the rain in my purse

Safe Landings

2012-01-26T19:52:00.004Z

Mark Wahlberg caused a ruckus recently when he claimed history would have been different had he been on the plane from Boston that crashed into the WTC on 9/11. He was supposed to be on one of the two, but rescheduled shortly before. He dreams frequently of his would-be heroism: If he’d been on board, he says, he’d have stormed the cockpit and kicked some terrorist ass.

While I appreciate the sentiment, how can anyone know the circumstances, assess the danger and opportunities, and above all know oneself –one's reactions, the thoughts that would go through your head, the power of fear– enough to judge what he’d do? In these days of easy heroism (local girl picks up baby sister at school!), I wouldn’t discourage the real thing, but how to make such claims hypothetically? Maybe because of your kids’ being on board, or the deal you’re about to close, or your crush on Tanya at your office, you wouldn’t dare anything at all? Most people hope for a best-case outcome. No one on the plane from Boston knew his fate.

(It’s interesting that Wahlberg has that German last name because if he’d been born, say, 90 years ago, we could have counted on him to take Hitler out. Too bad! ... but I’m having fun at his expense.) In his favor, he has since apologized. We all appreciate the sentiment, but we also benefit from hindsight. And the adrenaline of imagination. Still, there’s a lot of injustice out there, so he needn’t be disappointed he missed his chance to right wrongs. Opportunities abound.

Anyway, I heard all this and I'd have put it away in my mental clutter cabinet, except Wahlberg’s outburst coincided with the wreck of the Costa Concorida and its weasely captain. The wreck also brought up comparisons to the Titanic, and my colleague who covers the insurance industry and has a pet interest in cruises, sent me a link about second mate Lightoller, whom I’d never heard of and now ask myself why (boy walks dog for sick mom!). When the Titanic captain told him to get into one of the lifeboats, he refused. Instead when there was nothing left to stand on he dove into the ocean, after having packed as many women and children into the lifeboats as he could. Some think he misunderstood "women & children first" as "women & children only." Still, a hero in my book.

reading notes

2012-01-24T19:37:00.000Z

Not long ago I finally finished Moby Dick. I admit there would have been an acute danger of failing to finish it if I hadn't been in an internet group dedicated to it, if I hadn't been one of the leaders of aforesaid group. Yup, "reading in public!" The pressure. I am very glad to have read it now; it was worth the while. When you're somehow involved with Melville, he seems to turn up everywhere - this, today, for example.

Afterwards, quite exhausted, I had a quick romp with The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime, which had a good plot but which I found so-so. It was a fast read, though, which is often a plus point. To me it seemed like YA literature, though I understand that wasn't its original category. My take: skippable, unless you have an interest in Asperger's Syndrome.

Now I'm reading The Tin Drum and feeling underwhelmed after my high expectations. What I think of wistfully nearly every day is re-reading The French Lieutenant's Woman, which I loved last year. I even pulled it out this morning and re-read the first couple pages. Later in the day I talked to my mom who spent four hours in a doctor's waiting room today reading something I'd recommended, which turned out to be this! I could have cried. My only problem with my copy, I remembered this morning when I pulled it out, is the goofy cover with cutesy girlwoman playing peekaboo.

the what

2012-01-20T18:13:00.002Z

“Thank you for sending us your poems; we are sorry to say they are not what we are looking for.”

What: substansive
What: a question word demanding definition
What: “that which”
What: (adv.) in a great or surprising manner, e.g. what a poem!
What: a thing inherently unspecified

(for further reference: whatever, whatsoever, whosiewhat, whatchamacallit)

Do you remember the riddle about the fisherman’s daughter, who was to come both dressed and undressed? In what was she un/dressed?

“When you have what we are looking for, please let us know.“

(it has yet to be fingerprinted)

Why you cannot sing 'Dem Bones' in German

2012-01-18T14:59:00.001Z

The Scheitelbein's connected to the Hinterhauptbein
The Hinterhaupbein's connected to the Schläfenbein
The Schläfenbein's connected to the Unterkiefer
The Unterkiefer's connected to the Zwischenkieferbein
The Zwischekieferbein's connected to the Gesichtsschädel

ach nein, it just don't flow...

High Heeled

2012-01-14T10:02:00.003Z

I always want more:
more Everest, more starshine,
something in the department of vertical.

That’s why I’m up here.
It’s better than smog,
better than settling.

Since coaching myself to one-up
the utmost, my dreams
only know the amazonian.

Could you say that again?
At these heights, I hardly
hear you. Sometimes from

my perch on the umpteenth
floor, I feel the distant pinch
of the finite. You’ll see

others like me, pumped
up, outrageous in altitude.
In the ascendent,

the hitch remains poise,
attaining cliff stillness,
and nerve enough not to topple.

Word Thursday

2012-01-12T17:41:00.002Z

The little figure of the die is one of my favorites.
It is so neat and dotted, intact and self-contained, and yet with so many tentacled implications.

It's a loaded word, too, as dice can be loaded, hiding the fatal verb in it. I also like that die’s plural is dice. There’s nothing like the die-dice pair.

The mice don’t have their mie.

Advice has no advie, and rice must walk this world alone, or at least as a collective singular.

Another word I like is stacks, as in library stacks, which has no singular. Such stacks in fact are not stacked at all, ideally, but lined up in rows. For stacking stacks you need a used book shop or a plate of pancakes.

But what brought all this up was another word that I read today and meant to take note of, but now slips my mind. It’s like this morning, I put a pan of milk on the stove to warm and when I came back to get it the pan was nice and warm but there was no milk in it.

And now I remember the word: absentminded. It struck me funny. I wanted to give it a hyphen, but the dictionary says no. Perhaps I knew that.

One of the Tea Leaf fragments

2012-01-11T17:53:00.000Z

Prince Igor

Let’s lay a cloth under our clutter,
acclaim the sanity of teapots
and backs of chairs, swans
curving into morning.

And though we’ve run out of sugar
and though time, too, runs out
to its grey and empty chamber

you fill a vase with grass
saying, “if there are no roses”
*

less usual delusions

2012-01-05T14:37:00.004Z

A variation of delusions of grandeur are delusions of grammar, that is, the fixed belief that one’s language abilities are far superior than other people's, even infallible. In addition to grammar, the deluded person believes his spelling and punctuation are irreproachable. Dressing in robes or crowns is a symptom, as the patient may consider himself “the king” or “Jesus” of grammar, or chief of the grammar police. Patients obsess about perceived offenses in books, correspondence and newspapers, as well as in verbal interaction with others. This malady often leads to a complete loss of manners, as well as an obscure illness known as ‘denial of the dictionary.’

Elsewhere, closely related to delusions of persecution/paranoia are delusions of parsecution – the belief that other people – vaguely identified as "they" - are paying overly close attention to every word you say, that is, they are parsing your sentences. These parsecutory delusions often lead the sufferer to swear silence, or alternately, to use made-up words and bizarre syntactical twists to obscure the true meaning of their statements (e.g. "Withholding it stampedes, therewith spears taking tapwatery wonder," which means “Spanish agents are aggressively poisoning my tap water.”).

Happy even-numbered year

2012-01-01T15:00:00.000Z

This music makes me glad to be alive.
I wish you a brilliant, beautiful new year.
The dragon is right behind.

Cabbages & Kings

2011-12-28T16:20:00.003Z

One linguistic tic that seems pre-programmed to annoy is using the name of the person being addressed to punctuate a sentence, e.g. -
"I have a few questions about your report, Bill."
"There's something I don't understand, Joan."

Unlike placing a name at the start of the sentence, where it asks for someone's attention, using the name at the end seems patronizing, a mark of presumed superiority. With it the speaker takes a stance. It's even more pompous used in writing than in speaking, when it's completely clear to the reader that s/he is the person being addressed.
"There's one thing that sits oddly with me about your comment, Nathan."

A friend in the office says this linguistic device is taught in business school as a way of "establishing closeness with an employee." Gack. More like a way of demonstrating bossdom. To me it's the linguistic equivalent of someone poking you in the chest when talking to you.
I do admit there are times when it could be used simply for innocuous emphasis. But even in a positive sentence it seems weird, e.g. "I really like this cake you made, Bill."
Does that make it seem like the speaker was expecting not to like the cake?

I'd be interested to know what others think. I should take more time to read linguistics! Maybe I will.

Anyway, in a tenuous segue from linguistics, my poem Liaoning Snapshot is up at A Clean, Well-Lighted Place. Ages ago I taught and studied in Liaoning province in a city named Dalian, another huge Chinese city no one has ever heard of, whose cabbages inspired the poem.

Annual Limbo

2011-12-27T19:31:00.007Z

In German the week from Christmas to New Year's is called "between the years" (zwischen den Jahren), a phrase evoking a no man's land of time, and it does seem like that - taking the train with hardly anyone in it, floating around the office while nearly everyone else has off, the kids home from school.

Here comes the new year. I remember being a little kid and trying to figure out if I'd be alive after the year 2000. I made it. As always, in the new year I
1.) plan to eat more broccoli. I failed this year with about 6-7 servings, tops.

I also
2.) plan to read more German/y-related literature - The Magic Mountain, more Heinrich Böll, Herta Müller's The Appointment, that Goldhagen book, and The Beautiful Mrs. Seidenman.

Travelwise I
3.) hope to visit my dad and step-mother in Santa Fe, with or without appendages.

And, after some bad experiences, I will
4.) avoid delusions of grandeur, and just as importantly
5.) avoid people with delusions of grandeur, in real life and on the internet, where they are apparently legion.

I'm sure there are other, even more constructure ventures I could pursue, but these seem about doable.

happy trails

2011-12-24T11:13:00.003Z

Since I'm doing a slow read of Moby-Dick, I doubt there will be more to add to this list before the year ends. So here are all the books I read in 2011, not counting some re-reads. Though many of these were worthwhile, I highlighted 'only' 15 of them as especially good, in whatever way. In January I wondered if I'd find anything as good as Mrs. Dalloway in the rest of the year - it such was a terrific novel. But without devoting too much thought to it, which sometimes leads to nothing but confusion, I'd say the book I liked most this year was The French Lieutenant's Woman. Having disliked the film, it's wonder I ever took it up.

1. Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf (Jan)
2. Why Did I Ever by Mary Robison (Jan)
3. Among the Monarchs by Christine Garren (Jan)
4. Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton (Feb)
5. Dances With Snakes by Horacio Castellanos Moya (Feb)
6. Small Island by Andrea Levy (Feb)
7. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte (Mar)
8. The French Lieutenant’s Woman by John Fowles (Mar)
9. Lolly Willowes by Sylvia Townsend Warner (Mar)
10. The Alphabetical Atheist by Andrew Rihn (Mar)
11. The Chameleon Couch by Yusef Komunyakaa (Mar)
12. Jejuri by Arun Kolatkar (Apr)
13. Mapping the World by Caroline Laffon (Apr)
14. Zirconia by Chelsey Minnis (Apr)
15. Oracle Night by Paul Auster (Apr)
16. The Fellowship of the Ring by JRR Tolkien (Feb)
17. Chronicles I by Bob Dylan (Mar)
18. Moscow to the End of the Line by Venedikt Erofeev (apr)
19. Let the Right One In by John Ajvide Lindqvist (apr)
20. Call Me Ishmael Tonight by Agha Shahid Ali (Apr)
21. A Book of Luminous Things, edited by Czeslaw Milosz (Apr)
22. Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert (May)
23. Tender Buttons by Gertrude Stein (May)
24. Winter’s Tale by Mark Helprin (May)
25. The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton (May)
26. Geography of the Forehead by Ron Koertge (May)
27. Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day by Winifred Watson (Jun)
28. The Quickening Maze by Adam Foulds (jun)
29. The Line of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst (jun)
30. Laika by Nick Abadzis (June)
31. Survival in Auschwitz by Primo Levi (Jun)
32. The Redcoats by Ryan Murphy (spring)
33. The Sheltering Sky by Paul Bowles (Jul)
34. The Enchantress of Florence by Salman Rushdie (Jul)
35. Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys (jul)
36. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky (Jul)
37. Enduring Love by Ian McEwan (Jul)
38. Undertow by Anne Shaw (Jul)
39. The Pill versus the Springhill Mine Disaster by Richard Brautigan (Jul)
40. Juan Luna’s Revolver by Luisa A. Igloria (Jul)
41. The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven by Sherman Alexie (Jul)
42. Vernon Little God by DPC Pierre (August)
43. Then We Came to the End (August)
44. Temper by Beth Bachmann (Sept)
45. Number 9 Dream by David Mitchell (Aug)
46. The Trees by Eugenio Montale (Sept)
47. Aphorisms by Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach (Aug)
48. Skylark by Dezso Kosztolanyi (Aug)
49. Every Riven Thing by Christian Wiman (Aug)
50. Out Stealing Horses by Per Petterson (Sep)
51. The Worst Hard Time by Timothy Egan (Sept)
52. Maus I by Arthus Spiegelman (Oct)
53. Maus II (Oct)
54. Fantastic Women: 18 Tales from Tin House (Oct)
55. Twisted: Collected Stories by Jeffrey Deaver (Oct)
56. The Liar’s Club by Mary Karr
57. Selected Poems by René Char (Oct.
58. The Boom of a Small Cannon by Mary Ann Samyn (Oct)
59. The Children of Men by PD James (Oct)
60. Anthrolpology by Dan Rhodes (Nov)
61. Haywire by George Bilgere (Nov)
62. Surrealist Poetry in English, ed. Edward Germain (Dec)

It has snown.

