This past week I went to visit Ashley in Texas, specifically the Dallas area. Unlike most normal people who might have flown, however, we chose to drive so she could have her car for the rest of the summer (she had been doing work for a Professor at Colgate this summer). I live in Eastern Pennsylvania, and a direct drive from here would take about 21 or so hours. She wanted to show me her old hometown of Reston, Virginia, so we actually went a little bit out of our way, but it was worth it for both of us. Most people I told about the planned trip all summer told me I was crazy, but in reality the drive was extremely fun. We split it up into two and a half days (last Monday morning through Wednesday afternoon) and switched off driving every 2-3 hours so we didn't get too tired.
The first day was the prettiest drive, taking us through the Blue Ridge Mountains (accompanied by the song of the same name by Fleet Foxes) and the larger Appalachian Mountains of which the Blue Ridge are only a part (sadly Copland's Appalachian Spring was messed up on my iPod) of Western Virginia and West Virginia (it is important to note the difference). Unfortunately, as was the case with most of the views worth seeing on the trip, I totally forgot to actually use the camera I brought with me. All this means is that I will be more prepared next summer when we do it all over again...
The second day was also very nice, taking us through Kentucky (much to the delight of my horse-obsessed girlfriend) and Tennessee. We drove through Nashville too briefly for me to even remember what it looked like, but I do remember the area was beautiful, which is not exactly what I expected from Tennessee. Driving basically across the state, we saw its varied landscape, from its mountains and rolling hills to the increasing flatness toward Memphis. Memphis is a city I'd very much like to return to, having driven around it briefly. I think the musical atmosphere there was calling my name. Making another mental note for next summer. Crossed the Mississippi (and, in so doing, called up a host of Huckleberry Finn references) and found our way into Arkansas, at which point just about everything interesting about the landscape ceased to exist. We stayed there for the night and finished the last leg of the drive Wednesday, arriving in Plano at 4 or so.
I'm not sure exactly what I was expecting from Texas, but northern Texas anyway resembled Florida (minus palm trees) more than it did the Wild West that I was expecting. The DFW metroplex was a sprawling mass of shopping centers, restaurants, three- and four-lane (on each side) highways and tollways complete with bustling access roads (a new concept for me) and 70 mph speed limits. It was like the Orlando area minus the tourism and horrible traffic. I was particularly surprised by the variety of restaurants there, far exceeding our own chain-heavy array in the Valley here. Nevertheless, culture shock was minimal, and I begin to wonder if there is any part of the US that still feels like the frontier.
I really enjoyed meeting Ashley's parents, who were both very nice and welcoming the entire time I was there. Her dad introduced me to Chimay, which according to Michael Jackson (the beer expert, not the pop star and pedophile) is the best beer in the world. Made by Trappist monks in Belgium, it is served in a wine bottle and has many qualities characteristic of wine, including alcohol content. It was certainly the best beer I had ever tasted, as might be expected. We ate well on the trip, and I would heavily recommend Texas de Brazil to anyone interested in trying a variety of delicious meats. It is a chain, so it may be in your area. This was particularly fun for me, since Ashley is a notoriously picky eater and very stubborn about trying new foods, so watching her try 15 or so different kinds of meat and some interesting items from the salad bar was well worth it.
Among the other highlights of the trip were the Dallas Arboretum, which was extremely beautiful and not at all crowded, seeing Despicable Me with Ashley and Inception with her and her friends, and buying her 4 inch heels so that she can do ballroom dance with me this coming semester (we're normally 13" apart). We also went to Six Flags Over Texas, which I later learned was the original Six Flags (the name deriving from the six nations who have owned Texas over its history (Spain, France, Mexico, Texas Republic, Confederacy, United States). The best part of that trip was that just as we were leaving, we got caught in a torrential downpour which we ran through to get to the car. Flash flooding ensued. Except it barely rained at all back at Ashley's house. Pssh, Texas weather.
I also went out to the barn to watch her ride, and I played with her two dogs (whippets named Gable and Jewel) which are both things that I would not have seen myself doing 6 months ago, so I suppose she's getting me to try new things too. Gable liked me, but Jewel seems to have a mistrust of men and she avoided me when she could and always looked very nervous, which was sad because she was my favorite.
I could go on but the main point is that I had an amazing week, experienced new things, saw new places, and fell even more in love. I'm already looking forward to going back next summer.
Monday, July 26, 2010
Friday, July 9, 2010
Beatrice and Virgil (Spoilers)
I'd very much like to give Yann Martel's newest novel a much more detailed review than my brain is capable of doing at this hour, but I know that if I wait until tomorrow, it won't happen, so I shall do what I can tonight.
To begin with, I will simply say that I loved Life of Pi and leave it at that. That book has no bearing on or relation to this new work. I won't mention it again.
