Kitty Girl and Jinx ______________________________1.3 Megapixels

...from the preface of the book "In The Blink Of An Eye", a film editing book (that I am reading for one of my support classes) by the film editor Walter Murch:

Igor Stravinsky loved expressing himself and wrote a good deal on interpretation. As he bore a volcano within him, he urged restraint. Those without even a the vestige of a volcano within them nodded in agreement, raised their baton, and observed restraint, while Stravinsky himself conducted his own Apollon Musagete [a ballet] as if it were Tchaikovsky. We who had read him listened and were astonished.
The Magic Lantern by Ingmar Bergman

Most of us are searching--consciously or unconsciously--for a degree of internal balance and harmony between ourselves and the outside world, and if we happen to become aware--like Stravinsky--of a volcano within us, we will compensate by urging restarint. By the same token, someone who bore a glacier within him might urge passionate abandon. The danger is, as Bergman points out, that a glacial personality in need of passionate abandon may read Stravinsky and apply restraint instead."

Teaching the Humanities

i.
Build a house.
Even if it's the ugliest house
you've ever seen,
build it. Later, you can tear out the windows
repaint the walls, the entrance
way, tear out the wires
and the plumbing along with
some walls to expand
the kitchen into the dining room, or
refurbish the basement with a nice
airport carpet and a
dehumidifier. You might also
haul the junk out of your yard
and fix the hail damage. Roofers
finally have time. Third,
and this is only a suggestion,
get rid of that gigantic
concrete block of a front step and replace it
with something a little more
modest, something wooden.
Stain the deck and patch the pool.
Repave the driveway.
Turn the screen porch
into a bedroom and rent
the attic out to a college student.
Install a new sink in the first
floor half bath. Modular
flooring is popular these days.
Wood burning stoves and
solar panels!!! Anyway,
Fix it up when you have time.
What's important is that you have a place
to sleep. What's important
is the space has been cleared.
a foundation poured.
What's important is that it's there, an idea
any idea, has been made
real. That the process
yields.





ii.
Not all emptiness is equal.
Some space takes work to clear and some clearings
appear, blown over
by a storm or a
flash flood, a forest fire
or tornado. Maybe a glacier melts
and the promised land emerges,
or the previous squatters
get arrested, or die
or burn the house down. It's possible
for a herd of goats
or locusts to swarm and eat every sapling,
bush, and tree branch within a forty foot radius.
Or for a mole to gnaw
at the roots of a thistle blocking the path
of a few pebbles, blocking the path
of a few rocks, blocking the path
of some large stones, so that a boulder hurtles down
the mountain leveling everything
in its path.
Volcanoes are possible.
Meteorites can raze entire
continents. Paul
Bunyan drug his axe down the gut of America
leaving us the Mississippi. In the beginning
there was but a single crow
fighting with an eagle
on a post
rising from the sea.
It's possible
to find the most perfect place
you never imagined, stoned, eating a carrot
change rattling in your pocket cell phone
set on vibrate, but who
would have the heart to start digging here?
Who would have the money to lay forty miles of pavement?
Who would have the fortitude to be so isolated?





iii.
Demolition
is fun, until you have to vacuum up
the glass and find
a dumpster big enough to hold
the spent 2x4s and bent nails.
Not to mention your mud
pit of a yard littered
with Caterpillar tracks and Hardee's cups.
It's going to take a while
for the grass seed to take root and if it keeps on raining
like this it will all just wash
down the hill. It might be a good idea
after leveling out the soil
to cover it with hay and pound
in some silt fencing
at the crease of the decline.
And hey, if you're not going to re-use
those beams, I know a guy
who could take them away tomorrow,
no problem. Same with
the front doors and the kitchen
windows. Construction waste
is as American
as drywall. The good news
is that you don't need to dig
a new well, or re-pave
the driveway. The phone book already knows
you exist. Besides, it's nearly impossible
to bang nails into air
or hike forty miles with a wheel barrow
full of concrete. It might take
a long time but
you're going to have to deal with
the fact of work. Sorry.
I'll come back
when you're done.

