Man, but this guy always hits the nail on the head:

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): In recent decades, many British people with
unfortunate surnames have changed them. There are now 40 percent
fewer Shufflebottoms, while the numbers of Cockshotts and Smellies have
also declined precipitously. Meanwhile, back in the U.S., the government
has re-branded its notorious Global War on Terror, shifting to the more
palatable "Overseas Contingency Operation." I hold these examples up for
your inspiration, Taurus. It's a good time to alter any name or title you've
outgrown, as well as any label that no longer fits or any category you'd
like to leave behind.

My grandmother`s not-service is tomorrow, and my aunt emailed me today to ask for a poem to be displayed alongside a picture of my grandmother. Either one I found, or wrote myself. After laughing at the idea that I could possibly write something good enough, and appropriate to the situation, in under 24 hours, I set to searching through books and the internet. To tell the truth, I don`t like most death poems. Elegies are often too overwrought for my tastes - if anything, I seem to prefer the poetry that approaches death from before it occurs rather than after, which was not really what I was looking for in this situation. I`m also not into the weeping, hand-wringing, devastated-loud-wailing-dramatic mourning style in life or poetry.  And I know my grandmother wasn`t, either - she was too sensible, too earthbound to be.  Finally, I decided on this one by ee cummings, `Song,` by Allen Ginsberg, and `One Art,` by Elizabeth Bishop (mostly to give a more `traditional` option, not so much because it`s really my first choice.), and sent them off.  We`ll see tomorrow which one my aunt ends up choosing.

cummings can be quite hit-or-miss for me, but I`ve always been fond of this one:




since feeling is first
-- ee cummings

since feeling is first
who pays any attention
to the syntax of things
will never wholly kiss you;

wholly to be a fool
while Spring is in the world

my blood approves,
and kisses are a better fate
than wisdom
lady i swear by all flowers. Don't cry
- the best gesture of my brain is less than
your eyelids' flutter which says

we are for each other; then
laugh, leaning back in my arms
for life's not a paragraph

And death i think is no parenthesis

tea and a book by the turntable in the morning + downtown shopping & coffee date + 3 new books + abbey road wallet to go with my revolver era purse + spring, finally + withnail & i and flying circus viewings + mexican food and strawberry margaritas + shoes stuck in trees + the first real beachtime of the year at sunset + psychedelic mixes and quality basslines = a good day, despite all odds.



hope you're all well.

I do not trust people who describe themselves as 'the nicest person you will ever meet.' I don't, I won't ever, and I far prefer the girls who say 'damn straight I'm a bitch,' and believe it. Mind, I just like bitches.

I had a huge-ass poetry post on Shelley, but I just accidentally deleted the hole thing, and very much do not feel like typing it back up right now. So, here, have Jack Kerouac's rules of spontaneous prose instead:

1. Scribbled secret notebooks, and wild typewritten pages, for yr own joy
2. Submissive to everything, open, listening
3. Try never get drunk outside yr own house
4. Be in love with yr life
5. Something that you feel will find its own form
6. Be crazy dumbsaint of the mind
7. Blow as deep as you want to blow
8. Write what you want bottomless from bottom of the mind
9. The unspeakable visions of the individual
10. No time for poetry but exactly what is
11. Visionary tics shivering in the chest
12. In tranced fixation dreaming upon object before you
13. Remove literary, grammatical and syntactical inhibition
14. Like Proust be an old teahead of time
15. Telling the true story of the world in interior monolog
16. The jewel center of interest is the eye within the eye
17. Write in recollection and amazement for yourself
18. Work from pithy middle eye out, swimming in language sea
19. Accept loss forever
20. Believe in the holy contour of life
21. Struggle to sketch the flow that already exists intact in mind
22. Dont think of words when you stop but to see picture better
23. Keep track of every day the date emblazoned in yr morning
24. No fear or shame in the dignity of yr experience, language & knowledge
25. Write for the world to read and see yr exact pictures of it
26. Bookmovie is the movie in words, the visual American form
27. In praise of Character in the Bleak inhuman Loneliness
28. Composing wild, undisciplined, pure, coming in from under, crazier the better
29. You're a Genius all the time
30. Writer-Director of Earthly movies Sponsored & Angeled in Heaven

Allen Ginsberg. The Dharma Lion. One of the leaders of the Beat Generation. Creator of masterpieces like Howl, Kaddish, "America," and "Sunflower Sutra." An influence on everyone from Bob Dylan to Johnny Depp to Bono and back again. Helped further Buddhism and Krishnaism in the west, protested strongly against Vietnam, was openly gay from the fifties, a leading figure in the hippie movement of the sixties, a challenger and ultimately changer of obscenity laws, proponent of gay rights and free speech, anti-war movements and drugs' desmystification (LSD) and legalization (pot), deemed a danger/unwanted in several countries for his willingness to speak his mind and continuously attempting to force the world into a dialogue about controversial subjects because he thought that no change could be made in a polite silence, and the last great popular poet. For the entirety of his career, almost every reading he gave was standing room only. Controversial, peaceful, ridiculously brave, and immensely talented. My biggest personal hero in life and art.

