Magnetic Paper Writing and Somnambulism

I've been working feverishly away on my papers, my revisions, and my research, and perhaps it has been due to overmuch reading of dense texts, but right now It's been rather like I've been using magnetic words for refrigerator poetry in composing my term papers. My Wallace Stevens paper is in the can, my craft essay on Didion is all over but the final paragraph, I believe, and now I've just got revisions to complete and boy won't that be fun. The term papers will be graded once I get to school tomorrow. I've not got much on my mind at this moment other than that I will be looking very much forward to the cessation of academic activities on Wednesday.

To counteract that impulse, and as a parting thought before I plunge back in to another Word document, I came across this while I was working on secondary sources for the Stevens paper...This from Rene Daumal's An Appeal to Consciousness, found in his book You've Always Been Wrong:

"A man wakes up in the morning in bed. Scarcely on his feet, he's already asleep again. Going through all the automatic impulses which make his body get dressed, go out, walk, get to work, go through the prescribed daily routine... In order to wake up, he'd have to think, 'All that agitation is outside of me.' He would need to perform an act of reflection. [...] Man does not spend a third of his life, as they say, but nearly all his life sleeping in this true slumber of the mind. And it's easy for slumber, which is the inertia of consciousness, to catch man in its traps; for man, being naturally and almost irremediably lazy, might indeed be willing to awaken. But since the effort is repugnant to him, he would like that effort once it is put forth to place him (and naively he thinks it is possible) in a permanent or at least lengthy waking state. Then wanting to rest while in his awakening, he falls asleep. Just as one cannot will oneself to sleep, since willing, in whatever form, is still an awakening, one can remain awakened only if one wills it at every moment.
And the only direct act which you can carry out is that of awakening, of becoming conscious of yourself. Look back on what you think you've done since the beginning of today: this is perhaps the first time you've really awakened. And it's only now that you're conscious of all you've done as a thoughtless automaton. In most cases people never awaken even enough to realize that they have slept. Right now, go ahead and accept, if you wish, this sleepwalker's existence. You will be able to behave in life...without ever awakening any more than just enough, now and then, to enjoy or suffer from the way in which you sleep. And it might even be more convenient, without changing anything in your appearance, not to awaken at all.
And as the reality of mind lies in its activity, the very idea of 'thinking substance' being nothing unless that idea is thought in the here and now, this sleep--this absence of action, this privation of thought--is truly spiritual death."

Now Dave, no napping. You've got things to write.

God and Politics

It's the end of the semester, so I'm being lazy and making this response to Brian's blog work double-duty as a blog entry, with minor adjustments.

It was Sunday and I'd just finished reading other blog posts about the politicizing of Christianity and thought it interesting (or perhaps not)to mention; as soon as I began reading the post Brian had on his blog, the Jehovah's Witnesses were knocking at my door, reading from Titus. It had something to do with education. The blog entry reminded me of what I found so tiresome about going to church when I was younger--the explication of texts was always the same. It actually became part of the reason why I wanted to write--to find new ways to describe things that surround us. The work has been done before and the comforting phrases that sound good just end up being meaningless as the weekly repetitions grow. Why couldn't people find new ways of saying things? Why the stereotypes? And most annoyingly, why all this arguing using circular logic to prove things that really are, at base, a matter of faith? The missionaries on my porch said the same phrases the same way, as anything else I'd heard. The visit was brief, but cordial. The Witnesses gone, their pamphlet in the kitchen wastebasket, I'd gone to look up Titus. 2:2 was the verse the little girl read with her Mother there to provide moral support: "teach what is consistent with sound doctrine." I read further past the stuff around verse 9 telling slaves to be submissive to their masters and not talk back, etc but what I found interesting in light of the events and readings of the morning, as well as what Sherman Alexie spoke of on Thursday, was further on in the book: "But avoid stupid controversies, genealogies, dissensions, and quarrels about the law, for they are unprofitable and worthless. After a first and second admonition, have nothing to do with anyone who causes diversions, since you know that such a person is perverted and sinful, being self-condemned." For such people, perhaps less of a focus on legislation and condemnation and more of a focus on what their faith really is to them would be more of a draw. It certainly wouldn't hurt trying.