Very rarely do I actually finish a book that I put it down and feel manipulated, or that I wasted my time. Very rarely is my experience of a book so contrary to my expectations of it that I feel the need to actually vent about it rather than merely dismissing it as several hours I shall never recover. Usually if a book is really bad, I put it down somewhere in the middle. This wasn't one of those books. This was a book that had a lot of promise, a lot of potential, and I kept waiting for it to break through into something magnificent as I approached the end. Instead, it took the ending to confirm what I had dreaded through the entire novel: the book was a mess.
I bought Beatrice and Virgil (pre-ordered it actually) back in March, with the knowledge that I would not have the time to start it until May, when the semester was over. Once home and unpacked and nicely settled in, I decided to finally start the book I was looking forward to very much (so much so, that I continued to postpone reading Anna Karenina which I've been dying to finish for months). The beginning of the book truly excited me. Martel introduces us to his thinly-disguised alter-ego Henry (side note: quite possibly the most awkward, self-absorbed, blunt, pointless, and clumsy portrayal of oneself ever achieved in literature), whose first book was a wild success (hmmm...) and who has settled down to a new and ambitious project: to portray the Holocaust in a new and imaginative way. Immediately, red flags. However, these fears are put to rest by Martel/Henry's interesting take on art and the Holocaust, as well his bizarre and creative (and distinctly Martellian) idea for a flip book that is half fiction, half nonfiction. His philosophical explanations behind this are fascinating. Then the book is rejected. Cue writer's block. At this point we begin to explore the "story" arc which underlies much of the rest of the book: Henry's very pedestrian, work-free, dilettante lifestyle in which he has pets, joins a theater troupe, and begins to learn clarinet. "What about that flip book, Henry?"
Just as the reader begins to wonder "Why...?" we stumble awkwardly upon the real "plot" of the novel. A crazy old taxidermist enlists Henry's help (through fan mail) for his play. A scene from the play is included in the package he sends Henry, a beautiful scene where the two main characters, a howler monkey named Virgil and a donkey named Beatrice, discuss and describe, in captivatingly beautiful imagery, a simple pear. Alas, once Henry has made contact with the taxidermist and the reader realizes that Martel has tried to clear his writer's block by writing himself as a character (also with writer's block) helping another character in his own creative endeavors, the question is almost inevitable: "Is this it?" Certainly this was my question, and the reason why the book got neglected for almost two months. I had no burning desire to pick it up again, for there was simply nothing captivating: no interesting characters, little philosophical depth, barely a plot to speak of, and the constant question of "what is the point of this book?"
Having picked it up again yesterday and finished it tonight, I can tell you that it was less of a point and more of a blunt object, striking you over the head and leaving you dazed and senseless and used. Near the end I was thinking that the nearly plagiaristically Beckett-like play, "A 20th Century Shirt" (in which two characters banter seemingly about nothing while standing next to a tree, yet in which deep philosophical questions are raised...) would have made a better book if Martel had simply cropped out all the extraneous and unnecessary stuff about his self-serving, and often very condescending and arrogant, attempt to help the taxidermist complete his play and simultaneously save his own writer's soul. While derivative, the writing in the play was frequently better and more thought-provoking than the prose of the rest of the novel, in which random and pedestrian events intertwine in a hazy jumble interspersed with excerpts from a play which could never have been written by the taxidermist character as described by Martel. Then, WHAM! In the span of a few pages, we learn that this has been about the Holocaust all along, but that revelation and transition is handled so poorly it seems to come out of nowhere. So this, then, must be the realization of what Henry had been trying to perfect early in the novel. Interest reemerging? Then, in literally one page, several non sequiters occur. First, the taxidermist asks an innocent question probing for input from Henry. Then, Henry thinks back to the Flaubert story that accompanied the pear excerpt in the fanmail package. From this (and seemingly nowhere else, except possibly a few heavily veiled lines on the preceding pages) Henry deduces the man is an ex-Nazi collaborator, becomes disgusted and refuses to believe him reformed (for reasons unknown), tries to leave the shop immediately, refuses the copy of the play, gets stabbed by the taxidermist (why?...), escapes, and watches as the taxidermist sets fire to the shop while still inside, wearing a maniacal grin that is completely nothing like the character described up to this point. A more clumsily handled climax may never have been written by such a talented author. It comes out of nowhere, is supported by almost nothing that precedes it, makes no point, and leaves no feeling in the reader except bewilderment, disgust, and anger.
The play perished in the blaze. Henry regrets this, although it is his refusal of the play that caused it to be lost in the first place, and he recreates what he can remember of the taxidermist, the play, and anything related to those two subjects that he can remember. Another unexplained about-face from his angry rejection of both of them just pages earlier. This is just another example of characters doing things for no reason, or acting in ways for which the author does not, and the reader can not, provide any explanation. The final pages of the book are disturbing, morbid, and unoriginal, taking familiar Holocaust material and presenting it in such a way as to only heighten the revulsion the reader feels by presenting it in the form of "games." Given that any Holocaust reference up to this point (besides Henry's failed novel) has been told metaphorically through the eyes of two animals, this is abrupt and random, possibly more for shock value or to tug on our emotions than for any real literary reason.
