Announcing a new old chapbook as part of the H_NGM_N's Combatives Chapbook series: "The Revisionist". Thank you Nate Pritts and H_NGM_N! This is exciting for a few reasons, one of which is that this old boy is something that I'd wanted to be out there for a while and finally it is. Those who have seen drafts of longer manuscripts in recent years have seen it before! Sorry it's not new to you! The poem (a not all that long long poem) dates back to pregraduate school and is sort of my last gasp of willful naivite before I went and got schooled! It's also the turning point of when I began to think my ideas were more interesting than my being! Boy was I wrong! John Kinsella read a draft of it and correctly inferred that I didn't read much poetry! Things have changed! Thanks for reading!

hi. over the weekend i drove up to fort bragg where i saw massive amounts of hitchhiking neohippy types walking down the road. but that's not why i drove up there. i drove up there to pick up my mom from a horse riding trip that she had been on for a week. on saturday i drove up to fort bragg and observed many a hitchhiker and wondered if that was the way it always was in fort bragg. combine this with "already dead" the denis johnson novel i've been reading that is full of northern california burnout types and i got a creepy feeling about fort bragg but it probably isn't as bad as denis johnson makes it out to be. at the time that was okay because there was cable television at the hotel i was staying at and watched again the movie michael clayton. that is a supremely excellent movie. highly recommended. i wrote a poem about it even. that's how much i like that movie. so satisfying and slightly slightly metaphysical, he walks up the hill to see the horses and his car blows up. but why did he walk up that hill to see the horses? the entire movie serves to answer that question and then resolves with a highly satisfying ending. it reminds me of the same kind of satisfaction i got from watching the virgin suicides where you know how the movie ends sort of but forget about when watching the movie. i just got an email from erkia and she wondered what i was up to because this blog doesn't actually reveal anything.

events continued: i picked up my mother on sunday morning from the horse ranch a sprawling do it oneself bed and breakfast called the howard creek inn built entirely by a man who told my mother and i that he told his wife he was going out to get ice cream when he was twenty eight and had made a lot of money from television and never came back and instead ended up in northern california where nobody was living thirty years ago and you could pretty much just find houses and furniture and wood and build things out of them, such as his sprawling bed and breakfast. try dying and get rich. he recommend being homeless and i suggested we talk about it when my mother isn't around. but today was funny, the museums being closed my mom was really into the "go cars" the little scooters that tourists rent to see the city so after work that's what we did and though i was supremely embarrassed for a little while i got used to it and it was actually kind of fun to ride around in the goofy little machine that people smile at but you're not sure why. tomorrow we're going to alcatraz. yup. living large. turns out that there was some kind of music festival by fort bragg thus explaining all the hitchhikers.

If You

If you were going to get a pet
what kind of animal would you get.

A soft bodied dog, a hen--
feathers and fur to begin it again.

When the sun goes down and it gets dark
I saw an animal in a park.

Bring it home, to give it to you.
I have seen animals break in two.

You were hoping for something soft
and loyal and lean and wondrously careful--

a form of otherwise vicious habit
can have long ears and be called a rabbit.

Dead. Died. Will die. Want.
Morning, midnight. I asked you

if you were going to get a pet
what kind of animal would you get.

___________Robert Creeley, from "For Love" (1963)

wednesday morning the sun continues to climb i have to admit i've been concerned about that super collider that they've been getting ready in europe the seventeen mile loop of vacuum tube (approximately) that took twenty year to build (approximately) where a team of very excited physicists will smash seventeen billion electrons (approximately) against each other in hope of producing something called the higgs particle that might be the little speck that clues us in to how mass/stuff is created and then finally a small group of scientists could say they were right text books would change and we could be one millionth of a degree closer to unlocking the secrets of the universe. great. really. but there is the off chance the slim chance that smashing electrons into each other at speeds that simulate such events as the big bang could in fact reset the universe or create a black hole which we will all be sucked in to end of the world good bye. here are some facts. but always we're predicting the end of the world so this is probably just more of this kind of thinking fear of death personal issues blown up into the political. in other news, last night my shady employer offered baseball tickets which i took them up on to see the giants it was a nice night a beautiful stadium looking out onto the water. my pants smell like urine. beuno.

Last Thursday McCain spoke of the shallowness of self as compared to giving oneself over to a cause greater than oneself. He spoke of his love for his country and not much else. The next morning I wondered what loving your country or giving oneself to a cause has to do with education,the housing crisis, health care, or the war in Iraq. 

During a freewrite towards the end of the summer semester, using the prompt "the world is..." a student wrote: the world is a joke when your school hires an idiot to be your role model, and smirked, looking me directly in the eye as she read it. The class gasped. I looked down, cringed, and kept moving. Later, going over a handout on the fallacies or argument we came to a section on "name calling" and we got a chance to talk about the inability of labels to advance discussion in a productive way. Instead, dead ending it in a binary: no, I'm not / yes, you are, etc. Sarah Palin...

Sarah Palin and Rudy Giuliani seem like smart people whose imagination has failed them, leaving us with caricatures of people and ideas. It takes a lot of energy to paint a realistic picture. School started today and it will be good to get my mind out of the political gutter. On the bright side I finally got a San Francisco Giants hat for the low low price of one dollar. Finally the guy at the convenience store will get off my case for wearing an Athletics hat. He will be so proud!

back in san francisco and getting ready for the new semester that starts today but don't need to be in class until monday. who am i talking to? the last three days were spent up in oregon for a delightful romp in the woods with old friends say buddies boozing and eating and walking through lakes and up rivers and sinning and laughing maybe chuckling and sleeping in cold cabins protected by fires and morning sun roiling open eyes and bringing mosquitoes and choices. that is to say there is a lot to be done before monday in terms of getting ready for class the most difficult task of switching mind frames from indulging the id to returning to the ego not that either are exlusive or singular but politics, the parts we missed in the woods and on the way to the airport giuliani couldn't help but laugh that obama was a community organizer and this made us angry the blatent disrespect and the absolute insanity that people would be willing to vote for four more years of a republican administration unable to admit failure and the absolute supremacy of media in this country and my mother's comment that she would really have to reconsider "what kind of country we live in" if mccain won and in the newspaper a letter the comment that jesus was a community organizer and that dude giuliani is a seriously ignorant jackass but that's politics they say to project paranoid neurosis onto your brothers and sorry about that but dang it made me angry it's a hot day in san francisco going swimming at five i'll see you there.

Palo Alto is filled with helium balloons floating up above the heads of its celebrating citizens. Last night Obama talked about "...an economy that honors the dignity of work." Wouldn't that be nice? Watch the speech here. It's important. And have a most excellent day. Friend Liz is coming down from the city and to go swimming, the last days of summer break...

