Poetry & Song

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/23/arts/music/23luke.html?_r=1

Why New York?! Why must you tempt me so?!

Man of My Time

Maybe it was the mustache, maybe it was the summer. However, this is now in heavy rotation and thus all is well & right in the world again.

Black & White & Read All Over

Oh my eyes & brain/heart! The discovery of Bianca Stone's illustrations/images/etc or "Poetry Comics" at http://whoisthatsupposedtobe.blogspot.com/ has left me speechless with delight.

All Weather/Swoon Letter

Danse dans la neige, 1948
photographs by Maurice Perron, gelatin silver prints
Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec
http://www.canadacouncil.ca/

Yesterday my boss told me that Francoise Sullivan, dancer, painter, sculptor, muse, fascinating figure, will be in town on Monday afternoon to celebrate the restoration of a sculpture for display and a fim screening, to which I cried No! because I had no idea and had scheduled a meeting at 1:30. I did not actually cry out, I made a disappointed face and sadly said "Oh I have a meeting at 1:30" resigned to my fate.


Yesterday I also ran into the one I like best. I have resigned myself to the fact (notion) that anything I interpret as interest is basic human decency, or simply the fact that he is interested in al things and people, just not me romantically.

So there's that disappointment as well. Oh well. It's missing out on making out, not an appearance by an iconic Canadian arts legend.

Hello Sore Throat My Old Friend

And you also make the case that catching a cold is not always bad news.

It gives us a chance to get off the merry-go-round for a few days. Because it causes malaise and it makes it so hard to concentrate, it's a way for the body to tell you to slow down for a few days. It's a chance for uninterrupted reading, which few of us get to indulge in the way we used to. The other possible silver lining -- and these are based on very tentative, preliminary epidemiological evidence that I offer with caution -- there were some results that came out of the studies on swine flu that suggest having a cold may actually keep flu at bay. This is controversial, but it is a possibility and scientists are looking at this now.

http://www.salon.com/books/feature/2010/09/19/jennifer_ackerman_common_cold_interview/index.html

Or, if you have some variation of a cold or flu every two months, you look unprofessional as you hack & slouch your way through work or weak & lazy because you stay home and your head is too muddled to read so you watch an endless amount of bad movies on YouTube.

Incoherent Upsets All Over

September 16: Miss Moody, watch your words.

I am not a poet. I won't claim to have any of the drive the dedication required, nor any modicum of talent (I ramble too much, I rhyme all the time, I rhapsodize romance). Therefore I hate when I judge a poem as not good or not great or simply boring or I could do better. Because I could not do better. That is a boldfaced lie. I do not have a need to write poetry. However my need to read poetry is another matter altogether.

Consider: hierarchy of needs: food & water, shelter & sleep... hierarchy of desires: books and men, poetry and shoulders. Airy spaces, the quality of light, the surface of things, the right weight of fabrics. Coffee & tea, music, sculpture, installations, theatre, wine & vermouth.

There is nothing so upsetting than _______, _________ poems packaged in a slick that bothers my fingers-- I'm talking to you revamp of __________, I don't like change and the only poems I think I like in this issue are the __________'s. I think I like them, I'm not stamping my feet in the magazine shop clutching the issue to my chest until I get home, I'm not rolling any one line round and round my brain and tongue, I actually rolled the entire MAGAZINE, not newspaper, into my bag and forgot about it until just now.

Maybe I simply hate everything about this issue because I am (simply) in a foul mood today? This is not a blog, this just a journal because I have realized that I can no longer fully truly write on paper anymore and I do not know how to fix this (boldfaced). What I mean to say is, tell me about this grey sulk, this slow sick feeling like weak tea or wet socks, yet hot like jealousy, like a sweater unraveling faster and faster as I pull at what started as (simply) one small loose thread:

I went to the library where I coudn't find anything rien du tout and where usually the gallery has just consistently great shows except our city has been taken over by art commissioned to celebrate the sports team centennial so I just didn't bother to go in.

After a day where work made me inexplicably grumpy for no damn reason, events and events and a knot of stress over tomorrow night's.

And running into the one I like best after the library and mall made me a bit upset, maybe because I don't like unexpected things even though it was expected if I could only remember what day of the week it is or even just thought back to something he said earlier in the day.

Or because I had just braved the mall to try to find thin gloves or mittens but all I found was nothing but disappoinment. Like in the romance department. Make outs and fall mittens without sequins, too much to ask for? Possibly, that's what poetry is for. Also, it seems as if the romance department is a section of The Bay, but even if it was I bet it would be "Sometimes I look at this pair of mittens and I think they are just as intrigued by me as I am by them" but face it I am hallucinating. Mittens will never return your affection. Mittens are just too damn interesting and intelligent for someone who compares people to winter accessories and mixes her metaphors and meanings like the worlds worst bartender.