Holocaust stories will always be emotional in some way. Those of us who aren't Jewish or who did not descend from victims of that terrible slaughter (like myself and, incidentally, Martel) do not feel the pain of that massacre any less, for it was not merely an assault on one group of people, it was an assault on humanity. This is why to this day this is one topic that is always handled with extreme caution because it conjures up such a multitude of emotions in us all, from terrible sadness for the victims, to horror at the darkness and evil of which humanity is capable, to anger at the perpetrators, to the realization that an entire nation of people, ordinary good and bad people like all of us, sat by and did nothing and turned away. It is important that we not ignore the subject, and I agree with Henry/Martel that it should be expressed in new forms, just as other momentous and tragic events are in history. Yet it is impossible to not feel tricked by this book. The title, the cover featuring the two animals in a desert landscape, the entire middle portion of the book, do not give any indication as to the book's subject matter. By the middle of the novel, we are convinced that Martel has left those intriguing ideas behind. Then suddenly, without giving readers a chance to decide if they really are in the mood to read about the Holocaust, Martel hits us rapid-fire with a series of seemingly unrelated thoughts and events which add nothing to the discussion of or perception of the Holocaust (in fact, it makes no new points at all about the Holocaust after the first few pages). Like it or not, the images are burned into our brains, but we are left wondering how they have helped us come to terms with that horrible atrocity. We have been caught unsuspecting and Martel has taken advantage of this to bludgeon us over the head with his point - the problem is, he doesn't have one.
Clumsy in character development, storytelling, language, transition, and treatment of subject matter, this novel showcases none of the brilliance which Yann Martel exhibited in his first book. Instead, it makes just about every mistake a novel can make in only 200 pages. It would be easily forgettable were it not for its treatment of the Holocaust and its tremendously bad ending. Instead, it becomes memorably bad.
2/5. (for its redeeming qualities and latent potential)
To begin with, I will simply say that I loved Life of Pi and leave it at that. That book has no bearing on or relation to this new work. I won't mention it again.
Very rarely do I actually finish a book that I put it down and feel manipulated, or that I wasted my time. Very rarely is my experience of a book so contrary to my expectations of it that I feel the need to actually vent about it rather than merely dismissing it as several hours I shall never recover. Usually if a book is really bad, I put it down somewhere in the middle. This wasn't one of those books. This was a book that had a lot of promise, a lot of potential, and I kept waiting for it to break through into something magnificent as I approached the end. Instead, it took the ending to confirm what I had dreaded through the entire novel: the book was a mess.
I bought Beatrice and Virgil (pre-ordered it actually) back in March, with the knowledge that I would not have the time to start it until May, when the semester was over. Once home and unpacked and nicely settled in, I decided to finally start the book I was looking forward to very much (so much so, that I continued to postpone reading Anna Karenina which I've been dying to finish for months). The beginning of the book truly excited me. Martel introduces us to his thinly-disguised alter-ego Henry (side note: quite possibly the most awkward, self-absorbed, blunt, pointless, and clumsy portrayal of oneself ever achieved in literature), whose first book was a wild success (hmmm...) and who has settled down to a new and ambitious project: to portray the Holocaust in a new and imaginative way. Immediately, red flags. However, these fears are put to rest by Martel/Henry's interesting take on art and the Holocaust, as well his bizarre and creative (and distinctly Martellian) idea for a flip book that is half fiction, half nonfiction. His philosophical explanations behind this are fascinating. Then the book is rejected. Cue writer's block. At this point we begin to explore the "story" arc which underlies much of the rest of the book: Henry's very pedestrian, work-free, dilettante lifestyle in which he has pets, joins a theater troupe, and begins to learn clarinet. "What about that flip book, Henry?"
Just as the reader begins to wonder "Why...?" we stumble awkwardly upon the real "plot" of the novel. A crazy old taxidermist enlists Henry's help (through fan mail) for his play. A scene from the play is included in the package he sends Henry, a beautiful scene where the two main characters, a howler monkey named Virgil and a donkey named Beatrice, discuss and describe, in captivatingly beautiful imagery, a simple pear. Alas, once Henry has made contact with the taxidermist and the reader realizes that Martel has tried to clear his writer's block by writing himself as a character (also with writer's block) helping another character in his own creative endeavors, the question is almost inevitable: "Is this it?" Certainly this was my question, and the reason why the book got neglected for almost two months. I had no burning desire to pick it up again, for there was simply nothing captivating: no interesting characters, little philosophical depth, barely a plot to speak of, and the constant question of "what is the point of this book?"