Palo Alto is filled with cars and streets. It is also filled with hot weather. I went to the pool yesterday to stretch my swimming muscles and found hundreds of children who had already found the pool. Last night I watched Joe Biden offer an amazing speech an amazing account of his life, what needs to change, Obama etc. My favorite part of the speech was the beginning, after his son's introduction, how proud he is of his son, and what his father had told him,that if your children come out better than you than you've done a good job. Or what his mother told him after his first wife and daughter were killed in a car crash: god gives you no cross that you cannot bear, which is probably a religious cliche but it made sense to me last night. These are the bits that moved me and the rest was mostly politics, justified attacks on the current Bush administration and the likelihood, based on McCain's record, that he would be continuing the current administrations policies. Then it got weird, the convention, Obama accepting the nomination a day early, and then appearing on the stage as a "surprise guest" like some kind of reality show where the contestants get their next assignment from Hulk Hogan or Marissa Tormey. But it must be kind of strange for Obama, with everybody around him and supporting him significantly more experienced. I don't mean to bring that up, the experience issue, but after all that Clinton and Biden speech making and conviction and confidence, Obama's stage appearance made him seem like the junior senator he is. I guess we'll see tonight, through his speech, what exactly he has`to offer because even though he was out and about in the`spring, it feels like it's been a long time since I heard him speak. I write this with one hand, the other holding a warm compress to my eye which seems to be going through some kind of sty, a side effect of swimming and goggles. Thus with one hand and one finger, this was typed s.lo...w..ly. Don't forget about w.yo..min..g

Personality Test

Do you pay your debts and keep out of trouble
Do you admire beauty in others you have loaned to
Can you accept defeat easily in an emotional situation
Do you throw things away only by looking
Do you speedily recover from it is too late
Do you often feel for no apparent reason
Do you find you make yourself nervous
Do you work and work against you
Do you consider the disagreement
Do you browse through behavior
Are your opinions projects
Do you turn up about you
Hear the wind or you
Do you belong to you
Do you turn unreal
Are you an effect
Are you involved
Is your life a fear
Do you consider
Are you aware
Are you original
Can you easily imitate
Can you accept
Can you trust
Do you often
Are you always
Would you like to
Work against you
Do you throw things
Do you have few
Do you refrain
Do you find it easy
Do you feel
To express your
That people are
That the speaker is
Do you turn off
Do you turn unreal
Would you admire
Would you prefer
Is your life
Do you find
Do you keep
Can you stop
Would you give
Do you have
Do you resent
Are you readily
Is it normally
Would you usually
Have you any
Are you so
Is it too
Do you not
Do you speak
Do you work
Do you tend
Do you try
Did you ever
Were you ever
Will you ever
Know?

Moving to New York in January (circa 2006)

Adam was the first person I spoke to in New York.
Rain was the first weather I experienced in New York.
A Honda Civic was the first car I rode in in New York.
An apple was the first thing I ate in New York.
My brother is the first person I called in New York.
“Turkish Kitchen” was the first restaurant I ate at in New York.
Barbara is the first person to not call me back in New York.
Johnathan is the first person I wrote and email to in New York.
The L was the first train I took in New York.
Grape Juice was the first thing I bought in New York.
The first meal I made in New York consisted of sausage, cheese, and horse radish.
My first breakfast was waffles and tea in New York.
Barbara was the first person who called me back in New York.
Union square was the first place I met someone in New York.
“The Cellar” was the first bar I went to in New York.
Talking about pulling skin off my lip was the first time I felt awkward in New York.
To buy fabric with my brother was my first outing in New York.
“American Ape” was the first book title I misread in New York.
Adam's black hat was the first thing I borrowed in New York.
Janet was the first person who referred to me as a poet in New York.
My brother was the first person to tell me their dream in New York.
The first snack I ate in New York was peanut butter and crackers.
“Who gets to call it Art?” was the first movie I went to in New York.
The “Foxy” was the first gallery I went to in New York.
B. was the first person to tell me “We're not getting back together” in New York.
14th and 1st was the first corner I tried to change somebody's mind in New York.
Adam's apartment was the first place I was bummed out in New York.
Molly was the first person I called for comfort in New York.
Adam's desk was the first place I wanted to cry but couldn't in New York.
Adam's sublet was the first apartment I rearranged in New York.
Adam's sublet was the first place I wished I had a television in New York.
My zipper was the first thing to break in New York.
The 19th was the first time I didn't care that I was in New York.
Fort Greene was the first place I went jogging in New York.
H_NGM_N was the first journal to accept my poems in New York.
“Kafka on the Shore” was the first book I finished in New York.
Nate was the my first visitor in New York.

The train rolls by the tram. I'm laying in the grass of the ever so popular Dolores park. "I see her walking down the street and just feel like she doesn't belong." A young guy with an orange beard and no shirt gets stoned just up the hill and makes a phone call. Yesterday, same spot, I watched a different young guy with a beard get stoned and make a phone call. What's with this place? Eventually I relent and give into the plot, the sun attacks my back and the voices and grasses. Swimming changes music into deep exhales or cubes of sleep that one brushes their foot against, waking up periodically throughout the night. It's taken me forever to realize I'm lazy, much less liberate myself from this spoiled state, a willingness to capsize the boat to meet a girl. I am thinking of breaking up with myself. After talking to Chris briefly, I spoke about the difficult semester and he said two things: nobody died (at least we have our health), and maybe you've learned something for next time. I told him about the anxiety dreams, and the fact that I'm still having them two weeks after the semester ended, of students upset and complaining about the class and then it became obvious: I put all of myself out there for the three twelve and wasn't prepared to deal with a few choice assholes. My brother tells me to "toughen up."

I smoke cigarettes because I am addicted to nicotine.
I smoke cigarettes because I have time to spare.
I smoke cigarettes because my wife is giving birth.
I smoke cigarettes because it's midterms.
I smoke cigarettes because I've been drinking.
I smoke cigarettes because I am on vacation in Italy.
I smoke cigarettes because I am a metal worker.
I smoke cigarettes on a hill in a park.
I smoke cigarettes habitually.
I smoke cigarettes because I don't know what else to do.
I smoke cigarettes to be controlled.
I smoke cigarettes because my imagination fails me.
I smoke cigarettes because I don't like to hang out in bars or cafes.
I smoke cigarettes because my wife isn't pregnant.
I smoke cigarettes because I'm single.
I smoke cigarettes because I like them.
I smoke cigarettes because my parents did and they seem alright.
I smoke cigarettes to take a break.
I smoke cigarettes because the fifties weren't that bad.
I smoke cigarettes to reward myself.
I smoke cigarettes to signal that I don't care.
I smoke cigarettes to have a reason to get out of certain situations.
I smoke cigarettes to suppress sexual desire.
I smoke cigarettes because I'm lonely.
I smoke cigarettes because it reminds me of old friends.
I smoke cigarettes because I don't have any better ideas.
I smoke cigarettes to breathe.
I smoke cigarettes to slow down.
I smoke cigarettes because I do not believe I can stop.
I smoke cigarettes because the sky is falling.
I smoke cigarettes to take care of baby.
I smoke cigarettes to rebel.
I smoke cigarettes because I think I am cold and they are hot.

The world is a tiny tiny place.