I've been doing a lot of reading of him again lately (not that that's all that new; I read at least one of his poems every week.), as well as a lot on and by him and the rest of the Beat Generation & the San Francisco Rennaissance, as well as the sixties counterculture literature and their time periods in general, so look for a lot of thoughts on and references to all of that in coming posts. I'll blather; consider yourselves forewarned. Anyways -

( I write poetry because... )


I chose this one because it's not well known, and because it really exemplifies everything about him.  I tuck a copy of this poem, along with a copy of Kerouac's rules of bop prosody and my favourite bits from Rainer Maria Rilke's Letters To A Young Poet into every notebook I start.

Because I love Ginsberg so much, I might do another poem of his next Friday.  Or I may wait a few weeks.  He'll definitely crop up again, though.

the thing is, sometimes the stories, they do turn into fairytales.  and that's where it starts to really get dangerous.  someone's hands get chopped off, another ends up in a wolf's belly.  bricked up in walls, or held captive by amorous fathers.  somenights the moon doesn't shine, and that's when they say the horrors run freest. 


Things that dwelt in the darkness and went about seeking to do evil and harm; Bogies and Crawling Horrors, all came out when the Moon didn't shine. ( dear self: )

Dear East Village Eye:
So far in your pages I have at different times learned that both Richard Hell and John Holmstrom invented punk, presumably also at different times. So I figured I might as well put my two cents' worth in: I invented punk. Everybody knows that. But I stole it from Greg Shaw, who also invented power pop. And he stole it from Dave Marsh, who actually saw Question Mark and the Mysterians live once. But he stole it from John Sinclair. Who stole it from Rob Tyner. Who stole it from Lou Reed. Who stole it from Gene Vincent. Who stole it from James Dean. Who stole it from Marlon Brando. Who stole it from Robert Mitchum. The look on his face in the photo when he got busted for grass. And he stole it from Humphrey Bogart. Who stole it from James Cagney. Who stole it from Pretty Boy Floyd. Who stole it from Harry Crosby. Who stole it from Teddy Roosevelt. Who stole it from Billy the Kid. Who stole it from Mike Fink. Who stole it from Stonewall Jackson. Who stole it from Napoleon. Who stole it from Voltaire. Who stole it from an anonymous wino whose pocket he once picked while the man lay comatose in a Paris gutter, you writers know how it gets when you're waiting on those royalty checks. The wino stole it from his mother, a toothless hag who once turned tricks till she got too old and ugly whereupon she upon she became a seamstress except she wasn't very good, her palsied hands shook so bad all her seams were loosely threaded and dresses would fall off elegant Parisian women right in the middle of the street. Which is how Lady Godiva happened. Lady Godiva was a punk too, she stole from the hag to get revenge. And Godiva's horse stole it from her. Soon thereafter said horse was ridden off to battle where it died, but not before the Major astride the horse stole punk from it. The Major was a serious alcoholic given to extended periods of blackout running into weeks and even months, so he forgot he stole it. He forgot he ever had it. Forgot what it ever was or meant. Just like all of us. But one night in a drunken stupor he burbled out the age-old and Grail-priceless Secret of Punk to another alkie with a better memory. When the Major sobered up, the other alkie, a pickpocket and generalized petty thief, lied and told the Major that he, the pickpocket, had originally owned punk but that one night when he, the pickpocket, was in his cups the Major stole punk from him. The Major believed this. But later he got drunk and forgot all about punk again. So it might have been lost in one of the crevasses of history and John Holmstrom would be an aluminum-siding salesman door-to-door and Richard Hell would be pitching hay down from the loft of some Midwestern farm where he was hired hand RIGHT AT THIS VERY MOMENT in which also I, creator of punk as I really shouldn't have to remind you, would not be a rock critic and sometime musician to the irritation of many and pleasure of some enlightened folk but rather a senior poohbah in the headquarters of Jehovah's Witnesses over in Brooklyn. Instead of reviewing Devo for the Voice I would be the author of the article "Springs- the Wonder Metal," published in Awake! magazine sometime in 1978. And that too would be something to be proud of.

