Friday, June 06, 2003
Form:
Yesterday's epiphany: travel, especially car travel, is extremely weakening. There is no order, just a constant vigil for the right exit. Once I arrive at another friends appartment, there is no set protocol for what we do because usually I have never been in that appartment with that friend before. Toss in lots of alcohol (literally) and dining out, and any sense of daily rhythm is all thrown off. Now, I love this sudden "time on the road" phase of my life, but it's almost as draining as work during the school year (and only slightly more fun). What suffers about me most, however, is my creativity. While I'm out road tripping, and even when I've been back on the Island for a day, I have no drive to write. Now, if we take Kerouac as the example par example of the wandering writer, we see the same trend: he didn't write On the Road while on the road; that life was too exhausting, as the book depicts. But, it was written (as the now borderline-trite legend goes) in one non-stop feverish sitting on a continuous roll of typewriter paper over a couple days. It seemed to me that Jack had so much stowed inside from his time roving that once he regained some sense of order and settled-ness (the book clearly defines his "time on the road" as a finite period) it all poured out in a pure stream of expression.
Unknowingly, and probably just because I've needed to occupy time here on this mostly empty campus all week, I've been structuring my day around a series of almost ritualistic activities:
1) Wake up around 9:30, check email/fantasy baseball teams/blog.
2) Create mp3 playlist, usually the songs I'm most recently into (new Radiohead, Lagwagon, Ours currently) and laze back in bed for another hour, thinking and listening.
3) Wake up and make brunch: America's Choice Honey Wheat Flakes, Tropicana™OJ from the carton, a banana (this does not change).
4) Put on soccer shorts, grab stereo, either Blackalicious "Blazing Arrow" or Beastie Boys "Paul's Boutique," and drumsticks and head to the gym.
5.GYM PHASE: a) 30 minutes drumming as a warmup on the School's set in the gym basement b) up to the main court, play album and rehearse jumpshots, 3-pointers, foul shots, and glory-layups for an hour. c) sets of push-ups, leg-lifts, and crunches (in that order) and suicide sprints as a cool-down
6. Return to room, shower. Lunch is prepared and consumed during the Film sub-phase (see below), and consists of a peanut-butter sandwich on five-grain super-fly bread, Lays potato chips, and a Mint Coke.*
7. MIND PHASE: the following three activies are allowed to occur in any order.
A) Film — I watch one film from the queue of tapes/DVDs I recently ordered (all westerns), and ponder its implications for the remainder of the day
B) Reading — at least a good hour of uninterrupted reading. Currently Marquez' 100 Years of Solitude, Barthes' A Lover's Discourse, and the Heaney Beowulf. I also count internet surfing part of ongoing reading.
C)Writing — Naturally, this includes mostly this very page, but also work on other projects (recently, the beginnings of a co-novel)
8. Dinner is prepared or ordered-out.
Here ends the structured day. Night can include meeting friends for dinner, going to a bar, or just chilling with music and more of above-mentioned practices (excluding the gym phase), but usually involves alcohol at some point. Frequently, cocktails are created from my newly amassed BAR (last night, rum 'n cola and Manhattans w/cherries).
Why catalogue all these rigid events? Am I preparing a Teacher's Guide to Summer Hermitting? Part of me just wants to record this routine for future use, but my POINT here is that since I've implemented this order, over just the last four days, clarity has returned to my thoughts and, especially, to my writing (at least I think so, you have the right to suggest I seek help of some sort). Conversely, the poem I tried to write while still unrecovered from the NH trip (part IV) was very weak. Conclusion: hmm, I don't know if one is in focus yet, but it appears to be related to the benifit of some level of self-discipline for sound and happy living and writing. I don't know if this is universal.
*Note on Mint Coke: I discovered this delicacy last June. It shouldn't even be considered an alcoholic drink, because the peppermint schnapps is only for flavor. Fill a glass with ice as desired, pour it half full of coke. Add a few slim gobs of Dr. McGillicuddy's (watch as it instantly dissolves the fizz. ooh! ahh!), and I mean not even a shot-glass' worth. Now top off the glass with Coke and sip. It's about as magical as Mint Coke sounds to your tastebud sensememory (if that's something that appeals to you). Enjoy.