How Dave Probably Shouldn't Write Poetry

I saw that Brian Dunn had posted his version of this on his blog, so I thought I might follow suit:

I’m still not entirely sure how I write poems. This could be a false statement. I do know, from the look of general concern that clouds the faces of some of those I talk to about how I write, that I must have one of the worst writing methods on the planet. I’m not particularly good at keeping secret my jealousy of those who have the discipline and control to be able to devote two hours a morning (for some reason, they always write in the mornings) toward writing and they plug away at it, each day, as the sun comes up. Plath did it. Jacques Roubaud does it. Thomas Mann did it. Methodical method. Efficient and helpful. Mornings, for me, are much better suited for input than output. In a previous life, I would read complicated novels in the morning and write notes and reflections in the evening. When I wrote at all. Even now, my writing is sporadic, spotty, uncertain, iffy. On more than a few occasions the fear of not having something for workshop was what got the poem out, had me tapping violently away at an overworn greasy computer lab keyboard. These events, as with others not quite so frantic, are generally accompanied by rough notes that I’d written at some earlier point, almost always written in the evening or night, almost always put to paper in a restaurant or bar. I've tried libraries, but there one isn't in the middle of people talking, or getting annoyed with each other; they're all there for other reasons than discussion or food or breakup. So I sit, waiting for food, or perhaps with a martini. Gin is not particularly good at wetting a stopped fountain pen, but is occasionally good for loosening various musings that may be of use later. I have an assortment of postcards in my bookbag, which I often write to people if I find myself having difficulty getting started...writing to others necessitates having to think about recent events, things seen, thoughts that have struck me in some way or other. So, restaurants and bars, and always alone: for some reason I need that sort of atmosphere. Sitting in a public place, yet removed from it, with conversations and movement all around. This may be the reason for the “detached 'I'” feature found in most of my stuff from last semester. It may be a defense mechanism or crutch, too, for that matter.

Poetry came when I was a sophomore in high School, when I happened upon The Mirror by Plath in the literature anthology we used. The mirror reflecting the pink wall opposite it and the woman’s face, in whom an old woman rises closer to the surface every day, “like a terrible fish.” But this is a misquote, now that I think of it, now that I walk over and pull the book from the shelf. The mirror is "the eye of a little god" which then becomes a lake, over which the woman agitatedly returns. The mirror is what has that unsettling power invested in it. The power isn't in the woman's face... "In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old woman/ Rises toward her day after day, like a terrible fish." The power of this image, this surprising power given an inanimate object was a thunderbolt to me. I started reading Plath, hiding in the magazine room during Study Hall, then moved to Anne Sexton. I began writing overly gloomy, doomed poems in which everything had gone irreparably wrong.

I gradually got better. I wrote in college, but in my senior year something scared me somehow; some terrible fish had risen too close to the surface and I shut down the operation. No more writing. Just notes, observations, ideas. More often than not, I wouldn’t write those down at all; would put them off for later, which meant that they were forgotten, usually. That engrained habit, years of suppressing ideas, has been difficult to break. It’s extremely easy for me to not bother, to discount. It should have been no wonder, then, when I discovered one day that all of my favorite writers have repression as a main motif.

Perhaps because of all this, for me, poems come up, like some strange plant, or buried stones pushed up though brown grass by frost heaves. My memory works much the same way. Images and events come up, like submerged logs in a pond. If an idea manages to be insistent enough, to nag, to finally badger me out of procrastination, I end up writing it down. Survival of the most persistent. Lately, that’s changed. I’ve started to realize how many ideas I’ve got and routinely squelch. More timid ones are finding their way to paper. Rough notes, more often inspired by prose rather than poetry.

Regarding the content of my poems, I first wrote from drastically darkened personal experience, but quickly moved to dream imagery and possible juxtapositions to things in real life. This semester, though, everything’s gone ass-over-applecart, and I’ve been throwing just about anything at the paper, just to see what sticks. So my method is hardly a method. It happens, and as I ease more into this thing I’m doing, I hope to find something that works best…

Reading and Writing and Dead Grass

Happy Easter, peeps!
I spent almost all of yesterday online, putting electronic comments on my students' final paper drafts, emailing them back, etc. Not all have complied with getting drafts sent out by Friday evening, which makes things more difficult for them to have a polished final draft. I also got a rubric out that shows how I will be grading said final drafts, started looking at poems for submission to lit journals, and deciding which journals to potentially send to. Today I'll continue that, compose cover letters and assemble the separate packets, each formatted according to the whims of the various editorial staffs, and continue reading Joan Didion, which I read until 2 this morning.

The pic adequately fits my mood. The weather is cold, windy and gross, and the warm-up promised on Monday has been moved off at least another day. All of which makes Davo unhappy. Oh well...it keeps me indoors and working on things I need to be working on. The bread turned out fine, which means I have material for sandwiches. The laundry is almost done. It could be worse.

I have tea on the stove. I've got the 6th symphony of Tabakov (who has one of the angriest-sounding requiems I've ever heard) on the stereo. Bread and Nutella. A day of typing like a crazy thing on the computer. The Year of Magical Thinking is an excellent somber read. A book-long essay that explores grief, which, as the various scientific journals she includes describe is a phenomenon that comes in waves. The book follows suit, with a calm, quietly persistent return to December 30, 2003 to revisit the events around that almost-dinner with her husband in the living room. This from Chapter 3:

"It was deep into the summer, some months after the night when I needed to be alone so that he could come back, before I recognized that through the winter and spring there had been occasions on which I was incapable of thinking rationally. I was thinking as small children think, as if my thoughts or wishes had the power to reverse the narrative, change the outcome. In my case this disordered thinking had been covert, noticed I think by no one else, hidden even from me, but it had also been, in retrospect, both urgent and constant. In retrospect there had been signs, warning flags I should have noticed. There had been for example the matter of the obituaries. I could not read them. This continued from December 31, when the first obituaries appeared, until February 29, the night of the 2004 Academy Awards, then I saw a photograph of John in the Academy's "In Memoriam" montage. When I saw the photograph I realized for the first time why the obituaries had so disturbed me.
I had allowed other people to think he was dead.
I had allowed him to be buried alive."