The world is a food processor.
The world is a mouse fart.
The world is a rich text document.
The world is a fine toothed comb.
The world is a mushroom.
The world is a bag of mushrooms.
The world is a gravy train.
The world is a grape fruit squeezer.
The world is a small handsaw.
The world is a busy airport.
The world is a recalcitrant chair.
The world is a jumping jack.
The world is a metaphysical conundrum.
The world is a rich text format.
The world is windows.
The world is a shelf covered in dust.
The world is a famous writer.
The world is a recent memory of a faun being birthed.
The world is a handsome beast.
The world is a muddy cup of river water.
The world is a leaf.
The world is a deep pond.
The world is a gravity bong.
The world is shameless.
The world is sadness.
The world is suffering.
The world is a greatest hits album.
The world is a recent acquisition.
The world is a greasy spoon.
The world is a western civilization.
The world is an industrial coal mine.
The world is a treatment program, in and out.
The world is barely old enough.
The world is a shopping cart filled with cans being taken to the
recycling center.
The world is a busy beaver.
The world is a soft and fuzzy place.
The world is an axe handle.
The world is a model.
The world is an ingenious invention.
The world is a can of peas.
The world is an oily fish.
The world is a list of things to do.
The world is a recent history deleted.
The world is a tuna fish sandwich toasted, and with cheese.
The world is overpriced but of good quality.
The world is a ham fisted soliloquy.
The world is a radioactive hamster.
The world is a mutant star.
The world is a returnable and reusable ink cartridge.
The world is Ellise coming to pick up the table.
The world is a quick conversation with your roommate.
The world is an apology.
The world is a wedding announcement.
The world is an unreadable penmanship.
The world is an expert marksman.
The world is a shaky arrow.
The world is a nameless hay bale.
The world is a really upscale laundry mat.
The world is a wire mesh box filled with bees.
The world in a minute a mess of fruit flies.
The world is for fruit flies too.
The world is a warm beach clogged with jelly fish.
The world is a reasonably priced four door sedan with a "moon roof."
The world is ice cream.
The world is your entire crew.
etc.

On a train in-between San Luis Obispo and Oakland, reading "The Emperor's Children" by Claire Messud that I had wanted to read for awhile and then not at all, and then suddenly again this afternoon while at the book store, looking for something for the train. Jen wrote a brief review of the book, and to paraphrase, "what a disappointment," but I'm only on page ninety three so I can't confirm or deny this.

The book is about people in their early thirties who went to Brown as undergraduates and aren't finding their way exactly, living in New York. The conversation between Marina and her father, the expression of parental disappointment when Marina confesses that she is lost and her father's thoughts of entitlement and a spoiled child. The bit about Julius wondering what it is that successful people posses and setting his sights on a relationship with his boss.

The conversation from a week ago, the unabashed yes, I want to be involved with a person who outwardly pursues what I find attractive so that I don't have to. The excerpt from "Alive in Necropolis" in the book review about the yuppie party full of two types of people, and to paraphrase again, those who are living their parent's lives and those still living their college lives, a false dichotomy but it makes me think.

The day I turned in the summer grades I ran into Katie and Jim and we had lunch at a small breakfast place in a not too bad at two in the afternoon block of the Tenderloin, happy to finally spontaneously go out with people who I didn't feel any obligation to sleep with. Back to the book, another hundred pages in, themes so far about privilege and disappointment, and like me on a foggy day, a group of people who feel their only choices are to try for eight gold medals or smoke hashish.

The question of what we want or at least the question of admitting this insecurity as the question: do we admit these times of doubt or wait until they pass? Do I keep posting through the muddled time or leave a record of where I am? In Portland, my roommate Craig had a nervous breakdown during his first year teaching high school. He told everybody about what was going on immediately: his family, his roommates, his bosses, his co-workers; took a week off and got himself together enough to finish the year. I attributed his quick recovery to the fact that he was comfortable enough where he was to ask for help.

This could keep going, these paragraphs, but I'm going to stop now. The last two weeks have been vacation like, seeing friends Johnathan and Anna and Bill, entertaining and day tripping around San Francisco. The past weekend was in San Luis Obispo helping paint Joel and Jesse's house. I have a week of intentional grounding here at the apartment on Valencia and then I'm doing a tiny house sit in Palo Alto, followed by Buddyfest up in Portland. Then school starts. Let me know if you have any questions. See you later.

today was the last day of the summer semester a full class of presentations of proposal arguments that i will attempt to topically summarize in the following story: walking through an alley on my way to class today i noticed a stray cat unable to defend itself because it was missing its claws so i stopped to take it to the animal shelter but realized the shelter will most likely euthinize this cat or sell it to the animal circus where the circus trainers will negatively reenforce it to learn tricks like carry the babies of other cats for money or smoke cigarettes or force it to take standardized tests that obviously it will not pass because cats can't read so i took a picture of it with my digital camera, adjusting the colors to give it that 'natural light look' and brought the picture home to my roommate who is always stoned from pot he buys illegally from people who buy legally from cannabis clubs but it's his choice so i don't say much and instead focus on the vast knowledge and many opportunities he gained from his global education and he looks at me and says dude, why are you so concerned about a cat when we've passed peak oil and our institutions are deeply discriminatory against women and by the way, this picture looks like shit. and i so i said how would you like to walk around on your knuckles? or be forced to walk on your hands because your feet are too burnt? if we had a symbol for this cat crisis or the environmental crisis like a man on the moon or two buildings collapsing in the middle of new york would we take it more seriously? urgently? just because the streets of san francisco have an open enrollment policy doesn't mean they're a lesser institution than a gated community. and with that, i returned to the alley, found the cat, and enrolled it in a chinese cooperative institution after a lengthy and frustrating financial aid application process. currently, this cat is being positively reinforced and rehabilitated with snacks.

Fin

by the same token (conversation with self continued), this two o two class has almost single handedly restored my faith that this teaching is a job worth doing. seeing the proposal arguments come together and having some students genuinely engaging with research, reading, and putting it all together reminds me of the enthusiasm i had when i was an undergraduate studying sociology with professor peterson, his enthusiasm and passion for trying to make sense of the world, its structure and abstraction and why people make the choices they make. that is to say, some of these papers are really good and wow, i actually helped teach someone! so, not to project that it's all doom and gloom but after next week, the end of the semester, i will be looking for other work while living off the government dole (adjunct teachers are entitled to unemployment). ideally i'd like to find a part time research/writing job and combine it with teaching part-time. the academy pays for shit, but sometimes it's almost sort of worth it. welcome to august.

(from today's three twelve class) I'm totally and absolutely flustered, coming in from supporting Rene's class once again, trying to pull my thoughts and myself...in. Not that it's dramatic, or too dramatic, but this morning I focused my breathing for a good length of time, trying to locate the big white ball of stress caught up in the in the middle of my diaphragm. I actually got somewhere and it would be a mistake to say things have gotten out of control. Vibrating phone and world comes back. If there was a way into the chapter, I could play the location game with confidence. Instead it's the grind, as the say, another day another dollar. The beatings will continue until moral improves. I entered Rene's class in a good spot, but after all this pushing and shoving about trying to understand the student's final projects, I've ended up back inside my chest. No location or locution. An awkward position and coming in late, men with no conscience and the women who love them. Tonight at eleven. I'm looking forward to doing some gardening on Saturday.

Two on the War

i.
Perhaps the way to implode radical Islamic militants is to legitimize their authority and presence. Give them something to lose. As an organization or bureaucracy grows so does its ineffectiveness on the street; the strength and seeming root of fundamentalist belief. Fat cat unioneering and giving everybody what they want. The middle class: some thing to love.

ii.
Insects hatch while they can, all at once. Red ants and flying ones, within hours they were all gone. I would've liked to have told you. I would've liked for you to have seen it. They were swarming up the banister out of the concrete, thick and of one mind. Why did I forget to to tell you? Why is the answer to the question always the same? A semi-circle of mushrooms grows undisturbed. If only I had thought to bring this up, the beginnings of a radical script.