And the cat just knocked over a dish of hairpins all over the bathroom floor. The other night she broke a small mug I adored.

So while I am sometimes most of the time unbearably positive and esctatic and nervous with delight, I am now sulking like a brat beacuse I can't find a single new poem that makes me lose my mind and I just had to throw the __________ down because the texture is making my skin crawl. Also what I really wanted was the new issue of the __________ but it isn't in yet. It too apparenty has a redesigned cover but it looks nice and as long as it doesn't get a petroleum slick finish, we will be okay. Everything will be okay. Maybe you should just get some sleep, you cranky petulant pouting child?

Two Men, Two Bicycles

The other night, I cut through the park on my way home in the early evening, an older man biked past me, then turned round. "Can I ride beside you?" He inquired. "It's not a good idea to walk alone." No, but thank you, I'm fine, I smiled curtly and continued walking, trying to keep brusque from my voice and brisk from my pace. " He continued on his way at a slower pace looking back every now and then, waited at the exit to ensure that I made it through alive. As he rode off, leaving my safety to the cars along the street, I felt bad for my horrified first thought of "So that's how I die."

This morning, I bundle breezed through the park, grey water and grey tights, past the buildings and green spaces the City Beautiful as referenced at Friday's panel. And then the one I like best, on his bicycle, with mittens and scarf and a hair cut. He used old fashioned expressions ("Good gracious, is that this week?") and continues to steal my heart to the point where I am walking about my blood and lungs powered not by biology but blue green grey eyes. So that's how I die.

The new Paris Review will have Lydia Davis & Frederick Seidel, so there's also that. Look, it's Fred Seidel on a motorcycle! The internet will always have what I need!

Last night I went to a panel talk/opening reception. The Toril Johannessen peice above has nothing to do with the show (natural Forms, reflections on representations, the artifice of nature). However, last night involved logical acts being disrupted by thoughts of "love" as I ran into the one I find intriguing and he left the conversation & room he was in to talk, saying that he had wanted to mention the show to me earlier in the day but here I was of my own accord while I blathered on about how much I loved this one peice and too many sweaters and then I just abruptly said "Well, I'm going to head in" and took a seat in silence for five minutes before the talk started while he went back to mingling with people. Smooth moves! Especially leaving before the reception party which he was dj/vj'ing started! Good times! Wouldn't it be nice if social anxiety automaticaly meant asexuality and aromanticism?

"Dinosaur Tears" Molly Nilsson

All my dreams come true

Text message from the best, "booking tickets for Montreal, do you want to come?" Just a day after I had memory swoons of all the places I love, just after I had a jealous swoon at lunch as we talked about E's move for grad school.

I spent all day preparing minutes for meetings, drinking weak tea, wearing wet shoes and wondering if I was getting a sore throat. While daydreaming la-la, la-la, la-la-la. I took some breaks and liked these articles

http://seedmagazine.com/content/article/winds_of_change/
http://www.wilsonquarterly.com/article.cfm?aid=1670

Life, you delight me sometimes. Throat, you are another story altogether. Montreal, je t'aime!

"Drifters" Patrick Watson

The only thing I love more than old time sailors and shadow projections are dinosaurs and bicycles.

Throwing and banging on expensive gear/Drumming on wine

(No uploads of last night's set yet, this works tho)

Hands down the most amazing performance at Folk Festival was Patrick Watson. I suppose the insane amount of touring they've been doing in the last few years has lead to this absolute perfection, from engaging, humourous and honest stage banter to amazing, trancendent, forceful songs. The simple beauty of the album versions gives way to magnificent expanses of sound. I may be biased (I think the drummer is an unbearable fox, a veritable tree to climb) but the drums on "Beijing" live took an already great song to a whole other level. Though Patrick's voice and piano... I was almost in tears for "A Man Like You," though it may have been a C'est pas moi je le jure! flashback. Even after the closing set by Buffy Sainte Marie, I was still elated and buzzing from Patrick Watson. I couldn't sleep, just watched YouTube videos until I finally drifted off an hour before my alarm went.

(The entire weekend was just a delight, daytime lounges at the workshops and teaser concerts, BD Willougby and Belle Plaine hometown hero fantastic, working in the Gallery's ATC tent while listening to Buffy host the Metissage workshop session (K embroidered the Festival Logo on a card, I made shoddy musician pop-art trading cards cut out from the program, Buffy was petite and amazing), street vendor food (curried chickpeas and vegetables, ice cream, iced tea, fries with vinegar), lots of entertaining Francophone bands in the mix, Calexico were a bit underwhelming on Saturday night but entertaining at thier host workshop on Sunday morning, I spent all of Saturday night on the blankets and chairs area but was front row standing/dancing -or more of an instense swaying shoulder shaking- for Patrick Watson. Best of all, no sunburns and minimal mosquito bites despite so many hours spent in the park.