Well, with that, off to read, type, and write.

Cold Snaps and Yma Sumac

Greetings, all. The weather is miserably cold and the tulips pictured earlier here are frozen/thawed/frozen masses of pulp. My furnace is back on in spite of my vow two weeks ago that it wouldn't come on again this season. I've awakened from a lovely 4-hour power nap and have bathwater, laundry, bread machine, and stereo all going simultaneously, as I have things to catch up on. It crossed my mind that I could save time by reading Joan Didion while bathing, but I thought it too great a risk to hold a library book over bathwater. The hard drive seems to be in the mood for Motown and the strange strange world of Yma Sumac--her vocal stylings are quite different from the norm.

Classes are gearing down, save for the fact that I have term papers coming in on Wednesday to grade, a term paper on William Carlos Williams' Paterson due on Thursday, and revision portfolios due the following week. Aside from that, I'm finishing up. I'm hoping to have a substantial part of my essay on Didion done by tomorrow evening, though I have 200 pages to read yet. I'll get my State tax return taken care of, and compile poems to send off for journals.
Speaking of poems, one of mine got honorary mention for Purdue's Literary Awards. No money, which would have been nice, but I got a nice letter. I need to get more writing done, though, this semester and summer. The stuff I have that I actually kinda like amounts to a slender stack indeed. Must write more...must write....more. At least the weather is no temptation to get outside.

Efflorescences with Figured Bass of Peeling Brick

It's officially Spring, so that means that there has to be at least one picture--I think it's a requirement in the Blogger Terms and Conditions--of tulips. This is the artsiest one I could come up with. I'm no Mapplethorpe. Kristen's here (YAY!) but not for long--I'm taking her to the airport in a couple of hours.

The day appears to be living up to Spectacular status and I hope to re-commence working on that stack of annotated bibliographies on the porch.

Nervous Breakdowns and Missteps

Hi All--my busy-meter has been pegged for the past two weeks, and logistics have finally started breaking down. If I can somehow get things done this month and not lose my mind. I'll not go into details, as they would only depress me. Sorry Kristen!!!!

In more pleasant news, I got a parcel from Bulgaria today--I'd reviewed a performance of Emil Tabakov's concertos, which have just been released by Naxos records. I wrote a review of it for Musicweb which the editor sent to the composer himself in Sofia. Tabakov emailed me asking if I'd be interested in more of his recordings and I was quite happy to say yes. Inside the parcel, which Tabakov hand addressed, I have eight CDs, five of which he burned for me himself. On top of all was a very pleasant brief note. It's stuff like this that I really enjoy about reviewing recordings. Tabakov has number of recordings to his credit, almost exclusively with the Sofia Philharmonic under his baton; he was conductor for the Sofia Philharmonic from 1988 until 2000. More recently, he is the conductor of the Ankara-based Bilkent Symphony Orchestra, which is the orchestra for the burned CDs I got. His work is much along the lines of Shostakovich, Schnittke, and Shchedrin, which means I really rather like it. He's rather obsessive with his thematic material, which adds to the tenacity of the pieces of his that I've heard so far.

The above photo was taken at my last poetry workshop, which involved making unusual taxonomies and sorting objects in new and different ways and seeing how that can be applied to poetry. There were quite a few objects to sort through. I started taking pictures of what I came up with, as well as what others did, which you'll likely see throughout posts for April.

For example, there were quite a few postcards. I started taking pictures of them as seen through various pieces of equipment found in the room, including the overhead projector, which is how I got this second image. All in all, quite fun.

Ok, I've got to get back to work. Much to catch up on.

A weekend with little to show for it...

Well, I gave it a try. A halfhearted one, but a try nonetheless. I opened up the first annotated bibliography and the English wasn't English--so much to the point that I closed the folder and opened up a book. I went to the bookstore to see if the Didion was there, but it wasn't. Some Haydn and some Dadaist literature was, though. I worked a bit on the first book review, made a couple of notes while I ate Thai food on the north side of town--I at least got some work done during that time. I got a small draft for one poem and a whole paragraph of a book review. Rah. At least I've been able to read through almost all the Wallace Stevens.

