i've been making a list of all the books i ever read

Remember the time I wasted working in politics.
Remember the solitary camping trips, how I never wanted to leave Vermont.
How before grad school I dropped all that weight.
Remember the year I decided there is no God.
Remember the twenty-two months I didn’t menstruate.
Remember when I gave up smoking.
Remember all the time I spent in love with Gardner, who didn’t love me.
Remember the reading light that screwed onto the bed’s headboard.
How I wouldn’t eat anything for days – I was reading Rumi.
Remember the year the house caught fire, and all the books.

Last one out close the door.

"go, my book, and help destroy the world as it is"

My mind keeps telling me not to understand this book, but of course I understand it. The story, the telling of the story is devastating and terrifying. Reading it, I have what I can only describe as a clump of dread stuck in my gullet. Russell Banks knows a lot about us. I’d like to say this book is breaking my heart but really it’s breaking my mind.
This can hurt a little bit.

the wind is my little cape

Last week Front Porch Journal accepted my poem Naked, Come Shivering for their December issue. It’s a cento using lines from 20th century French poetry. The title comes from a poem by Roger Giroux, which begins with the same words.

Nthposition also accepted three poems – Cape, Equestrian and Excuse me while I wring this long swim out of my hair – for their next issue, due out in about three months.

I feel really glad for all those poems, like I’ve placed my children in a good school.

nov. 22

When Saddam crawled out of his hole, I was watching tv in a Paris hotel.
When the towers fell, I was bringing my kids home from kindergarten.
The day the Challenger exploded, I was in the Philadelphia Library checking
out “The Annotated Dracula.” The librarian let me know on the way out.
When the tsunami hit, I was discussing Christmas dinner with my sister.
The day Kennedy was shot, my birth was still a few days off,
but I remember it as if I were there on the side of the road,
holding the camera, getting it all down.

fable

Some nights I still lie down with my son when he’s going to bed. He's also allowed to sleep in my bed sometimes. I like going to sleep with him because we have great conversations at night. He gets to talk all he wants. Being a bit of a stammerer, less articulate than his sister, I appreciate his having the opportunity. He tells me about his friend whose parents are getting a divorce. He tells me about school, jealousy, what he’d like to learn to do, or something that hurt his or somebody else’s feelings. We also make things up. One night we were talking about why people seem to chew their cuds while asleep. Last night we discussed sleeping positions. I said I prefer sleeping on my stomach, but that it’s better for your back to sleep on your side or your back. He said he also likes to sleep on his stomach, but his back is bothering him (he fell) so maybe he’d take my advice. It was a very harmonious talk, not to be underestimated at the end of the day.
(He's the one on the left. On the right, is our friend K.)


Sleep’s Achievement

Sleep chews me up in its gums.
No bother about bones.

Then what?

Then it starts to snow.

Then?

When the moon goes all gluey,
sleep’s lips stick to it.

Better Homes & Gardens

One day in Germany
I missed my appointment
and almost immediately
received a letter saying
I missed my appointment
keeping appts is important
in good relations with doctors,
the letter said, also with receptionists
with snowy columnar calendars
with stacks of magazines
(homes for ladies, cars for gentlemen)
I am so sorry
I missed my appointment
it was the first time
what was I thinking

i catch myself giving crap advice

"I want to play with Luisa and her friend."
"Well, ask them and see if they'll let you."
"And if they say no?"
"Then cry and see if they'll let you."

friday confession

I prefer if it's an exciting or bold or enthralling poem than if it's a "well crafted" poem. Weird is also good.

she'd be 120 years old today

Browsing round for links for this post I felt I'd had the wind knocked out of me over and over. Many people love her bones and deserts, or wonder at the flowers. I admire those too, especially the Taos church, and the cross. But if God came down and told me I could have Georgia O'Keefe painting I wanted, I would choose one of the watercolors, or one of the oil paintings
of fruit.

"My first memory is of the brightness of light...light all
around. I was sitting among pillows on a quilt on the
ground...very large white pillows..."

careful as a hummingbird in daylight

I’m on a kind of reading sabbatical, taking time to read without kicking myself about how I’m wasting time not writing. Before I had kids I read a lot more than now, but what really slowed me down was writing. I remember giving my father - who’s a writer - books as a gift, and him telling me he’d try to get around to it. I always thought it strange that a writer didn’t read that much, but now I understand very well.