Post Script: Obviously, this particular, quasi-ridiculous schedule won't continue for very long as is. In fact, I see it as rest/prep time for the daunting but exciting NASHVILLE pilgrimage intended for this coming week. Once again, patterns will fade and chaos will return as a time zone is crossed and hundreds of miles are driven at all corners of the day. Other routines, of course, will set-in soon, and the bulky and perhaps tedious study above is merely a case to be examined in its immediacy.
Yesterday's epiphany: travel, especially car travel, is extremely weakening. There is no order, just a constant vigil for the right exit. Once I arrive at another friends appartment, there is no set protocol for what we do because usually I have never been in that appartment with that friend before. Toss in lots of alcohol (literally) and dining out, and any sense of daily rhythm is all thrown off. Now, I love this sudden "time on the road" phase of my life, but it's almost as draining as work during the school year (and only slightly more fun). What suffers about me most, however, is my creativity. While I'm out road tripping, and even when I've been back on the Island for a day, I have no drive to write. Now, if we take Kerouac as the example par example of the wandering writer, we see the same trend: he didn't write On the Road while on the road; that life was too exhausting, as the book depicts. But, it was written (as the now borderline-trite legend goes) in one non-stop feverish sitting on a continuous roll of typewriter paper over a couple days. It seemed to me that Jack had so much stowed inside from his time roving that once he regained some sense of order and settled-ness (the book clearly defines his "time on the road" as a finite period) it all poured out in a pure stream of expression.
Unknowingly, and probably just because I've needed to occupy time here on this mostly empty campus all week, I've been structuring my day around a series of almost ritualistic activities:
1) Wake up around 9:30, check email/fantasy baseball teams/blog.
2) Create mp3 playlist, usually the songs I'm most recently into (new Radiohead, Lagwagon, Ours currently) and laze back in bed for another hour, thinking and listening.
3) Wake up and make brunch: America's Choice Honey Wheat Flakes, Tropicana™OJ from the carton, a banana (this does not change).
4) Put on soccer shorts, grab stereo, either Blackalicious "Blazing Arrow" or Beastie Boys "Paul's Boutique," and drumsticks and head to the gym.
5.GYM PHASE: a) 30 minutes drumming as a warmup on the School's set in the gym basement b) up to the main court, play album and rehearse jumpshots, 3-pointers, foul shots, and glory-layups for an hour. c) sets of push-ups, leg-lifts, and crunches (in that order) and suicide sprints as a cool-down
6. Return to room, shower. Lunch is prepared and consumed during the Film sub-phase (see below), and consists of a peanut-butter sandwich on five-grain super-fly bread, Lays potato chips, and a Mint Coke.*
7. MIND PHASE: the following three activies are allowed to occur in any order.
A) Film — I watch one film from the queue of tapes/DVDs I recently ordered (all westerns), and ponder its implications for the remainder of the day
B) Reading — at least a good hour of uninterrupted reading. Currently Marquez' 100 Years of Solitude, Barthes' A Lover's Discourse, and the Heaney Beowulf. I also count internet surfing part of ongoing reading.
C)Writing — Naturally, this includes mostly this very page, but also work on other projects (recently, the beginnings of a co-novel)
8. Dinner is prepared or ordered-out.
Here ends the structured day. Night can include meeting friends for dinner, going to a bar, or just chilling with music and more of above-mentioned practices (excluding the gym phase), but usually involves alcohol at some point. Frequently, cocktails are created from my newly amassed BAR (last night, rum 'n cola and Manhattans w/cherries).
Why catalogue all these rigid events? Am I preparing a Teacher's Guide to Summer Hermitting? Part of me just wants to record this routine for future use, but my POINT here is that since I've implemented this order, over just the last four days, clarity has returned to my thoughts and, especially, to my writing (at least I think so, you have the right to suggest I seek help of some sort). Conversely, the poem I tried to write while still unrecovered from the NH trip (part IV) was very weak. Conclusion: hmm, I don't know if one is in focus yet, but it appears to be related to the benifit of some level of self-discipline for sound and happy living and writing. I don't know if this is universal.