Scrambled and Frantic

Oh Dear. I really have no idea what to start on first. Should I go for the big paper on William Carlos Williams' Paterson, or should I read The Year of Magical Thinking and write that paper? Or should I grade the almost foot-thick stack of annotated bibliographies my students turned in yesterday? Or perhaps should I start on the one, preferably two book reviews I should have ready for the Sycamore editor by Wednesday? Or my tax return? Or record reviews, or typing critiques for the other memoir submissions for Monday, or the two poems I need to have written for Wednesday, the short reflective essay I need to have for Tuesday's class on Langston Hughes, or perhaps even start with revisions for the Memoir class, since I've got to have a final revision portfolio due in less than a month. Happy place, Dave--go to your Happy Place. Breathe. Breathe. Breathe.

In new fantabulous news, I got a reject letter from the Indiana Review! Yay! Yay! This may sound strange, this being giddy about a reject letter, but, knowing what I know so far of the world of literary journals, this reject letter was wonderfully good news. Rather than being a 6th of a sheet of paper with no signature saying "We appreciate your interest, but...." I got an actual short note signed by the poetry editor expressing interest in further work and even specifying a piece of those that I submitted that was especially liked. I walked around the house with a spring in my step. I just need to add sending out submissions to more journals this month to my things to do list above.

With potato chips and orange juice,
I remain, oh fair readers,
most frantically
and frothily
yours,
Davo

On the mend

Sure, I still cough like an 80 year old toothless geezer, but I actually feel like a human being again. I've managed to essentially finish out my paper on Hilda Doolittle, and I'm only 2 papers away from finishing up on the grading. That leaves all day tomorrow to work on my memoir section and do laundry! Who says that one can't get things done over Spring Break! I'd actually hoped to do more, but hell, 20 papers graded, one paper written, two memoirs critiqued, 2 records reviewed, 5 loads of laundry washed and folded, dishes washed, and groceries gotten, all while surviving the gutbucket flu seems, on the whole, a relatively productive week. And I've done quite well on the eating front, too, for the most part: only one trip to a bad Chinese buffet, and only one Cadbury's Fruit and Nut chocolate bar. The rest has been chicken soup and guaifenesin syrup.

For extra viewing enjoyment, here is the lovely table for Sycamore Review that we had down in Atlanta for AWP. Brian and Eric and Daryll-Lynne are holding down the fort. With such a tall sign, we were visible throughout most of the area and got quite a lot of good exposure. Various folks including Michael Martone and Walter Mosley visited and talked a while. I also found out that the husband of Nadine Sabra Meyer (the author of the book I reviewed) came by specifically to buy the issue that had my review in it! I missed him by perhaps only 15 minutes. My big favorite writer at the moment is Alice Notley and I managed to run into her at the University of California Press table, whereupon I rushed over to the Sycamore Review table to grab my copy of Grave of Light for her to sign. She kinda looked at me like I was a freak, but I'll admit I was at that particular moment. I got a chance to talk to her a bit about the availability of her wonderful book The Descent of Alette which is a great feminist text. Beyond that, it's wonderful poetry. At any rate, she signed two of her books for me and then she was on her way no doubt to yell at Penguin publishing for not having her book available for purchase.

Among other things with AWP I found wonderful was the work of the various smaller presses. Ugly Duckling Presse has some downright wonderful books available, one of my favorites is Nets by Jen Bervin, which uses Shapespeare's Sonnets as the basis for a found poetry that is quite striking, and quite strikingly presented. I might actually have this as a required text for the creative writing class I'll eventually be teaching. So for those of you out there--don't forget to support your independent presses!

From Bard to Verse...

Sorry for the horrible pun, but, while I was trying to force myself to make sense of William Carlos Williams (and if one is having trouble understanding William Carlos Williams, then one should be concerned), I realized that I was not feeling better. I went to bed. Woke up around midnight and felt bloody awful. Fever back up. dizzy, etc. I force myself, after gargling salt water, etc, to go back to bed. I'm stuck in a never ending dream where I'm looking at my brain, which is clogged, huge, and sitting on the floor, covered by bumperstickers, and all the while a song lyric plays on endless repeat: "In letters of gold on a snow white kite/ I will write the words 'I love you'/ And send it soaring high above you/ For all to read." By morning, I was at the end of my rope and could hardly move, hated this flu more than I'll ever be able to express. Worse, I was coughing up blood too, so it looked like something else might be up. Davo the Consumptive. Diptheria Davo. I drove all the way up to Purdue Health Care, since they're now in charge of me, and it turns out that I have a chest infection and an infected ear. I now have new drugs and hopefully that will do the trick.

The pharmacist mentioned that the cough medicine they gave me could make me drowsy, but I thought nothing of it, considering I was used to antihistamines, etc. I took some right away and drove off for Indy. About halfway home, I started feeling all warm and snuggly; the best, most wonderfully delicious feeling that one gets when settling in for sleep. I managed to keep awake through the drive home and went directly to bed. Turns out I had spaced the fact that the cough syrup also had a relaxing agent in it. Bad Davo. I'm feeling better, but I tell ya, folks, for all who can hear--don't skip your flu shot! Somehow I thought I'd take the gamble this year and I've ended up spending over twice the amount of the flu shot on meds. And then there's the price of one's misery. Phooey. It's the vaccine route for me from here on out.

