John – Page 160

Write Your A** Off

May 9, 2009 by John

Important: Please read the update at the foot of this post. If you can’t read that, at least read the boldfaced parts of the post itself. Thanks for visiting!

The blogosphere — or maybe it’s just the corner I’ve been mostly visiting, the one with the writers and other assorted wordsmiths — seems to have been overtaken by despair recently. Or maybe it’s not despair, exactly. Maybe more like anomie, a sort of formless uncertainty about the whole enterprise of getting language onto paper or screen, into lyrics and scripts.

Many people mutter, darkly, about the prospect of ever getting published — traditionally, or even at all. Others just want to take a break. Go on hiatus. Explore other creative avenues. Bug out.

Hmm.

I think we could all use a shot in the arm. Maybe we need to take a page from the New York Writers Coalition, which has designated next Saturday, May 16th, as their 4th Annual Write Your A** Off Day (or, less in-your-face, the Write-a-Thon).

[Read more…]

What We Miss When We Shutter Our Senses

May 8, 2009 by John

[Above image, “Magic Eye” by Jennifer Love, first appeared on TrekEarth.]

From whiskey river (italicized portion):

Beside the grand history of the glaciers and their own, the mountain streams sing the history of every avalanche or earthquake and of snow, all easily recognized by the human ear, and every word evoked by the falling leaf and drinking dear, beside a thousand other facts so small and spoken by the stream in so low a voice the human ear cannot hear them. The wing scars the sky, making a path inevitably as the deer in snow, and the winds all know it and tell it though we hear it not.

(John Muir, John of the Mountains [source])

Not from whiskey river:

When your eyes are functioning well you don’t see your eyes. If your eyes are imperfect you see spots in front of them. That means there are some lesions in the retina or wherever, and because your eyes aren’t working properly, you feel them. In the same way, you don’t hear your ears. If you have a ringing in your ears it means there’s something wrong with your ears. Therefore, if you do feel yourself, there must be something wrong with you. Whatever you have, the sensation of I is like spots in front of your eyes — it means something’s wrong with your functioning.

(Alan Watts, Ego)

…and:

[Read more…]

The Road to Hell Is Paved with Hard Decisions…

May 6, 2009 by John

…badly made.

Which is why, recently presented with these two books for review, I will probably start with the latter:

How S*x Works, by Dr. Sharon Moalem. From the publisher [typos supplied by JES intentionally, to ward off The Wrong Sort of Internet traffic]:

Why are women biologically driven to find Mr. Tall, Dark, and Handsome?
Can more s*x help ensure a safe pregnancy?
What effect does p0rn0gr@phy have on a man’s fert!l!ty?

In this compelling follow-up to the New York Times bestseller Survival of the Sickest, Dr. Sharon Moalem takes us on a trip from prehistory to the forefront of cutting-edge medical research, and through a bedroom or two, to tell the story of how human s*xuality has developed over time. How S*x Works challenges common perceptions about our bodies and provides astonishing discoveries from the frontiers of science as it traces the transformation of s*x across species and through time to its current role in human societies…
Coop, by Michael Perry. From the publisher:

In over his head with two pigs, a dozen chickens, and a baby due any minute, the acclaimed author of Truck: A Love Story gives us a humorous, heartfelt memoir of a new life in the country.

Last seen sleeping off his wedding night in the back of a 1951 International Harvester pickup, Michael Perry is now living in a rickety Wisconsin farmhouse. Faced with thirty-seven acres of fallen fences and overgrown fields, and informed by his pregnant wife that she intends to deliver their baby at home, Perry plumbs his unorthodox childhood — his city-bred parents took in more than a hundred foster children while running a ramshackle dairy farm — for clues to how to proceed as a farmer, a husband, and a father…

Well, they also say that postponement toughens the soul. Something like that, anyhow. Don’t put off till tomorrow, so forth and so on. “They” –whoever they are — must be a barrel of laughs at a party.

P.S. Seriously? I’d more likely buy Coop anyway — even though I haven’t read either one yet. (And it’s got nothing to do with virtue, God knows.)

4 or 5 Crazee Guys*

May 3, 2009 by John

Album cover: How Can You Be in Two Places at Once...

I‘ve resisted. Oh, how I’ve resisted.

Really — it’s been, like, Thou shalt not… and Stay thy hand… and all the rest of those Biblical-sounding injunctions. I’ve been strong. I’ve cared. Ultimately, alas, although I wrestled with the angel, s/he has overcome me. It was never easy.

And in the end, it was not even possible.

Yes. It’s time I mentioned The Firesign Theatre.

[Read more…]

Collisions Between Poetry and… Other Stuff

May 1, 2009 by John

[Artist’s rendering above depicts “planets colliding in a sun-like binary system about
300 light-years from Earth, in the constellation Aries.” Click image for more info.]