*Note on Mint Coke: I discovered this delicacy last June. It shouldn't even be considered an alcoholic drink, because the peppermint schnapps is only for flavor. Fill a glass with ice as desired, pour it half full of coke. Add a few slim gobs of Dr. McGillicuddy's (watch as it instantly dissolves the fizz. ooh! ahh!), and I mean not even a shot-glass' worth. Now top off the glass with Coke and sip. It's about as magical as Mint Coke sounds to your tastebud sensememory (if that's something that appeals to you). Enjoy.
Post Script: Obviously, this particular, quasi-ridiculous schedule won't continue for very long as is. In fact, I see it as rest/prep time for the daunting but exciting NASHVILLE pilgrimage intended for this coming week. Once again, patterns will fade and chaos will return as a time zone is crossed and hundreds of miles are driven at all corners of the day. Other routines, of course, will set-in soon, and the bulky and perhaps tedious study above is merely a case to be examined in its immediacy.
Thursday, June 05, 2003
collablogration contines
Trollop back and forth between this site and Flynn's for to trace the meanderings of our latest writing project, now in its sixth installment below
Poem In Which You See What You Want To
Part VI
The Happy Lament
Sunday at noon is when the rain begins or ends,
in either case to be read as despair for friends
who've spread with money winds across the Northeast.
Last night's denim is happier, perfumed by hefeweizen yeast,
than all the smiles of pornographic beasts.
Loving the role of host, you have no more bar to tend.
The glassware that gave form to liquid nighttime
is now seen not as cheap or facile, but as a chore
witnessed by the filmic faces on posters: your chorus.
L'Ordre doux— mon amoureux, mon coeur:
Sober the passionate dreams I chase with rhyme.
Make earnest bread of my well-dressed mind.
Trollop back and forth between this site and Flynn's for to trace the meanderings of our latest writing project, now in its sixth installment below
Poem In Which You See What You Want To
Part VI
The Happy Lament
Sunday at noon is when the rain begins or ends,
in either case to be read as despair for friends
who've spread with money winds across the Northeast.
Last night's denim is happier, perfumed by hefeweizen yeast,
than all the smiles of pornographic beasts.
Loving the role of host, you have no more bar to tend.
The glassware that gave form to liquid nighttime
is now seen not as cheap or facile, but as a chore
witnessed by the filmic faces on posters: your chorus.
L'Ordre doux— mon amoureux, mon coeur:
Sober the passionate dreams I chase with rhyme.
Make earnest bread of my well-dressed mind.
Ooh, Item
Something was begun tonight that could explode into a length of goodness. I won't say whether it's a new first kiss, the start of my novel, the first bite of an apple, or the establishment of a life goal. After all, don't all these origins feed off of the same rambunctions energy? Aren't they all the same?
Something was begun tonight that could explode into a length of goodness. I won't say whether it's a new first kiss, the start of my novel, the first bite of an apple, or the establishment of a life goal. After all, don't all these origins feed off of the same rambunctions energy? Aren't they all the same?
Wednesday, June 04, 2003
Insipid-Lite:
I'll leave it to you to find a link and read for yourself, but I was slightly turned off while reading the American Film Institute's recently released list of the Greatest Heroes and Villains when I got to villain #20. All of the entries follow a format: "Character Name" (actor), Film Title: for example "Jack Torrence" (Jack Nicholson) The Shining. Well, #20 reads simply: Man, Bambi. It took me a moment to figure out their meaning, and then it hit hard and hit lame.
I'll leave it to you to find a link and read for yourself, but I was slightly turned off while reading the American Film Institute's recently released list of the Greatest Heroes and Villains when I got to villain #20. All of the entries follow a format: "Character Name" (actor), Film Title: for example "Jack Torrence" (Jack Nicholson) The Shining. Well, #20 reads simply: Man, Bambi. It took me a moment to figure out their meaning, and then it hit hard and hit lame.