2011-12-20T10:38:00.003Z

I was browsing a Roz Chast book recently and one of the comics was "Kitsch in Nature." The three things singled out were peacocks, foliage season and snowfall shortly before Christmas. All true!

I woke up this morning and it was snowing copiously and beautifully. My son jumped for joy and I kind of did, too, but also felt unnerved because my mother and sister are scheduled to fly from the states tonight and if their trips get screwed up I will be unhappy. Last year my sister had to scrap her trip completely because of snow, and my mother only arrived on Dec. 26. PLEASE GOD! Save the snow for later.

Snow is nice, though (please stop!). And here's a nicer thing. The International Center of Photography in NY used a photo by my brother Thatcher for its Christmas card this year. Click on it to make it bigger.

The victim has yet to be identified.

This blog is operated by a human being

2011-12-19T12:44:00.004Z

Just sayin.
*

We visited IKEA this weekend and I was surprised to find out they are banking on the death of the book. They're redesigning their Billy bookcases to be deeper, because they don't expect people to use them for books anymore. We recently bought a "bookshelf" from IKEA that's very deep, but I didn't appreciate the sinister warning in it. Now that I look I realize the depth is mostly unnecessary since we are using it for books, which we continue to accumulate. Maybe here the expression "like they're going out of style" would be appropriate?
I know many believe books are headed for extinction as just another outdated technology. But books have been around for thousands of years, like houses, like shoes, like earrings. I haven't seen those things fall by the wayside yet.
*

One thing in need of a serious update is the umbrella. When it is windy that contraption just does not work. Why is no one able to improve on this old technology?

All that barking

2011-12-14T18:16:00.001Z

More poems. Last night Verdad published its new issue, which has two of my poems – Death Roster and Good Wife of Hunan. The first is a spontaneous European sidewalk poem from some other decade, the second is Chinese-American and concerns my obsession with the Dog Star.

I’m taking a class in writing short prose, which is sometimes a class in reading short prose, which is also good. I’ve read many things in small formats, including Dan Rhodes’ Anthropology and some of Lou Beach’s 420 Characters, both new to me. Though I’m not big on gimmick I preferred the latter to the former. As the class ends soon we went out last night for a drink. I was looking forward to it because I next-to-never have an evening out and I assumed we’d talk writing and books but instead a talk ensued about American television, which was supremely depressing. I never watch tv, I don’t care about tv, especially tv I would have to make an extra effort to watch on the freaking internet in my miniscule free time! Anyway, I didn’t say this because as soon as you say you don’t like tv you look like a snob. It was a deflating evening.

Back to reading and writing.

in which the bluebirds black out

2011-12-13T16:25:00.001Z

It is becoming more difficult to write a letter
from the slow country of summer.
The light makes a mess of the trees.

A lawn chair broods in a corner way off the map.
*

I have two poems in the new issue of DMQ Review - Seven Postcards from Solitude and This tree requests dedication and patience. My lawn chair and bonsai are happy to be there.

Another thing I've meant to mention is my chapbook Excuse me while I wring this long swim out of my hair made Jessy Randall's list of favorite (chap)books of 2011. Yeah!

Those end-of-year lists are rolling in. I enjoy them, although I rarely read a book the year it comes out. My favorite book this year was The French Lieutenant's Woman, fresh from 1969.

Thingdom

2011-12-12T19:06:00.004Z

I am so disappointed in the French. One of our French managers visited the office today. He laughed at my joke and was generally charming. But when we retired to my desk to discuss "input queues," did he notice the book of Francis Ponge poems on my desk? Non! Or worse, he noticed and did not know Francis Ponge. It was truly disappointing.

Still, it's my week at Good Reads to pick the poems. My theme is THINGS. I've chosen poems that either take a close look at objects, or use them as a springboard. I include Ponge, and a bunch of others, including myself:

Monday: Fork by Charles Simic
Tuesday: Pity the Bathtub its Forced Embrace of the Human Form by Matthea Harvey
Wednesday: Oranges by Gary Soto
Thursday: The Frog by Francis Ponge
Friday: The Groundfall Pear by Jane Hirshfield
Saturday: Whisk by me
Sunday: Wick Effects by E.C. Belli

Below is Ponge's Frog, and maybe later this week I'll put up my Whisk, which also isn't online anywhere but will be in my chapbook Homebodies, due next year from Hyacinth Girl Press.

The Frog
When stabbing needlepoints of rain rebound from the sodden fields, an amphibious dwarf, an Ophelia with amputated arms, no bigger than a fist, springs up sometimes under the poet’s feet and hurls herself into the nearest pool.
Let the nervous creature flee. She has lovely legs. All her body is gloved in a waterproof skin. Barely flesh, her long muscles have an elegance neither fish nor fowl. But to escape your clutch the quality of fluidity in her combines with the efforts of a living thing.
Goitrous, she gasps . . . And that heart which throbs so heavily, whose wrinkled eyelids, that haggard mouth inspires such pity that I let her go.

La Grenouille
Lorsque la pluie en courtes aiguillettes rebondit aux prés saturés, une naine amphibie, une Ophélie manchote, grosse à peine comme le poing, jaillit parfois sou les pas du poète et se jette au prochain étang.
Laisson fuir la nerveuse. Elle a de jolies jambes. Tout son corps est ganté de peau imperméable. A peine viande ses muscles longs sont d’une elegance ni chair ni poisson. Mais pour quitter les doigts la vertu du fluide s’allie chez elle aux effort du vivant. Goitreuse, elle halite . . . Et ce cœur qui bat gros, ces paupières ridées, cette bouche hagarde m’apitoyent a la lâcher.

Owls and Kiwis

2011-12-07T18:37:00.000Z

I've had to activate the "moderate comments" function after receiving a number of spam comments recently. As far as my blog goes, the spambots are posting with links to what I assume are shopping sites for purses. I don't know. I didn't click, and I wouldn't want anyone else to either.

The amount of offensive spam I get in my work email has also gone berserk. Even the subject lines are pornographic. Thinking of my kids receiving the same stuff makes me want to go out and arrest people. It's at the point where I see the words "long" and "hard," even in the most innocuous settings, and I cringe. I was at the store the other day fingering the kiwis. A man beside me was doing the same and he turned to me and said "they're all hard," and I was like, "you pig." It's sad.

Spam isn't as bad with my Yahoo! account, the trade-off being I have to look at celebrity stories on the homepage. I keep thinking there must be a way to 'personalize' my page, as the site promises. Block all Demi & Ashton. Block all Kardashan. Block reality tv "news." Bloooock!

It hit home (again) today when I read a story in the New York Times about how many wines now have in-your-face names, like "Sweet Bitch," "Royal Bitch," and "Sassy Bitch," as well as "Fat Bastard," "Ball Buster," and "Bigass Red." The wineries using these names claim they must separate themselves from "the herd on the shelf." To me it sounds more like getting down with the lowest common denominator. Or maybe I've lost my sense of humor. My house wine is La Cuvée Mythique, a dark, mysterious red with a charming non-sexual owl on the label.

dezember

2011-12-01T19:03:00.008Z

The nice thing about December in Germany is it’s spelled with a z. Exotic, no?

December also brought the publication of YB and Umbrella, both of which include some of my poems. YB, in its Animals issue, has “Reindeer” from my chapbook, and Umbrella has “Our Lady of Busted Cutlery” and “Keeping my Cool.” Umbrella also has two poems by our lady of escape, Kathleen Kirk.

Some days ago The Medulla Review also went live, publishing my poem “Baseler Platz.” My office is on Baseler Platz. It’s an odd geography, encompassing a couple nice new offices and residential buildings, but also rundown store fronts, a chronic traffic snarl and the outskirts of the main train station. The poem, as always, is based on a true story.

On a side note, Diane Lockward a couple days ago blogged about guest editing for Adanna’s inaugural issue (which published my poem “Low Grass”) for anyone interested in the ins and outs of submissions.

While we’re on the subject of submissions - from a poet's point of view - yesterday was my birthday and I got a rejection. (You’d think in this age that your email would let you program what kind of mail you receive on your birthday.) It was funny because after letting me know they didn’t want my poems, they asked me to 1) follow them on Facebook; 2) subscribe to their updates; 3) take the time to register their response time on Duotrope (a lit magazine guide); and 4) reminded me to please take six months before submitting again.

It was my birthday. And I didn’t do a damned one of those things.

As my folks say, “Happy new month.”

Two days

2011-11-29T15:50:00.003Z

I was so devastated about missing another Thanksgiving I had to take two days off. Well, I was only a little devastated, but devastated enough. Actually I took a two-day collage workshop over the weekend and couldn't bear going to work right afterwards, so I took two days off. Also to savor the disappointment of failing collage. There are a lot of reasons to take two days off. I'm behind in reading Moby Dick, for example. At my current pace I'm reading about 6.3 pages a day. With a little effort I could turn two days off into eight days worth of reading. At first I just took Monday off, but then with my class Tuesday night I knew that Tuesday would make me crazy, so I added that. I have one more day free this year and I was tempted to make the two days three. But that would have been going overboard. The trick to taking two days off is not to tell your family about it until the last minute. Otherwise free takes on new meaning. Like I've done all the dog-walking for two days, which is totally not my job, which is why I go back to my job tomorrow.

the oracle at work

2011-11-26T07:09:00.000Z

It’s when I try to take a nap that everyone seems to seek my counsel.
Questions come up like “if someone wants toast but there’s no bread, then what?”
Or this one – “are you sleeping?”
Sometimes observations need to be shared, like “the TV won’t go on.”
Or someone simply opens the door and gazes at me, as if that were of great support to them.
Then my mother calls. After congratulating me for taking a nap, there’s just one question – “do you remember where I put the dumpling recipe?”

1963

2011-11-22T11:11:00.001Z

on nov 22 it rained the night before
but everything cleared by the next morning
so if you were looking at various photographs
of the motorcade route and the crowd gathered there
you will have noticed
nobody is wearing a raincoat

nobody has an open umbrella
why, because it's a beautiful day
and then I noticed in all of Dallas
there appears to be exactly one person
standing under an open black umbrella

and that person is standing where
the shots begin to rain into the limosine
let us call him the umbrella man

you can see him in certain frames from the zapruder film
standing right there by the stemmons freeway sign
there are other still photographs taken
from other locations in dealey plaza
which show the whole man

standing under an open black umbrella
the only person under any umbrella
in all of dallas

(this is a found poem transcribed from a video concerning the Kennedy assassination 48 years ago today.)

The Burden

2011-11-20T07:21:00.001Z

When I was in graduate school I had a boyfriend from Berlin. We lived together in an apartment near the university.

Götz had habits that took getting used to. He made a sharp intake of breath, for instance, when answering a question in the affirmative. I took this for a personal tic, until years later when I met other northern Germans.

Whenever there was some major handiwork to do, like renovating or painting a room, Götz wore zip-up coveralls rather like a mechanic. I found the outfit overdone. He also considered it normal to put on his swimsuit on the beach, discreetly or under a towel, while I found this embarrassing if not illegal. Disrobing was something to be done privately before arriving, or in a toilet stall.

Most awkward of all, home at night Götz walked about half-dressed or naked with the shades up and the lights on. Though I thought he ought to practice more caution and modesty, Götz didn’t feel that burden. He said it was up to the people outside not to look in.
**

Photo by Gary Heller

Mr. Paradise

2011-11-17T19:50:00.004Z

We live in a rowhouse lined up behind an identical row of identical houses. Our gardens are also the same size - small. Our homes are all the same. In back, there are five large windows.