Relevant Employment

Free Lance Painting, WI, WA, OR, RI, NY.................................................2000-Present
Painter, Four Square Painting and Home Repair, Madison, WI........................Fall 2005 & 2006
Maintenance, The Perry Center for Children, Portland, OR.................................2002-2003
Painter, River Bend Youth Center, Oregon City, OR........................................2002-2003
Tom Naue Painting, Madison, WI.........................................................Summer 1999
Factory Work, American Pine, Prineville, OR...........................................Summer 1998
Landscaper/Laborer, Midland Builders, Madison, WI............................Summers 1995, 1996
Laborer, Merry Christmas Tree Farm, Mineral Point, WI (family business) .............1985-2000

Relevant Skills

Painting
Oil Painting
Faux Painting
Removing Paint
Prepping Walls for Painting
Plastering
Sanding
Taping
Drywalling
Basic Carpentry including knowledge of tools, and ability to read blueprints
Wall Paper Removal
Water Damage Repair
Driving heavy machinery including tractors and Bobcats
Lawn maintenance
Construction site maintenance
Putting up Barbwire Fencing
Using a chainsaw
Brush Burning (Fire Safety)
Wood Staining
Rock Work
Hay Bailing
Weed Wacking
Tree Trimming
Tree Planting
Field Mowing
Vehicle maintenance
Sewing

consumption as a break from desking, i went out to amoeba records yesterday afternoon, riding the thirty three over and down the hill to the upper haight. i had a list of records i was interested in, and found most of them, took them over to the listening station, previewed and picked a few, went back to the stacks, founds some more etc. but in the end, unable to decided amongst the multitude of options, i put them all down and got back on the thirty three. i'm not made out of money you know. today's sunday paper had yet another five articles about how we're all headed for economic/spiritual doom once the lenders come calling for their money, and by lenders i mean foreign countries who are invested in these big (morally) bankrupt companies such as fannie mae. apparently the only way that we can save our selves is to keep spending money. but if we are using all our money to pay off debt, we don't have much to spend on ipods, or rims or whatever. um, (say something smart say something smart,) i think it would be best if we all got some rest. this morning i woke in a panic prompted by dreams of class (school class, not economic). it's been quite busy lately. my mind is a ball of mud.

on the bright side, today i went to burger king and felt extremely lethargic for about two hours afterwords. it was totally worth it, but you would think a wax paper cup full of ice cold coca cola would burn through that bloated salty feeling. there was something wrong with the straw. when i was ordering i almost (almost) said to the cashier as she told me my total of six dollars and seventy something cents, you know, when i was in high school, whoppers were only ninety nine cents. for two dollars you could feel totally bloated and blob through your fifth period psychology class, repressing farts while listening to the funny psychology teacher talk about pavlov's dogs while waving around a diet coke. or that time cole and i thought it would be a good idea, while we were living in prineville and working at a lumber mill during some weirdo summer between our sophomore and junior year of college, to buy a bag full of thirty nine cent hamburgers from mcdonalds to take advantage of their sunday special, and eat them all throughout the week. that lasted three days maybe. the hamburgers began to not taste so good after awhile. it's possible that they never tasted good. god is good. it's a beautiful night.

(notes from class today)

Today is muddled. Today the barometric pressure has dropped. Today not all that many students came to class. Today is cloudy. Today is a mud ball. Today is a plate of beans. Today is the color green leaking slowly from low hanging clouds. Today is the expression on my face. Today is not my first language. Today is a grease trap. Today is a pound of bacon. Today is a glass of water sitting on the counter collecting dust. Today is a wide mouth pop top. Today is a wool sweater. Today is a low quality sausage with just enough pepper for it to taste good. Today is a clown snack. Today is an extremely large glass eye.

What is this arguing for? The world in a minute? The world is a vampire? The world is a cold and barren place? Damn I need a sandwich. Damn. Damn I'm hungry. Damn you're hungry. Damn. Damn. Damn.

There's a poet named Vernonica Forrest-Thomson, or, rather, there was a poet named Veronica Forrest-Thomson, who published a book of literary criticism named Poetic Artifice posthumously, following her suicide at the age of twenty-eight. Bummer. I woke up thinking of this, not her exactly but one of the ideas from this book, a book that I read while living in Brooklyn a book that was at the New York Public library and is considered a rare book because not many were published, thus you can't usually just order one on-line. You have to find it in a University collection (if you're lucky. Anyway...). The idea that as readers we have a tendency for "external naturalization" when we read a story or a poem; a tendency to try to create a comparable meaning outside of the writing that we can compare the two with, for example "this poem is about the writer's relationship with his father" or "this story is about living in Israel as a Palestinian"... something like that. We do it all the time: remove whatever it is from its context and put it into a context that is easier to understand and explain. Think 'soundbite', or your friends in the avant-garde explaining how a particular piece of dissonant music was made.

This isn't a bad thing, our tendency to relate, and in fact it's why we're able to make sense of things: because in our readings or listenings we relate what is being said to ourselves and our own experiences. In reading a poem or listening to a song, we'll go back and forth between paying rapt attention to the thing, and rattling around in our own minds. Like a pop song, think verse chorus verse, and the chorus is when our ears take a break and we sing along, or inhabit the persona of the hip-hopper, or whatever. She writes:

"Our reading must work through the level of meaning into the external world and then, via the non-semantic levels of artifice, back into the poem, enriched by the external contexts of reference in which it found itself momentarily merged. This is what continuity in poetic language means."

Or in other words, every time we go into our heads we bring back something new to the poem or piece that we're interacting with, and with that new information or memory, we go back into the poem's structure, thereby setting up new and fresh comparisons until we are once again sent out into our own heads...back and forth back and forth etc. I write all this because I woke up thinking of what we were going to do for today's 'freewrite', where at the start of every class we spend about ten minutes writing and then sharing what we wrote. My question (or topic) is not who was Veronica Forrest-Thomson, but does everything we write or say or do have a comparable external meaning?

friend cole emailed a particular youtube clip that i want to share with you all. it is truly amazing. while i'm at it, here is another one. have a good weekend if you have weekends.

It's weird: the more I write in the blog the more comments come back. Not that I'm trying to write anymore, but anyway, I've been listening to the self titled crystal castles album and really enjoying it in a kind of dance floor disco kind of way, like when certain songs come on I can't help but walk by placing one foot in front of the other in a slightly aggressive manner, like the way I imagine models do, which is embarrassing so I stop. It also makes me think of a particular ex and imagine she would be into it, the music, because it feels like its made for/by people just a little bit cooler than me, the dance punk wave that began just as the warp era electronic music that i so dearly love petered out and with it my need to keep up on what's new. Cole wrote a couple comments ago that sometimes I blog like I'm on cocaine and wasn't sure if this was good or bad. The magazine Casey brought back from work has an article on David Berman where the subheading speaks of his "path to usefulness." That sounds nice. Before bed I've been reading the The Inner Chapters by Chuang Tzu, he writes: "A mole drinking at the river needs but a single bellyful. Go home and rule through idleness." Clearly I have more work to do.

Last night I dreamt that there were two bees living in my shoes, a pair of Reeboks my brother had given me, with 'Hexalite' webbing in the heel. The window was on the inside of the right shoe, but it was damaged somehow, so the two bees could come in and out. I was worried about getting stung on my heel. I tried to squash the bees with a chisel like tool but the bees had already flown away. I woke up and opened the curtain, and sat in the window letting the sun onto my shoulders. They say it's going to be "a hot one" today.

