electric slumber

It was my day off and I finished Mrs. Dalloway, which was excellent. I got two false starts in other bad books before beginning it, and it was like a balm on all that awfulness.

I also went downtown and bought some stuff.

When I got back, I had an email from an ezine that uses audio and they wanted to know if Sloat rhymes with goat. Yes, it does! It does, gladly and without resistance.

I have a poem up at Eclectica, along with my friend Toni Clark. It’s a graveyard poem, as always on my rambles through Frankfurt’s gorgeous cemetery.

Otherwise the day went too fast and where did it go? To the minnows and swallows and people who cheat on their taxes. And I did have to make two work-related phone calls. And take two dog walks.

Next up: Schnitzel.

Ohpiuchus

Well I finally gave in a read an article about the new astrological sign and found out I was not only affected but indeed I AM the new astrological sign, the ‘snake annoyer’ or Upanishad or whatever it’s called. Pretty cool except as a (former) Sagitarrius I felt a real kinship with the archer Legolas and always had a good excuse for making a horse’s ass of myself. Alas. Of all that was left I’ve kept nothing, as Pierre Reverdy likes to say.

While we’re at it, we should add a few more signs: the Clonus, who blends in with the crowd, and the Yokoönus, who can be a burden, for example.

I never read horoscopes anyway. Who did? And the only reason Pisces were considered quiet, unworldly introverts was because we have very little experience of the lives of fish, their being underwater most of the time. It isn't a matter of fish-like traits.

In any case, let’s celebrate the demolition of an industry of fraud and mass deception!

mobocracy

An acquaintance (read ‘facebook friend’) recently complained that some of the passersby in some flash mob video just failed to catch the enthusiasm and walked by as if nothing were happening. This particular flash mob was a wedding that “spontaneously” occurred in what seemed to be a shopping mall, complete with jubilant musicians and flower girl. Whatever. I’ve also seen a bunch of Hallelujah choruses and sycnopated dancing and generally loopy skip-to-my-loo.

I have sometimes enjoyed watching these, despite the nagging feeling that they are the utmost in schmaltz, and the fear that pernicious hormones would eventually seize my vulnerable brain.

Not to side with the naysayers, but some of those people passing by without clapping or collapsing in collective orgasm may just be tired of the “Everybody is a Star” mentality and apparently insatiable need for attention that has gripped the population like an syndrome. A rash! An infection!

If someone followed you around watching your every move, you’d freak out a little bit, no? Sure, because it's the legal version of voyeurism. So why on the other hand when a clutch of obviously attention-starved exhibitionists thrusts its amateur theatrics in everyone’s face is it considered “cute?” Even if the naughty bits are left out, it’s a form of exhibitionism that some don’t want to support or participate in, innocuous as it might be.

Some people are just getting on with their lives and errands and worries and personal joys, which they manage through good taste or good breeding or greed to keep to themselves. Oh well, I guess I am a humbug. On top of which, these days, when I encounter a public commotion I run for my life.

On that note, let me point out the terrific collage above by Dayna Thacker, “Breathing Room.” Check out her site, which is full of cool collages using printed matter.

long swim

I've had some good news which is dancing girl press accepted my chapbook manuscript "Excuse me while I wring this long swim out of my hair" for publication. July. I'm very glad.

The funny thing was I got the acceptance notice on Friday, the same day I won a bottle of Rioja in the office tombola. And there is a poem called "Rioja" in the chapbook! There is also a poem about the dictionary, money and riding backwards on the train. And Weimar and bees and reindeer. Poems galore.

autophilately

When I don’t know what to do I consult my album of German stamps.

Should I read a book about Chernobyl?
Here is a stamp of Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, who was raised in an environment “open to the world, with humanitarian values and educational ideals.” Yes, I should read a book about Chernobyl.

Should I take it easy tonight or set my house in order?
Here is a stamp celebrating “Astronomy – 400 years of Kepler’s Laws,” the first of which says the orbits of the planets are ellipses, with the sun at one focus of the ellipse. Whoa! I better get my house in order.

Why does Fernando Pessoa appeal to me so much?
Here is a page of stamps devoted to lighthouses. Lighthouses are those towering shoreline structures that keep the little boats from losing their way in the dark. That explains it!

Will I die in a German nursing home?
Here is a stamp commemorating 20 years of open border between Hungary and Austria. “The wall fell overnight, suddenly and unexpectedly.” I don’t know exactly what this indicates, but it strongly suggests I won’t die in a German nursing home. Hooray.

with apologies to christopher smart

For I will consider the muse Donald Sutherland.
For he is whiskered as a complete cat might be whiskered.
For though he cannot fly he is accustomed to great heights.
For first he is a mixture of gravity and gangly.
For secondly he walks like a dinghy sinking.
For thirdly he reinvented sprawl with long appendages.
For fourthly he counteracts the powers of darkness with his sandy hair.
For fifthly God has blessed him with a variety of roles.
For he can dangle at all angles at the word of command.
For he is good to think on, if I may say so plainly.

*
With apologies also to Mary Ellen Mark, whose photo I have stolen and hung by my bathtub.

popgun and cloudburst

I got a black turtleneck for Christmas, a small that can be tucked in in the spirit of all things amphibial. It looks striking against the snow. The black turtleneck goes well with green, brown, tweed, pinstripes and grey. The black turtleneck also goes very well with black.

I made so many Christmas cookies I had to carry more than half of them into the new year: polar bears, sleighs, angels, crocodiles, squirrels, donkeys, Santas, churches and cats. What some of these have to do with Christmas I don’t know.

Like last year, my resolution is to eat more broccoli.
Like last year, this should not be difficult. If I eat four heads of broccoli I will surpass 2010 consumption.

I also intend to read Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, War by Sebastian Junger, and Tender Buttons by Gertrude Stein. My expectations are not high, a strategy that works for me.