AWP--The Overview

Since my last post I've burned through an entire box of Thera-Flu, a box of tissues, and slept just long enough for the meds to wear off, whereupon I take more. Fever is down to 99 which almost feels normal, especially when comparing it to 103, which was decidedly unpleasant. Now that I'm recovering just enough to start scraping my poop back in a pile , as well as to actively procrastinate on other tasks, I thought I'd enclose a few pix of my quite exhausting but thoroughly enjoyable time.



All the first year MFA's (save the one that didn't go at all) got in a Purdue van and drove south. Spirits were high, especially Mehdi's after the three-drinkie lunch he had at Tumbleweeds, a restaurant south of Louisville with the surliest and most reluctant service I've ever experienced. Case in point: After being served a taco salad with no dressing at all, I ask: "May I have some salsa?" The waitress stops, thinks a bit and responds with "Well, I supPOSE...." As if it was unheard of to have salsa on a taco salad. Or that it might cost extra. Or that the walk might cause her arches to fall. Mehdi was enjoying the best margarita of his short life and didn't notice.

Once in Atlanta, we quickly found that the nearby Scottish-style pub was not our speed at all, with it's being too noisy and (now that' we've gotten used to smoking bans in Indiana) waaaay too polluted as far as air quality was concerned. We ended up at a 1980s two-story hall of mirrors on the corner called the Cafe Metro that was wonderful and had wait staff that surely are up for sainthood. Here we are after having stuffed ourselves on the last day, just before we headed over for the Purdue reading at the conference.


Mehdi is working the Sycamore review table by this time, so he wasn't present. Coming back to restaurants in Lafayette after getting used to this lovely place in Atlanta has been a bit of a shock.

Ok...I'd type more, but I still don't do well sitting up for very long, and I've done more sitting up today than I've done since Thursday, so I'll still count that as progress.

Davo Sick. Davo way sick

I knew I was coming down with something on Thursday, but wasn't sure what. I woke up Friday morning like I'd been mugged. I drag my sorry self to campus, then cancel class, then drive home to Indy so I could convalesce. 5 hours later I wake up on fire and watch TV for a bit, then realize that I probably shouldn't be getting weepy watching prime time TV. I take my temp: 103. With aspirin and such, I'm holding at 101 and I'm wearing 4 layers of clothing. Not fun. Not fun at all. And I have lots to do: record reviews. 2 papers on modernist poetry that I keep putting off. etc. At least I have books to read. I just have to pick wisely: T. S. Eliot makes absolutely no sense when one has a fever. Kinda like how Henry James makes no sense when you have to read him in an airplane.

More later. I'm wondering just how many aspirin I can take in a day.

With pathogens,
I remain (but barely)
Davo

Progress slouches on

After sleeping for most of Saturday (rather than working on my rather desperately long list of tasks), I have awakened from dreams of my fellow grad students giving me advice on my classes to find that at long last the snow has stopped falling. Of course this happened quite a while after I shoveled the walks, so everything is back under a blanket of snow. At least things are cleared enough that I can use the regular snow shovel and won't have to worry about putting the Mickey Mouse shovel back into action.

This past week, I had prided myself on my hard-won ability to drive in snow. Those formative years in Northern Indiana's vast countryside on the last road to get plowed out and the first one to drift shut allowed for far more experience in driving in bad compact cars through inclement conditions than most people have been able to get in a lifetime. After driving through the teeth of the blizzard last Tuesday to get groceries, after blithely handling uphill situations, after using my manual transmission to keep traction, etc., I managed to get stuck coming out of my next-door driveway on my way to the symphony. My previous methods were of no use. To complicate matters, a rather stupid UPS delivery man turned onto my street in his enormous truck. I motion for him to back up and continue around the block, as I am completely blocking all plowed roadspace. He refuses to budge, making a somewhat impatient gesture that his delivery spot is on the street I am barricading with my snowbound Honda.
I head off to my garage to get the Mickey Mouse shovel, muttering not too quietly as to how bovine this delivery man is. If he wants to forgo driving around the block to make a delivery and simply watch me shovel my car out, then his time is obviously less valuable than my own. In my dress shoes I clop and stumble like a shetland pony on snot trying to get to my garage, then hear, as I grab my shovel, the UPS truck gunning its engine. As I look around the house, I see that he has become impatient, has tried to wedge himself behind my car, and in attempting to power himself through the deep snow, has managed to get stuck. Directly behind my car. More not particularly quiet commentary on the mental faculties of the driver. One of my neighbors comes out with a shovel to watch the proceedings. A quick question from her about how stupid the driver is, then one about my rather small shovel. The neighbor asks why he is stuck behind me. I explain the situation. The driver, surly and perhaps somewhat embarrassed at being such an ass, says nothing, crawling under his truck to attach tire chains. He is still stuck. Wheels spin, pitching snow over my trunk. The neighbor makes some hand motion toward the delivery man, with most of her words obliterated by the howling engine, save for the ending phrase: box of rocks. Enough progress has been made for me to throw my shovel in the passenger seat and drive off to the symphony. I wave a friendly wave to my neighbor as the driver makes a delivery one house from the far corner of our block, certainly less conveniently situated than if he had he followed my advice. Perhaps he just enjoys a challenge.

