I win. My gratification and ease are mere mouse-clicks away. I can pull away mentally enough to see what I’m doing has both no logic and complete logic, and that it is ridiculous and wastes enormous amounts of time and enery, but do I stop playing? No. One horrible weekend, I was lost in a drought for hours and hours. I couldn’t win; I couldn’t stop playing. I knew what I was after, and that true healing would not come pinned to a cleared minefield. Aware of my neurosis, I continued to play. Eventually, I did win a game.
Let me slow down.
I’m in the Winter term of my first year as an English teacher. I am 22 years old, and I’ve just had a stack of emotional-support area-rugs yanked out from under me at a time where I bathed in confidence enough to err in thinking I didn’t need them. Of course
ending a three and a half year relationship is going to have some fallout, dummy! (Strange: whenever I write the word dummy, I hear Donald Suthreland’s voice speak it) And of course the onset of winter and fatigue from having run at this job at full sprint is going to arrest my soaring. I’ve always been a tremendous sprinter; it was part of what made me a good soccer player. I could blow by defenders in bursts and became a more deadly player when I fine-tuned my touch, but my weakness has always been endurance.
I get tired. I get lazy.
There is a relentless battle within my ego. One night I will be viciously critical of my teaching, of my life choices, of my behavior around the other teachers (adults, am I one?), of how messy my room has gotten (beer and soda boxes waiting by the metal waste bin that is itself stuffed, partially with banana peels and other organic trash), of my addiction to parenthetical thoughts and how listeners or readers must feel ennui or awkwardness when they listen to or read my thoughts. (Talking is my job. I am paid to talk about my life and passions to a room of kids called students in a manner that I’m imitating, affecting, from a bank of past teacher-personalities I’ve encountered. I’m an actor and a dancing liar) The next morning, something about the sun and a fulfilling class discussion reacting makes me believe in everything, especially the kids. On darker days, I think they will someday sink us into oblivion. I think we all psychologically menstruate on a linked cycle at this boarding school. Somehow, however, it is just when I reach happiness in a burst of bike-riding joy across these plateaus of confidence (I get my first coaching victory with a last second shot, I go out to a bar with Gina and am around other young(ish) people) that I find the other edge, steep from erosion and waterless at the bottom.
And it hurts.
And I become so focused in the reading material. Lately, I am Darcy. Austen knew how I feel now, two hundred years ago. For the past month, I cannot stand pretense and flattery. Sure, I can play the part of teacher and not scrutinize myself, because when I am in that classroom, it’s not a role, it’s a poetry of real people speaking through me; I am a conduit who is aware of conducting the influences somehow stored in and now unpacked from the organic matter of his brain. It is not that affectation that incites my ire and shuts my personality down, but the falseness that is required to schmooze. There is a leveling pressure to join the army of student-centered philosophers at this school, an entirely new ethos for the school. I have no problem with putting the kids first. I just feel pushed and shoved, campaigned and propaganda’d.
As soon as I re-read these complaints, I grow reactively down-cast and ashamed at what might be juvenile whining, at my immaturity. After all, since I’m unilaterally treated like an adult by all the adults here, I suppose it’s possible that I assume more maturity than I
actually have; although, most of the time, I cannot help but..not look DOWN, but feel at least feel on par with the intellects, personalities, and general social patterns displayed by the other teachers. I mean, some of these people are just DUMB (there’s Sutherland again); some are brilliant. Some care with their souls; some don’t. I’m constantly trying to triangulate myself into the spectrum, because teaching is a job that requires all of you. Everything you have ever learned suddenly becomes necessary for daily survival. It’s like my life is an advanced stage of a compled role-playing video game, in which all the weapons, abilties, spells, and gear I’ve collected in the first part of the game are needed to defeat the most difficult bosses and monsters, to traverse the unlit passageways and dodge the bats and rats, to resuce some princess who in the end doesn’t want or isn’t ready for your love and sacrifice. You realize the truth of the situation and in a way it sobers you until you are so drunk with sobriety that the room starts spinning anyway. You walk to class every morning with mettle and some amount of strength arising from this found truth, but there’s a lingering hangover that erupts, that forces you to vomit tears if you are cajoled enough or spun or jarred. (If you listen to Jeff Buckley, if you see people kissing, if you realize you’re letting this shit affect your job and how pathetic is that?).
So, the escape I have planned is to nurture the notion of not working here next year, and like a brain-pregnancy, the options— A) keep the job for another year, save more money, have stable employment/benefits, accrue more experience, work like a fucker all day
everyday with my only reward being extended periods of personal time (two three-week vacations and late May through early September) or B) move to Boston with Flynn or by myself, get a job that doesn’t require round-the-clock stress and concentration, lose many benefits (including free rent and board), have daily personal time and relaxation, have time and the possibility to meet someone new and enjoy bodies and conversations and tones of voice, and no longer ride the ups and downs of soaring confidence and bitter, self-aware inadequacy— will gestate like twins.
And I’m not even blogging this. The internet is (naturally) down again. I don’t think I would blog this. This is being written because:
1. I’m panicked like a non-swimmer in the 10-foot.
2. I cried today.
3. I talked to Fairlie, and Mom, and Emily today.
4. I am reflecting on these conversations, thanking the wind for Emily’s friendship.
5. I am consciously hoping that this is good writing, that it will interest someone besides
me not for the glimpse into another’s mind but because it is at least not boring.
6. I am doubting the quality of the writing.
7. I am trying to diffuse doubts about the writing by listing the doubts, and including
thoughts about consciously diffusing the doubts in the list.
8. I am second guessing everything.
9. My hands are cold, I have a free weekend and no plans, and my mind has become a
wreck.