The neighbor directly before us, whose garden we look out on, we’ve nicknamed Mr. Paradise because he has planted every inch of his garden with low-growing, pale purple flowers. It is pretty if a bit monotonous, and would be impossible to navigate without damage if it weren’t for a few stepping stones.

Almost every weekend Mr. Paradise hosts another ladyfriend for Sunday brunch. Over time, the rotation has been whittled down to three.

The tall blonde one.
The thin one with the bob haircut.
The bespectacled brunette with the small son.

It is difficult to discern what his relationship is with these women, who vaguely resemble each other – lanky and slow-moving, laconic. They could be girlfriends, or sisters, or friends from work. I’ve never seen him touch one.

It’s really none of my business.

It’s none of anybody’s business, and I don’t go out of my way to watch, but Mr. Paradise has a low fence, and even if he had a high fence I’d still see his patio from my upstairs window where I am standing behind the curtain firmly on the side of the brunette.

(repost for the voyeurs)
*painting by Sarah Boyle

Inside-Out Voyeurs

2011-11-15T16:07:00.003Z

In the house across the street the husband and wife are both smokers. Like sentries, they take turns at the big kitchen window, smoking whether it’s cold or hot, morning or night. They have two small daughters. The elderly grandmother, who used to live there alone, has been moved upstairs. Someone is always home.

It is a house of much abruptness. Curt words, and sudden gestures that just as quickly end.

One can’t help but want to get a longer glimpse into the kitchen, but the man and woman have turned tables on the curious; their constant watch prevents it. When I walk past on my daily sojourn with the dog, I must discipline myself not to turn to the window, where one of them blows a thin rope of smoke into the street, daring anyone to look.

Atlantic City

2011-11-14T19:05:00.001Z

This week I'll be doing a post each day that touches on watching or voyeurism. Let's start with a movie ...

Atlantic City

One of the most memorable opening scenes from the early 80s was in Louis Malle’s movie Atlantic City. It zooms in on a kitchen window, apparently from an opposite building. A woman stands at the sink slicing lemons. Because it’s dark out, the sink light, though dim, illuminates and isolates her, rinsing her face and hair. She takes off her blouse and rolls her camisole down to expose her breasts and shoulders.

This could easily turn into a cliché male fantasy – the standard payoff for a voyeur violating a woman’s supposed solitude. But instead of deteriorating into something cheap, she starts to rub her arms and upper body with the lemons. She is practiced at it, as if it were a daily ritual. She is rough with herself, as if she didn’t inhabit her own skin. Yet she takes the time to perform this strange cleansing, she takes this care, however perfunctory.

In addition to the unbidden intimacy, for some time the audience must suffer the mystery of why the woman washes herself with lemons. We – the audience – later learn she works at a clam bar, and the trenchant smell of fish compels her. We – the audience – are an old man observing her from an apartment window across the street.

the constant midnight

2011-11-10T10:38:00.002Z

The most important thing going on these days is my reading of Moby Dick. All other political and economic escapades pale in its shadow; all thoughts of sleep and hygiene ease into the backseat. Now I let the boat-owning Quakers Bildad and Peleg determine the worth of things; I let Ishmael do the sleeping, in bed with Queequeg.

I read much of Melville in a college seminar, but somehow the professor skipped Moby Dick. And for the most part I’d been resolved to never reading it. It was right up there with Finnegan’s Wake and a lot of vampire novels. I didn’t need to go there. But it has kind of nagged at me, so this summer I said why not (with a nudge from my reading friend Ken).

Funny enough around the time we sank our teeth in, Moby Dick seemed to experience a mini-revival. A whale nearly swallowed a surfer on YouTube! Nathaniel Philbrick published his book “Why Read Moby Dick,” which I’m skipping for the real deal. And an artist named Matt Kish published a book in which he creates a drawing or painting “for every page” of Moby Dick (he used the 552-page Signet. I have the $3.99 Penguin with 536 pp).

For my birthday, at the end of the month, I bought myself the artwork you see above for p. 513: "As the unsetting polar star, which through the livelong, arctic, six months' night sustains its piercing, steady, central gaze; so Ahab's purpose now fixedly gleamed down upon the constant midnight of the gloomy crew." I also got the bargain page 347: "At the instant of the dart an ulcerous jet shot from this cruel wound..."

I love literature. It’s inspiring. Get it while it’s hot.

bedfellows and tumbleweed

2011-11-07T15:16:00.001Z

I tried to do a poem-a-day workshop this month, but bowed out yesterday, at least from posting. It is worthwhile trying to write every day, but I’m one of those “high monitor” people, as we used to say in language pedagogy, who are kind of anal about what they throw out there. I think I’m also a bit overtaxed these days, mother- wife- and work-wise. I did get to spend some time yesterday working on a poem about bedfellows and another about tumbleweed.

Elsewhere in the workshop world, my poem “Village” was included in this month’s Guardian Poetry Workshop on poems about skin. I was really pleased about that, having considered scrapping it completely. I also have a poem in the new issue of the Medulla Review called "Baseler Platz." Aside from having a poem accepted, I liked the experience with this journal because the editor offered feedback on the poem she chose, i.e. why she wanted it, what she liked about it. Submissions for the next issue - to include poems only by women - are open.

Swami

2011-11-05T11:50:00.003Z

Dogs understand everything. This is why they are often found playing dead, or maniacally flinging dirt from the ground into the air.

When not sleeping or doing tricks for reward, dogs devote much of life to meditation. Lying on the couch while you are out, or sitting outside the market waiting on Saturday mornings, dogs are filing it all away in their minds.

With experience, dogs interpret everything correctly. You could fill book after book with the thoughts of dogs, if there were a language suited to them. Their concentrated stares swell with insights they can’t articulate.

Instead the corners and stairs fill with fur, enough to build five new dogs for each existing one, which increases crowdedness and creates static, but enlightens no one, and often serves to make them irksome.

from Everyday Processes of Manufacturing and Civilization

2011-10-31T17:44:00.000Z

The high point of ending a trip by plane is the ritual of the baggage claim. Like a litter of monstrous kittens suitcases emerge from the airport’s underground bowels. The conveyer belt puts them on parade. Hands pluck at the luggage, expressive faces ask is this one mine, is this yours. Gradually the travelers scatter, bearing bag by bag home and away.
*
Among the processes I most like to observe is toast browning in the toaster oven. After a slow start, color rolls across the bread like wind, like a brushfire, or a swarm of locusts darkening the plain. I am loath to abandon the lookout; I don’t want to let the dark go too far.
*
I’ve never minded washing windows or mowing the lawn. I’m not a big believer in progress, I am not a believer at all, but I like the advancement towards an end – I like to watch, if not take part. I could spend hours by the fireplace poking the fire.
*
In our world of myriad invention, all processes must bow to the Polaroid photo. As the images take shape, who could fail to be enthralled? Who hasn’t seen the Polaroid as a backward-looking crystal ball? It goes from murk to uncertain to your dad in his swimsuit. Within a minute it rewards its observers, traveling from frothy surf to welcoming shore.
*

Lorelei

2011-10-28T18:52:00.001Z

It's been a long time since I made a Friday confession so here's one: I have in middle age bought a number of clothing articles that I never wore, and that I knew I would never wear. One year it was a woolen dress, skyblue, gathered at the waist and v-necked. Truth is I already had the same dress in practical black and loved it, and wore it, but when they marked the skyblue one down I bought it, too, knowing it was impossible. Who can wear skyblue? With what stockings, with which shoes? But if we buy paintings, or books for their covers, or a smooth stone to fondle, and pack beautiful photos away in scrapbooks to peruse once in a while, why not some beautiful piece of clothing we like to feel or look at? I still have the dress. It hangs in my closet like a raindrop that won't drop. When I saw it in the store it called to me like a Rhine siren.

dilly dilly

2011-10-25T08:20:00.002Z

For all my bellyaching, this morning saw a beautiful sunrise in Germany. The sky was festooned in high pinks and bright blues, like the room of a yet-to-be-born baby, whose parents are holding out for the big surprise.

perhaps this valley too will burn

2011-10-21T00:50:00.003Z

For all its failings, America still does the best sunsets. While the population toils, the sunset doctors are cooking something wonderful up beyond the hills, woodlands and highways. One evening it’s blues and purples with chemical yellow rays. The next goes goth in pink frills and black clouds. They blossom like psychedelic cabbages, and leak pale scarlet like amniotic sacs. America I love you because in Europe I have to install a metal windmill in my mind and rub my eyes in absinthe to achieve anything near your least radiant machine; I have to half smother myself in macaw and flamingo feathers. Whenever I think of what I miss most, and I try not to, the red queen strolls boneless into the sky and technicolor tears bloom behind my eyelids.

Homebody

2011-10-18T01:37:00.001Z

I've been so busy traveling and visiting this past week I haven't had time to mention my very good news that I'll have another chapbook out next year, "Homebodies," from Hyacinth Girl Press. This is a collection of 'home totem' poems about household objects, and other poems set 'at home' or dealing with the concept of home. It includes some wine poems, "Whisk," "sPonge," "Faucet Song," and "Dollhouse," which appeared in Escape Into Life.

I was thrilled to have this chapbook accepted. Physical things are my favorite writing subjects, i.e. forks, knives, spoons and kneecaps.

Dollhouse

There is a sink that won’t be filled
that won’t offer water

Rooms without doors
Children on their backs in bed

There are chairs tucked up to the table
docile where sedation reigns

Little house, in death the snow
will cover you like a doily

Wolves will circle your horses
frozen beside the sleigh

.

All the names

2011-10-18T00:40:00.003Z

We got to see the 9/11 memorial in New York last week and it was stunning - very solemn, the colors sombre and dark. The typeface for the victims' names is indeed Optima, something I was wondering about in a previous post. It works well. The fountain is gorgeous and the water turns a mineral green at the bottom of the pool, which empties into a true abyss - you cannot see the bottom of it. I, and the whole family, thought it was beautiful.

What struck me afterwards, however, was how much in contrast it seems to stand to the rest of America these days, or at least the northeast coast. The shabby houses along the bus route to NYC, all the infrastructure falling apart. You see clearly that millions of dollars have been sunk into the memorial, and rightly, and yet it is sad to so much else neglected.

The memorial is very close to Occupy Wall Street, and we headed over to have a look. It was underwhelming, to be honest, and of course a number of vendors (capitalists? opportunists?) set up shop selling t-shirts and falafel on the sidelines of the demonstration.

Char

2011-10-12T00:47:00.002Z

It's discouraging to go to my mother's local library and find they have no Lydia Davis.

But it's also crazy to go to the local thrift store (enormous) and find they have a volume of Rene Char in translation on the $1 book shelf.

So I got the Char book, and took Art Spiegelman's "Maus" out of the library.

It was lovely weather today. We went to the Statue of Liberty and felt the wind blow.

tinder

2011-10-06T18:25:00.001Z

Tomorrow we fly to NJ via Ottawa and tonight we pack. I won’t be taking many books because I will surely bring some back, though I must be careful not to go overboard. Last time I had to pay an overweight fee. My mother says Kindle is the answer, but I still love paper books that make good tinder, and if I had a Kindle (or whatever) I’d surely spend 80% of my waking time connected to electronic gadgetry. When you think about it, even my stove is electric, and so is the tram that takes me to work. And I spend a lot of time with lamps.

I am taking The Liar’s Club, which I’m reading now.
And I’m taking The Book of Disquiet, which I’m still reading.

I won’t take any poetry because I have a bunch of chapbooks waiting at my mother’s. I can’t remember which, but DGP does this “bundle” deal with chaps, which are $7 a piece, but $5 as part of a bundle of 5. If you like poetry, it is dumb not to go over and pick some titles, including mine of course.

I also thought it would be cool to enter my chap in a giveaway at GoodReads, and I made the entry period longish thinking not many people would sign up. But apparently the GoodReads giveaways trigger a mass reaction in which whoever and whatever signs up. Right now 360 people “want” my book. It’s kind of sad, because 356 of those people just want something for free. Frown. So if you’re on Good Reads and read poetry please sign up. I just did. Can I win my own book? Let’s see. laugh

mind map

2011-10-05T19:05:00.001Z

When I read the newspaper, I often mix Belfast up with Belgrade, requiring strenuous mental leaps.

Even more often, I mix the Pantheon up with the Parthenon.