On New Year’s Eve we participated in traditional German molybdomancy, a kind of divination. You melt lead over a flame then pour it into water. The shape the lead takes decides your fortune. M. got a dragon, which means “don’t get all worked up.” C. got a fish, which means “a bath would do you good.” Mine resembled a moon, which means “dreams will be fulfilled.”

It didn’t say whose dreams.

January 3 seems to me completely superfluous. I am wearing the black turtleneck. I would have preferred to stay home to watch 'The Lord of the Rings' triology a few million more times.

When I woke up, I asked, “where am I?,” a trick question posed only for the purpose of raising my bag-like body from bed.

portis finds his title

Genuine Moxie
Irrefutable Fortitude
Indubitable Pluck
Honest-to-God Guts
Real Nerve
Authentic Backbone
Certified Chutzpah
Veracious Crust
Clear Spunk
Bona-fide Balls
Unquestionable Mettle
True Grit

last dash

The only book I got for Christmas was True Grit. I’d asked for it because I am fervently in favor of preventing the movie industry from stealing the goods from the publishing industry. After reading the book I feel free to see the film. I usually try to pull this off, and the only high-profile failure I recall now is Atonement by Ian McEwan. It was a very good movie, and I look at the unread book on the shelf and know it must be at least as good. But unfortunately I know the plot and characters, which damps my enthusiasm.

A day or two before Christmas I also got my contributor’s copies of Bateau (4.1). This is my third time in this journal, which I'm really glad about because I love Bateau. There are a number of prose poems in this issue (mine is a poem poem), and I’m looking forward to reading everything. One of the things I admire about Bateau is the editors decide which order the pieces will appear in, i.e. it’s not alphabetical. That reflects how much thought they put into presenting the journal as a whole.

That said, as with poetry books, I don’t think I ever read journals from first piece to last. At least on first encounter, I open randomly and start reading, or go through the table of contents to find something intriguing. Also in this issue are Carrie Chappell, Ben Merriman, Paige Taggart and John Peck, among many others.

In the morning for what it's worth I open my eyes

By shoveling snow, I invent sunlight.
It arrives just as I finish scraping away.
I could like this job, I say to the first possible bird.
I could let this grow on me.

super sad true story

On Tuesday night, the night she was supposed to fly, my sister had to cancel her Christmas visit because of European airport chaos. Poor us! My mother, who was to fly the same day, didn’t have to cancel, but won’t be here until Dec. 26. I’m considering taking a bunch of sleeping pills tonight and waking up Dec. 26. Sorry, I just pretty much had all the holiday joy sucked out of me. I'd put up the video of Elvis singing 'Blue Christmas,' but I hate Elvis. On the upside, I have earned great sympathy from my husband and kids.

Also nice is the deal with my son. I told him that for Christmas I’d like him to read two books for me, and after browsing though my Young Adult expert’s bookshelves (thanks NE), managed to find a couple titles available in German, both by Rick Yancey: The Monstrumologist and The Extraordinary Adventures of Alfred Kropp. I am happy because I think my son may actually like these books.

I got books for my daughter, too, but she never needs her arm twisted. She went with me to pick up a Yancey book I ordered yesterday and came up to me at the cashier with an armload of “interesting books,” “just to show me,” you know, for my interest...

under the bridge

Just a short stretch until 2011 arrives, so here is my reading list for 2010 so far. As always, some of these are shortish ebooks, thus boosting the number. On the other hand, I left off a couple books because I stopped reading them, or they were art books that I have trouble saying I “read.” I don’t know. I’m still figuring that out.

Among the most memorable was David Copperfield. It was my New Year’s resolution to read it and dread was the watchword, but it was great. Jane Eyre was at least its equal, less tra-la-la, more sturm und drang. I was also bowled over by Today I Wrote Nothing. In non-fiction I thought Columbine was fabulous, although the topic was never in the forefield of my radar screen.

In poetry, I liked many things, but A Civic Pageant (a chapbook) may have been my favorite by a single author. The Poetry of Surrealism edited by Michael Benedikt was super. American Spikenard and Salvinia Molesta definitely had my full attention.

I'm in the middle of Drood and The Book of Disquiet. If I manage to finish one, I'll just add it to the list. I'm hopeful.

Among the clunkers, hmmm, there surely were some... Lark and Termite, for example. If I Die in a Combat Zone was also a let-down, although I've enjoyed O'Brien's other books a lot.

For next year the big book will either be Crime and Punishment or The Magic Mountain. It is good to resolve.