10. I just thought about Jreck Subs when I misspelled “wreck” above and I’m hungry.
11. A sudden kinship with Charlie Kaufman as expressed in his script for Adaptation.
12. An immediate sense of shame at presuming myself to be near other thinkers and
creators, or to think anyone would really care.
13. I have had area rugs pulled out and my tailbone hurts.
At least I can say I’ve been creating good analogies lately, even if not many, or any, show up in this ramble. I think I’ll start writing them down on my hand or post-it notes.
I write lists of tasks on my hands.
I’m beginning to hate the way the letter “I” looks on this screen, in any font. Whenever I try to write poetry from a first person voice, I find it doesn’t often contain any natural assonance, rhythm, or rhyme. Said poetry is always clunky and, actually pretty close to the jittery patter currently being typed/read here. This is why I don’t often try to write “prose,” especially about myself. I feel like I talk about myself better than I write about myself, which brings me back to self-criticism: I always feel that I talk about myself too much, and so have been working on my questionnaire skills, always being sure to prompt people, to set them up to launch into their own pride and ego. On the phone, over lunch or beer, I ramble like a bad professor to my friends or family. No wonder rugs have been
yanked, I think. God, when did I become so extroverted. I’ve always been in the corner, internal.
Actually, in a way, blogging is the ultimate marriage of Whitman and Dickinson. I do it alone, in my room (sometimes in the computer lab). My blog is full of cries and moans, of attention-seeking chunks of observation and opinion. It’s a Whitman’s hug digitized, which goes against many Whitmanic ideals, I suppose, but not against his more democratic, embracing moments. Blogging’s rife with Dickinson, though, too. The paradoxical “interior” nature of computer technology and the suggested vastness of “cyber-space” and of what can no longer be called a “community” of websites and e-personalities, but rather a “small civilization” of such entities. These are the high, heady places to where she ascended by herself, in her poetry, where the world is a giant bell and she but an ear, or something. Instead of prolifically sewing poems into small chapbooks (like she did), I weave them into code and pixels. Unlike Dickinson, I have immediate audience, and unlike Dickinson, I have more of a need for that audience. Especially right now.
I feel as though I’ve started twenty paragraphs and finished none. Maybe I should go to Borders and take advantage of my 15% teacher-discount.
[Actually written offline, Saturday, Feb. 8th, 1:30 PM]
Below I will paste a rather large something that was channeled today. I apologise for length, lack of clarity, and candor contained within. This is not a cry for help, because I'm aware of it's possibly being a cry for help, and in my current mindgame, awareness negates actuality.
Hours Of Saturday Mind/ Mined Hours/ Complaint Season
Lately I’ve been obsessively self-diagnosing myself. I’m a postmodern psychiatrist; if I can give a name and a motivation to my neuroses and tendencies, then perhaps they will go away. But there a new layer is created: once I admit that I’m aware of my means of dealing with my frustration with self-doubt, I realize that it’s all a lot of noise and distraction. Once I realize that I’m creating my own distraction, it’s hard for me to admit to my logical mind that I’m making positive progress away from lethargy and failure. For example, I have developed a fixation with Minesweeper, the small game that comes free with Windows. I play mechanically, but with passion. I may listen to music or the television (an NCAA game or Nick @ Nite), but my own system resources are focused intently on the mine grid. I need to win, and I just can’t. Numerous metaphors of chance and fate occur to me when I’m playing, but above all, I’m psycho-analying my addiction: I play because I want control in my life. I project my anxieties about instability into this easier-to-manage pastime, where I can concievably relieve them as soon as I win. My gratification and ease are mere mouse-clicks away. I can pull away mentally enough to see what I’m doing has both no logic and complete logic, and that it is ridiculous and wastes enormous amounts of time and enery, but do I stop playing? No. One horrible weekend, I was lost in a drought for hours and hours. I couldn’t win; I couldn’t stop playing. I knew what I was after, and that true healing would not come pinned to a cleared minefield. Aware of my neurosis, I continued to play. Eventually, I did win a game.
Let me slow down.
I’m in the Winter term of my first year as an English teacher. I am 22 years old, and I’ve just had a stack of emotional-support area-rugs yanked out from under me at a time where I bathed in confidence enough to err in thinking I didn’t need them. Of course
ending a three and a half year relationship is going to have some fallout, dummy! (Strange: whenever I write the word dummy, I hear Donald Suthreland’s voice speak it) And of course the onset of winter and fatigue from having run at this job at full sprint is going to arrest my soaring. I’ve always been a tremendous sprinter; it was part of what made me a good soccer player. I could blow by defenders in bursts and became a more deadly player when I fine-tuned my touch, but my weakness has always been endurance.
I get tired. I get lazy.
There is a relentless battle within my ego. One night I will be viciously critical of my teaching, of my life choices, of my behavior around the other teachers (adults, am I one?), of how messy my room has gotten (beer and soda boxes waiting by the metal waste bin that is itself stuffed, partially with banana peels and other organic trash), of my addiction to parenthetical thoughts and how listeners or readers must feel ennui or awkwardness when they listen to or read my thoughts. (Talking is my job. I am paid to talk about my life and passions to a room of kids called students in a manner that I’m imitating, affecting, from a bank of past teacher-personalities I’ve encountered. I’m an actor and a dancing liar) The next morning, something about the sun and a fulfilling class discussion reacting makes me believe in everything, especially the kids. On darker days, I think they will someday sink us into oblivion. I think we all psychologically menstruate on a linked cycle at this boarding school. Somehow, however, it is just when I reach happiness in a burst of bike-riding joy across these plateaus of confidence (I get my first coaching victory with a last second shot, I go out to a bar with Gina and am around other young(ish) people) that I find the other edge, steep from erosion and waterless at the bottom.