Today I actually have been getting some schoolwork done. Ideas for memoir class. Readings for memoir done. Two student papers graded. Pop quizzes graded. Ideas for things to write about for workshop. It's a rather small list in comparison with my Things to Do list, but at least we have things in the debit column this weekend.

Mickey Mouse and the Great Snow Job

Hello all--
I came home from the ggreat wwhite ttundra of Lafayette, and I'm still chattering. My car gradually gained better aerodynamic qualities once I got to highway speed, which I felt rather disinclined to do, not only because of the possibility of ice chunks flying off my car, but because it was so cold...when I woke up Friday morning, the radio announcer blandly mentioned that it was 9 below zero.

Upon arrival here in Indianapolis, I noticed that, although not as much snow fell here, about halfway through all the snowfall, a good thick glazing of ice came down too. I staggered to my front door through the almost foot and a half of snow, punching awkwardly through the ice layer and trying to maintain my grip on all my stuff. This morning, to shovel the walks, I found that my snow shovel was all but useless on this mess, so I had no choice but to use the Mickey Mouse beach shovel that I bought way back when Kristen came to Indianapolis to visit, which was also the last time we had a snowstorm like this. The shovel, though small, is metal and won't leave you trying to wrench your back lugging 50 pounds of snow. So there I was, shoveling away with this little beach shovel, as the neighbors looked on.

Now, some men might feel rather inadequate or uncomfortable when people find out that they're using a shovel that is small. I, however, am quite proud of my small shovel and don't care who knows it. One can work just as much magic with a small shovel as others can with a larger one. But heaven knows having a smaller shovel is better than one that's too big that no one can do anything with.

As you can see, the snow is still drifting down. I've shoveled my walks and that's all I'm shoveling. I'll be heading to the store shortly so I can eat something other than frozen vegetables, which are, mind you, quite healthy, but rather unfulfilling.

In other news, I thought it might be interesting to put my student ID (and the subsequent substantial student discount for tickets) to good use, so I got up the nerve to see if I could start doing interviews for Musicweb International regarding performances at the Indianapolis Symphony, since we do occasionally get performers that show up there in Europe. I thought I'd try to get a few interviews or concert reviews written up first before submitting them to the website. I put my name in with the house manager and was told that I wouldn’t be able to talk to anyone until at least next week. Fine, I thought. Well, after the performance, I was walking to the Coat Check, when the coat check person pointed at me and said “Stay right there”—from there I was introduced curtly to some woman with PR and then dragged through a secret door I’d never seen in all my time there to the backstage area (which was quite posh in places), where, with dry mouth, I was suddenly deposited into the dressing room of the pianist, whose name, aside from Kirill, I had by then completely forgotten. I rifled through my scribbled notes and managed to ask him about 5 questions before he had his coat on. Not an auspicious beginning to my concert reporting career, but certainly an interesting end to the concert. Aside from the concertmaster and the conductor (to whom I nodded at as I slunk out), I believe I was the only one to shake the man’s hand.

Both Joe and Royce didn't like his performance at all--Royce saying that Kirill Gerstein played the Mendelssohn "like it was Liszt." and I made a note of "prosaic" which certainly wasn't positive. The house, perhaps due to the extreme cold and the snow piled up everywhere, was only half full, if that. Oh well, at any rate, I have the PR person's card, as well as that of the quite-young House Manager. I'll see if I can make more formal arrangements for next week.

Absurdism and Aleatoric Methods

Oh what fun. Crazy playing with words. Lately I've been working on projects while using the mechanical methods of the OuLiPo group. The methods used aren't all that far different from that trope that Kristen suggested I and others use for our blogs not too long ago. I've run poems through shredders and woven them back together with another shredded poem, kindergarten-placemat style, and transcribed what words came out as another poem. much is rather nonsensical, but some actually can be disturbingly clear. One experiement I did was with two random stanzas from the rather stinky verse of Will Carleton (copyright 1884) and what came out was, instead of the verses' original subject (which was that of country bumpkins visiting a beach resort), was a rather creepy stanza that suggested a father sneaking into a nursery with intent to kill his infant child. I certainly didn't see that coming. As luck would have it, the latest issue of McSweeney's has a section devoted to OuLiPo writers and how certain texts come out of such methods. For example, "33 Variations on a Theme by Shakespeare" where the famous "To be or not to be, that is the question" line gets put through the wringer using various Oulipian strategies, such as removing a letter "To be or not to be, hat is the question" to removing two "To be or not to be at is the question" to adding a letter "To bed or not to be, that is the question." Other nifty things are antonymic translation, where you go word for word and replace the original with a word that could be considered its opposite.