I consider myself to be a relatively lucky person, though I’m not sure what this means. It’s one of those latent ideas or feelings that operates underneath, and ties to some large, mysterious mass of psychology if we want to think of it that way.

Or, that luck is more of the power of attraction, the secret and other self help remedies that fail to hold weight when pressed. I guess that’s why luck isn’t considered a religion, because it’s random: the alligator makes its move but snaps a twig. A bird flies away.

Somehow this makes the most sense; that things happen, but it’s easy to stray from chance to fate, as if some thing is in control. We make notes of all this to keep track. But what is it? Circumstance? If I run into my friend at the grocery store should I be surprised?

Luck seems to me like a perspective, that how we look at something determines if it’s lucky. I think this is an idea that’s easy to understand:

A moon was found in the sky, entire and singular.

I believe this is the perspective required for luck. On the other hand, sixteen year old, my friend Aric and his string of crashed cars: I think it’s bad luck, he said. I believed him.

tuesday yep and class starts at twelve but i got done a little early preparing for the incredibly awesome and awe inspiring day where we look at and talk about the nuts and bolts of argument which is kind of funny since i'm probably the last person you'd want teaching you how to argue but after teaching this class five times previous i've learned a few things but my point is i got done early because i woke up early somewhere around six for some unknown reason the orange light of the sunrise coming in to my feng shui situated head pointed north as i sleep and woke up thinking of yesterday's class, to be there and wondering why i was in charge and forgetting to have fun or at least follow one's own agenda rather than the imaginary expectations of the imaginary masses reminding myself it was just a mood left over from the weekend the party on saturday where i met a person who worked at a sandwhich shop that i would occasionaly frequent growing up which he informed me was a place where people dealt cocaine he was from milwaukee curse word curse word etc. etc. and after this story he proceeded to the bathroom to do cocaine which made me thank my dorky shirts for not being cool enough to be invited to backrooms and bathrooms to talk frantically to strangers i turned to joel thinking the guy was just quirky and was informed otherwise that no those were the drugs talking

the eye of my mini-disc shut itself today. it was tired. tired of playing songs so that i might take a break from the racket, or abridge the gap in my head, or listen. it happened on the train, hanging from two steel poles on the rush hour train. nobody knew. my headphones stayed in but the music stopped. the music came back. i fiddled with it. ejected the disc, put it back in, skipped tracks, came back to the one i wanted...my mini-disc is tired. i'm tired. every time a student tells me a i look tired i feel tired. my mini-disc has a laser beam for an eye, whereas, i have brown. they take in whatever is in front of them, though recently bright lights have been hurting i'm glancing at the white apartment building across the street. it makes blinky spots whenever i look at it. resolution: don't look. nap time.

saturday in the middle of the afternoon i set out to play basketball a couple hours ago but my body wasn't up to more than a few trips up and down the court and after one sour game where the proverbial team leader clearly frowned at my lack of mojo my man on man defense of let's call him "tim" not quite working out i left to come back rehydrate take a shower and return to full bore lizard position i had plans to go the gay pride parade today (post-script: it was actually sunday and i made it wowie i've never seen anything like that in wisconsin) but forget it i'm beat it was a really full week and i'm not saying that because yours was or wasn't but because its just a lot of talking and 'teaching' if that's what they call it and it wears me out so that by the time my last hour of pronuncation workshop came late on friday evening i asked the students if i could go home my person in front of me brain so tired and pretty much kaput but its saturday and later i'll finally get a chance to read people's poems that have been building up while i've been working the rough drafts of the memoirs from the other class thank the god of syllabuses for writing late work will not receive feedback because that's the only way i possibly could of gotten everything done but next week it will begin to taper off the friday the fourth of july a non-school day and the three twelve all class workshop getting into gear but i'm excited still mostly about the semester two good groups of students in my opinion last thursday we talked about haiku about basho and sent them out to do a narrow road to the interior type journey i'm excited to see how it comes out and translate a poem from the chinese wang wei deer-park hermitage that too i'm excited about but its time to rest now i'll try to do that without hurting myself

yesterday a student informed me that i used 'um' upwards of forty five times in yesterdays opening salvo lecture about sonnets the logic being that we start off talking about form before we get into content the idea that content will take care of itself as the writer one assumes has their own axe to grind or at least doesn't have the same axe as me but this is a matter of philosophy so we'll leave it open to the jury and other figures of speech to mark the day after the longest day of the year and yes its been a goofy long week and after this afternoon will mark the most teaching i've done in a week tweleve hours in a classroom and the connection between fatigue and the amount of times ones says um but in other news it was hot is still hot a haze wakes up the morning and traffic sounds go and go and go writes Witold Gombrowicz, "It is man who obliges man to work." and woman.

so saying 'um' or not actually has a lot to do with whether i'm tired or not or where exactly my motivation lies say the two o two class i taught yesterday the inevitable come down i felt in the transition from three twelve to the next day in a new building without the enthusiasm or at least not as much brings out signs of fatigue say 'um' but at least there is a santa claus virginia compounded with a study group for typography for which i embarrassingly had no answers to offer and instead offered aphorisms from the instructors mouth as a consolation but oh well we'll get them next time next life the half one or second one some kind of digital universe but to say the space in-between these places the morning as it shines my head to the north meets the sun rising from the east its all part of the wake up scheduale or its automatic when the sun begin to bake me laying in this small little box of a closet but also about school that the writing lab on tuesday will have to be cut because there was just nothing left absolutely nothing i can concentrate for a little while but in need to eat and eight hours straight of 'teaching' makes for mush mouth mealy mind today i'll plan class in the morning then take a trip to oakland to see my confidant if that's french the sun will be out all day if not we'll reconsider o lay

whell the semester started yesterday and it seems like it will be busy with a support class on noon a typography class where there's four panicking students thus far terrified of the instructors british accent that meets monday and thursday then after that its three twelve the creative writing class which also meets monday and thursday then today tuesday its 202 narrative documentary and also on friday but after today is writing lab and then the study group for the typography class and then wednesday will give me time to prepare for the upcoming classes don't ask me when i will be able to grade papers then friday afternoon its speaking lab all that to say that it will be a busy month and a half month but this is good because i've had a little too much time on my hands not in the form of the break but in the form of the last semester which was good but doing all kinds of support classes and having plenty of time for writing but it makes me think of that stephen king on writing book where he mentions that after his first big success he bought a gigantic oak desk and put it in the middle of his living space and it turned out that he didn't write anything after he did this the writing as the center of one's life metaphor that is to say its good to be busy and maybe the entirely polished lodestone of a writing practice that i've been fine tuning latey is good and dandy but it will be nice to take a break from worry about the relatively unimportant merits of what's happening inside my own head because i just won't have the time that is to say my new thing that i'm trying is to avoid saying 'um' and that requires that i just get it out before the whatever you call that has time to go back and filter through all my critical judgments and set the tone sort of say it don't spray it something like that to forget about tailoring one's speech to one's audience and instead to present oneself as one would have it it sounds simple but its not exactly a student i mentioned this to yesterday mentioned that they said cool a lot and i suggested we work on this together escaping our in-between thoughts and speak directly