From whiskey river:

Poetry

I, too, dislike it: there are things that are important beyond all this
fiddle.
Reading it, however, with a perfect contempt for it, one discovers
in
it after all, a place for the genuine.
Hands that can grasp, eyes
that can dilate, hair that can rise
if it must, these things are important not because a

high-sounding interpretation can be put upon them but because
they are
useful. When they become so derivative as to become
unintelligible,
the same thing may be said for all of us, that we
do not admire what
we cannot understand: the bat
holding on upside down or in quest of something to

eat, elephants pushing, a wild horse taking a roll, a tireless wolf
under
a tree, the immovable critic twitching his skin like a horse that
feels a flea, the base-
ball fan, the statistician —
nor is it valid
to discriminate against “business documents and

school-books”; all these phenomena are important. One must make
a distinction
however: when dragged into prominence by half poets, the result
is not poetry,
nor till the poets among us can be
“literalists of
the imagination” — above
insolence and triviality and can present

for inspection, “imaginary gardens with real toads in them,” shall
we have
it. In the meantime, if you demand on the one hand,
the raw material of poetry in
all its rawness and
that which is on the other hand
genuine, you are interested in poetry.

(Marianne Moore [source])

…and:

The wind blows hard among the pines
Toward the beginning
Of an endless past
Listen: you’ve heard everything.

(Shinkichi Takahashi [source])

Not from whiskey river:

[Read more…]

It’s Gnawing at Me

April 29, 2009 by John

[Click Play button to begin. While audio is playing, volume control appears at left — row of little vertical bars.]

[audio:threestooges.mp3|titles=Three Blind Mice|artists=(some orchestra)]

Help me out with something here: What, exactly — even approximately — is the deal with mice? meaning, specifically, mice as humans? (I do recognize there are many deals with mice.) And of course when you extend the question to the rest of order Rodentia, well, the mystery deepens: rats, beavers, chipmunks, groundhogs… There’s no end (so it seems) to the number and variety of normally furry, four-legged, big-incisored, nose-twitching creatures wearing little suits and dresses and hats.

Sometimes, indeed, people even become rodents — and rodents, people — as here:

[Read more…]

The Teachable Moment

April 29, 2009 by John

I don’t usually just post a link to someplace else, without using it as a springboard for my own ramblings. (Indeed, one of those ramblings is forthcoming.)

But this slice of life would be ruined by elaboration: “Choose your own adventure at Lee NAILS” (Deb on the Rocks, via Maggie). Highly recommended reading for parents of teenagers. Or parents of teenagers to be. Or former teenagers. Or future teenagers.

The setup:

My son and I were driving home from the dog park last night, talking about the politics of the park (they can be thick, with both dogs and owners throwing down on any given day) and Swine Flu and his course selections for next year and very other important stuff like dinner.

The sign at the side of the road (in the photo at the right) caught my eye. I’ve never been to Lee’s, but I know it’s a stripmall nail salon. Free wine/beer/soft drinks! I guess the recession must be killing pedicure places. If money’s tight, it’s pretty easy to say “Ya know, nail polish is three bucks at CVS, I bet I can slap some lotion and paint on my own damn toes at home.” It’s really not that tricky.

Then I heard my son Salo ask me, “Mom, did you hear me, I asked you which one would you choose?”

And things go on from there…

“Just Where Have You Been, Young Man?!?”

April 27, 2009 by John

So, yes, I disappeared for[…counting…] four days there. (Friday’s whiskey river-based meditation brought to you through the miracle of WordPress’s scheduled-posts feature.) Long story short (so unlike me, I know), for now: I spent the time with The Brother, up in NJ. We were joined Saturday by The Sisters.

That’s the three of them in the photo above (click it to enlarge), channeling Gilbert & Sullivan; and, for reference, a somewhat earlier photo of all four of us in the photo at right.

(If you want to try your hand at morphing them from their 1950-something selves to now, note that the bottom row at the right is in the opposite order from the sequence in the top photo.)

And just to keep things fair — actually more than fair — I’ll include one photo of me (and The Younger of Two Sisters) below the fold.

[Read more…]

These Things Must Be Done Delicately

April 24, 2009 by John

From the originating page: “Osmanthus [JES: a/k/a cinnamon flower] is a unique Asian flower, with a smooth and rich scent of green tea, apricot and suede leather. It is used to scent green tea as well as special confections and Chinese baked goods. The peak of the osmanthus flowers season is… end of September until mid October, when the days start to become short, and rainstorms fight to take over the last sunny days. The osamnthus flowers falls to the wet ground and release their dusky aroma which fills the moist, air.”

From whiskey river:

In our idleness, cinnamon blossoms fall.
In night quiet, spring mountains stand
empty. Moonrise startles mountain birds:
here and there, cries in a spring gorge.

(Wang Wei)

…and:

People are delicate, aren’t they?

(Yusunari Kawabata)

[Read more…]

No Wonder Johnny Grew Up So… Troubled

April 22, 2009 by John

You may have imagined that until the Internet, parents didn’t need to worry that technology might endanger their children. If so, you were wrong.

Photo below the fold. Found it at the wonderful Found in Mom’s Basement site: “Vintage advertising — found in my mother’s basement, flea markets and various corners of the Internet — dusted off and displayed for your viewing pleasure.” Click the image to see the whole ad; then spend a little time visiting there, and prepare to be entertained (or creeped out) yourself.

[Read more…]