Having picked it up again yesterday and finished it tonight, I can tell you that it was less of a point and more of a blunt object, striking you over the head and leaving you dazed and senseless and used. Near the end I was thinking that the nearly plagiaristically Beckett-like play, "A 20th Century Shirt" (in which two characters banter seemingly about nothing while standing next to a tree, yet in which deep philosophical questions are raised...) would have made a better book if Martel had simply cropped out all the extraneous and unnecessary stuff about his self-serving, and often very condescending and arrogant, attempt to help the taxidermist complete his play and simultaneously save his own writer's soul. While derivative, the writing in the play was frequently better and more thought-provoking than the prose of the rest of the novel, in which random and pedestrian events intertwine in a hazy jumble interspersed with excerpts from a play which could never have been written by the taxidermist character as described by Martel. Then, WHAM! In the span of a few pages, we learn that this has been about the Holocaust all along, but that revelation and transition is handled so poorly it seems to come out of nowhere. So this, then, must be the realization of what Henry had been trying to perfect early in the novel. Interest reemerging? Then, in literally one page, several non sequiters occur. First, the taxidermist asks an innocent question probing for input from Henry. Then, Henry thinks back to the Flaubert story that accompanied the pear excerpt in the fanmail package. From this (and seemingly nowhere else, except possibly a few heavily veiled lines on the preceding pages) Henry deduces the man is an ex-Nazi collaborator, becomes disgusted and refuses to believe him reformed (for reasons unknown), tries to leave the shop immediately, refuses the copy of the play, gets stabbed by the taxidermist (why?...), escapes, and watches as the taxidermist sets fire to the shop while still inside, wearing a maniacal grin that is completely nothing like the character described up to this point. A more clumsily handled climax may never have been written by such a talented author. It comes out of nowhere, is supported by almost nothing that precedes it, makes no point, and leaves no feeling in the reader except bewilderment, disgust, and anger.
The play perished in the blaze. Henry regrets this, although it is his refusal of the play that caused it to be lost in the first place, and he recreates what he can remember of the taxidermist, the play, and anything related to those two subjects that he can remember. Another unexplained about-face from his angry rejection of both of them just pages earlier. This is just another example of characters doing things for no reason, or acting in ways for which the author does not, and the reader can not, provide any explanation. The final pages of the book are disturbing, morbid, and unoriginal, taking familiar Holocaust material and presenting it in such a way as to only heighten the revulsion the reader feels by presenting it in the form of "games." Given that any Holocaust reference up to this point (besides Henry's failed novel) has been told metaphorically through the eyes of two animals, this is abrupt and random, possibly more for shock value or to tug on our emotions than for any real literary reason.
Holocaust stories will always be emotional in some way. Those of us who aren't Jewish or who did not descend from victims of that terrible slaughter (like myself and, incidentally, Martel) do not feel the pain of that massacre any less, for it was not merely an assault on one group of people, it was an assault on humanity. This is why to this day this is one topic that is always handled with extreme caution because it conjures up such a multitude of emotions in us all, from terrible sadness for the victims, to horror at the darkness and evil of which humanity is capable, to anger at the perpetrators, to the realization that an entire nation of people, ordinary good and bad people like all of us, sat by and did nothing and turned away. It is important that we not ignore the subject, and I agree with Henry/Martel that it should be expressed in new forms, just as other momentous and tragic events are in history. Yet it is impossible to not feel tricked by this book. The title, the cover featuring the two animals in a desert landscape, the entire middle portion of the book, do not give any indication as to the book's subject matter. By the middle of the novel, we are convinced that Martel has left those intriguing ideas behind. Then suddenly, without giving readers a chance to decide if they really are in the mood to read about the Holocaust, Martel hits us rapid-fire with a series of seemingly unrelated thoughts and events which add nothing to the discussion of or perception of the Holocaust (in fact, it makes no new points at all about the Holocaust after the first few pages). Like it or not, the images are burned into our brains, but we are left wondering how they have helped us come to terms with that horrible atrocity. We have been caught unsuspecting and Martel has taken advantage of this to bludgeon us over the head with his point - the problem is, he doesn't have one.
Clumsy in character development, storytelling, language, transition, and treatment of subject matter, this novel showcases none of the brilliance which Yann Martel exhibited in his first book. Instead, it makes just about every mistake a novel can make in only 200 pages. It would be easily forgettable were it not for its treatment of the Holocaust and its tremendously bad ending. Instead, it becomes memorably bad.
2/5. (for its redeeming qualities and latent potential)
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Time management and Poetry update
Suddenly I don't work my evening job until Friday and thus have a few evenings free in a row, and I must admit, it has come as quite a shock. I'm so used to having too little time to do anything meaningful, or being too tired, that I'm still not quite sure what to do with the time, which is why I haven't done any of the things I hoped to get accomplished tonight. Partially, I also feel somewhat guilty for not being working right now given how much money I need to make before London next spring. I'm probably mentally recovered enough to do those long hours after I've had the weekend off what with Ashley visiting again. Still, now that I'll be working as a server (finally!) at my Holiday Inn job, I might actually make enough money in tips to compensate for having fewer hours, or at least that's my hope. My current pace won't net me enough money to be comfortable with my semester overseas, especially now that I'm realizing my hockey streaming package that I get ever year (since I don't live in the Pittsburgh area to get Penguins games) isn't available in Europe, and the one that is available in Europe isn't available in America. This splits next year's hockey season awkwardly in half and leaves me with a troubling situation for someone who generally watches probably 95% of the Penguins' games.
