Indeed so.

I thought of the long ages of the past, during which the successive generations of (these things of beauty) had run their course - year by year being born, and living and dying amid these dark and gloomy woods, with no intelligent eye to gaze upon their loveliness; to all appearance such a wanton waste of beauty...it seems sad, that...such exquisite creatures should live their lives and exhibit their charms only in these wild, inhospitable regions, (this consideration) must surely tell us that all living things were not made for man. Many of them have no relation to him...their happiness and enjoyment, their loves and hates, their struggles for existence, their vigorous life and early death, would seem to be immediately related to their own well-being and perpetuation alone.
-Alfred Russel Wallace

Gertrude Stein is the greatest rapper to have ever lived!

If I were a dj, I'd put her over everything.

Some ideas for reading my poems aloud:

Blood packets for breaking in my mouth.

Speaking through a vocator.

Planting someone in the audience who would say every other word.

Feedback. Lots of it.

Vomit and or urinating on stage. This is possible.

We'll just have to see when we get there.

I've seen better blogs

So, I don't want to say that I have given up on this blog but...
I never figured out how to add the links to the other blogs. I never know what to write about, because I don't like giving anything away. My friend that is living in Mexico has a really awesome blog that shows her doing cool things in Mexico. I don't even own a camera. I don't know how to even find pictures and move them to my blog. This is a blog rant about how difficult blogs are to maintain.
Also, I watched two movies over the break. One was called Rescue Dawn and it is totally amazing. There is a documentary about the same story called Little Dieter Needs to Fly and it is also totally awesome. Its about a guy from Germany who just wanted to learn to fly and so he came to the United States and joined the Air Force because that was the quickest way to fly. But then he ended up in the Vietnam War and he was shot down and its his story of escaping a POW camp in Laos.
The other movie was called Mysterious Skin. It was a good movie but no one should watch it ever. I am not sure what the makers wanted to communicate, but I felt like shit for three days. Don't watch it.

the writer's strike

So, I think its pretty incredible that The Writer's Guild has gone on strike. And I don't watch very much tv, but I do watch The Office and NBC just fired over 100 members of the production staff from the show. And I'm pretty pissed off. And I hope that their empire crumbles. And that cool new young people start networks more functional and more powerful than all of the television networks combined. I believe I will be writing NBC today...
To Whom it May Concern: I hope that your archaic system of enterprise implodes in a magnificent spectacle and I can't wait to dance over your rotten grave.

Anyhow, I am not sure what to do with this blog anymore. I guess I never really did know. If The Office goes under, maybe I will make it a tribute blog to Dwight. I am pretty excited to turn in my pageless poem, but no secrets will be revealed here.

It would be sweet to write a poem in agar

Blood agar so that everyone would know that I really mean it. I actually haven't been having too much trouble with my pageless poem, its just that the couple things I have tried didn't work. So, sometime between now and class, something is bound to pan out.

Let's see. I always want to write about things that are inspiring me, but then I think that would give too much away. Also, I still haven't worked out the links to other pages. It's not that I love Dawn the best. It just worked out that way. So this blog has become the anti blog. The excuse for a blog. The vacuum blog where I sit and think of things to say and then write this instead.

Its a good thing I don't choose all the books for book club

I went to the library booksale and picked up some books that I am pretty excited about: books by PD James, Haruki Mirakami, and Rick Moody. I read The Ice Storm by Rick Moody when I was in junior high and it was crass, but I couldn't put it down. I'd like to read it again. Other authors I liked at the time included Vladimir Nabokov and Charles Bukowski. I must have been obsessed with reading about dysfunctional sexual relationships. Of course, now I am reading Wuthering Heights, so maybe I haven't grown out of that phase.
I would also like to read Oil! by Upton Sinclair. There is a film adaptation that is coming out. It claims to be about family, money, greed and religion in Texas in the turn of the last century. I don't expect that it will relate in any way to the current political atmosphere.

proportion

I have been thinking lately that a great part of writing or creating anything is manipulating proportion. I usually focus on magnifying things, but maybe I could write a poem where I minimized things.

I saw one of my favorite musicians perform on TV last night and it totally sucked. Professional musicians shouldn't play the autoharp in public. Every time I see someone play the autoharp for money, I feel like it is some kind of trick. Like, what are you paying for? Anyone can do this. I know we played the autoharp in fifth grade. Its really fun.

I just realized there is an option on here to edit my posts. I could go back and change everything I've said. Which is a great option for when I change my mind. I could have been saying the same thing all along.

Also, I am feeling really inspired right now because of William Carlos Williams and a new album I heard. Life is good. I should do some writing so that I have something in my chapbook.

We're through, John Berryman

Because I decided a long time ago that you're not invited into my head. Because you always bring around those fucked up dead dudes and your mad as hell father and those dismembered women. And I am just happy to be through with your impotent poetry because now I don't have to undo you anymore.

wuthering heights

So, I decided to read Wuthering Heights. I am not very far into it. It's crazy. There are rabid dogs in the first scene. The different voices employed by Bronte to tell the story are each so unique. And it is supposed to be one of the greatest love stories ever told. I do enjoy love stories. But this one is violent and fucked up.

I had a dream that I remembered for the first time in a long time. I used to remember my dreams every morning. This one was about Halloween. I was really drunk with my cousin and we were at our old elementary school. She is coming home from college soon. And Halloween is soon. Perhaps it is an omen.

Its true that I was hit over the head by falling wookie mug.

And then it broke and I felt a small sense of justice. But I've had a headache ever since. I guess there were a number of things that I wanted to write about in this blog this week.