I’m reading mostly fiction. After finishing Ward Just’s The Translator, now I’m reading Reynolds Price’s Kate Vaiden, which is not bad. How can I say it… it’s very “plotty.” There’s a lot of “and then…” and “what could have prepared me for what came next?” You know within the first four pages that Kate’s father kills her mother and that Kate abandons her child as a baby. The character Kate is meant to embody resilience and pluck, but while I do sympathize with her most of the time, I find her a bit cold.

One feature of the writing that annoys me some is the frequent use of similes, which is done – understandly – to reflect the Southern dialect. Some of the similes are sweet, like “I filled with thanks like a rain,” or “I was calm as the pavement,” but it still bugs me when it’s done too much. Here’s an overdose from page 4 alone:

- …making that long trip on roads rough as gullies.
- …drive home to see my mother, bathed and nervous as a hamster.
- It was January and cold as igloos.
- ….fall afternoons when my mother would be blue as indigo.

Nevertheless, it’s not a bad book, just not especially my thing. I understand that the protagonist’s personal history makes her what she is (sometimes cold and inconsiderate). As with The Translator, I picked this up on my trip to the states; it’s a random found-browsing book. More than with its glowing back-cover blurbs, it won me over with its cover. A weakness of mine!

I’ve also been surfing the book blogs and have been blown away by how many books people read. I was reading one called by a blogger who’s read around 60 books this year. Then I clicked into one of her links to find a guy who’s so far read about 140! That’s inspiring, if unattainable. I’d have to quit my job and abandon my family, and I choose what I want to read pretty carefully according to my time budget (or at least so I console myself).

I am pleased that of the 10 books I set out to read at the beginning of the year, I’ve managed four, plus some that weren’t on the list. Some of those I didn’t read may go into next year’s to-be-read list, but maybe not. Dogmatic I’m not, and I’ve got a bunch of other ideas.

all i want is some good news

Anything would do.

A discovered talent.
Seasonal temperatures.
Paradise regained.
A healthy baby.
A true book that doesn’t leave you shattered.
"Dog alerts family to fire."
Lamb chops and carmelized onions for dinner.
The best man wins.

Anybody got any good news?

ever since the stars swarmed into my hands

I have two poems in the new Wicked Alice -
Snorkeling and Stovetop.
There are also poems in the issue
by Rachel Mallino, Jessy Randall and Yoly Calderon.

mailer dies

When I was in college and quite the radical feminist, I swore I would never read that bastard Norman Mailer. In my late twenties or early thirties, when my feminism adapted for better or worse to the real world, I read The Naked and the Dead. It was a very very good book. I forgot all about "Norman Mailer."

It's often hard to separate the personality from his/her art. But you could miss something unique by just writing it off at the outset. I try to walk unprejudiced into the book/painting/music. I still allow myself to roll my eyes at the person.

bookplates

I was trying to find some Christmas gifts
and ended up with these wonderful bookplates
for myself. It is almost my birthday.
The first one was slapped into
Ward Just's The Translator -
the rest to follow. Like them?
You can get your own.

I really like bookplates.
This site has a nice exhibit.
But an even cooler site is
this guy's blog, which makes me itch with greed.

our blood does not forewarn us / like migratory birds

I’m reading an excellent book: The Translator by Ward Just. Two months ago I had never heard of Ward Just, but turns out he’s nearly as prolific as Iris Murdoch, and way worldlier. Even his name is a kind of big-impact commodity: Ward. Just. Very punchy.

I have about 40 pages to go and I can feel the doom clotting up, getting ready to burst, and I am committed to watching it. The protagonist, Sydney, is a German who translates novels into English. He lives in Paris with his American wife, and their retarded son lives in a home. The wife longs to leave the city and find a place in the country where the son, she believes, will be happier, so Sydney gets involved in a shady deal to earn a one-off lump of money. I don’t know the particular flavor of tragedy that’s due, but I know it’s coming.

Just is good at evoking atmosphere, and he sets a scene so well. The book takes its time but does not feel slow. The story takes place in Paris but is very German, heavy, fraught and dark. The main character may enjoy oysters and Sancerre, but there’s nothing carefree going on. And Just is spot-on in describing the conflicts of ex-patriates, I feel directly spoken to over and over – being torn from “home,” being separate from “home,” watching “home” disintegrate, rationalizing, romanticizing. I haven’t been this engrossed since White Noise, but for all of that book’s dazzle and smack, maybe this is better.