And it hurts.
And I become so focused in the reading material. Lately, I am Darcy. Austen knew how I feel now, two hundred years ago. For the past month, I cannot stand pretense and flattery. Sure, I can play the part of teacher and not scrutinize myself, because when I am in that classroom, it’s not a role, it’s a poetry of real people speaking through me; I am a conduit who is aware of conducting the influences somehow stored in and now unpacked from the organic matter of his brain. It is not that affectation that incites my ire and shuts my personality down, but the falseness that is required to schmooze. There is a leveling pressure to join the army of student-centered philosophers at this school, an entirely new ethos for the school. I have no problem with putting the kids first. I just feel pushed and shoved, campaigned and propaganda’d.
As soon as I re-read these complaints, I grow reactively down-cast and ashamed at what might be juvenile whining, at my immaturity. After all, since I’m unilaterally treated like an adult by all the adults here, I suppose it’s possible that I assume more maturity than I
actually have; although, most of the time, I cannot help but..not look DOWN, but feel at least feel on par with the intellects, personalities, and general social patterns displayed by the other teachers. I mean, some of these people are just DUMB (there’s Sutherland again); some are brilliant. Some care with their souls; some don’t. I’m constantly trying to triangulate myself into the spectrum, because teaching is a job that requires all of you. Everything you have ever learned suddenly becomes necessary for daily survival. It’s like my life is an advanced stage of a compled role-playing video game, in which all the weapons, abilties, spells, and gear I’ve collected in the first part of the game are needed to defeat the most difficult bosses and monsters, to traverse the unlit passageways and dodge the bats and rats, to resuce some princess who in the end doesn’t want or isn’t ready for your love and sacrifice. You realize the truth of the situation and in a way it sobers you until you are so drunk with sobriety that the room starts spinning anyway. You walk to class every morning with mettle and some amount of strength arising from this found truth, but there’s a lingering hangover that erupts, that forces you to vomit tears if you are cajoled enough or spun or jarred. (If you listen to Jeff Buckley, if you see people kissing, if you realize you’re letting this shit affect your job and how pathetic is that?).
So, the escape I have planned is to nurture the notion of not working here next year, and like a brain-pregnancy, the options— A) keep the job for another year, save more money, have stable employment/benefits, accrue more experience, work like a fucker all day
everyday with my only reward being extended periods of personal time (two three-week vacations and late May through early September) or B) move to Boston with Flynn or by myself, get a job that doesn’t require round-the-clock stress and concentration, lose many benefits (including free rent and board), have daily personal time and relaxation, have time and the possibility to meet someone new and enjoy bodies and conversations and tones of voice, and no longer ride the ups and downs of soaring confidence and bitter, self-aware inadequacy— will gestate like twins.
And I’m not even blogging this. The internet is (naturally) down again. I don’t think I would blog this. This is being written because:
1. I’m panicked like a non-swimmer in the 10-foot.
2. I cried today.
3. I talked to Fairlie, and Mom, and Emily today.
4. I am reflecting on these conversations, thanking the wind for Emily’s friendship.
5. I am consciously hoping that this is good writing, that it will interest someone besides
me not for the glimpse into another’s mind but because it is at least not boring.
6. I am doubting the quality of the writing.
7. I am trying to diffuse doubts about the writing by listing the doubts, and including
thoughts about consciously diffusing the doubts in the list.
8. I am second guessing everything.
9. My hands are cold, I have a free weekend and no plans, and my mind has become a
wreck.
10. I just thought about Jreck Subs when I misspelled “wreck” above and I’m hungry.
11. A sudden kinship with Charlie Kaufman as expressed in his script for Adaptation.
12. An immediate sense of shame at presuming myself to be near other thinkers and
creators, or to think anyone would really care.
13. I have had area rugs pulled out and my tailbone hurts.
At least I can say I’ve been creating good analogies lately, even if not many, or any, show up in this ramble. I think I’ll start writing them down on my hand or post-it notes.
I write lists of tasks on my hands.
I’m beginning to hate the way the letter “I” looks on this screen, in any font. Whenever I try to write poetry from a first person voice, I find it doesn’t often contain any natural assonance, rhythm, or rhyme. Said poetry is always clunky and, actually pretty close to the jittery patter currently being typed/read here. This is why I don’t often try to write “prose,” especially about myself. I feel like I talk about myself better than I write about myself, which brings me back to self-criticism: I always feel that I talk about myself too much, and so have been working on my questionnaire skills, always being sure to prompt people, to set them up to launch into their own pride and ego. On the phone, over lunch or beer, I ramble like a bad professor to my friends or family. No wonder rugs have been
yanked, I think. God, when did I become so extroverted. I’ve always been in the corner, internal.
Actually, in a way, blogging is the ultimate marriage of Whitman and Dickinson. I do it alone, in my room (sometimes in the computer lab). My blog is full of cries and moans, of attention-seeking chunks of observation and opinion. It’s a Whitman’s hug digitized, which goes against many Whitmanic ideals, I suppose, but not against his more democratic, embracing moments. Blogging’s rife with Dickinson, though, too. The paradoxical “interior” nature of computer technology and the suggested vastness of “cyber-space” and of what can no longer be called a “community” of websites and e-personalities, but rather a “small civilization” of such entities. These are the high, heady places to where she ascended by herself, in her poetry, where the world is a giant bell and she but an ear, or something. Instead of prolifically sewing poems into small chapbooks (like she did), I weave them into code and pixels. Unlike Dickinson, I have immediate audience, and unlike Dickinson, I have more of a need for that audience. Especially right now.
I feel as though I’ve started twenty paragraphs and finished none. Maybe I should go to Borders and take advantage of my 15% teacher-discount.
