My Last Chance to Feel Human

Essay under Influence

2011-11-27T03:24:00.001-05:00

So first I started watching the movie Volver, again. And I posted the main songfeatured in the movie, on my facebook page, where several people "liked" it and commented. One person said that it was his favorite Pedro Almodovar movie, another person pointed out the original singer of the song, and yet another person posted on my wall a song he thought I would like, if I liked Volver. I also transcribed, from the movie subtitles, the lyrics, as best as I could:

Tengo miedo del encuentro // I’m afraid to meet
Con el pasado que vuelve // the past that comes
A enfrentarse con mi vida // to confront my life

Tengo miedo de la noche // I’m afraid to meet the night
que poblada de recuerdo // that’s full of memories
Encadenan mi sonar // chains my dreaming

The first facebook comment got me thinking about the motive behind posting such a song on my page, and the motive behind rewatching this movie I'd seen several years ago. Was it my favorite Pedro Almodovar movie? I had certainly remembered it despite not having watched it as many times as his other movies. It made me realize that I was harvesting old influences, stored in my mind as memories, somewhat vague, but potent. I was rewatching in order to restock those memories of their potency. It was really an attempt to validate and represent my current aesthetic outlook: this is the kinda stuff I like and here's why!

But of course, I couldn't stop with just one movie and one song, I had to keep going, especially since I just finished reading Jonathan Lethem's Chronic City. This book and so much of what Jonathan Lethem does, for me, is directly linked to this essay he wrote, The Ecstasy of Influence, once published in Harpers, but now inbook form. Now this is a guy that seems almost eternally excavating these old sites of his memory, particularly his cultural memory.

I trucked on and realized that in my DVD player (really an old video game console, the ps2) was the Paul Thomas Anderson movie Magnolia. (here's a great essay I found on that movie, while reacquainting myself with the movie). I went on youtube searching for good clips of the movie, when I found a Paul Thomas Anderson Fanreel (SLYT). I'd watched a few other fanreels recently, including a mashup of Tarantino and Cohen Brothers, Scorsese and Kubrick (vimeo).

Then, I went through my mp3 playlist and started listening to song after song, looking for those well kept secrets of my mind, those locked treasures I'd forgotten - why? I'd stopped caring about where I was coming from. I was so obsessed with feeding myself new information that I had not only lost touch with important cultural memories, but I was also absorbing current experiences quite shoddily.

I was reading a lot and watching a lot of videos, but I could never remember where I'd seen what, but more importantly, why had I felt compelled to view a thing, read a thing, listen to a thing? Was I merely trying to stay up to date? Watch the current television show and then go around looking for others who were in the same cult? Was I just trying to be a part of a shared cultural experience? Whatever it was, I couldn't stop.

But I could slow down.

As Nicholson Baker wrote in The Anthologist (SLYT), I wished that people would stop writing poetry. Just for one year. Just so we could stop and take stock of things. But since I knew this was impossible and unfair to all those people who wanted to write poetry, I knew the only thing I could do was to slow down and take better care of the things I did read, the things I did view, the things I did listen to. We're all trying. We build playlists and share them, talk about them with our friends, and occasionally write about them. And no matter how it feels, you have to believe this effort matters. Do not let anything wash over you. Stop. Look. Think. Feel.

Finally, while rewatching Volver and Magnolia, relistening to Tale of 5 Cities (Music SLYT) and Korean Pop, I also discovered something new and worth watching for the very first time. This was a documentary called PressPausePlay (SLYT). I couldn't believe my luck. (But of course, it's not really luck, is it. I have certain friends, who post certain things, and after time, I choose which friends I want to follow, which I don't, and in general, there's a certain trend that certain subject matters follow, and after a while, it might seem inevitable that I would stumble across this documentary about technology and the creative industry.) And I watched it, riveted by how much it spoke to me. But this part (SLYT) spoke to me especially.

And much like the way Malcolm Gladwell's book inspired Seth Godin to write a book, this documentary inspired me to wrote this small paragraph:

The more difficult something is to make, the harder it is to take apart - not true. However, something I like to call "embedded continuity" can be the product of added complexity in the design of a thing. It doesn't necessitate it - sometimes content is so compelling that no matter how it's presented, simply, complexly, neatly, chaotically, it'll have embedded continuity, no matter what. But, that's rare.

Subjectivity necessitates the labor of adding complexity to a thing in order to also embed in it continuity, or in other words, because people want to interpret things their own way, it takes a special kind of incentive to keep the material intact, to keep the viewer from either splicing the material to her own liking, or to use the antiquated phrase, "changing that channel."

And since we're dealing with subjectivity, what we're really talking about is experience. Experiential incentive.

From there, I guess, we can figure out whether something's worth buying, or if it's worth claiming ownership to.

And something I hear a lot is, "Well, Seth Godin was already a best selling author." And "Jonathan Lethem is a famous novelist, of course he can give away his stories for free in the form of promiscuous materials." Yes. Industry is great in picking out single artists and placing them in a very visible format. There's no arguing with that. But that's like saying Space Travel doesn't matter because it's so expensive. Only the rich can travel in private space liners. Sure, only the already-famous can take the kind of risks non-famous people cannot afford. But for every paid project someone is doing, they're also working on something else. Something for free. Why? Because there is, always, the prospect of going to the moon. This is something that can happen.

2011-11-10T15:03:00.001-05:00

A poem may be too short
to tell all, yet a tome of lies
is no more, no less, a photograph
may contain in it a magic, invoking all
the little tricks we relish in not knowing, we say:
tell it again, papa, tell us the story
of times past and let us feel the frozen breeze
the unmoving ice river of time,
lock us in a room with paintings and light,
give us a song that will stop the arrow,
take away our whim and our precious thoughts,
rob us of our freedom, for we know not what we do with it,
and show us a line of words, a book of lines,
a picture of time we can watch, twisting our necks,
climbing over seats, and pressing our faces against the glass,
fix us here, fix us here,

For as much as we say
we crave
to travel, to explore unknown
lands and to taste
the salt of the rocks
on shores way beyond the visible horizon, for as much as we chase
love and beauty, we
call it a night, we
shut our doors and
lock our windows, we turn off our phones,
we say, there's always tomorrow, and
today's as good as spent,
and yesterday will make for a lovely cake with candles.

We get
tired.

This last stanza was almost a cry
about lost oars and rudderless existence,
wild dogs chasing me through a fog and
hunting wild hogs who have trees growing from their hides,
but who am I kidding I'm still shouting in ecstasy
painted face of my soul brave child of nothing,
never
tired.

2011-11-03T10:24:00.000-05:00

Last night I felt a surge of madness in my chest, hot like a climbing frenzy, the impulse to create in order to destroy, to break open my soul and drink from the cracked shell of a diamond encrusted coconut. I looked like a rabid monkey strapped to an office chair. When I got out, I tried to eat a book, page by page, I tried to fill myself up, stripping the branches of leaves with my pursed lips. But I only grew hotter, and it was a luxurious feeling, lifting me up from peasanthood, up and away and eyeing the knife that would cut me loose and let me fall. Oh how I anticipated the fall. I talked and talked, and then I worked and worked, and then I lied in bed trying to sleep because I knew in my mind that there was a tomorrow, but my body was so lost, like an astronaut on a thread.

When I woke up, there was no one there. Just a floating umbilical cord against the infinite deep space. My eyes became sand pits and my mouth made an O shape and in this complete absence of ecstasy, I knew there was such a thing as the soul. And it had left me. Or it was sick. Soul sickness. Limited me. I searched for body. I searched for voice. I searched for a flesh socket, a mind junction, a visual or audio or textual permission to enter the highway of human ecstasy. But what. The light from dying stars. That’s all I saw.

So I went into my desk drawer, and pulled out the unbound pages, loose leaves, and began to simultaneously read and write, acknowledging nothing, simply dissecting the nothing that had become everything.

Intentions

2011-10-04T10:27:00.001-05:00

Hi. Lots of links below. Lots of love.

I've started a tumblr.

Solcpark.tumblr.com

It's still My Last Chance to Feel Human.

I'm wondering how I should use this space, instead of abandoning it completely. I think my favorite part of blogspot is the way prose reads on it. Maybe I'll write long form pieces (like some fiction or just journal style pieces) and possibly some poetry on here. Not sure yet. In the meantime, visit my tumblr for Soundscapes, Photography, and other random tumblr type things.

Moving Forward

2011-08-29T21:22:00.001-05:00

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about moving forward. What it means to move forward, how to do it, and where to go. Yeah, I want to live now, remember yesterday, and look forward to tomorrow, but there’s no such thing as balance. Just some things are stronger than other things, sometimes. Right now, I’m still feeling very lost.

Traffic Light, Time Warner

2011-08-26T11:29:00.003-05:00

Here are some more photos I took a few weeks ago. It was the same day as the MoMA trip (photo). I've taken pictures of this mall at the time warner center several times, but I've never gotten a satisfying shot of it. For all its grandeur, it's actually quite difficult to capture it in a photo for some reason. Also, I love traffic lights. I like how they sit in the middle of the frame. It makes me think of a deus ex machina, visually. It's a striking object dropped into the middle of a vista, as if from a fishing rod. And I don't know how, but it changes everything.