But enough about the money aspect. Trying to actually make use of what little time I have is the other big thing. During the school year I am always making lists of all the things I'll do when I have time again. Granted, it's much easier when there's a significant amount of time strung together because one can only do nothing for so long, but when I only have a few hours here and there, writing and blogging and reading and other activities which require mental activity end up being neglected in favor of more lazy ones. I've been meaning to finish Anna Karenina for a while, and I have a list of books to read that fills both columns on two sheets of paper (and I'm quite sure it's incomplete), but I can't bring myself to do it. I'm midway through Beatrice and Virgil by Yann Martel (author of Life of Pi) and unimpressed, which may contribute to that unwillingness to choose reading to fill those few hours. More tempting right now actually is going back and reading the Harry Potter series...again. Which is fun, of course, but hardly stimulating. Meh, we'll see what happens over the next few days.
Also, it''s been a while since I posted some poems on here, so I'll try to bring this blog up to date again.
Fragments of the Modern Mind
Filed away in desk drawers
Mausoleums filled with the bones of wit
And the drippings of smoky melodies
Ringed around in paper clip senselessness
Filled with the despair of shantytown roses
Scrabbling with the hallowed ghosts of archaic idols
And satin-cheeked cherubs of mind-bending disorder
Polarity and seamlessness colliding in a haze of questions
Endless rows of shelves collapsing under the weight
Glassy shards of amateur dreams
Buried in the endless rubble of neophyte nightmares
And choked by the shackles of neckties and paperweights.
©May 2010
Old and New
The mists of morning still linger, relics of darkness and sleep
The scatter-colored shimmer language of the sunrise
Speaks playfully to figures wreathed in tendrils of forest breath
Winking diamonds dance in branches, a multicolored spectacle
The riches of the dawn
Footsteps muffled by needlepoint carpeting
Hints of by-gone frost on the breeze
A haunting reminder of brokenness and solitude
The frigid immersion into icy rivulets of memories
The soft trickle
The silent murmur
Of a silence too familiar to break
The wind reclines in the lofty canopy of new and old
Contemplating among sheltering giants indifferent to a passing moment
In which miles were crossed, in time and space
Streams forded, trails blazed
And a windswept conversation, barely audible over the silence
Of old and new.
In the stilly eternity of the forest reckoning
Where warm fragrant musings of aimless zephyrs
Gently caress vibrant newborn petals
Carefully imparting the wisdom of the phoenix
In the language of deepening blues and evening gems
Set so brightly in imperfect wooden frames
For the wondering, apprehensive, exhilarated gazers
A starset of the trees.
©May 2010
Closed Eyelids
Colorful shapes dance behind closed eyelids
Fiery screens playing out romantic memoirs
The smooth feel of Egyptian cotton on porous membranes
Wild trips of phosphorescent dandelions
Tremors of silent terror and the fears of youth
Running, falling, screaming
Flying; the feel of bittersweet stillness
Invisible barriers incomprehensible
A vain struggle, and then
The alarm.
©June 2010
This next poem is not quite where I want it to be yet. I'll edit this post once I've edited the poem.
Wisdom
Once, when the world was black and white,
I told the world all that I knew
I didn't hold back.
Then, some foggy snapshots later,
I still expressed my much-maligned wisdom
But fewer cared to listen or understand
So I invented my own world.
In those days I walked in the air,
And grappled with the sun.
I held the secrets of the universe in my mind
And in that lithe, yet fragile body
I understood.
Yes, but that was an eternity ago
I see in color now, and I hold my tongue
I have exchanged the world for the universe
And am counted among the wise.
Yesterday a small child approached me
With a fire burning in his eyes
Tugging insistently on my grey sleeve
He bid me listen
And he shared with me the secrets of the universe
But I did not understand.
©June 2010
But enough about the money aspect. Trying to actually make use of what little time I have is the other big thing. During the school year I am always making lists of all the things I'll do when I have time again. Granted, it's much easier when there's a significant amount of time strung together because one can only do nothing for so long, but when I only have a few hours here and there, writing and blogging and reading and other activities which require mental activity end up being neglected in favor of more lazy ones. I've been meaning to finish Anna Karenina for a while, and I have a list of books to read that fills both columns on two sheets of paper (and I'm quite sure it's incomplete), but I can't bring myself to do it. I'm midway through Beatrice and Virgil by Yann Martel (author of Life of Pi) and unimpressed, which may contribute to that unwillingness to choose reading to fill those few hours. More tempting right now actually is going back and reading the Harry Potter series...again. Which is fun, of course, but hardly stimulating. Meh, we'll see what happens over the next few days.