Part of the fascination lies in how the book and mood are couched in recent history, around 1990, the fall of the wall, Glasnost, German “reunification.” Here’s a scene where the main character and his wife are watching Romania’s Ceausescu (“Eyebrows”) seal his doom on tv:

Ceausescu was shaking his head. Not a denial of the charges but a refusal to dignify them with an answer. His wife sat beside him and looked at her hands. She had a peasant’s shrewd face and large hands. Suddenly she looked at her husband, and Sydney said aloud, she knows. He doesn’t know but she does and she’s trying to tell him but he won’t listen to her, because he still thinks he’s a dictator and she knows he isn’t.

Why hadn’t I heard of Ward Just before? maybe I don't get to the states enough.

whose world

I was browsing Amazon yesterday looking at “world poetry” and there was a book, a translation of a book, by an (east) German guy named Lutz Rad-something and the review was brief but indicated he was worth checking out so after work I went over to the biggest bookstore in town – HUGENDUBEL – and had to search out the poetry section, which had been moved since I’d last been there. It’s now located in a small drawer behind the cash register where they keep the rags and window cleaner. Anyway there was no Lutz Rad-something in there, which was disheartening since this is Germany last I checked. So I browsed the other books which were mostly crap. If you dislike it when English poets use lower-case letters as a rule (which I don’t mind – be my guest), you’d go hari-kari if you saw “serious” German poets doing it. There seemed to be lots of juvenalia poetry there – innocuous, insipid “i put an envelope in your absence” kind of cat-lover poems. To be honest I’ve forgotten now what it was about and can’t be bothered to go back and check. Luckily there was a bit of Ernst Jandl, which is hard to translate, which helped me forget briefly all the assholes who talk too loud on their cellphones.

November is Stop Making Sense Month

November 1 is ... Plan Your Younger Epidemic Day
November 2 is ... Buttery Daybreak Day
November 4 is ... Have a Bad Day Day
November 8 is ... Wait it’s Pinball Day
November 11 is ... Wool in the Mayonnaise Day
November 16 is ... Occult Toke Day
November 19 is ... Nationalize Picasso and Worthily Exclaim Day
November 23 is ... Rehash Absconded Resentment Day
November 26 is ... All the Doo-Dah Day

word of the day

Torpordo (n., pl. –does) [NLat. genus of ancient underwater homosapien known to explode]: A cigar-shaped middle-aged white lady barely able to self-propel herself when launched from bed with too little sleep.

holiday fun

I have to admit to being a halloween grump. I discouraged the kids against going out, mostly because it's not well known here and we have been literally screamed at by some older people. Nevertheless, Miles made arrangements to go with a friend and Luisa was going to tag along, but then this friend couldn't go. Miles then arranged to go with his (boy)friends, and Luisa broke into tears because she had no one to go with. So instead of being glad she'd stay home, I started a campaign trying to find a friend for her. Luckily someone turned up and Luisa transformed into a cat and was out the door within 2 minutes.

To "cheer" her up when we at first couldn't find anyone I told her my favorite heart-warming halloween story. I was around six or seven and had spent the afternoon trick-or-treating up and down the lovely tree-lined streets of middle-class America. When I got home with the booty, I spread it out in all its shiny paper glory on the floor of my bedroom. I arranged it in rows, in circles, I made heaps and walls, all the while snacking away. My dad went by my room and told me that was enough - I should put the sweets away and stop eating. I said I would and as quickly forgot the promise, and kept on building, sorting by color, and chomping away. So when he went by again he was furious and stuffed all my candy in a bag and threw it out all over the front lawn. I was crestfallen, but powerless. While I sat crying in my room with the door closed, my sister Lisa snuck out to collect my candy, which she gave back to me, with my dad watching. He doesn't remember this story.

there’s even some evil mothers, they’re gonna tell you everything is just dirt

I finished reading Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer a couple days ago. I’d long wanted to read it, and with the movie out I wanted the book industry to beat the movie industry to the punch.