2011-08-24T18:47:00.005-05:00

Only me

Can a decision be made between two people in one room?

No jury of my peers or even a farewell party of friends, just in case.

I was walking home from the train and it was a Autumn day, on a

dying summer's corner of eye. Does anyone know the scientific term

for where the skin of the face is split so that the person inside can

look outward? I thought to myself, while walking, I have seen something

very few others have; I put in contact lenses to exercise.

And while trying to push one last time against the floor, my thoughts

betrayed me, and I thought: nobody has seen what I've seen.

There was no way I could push one last time.

*note:
I had to make the Font really small on this one to make the lines fit... stupid blog.

If the test were to see if it Inspired Tears

2011-08-23T07:48:00.005-05:00

Success. (via metafilter)

2011-08-23T06:04:00.002-05:00

At the very least

You admit that you're delicate and

that's what makes you strong, she said.

What brings the human out from this cold shell

is the interest one takes in something outside of oneself.

One day I will leave behind all that is necessary, but

today I am grateful to know what I should do, she said.

What if the shell is cold because it is empty, and what if

there is nothing but fear and loathing; better to stay encased.

Don't forget, I am with you always, she said.

You are with me when I am crossing the street, when I am

looking through the glass window of a cafe, when I am laughing

at the way a person eats, when I am wondering how I got here,

lying next to her as she rubs her nose. You are with me.

All night I was tenderized by relentlessly faceless dreams.

Yet in the morning, you are with me.

2011-08-22T13:24:00.001-05:00

"Last night I was crying just like a baby" - Anti-Qaddafi man on the streets of Britain

Social Media and Optimism

2011-08-22T09:42:00.005-05:00

Scenario one: you wake up and go online, reading the feed for your friends. You feel a slight glow over your body as the sun warms your part of the earth. You feel inspired. You read the updates on your favorite blogs and newsfeeds, finding cool bits here and there, and there it is: an article with the keywords that pull at your heart strings, on your most beloved website, with positive comments gushing down a never ending window scroll. You post it, so all your friends can see. You add a comment to go along with the post, personalizing it. Your friends see your post, experience the same wave of excitement and then share it with their friends, too. Your network is so wide that this causes a chain reaction of positivity, excitement, and inspiration. Little by little, the world is changed.

Scenario two: you wake up and hate yourself. Hate yourself because you drank and ate last night as if you hated yourself. Everything bad has carried over to today. Everything good, a distant memory. Why? You don't know. You go online. You see pictures of last night posted on the feed. You start to moan in embarrassment. But then, that's part of the fun. You start to chuckle, and eventually, you comment on an especially terrible picture of you taking off your shirt, your midriff is pale and hairy, your head, covered in the shirt. That's me, you write. In case anyone had trouble tagging you. You get up, and you heat up a can of tomato soup. You make toast. Coffee. You're late for work. You leave your tomato soup to congeal on the kitchen table, your coffee you carry with you, and your wallet is in your other pair of pants hanging on the door knob of your bed room. Just another morning.

Scenario three: you wake up surprised you're still alive, shivering. Last night you texted all your friends with the message, I'm giving up on everything. Nobody replied. You can't blame them. For the past year or so, you've been on a destructive journey justified only if you were a rock star. You are not a rock star. You are nobody. You check your phone, and see that someone did reply. It's your mom. She asks if everything is okay. By which she means: are you applying to grad school, or not? You drank. You smoked. The combination of the two usually works out to a balance of exuberant darkness. Last night, it didn't work out. You drank more than you smoked. You found a bottle of old vicodin from a root canal a few years ago. You wondered if they're still good. They were. You went out. Showed up at a party you were planning on never attending. There was a small group of people downstairs doing coke. They welcomed you. You spent the night staring at the shoulder of a girl sitting next to you. You went home. Passed out in the tub with all your clothes on. You woke up shivering. You go online. You think about posting something on your personal blog because you can't stand the sight of the social network, the optimism feed. Like birds you think. Bird feed. Twittering about. You cry. You wonder, why am I so angry? You wonder, who can I talk to? You wonder, how can I be more optimistic?

You got say, Ok. I'll be part of this world.

2011-08-19T15:51:00.001-05:00

Warning: very violent.

Free the Robots, La June

2011-08-17T11:38:00.001-05:00

My voice

cannot compete,

with electrical beats, centipede feet,

tapping at multiple hearts,

multiple sparks, and multiple starts

speak stuttering heat.

And

volcanic leaps,

slow as the flow that inspires oceans to peak,

climb higher and leave fire in heaps,

cold black pyres of kings,

I know my desire is fire trying to sing.

Bebo & Cigala - Hubo un lugar, Cuba linda

2011-08-14T15:38:00.001-05:00

John Coltrane, Lush Life

2011-08-10T23:20:00.004-05:00

To ask why is not only wrong it ruins everything. But

what why not ruin it anyway, there's no words we can't

say amidst the rattling glasses and bursts of flame, salud

my friend, we'll walk off whatever it was we made of words,

light up a little lightness of being, bring our eyes to the brink

of spilling over with honesty... I don't worry, why worry,

when this is everything.

Be Good Tanyas, Waiting Around To Die

2011-08-09T14:58:00.001-05:00

Ronald Jenkees - "Loui"

2011-08-08T23:21:00.000-05:00

2011-08-06T02:19:00.000-05:00

2011-08-03T15:25:00.001-05:00

2011-08-01T22:05:00.003-05:00

This is Mine

I used to think

there's nothing quite like it.

Slipping underneath your skin, your eyes,

brightest when you closed them...

Thanks for

the dreams so many dreams.

Right now I'm dreaming to a song,

and if you're reading,

I hope you're singing, too.

Nothing is quite like this

because this is happening.

Why it couldn't be before,

I don't know.

But there's a reason why I stopped

why I stopped remembering the words.

It was the music that I wanted,

the rhythms that I listened for.

And I couldn't put my ear against my chest...

You know, sometimes I

try to listen to my wrist,

but it isn't it.

I listen to the world because

even if the echo is a hum,

as slight as whisper,

you're a stranger,

it's the only right way to know

that I am still alive.

*
Note: today, I realized that this life is mine. I did this the only way I know: to realize, this life is not mine. Full circle. Thanks for reading.

You move you

2011-07-31T10:05:00.004-05:00

I wake up and what do I think about?

I wonder what time it is. Tomorrow is my first day. And even though I don't think this, I feel it: how much of this day has already passed? I feel dread. Meaning, instead of jumping out of bed and making the most of what's left, I burrow deeper into the pillow. There is a blanket on my bed right now, in the shape of a fetal curl, as if molted by an overgrown gestational.

I know I dreamed. I don't remember what. Is that like knowing I did something five years ago on a Saturday when I was twenty two years old, but not remembering what exactly? I'm sure whatever it was I did has had some impact on me lasting to this day.

Everything has consequence. Maybe nothing has real meaning, and maybe the consequences of our lives in the cosmic sense of things is null, but look around your room. Your apartment. Whether you live in a total random mess or an organized symphony, there's evidence of you everywhere. The people in your life. They carry you everywhere they go. The people you don't know, they do, too. There is a plastic bag somewhere out there with you in it. A cell phone battery. An eyelash. An organic afterthought.

But a dream is just you. Only you carry it. Only you lived it. And if you can't remember your dreams, then think of what unknowns you must carry with you, laced in your body language, your words, your actions.

I wake up feeling dread.

I'm just glad it's a quiet Sunday. No, I don't want to go to work, or go to church, or go fishing, or whatever. I don't want to erase this with something to keep me busy. If anything, I wish I could share it. Why? Do I think I'm somehow important? Or do I just want company, in misery? Neither. It's not misery. It's not self importance. It's a soft and tender moment where anything is possible. And now, it's gone.

Most of my life happens offline

2011-07-29T13:33:00.006-05:00

Life has been, and always will be, cooking oneself slowly in a series of life changing events unworthy of writing home.

No shit, right? This isn't some tirade against status updates or posting pictures of the meal you just ingested or twittering your bowel movements - I'm all for this. Please, keep it coming. This is mostly just an acknowledgement, a shout-out, and an eprop to life offline, that elusive content-based experience that we all try to gleam from online posts. The question and response of so many people as they click through the lives of others. What must it be like to be this person? It must be like this. Click. Repeat.

I do this. Do you? Going online has become an attempt to know what other people's lives are like. I've heard the effects of this habit are forming envious attitude, feeling a sense of dissatisfaction, to feeling superior, feeling pretty darn good about ones online persona. This persona is useful, too. It's like a human portfolio. This, one might say, is my life's work thus far.

It is, though, a persona. Isn't it?