1. Dear Friends the Bird were Wonderful! – Alexis Orgera (Jan/Poetry)
2. The Land of Green Plums – Herta Müller (Jan/Fiction)
3. The Sea – John Banville (Jan 23/Fiction)
4. The Reluctant Fundamentalist – Moshin Hamid (Jan/Fiction)
5. A Walk Through the Memory Palace – Pamela Johnson Parker (Jan/Poetry)
6. Attention Deficit Letters – Nicelle Davis (Feb/Poetry)
7. The Air Around the Butterfly – Katerina Stoykova Klemer (Feb/Poetry)
8. Super Undone Blue – Sarah Anne Cox (Jan/Poetry)
9. Last Words – Howard Good (Jan/Poetry)
10. Magnum Magnum (Jan/Photography)
11. Lark Apprentice – Louise Mathias (Jan/Poetry)
12. Bear v. Shark – Chris Bachelder (Jan/Fiction)
13. Pig/Iron – Howie Good (Feb/Poetry)
14. Der Tiger Tötet Nicht – Ted Hughes (March/Poetry)
15. Today I Read Nothing – Danil Harms (March/Shorts&Poetry)
16. Lark & Termite – Jayne Anne Phillips (March 21/Fiction)
17. A Companion For Owls - Maurice Manning (March 27/Poetry)
18. Erwin Wurm: The Artist Who Swallowed the World (March/Art)
19. Erwin Wurm: One Minute Sculpture (March/Art)
20. Underlife – January O’Neil (April 11/Poetry)
21. Speak Easy Symmetry – Audri Sousa (Apr/Poetry)
22. The Shadow of Sirius – W.S. Merwin (April/Poetry)
23. Thomas Hardy's Jude the Obscure – Harold Bloom ed. (Apr/Lit Crit)
24. American Spikenard – Sarah Vap (April/Poetry)
25. They Kissed Their Homes – Christopher Cheney (May/Poetry)
26. Why I Hate Straws – Barry Parham (May/Humor)
27. Every Man Dies Alone – Hans Falluda (May/Fiction)
28. A Civic Pageant – Frank Montesonti (May/Poetry)
29. Book of Longing – Leonard Cohen (May/Poetry)
30. The Birds – Tarjei Vesaas (June/Fiction)
31. Blood Meridian – Cormac McCarthy (June/Fiction)
32. A Sorrow Beyond Dreams – Peter Handke (June/Memoir)
33. The Poetry of Surrealism – Michael Benedikt ed (June/Poetry)
34. How German Is It – Walter Abish (June/Fiction)
35. The Diary of a Country Priest – Georges Bernanos (Fiction)
36. If I Die in a Combat Zone – Tim O’Brien (Memoir)
37. Seeing Birds in Church is a Kind of Adieu – Arlene Ang (June/Poetry)
38. The Best of (What’s Left of) Heaven – Mairead Byrne (June/Poetry)
39. Give Over to the Heckler and Everyone Gets Hurt – Jason Tandon (Jul/Poetry)
40. Nadirs – Herta Müller (July/Fiction)
41. The Door – Magda Szabo (July/Fiction)
42. Columbine – Dave Cullen (July/Non-Fiction)
43. Stick Pink – Carrie Murphy (July/Poetry)
44. The Cat Inside – William S. Burroughs (July/Memoir)
45. The Reserve – Russell Banks (July/Fiction)
46. With Deer – Aase Berg (July/Poetry)
47. Factory of Tears – Valzhana More (July/Poetry)
48. Written in Bone – Simon Beckett (Aug/Fiction)
49. David Copperfield – Charles Dickens (Aug/Fiction)
50. Tiny Deaths –Robert Shearman (Aug/Fiction)
51. Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell (Aug/Fiction)
52. Camus, a Romance – Elizabeth Hawes (Sept/Bio&Memoir)
53. The Stranger – Albert Camus (Sept/Fiction)
54. The Shining – Stephen King (Sept/Fiction)
55. Watermark – Clayton Michaels (Sept/Poetry)
56. Best of the Web 2010 – Matt Bell ed. (Oct/Poetry&Pieces)
57. Pornografia – Witold Gombrowicz (Oct/Fiction)
58. Methland – Nick Reding (Oct/Non-Fiction)
59. Salvinia Molesta – Victoria Chang (Oct/Poetry)
60. The Waste Books – Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (Oct/Aphorisms)
61. Stupid Hope – Jason Shinder (Oct/Poetry)
62. Dark Things – Novica Tadic (Nov/Poetry)
63. Awe – Dorothea Lasky (Nov/Poetry)
64. The Furies – Janet Hobhouse (Nov/Fiction&Memoir)
65. The Story of Edgar Sawtelle – David Wroblewski (Dec/Fiction)
66. Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte (Dec/Fiction)
67. Austerlitz - WB Sebald (Sept/Fiction)
68. Drood - Dan Simmons (Dec/Historical Fiction)
69. True Grit - Charles Portis (Dec/Fiction)

Begging the question

Does Mary have white or black hair?
Does Mary have hair?

Does the left want to destroy or defend the Constitution?
Does the left want?

The housewife is vacuuming the rugs.
Doesn’t she live in an apartment?

A poem is god’s lightbulb.
Is Thomas Edison god?

(doesn’t god sell candles in church?)

snooze button

I find the best time for a nice nap is as soon as you wake up. You’re dressed for it, and often it’s still dark out. When I wake up, first thing I notice is how big my head is in relation to my body, like a crazy toddler, and in danger of toppling. My pillow makes a good table for it. Legless at this hour, like everything. Also my heavy are eyes. My sore throats. Sleep is heartbreakingly desirous of me. It finds me very attractive. But I am being brown-dogged by a kiss.

Crossings

The copious snow went the way of the tunamelt yesterday and revealed that the grass beneath it was still green as green can be. Today the freeze is back on. Two decades in Germany and still I’m adjusting to celcius, with its significant degrees. How easy it is to get negative. Maybe that’s part of the weight on the national personality. In Kansas one winter I had a Jeep and went ice skidding across the highway smack up against the rail that looked many meters down onto a milomaize field. I sat there stunned. “Almost bought the farm,” I said to myself stupidly, unable even at that moment to resist the pun. That accident isn’t where I got my limp, though. My limp is the result of childhood crush. And the crick in my neck comes from caring.

giddy-up, jingle horse

I made my first consumer foray into the bowels of Amazon with the wicked gift cards I got for my birthday. Unfortunately (I’d use a four-letter word here, but what would it help), Amazon won’t let you use an Amazon.com gift certificate at Amazon.de, meaning you’ll have to break up your orders to avoid paying customs, and you’ll have to pay about $16 per shipment on top of that instead of nothing. Oh well. Never look a gift card in the mouth.