Krakauer is a good writer, thank goodness, but the best thing about Into the Wild is the story, because it is the essential story – the yearning for purity, the need to prove yourself to yourself. I appreciated not getting too close to the subject Chris McCandless, that he was known mostly through his actions and hearsay from the people he knew or encountered. It helps the reader project him as an alter ego, which he surely is for many. Call him a fool, but anyone who loves nature and knows mainstream materialism can’t help but sympathize with wanting to chuck everything.

Overall I liked the writing. I think Krakauer could have trimmed some of the historical comparisons he draws, especially that of John Franklin, who leads an expedition of men to their deaths. Hardly the same thing! But for the most part the parallels were interesting, including that with Krakauer himself. As I said, McCandless is an alter ego for many people, even me, who also spent a lot of time after college camping alone in the woods – not on any scale close to the subject or author, but enough to understand where that longing comes from. Surely the book became as popular as it did because there are so many people who have felt the same.

Krakauer heads every chapter with at least one quote from a writer, usually a naturalist, and chiefly Thoreau. I bet it was a lot of fun picking those out, but by the end I was only reading halfway through them. Not that they weren’t good, but they grew tedious. Much more interesting were the references to books McCandless had along with him and the notes he scribbled in the margins of Dr. Zhivago, the last book he read. I love knowing that.

In the end, I felt sorry for McCandless. To condemn him seems a way to turn your heart off, to distance yourself from how unfortunate his story is. He was a young, smart and apparently very likeable man and despite all his bravado he didn’t really expect to die. Of course, now as a mother, I can’t help but experience stories like this without that soft membrane around me, and as terrible an end the adventure is for McCandless, my heart really cracked in two for his mother.

As Krakauer writes, "At that stage of my youth, death remained as abstract a concept as non-Euclidian geometry or marriage. I didn't yet experience its terrible finality or the havoc it could wreak on those who'd entrusted the deceased with their hearts."

if i were a man

somewhere there's a beard with my name on it
a nest for crumbs and smoke
because life comes at you from all directions
when you're a man

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
(read the stories)

hist wist little ghostthings

"Halloween is coming. The kids are getting fat..."
But not Bugboy; nope, he's wasting away.
I miss not having Halloween in Germany. It exists but it's not very popular, and it confuses older people who have no idea what's going on. Anyway, on the everyday superficial level, Germans aren't the friendliest Volk to begin with.
Maybe I could use Bugboy to scare them off? I found him browsing at Etsy. One of his friends might also work...

Friday Confession

I enjoy sneezing. The tingle high and deep in the nose is just the beginning. I love the pouchy sensation that makes me squint, my shoulders hunch, and how the sneeze is like a flush that makes me feel like I just woke up in a new world.

not to confuse "Incident" with "Accident"

"Philippine plane overshoots runway; 19 injured in incident"

(compliments of Yahoo! news)


I mean, why? Is "incident" more sophisticated? It sure as hell isn't precise.

bermuda

I’ve always loved lighting matches. I love the scratch of it. The fwaaah of ignition. I especially love wooden matches. Matchbooks, made of paperboard dipped in thin wax, bend too easily; the matches are short.

I like how the flame pools blue near the wood, blonde heap of fire all around it. And I like how the matchhead, burnt and abandoned by flame, embers red and turns skeletal. But most of all I love the smell of sulphur when the match is extinguished, a hut in autumn doused with dry rum.

from the umpteenth floor

The journal Silk Road accepted my poem High Heeled. Silk Road aims to publish poems about "place," and I figured being in high heels is a kind of place.

Elsewhere I got a rejection from Rougarou. That's right, the doping results came in the poems were disqualified from competition.

Also Heliotrope sent me a rejection. The handwritten slip came two years and one month after I submitted, beating a previous record. I wonder why folks bother at that point. Nice journal, though!

now i've heard everything

the horse whisperer
the dog whisperer
the ghost whisperer
the whisper whisperer

"here come my night thoughts on crutches" - c simic

There I was wide awake in the middle of the night with jetlag. My husband was beside me and my thoughts drifted to snore remedies, to pharmaceutical solutions, to side effects, to accidental death to manslaughter, at least the word manslaughter.

What a weird word: the (unpremeditated) slaughter of man. Weird that when the victim is a person, (man)slaughter is 2nd degree murder. When the victim is a cow, slaughter is a side of beef.