I have to believe that people go offline at some point. That, in fact, most of their lives happen offline. After a day of work (farming, fixing computers, grading papers, manning a check-point, painting a house), seeing a friend (a usual comrade, a coworker, an old lover, a frenemy), eating meals (best meal of your life, something your room mate cooked, sandwich at your desk), taking shits (soft, hard, watery, brown, green, clean, explosive, polite, fucked-up), writing (the great american novel, updating your facebook status), taking pictures (of yourself, of your niece, your dog, a tree outside your office), drawing (pictures of guns on the margins of a memo your working on, sketches of people on the train, a nude model posing at the center of the studio), taking the train (the LIRR, the 1, the A, the F, the N, the NJtransit, the Metronorth), walking home (taking the long way, seeing a teenage girl kiss her boyfriend in the middle of the street, a dog walker texting with his free hand, a series of police cars screaming mysteriously down town), running in the park (listening to music, or simply enjoying the sound of your feet hitting the ground), isn't there a sense that there's just too much to share? That whether it's an online blog, or a private journal, the open ears of a friend, or even the cocked head of a dog, there's insufficient shelf space for all this life. The warehouse of my memory is so packed and disorganized, constantly shifting around due to the unending labor of mysterious people driving forklifts, working 24 hour shifts, smoking cigarettes that fill the entire place with a thick fog.

We all know this is true. We all know that the online persona we build is incomplete. But the blog, the social network, these things give us more shelf space than ever before, for all our little life details, closer to everything or at least almost everything than ever before. And we can share it with other people. And they respond. It's the ultimate listening machine. That perfect partner that sits there nodding his head and responding every once in a while only to let you continue. Also, it's the perfect PR guy. The guy who gets it right. Who doesn't make you look like some tool trying to sell yourself. Even if someone else builds your website for you - it's yours. It's you.

This is who is talking.

This is who you're hiring.

I get it.

But yesterday something really fucking big happened to me. I read this short story by a friend, S.

It was printed in a magazine. It was really good. It blew my mind. It made me re-evaluate everything.

I read it while eating dinner. I continued reading it after dinner. J took a nap next door while I read it. I finished reading it and woke J up.

I wrote about it in my journal. I wrote an email to the S.

I went to a play. I got some drinks with people who I can't even begin to describe because they were so interesting. Here's an impression: worldly academics and artists who turned out to be normal beautiful people.

I went home, ate some chicken over rice.

And then I went to bed.

I had the craziest dreams. They were too personal to post on a blog. Too complicated to write in a private journal or to tell a friend.

Glimpses.

I used to write these journal entries for home work. It was for Korean School. My Korean was so rudimentary, still is, I could only write simple sentences. But even if I were writing in English, I don't think my entries would have been very different. They were written in the spirit of someone trying to finish a home work assignment so that I could run off, have fun, and play.

오늘은 학교 갔어요.

수업 시간에 그림그렸어요.

하교는 좋아요.

학교긑나고, 집에 갔어요.

집에서 저녁먹었어요.

할머니가 밥해줬어요.

할머니밥은 좋아요.

Today, I went to school.

During class, I drew pictures.

I like school.

After school, I went home.

At home, I ate dinner.

Grandmother made dinner.

I like grandmother's cooking.

Life has been, and always will be, cooking oneself slowly in a series of life changing events unworthy of writing about.

2011-07-27T02:26:00.003-05:00

All I Get

There must be something

that isn't food or your sweet loving,

something that won't kill me,

something that I won't fuck up completely,

is it alone you're feeling lonely?

I discover how sensitive your heart is,

it's pure and fucked up I know it,

will you please let me sleep on your couch?

I never really knew what it meant to have a house,

I'll be happy if my friends stay my friends,

thankful to listen to their recommended music.

But barring anymore disaster,

I will eat your food and quench in your laughter,

if this is life then I don't want the ever after,

embarrassed to be at so many shore steps,

I don't mind, even if tonight is all I get, to

be your guest.

2011-07-25T00:25:00.003-05:00

The Eagle Stops Time

It is as if when gliding

wings spread to full span

the eagle stops time.

Across the picnic table in the park

the shadow of a tent passes over

salt shaker, plastic cup, and tackle box.

Standing water up to our waists

waiting for our lines to catch

we see the eagle.

Hours pass over our skin

drunk and burnt we eat fish that night

someone says something and everyone laughs

under the stars the driest firewood lasts

lasts for such an achingly long night

sweating water

only to wake up carbon-black and covered in dew.

Gliding over the currents

wings held the full length

stopped time.

How else to do this?

The universe winks at us everyday

2011-07-20T11:03:00.008-05:00

Photographs by me (sol park) + developed with Ben Muessig's help.

Scanned by Ben Muessig (the photographs were very over exposed for some reason.. I must have had my settings on +2 or something, but at least half of them showed up great!)

October 25, 2010

2011-06-28T18:26:00.001-05:00

Informed Sensitivity, Digital Fidelity, Aesthetic Expectations, Tuned Listening; losing the ability to love, feeling nothing when confronted with the world, purposefully denying complexity for the sake of comfort, sanity, certainty; Our hearts have the capacity to overflow, from within, as if a pressure has accumulated. But we are not simply autoclaves, we are not sterile and self contained. My heart overflows from what it knows. From what it hears. From what it sees. And it could be an ant crawling on the shady side of a leaf. I might see it. I might not. Not everything depends on light. Not everything depends on having been there.

Play!

2011-06-27T23:46:00.001-05:00

2011-06-26T21:11:00.003-05:00

Dinner Thoughts

Afternoon evening in the summer, the sun shines through.

August glaze over all the people and plates inside, the day is

the most beautiful as it dies; dinner is a subtle wine, tempering

the taste of death by fire, brown tipped greens, blackened mushrooms,

a claw protrudes from a perfectly cooked cut of cornish hen,

we take it all in.

These years I have not met with grace, I have not known a

new thing, and so I have find myself more silent every day. My movements

are revelries in the shadows, my musings are tired quickly, never quite making it

ashore to the sands of typography, and so what of it? It's all sand and shadows,

is it not?

Can a chuckle be permanent?

Can life find color in a savory dinner?

Can I break my face,

and survive the fall?

Where?

Here?

Here.

2011-06-23T08:00:00.000-05:00

"In This piece I didn't browse YouTube, I actually wandered around Jerusalem , met with musicians and filmed them."

2011-06-17T11:09:00.001-05:00

from [metafilter]

My Impressions on a Reading: exercises in reading, reflection, and solipsism.

2011-06-13T19:17:00.011-05:00

A Frightening Time in America: an interview with David Foster Wallace

What really struck me about the first part of this interview was how Wallace's opinions about very complex issues seemed to be distilled from reading a lot. I imagine him reading history books, newspapers, and philosophy texts with equal curiosity. It turns out he also read a lot of self help books. He read a lot. And yet his ideas about American consumerism, his historical perspective and his analysis of business and politics in the present, are so clearly and plainly stated, that when he does express his opinion, it's very subtle and to me, moving:

And corporations are very strange, they’re composed of people, they have the legal status of a person, but they don’t have a conscience or soul the way people do.

From his definition of fascism to his explanation of how corporations increase their rights and privileges through government, I am inspired to read more, and read more carefully. I love reading, and whether its nonfiction or novels or short stories or poetry, reading makes me feel more a part of this world than my everyday job does or even my family or friends, sometimes.

Which is to say, I don't have many conversations with too many people about the things that I'm reading, and this isn't because nobody's receptive to talking about Dexter Filkin's "Forever War" (fantastic book) or Cesar Aira's "Episode in the Life of a Landscape Painter" (also fantastic), but I am pretty sure it's due to my not reading carefully enough.

I'm constantly amazed by how people take the books they read and manage to distill their experience into something they can communicate clearly. The Aira book is a perfect example - a buddy of mine is totally in love with Aira's work and when he talks about his favorite passages, I'm eager to listen. It's as if he's read a different book than I. And that's when I begin to suspect I'm doing it wrong.

The same goes for any experience, really, not just reading. I feel this slippery sensation every time I try to say or write something, like I'm trying to pick something out of the bucket of my experience, to show and to tell, and it just keeps slipping back into the darkness.

But going back to the interview, another moment really triggered my self-centered thought process:

One consequence of what American scholars call a post-modern era is that everyone has seen so many performances, that American viewers and American readers, we simply assume now that everything is a performance and it’s strategic and it’s tactical. It’s a very sad situation and I think the chances are that nations go through periods of great idealism and great cynicism, and that America and Europe, at least Western Europe right now, are in periods of great cynicism.

So this was something Wallace wrote and talked about a lot, American cynicism and its victims, sincerity and sentimentalism; as Americans have become more and more acclimated to watching the lives of others happen, they've traveled a very long road that has basically made watching people, whether its on television or in "real life" unbearably complex (E Unibus Pluram: television and us fiction, Wallace). The basic attitude that everything is performance, that all statements, gestures, and actions are designed, produced, and directed in order to manipulate and manage is pervasive in our culture. Reality TV is an ironic escape, providing realism for people who supposedly don't experience it at home or in the office. Human emotions, represented in art, are no longer reflections of our experience, they are performances, measurable by their level of craft. How well did this particular movie or song or TV episode undercut your jaded pop culture radar? Though not unrelated, American expectations in entertainment are not simply about shock, but maintaining a discourse of self-awareness; one is shocked by how much a TV show "gets" them, as opposed to how much they had to work to understand it.