...have been enjoying Pitchfork's reviews (9/8 & 9/9 & 9/10) of the recently re-released/re-mastered (whatever) Beatles' albums that are being hyped in accord with the new Rock Band Video Game (no comment)...The reviews are interesting! They're more like mini-essays! Reminds me that I still haven't ever really listened to the Beatles asides from the fact that pretty much every single one of their songs has been played in movies and television and on my father's and friend's stereo throughout my entire lifespan. There was a mix tape that my dad always used to play driving us around in a boxy eighties Camry that had "Eleanor Rigby" (a.k.a. all the lonely people) on it, and as a little kid I didn't really get the lyrics but I did like the song, the strings. In retrospect it seems odd that this mix tape had this and other perfectly lovely but love troubled songs on it such as Diana Ross and the Supreames' "Someday We'll Be Together" and that Roy Orbison song where he sings (in his big beautiful voice) i'm lonely, I'm Lonely, I'M LONEEEEE-LY. Using my 2009 analytical mind I would classify this tape as a break-up sad song mix tape. Why did he keep playing this when we were in the car? Don't get me wrong, I love all that music, but if I were to make a break-up sad song mix tape I'd probably keep it mostly to myself. But I guess that's one way my dad and I are different. Anyway,

All that is to say, it's interesting to read about the Beatles' music, rather than their personalities or fans or as figureheads of an American counter-cultural movement. It's interesting to read about their albums and song writing. It's interesting to put all those familiar songs into a different context. It's kind of like putting a cat into a laundry basket, or a marble into a guitar. Have a wonderful day. I'm back on the Internet after a month off. The semester started last week.

good news. new rat discovered. reported to have "no fear of humans."

was pointed to this via pitchfork. whoa. seriously. or on the other hand...all is well in san francisco. last class is monday and school lets out wednesday. off to l.a. this weekend for johnathan's play and then to wisconsin next friday for most of the month. class has been busy but so has summer been busy too. whew.

Last Saturday on the way home from the beach we stopped at cafe just south of the De Young around 9th Ave. From the outside table we were sitting at I had a view of the a video rental store across the street. Something about it reminded me of the video rental store across from Nakoma Plaza that my Mom would take me to in middleschool to rent videogames.

I hadn't ever really remembered this common occruance before, probably because there wasn't much to remember. The store was lit overhead with flourescents and movies were displayed in rows and around the room. Pretty typical. While I would select a game my Mom sat out in the car waiting. Doing what I don't know. Sometimes, I remembered, I would take an extraordinarily long time to select a game and I imagined that my mother must of been proud of my throuroughness because she never said anything to me about taking too long. What a wondeful and patient mother I have, feeling proud in my cafe chair.

Today I called her in part to confirm this memory. I asked about the waiting but she didn't remember. In fact, the only thing she remembered was how quick I was to select a game, that "with all those video game magazines, you seemed to always know what you wanted."

**

The assistant teacher said to me, "Intelligence is like the camel's nose under the tentNo (a brief pause in thought) no. Intelligence is like the thin edge of a wedge, it pries the door open but that's just a start."

**me and the boys

the image on the far right is BEES. that was a grammatically correct sentence. it's hot out, saturday. pride weekend in san francisco. its the first weekend i've had off for about a month, enabling me to catch up on things like this blog, eating an omlet, making computer music, sweeping, talking on the phone, going over student work, watching a semi-corny but amazingly drawn/gestured anime called "the place promised in our early days", taking a shower, hanging out with bill in the secret kaiser garden roof top, watching cats sleep, listening to bill callahan and the second to last song on the david pajo covers misfits songs album, renting bolt but not actually watching it yet. so far so good.

the second week of school ends and the third begins. three hours is just a little bit too long for an english class. "pad it" johnathan suggests. its nice to come back to work and to have work for all of july, not enough at the moment with 15 hours in class and needing 22~ at the academy's pay rate to really make ends meet, to preserve my luxurious lifestyle. one dollar and eighty cents a can for all tuna cat food. would like to go see the movie named moon.niece beatrix on the left. on the right the beautiful boats my brother built for the wedding. a marvelous time, busy for most of it but got time to relax. the back of the uhaul with knight standing in the center. brother and i drove that sucker to brooklyn. 18 ft. it was hard to park. hard to drive sort of, big to drive more like it. we also loaded the docks into the uhaul .rained on the wedding day. am told this is good luck. more like torrential down pore on the wedding day, or at least during the ceremony. cleared up at night. on sunday people took boat rides. buttermilk falls...kind of yellow. saw all family, many of brother's friends, met some of lindsay's friends and family. sister and i gave a toast, we were nervous; aunt gave a really nice toast, very smart and moving, honest. much love at the wedding. did not make me want to get married or have a wedding. bill callahan sings: if...if...if you...if you could...if i could only...if you could only stop...if you could only stop your...if you could only stop your heart...if you could only stop your heart beat...if you could only stop your heart beat for...if you could only stop your heart beat for one heart...if you could only stop your heart beat for one heart beat. strings. end of song. too many birds. okay. now off to school work. see you around.