I made a long thoughtless list and then placed a random order:

1. Among the Monarchs by Christine Garren – I have never read this poet so this goes on the “whim and a prayer” shelf.
2. Moscow to the End of the Line by Venedikt Erofeev – This is also known as “Moscow Stations” and I’ve been looking for it forever not realizing it had another title. It’s one of the “1001 Books You Must Read” books, and supposedly there’s a lot of drinking in it, squalor and cold weather.
3. Why Did I Ever by Mary Robison – My soon-to-be-ex-step-sister-in-law, whom I adore, has recommended Robison to me many times. Since she also recommended Lydia Davis, she enjoys great credibility. We also had a long conversation last time I saw her about the male vs. female writer (and artist) dilemna, i.e. why male writers are more popular and praised than females, and man did we come out punching! In other words, I am forgoing a lot of supposedly great books by men to read more books by women.

On another topic, in disciplined Germany you don’t put up the Christmas tree until the 24th, but being true ausländische iconoclasts, we are throwing that sucker up today. Break out the Charlie Brown and Sufjan Stevens and all those icicle ornaments!

o come let us adore it

At the train station, they’ve set up a life-size nativity scene with wooden figures. Mary and Joseph are there, the Magi, a couple animules, straw and a cart. In the prominent spot near the front of the scene, however, instead of Jesus they’ve placed a Poinsettia. The figures stand around it looking awe-stricken. One of the Magi goes down on his knee; Mary clasps her hands to her breast, and the sheep and donkey appear dumbstruck and hypnotized by this modest, potted flower. I admit it is hard to look anything other than dumbstruck and hypnotized as a wooden figure, but especially when confronted with such a cheerful little flower.

Anyway, my colleague tells me Jesus is not there yet because he’s traditionally placed in the cradle on the 24th, “when he was actually born.” If we are sticking to the script and the pregnancy calendar, there are a few other details in need of fixing, not the least of which are the Magi, who didn’t show up until January. There’s also the issue of Mary’s trim figure. But I don’t want to spoil the fun, and giving birth to an unassuming, red Poinsettia is probably less taxing than bearing the Lamb of God, before, during & after...

Etiquette

The new issue of Poemeleon is out, and the theme this time around is Prime Time poetry, which the editor, Cati Porter, describes as follows -

"What unites (the poems), though, is this: They are all what we consider 'prime time poetry,' poems that can be understood, appreciated, and felt on a first read. Poetry that is, well, accessible.

This is not to say that we don't value difficulty in poetry. In recent years I personally have developed a taste for difficult work, precisely because there is so much puzzling out to do, relying on the reader to fill in & make leaps to decipher what is on the page.

But, sometimes I just want to read.

Sometimes I want a window into a room where I can make out the furniture. I want to look in and see chairs, see bodies, overhear conversations between lovers, between family members; I want a glimpse of something authentic, something I can relate to. I think this is what is meant by “accessible,” a term that has acquired a bad rap but that to me simply means work that doesn’t need a decoder ring and a cup of Ovaltine to figure out."

Please be sure to check out my poem "Etiquette," which has the much-coveted slot of Thursday night at 8 pm!

U5

There’s a woman who often rides my train, a young woman of about 25, who must get on a couple stops before me since she’s always comfortably ensconced in a seat by the time the train is at my stop. She’s an unremarkable person, plain and a bit plump. Mousy brown, like most of us; her hair hangs thinly to the length of her chin. Not to insult her – for all I know she’s the second queen of Persia, or the president of the Frankfurt chapter of Mensa. It could be, but for the most part she’s someone you wouldn’t look at twice, or I wouldn’t, except she is often reading a book. It’s usually a beat-up book with two wind-blown figures on the cover, a man and woman, clearly what in America would be a ‘Harlequin Romance.’ But no matter. What I notice is how her expression changes when she’s reading. Her eyebrows rise and arch expectantly. Or her jaw slackens and her dull eyes start to gleam. Her lips inevitably flicker into a smile that she seems to forget is there, since she continues to smile it stupidly for long stretches of our trip. Frankly, as unkind as it sounds, she looks so idiotic at these times that I’m embarrassed for her. Frankly, I have to admit that at many points in my own recent reading of Jane Eyre that I fear I have become this person, and have resolved to restrict further reading to my room.

what a mercy you are shod with velvet, jane (p. 198)

Late shift can make a morning. I went to the dentist and chopped a big bill in half. I, too, went to the bank and killed a dud fund. I went to one of the coziest cafés in the city, and, it being 9.40 am on a workday, got the most private table, where I read 25 pivotal, heartwrenchling pages of Jane Eyre while sobbing into my café au lait. I didn’t expect sad! Nor did the aproned waitress! The café is called La Maison du Pain and at home we jokingly call it ‘House of Pain,’ but it is not. I could have rotted in bed all morning but instead I did not. Once outside the café I began to get dark. I knew it was time for work.

Above all gods I put brown sugar

Many thanks to DMQ Review, which has nominated my poem Ghazal of the Sharp Knife for a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Web. This was a very nice birthday gift, and the third time DMQ nominated a poem of mine for the Pushcart. Last year it was Monarchs, and a few years before that The War is Still Ending. The editors sent a very kind note, which I appreciate.

I haven’t mentioned it but some weeks back Jessy Randall, who guest-edits Snakeskin every February, also nominated my poem Housewife for Best of the Web. Once a year she puts together a theme issue for Snakeskin, which this year was ‘work.’ I mention it also because she’s doing next Feb.’s issue, too, on the theme of ‘food.’ Deadline Dec. 15! She isn’t too keen on poems about food that are really about God. God and His Bounty. Unless it’s Bounty paper towels, maybe, used to wipe up food. But whatever, give it a shot. Info here.

vinyl, like me

So here it is again. My birthday. I got some snow!

I got some other gifts, too, including a bilingual volume of Cesare Pavese poems. And a Black Pearl Amaryllis. And some earrings. And two generous Amazon gift certificates, making me the near-equivalent of millionaire.