Slovenia and Slovakia are a constant challenge that might not be worth it. For me. Personally.

Recently I read a poem called "Chad" about a man and his family posing for a photograph. At the end, I asked, "What does this have to do with Chad, landlocked country south of Libya, population 10 million, broad arid plains, desert in the north, lowlands in the south?"

the moon gazed on my midnight labours

2011-09-29T12:18:00.000Z

I read an article yesterday saying astronomy has confirmed that Mary Shelly saw a bright gibbous moon on the night she began “Frankenstein.” In her original introduction to the book she said the moon was shining through her window deep in the night when she began her classic, but many considered the claim author hype.

Tracing back, however, an astronomer determined the window in the villa where the young lady stayed above Lake Geneva was pouring moonlight into her room between 2 and 3 am on June 16, 1816, the night she and other guests were challenged to write a ghost story.

I enjoyed this article because I was immediately up close with her in that bedroom, with the moonlight and the bedsheets and the good idea. It’s marvelous how science can inspire intimacy.

song of the day: There's a light over at the Frankenstein place

all you need

2011-09-26T13:22:00.003Z

Again I woke up at 4.30 and couldn’t fall back asleep. I was thinking about work and other sundries, and waiting for my husband to snore. He didn’t, but I was waiting for it. Yes, even his not snoring was keeping me awake. I was also thinking about Kathleen’s prompt to write a short poem with a long title. I had started one last week, and it kept growing longer, so there in bed, without the poem in front of me, I cut it down. At 5.30 I got out of bed to write it down. It is tentatively titled: “Lines written in a Japanese noodle shop watching a bldg be demolished.” I abbreviated building to keep it from being too long.

In less than 2 weeks we fly to the states for the annual tour. I’ve been thinking of the books I want to buy, but also thinking how I don’t want to lug them back. Last time I paid an overweight fee. So I took a look at Better World Books, where I’ve ordered before, indirectly via Amazon. Turns out they don’t charge for international shipping. This seems impossible. I am waiting for the email that says “free international shipping applies only to residents of pre-colonial Rhodesia.” Still, I ordered four books:
The Journal of Helene Berr
I Can’t Go On, I’ll Go On by Samuel Beckett
Citrus County by John Brandon
Faithful Ruslan by Georgi Vladimov

I found the LOVE sticker above today walking to the post office to send a copy of my chapbook to Emmanuel Polanco, the artist who provided me with the collage for the cover. It’s now on its way to Paris.

Satellite Plunges To Earth

2011-09-24T13:10:00.001Z

A satellite has plunged to earth, but in Germany we are not concerned because the Pope is here. That’s right, Benedikt is touring the Vaterland. He spoke before Parliament the other day and got only positive press. Even the godless Greens are reportedly smitten with him. But not my daughter, who is in permanent protest mode. Good for her, though she could tone it down sometimes.

My chapbook has also plunged to earth, to the German earth, having finally arrived in the post yesterday. I am happy. I thought I might have made the wrong choices, but I am relieved. If anyone is interested in reviewing it, send me an email and I’ll send you a copy. While “supplies” last, of course.

After the teaser, Kathleen Kirk’s review is up at Prick of the Spindle. I also have four poems in the issue: The Russians Go With Everything, which is about big Russian books; Clue, which is about figuring out whodunit and why: Iron, a home totem poem; and Turning the Clocks Forward, about having to change the goddamned time to accommodate the seasons.

Bitte schön!

il fait un peu lourd et vos cheveux sont longs

2011-09-21T18:23:00.004Z

The very kind Kathleen Kirk has posted a short review of my chapbook Excuse me while I wring this long swim out of my hair over at Escape into Life. She looks at the shorter poems, on which she based some exercises for her students, including write a very short poem with a very long title. I'm flattered. She tells me the piece is actually a "pre-review" from a review that will appear in Prick of the Spindle.

I'd actually like to write more short poems with long titles, being a fan of both. I wouldn't recommend, however, giving your book a very long title, as it can be kind of a pain in the ass having to type it out in full every time it comes up, providing opportunity for error.

Excuse me wihle I rig this long wig to my heir
Exclude me while I slam this ringworm from my ear
Excuse my wrought-iron swimring that longs for the pier
Excusez-moi pour mes longs cheveux en votre potage

endless fun...

Tinder Box

2011-09-18T07:15:00.004Z

Timberwolf: Drizzle like fur on the car windows. My daughter coloring in the backseat, her monochrome of humming.

Tangerine: October leaves spilling down a hill.

Burnt Sienna: The fence along my mother’s lawn, spanning the yard like a long silence. From far off, the posts and rails look awkward and dilapidated, but closer, you see they accommodate each other.

Scarlet: Superstition, an old obstacle. Rose petals caught in sidewalk cracks.

Sea green: A twinge like the menthol of my mother’s Salems. Surplus paint in the motel halls.

Indigo: The years I vanished. Fatigue. A collapse of trust.

Butterscotch: Bored despair, drinking after bedtime.

Mahogony: The sheen of a law office table. My daughter’s braids, disappearing behind her back.

Orange: A nightlight. Penguin spines that lined the shelves along a hallway.

Copper: Flames left just terrace stones, tarnished knobs from an armoire, the lock on the bedroom chest, where the fire started.

Cornflower: I hope the words will come, like water comes.

Lemon yellow: Unripeness, disharmony. The guest who smiles too much.

Plum: A dark horse on our hill at dusk.

Ash: A litter of twigs, reading in a whisper, condolences.

Carnation pink: My daughter’s favorite crayon. It appears in all her drawings. Perfection, happiness. Just a stub now, there’ll never be enough of it.

lent et grave

2011-09-13T07:06:00.003Z

No doubt fall is coming. Not too slow either. Even though it’s hot today (sticky).
How nice the park is with no people in it.

Just the birds.

The birds are tired of being in poems. They want out. They want left alone.
The lark (beauty). The cuckoo (bad breath). The woodpecker (who keeps its mouth shut).

The grass gives an inch. The wind unzips the trees.
The trees are tired of being in poems.
(They are composing something of their own.)

I laugh when someone says the future is uncertain.
The future, my friends, is always uncertain.
Mein Gott! It is our last hope.

I kill a bug. For real.
My dog cannot play dead; she can only play dying.

How nice the park is without people in it!
For years I suffered a mysterious respiratory affliction that was cured by listening to Erik Satie.

Sans serif

2011-09-11T19:08:00.007Z

Like many people, I got my first look at the 9/11 memorial today - on the internet, of course. What I especially like about it is the sans serif typeface, which is simple and on the heavy side, but with good balance. I find it impressive. I've googled up and down but can't find the name of it. I did find a lot of other information, including how the names are arranged using algorhythmics - by relationship, and/or location. That was a great idea.

Look at this kid doing an etching of the engraving of his father's name. The first thing I thought of when I saw it was how I used to do those etchings on old gravestones. And then it struck me that that memorial is his father's gravestone.

I'm looking forward to visiting the memorial in October. If anyone figures out the typeface before then, tip me off.

dancing bananas

2011-09-09T14:51:00.004Z

The dime that broke the bank.
The inch that took a mile.
The brain that paid no mind.
The shirt that hurt.
The conniption that fit.
The night that took all day.
The kiss to end all kisses.
The scam waxed phlegmatic.
I began smelling strongly of onions
when my fingernails burst into flame.

Nothing left to do

2011-09-05T10:39:00.001Z

Gates Criticizes NATO
Mikhail Gorbachev Criticizes Vladmir Putin
Alberta Premier Criticizes Oil Spill Cleanup
Texas Senator Criticizes Man for Testifying in Spanish
Harry Potter Expert Criticizes Vatican Newspaper’s Glowing Review
Christian Left Criticizes Religious Right; Holds Counter-Event
Bachmann Criticizes Black Farmer Settlement
House GOP Criticizes White House Visitor Logs
Angelou Criticizes Inscription at MLK Memorial
Bellevue College Criticizes Math Question
UK Prime Minister Criticizes Newspaper Pay Walls
Indonesia Criticizes Saudi Beheading of Maid
Colin Powell Criticizes Cheney for Memoir Claims
Irish Minister Criticizes NYC St. Pat’s Parade
Berlin Mayor Criticizes Nostalgia for Berlin Wall
Gingrich Criticizes Departed Staffers
Man Rescued from Drain Criticizes Police
Jim Carrey Criticizes Tiger Woods’ Wife
Boehner Criticizes Biden for Praising China’s One-Child Policy
Gaga Criticizes Critics
BBC report Criticizes BBC

Song of the day: The Begat

The Man from Sound Effects

2011-09-04T16:40:00.000Z

To make the sound of pity, he rakes his hair
with a pine branch; he freezes
ice cubes.

To evoke spite, he smashes two patches of corduroy together
in a wood
far away
without a soul in sight.

To simulate folly, he rustles a boa of tape yanked
from a cassette around his shoulders; he gives up
smoking.

So what about silence, he asks, waggling a rubber hammer.

For fear, he mounts two live flies onto a photo of the ocean.

He is writing a manual in which nearness
wields a long pair of scissors.

To bring to mind love, he smiles
till it hurts; he can’t stop
laughing.

Pain is inevitable and hard to describe

2011-09-03T07:17:00.003Z

It was like a tightening that threatened to burst.
It was like an awful crushing.
It was a severe, piercing tingle.
Aching. Searing. Cramping.
Like my arm had been ripped open and an alto started singing.
I've never been stabbed in the neck, but it was as if that happened.
Clowns blew hot air on it.
Acid crackled in my capillairies.
A vice put the squeeze on my right eye.

Skylark

2011-08-31T18:18:00.004Z

To be completely superficial let me start by saying that for a book concerning ugliness, Skylark has a beautiful cover. The colors are gorgeous and fine -dark ochre and robin's egg blue- and the sans serif type and Hungarian accents top it off like fragile, delicate bones.

But looks aren't everything. I was also bowled over by the story, which is both heartbreaking and very funny. It's set in a distinctive time and place, but what's portrayed is accessible to anyone.

Before going into it, it’s important to say that this book has a lot of laughs. I laughed out loud at the theater scene. I laughed at how the writer poked fun at the characters’ sentimentality. I laughed at the drunken “ride” in the chair, the father’s confrontation with a man he’d hoped would wed his daughter, the funny title headings, and at many exchanges between the couple. It’s the humorous touch and the irony that makes it surprising how sad this book is.

The story is about a couple and their 35-year old unmarried daughter, Skylark, who is their life's focus and its albatross. Because Skylark suffers, they suffer. Because Skylark has no way to escape her sad, uneventful life, they resolve to a sad and uneventful life, cutting themselves off from the community and friends and everything else that brings sensual or intellectual pleasure - the theater, good food, cigars, music.

This self-imposed deprivation is painful for the characters, but tedium in its sameness is a great soother, and the alternative would throw Skylark's situation into stark relief. That's what happens when she goes away for a week, leaving her parents alone. They loosen up, and the thought of Skylark loses its grip, until they are confronted with her return.

Though ugly, Skylark seems an average, able person; unfortunately she lacks any gifts, talent or any particular characteristic that would make her attractive, or redeem her inner life, like a keen mind or a love of music, say, or poetry. Significantly the father’s only pastime is studying genealogy, as his own family tree is about to stop branching.

Skylark’s ugliness comes across almost as a disability, as when we first encounter her in the garden in the posture that is “best” for her, or when she walks flanked by her parents. Although she never really seeks to manipulate anyone, Skylark’s presence is oppressive. The family doesn’t eat in restaurants because she has a sensitive stomach. Her frugality means they use only one bulb in a four-bulb chandelier. Her parents love her dotingly in an effort to ease her loneliness, and they hate her because they are powerless to change it.

I usually don't post my book reviews here, but I thought this book especially worth talking about. Ambiguity (love vs hate)! Nuance (mouse grey vs dove grey)! Despair! It's got 'em.

texture

2011-08-29T09:39:00.004Z

The next morning I woke groggy but happy in my gold bed and, after a gold power shower, went down to the ornate dining room and ordered the "healthy and energising" breakfast Tej had recommended. The banana porridge was sublime, as was the creamy yoghurt scattered with nuts.

This excerpt is from an article about a hotel that offers an insomnia package.

Next to my husband's snoring, if there's anything keeps me up at night, it's worrying about whether I'm right or wrong, and how I can find out.
And so I ask, isn't there something wrong here with the use of "scattered?" The way it's used indicates the yoghurt is scattered, but I am sure the writer means the nuts are sprinkled on the yoghurt. Or have the nuts been thrown at the yoghurt in such a way that the yoghurt has scattered about the room, in which case, the writer could just as well have chosen "splattered?"