wow. i'm in d.c. at my sisters. i flew in yesterday for my brother's wedding, which is in new york, upstate from the city a couple hours. i'm not sure why i flew into d.c....oh yeah, i flew into dc to a) have some quality time with my sister, knight, and niece and b) help transport the boats that my brother has built for the wedding up there. the wedding's on saturday. today is wednesday, it's overcast and threatening to storm but i've been told it's been like that all week. beatrix (my niece) is walking and talking. it's a little amazing.

last time we spoke i was about to head out to a vipassina meditation ten day course which was really something else. very difficult at times and spending ten days with 100 people without talking is a whole other kind of strangeness but all in all it was quite the experience. i learned so much and highly recommened it or something like it and if you'd like to know more about it send me an email and i'll write you back,

but i'll say no more about it on this blog. i got back from that on sunday and then the semester started on monday...one section of LA202 and some ESL and tutoring work. we met in the afternoon yesterday and feels like its going to be a pretty good class. an interesting mix of academy students that all seemed reasonable happy to be there. once we start talking about mla formatting and fallacies in argument this may change but in the mean time its memoir writing which is generally a good time, writing about what one knows best (hopefully): themselves.

in other news, two cultural items that might be a little out dated: saw an interesting movie at the end of may, "The Girlfriend Experience" that may not be the best movie but is pretty interesting in terms of all that's going on / was going on with the economy and the other week in the nytimes magazine there was an article about a comedian named zach g.(cannot spell/remember his last name) that lead me to this youtube clip that also features the comedians (?) tim and eric. it's pretty amazing, but really, everything is pretty amazing after meditating for a week and a half most everything is pretty amazing but soon i'll go back to being paranoid and weird, maybe while trying to find parking in brooklyn for a uhaul filled with boats. talk to you later.

today is the first of june. happy june. i've been off of work for the last two weeks...doing a whole lot of nothing. i feel a little guilty for not having been posting but really, there hasn't been much going on to post. seeing movies, playing checkers, playing videogames, taking walks, sleeping in, swimming, reading, getting ready for my brother's wedding, getting ready for the coming semester, and getting ready for the ten day meditation class that I leave for on wednesday, which I'm kind of nervous about. partly because i've had to quit smoking because i definately do not want to go through withdrawl symptoms while away. symptoms include sleeplessness, sugar craving, horniess, and exterme irritability, all of which i'm going through right now. please understand that i'm not "quitting" smoking, but am stopping for the time being because i cannot and do not want to smoke while away.

but about this class, it's ten days and there's no talking (no email, no phone, no books even!). ten hours a day of meditation beginning at four in the morning. it will be kind of intense, but i generally feel like i'm ready for that kind of study, a natural progression from the weekly meditation thing i've been going to and some more formal and intensive practice. plus, it's free and something i've always wanted to do so there. when i come back i'll have a weekend and then the new semester starts. the following weekend i'm heading out to the east coast for my brother's wedding which i'm looking forward to, seeing the family and my sister's baby. all that is to say that June will be a very busy month in comparision to the last two weeks of boredom and low level debauchery.

pluuus, this month, may, the cats moved in with me, so there's been a lot of cat influenced life recently. thoughts like: cat food is expensive! or, wow, you're soft! they came over from oakland because amy moved out of her place there and her new place didn't accept animals so now they are here. which is nice, though i feel a little bad for them that my digs aren't as nice as the ones they came from but they've adapted pretty well. anywho, that's the news. no plans for the blog in june asides from randomness.

SATURDAY NIGHT I had a dream: on a train like an Amtrak with curving atrium like windows that were easy to look out of. I had a seat at the very front, not as a driver but as a passenger looking to my left at great gray clouds churning above the plain. It was not raining or nighttime, but the clouds were dense and it was dark and it seemed like it had been forever since we'd seen the sun. There was a sense in the dream that at any moment the clouds could turn apocalyptic at anytime, that the world would just end and there was no knowing if or when it would happen.

I was a little nervous about the uncertain timing, but was resigned to the situation and life on the train. It was full of international students. No names, but they were the kind of students I work with a lot at my job. I walked to the back of the train into a kind of supermarket brightly lit by florescent lights and spoke with a Dr. Chang (the scientist from the television series Lost). He didn't have much to add to our situation other than "wait and see." There was also a sense that there was nobody left to ask for help, that if the clouds had not already over taken others then they were in a situation similar to ours. Before I woke up the clouds lightened just a little and I remember saying to a group of students, reassuringly, that maybe we'll see the sun again, but it was still obscured and I didn't really know.