You’re at your best when you believe or refuse to believe you or the idea of you, your self at your peak like your first kiss or paycheck. Your failings are your own, your problems to be dealt with by you, for you and nobody else. You mind your own business, you take care of yourself. You are healthy. You are clean as all get up. You feel good you feel proud of who you are, you are under your control, your watchful eye, your hands in your pockets fingering the money that you made on your merit, yours alone. Of course you don’t expect people to respect you immediately, but once they get to know you, the real deal, the real you, they’ll like you as you, your balloon says you, your clothes are so you. The you in you is the only you, unique and youthful, young and proud, brave and ready to move against weakness. You are a universal symbol of yourself. Your values are all you, no influence can corrupt you, the pure you, the unabridged entire you. Your smile radiates lakes and rivers and streams producing beautiful fish and insects on account of you. Your babies and your child, your children are you repeating as only you could. Adorable you you are adorable. Your hands mark your body, the beginning of your arms is in your finger tips. Your head is the size of your chest. Your grapefruit like eyes mark your vision as fresh as lemon juice. Your tight pecs and bi-lateral quadriceps make incisions of joy in your admirers, your friends are yours, buoyant because of you, the rock, your grit and steadfast ability to monitor greatness in others comes from your translucent you-ness, the essence in you is you. You know it. You make successful transitions from place to sea to shining waitress because you carry yourself well, your weight is your shadow and your shadow follows in your wake. You predict disaster for others because you know disaster, you devil you. Where you walk around, head full of ideas, your own thoughts like your dog or your clothes you take care of, wash meticulously and hang on the line in your back yard. Skip home you’re in love. Come home.

Writerly expressions with a big cursive bow on top of my head and music, softy playing while I casually massage a customer's shoulders and look up to see another come though the bell, a field of haze blowing my unholy mind into pieces: "Do you sell willful realizations?" and yes of course I jump up and destroy the distance between us, a thick gravy instead of legs transcending the space of a wallet's breath I show them a wall full of wrenches and screw drivers and tuck back into privacy to avoid saying "um" in between every breath and thought.

The customer wanes and I repeat myself in service, becoming the willow tree by the crystal river as a landmark of availability my watch says we're open for thirty more years and shoot lasers into the customer's Hepatitis B saddled liver or so I tell my doctor who doesn't believe me because I seem too "nice" to have dirty drug problems, but anyway, I lead them into the back room, cut off their hands and smear paint on their face and they thank me and I pocket a cool stack of appreciation notes.

Lunch time: everybody's favorite state of mind the realized swim about, I breakfast table the ambiance of a cat calling Wilco, the milk toast leprechaun, Chani, or other characters in Dune come through the doors slowly one by one and sign in rainbow script the will to turn mean evaporates and it's give give give with the corporate self consciousness, the "Indiana" of preventative measures the Anne Bancroft of hilarious stock room follies walks in and I practically give away pairs of jeans that fit perfectly a diamond 'x' pattern on the back pocket and a little hole on the waist band to signify an incredible style in tune with the very buttons on your shirt

because this is energy leaping over small woolen academics no more are we understanding embodied the skeletal remains of mix and match grouping herds according to cow stress the farmer transcends the dawn, puts on make up and barks orders at the chickens to "start clucking and put out some mother fucking roly polys" and I turn the sign around and count up my stack of nothingness and take some off the top and pull the metal grate down hard to attract attention from onlookers and passer bys and go home to my one bedroom summer cottage and turn the light on seen from the street seeming peaceful like a stranger winding down and getting ready for bed goonight.

Rosei’s Dream

Single and unhappy with life in his native village, Rosei sets out for the capital in hopes of becoming one of the emperor’s councilors. Not long into a journey made difficult by his relative poverty, he comes across an immortal who after hearing his ambition gives him a magic pillow. That night while waiting for his millet to cook he falls asleep, dreaming that he married the emperor’s daughter. In turn he becomes the emperor himself, a fifty year saga that ends when his son drowns in the garden fountain. He wakes up crying, and eats his millet. The next day he returns home.

here are two music writings i did recently for friend and artist cole pierce and his recent mix cd project that he exhibited as part of the vega caucus art show in chicago on the 17th of May. truly it's an excellent mix, two cds. maybe he'll send you one if you ask...the first writing block is what he used for the liner notes and the second is a false start...

_
Cole is a good friend and I think this is one of his best mixes. Like a lot of ambient music, it fills a space with feeling rather than hooks and lyrics and meanings. I write this out of experience: sitting in the kitchen grading papers and listening to these CDs over and over again. Later I put them onto my mini-disc (no ipod) and started to walk around with them, but I have to admit they work better at filling a room than a mind. What's strange is that I've never heard most of the musicians on these mixes. That there's this much supremely excellent music out there that doesn't even approach popularity is a comforting thought of what's to come. Now that the world has been discovered, our job, instead of succumbing to cynicism is to connect the disparate pieces that lie on the ground, or pull them out of dumpsters. Our job is not to create but to connect. If you find it easy to say what's on your mind, practice restraint; and if you have a hard time getting comfortable, insist on what you want. We live in a golden age of music.
_
Ambience allows for change: the bells outside or a roommate coming home. Any smell could fill the kitchen but there is such a thing as choice. Riding the train with my headphones on I imagine my life as a movie: somebody sees and hears what I see and hear and puts it into context; the back story, but we know there's no one there. I was told once that the only kind of work harmful to a person is mediocre work, work that doesn't care enough to be good or bad. "What is the definition of mediocre?" asked Krishnamurti. Answer: Pushing a rock half-way up the hill. I get angry at people who don't think this is profound. A song can be skipped but let it play. Speak clearly, sit up straight and be ready. It's hard to be ready.

The Warning
(MP3 File)

Earlier today I spoke with my brother by accident, stationed at my sister’s house for spring break. He was building a boat in the backyard. What kind of boat? I asked. “A row boat.” he answered, for his upcoming wedding. Somehow the ceremony will take place on an island, and all to bear witness will cross water to do so.

He’s enlisted me as one of the rowers and I’ll row, but rowing is difficult because my right shoulder is double jointed. Meaning I can easily dislocate my upper arm (humerus) from its socket (the scapula). If my arms are held straight above my head, hands clasped at the top, I can rotate one-hundred and eighty degrees backward, so that my elbows touch the middle of my back. Wow! Having this flexibility since I was a kid, my left shoulder, although it doesn’t come out of its socket, is practiced enough to go along with the right.

What this means is that due to a lack of tension, it’s nearly impossible for me to beat anyone in arm wrestling with my right arm. I used to think it was some kind of psychological failure, when in fact, there’s nothing to be done about it. This transfers into rowing, or any kind of upper body oriented activity, where this surplus flexibility makes it difficult to focus torque in a constant direction. I’m totally lost.

Three News Stories

TARPON SPRINGS, Fla. - Florida authorities confirmed that Deborah Jeane Palfrey, convicted of running a high-end prostitution ring in Washington, is dead in a suspected suicide, NBC News reported.

obviously, she was killed by powerful people (politicians) who don't want their careers ruined by extra-marital affairs. furthermore

TOKYO - Japan's oldest giant panda, Ling Ling, a longtime star at Tokyo's largest zoo and a symbol of friendship with China, died Wednesday of heart failure, zookeepers said.

obviously, she was killed by powerful people (politicians) who don't want their careers ruined by symbols of friendship. Better yet, here is an editorial that appears in this week's San Francisco Bay Guardian regarding organized labor and today's protest of the war. Briefly,

Members of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) will lead the way by refusing to work their eight-hour morning shifts at ports in California, Oregon, and Washington. For them, it will be a "no peace, no work" holiday — in effect, a strike against the war.