(Lester Bangs)

I don`t know if anybody will know what I`m talking about, but I figured there was a better chance of getting a response to my glee on here than at work today, so:

The book I`m reading right now references Raffles! This makes me happy.

I actually had a totally different direction in mind for this week’s poetry, but I’ve had Eliot quite heavily on the mind for the last couple days because of some things I’m working on right now, so I decided to go with him instead. This is a stupidly long introduction, be forewarned.

So, in middle school I had this fantastic teacher for Socials and English (our other teachers in the Challenge stream were pretty much awesome, too, but they’re not what this post’s about.). The kind of guy who really embodied the Challenge program ideals, setting up projects that got us to really think and explore ourselves as well as new ideas, but at the same time had loose enough guidelines that we could go about them in our own ways (for his classes, I did everything from writing a novel, to playing Puck in a very strange version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, to building a working trebuchet. Which left a dent in the side of the school that’s still there.). The kind of guy who taught us tai chi in the hallways. And the kind of guy whose very first assignment for us was to memorize the phrase “bababadalgharaghtakamminarronnkonnbronntonnerronntuvarrhounawnskawntoohoohoordenenthurnuk,” (which, according to James Joyce, is the noise of a man falling down the stairs - it’s from Finnegan’s Wake.) so that the first time the principal visited our class, we could all stand and recite it in unison.

This was also the first teacher I had who really encouraged my love of reading and literature (elementary school’s learning how to read program was useless for me, as I’ve been reading since I was three, and like I said in my last post, I went to the jock school. Where I got in trouble for reading too much.), and introduced me to all sorts of wonderful new writers who could actually challenge me and hold my attention (my parents, and other family members gifting me with books, tended to just choose box sets, like the Anne or Narnia books, or the thickest book they could find in the young readers section, in the hopes I’d be entertained for more than a few hours. I still think that was kind of silly of them, because as any book-lover knows that it’s not the length that keeps you entertained, and that a good story is something that can be returned to, over and over.). He also opened me up to the whole new world of poetry, and he did that not through Tennyson, not through Shakespeare (although I fell quite hard and fast for him anyways), not through any of the poets you’d expect to be recommended to a bookish, fantasy loving teenage girl, but through Thomas Stearns Eliot.

Here’s the thing about me. I’m completely fascinated by things that aren’t completely explained, that go beyond reason. Things like myth and illusion and fortunetelling, and the entire history of the occult. Go a step further, into the literary side of things, and you’ll see that I’m also fascinated by allusion, by works that imply just as much as they tell. And Eliot is the master of this. In our grades 8&9 English classes, we had personalized suggested reading lists given to us by that fantastic teacher, and on my grade 8 one was The Waste Land, Eliot’s sprawling, highly intimidating apocalyptic vision. I picked it up out of curiosity over the title, and ended up being absolutely blown away. The apocalypse; references to cultures both modern and ancient around the world, history and current events, ancient texts, the Grail legend, literature, and so much more to be puzzled over, worked at, figured out; tarot cards!; vivid imagery; language that just begs to be read aloud; strange, threatening phrases that linger in your head for days; the strange, swirling combination of shifting perspectives but a centralized consciousness; so much more, I could totally keep going. I think that in the poem, I found something that articulated a lot of my interests and tastes that I was only starting to discover and grow into, and have kept until this day.

So, in short, I love TS Eliot. I love The Waste Land, and “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” and many of his other poems. I’m not sharing either of the aforementioned today, because the first’s too long, and I sort of feel that the latter has become a bit overdone. Instead, I chose his “Preludes,” because it’s lovely too, and is also a poem that begs to be read aloud (of course, I’m of the [fairly common, if I’m not mistaken] position that all poetry is best when read aloud.)


( “Preludes” )

fair warning: As long as the internet doesn't suddenly go down at my house again, expect a bunch of posts from me between now and the beginning of next week. Not only does this journal remain the only foolproof way of getting stuff to myself while on campus without lugging a computer around (something that I generally tend to avoid for a variety of reasons, but mostly the SHEER PAIN it causes in my bum shoulder from skating/fastball), but it's a convenient place for me to think through my ideas, and see if I've actually made any progress in converting them from my notes to entries.

I just finished re-reading After Dark for the fourth(?) time, and it reminded me just how much I adore Haruki Murakami. Every time I read a book of his I'm reminded of that, actually. I love authors that don't just create stories, characters, even worlds, but who manage to go beyond that and create an entire mood in their writing, which is very much what Murakami does.