Or perhaps the yoghurt has disappeared? Or been recklessly flung away? These are among the possibilities.

Scatter (v.)
1. a. to cause to separate widely b. to cause to vanish
2. archaic: to fling away heedlessly
3. to distribute irregularly
4. to sow by casting in all directions
5. a. to reflect irregularly and diffusely b. to cause (a beam of radiation) to diffuse or disperse
6. to divide into ineffectual small portions

intransitive verb
1. to separate and go in various directions
2. to occur or fall irregularly or at random

I do have to say that if I had to rise and eat a meal that included both porridge and yoghurt I might decide never to wake up again.

song of the day: The Way We Were

roll another number

2011-08-27T19:04:00.002Z

in which I discover myself alone in the house, without family or even dog

in which I play a Neil Young CD without the adulteration of European opinion

in which I put my pajamas and kimono on at 6 pm because I do not have to walk the dog later tonight or in the morning

in which I eat slices of Stilton cheese for dinner, and red chard and rucola salad with baby tomatoes, followed by an imaginary cigar

in which I look up the word ‘breviary’

in which a fruit fly drives me crazy and I fight bravely and lose

in which it gets dark outside, and not gradually

in which I call to wish my step-mother happy birthday and apologize that I am the sole messenger, at which expresses her envy

song of the day: mellow my mind

Whaling

2011-08-22T16:51:00.007Z

After a cool, damp summer the kids went back to school and right on schedule two weeks later it started to get hot as all goddamn. After the summer pool passes expired, thanks a lot. I am a devoted red wine drinker but the humidity has made this impossible. I caved and bought a bottle of white today. And it is actually great. Go, New Zealand. Go, gooseberries.

Still, summer has officially ended and it is time for me to lament never having read Moby Dick. I was in a bookstore at lunchtime and indeed they had Moby Dick, and I picked it up and checked to see the print wasn't miniscule and it was not and I pretended that wasn't happening and put it back on the shelf...

In terms of seasons it also seems to be journal reply time. I've gotten about 7-8 replies in the past week and a half, pretty evenly balanced. On the Yes pile: DMQ Review, Umbrella, Pure Francis, Verdad. Plenty of rejections, too. Have you heard about writers seeking to get 100 rejections a year? It's a quest I may join.

Want to hear the worst rejection I had this year? It came from Grey Sparrow, and I am sure I immediately tossed it, but it said something like: "We will pass on these poems. Have you read the poems at Grey Sparrow? They are exceptional." Which to me meant, "and you suck."

Anyway, at the moment I'm reading Christian Wiman's Every Riven Thing, which I got from a newspaper colleague who had no intention of reviewing it, and which I am surprised to like so much.

you cannot unlock a door that is unlocked

2011-08-21T15:24:00.000Z

Of all doors in the vacation house, the kitchen door is the worst.

It must be opened with a key but the key will not position properly to turn the lock.

Rejiggle and try to turn, rejiggle and try. It all comes to nothing.

This lock is like a clump of knotted hair that only gets knottier.

Just leave it alone and come back later? Take a walk around, lay the key down and hope it works when it’s cooled off?

(Is this even the key?)

Wanted: Two bearded vikings with battering ram.

And lo, I say unto thee, someone may have moved the stone but even Jesus could not unlock this lock.

wien

2011-08-18T06:32:00.001Z

I'm in Vienna for a couple days, working. Our office is in a very nice area just a street over from the Dom, with its horse-drawn carriages and Catholic icon shops. Ah the smell of horse shit! So unlike bus exhaust.

I would like to commend Viennese retailers on their integrity. These guys do not dabble. If it is a kimono shop, you will find only kimonos. If it is a cigar shop, there are no cigarettes. The Catholic icon shop sells crucifixes, religious statuettes and purposeful candles. There are no t-shirts that say God hearts Vienna. I was in a candy shop yesterday that was a purifying experience. I asked about the different licorices and was given different licorices to try. (I bought chocolate.)

It is strange to think that the population of all of Austria is only about the size of that of NYC. As far as I'm concerned, with Vienna, the Alps and Sigmund Freud, the country has everything it needs.

marie von ebner-eschenbach

2011-08-14T15:01:00.002Z

Yesterday my daughter took me to a second-hand shop in a kind of icky part of town. It was a decent shop, though; we tried on a number of things. She REALLY wanted a purse, but I told her I was nearly broke and we'd come back another time.

Two doors down was a second-hand bookshop where we also went 'just to look,' though soon she had a pile of books in her arms and I, too, had 2-3 interesting books picked out. I made her choose two, which apparently meant three, and I got a slim collection of aphorisms by Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach. She published a number of stories more than a hundred years ago, but is known now mostly for the aphorisms.

Here are a couple bad translations:

To want to clear oneself of unjust suspicion is either superfluous or futile. (p. 73)

The hungry are more easily helped than the overfed. (p. 47)

What is regret? The grief that we are what we are. (p. 32)

All disappointments are nothing in comparison with those we have in ourselves. (p. 47)

The more you love yourself, the more you are your own enemy. (p. ?)

Clumsy flattery can be more humiliating than well-founded reproach. (p. 67)

Baby Names

2011-08-11T18:42:00.001Z

Combine Ethel and Ethan and the results are almost lethal, but not to worry because even though non-native speakers find them equally hard to pronounce, these two are never seen together.

In many things they are the inverse of each other. Ethel is, for example, tight as lips around a cigarette, tight as a perm at Saturday noon. Ethan, on the other hand, is loose, his shaggy hair uncombed. His taste tends to those baggy jeans that made boxer shorts a million.

While Ethan was the 2nd most popular boy’s name last year, Ethel was #7202 on the girls’ list. Reverse the clock by 92 years, and it’s the other way around.

Ethel and Ethan are like twins separated at birth, albeit about nine decades apart. A few years before Ethan’s popularity began its upward climb, Ethel, piece by piece, virtually dropped off the face of the earth.

Ethan is working hard to keep those pieces hidden.

Tomorrow: Nathan and Lilith.

Epilogue, for if all is fat

2011-08-09T18:12:00.000Z

Years ago I gave up reading
in bed at night
as a kind of laudanum

as an instrument towards sleep
which is an insult to oneself
and a slap at the writer.

My books are stacked
bedside for morning, opened
in the hope of waking up.

I save nighttime for dull tasks
like simple math
like operating heavy machinery.

Ghost Fragments

2011-08-06T06:49:00.004Z

When I try to speak French, Italian spooks me,
less the form than the mood of it, the flighty rise and ebb.
*
People talk about phantom limbs, but rarely of the phantom itch.
The itch occurs, but what’s under it?
*
At the Salvation Army there’s a ghastly rack
of coats, the line-up of might-be ghosts
*
I know a slender woman haunted by her former heavy self.
The body has been exorcised; the spirit will not let go.
*
The song in my head this morning, a song I didn’t know I liked.
*
The typewriter, too, is not extinct. It lives on
in street work, factories, rivers, in feet descending stairs.
My father’s boxy black one.
My electric Brother.
*
in love, the ghoul of hate
*
When I was in high school, a boy in the next grade
was decapitated by a train, stumbling home drunk
by the overpass. Charlie. Everyone knew the story.

I can’t go through that part of town without thinking of it.
As if I'd been there. And it’s not Charlie who haunts
that part of town, but what happened to Charlie.
*
The parts haunt the sum.
The choir in the ostrich.
The goon in kangaroo.
*
the past / the smell of lavender / a stroke that stays in the bones / trauma /
fog / exhaust trapped in the atmosphere / abortion / childhood /
perfume / regret
*
We’re all haunted by Auschwitz, even the deniers.
We all stand here shoeless in the Polish snow.
*
to say nothing of graveyards
only the dead really give up the ghost
*
As a noun, “haunt” refers to a place a man can frequently be found.
He occupies it, fills and inhabits it, seeking
something he’ll never come home with.

(in response to Dave Bonta's post at Via Negativa)

excuse me while I wring this long swim out of my hair

2011-08-03T18:28:00.008Z

My chapbook, "Excuse me while I wring this long swim out of my hair," now newly exists. If you are so inclined, you can order one RIGHT HERE. Please do. There are a 22 jillion poems in it, including, completely out of order -

Dictionary Illustrations
Toy Boat Toy Boat Toy Boat
Reindeer
Unseen
Ghazal of the Jack Pines
Riding Backwards on the Train
Excuse me while I wring this long swim out of my hair
On the Way to Meet My Daughter’s Teacher
Poem Found in a Comic Book
Training
Outdoor Café, October
On Stopping to Smell Perfume on the Way Home from Work
From the Back of My Mind
My Money is on Fire
Ingrid Wears Bangs
Do Tell
Can’t we put them all there
The Minimalist
To Long Division
Hive
In Frankfurt Cemetery
Sworn to Observance

As I've mentioned, the marvelous Emmanuel Polanco provided the collage for the cover. If this were an Oscar speech, I would be thanking him right now with plentiful tears. I would also be wearing a long gown.

the end of obscenity

2011-08-01T13:46:00.002Z

I was well composed today. High heels that didn’t hurt. Long swingy black slacks. I packed a lunch from home of items that would soon expire unless rescued orally by me. I put them in a recycled plastic bag from the book shop, in which they fit perfectly. Thrift is a complicated operation, both to execute and to pronounce. I felt so put together, like a colorforms figure – a sturdy piece of laminated plastic decked out in tidy vinyl. Then in the train station I saw a lady with one arm, and it occurred to me that if you are born with six fingers on one hand, you no longer have a middle finger.

late bloom

2011-07-28T17:37:00.003Z

So it’s the end of July and I finally put a 2011 calendar up in my room. It’s been a big help already. You can see the month hanging there like a mouth gone slack. Gack!, it says, what day is it? It took you this long? Or maybe that wide-openness is an enormous yawn. In Wednesday’s box I wrote “overslept,” so you decide.

My room is so small and stuffed with books and furniture I had to put the calendar behind the door, so most of the time you can’t see it anyway. Still, I know it’s there, ticking like a square clock, spinning around when I’m not looking like Linda Blair’s head.

But really, what a great invention. The calendar is so tidy, each day allotted its own little box, all separated by thin black lines. I never stay up past midnight anymore, so I don’t know if these lines actually exist. Lord knows I want to believe.

Auto Recs

2011-07-25T18:54:00.005Z

If you like Jeanette Walls’s “The Glass Castle,” you may also like Daniel Woodrell’s “Winter’s Bone.”

If you like T.S. Eliot, you will like the scene in “The Great Gatsby” in which the car moves through the Valley of Ashes.

If you like Paul Auster’s trilogy, you will appreciate the paintings of René Magritte, specifically those featuring bowler hats, streetlamps, moons and/or houses.

If you enjoy “Daniel Deronda,” you will love the almond note in the mimosa of Guerlain’s Après l’Ondée.

If you are a fan of the surreal poems of Vasko Popa, you will love the stunning turrets of Milan’s cathedral in all their smog-besotted majesty.

If you like “Cloud Atlas,” you may also like driving around without your clothes on listening to Lorraine Hunt Liebermann sing Bach.

If you like “Blood Meridian,” you were surely one of those children unable to leave a loose tooth alone.

If you like Virginia Woolf, you will love a sunset that is a neon shade of lilac streaked with cloud shrill and orange and all your fiery life inside it.

174517

2011-07-20T09:19:00.002Z

I read a lot on vacation, but was for the most part disappointed. The best (non-poetry) book I finished was surely Primo Levi’s Survival in Auschwitz. I’ve read many holocaust books so there wasn’t anything particularly mind-blowing in there, but I do appreciate his story, and his ideas on “the drowned and the saved,” which is also in his book of that name, which I read years ago. “Survival” is more personal, but also somewhat coolly observed.

Fiction was more disappointing. Crime and Punishment, I hate to say, was not my bag. I did like the structure – Dostoevsky was good at punctuating the narrative with episodes and creating interesting characters. Still, talk about pages and pages of repetitive inner turmoil. If it wasn’t Rodya, it was the insufferable Katerina Ivanovna (whose turmoil was more external and just as tedious). I thought it might be better to read a book about C&P, say a Freudian interpretation, rather than the novel itself. Apologies to the Russian lovers, whom I count myself among.