I saw a documentary about a crazy violinist - Nadja Solema Sonnenberg. She wasn't cool. She had a lot of ego, but she reminded me of the discussion we had about becoming too entangled in your work. She couldn't step away from the emotions she had to use on stage. Ultimately, she didn't have much of a life because she was too intense to deal with other people.

But they talked about something else which I thought was interesting. A critic of hers was talking about how he was upset that she struggles with the composer instead of becoming a speaker for the composer. I wonder if attitudes like this are the reason that nobody cares about classical music anymore. How does a young woman living in New York today become the true interpretor for Tchaikovsky or Ravel? If people go to see a symphony perform a static version of a piece played exactly the way a composer notated it, then why have the artists at all? Just get computers to play the parts. They are advanced enough, and that would eliminate all the pesky ideas and emotions that an artist brings with themselves into a piece.

And also, I don't like people who try to play honest and revealing music while wearing costumes. But an old friend of mine sent my band her music and she has a song that takes place about the time she and I were close. Its really strange to hear her intimate version of a story that I was there to see. My version is completely different.

so sick of reading about suicide

So, its just a coincidence that I should be reading Anne Sexton and Sylvia Plath the same week we read John Berryman. Its also a coincidence that a friend of mine would try to commit suicide in the same week. I would never choose to do it this way. Because I don't like to read about suicide. I don't like to be around crazy people. It makes me feel like I am teetering on the edge of the portal to hell.

I can tell that I like Dream Songs, but I am not enjoying it. Will I ever enjoy poetry again?

I want to read about something that is happening right now and therefore cannot be quantified. Will someone please right me this poem?

i have an intense desire to share all my passwords

But I won't. I really need to spruce up this blog. For my readership, you know. Find things that are visually stimulating. Can I add music too? Maybe a little ditty from the Four Seasons or some other heavily commercialized piece. Something that would really class up whatever joint whoever is reading this is sitting in.

I read in the paper that in Germany or France or somewhere in Europe there is now a limit on the volume at which an orchestra can play. This came about because some opera singer was going through a dress rehearsal in a park and a monkey in the nearby zoo had a heart attack during her aria. I'm not sure how to feel about this.

Something else I am not sure how to feel about: Loserpalooza. Or Looserpalooza as it was advertised. We played. With wind and dirt in our faces. Ben the Drunken Poet performed while we were setting up. He shotguns beers inbetween his poems. His poems were about drinking and doing drugs and having sex and pirates and angels. He vomited on the microphone after his second poem. This created a problem for me, but I was able to locate another mic before we went on.

Another funny story about poets: I was working on writing comments for workshop when one of my coworkers who fancies herself a poet walked by. She said, "I wish I was in your poetry class. I would win." I said, "Win what?" She wasn't sure, but she knew that her work would blow us all away.

Her work can be read on the comment spaces of the new girlfriends of her exboyfriends on myspace.

charles olson, i know you can hear me

And I am starting to get really pissed off. That you should have a gift for words and write about so many things that don't lie anywhere near my heart is unforgivable.

still plotting revenge

I am starting to feel less angry about the major letdown before our Monday night show. This is happening for two reasons: 1. I wrote a poem while I was angry and it took the intensity out of my chest. 2. We played another show, nice and slow, for ourselves. So, I feel purged, but am still plotting revenge.

Karaoke also saved my life again last night. And now I am under the weather and, being as I actually have the time, I think I will sit on my couch and read some Charles Olson. I am hoping its the best way to read Charles Olson. I read on the back of the book, that the poems follow the story of a journey. I wish that were true. I would love to go on a journey right now. Or maybe it is true, but it's not the kind of journey I enjoy. I wanted Walden and shit. Oh, well.

on fire.

But in an uncomfortable way. I learned three things 1. Our songs don't mean the same thing when they are sped up. 2. The band cannot recover in time to play well at a show minutes after crushingly bad news. 3. The audience will love us anyway.

Playing in a theater was so quiet. Narrow stage. Awkward hands. Lots of love. I will never trust another collaborator.

Also, I deserve college credit for my crash course in video production.

Text message read: "Oops, I have the DVDs at my house. They finished burning if the band still wants them."

Oops. Really.

i wish book club could go on forever

I wanted to talk about the book more because it really was one of the most enjoyable books I have ever enjoyed. So sunny and deep. And I liked all of the chaotic emotions of the characters that I hardly got to know at all. This was a great departure from the last book I read, Pride and Prejudice, where every character was so carefully dissected, from a social standpoint. Adverbs is very social to, but in the way that people are bound to one another through crazy events. I bet I am the first person in the history of ever to compare Pride and Prejudice with Adverbs. And probably the last.

I still have to named the last song we wrote. All the names I've come up with sound sappy. So, maybe it will just have to be called #12578. Or how about "Glass Onion." Pretty catchy, eh?

I will now relate to you the palpable tension between myself and "stage presence."
















We aren't talking right now. I hope the show goes well on Monday, anyhow.

oh my blog!

So, I didn't think it would ever be possible for me to have a blog. But I believe this is it. And I have already decided that I should not post my blogs while sitting next to Dustin while he is posting his blogs, as I am quite overwhelmed by his dinosaur images.

I read some Charles Olson writing. Over 100 pages of essays. All this before reading a word of his poetry. I am not sure if this is a good idea. In fact, I am pretty sure it was a very bad idea. Because now I want Charles Olson to prove it. He says, "The meeting edge of man and the world is also its cutting edge." If he doesn't show me this edge, I will be very disappointed.