Every time I read him, I'm also visited by the serious want to be fluent another language that I get from reading every translated writer that I love (Japanese in this case, Spanish for Garcia Marquez, Neruda, and Bolano, Persian for Hafiz, etc). I really do believe that however good the translater may be, however intimate they are with the work, something is always lost by not reading that work in its original language. Of course, a knowledge of culture and context is incredibly important as well, but I'm one of those people who believe that one is not fully fluent in a language without understanding the culture using that language, and that they should be studied together. (The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis fascinated me in my introductory Anthro class. I didn't want to study anything else once we'd gotten to that. Even the monkeys paled in comparison!)

I'm not ashamed to admit that one of my reason for starting to learn Japanese, aside from a basic fascination with the country and culture and the desire to someday live there, was wanting to read Murakami in his own voice, rather than Jay Rubin's rendition of it. (Admittedly, he's thrown himself into it, and does an admirable job, and the books are still wonderful in English.) I remember having a conversation with my teacher, who holds a Masters in Japanese Literature from the University of Tokyo, and he told me something really interesting:

In The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, which is often called Murakami's master work, the character's names aren't written in kanji, which is the Chinese character alphabet used commonly in Japan, nor hiragana, which is the alphabet used for words for which there are no kanji, or for when the kanji is too archaic or formal for the situation. Instead, the character names are all written out in katakana, which is a simpler alphabet, and is used to spell things out phonetically, rather than having full character words. Katakana are usually used to transcribe foreign words (into "Japenglish," which is apparently growing more and more popular in Japan - many words are often replaced by a "Japanized" version of the English, as slang or short-form). Relatedly, katakana is used for words that are onomatopeia, like the sound of a doorbell. It's also sometimes used by companies in advertising.

None of this is remotely translatable into English, because we only have one alphabet. If I hadn't had a teacher who also read Murakami, I probably would never have found it out at all. I don't know enough about the language or the alphabets to really grasp the full significance, but I do find it fascinating.

( Some of my favourite Murakami quotes )

Internet is completely down at my house, probably at least until the end of the weekend. I'm posting this from a friend's iPhone, because he wanted me to play with it. It's pretty neat, sleak and entertaining, but I'm still wary of all this portable technology madness. Give me a conversation with someone who's been interesting places, seen fantastic things, and met all sorts of people, whether in the real world or their own, and I can guarantee you I will enjoy it more that a conversation with someone who plays connect-the-dots on their phone while we're talking, even if I love the latter person dearly.

Anyways, poem. This is from the 'By the Roadside' section in Leaves of Grass.  As far as I'm concerned, Whitman needs no introduction, so:

When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer

WHEN I heard the learn'd astronomer,
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me,
When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and
measure them,
When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with much
applause in the lecture-room,
How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,
Till rising and gliding out I wander'd off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
Look'd up in perfect silence at the stars.

Guys, guys, Neil Gaiman won the Newberry Prize! (You are on a speakerphone with at least 14 teachers and librarians and suchlike great, wise and good people, I thought. Do not start swearing like you did when you got the Hugo. This was a wise thing to think because otherwise huge, mighty and four-letter swears were gathering. I mean, that's what they're for) I'm ridiculously excited for him.




Notes to self:

1 - "Where are you from?
...No, no, where do you come from?"

Dear world: Why do you only make the weather all clear and sunny and beautiful on days that I'm running from work to the bank to home to babysitting, and therefore have NO TIME to actually appreciate it?

Dear internet: can anybody out there recommend me a music rag that's a little less indie than something like Paste, but that isn't crap like Rolling Stone or Spin? Probably not, but it's worth a try. How awesome would it be to have lived through the era of great music journalism, of Lester Bangs, and Nick Kent? ...of course, what I'm really asking here is how awesome would it be to have lived in an era where mainstream music was substance and quality and yeah, a little 'dangerous', not vapid celebrities with auto-tuners, Disney tweens, and personal stylists?

& does anybody else remember when Spin didn't suck, or is that just a hallucination of mine? I mean, Chuck Klosterman did work for them at one point. And I distinctly remember a TV On the Radio feature from several years back, way before all the hipsters I (for some reason) know picked up on them.

I'm almost finished the article about music that I was talking about before, and it's morphed a bit from what I originally intended to be about music snobbery into my love of vinyl and also about music I listen to when I write, and how important I think music is, but I don't know if all of that'll make the final cut, 'cause uh, it's supposed to be an article, not a book.

Anyways, this is my oh-so-subtle lead in to the poem I wanted to share today: Jamie Kilstein (who now bills himself as a comedian, I think, but he did do slam poetry at some point.) - "Why I Lit My Radio On Fire And Threw It Off The Balcony"



"You know who wouldn't have a reality TV show? Miles Davis. Because you can't show injecting heroine, assaulting bandmembers, all while writing Birth of the Cool, on the TV box-set. I'm not endorsing drugs, but if that's what it takes to keep bands from selling their songs to fucking car commercials, I say: free needle programs to anyone who can play an instrument."