Also weird is the idea of involuntary manslaughter. Tell me a word with more aggression and willfulness packed in than slaughter. Massacre comes close, but the “aw” in slaughter slows it down, making it more graphic and tripling the evil! Say someone runs a light and hits a man, fatally. Would we say the driver slaughtered the man? That would be provoking the jury.

Also weird is that involuntary manslaughter can be bloodless as well an unintentional. Like dropping the blowdryer in the bathtub. Like a pharmaceutical side effect.

But the weirdest thing about manslaughter, which gave me the creeps lying in bed wide awake with jetlag, is how broken up and apostrophed it becomes man’s laughter.

Which is usually involuntary.

frigg

I have four poems up in FRiGG:
so, what's it like living in Germany
The Persian's Reach
Station Evangel
From Train 21

Coinage

My brother made up a word
(at least I think he did):
"citiot," which is of course
a city slicker who doesn't know
diddly about the country.
I guess this includes me
and my tick phobia.

2 hrs like heaven

I spent two hours entirely alone, except for the proprietor and two cats, in a used book shop in Philly, The Book Trader on Fairmount Ave, while my mother took the kids on a tour of the now-defunct penitentiary across the street. The two-story shop is crammed to the ceiling with hardbounds and paperbacks. The floors, too, have small stacks of books you have to push aside to see what’s on the bottom shelves. I spent about an hour in the poetry section, which was surprisingly good and varied, a whole wall overflowing with fat and skinny books, free and formal, collections and anthologies. I picked about eight books, especially glad to find one by S.J. Marks, whom I read in an anthology I bought at the same shop last year.

After assembling the poetry, I told the shop owner how I was having trouble getting into a book. Fiction can disappoint me much more than any non-fiction can. My expectations must be higher. He suggested the classics. I bought Kafka’s complete stories.

Living in a non-English-speaking country, of course I appreciate online bookstores. But the great thing about a real-life bookstore is having the book in your hand, being able to look at every page, compare it with other books, check the size and style of the print, the blurbs, read a passage or two, check out whether the spine is about to split. It’s also great to run into books that you weren’t looking for, or to be led through a short trip of triggers and associations. Even excluding price, I love used bookstores because of the random selection, the scribbled dedications inside the books, the smell, the all-the-time-in-the-world feeling. I found a book signed by poet Susan Stewart but ultimately put it back. I felt I could, because this has happened to me before.

I have been meaning, for example, to read Saul Bellow but can’t remember which book is considered his masterpiece. Having the books in hand, to be honest, didn’t help - there were all kinds of superlative blurbs on the back of each book. So from Augie March, Herzog, Humboldt and Henderson, I finally went with Augie March because of the picture on the cover, a 1933 photo of State Street in Chicago. I also remembered I aimed to read Russell Banks’ Continental Drift, and they had that, but they also had Cloudsplitter , which looked more promising.

I spent $82.37 on 11 books.

kaleidowhirl

I have two poems up in the new kaleidowhirl.

Luisa forgets the word for hail

"It's hazeling!"

lonesomer dove

On the plane, I began reading a book in English that I bought at a used book store in Germany. The previous owner was apparently German, or something else, and every paragraph has a number of circled words, which must be those s/he had to look up. The words include tug, shoat, begrudged, keen, chaparral flats, roofless, mesquite, lumpy adobe, stomping and gnats. The reader gave up on page 3. Come to think of it I don't recall how to say gnats in German, though I'd been walking through swimming veils of them every day before I left.

Anyway, I gave up on page 30. Although the writing was good - I asterisked at least five sentences that were nicely built or pleasingly funny - the characters seemed caricatured. I wanted to like it, but I don’t think I have 945 pages worth of time for it. I jumped ship for Mystery in Spiderville.

land ho

oh short-pile carpet of Newark airport
oh centrifugal force of the baggage claim
oh miasmic humidity of New Jersey
oh sleepy faces, bedhead, dishevelment
oh unalien city
oh airplane chicken teriyaki
oh immigration pledge to courtesy
to full disclosure
to tedium and dignity

friday confession

Guess what? Now I have 7 friends on facebook and one friend request from a woman I don't know. I also belong to three groups, one of which is called "Abridged Books are a Travesty to Classical Literature." But I confess that earlier this year I read the abridged version of The Gulag Archipelago. I feel real bad about this and hope my membership in afore-mentioned facebook group will not be revoked. Because god forbid I would choose to read abridged books, but I asked for Gulag for Christmas last year and abridged is what I got. I couldn't start whining, could I? "Santa! Abridged books are a travesty to literature and an insult to me!"