On Sunday I told my roommate about the dream and he said he had the same dream, half jokingly. He suggested that it was about the self dying. That didn't exactly sound right to me. Once in a graduate school workshop another student asked why I was always invoking the end of the world. My newspaper horoscope on Tuesday read "Your idea of "realistic" can come across to other as apocalyptic."

**

Before I went to sleep on Saturday, my roommate and I attended the second half of a symposium on poetry and medicine. The first speaker was a somatic psychologist specializing in sound. She lead us through some sound/song exercises and spoke about music being capable of more than entertainment. She also spoke about a particular interest of hers: Alzheimer's, how it runs in her family and the fact that she has done a lot of work around it and other forms of dementia. I approached her afterward and told her about the sound my father's been making for the last three years at Clearview (one of the "care facilities" he's been in since the spring of 2003); a kind of guttural chanting sound that he repeats over and over:

garh...barh...varh...arh...carh...barh...garh...barh...varh...arh...carh...barh...garh...barh...
varh...arh...carh...barh...garh...barh...varh...arh...carh...barh...garh...barh...varh...arh...
carh...barh...garh...barh...varh...arh...carh...barh....

The first time I heard him do this was in the summer of 2006. Amy and I had taken him outside the facility for a little fresh air, and while standing on the little patch of lawn on the hospital's hill overlooking farmland, he strung together about four of these sounds and then stopped. Almost like a conversation, he would start and stop sporadically, with space in-between. "It sounds like he's saying car, doesn't it?" Like some kind of mystery. "Dad, do you mean car?" He would start again. We took him back inside.

Over the past three years he's come to do it more and more. So much so that his voice has grown hoarse: garh...barh...varh...arh...carh...barh... like a broken machine. I imagine the frontal lobe dissolving to reveal a lizard mind, or a cracked and broken skull leaking liquid the color of brake fluid, or a brain exposed like a cartoon zombie. I told a brief version of the above events to the speaker, waving a hand over my face to signal "no cognition." My question: what does the sound mean? She answered, shocking me out of the closed circuit of my imagination: "Whatever it means, it's not for you."

**

I felt strange walking to the BART after the talk, a little bit out of body, reminiscent of my first year in Providence during the Winter of 2003, goofed up on anxiety and panic attacks, and in serious need to talk to somebody about dad stuff, life stuff; seriously paranoid and unable to open my mouth. A kind of psychedelic nervousness that all of a sudden came up after the event. I felt strange but couldn't put my finger on what exactly the feeling was.

How the dream relates to all this I'm not sure, other than the fear that my mind is closing as well, the clouds are coming etc. but if most people I knew didn't also think there was something uniquely wrong with them I might be able to present this theory with more confidence, that there's nothing particularly unique about a writer with a death wish. Anyway, on Sunday, after a morning of reading and feeling weird, I struck out for the grocery with my headphones on and in the middle of an MF Doom song ("That's That") (of alllll the possible music,) I started sobbing in a good, necessary way.

The clouds. Like the ones I watched over the southwestern Wisconsin hills steaming towards the farm on an armada of wind. Dark clouds, storm clouds, and when the tornado warning would appear in the bottom left corner of the TV I would look through the long narrow rows of windows to confirm the fear. My father was away at work and it was just my brother and I waiting for it to pass. The tornado never came but the storms did, and with them the lightening striking all around the house, the highest point around. I'll stop there. The wind is huge tonight as I write this, Monday might. The last week of school.

flat little gopher ears...







so cute!

shiny matted fur...





how I would like to hold you!

cheeks stuffed with trash...













i could give you so much more!

From this morning's paper:

Sally Quinn, a Washington writer and socialite, who met Mrs. Robinson at the lunch hosted by Mrs. Heinz Kerry, described her as “the perfect grandmother you’d kill for: cozy, nice, sweet, friendly, dear."

hello and good morning. good afternoon good evening. happy International Worker's Day May Day May 1st Spring the end of Winter etc. thus concludes the month of April and the sound of music posts and now it's back to...i'm not sure what I'll be posting in May. I was thinking more collagey kind of things, scanned things but we'll see.

i'm sitting in the speaking lab after a couple students didn't show up for their appointment and have a little time before the next appointment. there's only two weeks left of what has been a pretty good semester, doing mostly ESL and writing lab work, leaving plenty of time to read write and make things, which has been a little bit missing from the daily how to since last summer. that is to reiterate, it's been a mellow semester. two more weeks and then a month off. the government says i owe them two thousand dollars in misreported wages. not true.

this weekend, if you are around San Francsico, i highly recommend attending Anna Halprin's "Sprit of Place" performance, that roommate Chris, amongst many other performers, has been rehearsing for for the last five months. okay? alright. see you later.

Inspirational Message (mp3)