I was also disappointed by The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, and Wide Sargasso Sea! Then the long-awaited The Sheltering Sky, which pushed my feminist button so hard it hasn’t popped back out yet. Around that point my daughter got tired of asking me how was the book I was reading. And to think that last year around this time I was swooning over David Copperfield and Cloud Atlas.

I’m now reading Then We Came to the End, an entertaining pop culture novel. Still, at page 150 I’m wondering how a full 400 pages of office politics and intrigue is going to be sustained without any true anchor in the plot.

So that’s all on my reading downer. I do hope things improve, whether via better books or a better mood, which indeed could be the true source of my discontent.

wtf

2011-07-18T13:32:00.001Z

The marvelous thing about the acronym WTF, aside from the miracle of its mere existence and the pleasure it brings mankind as a spot-on means of expression, is the nuance you can infuse by using bold to emphasize one of the three letters.

For example, when you highlight the W in bold, as in WTF, to represent laying stress on the word WHAT when you ask WHAT the fuck, it is like a seeker begging for clarity, for something to be identified by name, and escorted into court.

Alongside crippling bewilderment, when you bold the F as in what the FUCK (WTF), it expresses severe moral, philosophical, religious or narcissistic outrage, depending on the context. It is also a means of warning any and all readers that you may be about to go at least temporarily insane. In days of yore, this ground was covered by “I’m very confused.”

Lastly, highlighting the T as in what THE fuck (WTF) is like throwing the whole of the universe into question, as WTF becomes the deepest of all existential questions, as the word THE is the most existential of words, and the acronym now asks who or what has presumed to claim a title or designation, and whether this town is big enough for it and us.

reservations

2011-07-13T11:27:00.003Z

The Hotel Su Sergenti, a little oasis of relax, is certainly an ideal place for holidays, with the main factors like sun, the crystal clear water and the incredible beaches of fine white sand. The nature particularly generous with this dream island bursts in millions of colors and sensations which will remain in your minds like precious and unique remembrances. Relax in the mess of our inner structure, which is reserved only for you.

thank you for leaving

2011-07-11T17:23:00.004Z

Two more days and we will escape the mosquitoes and heat of Sardinia. It is really gorgeous here, but one has to wonder about the lack of window screens. I don't really buy "we're used to it." I did pretty well with my Italian this year although the other night after we had a big dinner for Carlo's relatives I thanked them all for going rather than for coming.

My new chapbook should come out late this month and I'm excited to say that the artist who provided the art for the cover of "In the Voice of a Minor Saint," Emmanuel Polanco, is also donating a collage for "Excuse me while I wring this long swim out of my hair." I looked around and considered other options but I kept thinking there's really no artist who appeals to me quite as much as he does, so I got on my knees and begged. With success.

In other good news, Barn Owl Review just accpeted my "Ghazal with Broken Birds" for issue 5. And Phantom Kangaroo accepted "Smashed Ghazal" for their August issue. I'm of course really happy about this. Prick of the Spindle took four poems for their September issue just before I left, so the dry period of rejections has come to an end.

Otherwise, I have indeed done a lot of reading on this vacation. The choice has pretty much been swim or read. They both take a lot of energy. More on my reading adventures next week.

on the patio over the sea

2011-07-10T05:11:00.000Z

With my heel slung across the opposite knee, the skin and un-muscle of my calf hang like a slack hammock filled loosely with sand. How, with all the stairs there are to climb in life, can it droop so resolutely? Well, I say, you are lucky it is stuffed with sand. Imagine if it were filled with plums or nickels - and you in your brown bathing suit. Then there would be something to moan about.

summer reading

2011-06-28T02:53:00.002Z

I'm definitely overestimating my prowess, but these are packed. Ciao!

The Sheltering Sky by Paul Bowles (fiction)
The Worst Hard Time by Timothy Egan (history)
The Enchantress of Florence by Salmun Rushdie (fiction)
Down With the Ship by Ryan Murphy (poetry)
Dark Blonde by Belle Waring (poetry)
RHINO 2010 (poetry journal)
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky (fiction)
The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields (fiction)
Brute Neighbors (lit anthology)
The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven by Sherman Alexie (fiction)
Juan Luna’s Revolver by Luisa A. Igloria (poetry)
Undertow by Anne Shaw (poetry)
The Scented Fox by Laynie Browne (poetry)
The Pill vs the Springhill Mine Disaster/In Watermelon Sugar/Trout Fishing in America by Richard Brautigan (poetry/fiction)
The Book of Disquiet by Fernando Pessoa

song of the day: bella ciao

Packing

2011-06-26T09:00:00.005Z

We leave for vacation this coming week. We’ll be spending 2+ weeks in Sardinia, the plus time being the drive & ferry there and back. Packing space is limited because browndog is coming, meaning the back of the station wagon is half-occupied by her. I’m sharing a suitcase with my daughter, meaning 2/3rds of the suitcase is occupied by her. So I’m making my reading selections carefully.

I don’t really differentiate between summer reading and winter, spring or fall reading. I don’t mind reading snowy gulag books on the beach, or desert books in the dim, rainy fall (which reminds me, I could take The Sheltering Sky!). I think people who like light reading on vacation probably prefer light reading in general.

One tradition I do stick to is reading short stories in summer. This year I plan to read Sherman Alexie’s The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fightfight in Heaven. Another summer tradition is the ‘forcefeed read,’ a book I think I should read but have so far managed to avoid. Last year it was David Copperfield, which I loved. This year it’s Crime and Punishment. I’m really not optimistic. I never am. I bailed on The Brothers Karamazov, for example. But you never know.

I usually do take non-fiction, too. Right now I’m in the middle of Primo Levi’s Survival in Auschwitz, which with luck I'll finish before we leave (freeing up room in the bookbag). On the maybe pile are The Worst Hard Time and Confederates in the Attic. Dunno.

Poetry is hard to pick because if I take two or three books and it turns out I’m not in the mood for them, it’s a disaster. So I like to bring an anthology for the variety. I’m pretty sure I’ll be taking Brute Neighbors, an anthology of urban nature poetry and prose, which Kathleen recommended and has a poem in. It’s small, too, so I won’t have a problem fitting it in my bag. I will be far from the urban, and any wildlife I see will likely be of the sea-creature variety, but I like when a book delivers me elsewhere.

I was going to link to some summer reading lists here, but none of them have books on them I'm particularly interested in. "Bossypants" appears to be dominating this year, which seems to me a good example of high summer fluff.

Typeface #14

2011-06-20T17:35:00.007Z

This book is set in the typeface called Signiglia, which was created by an obscure order of Florentine nuns in the 15th century. Living in close quarters, the sisters designed Signiglia in italics to evoke intimacy and an inclination to bend to God’s will. For that reason --despite the conditions usually associated with a vow of poverty-- the typeface is curved rather than angular. The so-called “long letters” (l, k, j, etc.) are slenderly looped, while the “semi-circulars” (a, p, q, c, etc.) ellipse. Signiglia was originally printed exclusively in lower case as a nod to modesty and inconsequence. Confounding in its detail, Signiglia is used in modern times by writers who seek both to mask and glorify the shortcomings of their work.

I come from a state of astonishment

2011-06-17T18:35:00.008Z

I have two poems in the new Literary Bohemian, the handsome half-Czech zine that goes everywhere. The poems are Crossings and Among the Watermelons.

Crossings is a poem I began long ago on a trip to Denmark when I forgot my passport. Coincidentally, around that time I'd learned that my paternal forebears were more likely Danish than Dutch. After a boring and disappointing visit to Denmark, I abandoned this poem for a long time.

Among the Watermelons is a cento using lines from French poets I adore.

As we say in China, welcome you enjoy.

For me, my roots don't go much further than Scranton, PA, where my parents are from. And weirdly, whenever my mother visits me in Germany she says, "Germany always reminds me of Pennsylvania." And I understand her, at least as far as eastern Pennsylvania goes. The photo is of her on the cover of The Scrantonian in 1954.

Open the hood and expose the good bones

2011-06-16T14:47:00.005Z

The piano is nothing more than a musical vehicle. It has a brake, accelerator and clutch. The metronome makes a precise speedometer.

Unlike a typical car, however, the piano can be started with any key.

It is good for taking out for a spin on a Sunday morning when the shops are closed. Dusty, rural roads recommend Mussorgsky; the city’s stop-and-go pairs well with Satie; and the long lake drive lined lushly with chestnuts lends itself to a variety of Baptist hymns.

The piano has an ample interior, airy and comfortable, but that needn’t influence one’s driving style – it may be slow and sumptuous, or aggressive and down-to-business. Most models are aerodynamic, epitomized by the Steinway grand, though the piano world also has its jaunty uprights, which are easier to park.

All pianos are suited to melodious cruising. If you crave a large audience, turn up the volume and burn rubber, or pop a wheelie, or go do doughnuts in the parking lot.

As with any vehicle, a piano is meant to provide its driver with a feeling of freedom. It’s versatile – with imagination you can take anywhere. For flair, experienced drivers suggest wearing a veil or a scarf, or simply let your mane grow long. That way you’ll feel the wind try to pull you back as you get going, before deliriously playing along.

the N ends in a dewdrop, signifying an utter lack of restraint

2011-06-13T14:00:00.001Z

This book was set in Dindong, a typeface named for Claude Dindong, whose print shop graced the 14th Arrondissement from 1638-1646. Dindong began his career apprenticed to an engraver of gun barrels and cannons. He later turned to typesetting, convinced that letters had gender, possessed affinities for certain colors, and corresponded to recurring planetary constellations. Dindong’s treatise on the printed word’s superiority to and ultimate triumph over death made him the premiere letter cutter of his time. The typeface now known as Dindong was designed shortly before its creator became corrupted by the clunky style of the Dutch, which triggered his lapse into the esoteric, rendering his later work illegible.
*

Moog was designed by a Silesian woodcutter for the first brewery in Europe to label its beer bottles. Because of its clean and rounded style, text set in Moog is like a mouth speaking to you on a TV program that you’ve muted to see what you can take away viscerally.
*

The text of this pamphlet is brought to you by Birdsong, one of the oldest-known typefaces, challenging traditional notions of harmony, and rousing even the most self-absorbed from park-bench reverie. Brilliantly and abruptly punctuated, Birdsong makes liberal use of white space. It is characterized by its dual nature of bluntness and whimsy, represented by its being printed in bold and italics alternately, without discernable pattern, all the livelong day.
*

A note on the type

2011-06-12T19:59:00.006Z

We spent the weekend on the Rhine, including the preposterously cute town of Unkel, and the once-grand/now-tawdry town of Remagen. Among other things, we went to an art fair where I spent an imaginary 10,000 euros on jewelry.

On the way home, to ease the fear that I’m wasting my life, I pulled the old trick of reading in the car until I ALMOST felt sick, then resting, and resuming. I’m reading The Line of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst. My daughter asked me what it’s about, and the plot is truly not that interesting: gay 20-year old staying at the house of a rich English parliamentarian. But it is excellent writing, which expunges all shortcomings (if the lack of a plot is a shortcoming.)

I am lucky to have picked up a hardbound copy of this book somewhere (Borders sell-out?), with its beautiful cover and its heavy paper and dust jacket. During one of my non-reading intervals in the car, I just fondled it and was glad it was mine, glad I could underline and write in the margins should I want to. E-books be damned.

What struck me funny was the half-page "note on the type," Bembo, three times longer than the author’s biography. Bembo is 600 years older than Hollinghurst! It was born in Venice! The typography note turns into a homage, and an anthem for those who love tangible print on real paper. Ok, computer-screen print is also in some font or the other, but you could just as well mark it and change it to comic sans. People!

Police tape

2011-06-10T13:52:00.000Z

Every morning she’s photographed waking up in another position.

Monday: Splayed, and mouth gaping like a union soldier

Tuesday: Crouching as if about to jump from a frosted cake

Wednesday: Collapsing into herself like Jack Ruby being mortally wounded

Thursday: Breaking into bits of birds

This morning she woke like Ophelia with her hair fanned out and floating, hands folded; and last week there’s a picture of her

knees tucked up, fingers curled against her cheek

as if making a desperate phone call to consciousness

Dogs barking down clouds

2011-06-09T18:14:00.001Z

Sorry to have been absent, but I’ve been busy off forming opinions somewhere.

For example, if you take a picture of your genitals and distribute them on the internet, you have already shown such a lack of responsibility to your wife and family (and self) that no one can expect you to show responsibility to your constituency, i.e. you should step down from political office immediately. You are also a joke, and disgusting. Is this, like, a trend in male-dom?