[Actually written offline, Saturday, Feb. 8th, 1:30 PM]
Poker Addendum:
For anyone who hung around the Jim Lewis poker tables in the past 6 years and is reading this, I'd like you to know that another handful of poker players have officially been PIMPED. We played "Pimps" and they actually enjoyed it, except John, who was pimped three times in six hands (once with a nine). May this glorious, but controversial* game, spread through poker-chains like a virus.
*"Pimps' " scandalous history is linked to its hot tendancy to fuck one person over in bunches (in Ralph Bunches), and Unions have been pulled on numerous occasions in occasionally-successful attempts to prevent its being played. It's three-card poker (no flushes or straights) but everyone gets one card dealt up; the highest card up is automatically "in," they are "pimped." If anyone else stays in, the losing hand(s) match the pot, and the game continues until only the Pimped is in. I love it.
For anyone who hung around the Jim Lewis poker tables in the past 6 years and is reading this, I'd like you to know that another handful of poker players have officially been PIMPED. We played "Pimps" and they actually enjoyed it, except John, who was pimped three times in six hands (once with a nine). May this glorious, but controversial* game, spread through poker-chains like a virus.
*"Pimps' " scandalous history is linked to its hot tendancy to fuck one person over in bunches (in Ralph Bunches), and Unions have been pulled on numerous occasions in occasionally-successful attempts to prevent its being played. It's three-card poker (no flushes or straights) but everyone gets one card dealt up; the highest card up is automatically "in," they are "pimped." If anyone else stays in, the losing hand(s) match the pot, and the game continues until only the Pimped is in. I love it.
Fucking Gone and Calling people:
The tri-weekly poker game was held last night, with the usual faculty members, and "John" made some drink called a "Queue" that is basically a Martini, only with Blue Caracao instead of vermouth. It's like drinking really spiked Koolaid. I had brought my own supplies (a small amount of gin to polish off and a couple bierce), but I left them talk me in to trying one (and then more) of these blue sensations. They're not that good, but...you know. So I played better as the night wore on, and we all (except mrs. P who doesn't drink) ended up more drunker than usual.
So what did I do? I tried to reach out and cellularly touch people. I don't know if they will be able to construe what it was I might have said in my voice messages, but maybe they'll recognize my timbre. Sorry!
Susan actually called me back @ around 4AM because she rocks, and we talked for a good ten minutes (yut).
What can I say, teachers drink! And it always amazes me how I can fit right-well socially into a group of humans that includes a tough but friendly man in his late forties, Mr and Mrs P who are both 30 (but they're from Toronto, so that makes them 21? hee hee), personable, ex-Army "Marc Conroy" who looks 26 but is actually thirty-fucking-eight, and "Marc Oberlin" who is an early thirties Math/Journalism teacher/ sports-and-gambling afficionado. I think they think I'm older than I am. Or maybe I'm older than I think I am. Let me check my license...
The tri-weekly poker game was held last night, with the usual faculty members, and "John" made some drink called a "Queue" that is basically a Martini, only with Blue Caracao instead of vermouth. It's like drinking really spiked Koolaid. I had brought my own supplies (a small amount of gin to polish off and a couple bierce), but I left them talk me in to trying one (and then more) of these blue sensations. They're not that good, but...you know. So I played better as the night wore on, and we all (except mrs. P who doesn't drink) ended up more drunker than usual.
So what did I do? I tried to reach out and cellularly touch people. I don't know if they will be able to construe what it was I might have said in my voice messages, but maybe they'll recognize my timbre. Sorry!
Susan actually called me back @ around 4AM because she rocks, and we talked for a good ten minutes (yut).
What can I say, teachers drink! And it always amazes me how I can fit right-well socially into a group of humans that includes a tough but friendly man in his late forties, Mr and Mrs P who are both 30 (but they're from Toronto, so that makes them 21? hee hee), personable, ex-Army "Marc Conroy" who looks 26 but is actually thirty-fucking-eight, and "Marc Oberlin" who is an early thirties Math/Journalism teacher/ sports-and-gambling afficionado. I think they think I'm older than I am. Or maybe I'm older than I think I am. Let me check my license...
Friday, February 07, 2003
Coaching Win #1!:
We beat Lexington yesterday, on the road! First coaching win, first varsity boys win of the school year for "The School!" We were celebratory ecstatic bastards! The matching black headbands/knee-high socks must have pushed us over the edge. Below is a copy of the summary I wrote last night for the school bulletin:
VICTORY!: 61-58
With possession of the ball and less than 10 seconds left in a 58-58 basketball game, your ---- Varsity Basketball squad only needed a two-point basket (or even one free-throw) to claim victory. Smooth-shooting senior Tiny Low decided, with only seconds left, that a two-point victory was not stylish enough; he swished a three-pointer from the baseline to give ---- a 61-58 lead over Lexington with 1.7 seconds left on the ticker.
In what was a tight match every minute of the way, your ---- Falcons refused to give up, earning more than one-third of their final score from three-point baskets (three each from Rocky Marner and Jon Chen). An impermeable full-court press allowed Knox to stay in the game with nine steals between five players. Willy Ting and Jon Chen led the scoring with 14 points each, Marner netted 13 (and Knox's only block), and Low finished with 12. Brain Chang played a solid game with two steals, four rebounds, and four points. Ardor Gall and Mitt Loondy came off the bench and combined for four rebounds, two steals (and at least one vicious foul). To sum up Knox's statistics, I'm happy to observe that all the work and all the credit was shared by the team equally. This was a close game in which every basket, every box-out, and every fraction of intensity on the floor or on the sidelines was absolutely vital to this first Varsity victory of the season.
