In time for Halloween–A Modernist Nightmare!
Most typos intentional, here’s the nightmare, as I see it, of life and modernism, and presented in what is meant to be a generally unsettling way; just in time for Halloween! Enjoy! (And I know it’s long and meandering, but see it through; it all comes home.)
AND YOUR BIRD CAN SING
(a Modernist Nightmare and Beatles Cover in several parts)
PART I
For those of you who never
have the opportunity to read
the cover of the notebook this
was written in I’m penning
it here:
I’m not sure why you
wouldn’t be able to read the
cover, just flip back right?
But let’s be pragmatic.
So just to be clear I’m not
predicting the future here,
just calling on Discord and
Uncertainty to do –
what they always do.
I did date a girl
named
Cassy
once though, who could see
the future.
It was like 16 Candles,
but I was 24, and it
sucked.
I realize my prag-
matism is somewhat
limited in scope
here: if
the cover can go missing,
any number of pages
might also go the way of
the dodo, and it seems
as though any individual
page missing would shatter
the ribcage right thru to
the gooshy organs of this
attempt at preemptiveness.
But enough, I’m
getting on my own nerves*
“Let simple and
old-fashioned myself stay w/ you,
while ordinary things
have been disappearing
in the world.”
Tell me
you’ve heard every
song there is.
I’m old-fashioned like
Hansel and Gretel cooking
an old woman for meat pies
– you know they ate the witch.
I knew them when
they grew up: they
turned out pretty alright,
all things considered.
Tell me
you’ve heard every
song there is.
Old-fashioned
like
wicked stepsisters cutting off bits of foot to
wedge what remains
into glass;
it’s the man’s place
to backhand the girl
the Woodcutter told
Little Red, when she
doesn’t go down on him.
Keep perspective, she
was like 18 at this
point.
Even though he was like 45.
Is it the ordinary that’s
missing from this world?
It’s the irregular that
we condemn anymore
in our actions.
Everything has a place.
No hollowed out Judas trees
set before Venus,
rising out of the sea.
We have ratchetclanks
and pistonsshses,
where once we had –
I don’t know anymore.
This is just ranting
anymore; it’s
worthless, I’m done.
And your bird can sing.
But you don’t get me.
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Something, like a button, it’s something!
This is just a little bit from the start of something. Could be a future short story, maybe even a quick-paced beginning to a novel/novella. Who knows? Not I, at the moment. But there’s actually quite a bit ahead of this that I thought through and took some prewriting notes on, so there is a story after this bit that I just haven’t/didn’t get to that I hope to use sooner or later in something. Anyway, blah blah blah, here ya go:
At the back of the blackout two children, four and seven, sat hand in hand in hand in hand. Twenty tiny fingers were interlocked to create one entity in the darkness. And then, a child’s whisper, “I’m Millie, what’s your name?” softer than any adult voice and too soft for any adult ears to hear.
“I’m Gideon.” Their prepubescent voices matched pitch.
“You’re a boy.” Gideon was already at a loss for words because this casual observation told him that Millie was a girl, and although he wasn’t sure if he should act differently around her, he thought maybe he should. He just didn’t know what to do. The opportunity to do anything was denied him, as a lantern flickered on, and they quickly put the appropriate social distance of a foot and a half between them. As you can no doubt tell, that was the first time Millie encountered Gideon, when their parents happened to meet up one night when lantern oil was burning low. They were destined to become a pair of pretty capable troublemakers.
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Spaghetti Western-isms
This is a bit of a play on a scene from The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly. I always wanted to write a film noir/spaghetti western kind of story — probably because of Cowboy Bebop. But anyway, just a short paragraph of prose:
From beneath a sombrero his gruff voice asks, “Do you know how much you’re worth?” Underneath his fluttering serape dangle soft sandalwood handles, stitched with steel to tiny hammers synced to a series of chambers, each of which is aligned to rotate into position in front of the long dark tunnel of a gunbarrel. The cloth twists in the wind, and the breeze carries the scent from the gunhandles – they smell like prayer beads. And it seems that in every gunbattle there is something of a prayer. That is all the sandalwood is: the sign of what is to come; a symbol of what must be.
Weekend Abroad
This starts in the wee hours in the neighboring city of Takamatsu, after a night of drinking, returns to Marugame, and then continues on into the next day in Kanonji — one weekend of craziness:
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Japan Journal: First Insert
Written during a trip to a sake festival near Hiroshima and a subsequent visit to the island of Miwojima:
back in the world
I don’t see anyone back in the world
with the world so often at large–
disappointing, that
everything out there:
hence, everything; though,
I keep trying to bring it home with me,
or keep trying to bring home with me.
why should I remain?
strange how waves from a ferry
always look more real
than waves from a beach,
like filmed w/ handicam, or
modern movies+
high resolution television
too closely resembling what’s in front of
my own eyes.