And this is so much more complicated than the kind of hip sincerity that so many people think will save the world; cynicism is a part of American DNA. Its origins come from a long and violent history of military economic supremacy. There's a reason why television and cinema have become such monsters in this country. The beast lives off the dreams of its dreamers: while Americans have always been naiive, they have been so with the willingness to turn a blind eye to the darkness in the world so that they can do what they do best, lead by example. This willingness has been stronger no where else, and it has prompted its people to fight for justice, explore space, and eradicate inequality, all the while it loved war, perfected escapism, and steamrolled culture into a tarry highway.

And this makes me think, so then what? How does a culture mature and learn?

Something that's fascinated me for a while now is the idea that when an industry "dies," what's really happening is that it's changing into something unrecognizable. To be specific, the publishing industry is changing loads, everyone knows, and there's this rumor that's been circulating I think for maybe over a hundred years now that books are dying. When asked about the state of literary culture in American, Wallace replied:

Ugggggghhhhh. Somebody asked me this a couple of weeks ago. I think the truth is that it’s a very exciting period but it’s one that probably people in other countries won’t have as much access to. Because 30 or 40 years ago American literature mainly existed in ten or a dozen giant literary figures, and there are now probably more like 100 or 200 literary figures, all of whom are quite good and quite interesting, but none really of the stature and international reputation of, say, a Saul Bellow or a William Faulkner or an Ernest Hemingway.

And yes it's a problem that there isn't a cohesive culture to communicate with other cohesive cultures by way of "scenes" the way Americans went to Paris in the 1920's (Watch Midnight in Paris, so good), but in a way, isn't this what we've been preparing for this whole time? A culture that's so incredibly fragmented that dominance and hegemony is impossible? Maybe it means it's tougher to make a living writing (I can't believe how well funded the arts are in Europe, especially Norway / Mcsweeny's #35), but it also means that competition is less the point and communication most central. Probably my favorite stories these past few months have been by Norwegian writers and Latin American writers (Mcsweeny's features a bunch of Kenyan writers in their most recent issue #37 I've yet to get through). And maybe, just maybe, this kind of absence of a few great voices in American culture, but the wide range of literary figures, and also independent film makers and musicians, is a kind of moment of introversion for America; maybe it's like, we're going quiet and whispering to ourselves, lonely perhaps, but slowing down this self-destructive pattern of self-awareness and duplicity.

I don't know. For me, I just want to keep reading, keep watching, keep listening, and I want to do it more carefully, and become better at talking about these experiences... I have all these hang-ups, personality wise, resulting from insecurities, and it's amazing how these things translate to the way I read. I seem to gloss over shit way too much, looking for the things I can attach myself to, to feel more important.

I think also, and this is a common desire, commonly unfulfilled, I want to love, sincerely, with everything at stake, taking full responsibility for my actions.

I think writing will help.

We All Know These Words

2011-06-10T10:46:00.001-05:00

L’esprit de escalier: (French) The feeling you get after leaving a conversation, when you think of all the things you should have said. Translated it means “the spirit of the staircase.”

Waldeinsamkeit: (German) The feeling of being alone in the woods.

Meraki: (Greek) Doing something with soul, creativity, or love.

Forelsket: (Norwegian) The euphoria you experience when you are first falling in love.

Gheegle: (Filipino) The urge to pinch or squeeze something that is unbearably cute.

Pochemuchka: (Russian) A person who asks a lot of questions.

Pena ajena: (Mexican Spanish) The embarrassment you feel watching someone else’s humiliation.

Cualacino: (Italian) The mark left on a table by a cold glass.

Ilunga: (Tshiluba, Congo) A person who is ready to forgive any abuse for the first time, to tolerate it a second time, but never a third time.

via [reddit] via [swayy]

Do you know my poetry?

2011-06-07T08:38:00.001-05:00

Criming in the basement

2011-06-02T13:54:00.001-05:00

[metafilter]

2011-06-01T10:11:00.003-05:00

Meet People

You have to get out, he said, meet people.

Everyday I meet people. I walk with them to work,

ride with them on the subway, emerge from the

station, butt to face, butt to face: I try to pass them by,

but sometimes the stairwell's too crowded, the street,

too narrow. In the office we sit silent, either busy

trying not to let the work drown us, or trying not to

drown in trying not to let the work get us down. Remember

your first job? Your first busy day. The feeling like

you got through it, you did it. You went home and wrote

in your journal, went out to meet your lover, breathed in

the city as if it were an opportunity. Later that weekend

you got drunk with your coworkers, watched as their

bodies relaxed. It got ugly. After that, it was years of drinking,

years of weekends, years of trying to make life memorable

while trying to forget the week gone by. Then, you got clean.

It was hard, but it felt wonderful. You went to parks and

went jogging. You ate well, and you spent more time sober,

focusing on your art, instead of your meaningless job.

What happened? It was several months ago, your friend

said, you need to get out, meet people. No one's here, now. No advice.

You wake up in the morning, you eat breakfast, listen to the

news, brush your teeth, and head out to walk with strangers on

the sidewalks, up the stairwells, and you try to pass them by,

but sometimes the narrowness, the crowdedness,

it's too much.

*note: I thought maybe this poem was kind of a downer. But it's such a relief to write it. There are a few lines in it that make me feel good to be alive. There are a few moments that make me feel like there's... some logic to the world, some sense? All because in the tiny world of a poem, something clicked. In here. Something clicked in here, and it set me free.

2011-05-26T00:08:00.002-05:00

No fear

A fool feels no fear, a

coward thinks his fear is unique, it's

not, sleepless nights

contemplating, darkness is opportunity

for fools to go wading and for

cowards to stop at the

brink, but mostly we go on

feel the beach recede, floating feet,

arms make circles like wings in dreams.

Fear is not unique,

we're all swimming in waters

too deep.

Gamifying Education

2011-05-25T08:27:00.000-05:00

Beware:

2011-05-16T10:25:00.001-05:00

This lecture might... blow your mind...

More from Escapist: Graphics Versus Aesthetics!

2011-05-12T12:39:00.001-05:00

Mike Rowe on Skilled Trades

2011-05-12T09:19:00.001-05:00

via [reddit]

And here's Mike Rowe in 1992, working on late night TV selling things.

Escapistmagazine Podcast: complexity in gaming

2011-05-09T13:26:00.007-05:00

great podcast, discussing the topic of difficult in gaming.

one definition of a game can be: needlessly complicating something for fun. so doesn't that make a more complicated game, a better game?

consumers supposedly want easier games: games that require very little time to start getting things done! there's this division between pc gaming and console gaming (xbox, ps3, etc) and a lot of games are made for both "platforms" - console gaming is where you get blockbuster games, so pc gamers are seeing their games designed with console gamers in mind. is this a problem? is this "dumbing down" games?

We're talking about definitions of fun, and what fun tells us about ourselves; culture, cult, and cultivation. How does a cult grow into a culture? Who wins and who loses? Why does "dumbing down" happen? Is it really as necessary as people in the industry think it is?

2011-05-05T17:07:00.001-05:00

Reading, reading, reading. Gotta keep reading.

2011-05-03T09:50:00.001-05:00

via [metafilter]

2011-04-27T08:25:00.005-05:00

speaking of depressor. this beautiful little comic will break your heart:

[http://imgur.com/a/mTWpc] from [reddit] and [the author's website]

Here's a panel:

What's also awesome was this exchange in response to the post:

[–]StoicRomance 893 points 5 hours ago

Man, I have to say, the worst part about being an English major has got to be this attitude among people doing the same degree as me. It's even worse than everyone else that says my major is useless.

I don't want to beat up on you, but I'm here to drop some fucking science on your liberal arts, downtrodden ass.

Did you work for your school paper? I did, but before that I was blogging like a motherfucker and honing skills. Not just writing skills, but finding out what people want to read. I worked on my fiction, read a shit ton of books and wrote. I wrote forever. Before I was 19 I had a body of work I would actually want to show people.

Do you live in a city that doesn't suck balls? If you do, move. Write for free for every alt-weekly and internship suck hole that will take you. Do things, because in this world we have inherited your arts degree doesn't mean dick. That's the truth. English majors, in my experience, seem to take that shit lying down though.

At some point after summoning this shit from your very guts for long enough, you'll be too good for people to ignore you. Your degree gave your research skills and writing skills. Put them to use and show people why they should give a shit. Nobody is going to hand it to you, and an English degree basically guarantees you will get no sleep and no free time while you take it.

Take it. That's what they teach those meatheads we like to make fun of so much in business and economics. Taking what you want, not asking for it.

There needs to be a 100 level English class on Nutting The Fuck Up, because most majors I know won't take what they want. They just whine that their degree got them nowhere.