The Falcons were helped in no small way by the addition of matching black headbands and knee-length socks to our game-look: unity, baby.
—Coach Northrop and Coach Beerose
We beat Lexington yesterday, on the road! First coaching win, first varsity boys win of the school year for "The School!" We were celebratory ecstatic bastards! The matching black headbands/knee-high socks must have pushed us over the edge. Below is a copy of the summary I wrote last night for the school bulletin:
VICTORY!: 61-58
With possession of the ball and less than 10 seconds left in a 58-58 basketball game, your ---- Varsity Basketball squad only needed a two-point basket (or even one free-throw) to claim victory. Smooth-shooting senior Tiny Low decided, with only seconds left, that a two-point victory was not stylish enough; he swished a three-pointer from the baseline to give ---- a 61-58 lead over Lexington with 1.7 seconds left on the ticker.
In what was a tight match every minute of the way, your ---- Falcons refused to give up, earning more than one-third of their final score from three-point baskets (three each from Rocky Marner and Jon Chen). An impermeable full-court press allowed Knox to stay in the game with nine steals between five players. Willy Ting and Jon Chen led the scoring with 14 points each, Marner netted 13 (and Knox's only block), and Low finished with 12. Brain Chang played a solid game with two steals, four rebounds, and four points. Ardor Gall and Mitt Loondy came off the bench and combined for four rebounds, two steals (and at least one vicious foul). To sum up Knox's statistics, I'm happy to observe that all the work and all the credit was shared by the team equally. This was a close game in which every basket, every box-out, and every fraction of intensity on the floor or on the sidelines was absolutely vital to this first Varsity victory of the season.
The Falcons were helped in no small way by the addition of matching black headbands and knee-length socks to our game-look: unity, baby.
—Coach Northrop and Coach Beerose
SNOW:
SNOW and glorious lots of it. Eastern Long Island is being pummeled with packy, pretty snow (we have at least 6'' in Nissequogue right now with no end in sight). Winter lives. The news reported several accidents on the L.I.E. due to SUV drivers who had an erroneous sense of security in their 4-wheel drives.
SNOW and glorious lots of it. Eastern Long Island is being pummeled with packy, pretty snow (we have at least 6'' in Nissequogue right now with no end in sight). Winter lives. The news reported several accidents on the L.I.E. due to SUV drivers who had an erroneous sense of security in their 4-wheel drives.
Wednesday, February 05, 2003
Banded Brothers:
After tonight's tough on-the-road-in-Queens loss to Kew Forest, Coach Beerose and I figured we are in need of something to rally around: a morale focal point. Half joking, I mentioned, while consuming sundry Wendy's (Windus) 99 cent menu items, buying matching headbands for everyone. After laughing and prolonging the joke, we re-considered it as a legitimate idea, and the team was unanimously enthusiastic and pitched in a few bucks each.
An hour and some Northern State Pkwy traffic later, coach and I drove back out to Sports Authority and picked up some generic black headbands (a nice, smooth fit), and then drank a pair of pints each at a quiet, wooden Smithtown-strip bar where the jukebox was plugged in but not playing the music I over-paid $2 for (as far as I'm concerned, The Horse and Jockey owes me one Police "Walking on the Moon," one The Clash "Straight to Hell," one Simon and Garfunkel "Fakin' It," one Elvis Costello "Watching the Detectives" and one Beatles "Dear Prudence." Bastards).
After tonight's tough on-the-road-in-Queens loss to Kew Forest, Coach Beerose and I figured we are in need of something to rally around: a morale focal point. Half joking, I mentioned, while consuming sundry Wendy's (Windus) 99 cent menu items, buying matching headbands for everyone. After laughing and prolonging the joke, we re-considered it as a legitimate idea, and the team was unanimously enthusiastic and pitched in a few bucks each.
An hour and some Northern State Pkwy traffic later, coach and I drove back out to Sports Authority and picked up some generic black headbands (a nice, smooth fit), and then drank a pair of pints each at a quiet, wooden Smithtown-strip bar where the jukebox was plugged in but not playing the music I over-paid $2 for (as far as I'm concerned, The Horse and Jockey owes me one Police "Walking on the Moon," one The Clash "Straight to Hell," one Simon and Garfunkel "Fakin' It," one Elvis Costello "Watching the Detectives" and one Beatles "Dear Prudence." Bastards).
YAY MISHA:
Spring 2002 Colgate Poetry Workshop alumnus Amisha Patel has just been accepted at the Syracuse MFA Graduate Program, staffed by none other than contemporary American masters Bruce Smith and Mary Karr (she awaits letters from other schools). I am completely jealous and slightly more congratulatory; it makes me wish I'd have applied this year, too. Maybe in Fall 2004 a nice Boston school will open its doors and give this hack an excuse.
Spring 2002 Colgate Poetry Workshop alumnus Amisha Patel has just been accepted at the Syracuse MFA Graduate Program, staffed by none other than contemporary American masters Bruce Smith and Mary Karr (she awaits letters from other schools). I am completely jealous and slightly more congratulatory; it makes me wish I'd have applied this year, too. Maybe in Fall 2004 a nice Boston school will open its doors and give this hack an excuse.
Niew Poem
"Found Grammar"
Joe, Min Kyu, and Jackie. Are students in an English class. Everyone loves poetry we read poems almost everyday. Sometimes, when the teacher reads a poem. We do not understand what it means. The classroom is always cold. If the teacher brought us cheese to eat everyday, we could pretend we were mice.
"Found Grammar"
Joe, Min Kyu, and Jackie. Are students in an English class. Everyone loves poetry we read poems almost everyday. Sometimes, when the teacher reads a poem. We do not understand what it means. The classroom is always cold. If the teacher brought us cheese to eat everyday, we could pretend we were mice.