I’m also trying to write a ghazal. Will it fail?
And these doubts about my spirit?

I finished a bunch of books: The Quickening Maze, The Redcoats and Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day, all with different levels of success.

I also let Twitter distract me. Alongside Tricia’s hilarious non-stop sexting, there’s a group of DogsDoingThings, which assures me I have wasted my life.

For example: “Dogs rinsing the remains of an indigent off the sidewalk as a van-mounted megaphone urges, ‘Re-elect Mayor Goldie Wilson.’” Or “Dogs bursting into a cloud of marbles and rolling down the drain.”

This goes on all day people!

Emotional interactions with inanimate objects

2011-06-05T18:59:00.002Z

It is hard not to feel sorry for the dust
but it is this black metal lamp that most pains me.

Spilt milk, and not a dry eye in the house.

An evening spent teaching a roll of tape the meaning of disdain.

Hey! Honk if you love long sleeves!

For a long time these apples have been asking for it.
And these stamps can kiss my ass.

Serve your Notion

2011-06-01T14:59:00.002Z

I went to the dentist this morning. I always like going to the dentist because I become representative America. The first thing he asked me when I came in was "so, what do Americans think about the European e-coli outbreak," as if we'd have some special opinion on it. Anyway, I told him we were widely opposed to e-coli, and if it were to occur on our own soil we would have congressional pre-approval to declare military action.

This was a follow-up visit to have a crown installed, which was fitted two weeks ago. At that time, it was all about Strauss Kahn and the American justice system. Was the perp walk actually necessary, my dentist and his assistant wanted to know. Not only is it necessary, I said, it is therapeutic. It is also democratic, and there are people who aspire to it, who practice it at home. "Necessary" seems hardly the adjective, I said, "essential" is more like it.

I am really happy to be able to serve my nation in this function.

With veins aglow

2011-05-29T13:00:00.007Z

I would have given up but Edith Wharton's The Age of Innocence is one of my father’s favorite books, so I stuck it out, hoping for an ironic twist or natural catastrophe or messy and embarrassing suicide.

But lacking intellectual pursuits, weird sexual inclinations and/or worthy and urgent causes, the idle rich are a dull lot, and the calamity of this book is that to the last page Newland Archer’s life goes on as tediously as ever.

About 30 pages in I wondered if the book would be concerned solely with the characters’ taste in clothes, their home decorating preferences and whether or not their chefs were any good. There was a bright spot about 3/4s through were Newland realizes he wishes his boring wife May were dead, and I was like, yeaaahh, poison her! That would have livened things up, but alas, murder is just not done.

So what did I learn from this book? I learned that in the late 1800s rich white people were like walking light bulbs. They did a lot of coloring, using the rush and ebb of blood to make their faces and necks light up to convey their feelings, or turn ashen to express discouragement, disappointment or calm. Barely a page goes by without someone’s face flushing, or going pale, or clouding over, or reddening fit to burst! This is obviously the way polite society used to express their emotions.

The height of this circulatory phenomenon is the exchange between Newland and M. Riviève, the French messenger. It’s practically acrobatic. First, Newland’s words “sent the blood rushing to his temples as if he had been caught by a bent-back branch in a thicket.” Then “he saw his blush more darkly reflected in M. Riviève’s sallow countenance.” At the same time, “M. Rivière paled to his normal hue: paler than that his complexion could hardly turn.” Then “Archer, reddening slightly, dropped to his chair,” and also “M. Rivière reddened, but his eyes did not falter,” just before “the young man’s color again rose.”

Of course these corporeal warmings and chills parallel similar imagery of embers and fireplaces, the sun and the weather, kindled hope and hope extinguished. Still, I did feel at times it was bit overdone.

Here are some other examples, from a list that could be five pages long:

Archer looked at her glowingly p. 21
Miss Archer blushed and tried to look audacious. P. 33.
The young man reddened. p.34
Newland reddened p. 35.
Newland Archer reddened and laughed. P. 53
She glowed with sympathy … a dusky blush rose to her cheek. p. 54.
He colored a little p. 62.
The light touched the russet rings of the dark hair ... and made her pale face paler. p. 63.
The Duke beamed on the group … Madame Olenska’s face grew brilliant with pleasure. p. 65.
Her face lit up. p. 68.
Janey paled and her eyes began to project. p. 71
Archer felt the blood in his temples. p. 77
Her face looked pale and extinguished, as if dimmed by the rich red of her dress p. 90
The blood rushed to his forehead. p. 94
To his surprise her color rose, reluctantly and duskily. p. 98
Her face clouded over … the blood rose to his temples. p. 110
... he felt the color rise to his cheek. p. 121
She flushed with joy and lifted her face. p. 126.
Archer burst into a laugh, and May echoed it, crimson to the eyes. p. 177
A sudden blush rose to young Mrs. Archer’s face. p. 215
“Augusta,” he said, turning pale and putting down his fork. p. 232
It was Mrs. Welland’s turn to grow pale. p. 233
Mr. Welland’s brow remained clouded. p. 233
... with an insistence so unlike her he felt the blood rising to his face … p. 234
... and her face, in contrast, was wan and almost faded. p. 243
She merely looked paler, with darker shadows in the folds and recesses of her obesity. p. 248
The young man heard her with veins aglow. p. 249

And now for something completely different: The Quickening Maze

And here's a list of 250 books by women "all men should read." I put it here mostly for my reference. I don't know why this is aimed at men, except it seems to be in response to a list from a men's magazine that irritated feminists. All fine by me, but I do wonder at the tit-for-tat (no innuendo intended), and think maybe readers independent of gender may appreciate the recommendations. In any case, it would be helpful if the list compilers made an attempt to justify it, rather than just saying who sent the name of the book in. Am I missing something?

lampshade out of me

2011-05-28T06:42:00.004Z

So. My mom is here with her wine and cigarettes. She read a bad book all the way over the Atlantic and somehow reading it in an airplane when she could have been asleep makes her feel less like she wasted her time ("The Guernsey Literary Potato Book whatever"). My mother never comes without lotsa American stuff. This time the prize went to peanut butter Tastykakes. But she also brought Swifter refills, Old Navy shorts for my son, single-serving bags of Maxwell House Instant Coffee and Jennifer Egan’s A Visit from the Goon Squad. So now I know all I need to know about the state of America today.

Today we’re going to catch an exhibit of Surreal Things (Surreale Dinge) downtown before it closes Sunday. Like a fat woman who boils over in a new house, I’m a huge fan of the surreal, especially the French surrealist poets. Let us hope the exhibit surprises with strange and uncomfortable situations.

Song of the day: I never thought they'd put me in the Goon Squad

People shouting to each other across the street

2011-05-24T18:00:00.000Z

I love your idiot mittens!
YOU LOVE MY WHAT?!
I love your thesis on the fetid!
YOU LOVE MY WHAT?!
I love your nervous dancing with the dead!
MY WHAT!?
I love your pussy willow wreath!
WHAAAAAT?!

I believe

2011-05-22T14:57:00.002Z

There is an afterlife - it is called literature and history.

*

I Am Crazier Than Anyone

2011-05-22T08:36:00.004Z

The Guardian newspaper runs a series online called “Experience,” in which people are invited to share their stories with the world! Today the story is “My hair fell out one weekend.”

In honor of all of us having survived the apocalypse, and a whole bunch of other crazy shit, here’s a list of folks’ experiences, along with some links. Among my favorites is the guy who, at age 85, was unhappy with his physique, and got himself a personal trainer. And then there’s the lady who feels other people’s pain. Oy.

Warning: some intent navel-gazing.
I’ve only eaten crisps for 10 years
I didn’t leave my house for a decade
I used to hit my husband
I am a 91-year old bodybuilder
I saved endangered rhinos from a bush fire
I crushed my GBP1 million violin
I nearly died after eating wild mushrooms
I was impaled by my own scupture
I threw myself on to an exploding grenade
A great white shark ate my leg
I didn’t hit puberty until I was 21
I feel other people’s pain
I eat roadkill
I was deported
I was run over by a freight train
I lived with wolves
I’m allergic to everything
I flew the English Channel using a bunch of balloons

poetry brooch

2011-05-18T12:18:00.002Z

I don't know if this was a particularly good idea, but I did it: The Habitual Poet questionnaire.

Luster

2011-05-17T17:46:00.004Z

Classics I’ve re-read and loved twice: Jane Eyre, The Stranger
Classics I’ve re-read and stopped loving: Les Miserables, Madame Bovary
Classics I’ve finally read and didn’t especially like: Wuthering Heights, Tender Buttons
Classics I’ve finally read and loved: David Copperfield

They say Madame Bovary is a masterpiece but personally I think it is a masterpiece “of its time” for its (then) lascivious theme of a wife's adultery. Also the handling of the “disturbed woman” seems to me kind of tedious. It reveals little to the modern reader. And lastly the writing is praised to the heavens and indeed it is good but is it as good, say, as John Banville? No, it is not. I cannot read French, so perhaps I'm being unfair and the original would poke my eye out. But I doubt it.

Don’t get me started on Tender Buttons. But I think we all know that.

Still, I can only recommend re-reading books you consider worthwhile. It’s a good experience because the plot has less of your attention, the story itself is no longer being revealed, but the whole how of the writing, the language, characters and style are there to reevaluate, and sometimes it’s even better than the first go-round, and sometimes the luster dulls.

for years of service

2011-05-13T18:22:00.001Z

Before all else, the umbrella is a skeleton. And whether it rains or not in the end it will again be nothing but a skeleton. Whether it snows or the sun shines or the moon or the wind rips the thing to shreds.

It is difficult to cast off a crippled umbrella but so it is.

My sister has worked for ages in the restaurant trade helping people get drunk and forget their umbrellas in the sloppy little stand next to the entrance, which some mistake for a trash can (when it is empty).

An umbrella keeps off rain and snow and sometimes hail, unless it is of the mangling kind. Umbrellas are also good for fighting off attackers. It is said they bring bad luck if you open them indoors but this is untrue, and very stupid.

On my recent secret visit to America I arrived one day at the office with a wet umbrella and was handed a plastic bag to slip over it. What a feat of garbage creation. What a foolproof way of encouraging mold growth. What a shame, since a wet umbrella is like a big, done-swimming dog badly in need of a shake.

Fellows, is your umbrella big enough to satisfy? Would you like to add inches to your umbrella? Would you like to be swamped by wet, desperate ladies?

In some 1000s of years archeologists will no longer unearth the fossils of lizards or jawbones; they will find only umbrella bones.

They are for sun up.
They are for the wind struggle.
Mine is pink with black dots.

There was a time when they were not collapsible, but all umbrellas are rounded and domed or coned and it has never been otherwise.

Neighbors

2011-05-07T06:00:00.009Z

Looks like another beautiful weekend – sunny and a bit cool, our small garden exploding with wisteria, clematis and all kinds of other stuff and nobody knows what the hell it is. I took the dog out this morning and the birds were tee-oo-ing away, except for one that was making a wretched sound I’d never heard before. Let’s call him the barfing bird. He’s apparently had enough of picturebook springtime. He gave me a good laugh.

Speaking of self-expression, I’ve had a few poems in print publications lately that I thought I’d mention. First, my poem “Whisk” is in the new RHINO. This is one of my household totem poems, and one of my favorites from that series.

I’ve also got a ghazal in issue 48 of Hayden’ Ferry Review called “Ghazal of the Jack Pines.” Hayden’s Ferry actually pays writers, which is pretty cool, although I turned down the payment in exchange for a subscription, which I’m expecting to improve my life more than money might.

Neither RHINO nor Hayden’s Ferry have actually arrived yet, though I got notifications that they are at this very moment making the big swim. But my copy of Passages North has come, and it’s gorgeous. The cover graphic is bold and sober and folkloric. I have two poems in the issue – “From the Back of My Mind,” and “Table, Uncleared.” Among the poetry, I like the dawn losinger poem “She Had No Elbows,” which starts, “etiquette came easy.” I also like the Jason Tandon poem “Neighbors,” which starts:

Like a pink-skinned moon
a boy’s head rises
in the window across from mine
and yells that we can be friends if I want.

Which brings me back to my new neighbor, the barfing bird, with whom I struck up an immediate friendship, our twin heads rising above all this flowering green to retch a little bit, just to keep things in perspective.