Anyone have a good book recommendation? Something weird and exciting?

I’ve always liked having my birthday here in chilly November’s last ditch. But I admit that for years I was sorry to have to share my birthday with Mark Twain, who never appealed to me. And then of course Fernando Pessoa died on this day (in 1935), which can’t be fair.

But my birthday was redeemed last year when I found out it is also the birthday of Allan Sherman, famous (once) (in America) for his song parodies. Whenever I fly to my mother’s, the first thing I do is put on his 1962 record My Son, the Folksinger on the old turntable. Scratches and all.

I won't be doing anything special, having already gone out to dinner with the family on Sunday (and thus flying in the face of German superstition). I'm too tired anyway, after working until 10.30 last night, way past my bedtime. Maybe pizza instead of cooking...

you see she is yet young

I recently saw that Jane Eyre is being made into a movie. Being made into a movie “again” seems to be more correct, but I never saw a Jane Eyre movie, so it’s all news to me. I have read the book, however, though I remember little about it – just a few of the Mr. Rochester bits, the psychopath in the attic, and the BOOM sentence: ‘Reader, I ....’

I do enjoy a good British period film with costumes and rain-slapped trees and fireplaces and overcooked porridge. So after I saw the trailer, I pulled the book off the shelf to reacquaint myself. Honestly I thought the reacquaintance would last four minutes, but soon I was on page 8, then page 11, then page 16 and by then I’d committed to re-reading it.

I know that re-reading books is enriching and often necessary but I confess I rarely do it, mostly because there are so many books I haven’t read, ‘important’ books, supposedly ‘great’ books, supposedly delightful books, books with “the answer” that has hitherto been hidden from me! Poetry! Memoirs of suffering! Considering I have to work and sleep and walk the dog, I’m kind of stingy about my reading time.

Still, it’s wonderful re-reading Jane Eyre. I’m sure it kicks the ass of Super Sad True Love Story and Mr. Peanut and all the other flotsam out there. I’m really enjoying it. Suddenly I’m an unloved, unattractive 10-year old orphan girl again, no matter that I was never an unloved orphan girl. I am now.

The whole cult of the Brontes went by me, but it’s never too late. And I seem to be enjoying a British era. The other day I did one of those “favorite character” surveys and the top spots went to a trinity of Dickens boys – Oliver Twist, David Copperfield and Tiny Tim. I was as surprised as anyone, not considering myself any kind of diehard Dickens fan. Most surprising was the appearance of Tiny Tim. I was never a declared admirer of his, but being a huge emotional sucker, and with Christmas around the corner, he simply materialized there on Throne #3. I think he’s there more for what he represents than for what he is, which is kind of cardboard.

So may I now address your attention to the butterfly collection? I fell hard for the graphic whimsy of this. The UK artist, with the unlikely moniker of TerrorDome, has done pieces like this Lady Chatterly’s Lover, Alice in Wonderland and other books as well as maps. I took a shot at it myself, and now have a butterfly box for Oliver Twist. It’s hardly as lovely as this, but it’s sweet, and Oliver was my first crush.

reasons to be cheerful, a gratitude post

Plaid, which livelies up the place
Francis Ponge, who reinvented
The Ampersand, shorter & stylisher than ‘and’
Investigative journalism
Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, which I am all over
Foreign movies, dubbed or subbed
Good hygiene, always appreciated
Starbucks in my town!
Oskar Schindler, who lived down the street
Understandable IKEA instructions
Subject-verb agreement, please
Never having gone to Las Vegas, a mercy confirmed after my mother went and came back sorry

song of the day: oooh child

what can china give me that my soul hasn't already given me

I coughed so much at work this morning that I was pretty much told to go home. In fact I'm much better than last week, when I missed four days of work and spent a lot of time in bed breathing. I also finally watched Blade Runner (let-down) and Tideland (groan). Now it's just a cough and the general murky wonder.

I'm reading Fernando Pessoa's The Book of Disquiet. There is no better book, and Pessoa was already the center ptych in my triptych of favorite writers. I'm around p. 120 or so now, just past entry 122 -

"The idea of travel nauseates me.
I've already seen what I've never seen.
I've already seen what I have yet to see."

We've got a terror warning going in Germany, and today was reportedly hot. So far, so good. I don't want anything messing with the anniversary of the assassination of JFK. I don't want anything messing with anything.

them days

Stunned by Jack’s proposal, Mallory gushes an exultant yes before realizing later in the day she is already married to Seamus. Confusing STD for SUV, Liza assumes the rash came with the car and refuses treatment for her illness. When Jim doesn’t like Carol’s new haircut, she shows their dinner guests the videotape of his mother’s nervous breakdown. (On the edge of the woods. Family picnic be damned.) After Reese finds out about Clay’s betrayal, she throws the ancient past in his face, Nile and all. Jody explains to Mark that she has immaculately conceived. He spends the rest of the show writhing in the chaos of his own stupidity.

The Moon in the Daytime

There is a difference between the sympathetic show of being “able to relate” and the conviction that everything that happens is inextricably and primarily bound up with oneself.

When I stopped believing in God I knew I would have to give up the Devil, too, which I resisted more stubbornly.

I’d like to see schnapps made from birds rather than fruits. There’d be Wren Schnapps, Raven Schnapps, Schnapps aux Flamingo, etc.

So much of opinion is instilled. In America, the majority of the population considers the death penalty just. In Germany, the majority considers it unjust. Did these people form their opinions on their own, through reflection? Of course not. At a tender age, they read what’s right in the newspaper.

Although anyone who looks can see it, and even explain it, the daytime moon always strikes me as a fine little secret.

It is good to put an hour aside for thinking. Slow down. Behold your horses.

not funny

I have been ailing. The headache component has eased, only to be replaced by a swollen eye the size of a golf ball and the texture of crepe paper.