I used a pair of scissors on one of my compadre's poems and then wove them together, superimposing them like photographic negatives and ended up with this:

It had heavy boots,
tore the tender floor.
We saw them kick over in search of firemen,
A home caught in bare lamps,
the ruins of a burnt down job,
the rubble of a life, papers,
a black cord in flame.

Ok, I'll stop typing now. Must get back to classwork. Hopefully the snow that is supposedly coming will be of short duration and little accumulation.

spirits and escaliers

I've been rather preoccupied lately. Much of what has taken up my time reently has been reading Modernist poetry and writing record reviews, while at the same time working on notes toward more poetry for workshop. That last item has been a bit more difficult to keep up on. The blog has therefore suffered.

I am beginning to feel the burn regarding writing new stuff as I have readings...public readings coming up and I don't really like the stuff I've done this past semester. That statement isn't entirely true, but I do want to have more that I feel halfway proud of.

One idea has to do with the picture to the left. This is a photograph of the Tulip Staircase, and a famous ghost photograph. I've been toying with using this as a theme or the famous peacock clock of the Hermitage. Not sure what to make of these or what they will turn into, but I'll work on it by Wednesday.

I've been rather solitary of late, perhaps especially because of the recent social gatherings that have been taking place during the week, which tend to mean that I need quality time on the weekends. Much to read, much to write. Busy Busy Busy. And Ezra Pound may well make me nuts:

For three years. diabolus in the scale,
He drank ambrosia,
All passes, ANANGKE prevails,
Came end, at last, to that Arcadia.

He had moved amid her phantasmagoria,
Amid her galaxies,
NUKTOS AGALMA
. . . . . . . . . . . .
Drifted . . . drifted precipitate,
Asking time to be rid of . . .
Of his bewilderment; to designate
His new found orchid.

--from Mauberley, part II

Acronyms and Home Repair

The long-awaited renovations to the Student Union are now taking place, right, um, in the middle of the school year. Why this couldn't happen during the summer is anyone's guess, but now the options for campus food are pretty slim. The WPE [worst pizza ever] as offered by Villa Pizza, complete with SSSS [Surly Soviet-Style Service]; I once asked for a specific slice of pizza rather than the obviously worse for wear piece that they were ready to offer me. "This is the piece that's on the spatula," was the response I got. I was starving and late for class, so I took it after having wasted too much time in their line. The time before that, I wanted to know how much a stromboli was. I'd looked and couldn't see the price. The undergrad serf behind the counter was in the process of looking up the price for me when one of the higher-ups interrupted him and said to me curtly, "The price is on the board," and walked off with a thumb gesturing at the lit menu board I was just looking at. They're awfully smug for being folks that can't do pizza right. And it's pretty hard to not get pizza right. Regarding the other possible options, there's the Sweet Shop in its newer remodeled state as a sterile homage to the 50's diner, with endlessly looping Beach Boys and Supremes, and Starbucks. A makeshift convenience store-type thing has been set up in one of the study rooms in the basement, but I've kinda outgrown the "candybar-coffee-doughnut-and-chewing-gum" diet. To give them credit, they do have a salad bar, but pickins are mighty slim. The downstairs hallway is cut off, and the age-old railroad station theme, which was age-old when I was an undergrad 35 million years ago back in the Cretaceous period, appears to be on its way out. I got this shot before they walled everything off. If the trend continues, this will probably house other healthy restaurants such as Burger King, KFC, and MacDeaths. Mass-produced meat, anyone?

Gravitas and Literature

The wind was cold, the air was cold, the windburn is evident, and the stress of a new semester is making itself apparent. Protective and defensive mechanisms are resorted to.

And I don't see a book anywhere in the shot.

Yay! Another trope!

This from Kristen at her lovely blog.

Rules:
Grab the nearest book. Turn to page 123. Go to 5th sentence. Copy the next three sentences in your blog and post.

As with my previous blog, it didn't go quite as planned, as I'm finding tends to be the case with aleatoric methods. Here we go.

The book was "Shostakovich, A Life Remembered" And the sentences are as follows:

However, he regarded him as his Teacher with a capital T, and received constant encouragement from him. Shostakovich will have appreciated Basner's warm and generous personality as well as his affectionate devotion. The two men went on to develop a close and lasting friendship.