Comment err-y:
For some reason, Haloscan is neither angelic nor scan-functional for the time being; my comment feature is not working. Feel free to mail all comments to "incandeza17@yahoo.com" (or yell really really loudly towards Paumonauk).
For some reason, Haloscan is neither angelic nor scan-functional for the time being; my comment feature is not working. Feel free to mail all comments to "incandeza17@yahoo.com" (or yell really really loudly towards Paumonauk).
Wow, Low:
Tiny Low, brilliant student, had been quiet and pensive during class since we've been reading Pride and Prejudice, and his weekly one-pagers had been slightly below my expectations, until today. The paper he wrote over the weekend is the astounding tip of an critical-essay iceberg. The topic I gave to the class was to find one or two good examples of the narrator's wit (so, obviously no dialogue could be used). I was hoping that forcing them to consider this often sarcastic, scathing narrative voice would perhaps lead them to reconsider her/him in relation to the characters. Tiny was one of the few who made this connection, with his own brain's talents and despite the language barrier. He wrote a perceptive one-page paper on complicity, deception, and the narrator. In a book where instant impressions are false gods to even the discerning characters, and where the greatest folly lies in not taking the time and effort to investigate or at least observe a person's own behavior before you make a judgement, how are we to trust a narrator who can make such snap-judgements (often with great humor) about characters, especially when they are dim or conceited (or both)? Tiny's conclusion is that the narrator is toying with our allegiance as readers; we are suckered in by the narrator's obvious intelligence and all-seeing prowess, and are intended to perhaps be led in one direction, so as to conflate our perceptions/reactions with those of Elizabeth. It really is brilliant of both Tiny and Austen (and he scored 14 points worth of baselines jumpers in our loss to Lake Grove yesterday, too).
Tiny Low, brilliant student, had been quiet and pensive during class since we've been reading Pride and Prejudice, and his weekly one-pagers had been slightly below my expectations, until today. The paper he wrote over the weekend is the astounding tip of an critical-essay iceberg. The topic I gave to the class was to find one or two good examples of the narrator's wit (so, obviously no dialogue could be used). I was hoping that forcing them to consider this often sarcastic, scathing narrative voice would perhaps lead them to reconsider her/him in relation to the characters. Tiny was one of the few who made this connection, with his own brain's talents and despite the language barrier. He wrote a perceptive one-page paper on complicity, deception, and the narrator. In a book where instant impressions are false gods to even the discerning characters, and where the greatest folly lies in not taking the time and effort to investigate or at least observe a person's own behavior before you make a judgement, how are we to trust a narrator who can make such snap-judgements (often with great humor) about characters, especially when they are dim or conceited (or both)? Tiny's conclusion is that the narrator is toying with our allegiance as readers; we are suckered in by the narrator's obvious intelligence and all-seeing prowess, and are intended to perhaps be led in one direction, so as to conflate our perceptions/reactions with those of Elizabeth. It really is brilliant of both Tiny and Austen (and he scored 14 points worth of baselines jumpers in our loss to Lake Grove yesterday, too).
I am brevity:
Sometimes you think you're Whitmanic, when you're really contracted and interior.
Thanks to Flynn for this link; try it!
|
Sometimes you think you're Whitmanic, when you're really contracted and interior.
Thanks to Flynn for this link; try it!
Tuesday, February 04, 2003
Post Sitcom-Observation Reflection on Self's Habitiual Comfort-Television Watching and Tacked-On Expression of Concern/Wonder at the Reverse-Chronology that Results from Choosing to Have my Blog Entries Appear "Most Recent First":
Um...pretty much spent my wad with the title here.
Seriously, though, posting so that #1, #2, and #3 will eventually be read in the order #3, #2, #1 does mess with me from time to time.
In this way, blogging is like growing hair (or trees): always extending from the tips.
Um...pretty much spent my wad with the title here.
Seriously, though, posting so that #1, #2, and #3 will eventually be read in the order #3, #2, #1 does mess with me from time to time.
In this way, blogging is like growing hair (or trees): always extending from the tips.
Sitcom Observation #3:
(Yes, I have the Syndication Blues)
I've noticed recently that Dave Matthews could have totally ripped of his sound from the jumpy, segue music played during any CHEERS episode just after the main title sequence/theme finishes, and as the main body of the episode impends (I believe protocol has two credits appear during this particular melo-premonitional DMB music: "Created by Les Charles, James Burrows, and Glen Charles" and "Directed by [given director]"). Listen and tell me if you agree.
(Yes, I have the Syndication Blues)
I've noticed recently that Dave Matthews could have totally ripped of his sound from the jumpy, segue music played during any CHEERS episode just after the main title sequence/theme finishes, and as the main body of the episode impends (I believe protocol has two credits appear during this particular melo-premonitional DMB music: "Created by Les Charles, James Burrows, and Glen Charles" and "Directed by [given director]"). Listen and tell me if you agree.
Sitcom Observation #2:
Nick @ Nite's loop of Cosby reruns just completed a lap; two nights ago Theo was graduating from NYU, and last night he was back in high school. I've been charting the progressions of the Cosby theme song through it's mutations. I like neither the early or the very late variations: the former for being bland, the latter for being to trip-hoppish/post-modern, as if the late episodes were a deconstruction of all the values, signs, and codes the show had successfully instituded during its long, dominant run.
Oh, and Cosby is a genious that I had forgotten about or never knew the complete brilliance of.