Poem In Which You See What You Want to
IV. "The Invisible Prophet Descends"
a.
A blanket of many forms sheathed the rubble
as a frank motherly presence dispatched the camera crews,
the stylists parting the correspondant's wholesome hair,
and the team of chihuahan broadcasters.
Nothing was analyzed with vision.
Forced with the intrustion of thought,
the masses found the meaning of pensive in every language,
and awoke tuned to the vibrato of the invisible prophet
who without words or music wrote a song across our consciousness.
Breast and ego; melting duck.
Can't you dance to it?
b.
Up rose a thousand Bowie-clones:
from the fields of swaying dead
were resurrected an orgy of raceless,
genderless, definitively young-adultish
revelers in slate, in stone, in camo
with impossible sunglasses and cropped morals
above the bridges for once and insane
reading their poetries for rain
teaching each other a different side of the same grassblade
finding the rhythms that do not die with dawn and riding them useless
and bound by the most dangerous convictions,
without enough skin for their faces,
they resemble high priests masturbating.
IV. "The Invisible Prophet Descends"
a.
A blanket of many forms sheathed the rubble
as a frank motherly presence dispatched the camera crews,
the stylists parting the correspondant's wholesome hair,
and the team of chihuahan broadcasters.
Nothing was analyzed with vision.
Forced with the intrustion of thought,
the masses found the meaning of pensive in every language,
and awoke tuned to the vibrato of the invisible prophet
who without words or music wrote a song across our consciousness.
Breast and ego; melting duck.
Can't you dance to it?
b.
Up rose a thousand Bowie-clones:
from the fields of swaying dead
were resurrected an orgy of raceless,
genderless, definitively young-adultish
revelers in slate, in stone, in camo
with impossible sunglasses and cropped morals
above the bridges for once and insane
reading their poetries for rain
teaching each other a different side of the same grassblade
finding the rhythms that do not die with dawn and riding them useless
and bound by the most dangerous convictions,
without enough skin for their faces,
they resemble high priests masturbating.
Ugly:
Yahoo has made a giant step towards closing the ground separating actual journalism from comedic faux-journalism (a la The Onion) by earnestly listing this news item with the four other major stories of the day: Barry Manilow Walks Into Wall, Breaks Nose.
Trash, but true.
Yahoo has made a giant step towards closing the ground separating actual journalism from comedic faux-journalism (a la The Onion) by earnestly listing this news item with the four other major stories of the day: Barry Manilow Walks Into Wall, Breaks Nose.
Trash, but true.
Tuesday, June 03, 2003
SHE WORE BLUE...
I don't know if you're a detective or a pervert.
I'm seeing something that was always hidden.
You're like me.
I watched Blue Velvet this afternoon for the third, and most pleasurable, time. These three quotes stood out to me. The first one is spoken by the Laura Dern character, Sandy; the second by Kyle's character, Jeffery; the third by Hopper's, Frank. I think the film can be read using these three quotes as points of alignment.
I forgot how potent Lynch's sense of image and sound are here: the ear, the wind-blown candle-flame, Rosallini's cut-lip smile. The 50s pulse is a lot stronger than I remember, especially since I've had more experience with "pulp" since last viewing it. This was also my first post-Mulholland Drive screening, which added something.
To add to the day's Lynchian-ness, I kept detecting this frantic scrambling sound from one of the vacant rooms in the dorm. Fearing a squirrel had scampered in, or worse, I cautiously investigated (this during but mostly after watching the movie). I determined the origin to be the laundry room, but I found nothing inside despite still hearing the noise. It turns out a blackish bird had been fooling with the opening to the steam-realeasing duct from the dryer all this time. When I climbed to invesigate the aperture from the outside, I saw what appeared to be ants crawling all over something hidden by darkness in the shallow space containing the bird's nest. I went to fetch a plastic barrier, and what I pulled out was clearly a birdling, still in early development. It had a cartoonish head and beak, and its body was mostly featherless. I don't know how it died, perhaps the hot air? In any case, reaching into orifices and extracting a dead bird-fetus just seemed too creepily fitting a post-script to a Blue Velvet afternoon.