Yeah. It didn't. Shit is tough all over. I've positioned myself to do what I love, to practice freelance journalism about arts and culture. I've sacrificed my social life and my GPA to get there, and where I got isn't glamourous. The hours and pay suck, the pond is shrinking and the fish are getting nervous. But that's okay, because I'm young and stupid and having a fucking great time and I know that if this doesn't work, I do something else, and know I can because I'm willing to put in the work.

But I knew the degree was useless because everyone said it was. Listen, and do something.

What are you doing? Your only option is not a Fryalator, it's doing something. So what are you doing?

Take something.

Good luck man. Don't sweat the shit job while you do something rad. Just do something, anything to get you where you want to be. Just don't be stagnant. Because those people aren't English majors. They're just useless.

[–]ElMangosto 28 points 4 hours ago

[–]KobeGriffin 88 points 5 hours ago

2011-04-27T07:49:00.008-05:00

here we go again give you more not the lesser, back on the mic it's the anti-depressor - "Make Some Noise," Beastie Boys

Gary Paulsen on writing

2011-04-25T09:00:00.000-05:00

[reddit]

2011-04-23T17:18:00.001-05:00

Everything is amazing right now, and nobody's happy - Louis CK.

2011-04-20T07:52:00.000-05:00

2011-04-19T14:39:00.001-05:00

2011-04-14T10:08:00.011-05:00

Cry Wolf

Little cries,

little wolf,

stop your tears.

Are you hungry,

little wolf,

are you weak?

No one cares,

little wolf,

life is bleak.

Other wolves

they have mouths

they must feed.

Cry, little wolf, cry,

but don't forget what you need,

you are wolf, little wolf,

don't forget, use your teeth,

Try, little wolf, try.

Note: There are people who actively seek the weak and the battered as friends, as lovers. Sometimes it's nice to just be needed. Then there's everyone else: I would advise a loved one, watch out for yourself, take care of yourself, don't put someone else before you, because the demands of life can be extreme. There are challenges in life we barely overcome, losing ourselves in the process. And so we desperately duke it out alone, trying our best to help our friends, fight for what we believe in, and live a life we can imagine looking back on and saying, life well spent☻.

But depression can make everything seem quite meaningless - its an interesting inversion. While deflating all things of meaning and value, the tiniest things can seem overwhelming burdens. The depressed person also becomes difficult to interact with. Contact with the person can strain good intentions, make a mockery of beliefs, and defeat the idea that any life is well spent, stuck in the muck of the word, "spent." Spent, like after having sex. Spent, after spin class. Spent, after vigorously debating some important issue. Ultimately, all looks the same, all: spent.

I'm a stubborn person. I will budge when you push me, and I am most definitely impressionable, but at the end of the day, if I can't slice something with my particular self-fashioned logic, if I can't tangle something up in a way that makes sense to me, I'm not sold.

Knowing yourself is not the same as crucifying yourself. People are fucking assholes but they die, too. They're scared, too. Getting in touch with your humanity is to know humility is to see that we're all human. This is becoming a bunch of bullshit slogans and sayings. So I'm going to stop here and just say one last thing: I'm a nice guy because I have wanted to please people as far back as I can remember. It's my weakness. It's my simplistic bullshit.

I'm going to try very hard now and work on sharpening my logic while finding my humanity.

☻Comic book guy, in the Simpsons, from Wikipedia: Despite his solitary life, in The Simpsons Movie, minutes before his likely death, Comic Book Guy says that his obsessive comic book collecting has been a "life well spent". However, in "Treehouse of Horror VIII", when a nuclear missile homes in on him, he says to himself "Ohh, I've wasted my life."

2011-04-12T19:14:00.003-05:00

I almost quit this blog today, but I just can't quit you, baby. Lady Gaga does a country version of Born This Way and it's more righteous than a pack of bible thumping bikers.

hooked up by [kottke]

2011-04-11T19:37:00.005-05:00

Sidney Lumet made movies that dealt with the sweaty human experiences and the large world-destroying consequences of these human experiences - he made movies like Dog Day Afternoon and Network. He made 12 Angry Men and Serpico. He made Before the Devil Knows Your Dead. He died a few days ago, at the age of 86 (imdb). In an interview with the New York Times, he was asked, "Can movies be a force for social change? Can art change anything?" Before the interviewer could even finish his question, Mr. Lumet said, No. No, art doesn't change anything. So then, asked the interviewer, why make movies?

"I do it because I like it and it's a wonderful way to spend your life,"

he said.

2011-04-11T09:00:00.004-05:00

Ellsberg asked us if we knew the names of the two languages of Afghanistan. Almost nobody in the audience knew. “The two languages are Dari—which is eastern Farsi, or Persian—and Pashto,” he said. “In Vietnam, none of us spoke the language, but we knew the language that we didn’t speak—that it was Vietnamese. We’re fighting in a country now where we don’t know the language we don’t know.”

[more by Nicholson Baker @ nyrblog]

Note:

I can't believe this is my first post featuring Nicholson Baker.

There's a fire, starting in my heart

2011-04-08T11:30:00.001-05:00

2011-04-08T08:45:00.004-05:00

Untitled

Why have you left me like this hanging?

I was nothing but desperate

and yet you never relented, you are easy to love

impossible to be with,

I am only now

coming to the eye opening thought

you are a sieve in need of sacrifice,

to leave something behind I have to give up time:

this life is not mine, my voice is a muted leaf,

my soul is a metaphor for my desire to be,

I deserve nothing --

and nothing is where the smile blooms

frustrated in anger they slap the face of the idiot

don the mask of languor to hide your brilliance

mirror my worth in a medium:

you, you, you,

Tell me what it was like to be human

atop the jungles of Costa Rica.

Surfing the dirt roads of Mongolia.

Drinking with Australians in Dublin.

Watching chandeliers waltz

to the tremors of an earthquake in Tokyo.

Moshing sweaty and angry in Seoul.

Standing on the rim of the circumferential track

of a radio telescope sitting in a karst valley

in Puerto Rico.

I am humble to you, I am worthless to you,

I know nothing and nothing is what I bring to you,

I am your pupil, your disembodied ear.

I've doubted my existence

to allow for you.

2011-04-05T12:17:00.002-05:00

Worth It

Sometimes I do just to say "I do shit,"
strong on the second syllable, weak first
weak third. I'm trying to convince myself
this is better than doing to think
I am doing something worth it.

2011-04-04T14:52:00.001-05:00

2011-04-04T14:50:00.000-05:00

THINGS HAPPENING

2011-04-03T12:41:00.004-05:00

Another Poem about Alone

What happens to the poet

when he is interviewed for a magazine article

a black and white photograph of him sitting in a porcelain tub?

We are all living in secrecy.

Nothing is more clear in our murky hearts:

this could be louder and this feels louder so we find a way to shout this.

What we call loneliness

is really just a question of volume

there are oceans hidden in caves where a voice can be loud and multiplicitous.

On this quiet Sunday afternoon, I think to myself,

how dare we deny ourselves

the beautiful quiet

of dying alone?

*Note: This poem was partly inspired by César Aira, a photograph of him I found online, and a book he wrote I am reading currently: "How I became a nun." I am enjoying the book very much.

2011-04-01T17:34:00.001-05:00

2011-03-30T11:03:00.004-05:00

Two Lovers

The result of us gettin' together the weather

forever fusillade rain drop to the tick to the tock

layin' on all day drinkin' from the salt pool we nod off drool

so healthily pale the veil we wear we spool with our lips

do it like this, tender instructor self destructor...

I am a twin engine of strange maintenance

two helices demons and demonesses

this is not a love song for anyone but us,

I am a siamese surgeon self operating

complicating nocturnal elations daytime slavering...

While I walk around outside good weather you never

liked it when we were apart for too long,

rub your cellular tug your calendar love never regular

strange requests desperate heaven sent hell descent

pull me again, I embrace our lovers' repentance and penance.

note: doesn't it sometimes feel like struggling with your own duality is like being in a relationship where self destruction is the goal? To view the other as an exotic pleasure is to lay around in lazy indulgence. To hate it is to split yourself between day and night. What to do?

I am excited to see this.

2011-03-28T14:42:00.001-05:00

2011-03-28T13:11:00.001-05:00

How to tie a turban

2011-03-24T09:59:00.002-05:00

I find this man's personality electrifying.

On a lighter note...

2011-03-22T12:15:00.003-05:00

"Upon reflection, he, realizing the video was not as hilarious as he thought it was at first, did not send the link."

2011-03-22T11:01:00.008-05:00

Untitled

I am the iteration of myself, these words

repeated since I first knew how, iteration of things

outside my self, repetition of other peoples,

ideas, of nation, of god, of gender, and identity,

objects of scale, animals, and plant-lives, too.

But. With only so much time,

so much space, with only so much blood and

so much money.

I can feel as if the depths of space are inside of me,

I can imagine I am in a different room,

I can wear a mask, augment my voice,

but even standing on the beach watching my children play

my gaze will always rise and fall against the conspiracy of

ocean and sky, and I will feel

I am just passing by.