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New Section: Japan Journal
I’ve added a new section to the blog with the intent of reviving my online writing life/presence/what-have-you. The section is under Poetry>Japan Journal. I don’t have the patience for standard journal entries, and oftentimes scribble down my daily doings in poetic form. Sometimes there’s a good idea worked in, and sometimes there’s just some of whatevers happening. This new section will not be the only thing updated on the blog; however, it is sort of a way to jumpstart the heart of Here She Be, again.
Who Am I to Escape My Past
I’m back bitches! Sort of. I’m actually the farthest from home I’ve ever been — something like 9500 miles. But the writing is coming back. Got a couple of novel ideas cooked up — one brewing, and the other I was working on well before I took an interim of not posting here. I can’t say I’ll be updating regularly, but perhaps sporadic moments of banging the gong to make you all aware that I still draw breath. Let my enemies exhaust themselves getting here, only to realize that the woodcutter has been hunting wolves ever since.
And a quick bit of froth:
You rolled that rock out to sea,
and sat there ready to float out on adventure,
but I was running behind,
so you had it wait for me there at the shore.
There are a number of questions I have no answers for,
and now I know that there is virtue
in not asking many of them.
New Chess Blog
I know much hasn’t happened here in awhile, and I can’t say how much will. I’m heading out into the world, and while I am continuing my writing, many of those projects are to be conducted in private — yes, there is still poetry and novel writing going on.
I also have started a new chess blog with a friend of mine, and if anyone is interested, you can find it at Wrong Rook Pawn.
TBD to be incomplete
Just thought I’d take care of this while I was doing some bookkeeping, so to speak –
It was mentioned some time back that there was a final determinant yet to be written for the TBD series, and lo and behold it has yet to be written. I would like to announce that this final determinant is not going to be written. TBD will remain eternally incomplete, but it seems as though that is something completely in sync with the process involved with the rest of the project. It is meant to be open-ended in many ways, and by acknowledging the work’s incompleteness, I think the gesture comes full circle — or rather it opens up in a way that it was meant to. I doubt anyone was holding their breath for the conclusion of this series, but in case anyone ever started wonder what happened to the end of TBD, now you know.
Some Upcoming Changes to the Blog
Well, I’m thinking this blog has used the Dusk wordpress theme since it was created near the beginning of my college career. With my undergraduate days at their end, I feel the need to change it to something lighter, and will most likely be converting to the MistyLook theme in the near future. This also means going back through a lot of the old poetry posts and fixing them to work with the new theme (a big factor in why the theme has never changed before); some of the old poems took hours to get to format correctly. Also, there is a tags feature to wordpress that I have never used, but have started to recognize the usefulness of. I like tag clouds, and would like to incorporate into the blog; although, this requires a theme like MistyLook that has a little more built in functionality, so there isn’t yet another thing hanging out on the lefthand side (MistyLook puts the pages and search at the top, separate from the widgets). Tags would also be an effective way to bring more visitors to the blog, which is always nice, so that will be another big change. Not sure how much it’ll be noticed, but it does mean I’m going back through 350+ posts to try and sort them in this new way. Wish me luck! And don’t expect the changes immediately; they may be something done more towards the start of June — we’ll just have to see how enthusiastic I am, and what time I have available.
5/14/09 Chess Win — Talking Heads
Opening: Petrov/Russian Game: Urusov Gambit (C42)
Result: 1-0
This was, I felt, one of the most solid games I’ve played, and indicates a difference in the level of player I am now versus the level of player I was a few months ago. Everything sort of locked into place as the game continued. I gained a more than sufficient material advantage and used pressure to allow for little room for my opponent to run around in. The opening was also very interesting with some quick trading of pieces. Anyway, this is a pretty solid win for me, and I think it’s worth taking a look at for you chess players out there:
1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nf6 3.Bc4 d5 4.exd5 Nxd5 5.Nxe5 Qd6 6.d4 Nf6 7.Nxf7 Qb4+ 8.Nd2 Qe7+ 9.Qe2 Rg8 10.Ne5 Be6 11.O-O Nbd7 12.b3 O-O-O 13.Ndf3 h6 14.Re1 g5 15.a4 Qb4 16.Bxe6 Rg7 17.a5 a6 18.Ba3 Qc3 19.Qc4 Qxc4 20.bxc4 Re7 21.d5 c5 22.Nf7 Rxe6 23.dxe6 Bg7 24.Nxd8 Kxd8 25.exd7 Nxd7 26.Rad1 Kc7 27.Re7 Bd4 28.Nxd4 cxd4 29.Rxd4 Kc6 30.Rexd7 b6 31.R4d6#
See the game/look at the moves: Talking Heads
Jarre Wiki Hoax
Ok, so it’s not a very catchy name for it, but I’ve yet to see anyone come up with a better one. There’s been a hoax, and I would be remiss if I did not say something about it, as someone who has spoken on behalf of the value of these things before.