Happy May Day. Workers of the world unite...now I'm off to work for a place with nothing even close to resembling a union and needing one desperately...get one's own house in order?

Two Political Paragraphs Ending in Cynicism

i.
Politics: Hillary Clinton and Barak Obama are both excellent choices (Obama more so) for the Democratic nomination. Either one appears to be capable of beating John McCain and hopefully changing the direction of this countries’ leadership. This in mind, both candidates should be careful not to mistake each other for the enemy. The only way that Democrats could lose the 2008 election is by political infighting and the disorganization it leads to. I suspect one tactic of those who do not wish to see either candidate win is to play up the divide between these candidates a la Brad and Jen, Paris and Nicole, Mary-Kate and Ashley Olson, etc. One wins and the other loses while in reality both lose as the media sets the tone, writes the story, and solutions to our current political situation gets lost in the hype. God bless the hype. After all, how could we avoid ourselves without it?

ii.
Equality leads to competition and competition inevitably leads to conflict. After spending a year in Japan, a place where homogeneity is generally a positive cultural norm, I came to appreciate the peace of sameness, a peace all but impossible in the United States, seemingly. Then again, if all the same mass produced products are available to us throughout the entire country, the same stores and the same streets, couldn’t we achieve a peace (at the economic expense of small countries) through intensive homogenization? That globalization will actually lead us one step closer to communism in the sense that Marx’s vision prescribes all industry to come under state control (corporations) before they be turned over to the people. That a massive consolidation and single mindedness is the first step towards moving away from the short comings of capitalism, thus the ugliness of a Home Depot just outside of Baltimore, is actually a harbinger of communist revolution. Thank god for all the craft makers living in Brooklyn so that we may preserve our human souls!

Last night at the corner store I found a box of cereal and a half gallon of milk and paid for it with a ten dollar bill. The clerk gave me change but too much, he gave back thirteen dollars and some change net gain three dollars a half gallon of milk and a box of cereal. In the past I've always said, sir, you've given me the wrong amount of change and tried to feel good about my morality something something good but this time, a little tired from my day and not really wanting to rock any boat, do any good or bad, acknowledged the fact that he gave me the wrong change and walked out, wondering why exactly I didn't say anything. I asked my roommate what this meant and she responded that maybe this was a reflection of a more intuitive way of living but maybe it was just so I could write about it assumption of the common good it was yesterday I went up to the headlands above is not the only thing I saw today is another week of classes I slept well last night.

To react and respond. To keep going or not at all. This kind of writing as a form a meditation, to watch thoughts come and go, to be able to shift between perspectives a sign of health; thus it becomes necessary to write through patches of doubt. Last Tuesday, almost half the class didn’t show and I found this…discouraging.

The goal is to respond, to not be caught up in a premeditated program or meaning but it comes back to this: what I would say to my class about last week, about anxieties about being too soft or permissive. Anxieties about not being a good teacher; about not being good. It’s almost as if my frustration with trying to solve for x is the problem, my relationship to “problems”.

There is a rhythm to my thoughts a particular length of the line. The other day I was talking with a friend about Nietzsche, this idea that tragedy is actually comedy if we distance ourselves. Instead, to push forward with our will “to power”, the thing in front of our mind but what N. doesn’t speak of is the clarity needed to realize this will.

For example the misguided push of the Nazis, a mistake in thinking one wants to rule the world; caught up in false images the tip of their tongue layered in neurosis and dirt, failed reconstruction and low self-esteem. That clarity does not come from a supreme vision but from the everyday, finally, testing and adjusting.

A seagull stretches its wings in the air, flaps twice and disappears from view. The brooding woman has now shifted into the sun a jacket over her head headphones in her ears. Now I’m thinking about the weekend, schoolwork and Sunday, going up to the headlands to visit a friend and the beach. I don’t know what else to say this seems like a good place to stop.

Geometric Haircut

Liu Hai was said to posses a three-legged frog that could transport him anywhere he wished, but on occasion this frog would slip out of his pocket and jump into the nearest well. To retrieve the magic frog, Liu Hai would dangle a fishing line baited with a single gold coin, feeling for contrast. The same angle from a different side.

there was the man on the street i gave ten dollars a brand new ten dollar bill the story of a car crash a racist policeman and the need for a tow truck the promise of tickets to go see david letterman where cold play was playing i guess i looked the type and gave him my number to get the money back to get his car back in brooklyn on the way to my brother's to watch lost in my dream last night he jumped and didn't make it i woke up crying

and then another tow truck a kid talking frantically on a cell phone outside a bar a scam a set up and approach an idea premeditated a graduate school and a static flock of sameness as a known constant he asked I sympathized he gave me the deed to his car for collateral forty bucks later a couple phone calls to what may have been his parents to no fruition i threw the deed away in want of putting it away

i reached across his desk and broke his pencil both times in the middle of something both times in service to an abstract idea of good to quote again from 'tree of smoke' "I was dating Darlene Taylor until this hippie named Michael took her to a party and gave her drugs and fucked her and turned her into a hippie and if michael the evil hippie is against the war, than I am goddamn for it. That's all I know."

Sonnet

The town is empty because I have my headphones on.
Sitting in the cafe window two men with glasses eat breakfast.
Intellectuals need their space.
The stoplight was green but there were no cars
to go. I walked across the intersection.
I reached into my pocket
and found finger nail clippers. I put them there
to remind myself. John
handed me a pear blessed by Buddha.
Surrounded by statues of the Buddha.
I had been feeling kind of disconnected, and thought the pear
might help. By setting it on the counter at night
I remember to eat it the next morning.
My face is sweet like a teenager.

Holy Cow! This is even better than Richard Nixon's resignation speech to the cabinet...Barak Obama speaks on race amongst other things...

Found Poem

I saw a small parrot
yesterday in a restaurant. He had
soft blue and purple gray
feathers . I got a chance to touch him and to
play with him. I named him
“little blue.” No one knows.

We work to be with each other but are kept by the work. This is a description of loneliness but I am not lonely, worried about the future, the week off, the surplus of time and lack of things to do with myself. If I had an invitation to seize I would feel more settled and I do: Portland on the 20^th but until then everyday, get to know the city maybe travel to the grocery store and settle into this apartment. What I don’t want to do is worry about what I’m not doing or have to do or stay so busy that I run out of things to think and forget to relax to take my time, to ease into tomorrow its supposed to rain all day and I look forward to it, to be warm inside all day tippy tacking on my computer while the insects hide in their nests. I’m one of them I guess. But the strange thing about these fears is that they run deep and grounded in real life situations, because last night, I could not sleep. I tossed and turned. There were things on my mind marking an area to walk carefully around. What I really want is to lay in bed and smell the light streaming through the old barn window the fire high on the mountain unable to keep us warm so far away from home. We try to understand and engage this primitive mind without choices and try to quote from nature but end up with muddy things and rocks held between impossible straights the practice making us perfect and translation a result of our frustration it seems easy to reflect on the earth’s curve but there is motion to coming around.

When I was in 2^nd grade, we were given a crossword puzzle, and I sat at my desk and filled in the blank spaces to the best of my knowledge, unable to find the answer to a number of questions. My desk was in the front row and I could easily see into the basket where work was collected, completed crossword puzzles and all. Feeling a twinge of guilt, I filled in my missing answers with Kevin Gregg’s answers, and a couple days later when we got these puzzles back, mine was affixed with a bright sticker of a smiling bear and the words “Grin and Bear It” beneath the bear’s body. Confused by what this meant, Mrs. Rocco explained the word play and smiled at me.

the following is an email strain from the last couple days...