Here's the group manifesto: "We exist to say abridging books is an offense to classical literature. Who is to decide what in the book is important and what isn't? Whoever is abridging these works of art may be taking out some parts of the book the author deemed most important to the plot, moral, or development of the story. Not only that, but you are depriving us of the originally intended story. Abridging books should be outlawed the same as plagiarism."

This is quite unfair of me, and I fear I may indeed now be kicked out of this group, but the wording here is a bit screwed, isn't it? For example, what is up with that last sentence? It's like a crazy little children's poem.
"Abridging books should be outlawed the same as plagiarism!"
"Wearing mittens should be mandatory the same as eating vegetables!"

It also looks to me like the busy "Whoever" who is depriving readers of "the originally intended story" is in big trouble. Surprise! when "whoever" morphs into "you!"

to sod, or muck or smoke

I have a poem up at Juked today.

drama

I stopped at the bakery this morning to get my raisin rolls for breakfast. The lady said they had a new baker so the rolls were different. I looked at them. They were bigger. “Do they cost the same?” I asked, not because I cared but because I already had the 1 euro 30 cents change counted out. They did. I noticed under the light that the rolls were baked with white flour and were brushed with sugar that lay gleaming on top. I wasn’t too happy about that. Daniel, who works as an IT tech at my office was also at the bakery, but I stood behind a big guy so he couldn’t see me. I hate “running into” people. I have absolutely nothing to say. Daniel is nice, though; he has fixed my computer a million times. And he has a long ponytail. I like ponytails on men. But only ponytails. If the hair is really long, I don't like when it's shaken out. That’s freaky. My husband hates long hair on men. He also doesn’t like earrings. Our 9-year old keeps asking if he can get an earring when he’s older and my husband always launches into his evil eye-roll. I tell our son there’s nothing wrong with an earring. Earrings can look good on men, some men. If the man doesn’t look good to begin with, though, an earring won’t help. What can I say about my husband? He’s a small, dark handsome guy from Italy. Some of his prejudices make me laugh. Like whenever someone is drinking tea, he says “tea is for sick people.” I don’t know – I find that hilarious. He also doesn’t like raisins. Neither does our son. But I do. Except the raisins in these new raisin rolls have miniscule seeds in them, which I dislike biting. And since I have to tear the roll in order to dunk it in my coffee, I get the sugar goop all over my fingers. And since I can’t use the computer keyboard without fingers, I have to suck off the goop. Which is gross considering everything. Which is a way of digesting everything.

how is it

more picture than word
more north than south
more Bach than Mozart
more mountains than ocean

2nd place - we try harder

I placed second in this month's IBPC competition with a ghazal, a form I love. Here's the judge's commentary with a link to the poem at the bottom of the page. Laura Polley took first place with a gorgeous poem (that I voted for btw).

On Friday I leave with the kids for a two-week vacation in NJ/NY. We're staying with my mother, and will spend a weekend up in Ghent NY with my brother. Very probably we will be in Philadelphia, too, which is great not only because my sister lives there but also because of the incredible used book store in her neighborhood.

Meanwhile I have some books I'm looking forward to waiting at my mother's.
Mystery in Spiderville by John Hartley Williams
The Great Enigma - Tomas Tranströmer
High Lonesome - Joyce Carol Oates
Gulag: A History - Anne Applebaum
The Other Lover - Bruce Smith