There it is. Not much to add to that. It turns out to be all but the first sentence of a block quote from some other source. Seeing that this was somewhat of a bust, I thought I'd push the aleatoricism a bit and do the same thing from each room where I find myself spending time. Considering that my house is filled with books, for each place, as with the first example, the most difficult thing to do was to determine which book was in fact the closest. Anyway, the above example was in the Office. Now to the Library...

From my habitual spot in the ugly Pumpkin orange swivel chair I inherited from a friend, the closest book was "Everybody's Book of Epitaphs." This one should be good. On page 123 the appointed sentences were, again, a block quote--the epitaph of William Webbe in Caius College Chapel, AD. 1613:

A richer Webb then any art can weave.
The Soule the Faith to Christ makes firmly cleave.
This Webbe can Death, nor Devils sunder, nor untwist,
For Christ and Grace doth both ground work are, and List.

The Living Room was a touch more difficult, as I still have all the books Brian sent me stacked up on the floor. I decided to plop down where I usually do and pick up the closest thing in arm's reach. I had to go through 4 books before coming up with one that had either 123 pages or 5 sentences on that page. A literary journal has a poem titled "When He Says You Never Write any Good Poems About ME" by Lyn Lifshin, we get a bit steamy...

Years my/ arms ached for more than the tiger cats and/ the buff kitten.If a man wrote me from some/ / coast I opened on paper to him, came on to/ strangers and convicts on the page. Those sheets/ always felt safe enough to let them know their words got me wet, even my hair was horny.

Well, well. In the Dining Room we have Volume 5 of the Masterworks of Children's literature, the Victorian age. Odd how sex and the Victorian Age get juxtaposed.

"The cottage gate was now opened and Major Graham himself appeared under the porch; but instead of hurrying forward, as he always formerly did, to welcome them after the very shortest separation, he stood gravely and silently at the door, without so much as raising his eyes from the ground; and the paleness of his countenance filled both Harry and Laura with astonishment. They flew to meet him, making an exclamation of joy; but after embracing him affectionately, he did not utter a word, and led the way with hurried and agitated steps into a sitting-room. 'Where is Frank?' exclaimed Henry, looking eagerly round."

Ah, the Victorians and their love of the semicolon. The book says this is literature for children, and perhaps this would work, if the child happened to be Henry James. Maybe James' syntax is due to having to read to much of this stuff.

In the kitchen, the closest book to the refrigerator was The Woman Warrior by Maxine Hong Kingston, believe it or not. The sentences are as follows:

"The knee hole had boxes of toys that the married children's children played with now. Brave Orchid's husband had padlocked one large bottom cabinet and one drawer. 'Why do they keep it locked' Moon Orchid asked."

The hallway had "Straw for the Fire" the notebooks of Theodore Roethke:

As for you, assassin of air,/ Noise in the topmost tree,/ Articulated despair,/ The inhuman ecstasy:/ My lament to the last; unloved.../ / I, in exile, forever/ For that which I would aquire no longer is, never existed./ / I belong to my solitude. I shall die for myself.

Lovely. Happy, and perfectly in keeping with the weather outside. I shall move on to my hideously blue bathroom. There, the reading is Swinburne. Rather than answer questions as to why Swinburne is in the bathroom, I'll just put down the quote:

And grief is a grievous thing, and a man hath enough of his tears;/ Why should he labour, and bring fresh grief to blacken his years?/ Thou hast conquered, o pale Galilean; the world has grown grey from thy breath;/ We have drunken of things Lethean, and fed on the fulness of death./ Laurel is green for a season, and love is sweet for a day;/ But love grows bitter with treason, and laurel outlives not May.

Nothing like pessimism for a productive poo.

The bedrooms were rather problematic. I just got in bed and picked up the closest thing to my head. This is from volume 4 of Jules Romains' monumental (and not particularly good) novel Men of Good Will:

Now, put down on paper figures to represent the ambitions of Napoleon and Hugo and write beside them two or three astronomical quantities. That's the only argument needed. But from the moment one ceases to believe in the importance of 'ends', one is left with only one reason for action: the necessity of forgetting one's own nothingness, as Pascal puts it, or, if you prefer it, a despairing dilettantism?

The final room I'll bother you with is the second bedroom, where the closest book was "The Life of a Useless Man" by Maxim Gorky:

On his first visit to the servants' quarters, he would try to bribe them by the cheapness of his goods and by little presents. Then he would carefully question them about those particular details his bosses were interested in. When he felt that the information gathered was insufficient, he was inclined to make up the deficiency from his own head, inventing it according to the plan drafted for him by the old, fat, and very sensitive Solovyov.

This all seems to hark back to my experience in the lovely world of Corporate America, especially under the thumb of a particular supervisor. I'll not name names. I never thought that bribes would be specifically attractive by the "cheapness of the goods," however. But then again handing out candy is far from handing out Louis Vuitton bags.
Oh, um, Kristen, were we supposed to apply this to our lives, our biographical history, or our possible future? I'm dying to know how this will turn out...