Note: I was looking through photo albums last night while at my mother's apartment. There was a series of pictures of my family at the beach. The last few lines were inspired by the memory of a photograph: my father, standing in the ocean, water up to his knees, staring out into the distance, his kids, me and my brother, playing on the sand. I felt my dad was somewhere else in the picture. Somewhere else on that beach. I feel the same drifting these days, away from the present space, the present time. I imagine he was like this often. He was a very attentive father. Very caring and careful about his interactions with me. He wasn't a disengaged parent. But I think I see something in this picture that I feel was always in the air around him.

How do you spell DJ?

2011-02-28T14:41:00.001-05:00

2011-02-28T00:08:00.005-05:00

Letting go

So easy to be angry at someone

who's done something to deserve it:

Go ahead. Let your mouth form the words that connect

heart's flutter with jaw's striction, meat of memories,

machine fodder for hate, fuck you, and you, you say. Feed yourself

what is rightfully yours, yours to be human.

Knuckles whiten wringing white the red cloak of a ghost,

holding on, it isn't but a moment of reflection, sets off a torrent

laughter and tears, letting go of that arms-length fury to hold tight

against your heaving chest the very object of your fleeting heaviness.

Grieving can be a cycle

One day you're strictly mad

The next, emotional flubber

Dear god please dislodge this grief, I am ready to let go and

love someone, release me from these feelings of violence.

2011-02-10T18:08:00.002-05:00

Partitions

This is where you go, and

here is the box full of rss feeds,

this is the book I'm currently reading,

the list of tasks at work, less like

a list and more like a sticky web,

exercise routines, gathering dust,

a tiny matchbox holds aspirations

for a novel, this closet is full

crowded with many different voices

vying for attention. You're different,

I hold you in whatever room you happen to feel

sleepy, feel hungry, tired, or angry,

and it's as if your well being colors the walls.

We've guests from time to time, and

you're generous to them, unembarrassed

by my partitions, improvised cardboard architecture

you lead them in like it's meant to be this way.

2011-02-10T12:16:00.002-05:00

The return of the ten minute break?

I used to do this thing called "Ten Minute Break" on a previous blog of mine. I was working at law firm, as a legal assistant, paralegal, what have you. The work was ferociously fast paced, and it was after a long day of work I realized I was too exhausted to write. So I tried to take these ten minute breaks from the busy day to write something, anything...

Why is it so hard to be alone? At work, or at home, or when I'm walking outside--there's this itch to facebook, twitter, email, call, browse, do something! Anything! What is that itch? It's the worst when I need to vent. When something pisses me off. I try to hold it down and I hope that I can process it later. But for now, I don't want to disturb the day, interrupt my work flow, or throw myself into an emotional sand pit. Isn't it amazing to even have this problem? For a lot of people, there just isn't any time for introspection. My friend was telling me that in medieval times, people were really that cruel and blunt, just like their art. Strangely lacking in introspection. I think it was the middle ages. I don't remember. Anyway, I suppose this is my ten minute break. Back to work I go.

2011-02-09T14:30:00.005-05:00

Resolutions of a blogger

I started posting on blogs back when Xanga was popular, and looking back, I am still a little uncomfortable with blogging. What strikes me as most unsatisfying about blogging is also what makes it very satisfying: it is often a short, quickly constructed, self-indulgent entry.

Why short? Because I don't have the patience to write a long piece. Why quickly constructed? Because I write whenever the mood strikes, and the mood dissipates just as quickly as it comes. Why self indulgent? Because over the past ten years, writing online has meant the possibility that someone might read and, gift of all gifts, comment. The purpose of writing online has always been in order to appease a loneliness, a desire to have a substantial say, pushing aside the rules of dialogue and announcing finally, "This is how I feel." And most of the times, silence. Sometimes a comment. Always a happy paranoia that there are eyes everywhere, here.

But still: indulging in the self, the lonely self, seeking a soundboard for whenever the poetry of life seems to avert its attention from the world of fiction and onto it, can grow even while staying small. These small scale "tricklings" as I like to think of them, can erode the most disgustingly self-absorbed self, whittling it down to a small wooden sculpture that is perhaps useful for something, even if only as an ornament. That is what I hope to accomplish via blogging. To create an impression of tiny details. Some of my favorite blogs do this in strange but inventive ways. Whether it's through watching the same movie once a day for a year, or through taking photographs of strikingly dressed people on the street, blogging isn't just putting what's interesting on the internet and posting it again (ain't nothing wrong with that, the best: metafilter, reddit). It's this act of repetition, of continued return to the self, that refines the impulse that inspired it. "Look at what I noticed," the blog says. It says this over and over again, until the blogger gets over his genuine awe for himself, his ability to notice, and accepts responsibility for asking even a sea of strangers to look. I think the best possible outcome of blogging is creating a space of self indulgence that is free of the self's original bloatedness (remember your first blog? cringe), bloated with the excitement of expressing myself, and utterly self consciously obsessed with bringing something detailed to the world, something with fidelity, something that by itself is inconsequential, but ultimately essential in preserving a sense of humanity, which can be such a blurry unknown so often.

And so it is, with this entry, I make an oxymoronic statement, an announcement by its nature paradoxical: while this blog will continue to assume its blog-like nature in acting as a trickling of self-indulgent thoughts in hopes of improving the self (and so making indulgence in it a lesser evil), I want to make an announcement that I hope stays true beyond this entry: I will renew my commitment to making things that require months or years to complete. I will do more than carry a book or a device with me on the subway, I will carry plans.

I would ask you to wish me luck. But this is the one thing in life that truly has nothing to do with good fortune. Life will always make light of our plans and projects, but that is why it is a true act of will to have them, to cherish them, and to give them a home along with all the other more aggressive things inside us...

And so like all my blog posts, I give this one a quick glance and send it off without much thought. In fact, the only reason I write this is because I was moving a large amount of boxes at work and the sudden boost to my circulatory system gave me a shot of positivity about life. And so I blog. But this time I hope it is a fragment of something much larger: it is but words, and words are sometimes the light in the distance that leads the lost, but words can be, and I think they are at their best, the glimmering wake of a vessel driven by acts. If anything, I will move more boxes.

2011-02-08T08:51:00.003-05:00

Morning Jog

I think I forgot how to speak--
I had to keep my mouth shut,
couldn't show them I'm weak,
then I tried to form words, found it hard
mumbled rocks, I fell on my sword...

So I train everyday, limited social life
see my mom, my girl, and friends of the closest kind,
my circle tight in order to travel light--
I try to relate when I write, but
I'm young and I'm American,
I'm plugged into a dream they told me never ends...
So I try not to act like a god
try to stay humble and let my wants be a passin' thought,
desire is fire but life is combustable...
so if I ever get famous I hope I don't take my life,
can't take what you already gave--

Patience, let your soul bloom
don't sleep let your eyes take in the whole room
slow it down, you can do it,
time stops if you give it something worth stoppin' to look at,
two lovers embrace, hands on her waist,
discovery uncovering oh the look on her face
it can stop a bullet cold
slow a humming bird down
till it drops to the floor,
beautiful garmets
unfold, piles of clothes
tell the untold,
between you and me
the unknown
whisper it, tell it to me again
I think I remember now,
but tell it to me again, I'm livin' now
tell it to me again...

2011-01-27T17:17:00.003-05:00

"Hey Brody."

"Hey."

"It's cold out there isn't it."

"Yeah."

"What's up?"

"What? Oh. I'm just wondering if I left anything in my car."

"You drove here?"

"Yeah."

"Where the hell did you park?"

"You know, somewhere. I dare someone to call a tow truck [laughs to himself]."

"You fucking maniac."

"Well, shall we?"

"Yeah, I started without you."

"That's fine--ahh, that's the good shit."

"Right?"

"So how long do you think it'll take?"

"I think... ten hours."

"Good."

"Did you bring the magazines?"

"Uh, yeah."

"You forgot the magazines."

"In the car."

"Go get em before it's too late."

"It is too late."

"No it isn't, look--fuck. It's too late."

"Yeah, fuck these short winter days."

"Well, at least by the time it's morning--"

"Yeah. Morning. We're good."

2011-01-26T14:58:00.001-05:00

2011-01-26T10:20:00.002-05:00

Tiny Love Poem

Baby bring me to a breakdown,

I can't find a crack in my equation.

Love is like a song on a radio station...

I'd rather sing than sing along!

2011-01-20T09:20:00.005-05:00

Remote Control Man

It's true what they say about dreaming,

last night I had a dream: fragments

phone numbers that failed, my Auntie

told me not to try those, on a trip in a strange place

found an alleyway with an active hub for hackers,

they asked me if I knew the numbers, all I had

was a remote control man, I pressed the buttons

and he ran as fast as he can

over roofs and chimneys, until he tripped

over my commands he fell deep and shattered on the streets,

a security guard looked over the man heap,

I heard radios activated in search of me, I hid

underneath a set of stairs as they approached: men in black suits

this time, they were Asian, Japanese or Korean, I couldn't tell,

they crowded the space where I pretended to not exist,

I saw they had some av equipment, some wires were

unplugged and in a mess, so I jumped out and acted my part

just started to put things together like it was my art,

they nodded and watched, but what was that

number? I couldn't remember

no matter how much I scrolled through my past calls.