Also, it''s been a while since I posted some poems on here, so I'll try to bring this blog up to date again.
Fragments of the Modern Mind
Filed away in desk drawers
Mausoleums filled with the bones of wit
And the drippings of smoky melodies
Ringed around in paper clip senselessness
Filled with the despair of shantytown roses
Scrabbling with the hallowed ghosts of archaic idols
And satin-cheeked cherubs of mind-bending disorder
Polarity and seamlessness colliding in a haze of questions
Endless rows of shelves collapsing under the weight
Glassy shards of amateur dreams
Buried in the endless rubble of neophyte nightmares
And choked by the shackles of neckties and paperweights.
©May 2010
Old and New
The mists of morning still linger, relics of darkness and sleep
The scatter-colored shimmer language of the sunrise
Speaks playfully to figures wreathed in tendrils of forest breath
Winking diamonds dance in branches, a multicolored spectacle
The riches of the dawn
Footsteps muffled by needlepoint carpeting
Hints of by-gone frost on the breeze
A haunting reminder of brokenness and solitude
The frigid immersion into icy rivulets of memories
The soft trickle
The silent murmur
Of a silence too familiar to break
The wind reclines in the lofty canopy of new and old
Contemplating among sheltering giants indifferent to a passing moment
In which miles were crossed, in time and space
Streams forded, trails blazed
And a windswept conversation, barely audible over the silence
Of old and new.
In the stilly eternity of the forest reckoning
Where warm fragrant musings of aimless zephyrs
Gently caress vibrant newborn petals
Carefully imparting the wisdom of the phoenix
In the language of deepening blues and evening gems
Set so brightly in imperfect wooden frames
For the wondering, apprehensive, exhilarated gazers
A starset of the trees.
©May 2010
Closed Eyelids
Colorful shapes dance behind closed eyelids
Fiery screens playing out romantic memoirs
The smooth feel of Egyptian cotton on porous membranes
Wild trips of phosphorescent dandelions
Tremors of silent terror and the fears of youth
Running, falling, screaming
Flying; the feel of bittersweet stillness
Invisible barriers incomprehensible
A vain struggle, and then
The alarm.
©June 2010
This next poem is not quite where I want it to be yet. I'll edit this post once I've edited the poem.
Wisdom
Once, when the world was black and white,
I told the world all that I knew
I didn't hold back.
Then, some foggy snapshots later,
I still expressed my much-maligned wisdom
But fewer cared to listen or understand
So I invented my own world.
In those days I walked in the air,
And grappled with the sun.
I held the secrets of the universe in my mind
And in that lithe, yet fragile body
I understood.
Yes, but that was an eternity ago
I see in color now, and I hold my tongue
I have exchanged the world for the universe
And am counted among the wise.
Yesterday a small child approached me
With a fire burning in his eyes
Tugging insistently on my grey sleeve
He bid me listen
And he shared with me the secrets of the universe
But I did not understand.
©June 2010
Friday, June 25, 2010
Workaholic
As I may have mentioned before, I'm studying abroad in the spring in London. While this is incredibly exciting, it's also going to be very expensive. It means I need to make a lot of money between now and then, which is how I've ended up working two jobs at between 60 and 70 hours a week. It's essentially taken over my life such that I work and sleep and not much else now. But it beats being unemployed, which I was worried would happen again at the beginning of this summer given how many leads went nowhere.
2010 has been such a great year for music and it's only halfway over! I almost don't know where to turn to start addressing all the quality releases both by new and established artists this calendar year. Expect more lists from me before the year is out!
While the rest of the world talks about the *yawn* World Cup, I dream instead of covering the field with ice and surrounding it with boards, shrinking it down, and replacing the trained actors with athletes. So even though it's the hockey offseason, I've been keeping glued to my computer at times waiting to hear what's going to happen with the Penguins' free agent Sergei Gonchar. As they've just acquired the rights to Dan Hamhuis, it's looking like that won't happen, which is a huge mistake in my opinion. We shall see.
Keep a lookout in the near future: I'll be featured in a regular podcast along with two other people, one of whom is Ashley. We'll be primarily talking about writing, so if you're interested in that subject, we'd appreciate your support.
That's all for now, more soon!
2010 has been such a great year for music and it's only halfway over! I almost don't know where to turn to start addressing all the quality releases both by new and established artists this calendar year. Expect more lists from me before the year is out!
While the rest of the world talks about the *yawn* World Cup, I dream instead of covering the field with ice and surrounding it with boards, shrinking it down, and replacing the trained actors with athletes. So even though it's the hockey offseason, I've been keeping glued to my computer at times waiting to hear what's going to happen with the Penguins' free agent Sergei Gonchar. As they've just acquired the rights to Dan Hamhuis, it's looking like that won't happen, which is a huge mistake in my opinion. We shall see.