How does one sway and shake appropriately while seated indoors? Patrick, you are a mad genius. Robbie, I would like to build a house in your branches. I don't know what that means, but it should be interpretted as both tender and tawdry. Finally, Mishka and Simon, you were also both great, please save the ancient harmonium. Oh boys, thank you for being one of the best shows I have seen in a long long time. Enjoy your break from touring, record that new album soon, be well among your friends and family, and come back down the western road within the year please or playing shows when I am back in Montreal (Librissime! Unicorn! Gallimard! Drawn & Quarterly! Fuschia! Juliette et Chocolat! Fries with mayonaisse! Galleries everywhere! Efficient public transportation! Be still my heart!)

Eye of the Beholder

Still forever a favourite.

Out of my dreams

From yesterday's NYTimes and spreading fast through every poetry site:

in “Nox,” Ms. Carson takes the premise of translating a single classical poem as the basis for highly personal and multifaceted reflections. And Mr. Mitchell here works in a genre that Cunningham generally avoided, the male-male duet, and uses movements (falls, acrobatic floorwork, dramatically charged interlockings) that depart from Cunningham’s wide lexicon.

Speechless. Be still my bones my heart my breathless breaking desire for everything coming together.

John Maus Muses

On Love

Love is either of two kinds: for something or for everything.

The first kind, what we might call 'romantic' love, is the bringing-forth of a world assuming the mark of the non-being of the supplement of the disjunction between the two.

The second kind, what we might call 'perfect' love, is the bringing-forth of a world assuming the mark of the indifference, even to fundamental ontological difference, of that which anonymously 'calls non-beings as beings.'

Because the first kind is founded on the non-being of the supplement of the disjunction between the two, and the second kind is founded on indifference, even to fundamental ontological difference, we are right to think that both kinds are not, though real.

Where and when these two kinds inevitably become incommensurate, only subjection to the latter offers gladness, while only subjection to the former 'abolira le hazard.'

On Sex

If two bodies each assume the mark of the non-being of the supplement of the disjunction between the two, then this supplement can infinitely converge through them. This is what we might call 'the truth of sex.'

Though sex is something else than its truth, we must hold onto its truth, that we might encounter our beloved honestly, in our vulnerability, our finitude, and contingency, or however, to infinitely converge upon infinity and freedom together.

On Money

Representations of 'sex' often make a mockery of sex, and representations of representations, and so on, would have it that there is nothing but representation. We might call these representations 'money.'

Money reifies itself as it encourages the minimal resistance necessary for its reification. We must not identify ourselves by it, and this may even mean democratically, as rights against this or that, and soon.

On Death

Because it does not represent absence as absence, money makes a mockery of death. Money replaces the endurance of death as a possibility in the being that is itself for itself only by this endurance: Human Being.

Death, as a possibility, must be endured as our supreme challenge. Being toward the end of our being is a possibility that must be cultivated to the extent that we refuse it for eternity, where we always will have been.

On Friends

Because a relation to our own death is impossible, and the endurance of our own death as a possibility is not only our supreme challenge but also how we are ourselves for ourselves, we must enter into a relation with our own death by the death of the friend. The death of the friend also opens us to the alterity that calls us into question and open us to community.

The disjunction between friends is not supplemented, and we befriend in the friend the enemy they could become, so that by friendship we meet our own isolation, which, precisely, we cannot be isolated to meet.

On Family

If 'romantic' love is supplemented disjunction, and friendship is unsupplemented disjunction, then family is where disjunction is altogether unclear. Even where we might be disjunct from family we remain conjunct as they become the object of desire within us.

On Home

Home is where we are always going anyways so that the question of being-at-home is the question of that which keeps us homeless.

If being-at-home means the fourfold preservation of the fourfold: earth, sky, mortals, and the divinity, then that which keeps us homeless would be something like a modern city: in its destruction of the earth, in its concealing of the sky, in its unhope in the divinity, and in its forgetting of mortality.

In something like a small town, bringing the presencing of the fourfold into things, that is, being-at-home, is much more possible. In small town Midwest for instance, it is more possible to set the earth free into its own presencing because there is earth, not garbage. It is more possible to receive the sky as sky because there is sky, not skyscrapers.

It is more possible to wait for intimations of the divinity's coming and not mistake its absence because one can hear its silent call, not the stupid clamor of traffic. It is more possible to initiate our mortality because the earth, sky, and the divinity may presence, and because while in the packed metro one may know about the certainty of one's mortality, when at home in this way, one is certain about it.

(From Plan B magazine a long time ago?)