I don't know if you're a detective or a pervert.
I'm seeing something that was always hidden.
You're like me.
I watched Blue Velvet this afternoon for the third, and most pleasurable, time. These three quotes stood out to me. The first one is spoken by the Laura Dern character, Sandy; the second by Kyle's character, Jeffery; the third by Hopper's, Frank. I think the film can be read using these three quotes as points of alignment.
I forgot how potent Lynch's sense of image and sound are here: the ear, the wind-blown candle-flame, Rosallini's cut-lip smile. The 50s pulse is a lot stronger than I remember, especially since I've had more experience with "pulp" since last viewing it. This was also my first post-Mulholland Drive screening, which added something.
To add to the day's Lynchian-ness, I kept detecting this frantic scrambling sound from one of the vacant rooms in the dorm. Fearing a squirrel had scampered in, or worse, I cautiously investigated (this during but mostly after watching the movie). I determined the origin to be the laundry room, but I found nothing inside despite still hearing the noise. It turns out a blackish bird had been fooling with the opening to the steam-realeasing duct from the dryer all this time. When I climbed to invesigate the aperture from the outside, I saw what appeared to be ants crawling all over something hidden by darkness in the shallow space containing the bird's nest. I went to fetch a plastic barrier, and what I pulled out was clearly a birdling, still in early development. It had a cartoonish head and beak, and its body was mostly featherless. I don't know how it died, perhaps the hot air? In any case, reaching into orifices and extracting a dead bird-fetus just seemed too creepily fitting a post-script to a Blue Velvet afternoon.
Poem In Which You See What You Want To
II. "Thus Spoke the Spokesperson"
"...and hence this specific tailoring," he said, but only with the intention of reading his audience's reaction. Then was added, "when the sound of wind is made to resemble the grace of a naked flower that compels men to pain themselves, art escapes commodity for a whale's breath. Only with a khaki conscience can we hope to strut without shame, so take my teachings not as doctrine but as measurements for your choices: what to hang and under what spectrum, why to train your follicles and with what bitter-smelling foam, which muscles to train for eccentrity. Buy my handbook."
What some do with their space is a series of choices made as they direct themselves through scenes of appetite and sociology. Voyeurism is hungriest when I ogle myself.
[for part I. of this collablogration see Flynn's page and scroll down, since his archives are currently fritzed]
II. "Thus Spoke the Spokesperson"
"...and hence this specific tailoring," he said, but only with the intention of reading his audience's reaction. Then was added, "when the sound of wind is made to resemble the grace of a naked flower that compels men to pain themselves, art escapes commodity for a whale's breath. Only with a khaki conscience can we hope to strut without shame, so take my teachings not as doctrine but as measurements for your choices: what to hang and under what spectrum, why to train your follicles and with what bitter-smelling foam, which muscles to train for eccentrity. Buy my handbook."
What some do with their space is a series of choices made as they direct themselves through scenes of appetite and sociology. Voyeurism is hungriest when I ogle myself.
[for part I. of this collablogration see Flynn's page and scroll down, since his archives are currently fritzed]
Monday, June 02, 2003
il buono, il cattivo, y il brutto
John Seitz introduced me to spaghetti westerns while we were sharing a flat during the London Study Group. The BBC aired High Plains Drifter, and although I was familiar with "the western" and with Eastwood, I was struck and taken by the eerieness of the spaghetti aesthetic.
Bolstered by AMC's constant replaying of these and other films, I ordered me up some copies to add to il collecione.
So, tonight, alone, I watched The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly in its entirety. Despite its length, it earned every frame and the true badge of "epic." Visually pleasing, idea-ridden, artistic, and just damn cool. The pace, the use of visual suggestion are perfect. Score.
What interests me about most good modern westerns is their discourse on relative morality, a precious but daunting knot of a notion that I was interested in even before I taught Heart of Darkness for a living. In The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly there are different tiers of reprehensibility to be applied by the viewer. Sergio Leone stretches his takes out long enough to for us to tease out all the strands of right and wrong. Is Eastwood's character fundamentally good? or is he just better than the lowered standard of "good" around him?