Cee-Lo's Lesson of the Day

2011-01-20T08:20:00.000-05:00

(daily lessons brought to you by me, listening to Cee-Lo Green)

When I sing a song of peace
It soothes the savage beast
Even it understands that I understand at least

- Open Book, The Odd Couple

2011-01-19T10:56:00.003-05:00

Missing Parent

I miss my children, like crazy.

I think about them, constantly

a mix of guilt, from having let them down

grief, from having lost them

pride, for they are so beautiful.

Though I could take the hand of this little stranger

on line at the supermarket,

or legitimately babysit for other people's babies

no one else will do, my children,

they are my thoughts, my feelings

whether I am clumsy holding up the register,

pause before I take another drink,

or forget to tie my shoes,

tell my children when they're old enough--

that I was thinking of them always.

Cee-Lo's Lesson of the Day

2011-01-19T00:05:00.001-05:00

(daily lessons brought to you by me, listening to Cee-Lo Green)

Anyone that needs what they want, and doesn’t want what they need / I want nothing to do with

- Going On, The Odd Couple

Foie Gras, but not

2011-01-18T15:56:00.005-05:00

Cee-Lo's Lesson of the Day

2011-01-18T09:11:00.002-05:00

(daily lessons brought to you by me, listening to Cee-Lo Green)

You can’t win child / We’ve all tried to / You’ve been lied to / It’s all ready inside you / Either you run right now / Or you best get / ready to die / You better / move / I said / move!

- Run, from The Odd Couple

Cee-Lo's Lesson of the Day:

2011-01-18T02:25:00.019-05:00

(daily lessons brought to you by me, listening to Cee-Lo Green)

I tried to tell my momma but she told me this is one for your dad

- Fuck You, from The Lady Killer

2011-01-18T02:14:00.002-05:00

I wish Cee-Lo Green would be my mentor.

2011-01-18T00:37:00.002-05:00

"It's eatin' at me, you asked me a stupid question once, and I could have answered it, but I didn't... because I was... I'll answer it now."

2011-01-17T16:01:00.002-05:00

How do I make sense of this fractured beautiful life?

2011-01-15T11:18:00.001-05:00

If you leave the world a better place than it was when you got here then we all win! - Murs

In Defense of Sentimentality

2011-01-12T19:12:00.004-05:00

By JOHN IRVING
November 25, 1979

And, in the spirit of Christmas, who could fault "A Christmas Carol"? "Who can listen," Thackeray said, "to objections regarding a book as this? It seems to me a national benefit, and to every man or woman who reads it a personal kindness." It is surprising, however, how many readers reserve Dickens--and hopefulness in general--for Christmas; it seems that what we applaud in Dickens--his kindness, his generosity, his belief in our dignity--is also what we condemn him for (under another name) in the off-Christmas season.

The other name is sentimentality--and, to the modern reader, too often when a writer risks being sentimental, the writer is already guilty. But as a writer it is cowardly to so fear sentimentality that one avoids it altogether. It is typical--and forgivable--among student writers to avoid being mush- minded by simply refusing to write about people, or by refusing to subject characters to emotional extremes. A short story about a four-course meal from the point of view of a fork will never be sentimental; it may never matter very much to us, either. A fear of contamination by soap opera haunts the educated writer--and reader--though we both forget that in the hands of a clod, "Madame Bovary" would have been perfect material for daytime television and a contemporary treatment of "The Brothers Karamazov" could be stuck with a campus setting. Dickens took Christmas risks all year round.

read more at [new york times books]

2011-01-11T21:55:00.003-05:00

Color

They say the meat is marbled

use the color brown as a verb

it's in this way I want to live,

vacant of original meaning and

full of the idiosyncratic vernacular of process.

This is where I live

2011-01-07T12:19:00.002-05:00

[Thanks to Cris.]

Chine Chine Chine

2011-01-03T20:09:00.004-05:00

I'm sure one day some child who feels I'm responsible for answering his questions, his curiosities, will ask me something about the way people treat each other, in particular, the cruel and nasty ways people go about this. He might encounter someone on a forum he frequents, usually a safe space for kids, but you can't protect anything perfect. Someone will say, the way you said what you said, I bet you're a _______. A nasty word. It'll make the child feel unsure about who he is, and whether he should watch what he says from then on, in fear of being discovered. I hope he does talk to me at this point. I'd be happy to reply:

Back when I was a young man, but not so young as you, I went on a family trip to Europe. Me and my brother and my mother went to Basel Switzerland because my cousin had an apartment there. Until then, I'd lived my whole life in New York City. Basel was a really different place than New York. People kept to themselves, and mostly, I was stuck with my family. There wasn't much to do, and the only people I could talk to was my mom and brother. Family can be wonderful, but I'm sure you know it can get kinda tired, old, and maybe even lonesome. I began to feel homesick, which is another way of saying I missed my friends back home.

Now, in case you thought I hadn't heard your story right, let me clarify. New York was where I grew up. I didn't go to forums to talk to people, and I encourage you to try going outside a little more than you do. But anyway, what I did was play basketball in the playground near my house. That's where I experienced what you just did today. These really tall kids, they called me names. They said I was a chink. That's slang for Chinese. Back then, there weren't as many Chinese people living where I lived. And if you were even of Asian descent, people were quick to judge you on the way you looked. It made me feel small, like I didn't belong. It might seem silly, but I really took it to heart. I took it so hard, over ten years later, when I was well older than you are now, like twenty three, I was jogging in the park near my apartment. This was still New York. There were these kids, just as tall as the ones who called me names when I was little, but now, they weren't so tall. I was bigger. Much bigger. But it was like I hadn't grown up at all, because they, too, called me names. The same names actually! Chink! Can you believe it? And even though I was way older, I still felt a twist in my stomach.

Now, what's this got to do with my family trip to Europe? Well, we didn't stay long in Basel Switzerland. My mom and brother and I went to Paris. I was so home sick, so desperate to go back to New York City, the city that never sleeps, stinks like urine, and the subway cars are packed so you can't sit. I missed it so bad Paris was like a godsend. It was like a mirror world of New York! And the best part is, I was only there for three days, and yet, I was lucky enough to see these kids who were about your age, taking up an entire section of seats in the subway car. They were being so loud that these girls who looked really fancy in their pretty dresses were so annoyed they kept rolling their eyes. But man I was glad to see them. They were freestyle rapping, battling each other in a language I didn't understand, but I could hear the rhythms, the rhymes; I could tell when a kid had bested another kid, because everyone would react, wide eyed and wide mouthed. It was glorious. They even included me in their rhymes. I could tell because one of them pointed at me and ended his line with "Asian;" the word must be the same in French. Though I think it was more like, Ash-ee-ahn. And when they left the car, one of the kids strutted by me and before getting off the train, turned around, clasped his hands palm to palm in an oriental sort of way, and bowed at me, imitating what he must have thought was a hilarious imitation of a Chinese person speaking: chine chine chine chine.

But you know, I was so homesick, so glad to be in a city full of life, I could only smile at this foreign form of a racist mockery I'd known back home. Suddenly, I looked back and I could only see how exciting it all was. Exciting! Isn't it exciting? It might not have been pretty, but a stranger reached out to me and spoke to me. I hope he saw the way I smiled.

At this point. This child would probably think twice before coming to me with his quandaries. But hopefully, he'll also hear me out when I tell him to enjoy the way people are, in all their glorious forms.

The City, a drug

2010-12-31T14:34:00.004-05:00

After a restless week in Basel, Switzerland, where the trams floated in the fog with a gentle ding and cyclists pushed through the streets with their single head lights, where when the blizzard swept over the city children came out to play soccer on snow covered fields and parents pulled their little ones on wooden toboggans, we had arrived in Paris. My heart rate jumped up a few notches, my left arm felt a little squeeze, and in the style of Requiem for a Dream, my pupils did that thing they do when everything needs to go a little faster. Cities, real cities, feel like this.

It began at the turn styles of the subway station. I was jettisoned into the stream of commuters and my eyes rapidly took in every moving object while simultaneously focusing on signs pointing the way, making sense of the new system, the symbols, the colors, the destinations, memorizing, filing away, mental fingers furiously working to organize the chaos. There were layers upon layers of experience, the pure need to get from A to B, the people walking at me, next to me, behind me, the bags I carried, a strap on each of my shoulders, the two other members of my party running by my side, carving out their own paths in the rushing tunnels, the advertisements glowing bright, the graffiti annotating everything, the smell from the gutters, the cigarette smoke, the laughter of strangers—pausing to wait for the train to arrive, I saw a woman on the platform across from me doing rapid stretches to the amusement of her friend. On the train, standing jammed in among other coats and scarves, my brother looked at me and said, “This feels familiar, doesn’t it?” It did. We were flying through the city’s vascular system, foreign objects introduced to a rough, rapid, but efficient stream of life. We learned it and it learned us, and through this feedback, there was kinetic kinship.