Nick @ Nite's loop of Cosby reruns just completed a lap; two nights ago Theo was graduating from NYU, and last night he was back in high school. I've been charting the progressions of the Cosby theme song through it's mutations. I like neither the early or the very late variations: the former for being bland, the latter for being to trip-hoppish/post-modern, as if the late episodes were a deconstruction of all the values, signs, and codes the show had successfully instituded during its long, dominant run.
Oh, and Cosby is a genious that I had forgotten about or never knew the complete brilliance of.
Sitcom Observation #1:
The first episode of Seinfeld was on last night. I hadn't seen it in quite some time; it was interesting to note how much screen time was devoted to Seinfeld's "stand-up" portion of the show back then. By the final seasons, I don't even think these segments lasted for twenty seconds, if any time at all.
Seinfeld and Alexander looked much much thinner, but the same brand of observation humor was present.
The first episode of Seinfeld was on last night. I hadn't seen it in quite some time; it was interesting to note how much screen time was devoted to Seinfeld's "stand-up" portion of the show back then. By the final seasons, I don't even think these segments lasted for twenty seconds, if any time at all.
Seinfeld and Alexander looked much much thinner, but the same brand of observation humor was present.
Weather:
From faux-Spring to London-typical in less than a day. As much as I miss 15 Celsius, dampness, and rain, I really only miss them when actually IN the United Kingdom (and, for that matter, when I'm 20 and part of a study group that requires little to no work, and most of it enjoyable, almost 20 free plays, other young people, and freedom).
From faux-Spring to London-typical in less than a day. As much as I miss 15 Celsius, dampness, and rain, I really only miss them when actually IN the United Kingdom (and, for that matter, when I'm 20 and part of a study group that requires little to no work, and most of it enjoyable, almost 20 free plays, other young people, and freedom).
Monday, February 03, 2003
I need a droid who speaks Bocce:
I curse myself frequently for not having taken a, or several, computer programming classes at Colgate; my cookie-cutter blog's layout works, but could be more "me." If it weren't for my ignorance! Maybe I'll boldly adventure beyond merely changing the color of the background behind the brackets in my main text from greenish to gray. Maybe...
I curse myself frequently for not having taken a, or several, computer programming classes at Colgate; my cookie-cutter blog's layout works, but could be more "me." If it weren't for my ignorance! Maybe I'll boldly adventure beyond merely changing the color of the background behind the brackets in my main text from greenish to gray. Maybe...
Amer-enrichment:
Today's American Poetry Enrichment class was suffered from poor attendence, but it was close to 50 degrees Farenheit in the sun!! WOO-HOO. At my suggestion, we held the class outside; at their suggestion, we held it in the wooden gazebo (that I had never noticed). I couldn't have planned it more aptly: I brought in a bunch of Stephen Crane poems about failed transcendence, the realist squashing of transcendant dreams, and the fleeting nature of truth and knowledge. This comes on the heels of last week's session on Whitman/Dickinson getting high/literally and metaphorically "high" on nature ("I taste a liquor never brewed"/ "I will go to the bank by the wood and become undisguised and naked,/ I am mad for it to be in contact with me.").
Here are some poems we read in their entirety, emblematic of Crane's style:
#35
A man saw a ball of gold in the sky;
He climbed for it,
And eventually he achieved it—
It was clay.
Now this is the strange part:
When the man went to the earth
And looked again,
Lo, there was a ball of gold.
Now this is the strange part:
It was a ball of gold.
Aye, by the heavens, it was a ball of gold.
#24
I saw a man pursuing the horizon;
Round and round they sped.
I was disturbed at this;
I accosted the man.
"It is futile,' I said,
"You can never—"
"You lie," he cried,
And ran on.
(I always envision a NIKE commercial when I read this poem, a reaction both alarming and amusing)
#6
God fashioned the ship of the world carefully.
With the infinite skill of an all-master
Made He the hull and the sails,
Held He the rudder
Ready for adjustment.
Erect stood He, scanning His work proudly.
Then—at a fateful time— a wrong called,
And God turned, heeding.
Lo, the ship, at this opportunity, slipped slyly,
Making cunning noiseless travel down the ways.
So that, forever rudderless, it went upon the seas
Going ridiculous voyages,
Making quaint progress,
Turning as with serious purpose
Before stupid winds.
And there were many in the sky
Who laughed at this thing.
(this one sometimes reminds me of that Crash Test Dummies song...)
So, yes it got colder and windier, but the gazebo was a perfect stage for us to talk about heaven/un-heaven, what with it having an apex over us an all. It was a secular pulpit, and we were preaching to each other, Gabby, Nick, and I (and the ghosts of my poetry professors). Had it been warmer out, I would have regretted not choosing WCWilliams and the apropos "Spring and All" more, but for another, even warmer Monday...
Today's American Poetry Enrichment class was suffered from poor attendence, but it was close to 50 degrees Farenheit in the sun!! WOO-HOO. At my suggestion, we held the class outside; at their suggestion, we held it in the wooden gazebo (that I had never noticed). I couldn't have planned it more aptly: I brought in a bunch of Stephen Crane poems about failed transcendence, the realist squashing of transcendant dreams, and the fleeting nature of truth and knowledge. This comes on the heels of last week's session on Whitman/Dickinson getting high/literally and metaphorically "high" on nature ("I taste a liquor never brewed"/ "I will go to the bank by the wood and become undisguised and naked,/ I am mad for it to be in contact with me.").
Here are some poems we read in their entirety, emblematic of Crane's style:
#35
A man saw a ball of gold in the sky;
He climbed for it,
And eventually he achieved it—
It was clay.
Now this is the strange part:
When the man went to the earth
And looked again,
Lo, there was a ball of gold.
Now this is the strange part:
It was a ball of gold.
Aye, by the heavens, it was a ball of gold.
#24
I saw a man pursuing the horizon;
Round and round they sped.