Here’s the gist of it: a young man, someone my age actually, posted a false tidbit of information on Wikipedia with no cited source, which various news media then used in their reporting; however, Wikipedia caught the error within minutes and removed it. Shane Fitzgerald, the young man responsible, posted the false information multiple times with Wikipedia admins catching and correcting it each time within hours if not minutes. If you want more details click here.
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This Time
Consider that who we are involves being eagerly baffled. I think I have some idea what the answer is to my big question and where it lies, but that seems like it too might be just another fiction with limited relevance (an interesting comment from someone who just wrote and posted here so much about how reality is not as ontologically distinct from fiction as we like to think). You must learn to accept the consequences of having been wrong before. Think of the tension between looking for something like sovereignty and actually assuming you know what that is. For me the strong symbols are my guidelines because I cannot yet read the subtleties. This is something I hope to one day address on the stage of a novel, but for now I am happy to try and convey the struggle in poetry.
In response to an aphorism written by Prof. Michael Theune:
[the original aphorism]
According to Joseph Campbell, the main lesson of the myths through the ages and across cultures is that one might actually, deep within, be sovereign, that one’s true self is majestic. Does anyone believe this anymore? Now, if you want people to go on quests, to change their lives, it might be better to tell them, You were not born to reign, but neither were they . . .
(check out more of his awesome aphorisms at Seven Corners Poetry)
[the response]
I am at the dusk of an event –
something like dust has started to settle
into the long slender folds of the night.
Silver sand squishes between my toes
on the beaches of sleep; somewhere I
often stay away from because as we all know,
sleep is for dreamers.
What choices have been left to me
come from something I had to be told,
but feel as though I had learned once
I realized that I would probably not
grow up to be an astronaut or the President:
I have been told that I was not born to reign,
but then again, neither was anyone else.
What choices have been left to me
result from a need to be sovereign,
to be kingly. And I have heard stories
of the Ancient East and the Ancient West,
wherein they say that somewhere out
there lies the visage of the king of kings.
Sometimes I exist for my own salvation;
other times I have given all that I can,
and I imagine I will do so again — last
full measures considered. But it is only
this I go to find: that which yet survives
stamped on lifeless things — great tomes,
the words of a statue, the trunk of a sun
god, the shield of a hero.
On the hunt, I kill to survive, yet a greater
predator may come and claim my kill, and so
I abandon the carcass to survive also. The
work of our lives brings us where we will be,
and our lives likewise drive us away from
where we are.
The silver sands are caught beneath my
untrimmed toenails, soft yet irritating.
The beach cools my feet, but I do not doze
here in these subtle surroundings because
sleep is for dreamers. And I have come
for sovereignty — blood and bone; symbols
as subtle as a flash flood.
This is who we are.
At least those of us
who are still looking.
“Circe” from Joyce’s Ulysses
This is another older essay of mine that I found. This time the topic is the “Circe” chapter (or rather a particular passage’s relation to the chapter) from James Joyce’s Ulysses.
The “Circe” chapter of Joyce’s Ulysses is a masterful manipulation of language that takes the lenses we have seen the world through in previous chapters and skews them, so that we might see more clearly. This nightmarish chapter perverts reality, but by doing so we see essential qualities of characters, especially Bloom and Stephen. A close look at this will be taken from the following passage taken from chapter 15, “Circe,” lines 2777-782:
BLOOM
(cowed) Exuberant female. Enormously I desiderate your domination. I am exhausted, abandoned, no more young. I stand, so to speak, with an unposted letter bearing the extra regulation fee before the too late box of the general postoffice of human life. The door and window open at a right angle cause a draught of thirtytwo feet per second according to the law of falling bodies.
“Ithaca” from Joyce’s Ulysses
I stumbled across this the other day. It’s a brief analysis of the “Ithaca” chapter of James Joyce’s Ulysses. Not really one of my better essays, as it is an early one, but I thought I’d share all the same.
In Ulysses, Bloom is attributed his closing thoughts on the day in the penultimate chapter, “Ithaca.” This is appropriate, since Molly is given even a greater say and sway in the concluding chapter.
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