Then the kids' school caught on fire.

just mad about saffron

there’s slow food.
there’s the slow cooker.
there’s slow motion.
the slow reader.
slow children at play.
there’s the slow lane.
there’s sloe gin.

half-shelled peas

The most important thing I learned on my last trip to America is that I don’t like Taylor Swift. Really don’t like. I’d say hate, but then I’d be devoting too much energy to the whole project. Anyway, of the 6 or 7 songs being overplayed on American radio last month, one of the favorites was Taylor Swift’s song about the careless careful dude’s waitress daughter, or some such. And boy does that song suck. And worse was Taylor Swift’s squealing. My daughter didn't appreciate my imitation. I’m sorry.

One of the more remarkable experiences I had was at a nice leather goods store, where my 12-year old son was actually helping me pick out a purse. The saleswoman came over, all agush! It turns out my son is the spitting image of Justin Bieber. He is so adorable he should be a model. She was going to tell her niece all about him. Seriously. I have to say we non-residents are just not used to so much friendliness. I know it’s completely normal and even natural to American ladies, but my son, while half-smiling, was also completely shell-shocked.

'Jesus' by Novica Tadic

Jesus
Our Jesus
Our Jesus a pincushion
**

I like this poem because each line builds on the last.
I like this poem because it’s simply constructed, like a cross.
I like the three of it: 1) Jesus, 2) Jesus defined by our possession of Him, 3) His pincushionness.
I like this poem’s three also because of the trinity.
Another three would be the three nails that went into Jesus.
I like how this poem is actually about voodoo.
I like how Jesus makes Himself useful.

Dummhausen

We took a stand at the Kindergarten flea market yesterday, where we put a good chunk of childhood up for sale. We came home about 130 euros richer, which I consider pretty good, especially since I had to talk everybody into it. I made the kids help and gave each of them 22 euros when it was over. They were thrilled.

We sold a lot of books. Books are expensive but they’re one thing where I won’t say no. It was good to recoup at least a little of that outlay, and think it’s some other kid’s turn to enjoy the book (for much less money). People are also crazy about Schleich animal figures. We were always crazy about them, too, but at 12 and 14 my kids don’t touch them anymore. One father alone bought about 12 of them. I saved the squirrel for old times’ sake.

Okay, I also saved the donkey and the seal.

I also saved a book of children’s jokes – "Das megadicke Buch der Superwitze." One of my favorite jokes ever comes from the section on “Dummhausen,” a fictional village of very stupid people.

“Have you heard? Just a week ago the Dummhausen library opened, and already it’s had to be closed.”
“But why?”
“Someone stole the book!”

**
Thanks to esoule at etsy for the seal!

saturday

The sky is gel-grey and peppered with birds; the wind gusts and swirls the leaves in their insane circles. Autumn is sure. Gold and red and cold. If I walk early to the store, it’s not yet crowded. A stray old lady is also on her way; another’s heading back. Both carry dark straw baskets, the favored shopping bag of that generation. I pull my squeaky trolley. November is my birth month, and I feel at home here. This is the cold I come from. The sky will hold this grey all day and not rain. Germany and its pleasant inclemency. I come around the corner of the brick church. Someone has hurled a pair of Birkenstocks at the front door.

Which Wallace Stevens personage would you choose to be

1. The Interior Paramour
2. Chieftain Iffucan of Azcan
3. Peter Quince (at the Clavier)
4. The Sleight-of-Hand Man
5. The Emperor of Ice-Cream
6. Nomad Exquisite

the sublime

Yet farther above super and superb is sublime, which I encountered early this morning on the UBahn. Sublime is no one talking on a cell phone, no one’s bad music leaking from the headphones of an iPod, no couples fresh out of bed traveling together, whispering, loudly smooching, no one with a relation to anyone else at all that would require them to speak. No one drinking coffee or eating a roll, no one suffering a cologne overdose or a fit of coughing. In fact the sublime seems to have a lot of nothing about it...

bewitching hour

Friday is here, but you were expecting that since Friday is inseparable from Thursday. They are like Siamese twins, Thursday being the workaholic and Friday the devil-may-care. In Europe we change the clocks this weekend, so I’m looking forward to recouping that hour. And on top of that it's Halloween, a kind-of-yes/kind-of-no holiday here. Some people are into it, and there are all kinds of Halloween-themed storefronts and events, but honestly about 68% of the population doesn't know what Halloween is. Not that they should, I just hate having to reckon how much candy to buy, if any, and having to correct the kids who come on the damned wrong day. Without a costume. Twice. Maybe I should turn off the lights and hide in the house, as my great-grandparents used to do.

Elsewhere in the world, I read a couple really good poetry books lately, which made up for some of the incomprehensible poetry I’ve read in the past months. I’ve had a couple buyer’s-remorse moments, something difficult to avoid since I don’t have access to an English language library. (That was one of the interesting things about visiting my mom this month: for the first time in a long time I went to a library and they had loads of interesting stuff you could borrow without having to buy it. Wow. Plus: DVDs!)

Anyway, the last two poetry books I read and loved are Salvinia Molesta by Victoria Chang and Stupid Hope by Jason Schinder.

I’d never heard of Schinder until earlier this year when I ran across his poem "How I Am" some place by chance. I loved this book. Schinder, with the help of his dying mom, managed to break my heart on pretty much every other page. In the book he writes about his mother’s death as well his own impending demise. He has a very endearing voice. I wouldn’t trade this book for anything. My favorite poems in the book were probably “The Good Son” and “How I Am.”

The second was Salvinia Molesta by Victoria Chang. Among the themes are power, love, greed, history, and corruption, and the topics include China’s Cultural Revolution, Enron, infidelity, and suicide, as well as salvinia molesta, the fastest-growing weed in the world.