Keep a lookout in the near future: I'll be featured in a regular podcast along with two other people, one of whom is Ashley. We'll be primarily talking about writing, so if you're interested in that subject, we'd appreciate your support.
That's all for now, more soon!
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
Breaking the laziness
Never fear readers, I have not died. The last couple months of the school year were unbelievably busy. Even on the rare occasion that I had a free moment, I wasn't really in the mood to post on here. Not to mention, I kept feeling that I needed to post something intelligent if I was going to post something at all. Well I've decided it's better to at least keep posting even if I don't always have some random rant or essay or new poetry or music review ready yet.
So while I'm writing my new music review, I might as well briefly update what's been going on in my life. I finished my most intense and eventful semester to date about a month ago. I went to Rome with the Newman Community at Colgate over spring break, which I'll post some pictures from and some brief summaries, but I'll try to keep it brief because I have a tendency to include way more information than any casual reader has time or interest for. I have a new girlfriend, official as of about a month ago, whom I met back in February. It's been a crazy whirlwind few months, but I couldn't be happier now. She visited me this past weekend, and just about every plan we had went perfectly.
Here's a picture of us hiking and a couple of us at Longwood Gardens:
I've also resurrected my old poetry forum site, Café Poetica and am always looking for new members to come read and post. I got a deviantArt account at Ashley's prompting as well to showcase my poetry.
After months upon months of failure at finding internships and jobs (including my preferred grant for independent history research at school), I finally found a job that seemed at least tolerable in the area here. I'd rather be at school obviously, but there's still things to do at home. The job was supposed to be a multiple-position job working banquets at the Holiday Inn. I was/am under the impression that I would be trained in serving, bartending, bussing, and set-ups. I knew from the outset that setting up for banquets would be weird hours and hard work, but it'd be offset by the serving and bartending that actually would be useful, fun, and more lucrative. My first day at work yesterday did not live up to my expectations, however, and looking at the schedule, I do not seem to be on the list of servers or bartenders. This could simply be because they haven't trained me as such yet, but the set-ups seems to be a different department almost, and I don't know of any other crossovers. Thus, I intend to talk to one of the managers during my next shift on Friday to find out about when they plan to train me as a server. If they don't, I will begin looking for other employment immediately. I already turned down three other interviews because I assumed this would be a better job. I wish now that I hadn't. We'll see, this could still turn out to be OK, but first impressions weren't great. Not a fan of coming in at 6, leaving at 6:35, and returning from 10pm to 12:30am either. The 9pm to 4am shifts will be worse though at least. This is why I go to an advanced liberal arts institution, this is not what I want to do with my life...
That's it for now. I'll try to keep you all more involved in my day to day events, thoughts, and opinions, and I'll keep the writing and music coming. Until next time, enjoy the weather!
So while I'm writing my new music review, I might as well briefly update what's been going on in my life. I finished my most intense and eventful semester to date about a month ago. I went to Rome with the Newman Community at Colgate over spring break, which I'll post some pictures from and some brief summaries, but I'll try to keep it brief because I have a tendency to include way more information than any casual reader has time or interest for. I have a new girlfriend, official as of about a month ago, whom I met back in February. It's been a crazy whirlwind few months, but I couldn't be happier now. She visited me this past weekend, and just about every plan we had went perfectly.
Here's a picture of us hiking and a couple of us at Longwood Gardens:
I've also resurrected my old poetry forum site, Café Poetica and am always looking for new members to come read and post. I got a deviantArt account at Ashley's prompting as well to showcase my poetry.
After months upon months of failure at finding internships and jobs (including my preferred grant for independent history research at school), I finally found a job that seemed at least tolerable in the area here. I'd rather be at school obviously, but there's still things to do at home. The job was supposed to be a multiple-position job working banquets at the Holiday Inn. I was/am under the impression that I would be trained in serving, bartending, bussing, and set-ups. I knew from the outset that setting up for banquets would be weird hours and hard work, but it'd be offset by the serving and bartending that actually would be useful, fun, and more lucrative. My first day at work yesterday did not live up to my expectations, however, and looking at the schedule, I do not seem to be on the list of servers or bartenders. This could simply be because they haven't trained me as such yet, but the set-ups seems to be a different department almost, and I don't know of any other crossovers. Thus, I intend to talk to one of the managers during my next shift on Friday to find out about when they plan to train me as a server. If they don't, I will begin looking for other employment immediately. I already turned down three other interviews because I assumed this would be a better job. I wish now that I hadn't. We'll see, this could still turn out to be OK, but first impressions weren't great. Not a fan of coming in at 6, leaving at 6:35, and returning from 10pm to 12:30am either. The 9pm to 4am shifts will be worse though at least. This is why I go to an advanced liberal arts institution, this is not what I want to do with my life...
That's it for now. I'll try to keep you all more involved in my day to day events, thoughts, and opinions, and I'll keep the writing and music coming. Until next time, enjoy the weather!