These are questions that have been with me for a few years now, especially when it comes to work ethic. At Colgate, I know for a fact that I could have worked much harder, but I often lowered my convictions when I noticed the amount of effort that was being put in relative to me.
While watching the movie, I was reminded of "anti-americanism" discussions I've had with Flynn and others since 9/11. The Eastwood character ("the Good") has his ugly underbelly open for inspection, but his uncanny sense of "good" is just as obvious, and the audience witnesses everything (including the freaky but brilliant AMERICAN CIVIL WAR subplots/backdrop). Compared to the other characters in the story, he does appear to earn his third of the film's title, but he still has blood on his hands. I wonder if watching the film while considering this character as allegory for the American government, and his actions as allegory for our foreign policy, would influence opinions on how "good" or "bad" our nation really is from this new perspective. (Maybe we're just brutto.)
John Seitz introduced me to spaghetti westerns while we were sharing a flat during the London Study Group. The BBC aired High Plains Drifter, and although I was familiar with "the western" and with Eastwood, I was struck and taken by the eerieness of the spaghetti aesthetic.
Bolstered by AMC's constant replaying of these and other films, I ordered me up some copies to add to il collecione.
So, tonight, alone, I watched The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly in its entirety. Despite its length, it earned every frame and the true badge of "epic." Visually pleasing, idea-ridden, artistic, and just damn cool. The pace, the use of visual suggestion are perfect. Score.
What interests me about most good modern westerns is their discourse on relative morality, a precious but daunting knot of a notion that I was interested in even before I taught Heart of Darkness for a living. In The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly there are different tiers of reprehensibility to be applied by the viewer. Sergio Leone stretches his takes out long enough to for us to tease out all the strands of right and wrong. Is Eastwood's character fundamentally good? or is he just better than the lowered standard of "good" around him?
These are questions that have been with me for a few years now, especially when it comes to work ethic. At Colgate, I know for a fact that I could have worked much harder, but I often lowered my convictions when I noticed the amount of effort that was being put in relative to me.
While watching the movie, I was reminded of "anti-americanism" discussions I've had with Flynn and others since 9/11. The Eastwood character ("the Good") has his ugly underbelly open for inspection, but his uncanny sense of "good" is just as obvious, and the audience witnesses everything (including the freaky but brilliant AMERICAN CIVIL WAR subplots/backdrop). Compared to the other characters in the story, he does appear to earn his third of the film's title, but he still has blood on his hands. I wonder if watching the film while considering this character as allegory for the American government, and his actions as allegory for our foreign policy, would influence opinions on how "good" or "bad" our nation really is from this new perspective. (Maybe we're just brutto.)
thank you...
Karmic appreciation to all ya'll who hosted me, graciously or not (I'm not always easy to put up with, but any guest is somewhat of a burden), during my recent New England road tripping. Terrace Dorm at the School awaits, eager to return the favor.
Karmic appreciation to all ya'll who hosted me, graciously or not (I'm not always easy to put up with, but any guest is somewhat of a burden), during my recent New England road tripping. Terrace Dorm at the School awaits, eager to return the favor.
empty campus:
Living here at The School devoid of students and most everyone else is like starring in a post-apocalypic psychological thriller film, especially since my cable has been out for a couple weeks. If I didn't have the internet as an outlet (or highways), I might start to get hermitty and seriously eccentric.
So, point being if I start posting some odder material, this reclusiveness is the likeliest reason. Also factor in that I'm under no job-related stress, and it's gorgeous outside when it's not raining.
I'm glad I have my books and movie collection to keep me company.
Living here at The School devoid of students and most everyone else is like starring in a post-apocalypic psychological thriller film, especially since my cable has been out for a couple weeks. If I didn't have the internet as an outlet (or highways), I might start to get hermitty and seriously eccentric.
So, point being if I start posting some odder material, this reclusiveness is the likeliest reason. Also factor in that I'm under no job-related stress, and it's gorgeous outside when it's not raining.
I'm glad I have my books and movie collection to keep me company.