And, although I always hope to be writing, I don't know how much time I'll have, so I was glad to finish a poem-a-day forum today (10 days). My poems were: Morning Fragments * From the Top Bunk * Here on Business * Autumn, Reading Kolyma Tales * God Have Pity on the Smell of Gasoline * Snake Kiss * Buzz * Tinnitus Ditty * Iron * Hear What I Hear

facebook

Another highlight of visiting Michi was her showing me how to navigate Facebook. I feel awkward about Facebook. It seems static. I'm not sure I'm camping there for good. Unlike Blogger, it’s not focused on posts and writing. But it does have a neat layout, lots of gadgets and groups.
My Facebook status is among the most modest imaginable. I’ve got six friends, and holding. I’ve come across many people I met on the internet, but I wouldn’t presume to be-friend (sic) them without occasion. Blogger is more casual in that way. I’ll throw up a link because I like it, not because I pretend to actually know someone.
My Facebook friend list consists of three face-to-face friends. The other three are people I know from the internet whom I feel comfortable be-friending. My brother Shane is on Facebook, but I’m not be-friending him for now. His friends are all MIT grads, and he doesn’t like poetry. So what’s to say?
Considering this weird beginning, it was interesting to read this Slate article by a woman who just managed to purge her friend list from 274 to 258. She achieved this by eliminating the people she never met in person. My mind kind of boggles at that. She has befriended 258 Facebook friends in person. I really need an hour to sit down and work that out. Even if I were a single college student, I can’t imagine counting that many people on my friend list, however superficial the friendship. The writer mentions those are just her friends who are on Facebook; most of her friends, she says, are not on Facebook. All I can say is holy shit. Does this lady have time to shower, or does she have an email address labeled “everyone I’m friends with at Facebook?”
Call me old-fashioned, but unless you’re doing some serious career-networking or looking for customers or running a brothel, if you’ve got over 250 friends, some weird dynamic has taken over. You’re either sponsoring a charity, or you’re a kind of a slut to friendship.

schubertiana

I've been kind of down, and busy, and busy, and out, but I did want to mention that Vienna is beautiful and stately and dense. Mostly the blocks of buildings are imposing, but also grand and occasionally delicate. It's a very grown-up city. The distractions and pleasures are not light or quick. The city park is pretty for a stroll, but not for playing. I'd love to go back as a real tourist. With free time and a camera.

The highlight of my visit to Michi was sitting at her table listening to her read Tomas Transtromer's "Schubertiana," a wonderful poem. I ordered his Collected Poems this morning, translated by Robin Fulton. God, I hope the translations are good - you never know. Michi's translator was Robert Bly, and I do like his translations generally, but the Fulton book looked so, ...um, complete. We read a few other poems, too, at random, but none were as good as "Schubertiana." Even Szymborska's "Conversation with a Stone," such a great poem, couldn't kindle half the pleasure of it read aloud. Unfortunately it's nowhere on the internet I can find, in English at least.

friday confession

If smoking were not unhealthy, I'd be smoking right now.

adventure books

Some people, when they travel, choose books to suit their destinations. I don’t do that myself, but on my first trip to England when I was 20, I did have Tess of the D’urbervilles along, and remember how much the landscape added to my experience of the book. I remember in fact being skeptical about Tess, but once I started, the story mixed with the atmosphere of England was true transport.

Other people have a pet book they can’t leave home for a long period without. For me it’s the marvelous Random Book Of 20th Century French Poetry, edited by Paul Auster. Reading this book is like finding a beach where the seashells washed onto shore are in some way particular and, if not beautiful, fascinating. But usually both.

Otherwise, following my trip, bookwise and worldwise I’m glad to report all is not lost. Even if you find yourself marooned bookless at a foreign airport, it’s likely the bookstore will have a palatable title. I was surprised, but there I was, 4/5ths through Kolyma Tales when I started worrying what I’d do if I became stranded. But the rinky-dink bookshop in Zurich Airport actually had among its English selection two Hemingway books. Two Paul Austers! The World According to Garp. Siri Hustvedt’s What I Loved (which I intend someday to read). Martin Amis. Richard Ford’s The Lay of the Land. Cormac McCarthy’s The Road. And a couple WWII history titles that were actually interesting. Of course it was mixed in with much “Chicken Soup” and “How To Achieve High Tech Hallelujah.” And mysteries galore. Anyway, I didn’t buy, but left with a some faith restored, since judging by what I saw, proably 25% of readers are actually interested in good reading, not just whiling away the hours.

Song of the Day: Ebben? Ne Andrò Lontana, from La Wally

Thanks to Niff for the Sparrow

so much depends on the invention of new hairstyle names

Swarm
Milkshake
Static on the AM
Tupperware
Geisha
Frappé
Splozion
The Josh
Taxidermy
Swamp
Pin cushion

and those popular in the 70's