(&Watch until the end, the last couple lines hit hard.)

(&pneumatique, does that excerpt make you think of anyone in particular? I didn't even think of it until I typed that out, but...)

(not to mention how I use and abuse parentheses.)

1. (randomness that has nothing to do with the rest of this entry:)
I am a member of the Robbie Williams mailing list, if my inbox this morning was to be believed. This leads me to think that I must be a: a sleep-internet-surfer or b: an alcoholic, as I’m not sure I could even name a Robbie Williams song if I tried. (Apparently, he is giving away canvas prints of himself. I find this to be the most unintentionally hilarious thing since... Well, actually, that "We Are The Future" kids inauguration concert with Miley Cyrus and the Jonas Brothers takes the cake - if Disney teen idols are really our future, then the future is looking pretty fuckin’ bleak. But still!)

2. Speaking of the inauguration: “The world has changed, and we must change with it.” Yesyesyesyes. I’m still terrified that this man’s reputation is going to be wrecked by trying to clean up all these messes that other people have left behind for him (I have a friend who’s convinced that he’s going to be assassinated, but I don’t think so. I think his detractors would rather make things as difficult as possible for him, trying to stop him from advancing his agenda and therefore making him look like a liar. In other words, they’ll go after his character, because they know that if they go after his physical body, they’ll only be turning the man into myth (see: Ghandi, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr., and JFK). Or maybe I’m giving their intelligence too much credit.), but I’ve got more hope for him than anybody else who wanted the job, so. I guess we’ll see. I think the big trick will be if Obama manages to keep the interest in politics and change that he stirred up in the races going throughout his term(s).

3. I’ve been thinking about how different people view and manifest success, and how we all seem to be ingrained with this idea for settling for some sort of mediocre quality of life when we’re actually generally capable of so much more, whether through intelligence, creativity, ingenuity, or pure charisma. Why is it that when I say I want to be a writer, people automatically picture future-me as being poor, broken down, lonely, unhealthy, and generally in bad shape, when some of the most successful (in any sense you want to take from that word) people in the world are writers, or other artists? Why is my net value seen as something that is tax applicable, when I can’t take that money with me when I’m dead? All I’ll have then is something some people call a soul. Shouldn’t that be what we focus on feeding and nurturing throughout our lifetimes, with things like love, laughter, fresh air, curiousity, new experiences, and tough questions?

4. I’ve been thinking about music a lot lately too, but I’m attempting to articulate those thoughts into some form of something for my non-fiction class, so I’ll post that article up when I finish it, instead of backtracking on my thoughts here.

(The schoo'ls computer system/internet/something that tech-savvy people might understand but I do not are being re-programmed or something, and emailing and files are dubious methods of sending info to myself at best right now, but this site is getting throught just fine so far, so for the next couple of weeks, expect even more pretentious 'intellectual' blathery than usual.  I apologize in advance.  (Unlikely, but) If anyone's interest is caught despite the probable nonsensical-ness of it all and they want to chime in, please feel free.)

5. Note to self re: myth-making reference above

6. Secondary note to self:

...so, am I a horrible U2 fan if the lyric "sexy boots" makes me think of this?

I like it, though. They're actually doing something somewhat different. I love that the guitar's all rocky and buzzed out instead of Edge's standard echo-reverb.

We're studying the haiku and tanka forms first in my poetry class, and though I've always had an interest in Japanese culture (most likely first sparked by the stunning black china and gold teaset my grandfather brought back from his placement overseas, that my grandmother has always told me will be mine, but that has been spurred on by so many different aspects of the culture, both traditional and contemporary.), but I'm utterly fascinated by these. They're so tiny, but there's so much structure and meaning and, like many traditional Japanese art forms, they're completely minimal due to a maximum output of practice and training to master the form and all the philosophies behind it. I could write a long, rambling entry about these, and knowing me I probably will before the unit is over, but for now I have to be at work in just over half an hour, so have some haiku by the master of the form, Matsuo Bashō (these are not linked poems; they each stand on their own):

exhausted, I sought
a country inn, but found
wisteria in bloom

with plum blossom scent,
this sudden sun emerges
along a mountain trail

from every direction
cherry blossom petals blow
into Lake Biwa

long conversations
beside blooming irises –
joys of life on the road

autumn approaches
and the heart begins to dream
of four-tatami rooms

chilling autumn rains
curtain Mount Fuji, then make it
more beautiful to see

falling sick on a journey
my dream goes wandering
over a field of dried grass