My favorite section was the first, which confronts modern Chinese history, including Mao and his widow, Taiwan, and the Nanking massacre. These poems were fascinating. The section starts with the poem “Hanging Mao Posters,”and ends with “After Hanging Mao Posters,” which you can read here. In this section I espcially liked “Jiang Qing” (Mao’s widow), and “Proof -”

"...One day he knelt in the street,
sign around his neck

that said: Traitor. Little Red Book spread like wax
on his back..."

The second section was good, too, although I preferred the first (and third). It consists of love poems and love/power poems, dominated by one about a professor having an affair with a student. My favorite poem in this section was “Mulberry Tree,” which takes Van Gogh as its subject. At the poet’s website, click on Poems and you can read “Ars Poetica with Birdfeeder and Hummingbird,” which appears in this section.

The third section is about money and power, and includes a few very interesting poems about Clifford Baxter, an Enron executive who committed suicide. Sounds odd, huh? But it works.

weary of this particular theory

16 Aug 2010 ... The crash landing of a Boeing 737 in the Caribbean is being called a "miracle" by the region's governor. The jetliner broke into three parts ...

4 Year Old Being Called ‘Miracle Baby’ After Surviving 7 Story Fall From Balcony Suffering Only A Few Scratches

Doctors had called it a miracle. A Southern Colorado woman was in a vegetative state for more than six years, but suddenly woke up. Now, 11 News has learned ...

23 Jan 2010 ... (CBS) He's being called miracle man. Twenty-one-year-old Emanuel Buteau survived 10 days under the wreckage of his collapsed apartment ...

It is being called the "Miracle on the Hudson." On Thursday, January 15, 2009, US Airways Flight 1549 crashed into the Hudson River minutes after takeoff ...

22 Nov 2005 ... Mysterious tears of blood that have appeared on a statue of the Virgin Mary at a church in California are being called a miracle by Catholic ...

14 Sep 2010 ... I still remember a woman I overheard at work one day who'd lost a lot of weight and called it a miracle from God. ...

Beck sees "miracle" in geese flying over mall during 8-28 rally ... 30 Aug 2010 ... Okay, if you're narcissistic enough to call it a sign, go ahead, .... Mainstream media are stunned that this so-called miracle worker can ...

12 Mar 2009 ... Now a paraplegic man is walking again, and his doctors call it a miracle. CBS13 went to Manteca to find out how a spider bite helped get him ...

Egyptian Famer Calls Two-Headed Calf 'a Miracle' - Egyptian farmers may call it a miracle but I call it a Brahmin.

15 Jun 2010 ... HE'S called the miracle boy. Less than two months after being shot in the head in a hunting accident, he has defied the odds ...

jet lard

Hello, my name is S. and I’m a jet lagger. It’s been a couple weeks since I last fell off the wagon, but it wasn’t serious; I was right back on until a day ago. Due to the predictable issues, this is the first meeting I’ve been able to make. I was up in time to catch the one at 3.32 a.m. but after I’d showered and shaved, I noticed the moon going in slow motion, so I put my pants on backwards and hit my head on the bathtub. If you’ve tried to contact me and I didn’t respond, it’s because jet lag is a kind of brain damage, reversible only in small doses. I’m not yet all there. Some of me is still aloft, bobbing for my wristwatch deep in the temporal lobe. But I’m trying to get clockwise, and working on my commitment to Central European. I go back and forth. Excuse my slur - it’s been an ungodly hour since the moment I woke up.

song of the day: reptile

Border guards

Name your favorite alphabetic sequence.

Are you going or have you ever been to Scarborough Fair?

How much are you willing to eat for breakfast?

How many commas are there in a trillion?

What is the connection between vibrate and vibrant?

And what would your mother say?

buffalo skinners

Been away two weeks in America, three hours of which was devoted to a traffic jam in NJ sponsored by an eight-car accident. Luckily I was on a bus, so although I was frustrated and bored, I could read, and huff and puff, and curse Eisenhower and Mamie.

I finished Methland on the bus, a book about the scourge of meth in small midwestern towns. It’s easy to blame its spread on rural boredom, but actually it has more to do with economic hopelessness, corporate farming, big pharma, and wage dumping.

When I was in my late twenties, I took a job in a town smack in the middle of the US, in a county ranked #3 best place to live in America by Progressive Farmer Magazine. I thought it was going to be charming. I thought it was going to be good for me. I looked forward to the peace and quiet and solitude. Instead I was bored and very lonely. In addition to a home bartending course, I spent a lot of time running, cycling away from farm dogs, and taking clarinet lessons. Good thing there was no meth around! I grew one wild hair.

Between you and me and yonder grain silo, Methland was interesting and worthwhile, but far from a great read. I was lucky the jam afforded me a stretch of boredom. I might not have finished the book otherwise.

The only order the day had was chronological order

I don't pretend to know anything, including the French word for hell. I don't even know if the English word for hell is quite correct.

The future is coming with the sole purpose that I might regret it.

I once had a boyfriend who said, "when we're older and you write my biography...," and I thought "what a vain and presumptuous jerk," and the pathetic thing was how I adored him, and how I still love him in a small way with large reservations.

The hour of five falls like quintuplets from the clock.

I've always dressed modestly because I think of the body as a wound, and clothes as a bandage. They should cover me, and as comfortably as possible.

To live in the moment is a frightful thing. In all the past I never lived in the moment. I was saving those moments for now.

three nonoptions

Belt loops
Brake lights
Dental floss


song today: beautiful boyz

"waste book method highly recommended"

Two days and I’m off to the East Coast again for my usual autumn vacation, weirdened this year by the fact that I was just there. I do hope it’s cooled off. One of the few good things I can say about living in Germany is we don’t suffer the increasing heat as much as my part of America seems to (or that monstrous snow last winter).