Monday, April 5, 2010
New poem: Shapes
I know it's been a long time since my last post. March was a month of hell as far as work goes, and this next one doesn't look much better, but I'll be trying to post some highlights from my Rome trip in the form of concise (as much as possible) journal entries and some pictures as well in the next few days or so. I'm also hoping to have time for a review or two, but time is short so we'll see.
This is a poem I wrote based on a subject that Ashley gave me as a starting point. Then it developed a bit and took on a whole new meaning entirely, which is where all good starting points should lead.
Shapes
What say you, I cried, O dollop of cotton?
You in your intangible transitory imagination
What do you contain of destiny?
What say you of the past?
Or are you merely the romance of grassy lovers
Content with uncertainty, fleeting and ephemeral
The shape of things to come, unseen by one
Yet so plainly revealed to the other
The elephant in the newly painted blue room
Coming between them already, even as it changes
Dissipating into nebulous vapor
A wisp of a dream that was once a future
Blending into the deepening shades
And is gone forever.
This is a poem I wrote based on a subject that Ashley gave me as a starting point. Then it developed a bit and took on a whole new meaning entirely, which is where all good starting points should lead.
Shapes
What say you, I cried, O dollop of cotton?
You in your intangible transitory imagination
What do you contain of destiny?
What say you of the past?
Or are you merely the romance of grassy lovers
Content with uncertainty, fleeting and ephemeral
The shape of things to come, unseen by one
Yet so plainly revealed to the other
The elephant in the newly painted blue room
Coming between them already, even as it changes
Dissipating into nebulous vapor
A wisp of a dream that was once a future
Blending into the deepening shades
And is gone forever.
Monday, February 22, 2010
Torch (draft)
This hasn't been revised yet, but here is the working draft of my most recent poem.
Torch
Hindered revolutionary silence among the common lands
The lightning-sweet bite of air, the fiery passion
Cannisters of vapor, spider-silk, they are the dreams of men
Men who had long ceased their mournful perambulations
Wanderers who never had a home, levies without fire or water
The boundary between their souls and everyone else.
Oh sugary flame, how the single torch borne aloft
The glazing glare, how it consumes even the most insignificant
And they burst forth with acclamations of irrepressible joy
The stentorian tones of one drowning out the rest
Distorted, clanging, the acid in the well-spring
Meek and dead to the method, they do not question
A pinwheel of bright images, revolving round and round
Eternally spinning the flashing idols to the weary
With their bright speckled faces and yellow-parchment hearts
Blank and yielding to the slightest indentation, insensitive pressure,
Oh fruitless rage! Oh pinwheel of poison! Oh sinful flame!
I've stepped forth into a world of demagogues and demigods
Of the knowledge of good and evil
Of the tattered and torn hearts and garments of the flood
When the levy breaks, who will carry you home?
When the tide of retribution has drowned the flame
Who will show you a world free from sin
When shards of bitterness and a frenzy of confusion
Have dragged the embers of doubt into the swaying poppies
Igniting the brushfire, leaving nothing but heart-rending silence
Yet there is joy in those green-valley eyes
In those endless swirling molecules that froth and foam
In the quelled quarrels of multitudinous sick hearts
For in those days, there never will be the acidic strokes
Or blinding carousels of misfortune and lies
Only the torch with its crisp-crackling flavor of peace.
Torch
Hindered revolutionary silence among the common lands
The lightning-sweet bite of air, the fiery passion
Cannisters of vapor, spider-silk, they are the dreams of men
Men who had long ceased their mournful perambulations
Wanderers who never had a home, levies without fire or water
The boundary between their souls and everyone else.
Oh sugary flame, how the single torch borne aloft
The glazing glare, how it consumes even the most insignificant
And they burst forth with acclamations of irrepressible joy
The stentorian tones of one drowning out the rest
Distorted, clanging, the acid in the well-spring
Meek and dead to the method, they do not question
A pinwheel of bright images, revolving round and round
Eternally spinning the flashing idols to the weary
With their bright speckled faces and yellow-parchment hearts
Blank and yielding to the slightest indentation, insensitive pressure,
Oh fruitless rage! Oh pinwheel of poison! Oh sinful flame!
I've stepped forth into a world of demagogues and demigods
Of the knowledge of good and evil
Of the tattered and torn hearts and garments of the flood
When the levy breaks, who will carry you home?
When the tide of retribution has drowned the flame
Who will show you a world free from sin
When shards of bitterness and a frenzy of confusion
Have dragged the embers of doubt into the swaying poppies
Igniting the brushfire, leaving nothing but heart-rending silence
Yet there is joy in those green-valley eyes
In those endless swirling molecules that froth and foam
In the quelled quarrels of multitudinous sick hearts
For in those days, there never will be the acidic strokes
Or blinding carousels of misfortune and lies
Only the torch with its crisp-crackling flavor of peace.
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