2010-12-31T01:45:00.002-05:00

Last night I was touched by the internet

Browsing the internet is like

looking through a 1 way mirror, 1

way to look is to see so many 1

and 1 and 1's lookin' like so many

1's. So if you lookin' for 1 then

look no further, but if you're lookin'

for the rising sum, look through

and you might see somone lookin'

for you, reach through and make

shit a little more interesting for both

me and for you.

speaking of movies...

2010-12-29T20:02:00.001-05:00

Kubrick vs Scorsese from Leandro Copperfield on Vimeo.

In Love, with Reading

2010-12-29T17:22:00.004-05:00

In truth, I never read much. I didn't grow up in a house where long periods of silence were spent reading, the patriarch setting the tone of bookish reverence and joy. The television blared, and I was lucky enough to at first have video games to play, and then later, a computer to sit in front of. Though my father watched PBS religiously, what sense of culture I acquired from him was of art and music, and not so much literature (though to be fair, he tried; I owned copies of Treasure Island and Robinson Crusoe very early on without ever having read them. I experienced Jules Verne via cinema, my first true literary love). It wasn't until my mother sent me to private school in the 8th grade that I began walking around with a book in my hand, but even then it was out of necessity, the work load like nothing I'd known before.

I'm reading "Parrot and Olivier in America" by Peter Carey. The book has a double narrative, two story tellers, and one of them is falling in love--with a girl, and with a nation. The book is partly about a man of noble birth encountering the very violent beginnings of democracy; it is a story modeled on the life of Alexis de Tocqueville. And like Tocqueville, this protagonist of Carey's book goes to America with the thump of the guillotine not far behind him.

He walks with this girl and they talk of America, how it differs from France, and they exchange opinions on the current state of America, him interrogating her about democracy, her happily leading him deeper into the American fields her father has landscaped. The conversation between this young American woman and this young French man, this citizen of democracy and this ambassador of aristocracy, is full of double meaning, yet singular in passion, flush with desire--to the point of absurdity. Apt, since this narrative is told by the old fashioned aristocrat. Oh to be a lord in love.

"We must seem very provincial to you," she says. "A little provincialism is very much to be desired," he replies. She blushes. "You will have what you desire," she says.

As he embraces her, he narrates: who would not envy me? I thought. Dear Lord, I thought, as I breathed the mad warm air directly from her nose."

I feel this way about reading, right now. This book is fantastic. I don't know what it is, but reading this book, reading this line, I was suddenly filled with the excitement of one who perhaps hasn't always enjoyed such heights of literature, such provincial honesty, and upon knowing both, is mad with wonderment: who would not envy me? There's something very old fashioned about literature, something so raw about the power of words. Perhaps I'm more a child of social networking, video clips, and computer games. Perhaps this world of books is somewhat foreign to me. But what a rush to fall in love. What madness. What luck.

writing fiction is...

2010-12-28T17:25:00.004-05:00

trying my damnest to keep morale high

while never letting standards down.

trying not to let self loathing become my editor

while stomping out precious excess.

2010-12-27T07:19:00.003-05:00

Evergreen Dreams

Snow falls

and my eyes go up

my tongue tastes air, cleaves my lips,

my mouth does all the work, it smile,

it frown, it kiss.

Eyes close

around dark, shuttered, I'm stark,

putting on my socks and running through the streets

I see them lined up and kneeling on their knees,

pew pews, laser beams.

I wonder what they see when they close their eyes

searching in the dark for the double sun rise, one night,

I'm no fool callin' out fools,

I'm just a jester without a joke, no tools,

when I try to pray, why

do I, see so many whales smoking pot

the sea is a bong and it bubbles a lot,

god made it perfect, I'm surfin'. I'm learnin'. Turnin'

a lot in my sleep I fell from my knees,

mom put a blanket over me, my brother snores in his deep,

I guess I prefer to be gone,

I have not perfected the art

of hurtin' you without doin' you harm, alarm.

Wake up and go to work,

gotta build this boat before the purge,

grow lights in the belly of the vessel, my church,

steam boat on the eve of destruction,

elephants take a toke, they smoke,

I hope, when the sea settles down

we can all elope, meet you on mars, he wrote,

we can celebrate, help me

wash away the hate, don't worry it's mine, I'm fine,

you're fine, so fine, I hope

one day we can all elope,

a place, call it

home.

2010-12-19T01:27:00.004-05:00

Watching Food, inc by Robert Kenner

and Restrepo, by Tim Hetherington and Sebastian Junger

I wrote a poem.

to put it mildly, everyday is disappointment. but

"we've got to get away from the emotion, we've

got to get the facts," says Gary Hirshberg, CEO. and

I have a friend who reads about the health laws

around HIV, that's her job, to make sure regular people

have information that could save their lives. I'm

on a documentary binge, and it's really hard, on

one hand: I get so angry, so excited, swept up

by the moving pictures representing reality.

On the other: I feel the world is always slipping away

beyond my grasp, as I am just a single person

with a perspective on the world that dwarfs the plot

of ground I stand on.

I watched a group of U.S.

soldiers, impromptu dance party, club music inside

the living quarters located in a valley in Afghanistan,

taking a break from shoveling, hard work to fill HESCO Bastions.

So, maybe I am small, and Yeah I spent last night

feeling sorry for myself drinking beers and feeling lonely,

But maybe because I'm so small, just a

guy watching a documentary, using his younger

brother's Netflix account, maybe

that's how I will get beyond the grief, the loneliness,

the feeling of powerlessness, and fit

inside the cramped tent of a makeshift base

in the middle of the Korangal Valley, a place that

is no longer there, a temporary stand which has

taken the lives of I think 50 U.S. soldiers, and watch

these young men dance.

I don't know. It doesn't make any sense.

I hate the sound of pigs squealing, but that's

what happens inside the very large factories where

we get our food. And so far away from home

there are American soldiers weeping, and

dancing to feel less scared. Illegal workers don't

want to get scanned for cancer, out of fear

that they will be deported. Besides, health care,

who can afford it? You can probably see

the tiny gears in my head turning

fixing these various thoughts together

with the feeblest of strings, and whatever

conclusions you have are probably stronger

than anything I can say for certain

I know is a fact. But these days have been dark

and I been feeling so lonely. Can't really

have a conversation with anyone

without feeling maybe I should just stop talking,

like whatever I do, just, every day

living life, it seems like just a long series of faltering steps

clumsily misrepresenting everything

like, who let this guy talk? But hey

I'm just trying my best, I'm sure you are, too.

So, maybe in a little while, we'll talk

and it won't feel so shitty, that's

when I'll get back to you.

2010-12-16T09:18:00.001-05:00

what's your latest project?

Short Sentences, writing exercise

2010-12-14T15:16:00.003-05:00

The stray dog sat up on its hind legs. It scratched. It scratched behind its ear. Then, it yawned. Holly watched the dog do all this as she sipped her coffee. The dog’s eye lids began to fall. As its eyes grew heavy, so too did its body. It finally slumped on to the floor. Holly was on her fourth cup of coffee that day. She decided she needed something stronger. She decided she needed a nap. She decided she wanted to be a dog. Dogs did not wait for post offices to open. Dog’s did not pick up their brother’s mail. Holly thought, at least I’m not homeless. This thought only made her depressed, though less sleepy, and more angry.

Long Sentence, writing exercise

2010-12-14T09:31:00.003-05:00

He was glad to have brought the paper cup of coffee and the pack of cigarettes in with him into the bathroom, where he knew he would spend several hours, maybe, since the last time he’d taken a shit was five days ago, and since he wasn’t sure how long the drive back up to his mother's would take, with the traffic on holidays being what they were, he also turned on the knobs of the shower, reaching over from his seat on the toilet, his pants slumped down on the floor at his ankles, to give Joyce the impression he was taking a shower, which was a reasonable thing to do, taking a shower, much more reasonable than taking a two hour long shit, since Joyce had made it so clear that he was “letting himself go,” and that he should, “take a shower,” as she put it so subtly when he arrived at her doorstep that afternoon to ask if she had any coffee and cigarettes, as if this were an unreasonable thing for a brother to ask for at three in the morning after he’d been dumped by the one woman who seemed to have believed in him, so much so that he’d gone and cheated on her several times until she’d found out, through the mail, as one of his lovers (though he never used the term himself) had sent him a bouquet of tiger lilies accompanied by possibly the most filthy card that could accompany a bouquet of flowers, which he could have prevented, since she’d on numerous occasions told him her plans to do such a thing, send the man she was having an affair with flowers, but he’d not told her not to, and in fact had encouraged her to do exactly as she had said, as, he told her, he felt it was a turn on, the reversal of gender roles, which he’d consulted his therapist about and to which she responded, “Perhaps you want her to find out,” and he didn’t deny it.