I face the dumb likelihood that I’ll be carrying three books back to NJ that I just lugged over here last week. I’m reading all three. I’m in the middle of all three. I don’t want to leave one behind and pick it up again later. But I also don’t really want to keep lugging them over the Atlantic, and I like them too much to leave behind, and none would appeal enough to my mother to sway me to do so.

The first is Witold Gombrowicz’s Pornografia, an odd 1960 novel by the Polish writer who went off on an assignment to South America in the late 30’s and was stranded there because of WWII, not speaking a word of Spanish. The novel takes place, nevertheless, in wartime Poland, where two intellectuals from the city go to the countryside. The funniest thing about the book is the voice of the protagonist who, among other warped notions, imagines he knows the thoughts/motivations of his companion. This book makes me want to throw open the window and and laugh a huge laugh splash out onto the street.

The second is an anthology of Serbian poetry called The Horse Has Six Legs, edited by Charles Simic. This includes two of my favorite poets – Vasko Popa and Novica Tadic – along with more than 20 others. So far it’s excellent. Eastern European poetry in general relies more on image than language; it’s dark and peppered with totems.

The last is a book of aphorisms and observances by Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, recommended by Tricia over at EICC. Called The Waste Books, it wasn’t meant to be published, but luckily was, and survives where his other forgettable writings have not. He lived in the 1700s. Here are some of my favorites:

The world offers us correction more often than consolation.

Ideas too are a life and a world.

Nothing can contribute more to the peace of soul than the lack of any opinion whatsoever.

Libraries will in the end become cities, said Leibniz.

sap drip

The 100%-proven way to improve the taste (read ‘desirability’) of sweets or baked goods is to bring them to the office. It could be a cake that flopped or the candy canes from Christmas you still have at Easter. It doesn’t even matter if your co-workers can identify the food, which has often been the case when a colleague brought back “something” from Asia or the Middle East. Did anyone know what it was? Did anyone actually like the taste? No, but there it was (like the mountain) so they ate it.

I, for example, could never stand those maple syrup candies from Canada, the ones that look like brown sugar granules fused together with corn syrup into the shape of a maple leaf. But when a colleague brought some to the office, what did I have after lunch? In fact, I hoarded two extra in my drawer in case the world ended.

Last October I brought back those tri-color Halloween candy corn from America that everyone professed to hate but which quickly vanished. I hate them, too, but confined to the office, I eat them in a busy three-part nibbling process of tip, middle and bottom.

Even worse, my husband has a student who often gives him bars of dark chocolate with hazelnuts that everyone in my family, including me, would rather die than eat. One day I got the bright idea to bring them to the office, where they were magically transformed the moment I got through the door into my personal booty. I didn’t put them on the table to share; I just put them in my drawer where I began the gradual but successful project of devouring them with a horrible, twisted look of disgust on my face.

The Mob is my Shepherd

After years of defending the American people abroad, it was strange on my trip to feel called upon to defend the Germans. On the other hand, maybe I wasn’t being asked to defend the Germans, I was only being asked not to say anything negative about America.

At one point, after visiting two restaurants, I mentioned that American restaurants serve large portions. Boy, did I say the wrong thing. An acquaintance literally bristled, and countered with the accusation that also Germans serve large portions. Has he ever been to Germany? No. Do Germans serve large portions? Actually, in comparison, no, but my observation had nothing to do with Germany. I didn’t intend to enter a competition. I brushed this off as “guy with a problem.”

At another point, I mentioned that, because of the media, some people have the impression that America is full of gun-toting fanatical Christians (the last mention of this came during media-sponsored Burn-the-Koran week). Believe me, I am always ready to stand up and say this is not true, that America, like any country, has plenty of normal, moderate people who use their reason and read decent books and care about the environment and have never held a gun, etc. Still, this acquaintance found it intolerable that this impression of America could exist, and immediately set in to criticizing the Germans, who, as everyone knows, murdered 6 million Jews in WWII, not to mention all the Poles, gypsies and handicapped people, etc.

What the Germans did in WWII is indefensible, so indefensible they cannot even ask forgiveness. Should I get up and start defending them? Did I compare right-wing nutty American culture to Nazism? Uh, not that I recall...

If you want to hate Germans for their history, I’d find it hard to blame you. But to damn them to hell as a race is akin to what the Germans themselves did, and involves a kind of willful ignorance that is itself offensive. Ironically, there is an association of German Jews and I’m not Jewish (or German) but I get their newsletter, and I see nothing in it but sanity, even-handedness and a ready desire to move on, even as they are against “forgetting.”

The last straw hit the camel at my college reunion, where I attended a talk on displaced persons in the Civil War. I was sitting with a friend before the talk started discussing German. She’d minored in German and wondered if I ever think in German. Mostly I don’t, but there some words that lack English equivalents that I want to use even when I’m speaking English. One of the best is “doch,” which indicates a kind of a refutation of a refutation.

A guy who was sitting nearby eavesdropping decided to add that the Germans have words that suit their culture, “doch” being an example of their brusque arrogance. We ignored him, but all I could think was ‘what a prick,’ and what irony that the lecture spent no small amount of time on racism and prejudice, with mr. know-it-all there nodding right along.

Song of the day: Just So

whore's porridge

The new issue of Softblow includes four poems of mine.

U5 Inbound: The U5 is Frankfurt’s subway line #5, whose key function is to take me back and forth to work everyday.

1286: This is a medieval poem that was written in the soggy weather of Germany’s Black Forest.

With All Due Respect: You know that crack sound the ice cube makes when it’s dropped into a glass of water, or coke, or whatever? Don’t you love that? This poem opposes clinging and hoarding.

Spacemanship: This involves a transpositional experience. As it should.