Subject: hello. please call me.

Tyler:

dear team: i've lost my cell phone. i think. i think it's turned off but am not sure. my worst fear is that somebody has found it and is making calls calls calls and i'll have to pay for it. if you get a chance to talk to this person please tell him that you are the police. the battery will be dead soon. if i don't find it in a day i'll get a new one. hopefully this loss will not tear me a new one. thank you to you and yours.

Aaron:

What is your current mailing address and if we speak to someone where should we tell them to return it to. Do you have a friend with a phone number that the person can call to coordinate a return? Did you call AT&T broadband and personal instant messaging service company to get your plan suspended?

Aric:

Did you fart into a paper bag?

Aaron:

I called your phone and left a fart message. It appears to still have
power and be somewhere. A trick I like to use is to go out on the
street and ask everyone you see if they've seen your phone. If they
say no don't just give up that easy. Sometimes you have to use a
little bit of "persuasion" to get info out of individuals.

Aaron:

Aric says it's at the Tempura House Restaurant in Coral Gables, FL. What the fuck were you doing in Coral Gables last night?

Cole:

Herons communicate by farting. I'm getting a new phone, do you want my
old one? its a little smelly.

Tyler:

thanks everybody. please give it a try later on tonight and tomorrow if you will. i'll get a new phone on saturday if it doesn't turn up.

Aaron:

Dude, go to the Tempura House Restaurant. That's where it is.

Aaron:

That doesn't ring a bell?

Aaron:

Hello? Anybody?

Aric:

Hello? Tempura House. Would you like to try our lunch special?

Aaron:

Uh, yeah, that sounds good. Can I have the vegetable tempura, and my
friends phone as well. Also, what types of beer do you have?

Aaron:

And I just want to double check...you're not the police, are you? I
would naturally be worried about an officer serving me lunch.

Aric:

No sir, I am not a police officer. But I just finished serving a police officer our lunch special. It's a grilled heron breast served with 2 quail eggs and a cell phone in a brown paper bag farted into by our top chef.

Aric:

Oh, and for beer we have Molson, Coors Light, and Woodchuck hard cider.

Aaron:

This police officer sounds familiar...did she have short brown hair,
about down to her shoulders? I think that might have been my wife.

In any case, was it my friend's cell phone that you served with the
grilled heron and then handed over to the officer?

And can you make a black and tan with Molson and Coors Light, with the
Coors Light on the top?

Or would you recommend a cider bomb with Molson and Woodchuck in a
sake glass suspended by chopsticks just seconds before I slam my fists
down on the table thinking about that Bitch and then plop! A nice
mixture of Molson and hard cider.

Aaron:

Oh, and Tyler...don't forget to check at the Tempura House Restaurant.
I think you might have left your phone there due to a recent visit.

Aric:

And as a reminder Tyler, if you've recently been inside of an Asian restaurant in the San Francisco area lately, particularly any restaurants specializing in tempura, they may have your cellular phone.

Cole:

is it an iPhone? those are pretty sweet.

Cole:

this cell phone mess is about as confusing as this story
http://www.kansas.com/news/updates/story/339011.html

Tyler:

you know, it's funny. the last place i ate was a tempura place. really. i'll go ask them tomorrow.

Aaron:

Now I think he's on the right track. Was it called the Tempura House
Restaurant?

Aaron:

Way back in this email session I wrote, "Aric says it's at the Tempura

House Restaurant in Coral Gables, FL. What the fuck were you doing in

Coral Gables last night?" I wrote that because Aric called me and
told me to tell you it was there. He must have had someone pick up on
the other end of your phone from the restaurant. He told me to tell
you presumably because he wasn't next to an Internet terminal. So, I
thought I would "tip you off" by mentioning the tempura thing.
Apparently it didn't ring a bell at the time. I added in Coral Gables
(the city that I work in), for comedic effect, but this may have
sidetracked you further. I think you should check at the restaurant
that you ate at recently that served tempura.

Tyler:

yeah yeah i get it now. i'll pick the phone up today. you know, it's hard to take these emails at all seriously, but i should of put two and two together. the story: tuesday night i got some chicken donburi at a restaurant called the Tempura House Restaurant, right before class and I was in a hurry and only ate half my meal and then asked for a box and made a little to go package and in the process forgot my cell phone which I had set out on the table to remind myself how much time I had to eat...

reading this emails, at the first mention of the tempura house i thought about where i had eaten but didn't understand why the person from the tempura house had called one of you guys, which is a total failure of my imagination in the sense for some reason i couldn't imagine that you all had called and spoken to the guy who works there quickly enough...i think that was the thing: the rapidity of the response that threw me off, (and the fact that i wasn't in coral gables), because i sent the email and then ten minutes later you mentioned the tempura house and i thought it must be a conincidence. what finally did it was maybe the fifth blatent reminder, i think written by aric, that asked me to think about if i had eaten at a tempura restaurant in san francisco...that one hit. thanks for keeping the in formation coming. the funny thing is that i was actually going to get a new cell phone this weekend.

The void eternally generative. Wen Fu. It feels good to say that, to imagine myself saying that. Had a conversation with Shorewood following Chris’ lecture on Alberto Masferrer, an El Salvadorian writer; the lecture’s history leading to a memory, leading to a sense of place and closure. Always a beginning, I asked Shorewood, the man sitting next to me what he though gender normative is and he replied the societal standards enforced by our culture, manly men and those around us. One Big Self. Photographs of walls being built and children painting them.

He cited the example of his sister’s children being given things to play with based on gender, and encouraged. This an example of reinforcement, a virulent idea of ourselves. I responded that it seems like the same day for everyone in the terms of “getting over” ourselves as children; that regardless of where one comes from the necessity of self-actualization remains. Our conversation stopped. We looked away. I was self-conscious of the rapidity that I responded; the eagerness to disagree, at least rhetorically, and wondered if that was a bad habit or a brave one.

The lecture ended on a question, that of translating things for oneself, a theme of the evening, and an idea I can understand. The how more than the what the what the content of the lecture the how how we might make sense of it. Translation and talk of translation, to follow up on, to lecture and ask questions. That to become ourselves we must translate for ourselves we must make our own meanings from our own words as opposed to letting someone do it for us. Here is the link to Chris' lecture.

It's great to be back. Thank you. Thank you very much. This morning the sun burnt a hole in my head the sun came through the french doors and hit the guy this guy sleeping in the closet which might sound bad but its actually a large closet and the mattress fits perfectly so as just enough room to extend fully and wide enough to have a small stack of paper goods on one side without rolling into them throughout the night. All of the above frees up the rest of the room to form some kind of living/working area, two desks, a little couch, plants in the windows, the street outside filling with cars and people slightly asleep from the new style wake up time the sun in a new position the mailman chuckling with his mailman buddies and babies pushing daddies and strollers staffed by mommies and construction workers down the street come back to find their machines covered in graffiti and bikers and bikers and bikers and instead of a small window facing a yellow apartment building there is a entire panoramic view of Valencia which is different if noisy at night meet the artist meet the drunk college kids meet the surly punk rocker selling delicious pizza again the sun burning holes in my head it's time to make breakfast drink tea sit back down its Monday the last week of school before spring break.