I was disturbed at this;
I accosted the man.
"It is futile,' I said,
"You can never—"
"You lie," he cried,
And ran on.
(I always envision a NIKE commercial when I read this poem, a reaction both alarming and amusing)
#6
God fashioned the ship of the world carefully.
With the infinite skill of an all-master
Made He the hull and the sails,
Held He the rudder
Ready for adjustment.
Erect stood He, scanning His work proudly.
Then—at a fateful time— a wrong called,
And God turned, heeding.
Lo, the ship, at this opportunity, slipped slyly,
Making cunning noiseless travel down the ways.
So that, forever rudderless, it went upon the seas
Going ridiculous voyages,
Making quaint progress,
Turning as with serious purpose
Before stupid winds.
And there were many in the sky
Who laughed at this thing.
(this one sometimes reminds me of that Crash Test Dummies song...)
So, yes it got colder and windier, but the gazebo was a perfect stage for us to talk about heaven/un-heaven, what with it having an apex over us an all. It was a secular pulpit, and we were preaching to each other, Gabby, Nick, and I (and the ghosts of my poetry professors). Had it been warmer out, I would have regretted not choosing WCWilliams and the apropos "Spring and All" more, but for another, even warmer Monday...
Sometimes Mina Loy resonates with me:
III
We might have coupled
In the bed-ridden monopoly of a moment
Or broken flesh with one another
At the profane communion table
Where wine is spill'd on promiscuous lips
We might have given birth to a butterfly
With the daily news
Printed in blood on its wings
VI
I know the Wire-Puller intimately
And if it were not for the people
On whom you keep one eye
You could look straight at me
And Time would be set back
VIII
I am the jealous store-house of the candle-ends
That lit your adolescent learning
— — — — — — — — — —
Behind God's eyes
There might
Be other lights
III
We might have coupled
In the bed-ridden monopoly of a moment
Or broken flesh with one another
At the profane communion table
Where wine is spill'd on promiscuous lips
We might have given birth to a butterfly
With the daily news
Printed in blood on its wings
VI
I know the Wire-Puller intimately
And if it were not for the people
On whom you keep one eye
You could look straight at me
And Time would be set back
VIII
I am the jealous store-house of the candle-ends
That lit your adolescent learning
— — — — — — — — — —
Behind God's eyes
There might
Be other lights
Song of WoodDorm:
Sun Sung, ---- 7th Grade boarding student and WoodDorm resident, is the aforementioned guru of cool-pop-culture and revealed that he has the latest film from Japanese filmmaker/animator Hayao Miyazaki on DVD: Spirited Away. I only got to see the first twenty minutes or so of this incredibly good feature on his laptop, but I'm sure I'll be able to finish it SOON (pun), maybe even tonight, as I'm on duty. Apparently, it's more of a "kids movie" than Miyazaki's other work, but not necissarily for kids only.
Sun Sung, ---- 7th Grade boarding student and WoodDorm resident, is the aforementioned guru of cool-pop-culture and revealed that he has the latest film from Japanese filmmaker/animator Hayao Miyazaki on DVD: Spirited Away. I only got to see the first twenty minutes or so of this incredibly good feature on his laptop, but I'm sure I'll be able to finish it SOON (pun), maybe even tonight, as I'm on duty. Apparently, it's more of a "kids movie" than Miyazaki's other work, but not necissarily for kids only.
Sunday, February 02, 2003
Duty:
Erased first post, so a brief re-briefing.
Trip to the Stony Brook Loews Theater with some ---- students to see The Recruit, the new Pacino spy/techno-thriller move.
Noted that the film's plot and script COULD have been written by Flynn, had be been coerced to compose a pat, Hollywood, dumbed-down script. There were some decent red-herrings and twists, nothing too distracting or uber-clever, but most distubingly, there was a detectable International Relations vibe to the whole CIA trainee program where knowing Farsi can help you excel, subtle references to alpha males and their potential affinity for the anonymity that accompanies becoming a CIA spook, and one quality line in the film when co-star Colin Farell responds to the question "are you temporally elastic, or spontaneously rigid?" with the quip "Um...I'm metaphysically wrinkle-free?" while wearing that quintessential Flynn-face where he shrugs and arches his eyebrows. And to top it off, the oldies station played Del Shannon's "Runaway" on the drive home.
It was a buy-the-numbers movie: PG-13 sex scene, one chase scene, a gun, trite "bug" device play, search-for-father figure, betrayals, but nothing in over-abundance. Good enough to keep me from falling asleep, which is almost a compliment for any recent Hollywood production.
Erased first post, so a brief re-briefing.
Trip to the Stony Brook Loews Theater with some ---- students to see The Recruit, the new Pacino spy/techno-thriller move.
Noted that the film's plot and script COULD have been written by Flynn, had be been coerced to compose a pat, Hollywood, dumbed-down script. There were some decent red-herrings and twists, nothing too distracting or uber-clever, but most distubingly, there was a detectable International Relations vibe to the whole CIA trainee program where knowing Farsi can help you excel, subtle references to alpha males and their potential affinity for the anonymity that accompanies becoming a CIA spook, and one quality line in the film when co-star Colin Farell responds to the question "are you temporally elastic, or spontaneously rigid?" with the quip "Um...I'm metaphysically wrinkle-free?" while wearing that quintessential Flynn-face where he shrugs and arches his eyebrows. And to top it off, the oldies station played Del Shannon's "Runaway" on the drive home.
It was a buy-the-numbers movie: PG-13 sex scene, one chase scene, a gun, trite "bug" device play, search-for-father figure, betrayals, but nothing in over-abundance. Good enough to keep me from falling asleep, which is almost a compliment for any recent Hollywood production.