My dog attempts suicide

2011-05-01T13:53:00.004Z

Hey what’s this, oh a bucket of charcoal. Yeah hey I wonder what THAT tastes like hmmm chum chum chum hmmmn well no one’s looking and these are not bad nothing to write home about but hmmmn they kind of melt in your mouth if you chew them up good chum chum well I can’t believe somebody left these here unguarded these dogbite-sized briquettes of coal what’d they think I wasn’t stupid enough to eat the whole bucket of this stuff hmmn nmmm heh heh WRONG!

octopussy

2011-04-29T17:06:00.012Z

I participated in the royal orgy today, watching the wedding on tv at work along with many of my unabashed female colleagues, and a few guys, too. Hey, we said, if the admin can reserve a conference room during work to watch the German match of the World Cup, let's see them try to deny us these few hours of pomp and romance.

Still, after all the waiting for the ceremony, the kiss, the carriage, etc., in the end it was those fantstical hats that stunned. This is apparently de rigueur in British fashion. There wasn't a bare female head - from frisbee-type contrivances, to whirly-twirlies, to psychedelic ostrich plumes, to birthday cakes, tacos and contraptions that look more like hat boxes than hats.

But if you watched I am sure you cannot but agree that Princess Beatrice whooped them all with her Dr. Seuss-like atrocity. I couldn't believe my eyes - this is a girl with a sense of humor. At least I hope that is the explanation, and not insanity or intent to do psychic harm.

Scrambled eggs and ketchup

2011-04-27T13:51:00.002Z

I never wore jeans to work until this year. That’s because a former bureau chief, a woman I was/am also friends with, once said women have to do more to earn respect at work than men do, and while people overlook men dressed in jeans, women in jeans look sloppy. So I never wore jeans until this year, when I finally threw off the shackles.

These kinds of statements can affect you more than you think. Another well-dressed friend once said to me, “What is the thing with black and brown? Black doesn’t GO with brown.” And ever since then I’ve thought, wow, black doesn’t go with brown? And I experience an inner questioning every time I pair black with brown, which I like to do.

I also had a German boyfriend once who said “grün und blau trägt die Sau,” which means the female pig wears green with blue. He said this on a day when I was wearing green and blue. I’d often wear green and blue; I figured they went well together. But now I was told they were ultimate frump. And the more I thought about it, the more I kind of agreed. (That is an actual German saying, by the way.)

But the worst for me is yellow and red. Yellow and red has always reminded me of scrambled eggs with ketchup, which I hate. As a kid I loved the game Risk, but I couldn’t play if red and yellow were on the same team. This is surely one of the reasons I dislike the German flag. Ugh, who thought that up? In any case, I never wear yellow and red together. Hell, I never wear yellow OR red at all.

what can occur can reoccur

2011-04-26T13:12:00.003Z

Here’s a phrase that struck me odd the other day: ‘occur to.’ Without the preposition ‘to,’ ‘occur’ usually means to ‘happen’ or ‘transpire,’ as in “the accident occurred at 6 o’clock,” or “this disease occurs in farm animals.” It has something of a suddenness about it, as in “Hamlet was not prepared for what was about to occur!”

The suddenness makes it unlike ‘take place,’ which works well with events planned in advance, like an operation or a meeting that takes days to be over.

But we also use ‘occur to’ to refer to a BRAIN getting an idea or remembering something.

Yo Jeeves, it occurs to me that white goes better with fish.

What I like about ‘occur to’ is it’s as if an IDEA HAD HAPPENED to you, passively. It crept up on you while you were sitting around minding your own damned business. In that it’s a bit similar to “dawn on,” except that “dawn on” is wimpier because of its reference to the sentimental Walt Disney dawn, as well as a dishwashing liquid that comes in varieties like “lime surge” and “citrus kick.”

And then Monday dawned on Petrushki.

In this case, it could actually be Monday itself, the day, arriving in the form of daylight on that sleeping idiot Petrushki, or Petrushki possibly realized something surprising about Monday. It does seem to refer to the throttling awake of a stupid person:

It dawned on Roger that those cigarette butts in the ashtray were not his wife’s.

Maybe it’s because the dawn seems to come up gradually, like a slow person finally getting the hint, his jaw slackening to reveal a dark orb.

Another station of the cross

2011-04-24T20:19:00.000Z

Telephone Pole

There was a telephone pole
that wanted to be a tree,
to do the birds a service,
birds who now only paused
on wires strung up and shared
with neighboring poles,
evenly spaced
like monotonous clones.

Tapping the land line, the pole
demanded fancy branches
and deciduousness
but the phone company
refused, so the pole
interrupted all outgoing calls,
demanding to be a lamb,
and be brought back as Christ.

The Great Whites, or thoughts while dressing for work

2011-04-20T12:01:00.000Z

What do the great white shark and the great white shirt have in common?

For one, they both have terrific teeth and bite! Flashing in the dark, one could almost be mistaken for the other.

Second, when the great white shirt is all ironed up and starched, it makes a ripping sort of sound when I pull it over my head and stick my arms through the sleeves, a sound not unlike that of a shark shredding something to bits. Scary!

Last, a note on personality. The great white shark and the great white shirt are both no-nonsense types. They mean business, people. Approach with caution . . .

philadelphia, a city

2011-04-18T13:50:00.001Z

“A moving and important work.”

“The crudest vulgarities lit up by the most pristine instinct.”

“Some unforgettable scenes – full of regret, bathos and mystery.”

“At once darkly hilarious, gripping, and fit to burst.”

“Never have I been served such a portion of horseshit.”

“So well executed, one could almost dispense with the plot and characters.”

“Nothing less than a letter to God.”

“Only now and then does something like this come along that makes you realize life is extraordinary.”

freak incident

2011-04-16T11:53:00.002Z

Look at this intersection! Look at this Irish bar! Look at this guy hosing down the area in front of his deli. Look at this corner lit by every light bulb and LED screen on the planet. Look at this corner that hasn’t seen the light of day in two centuries! And these guys are protesting against bedbugs? And this is a Scientology video broadcasting to anyone who’ll listen? Look at these buildings boxing in the sidewalk with windows and banners and bricks and a doorman. Look at this lot with absolutely nothing on it. Astounding to see this fence around it!

four strong winds

2011-04-09T11:21:00.006Z

I had a long trip to America. First I flew to Duesseldorf, which involved much waiting and about 25 minutes on a plane. I was to be seated in row 22, but there was no row 22, which was perfect. Then the 8.5 hour flight to Newark. But everything turned out fine. We didn’t crash. A woman asked if I’d trade my aisle seat for her friend’s middle seat so they could sit together and the answer was no. Sorry, I made about three phone calls to get that seat. I watched “Sekretariat,” which had to be the schmalziest storehouse of bullshit ever. But I survived even that.

I finished Oracle Night before boarding in DUE, but luckily I had a back-up book: Moscow To The End of the Line. It is about a very hard drinker. It is pathetic but also funny. And the first thing we did at my mom’s was go over to the local Borders, which is going out of business (9 days left!) to scavenge the racks. I thought I’d have no luck, but I found about 15 books I was VERY interested in, which I sorrowfully whittled down to eight. I would have taken them all if I didn’t have to lug them back to Germany, some of them being very nice hardbacks! $175 worth of books for $45: The Infinities, Foe, the new translation of Madame Bovary from Lydia Davis, The Wind Blows Through the Doors of My Heart, Mapping the World (a geography book that I may cut up/collage), City of Glass, Miss Pettigrew Lives For a Day, and a poetry anthology called A Book of Luminous Things. I've heard of this book many times, but wasn't sure I'd want it. But at $4.25, why not?

The thing about this anthology is each poem is sketched out by the editor at the top of the page. That way the slow among us have a chance to get it. For example: In this Tu Fu poem of spring the days get longer and the mountains grow beautiful. The south wind blows over flowering meadows. Swallows who just arrived dart over marshes while ducks nap in couples on the sand.

South Wind

The days grow long, the mountains
Beautiful. The south wind blows
Over blossoming meadows.
Newly arrived swallows dart
Over the streaming marshes.
Ducks in pairs drowse on the warm sand.

Ok, I hope that was helpful? I know this poem is a toughie. They left out the more subtle one about the north wind for fear of rampant reader failure. Ah well, there are some good poems in this, but the commentary sometimes teeters on the brink of hilarious.

poppins

2011-04-07T16:59:00.004Z

I read an article recently claiming a spoonful of sugar cures hiccups about 93% of the time. This is the first I hear of this. If it's true, why doesn't anyone seem to know about it? All I ever heard about was holding your breath, or breathing into a paper bag, or scaring the daylights out of the hiccupping party. The cures I'm familiar with always seemed to require a dash of drama. (My colleague, for example, suggests panting. I can't wait to try that out.)

I can only attribute the ignorance of the sugarcure to a misanthropic theory that people subconsciously don't want to be cured of the hiccups because they get pleasure from annoying their loved ones and crave attention. So maybe we've all been told of this cure before but we "forgot." I think of my sister who hiccupped through her youth only to terrorize me, not because she really had the hiccups. Or the people who talk to themselves constantly, who seem totally unperturbed by it, even when everyone else is pulling their hair out.

Both of my kids recently had the hiccups and I tried telling them that it was all in their heads. Which actually did the trick. I'm sure it was a fluke, but still, may work as a last resort.

what might do

2011-04-03T18:13:00.002Z

I’d like now to read a book that is sad and haunted. Not haunted as in ghosts but infused maybe with the past or hope or illness or regret or something that didn’t happen but might have. Children could play a role, not a bunch of them, and not as the focus, but they could be there for perspective even just as a memory because vulnerability is important. As for grownups, I don’t mind characters who are despicable because how else would I see myself. I don’t go in much for love stories but love might roost in the margins or be disappointing or cause a tragedy before going up in smoke. I appreciate a well-built sentence and I’ve nothing against fragments used in an unaffected way. A good vocabulary is my weak spot. I’m also into fireplaces and watching fires. I love a light snowfall and the smell of manure and all the tricks the wind can do. If animals walk in let them be lobsters or lunatic chimps but not dogs or cats and birds are boring. There’s no time like the present though long ago would work – I avoid the 70s although that wouldn’t rule reading out for me if the book had other things going for it. I like a U.S. setting whether city, suburb or mountaintop, but Europe is also fine into its new eastern reaches and I’m persuadable on Asia. The story might also take place in a small airplane. I like suspense and men with beards. Of all nuts, peanuts. I don’t need a happy ending but let someone come to an understanding or acceptance and go on living, or die with insight, or solve a puzzle, thwart an enemy, or better yet let someone realize what an asshole he or she has been.

good things

2011-04-01T18:34:00.002Z

One of the best things is I got my son a book he is enjoying: The Maze Runner. It just came out in German, and after months of sulking about his reluctance to read, I gave it another shot, and bingo. He loves it. Thanks to NE for telling me not to be discouraged.

My 14-year daughter got her hair cut in a punky cropped-on-one-side style (that looks good) and asked for a feminist book called Living Dolls, which I got. She has been following me around telling me how “furious” she is about, about, what? About sexism. All I can say is swing out sistah. It is great to have two kids battling for airtime to promote the books they’re reading, even reading me short passages to try to make me understand.

I veered off the usual path and read a vampire book, Let the Right One In, which I can only say is wild and wonderful. I loved it. Great story and very well written. Sometimes funny but also touching and of course completely undead.

Back in real life I wanted to go to my mom’s for her birthday in mid-April and she pretty much forbid it, saying she’d rather I come out when she moves, which I understand, but I have doubts she’ll move this year. Anyway, I acquiesced, not wanting to visit if she’s only going to cluck her tongue at me. Then a training opportunity came up at my company’s offices in NY and I put my hand up and was chosen, so, while I’m a little trepidatious about the demands of the training, I will be at my mom’s in NJ for her birthday, and she is thrilled.

Last, I entered Good Reads monthly poetry competition and won! This is great because I actually win something – Billy Collins’ new book, which I’m interested in reading. Here’s the poem I entered:

Riding Backwards on the Train

It’s not unpleasant: perpetual surprise.
But instead of feeling I’ll arrive, the world

appears to pour towards whatever
I’m getting away from. Cows and foliage

blur by and I try to imagine easing
into couch cushions, or the plunge

back onto the bed, quilt whooshing
up from behind. Still, I can’t shake

the faint dyslexia reverse riding
brings, the suspicion I’m rushing

assbackwards into the future, kick-me
sign tacked to my spine, a breech

birth with no eye for what’s ahead
until it crashes into the past, the inkling

I’m a fool doing the backstroke smack
up against the wall of the pool.