"Love yourself and be awake--
today, tomorrow, and always.
First establish yourself in the way,
then teach others,
and so defeat sorrow.
To straighten the crooked
you must first do the harder thing--
straighten yourself.
You are your only master,
who else?
Subdue yourself, and discover your master."
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
Friday, March 16, 2007
Kiss Off
"I hope you know
that this will go down
on your permanent record
Oh yeah?
Well dont get so distressed.
Did I happen to mention that I'm impressed?"
Last night, I saw a great friend of mine play in his band, The Telepaths. The show was a breast cancer cure fundraiser, and, having nearly missed early detection four years ago (yes, I almost even missed finding the inkling of possible cancer had it not been for my intuition and insistence), I believe any type of awareness is positively vital, no matter how small a gathering. Everything counts in large amounts, the boys from Essex said.
The Telepaths are comprised of my buddy PMcD; a blast from my high school past who used to call everyone "a piece of shit"; Cory from the popular group The Cells (for last night); and genius James (White Wolf), the other half to my previous workmate, Carla (Sonic Princess). The Telepaths did a raw version of "Cover Me" (Springsteen), a kickin' cover of "Dirty Work" (Steely Dan) and a dirrrty version of "Area 51" (with Hoopa Freaks)! I much enjoyed the soulful, searching ballad for "Susan Sontag".
This all got me thinking about live band karaoke and what song I'd do. This one (Kiss Off-Femmes) is angry, and I'm not angry, but I imagine I could twist my pipes around it and really get salty on stage.
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
Ring Tones
I don't give a shit about your ring tone. They have become the new "life flair". They are so Spencer Gifts. If you feel the need to define yourself by a noise, then fart. It would be far more profound.
Monday, March 12, 2007
Elevation
My encounters in the elevator in my building have spurned the idea that universal consciousness has never been so relevant as it is in this day and age. As I age and observe people observing me, a young woman, I still do not realize that my perception of myself is expertly cloaked beneath the veil of a world-weary woman. (This is the air I give off though I have no clue from where it hails). Or it could be that it is purely sexual, a primal driving force bubbling under the surface of every man. I could claim the latter, and though my few experiences have been with men, I do get knowing looks in the elevator from women, and even significant interchanges with them. I recall an cluster of Indian women one evening, all elegantly ornamented in beautiful silken saris, glowing from a wedding celebration, laughing and sharing with me their joy.
There is a projection of yourself in your immediate space that you ooze, and human beings read these signals; the urge for human connection is evident more than ever before--even in a friendly city like Chicago where it is quite plausible for an immigrant of any nationality to come up to you on the street and tell you his or her life story.
But in the elevator, there is something about a chance encounter, a meeting with someone alone in an enclosed space for a brief moment in time, under harsh flourescent lights that evokes a spirit of interrogation and confession. I also attribute my reception of these encounters to the expressive nature of my face and spirit. I seem to invite storytellers to me. I should have been an investigative journalist or a psychologist.
My first encounter: a South African gentleman who kindly shared with me his short story of being in this country thus far. It was a recounting of how he was now somehow responsible for several payments for magazine subscriptions. I am sure he was coerced into them by slick advertisers (the likes of whom I know all too well). He was kind and extended his hand. I shook it and felt an awakening of my spirit then, how else to describe seeing a flash in my mind of long travels and distant lands, vegetation, wildlife I have only seen in photos. He had come so far and was proud to be here. He had warmth to give a small blonde girl in the elevator. There was an assurance that whatever trouble I had been grappling with in my mind at that moment, that it was insignificant in the grand scheme of life.
The second was with a small man of Serbian or Russian decent--it was difficult to localize his accent in a short span of time. He studied my face with such intensity I thought he might grab my face between his small, rough palms and devour me. After a moment, a voiced question with a soft caress to his own cheek, asking, "Of where I come from." I told him I was Lithuanian. He nodded and left the elevator, sure I was Swede or lying.
The next was with a man who opened a dialogue after I sighed painfully while waiting for the next car to arrive. "You look like you've been rode hard and put up wet." I remarked that that was one of the most unusual and fascinating expressions I'd heard in awhile. He countered with, "Well I'm a cowboy." I asked, "Oh, where are you from?" He answered, "I'm from the East coast originally, but I'm a Michigan cowboy. There's cowboys in Michigan, you know--where there's cows, there's cowboys." "Well, that makes sense," I said and began to study the numbers on the elevator hard. He got off at 16 telling me, "I'm the disappointment to the family. I left home, went off to Vietnam and fought, and went to school." I sarcastically commented, as the doors closed between us, "Yeah, that's pretty disappointing."
These chance encounters with characters in my life, like a waking dream journal (ala waking life) waiting to be seized, yearning for analysis based on the coincidence of their entrance into my consciousness.
There is a projection of yourself in your immediate space that you ooze, and human beings read these signals; the urge for human connection is evident more than ever before--even in a friendly city like Chicago where it is quite plausible for an immigrant of any nationality to come up to you on the street and tell you his or her life story.
But in the elevator, there is something about a chance encounter, a meeting with someone alone in an enclosed space for a brief moment in time, under harsh flourescent lights that evokes a spirit of interrogation and confession. I also attribute my reception of these encounters to the expressive nature of my face and spirit. I seem to invite storytellers to me. I should have been an investigative journalist or a psychologist.
My first encounter: a South African gentleman who kindly shared with me his short story of being in this country thus far. It was a recounting of how he was now somehow responsible for several payments for magazine subscriptions. I am sure he was coerced into them by slick advertisers (the likes of whom I know all too well). He was kind and extended his hand. I shook it and felt an awakening of my spirit then, how else to describe seeing a flash in my mind of long travels and distant lands, vegetation, wildlife I have only seen in photos. He had come so far and was proud to be here. He had warmth to give a small blonde girl in the elevator. There was an assurance that whatever trouble I had been grappling with in my mind at that moment, that it was insignificant in the grand scheme of life.
The second was with a small man of Serbian or Russian decent--it was difficult to localize his accent in a short span of time. He studied my face with such intensity I thought he might grab my face between his small, rough palms and devour me. After a moment, a voiced question with a soft caress to his own cheek, asking, "Of where I come from." I told him I was Lithuanian. He nodded and left the elevator, sure I was Swede or lying.
The next was with a man who opened a dialogue after I sighed painfully while waiting for the next car to arrive. "You look like you've been rode hard and put up wet." I remarked that that was one of the most unusual and fascinating expressions I'd heard in awhile. He countered with, "Well I'm a cowboy." I asked, "Oh, where are you from?" He answered, "I'm from the East coast originally, but I'm a Michigan cowboy. There's cowboys in Michigan, you know--where there's cows, there's cowboys." "Well, that makes sense," I said and began to study the numbers on the elevator hard. He got off at 16 telling me, "I'm the disappointment to the family. I left home, went off to Vietnam and fought, and went to school." I sarcastically commented, as the doors closed between us, "Yeah, that's pretty disappointing."
These chance encounters with characters in my life, like a waking dream journal (ala waking life) waiting to be seized, yearning for analysis based on the coincidence of their entrance into my consciousness.
Caught
Giant squid, the most giant squid, wrapped in cold salt of man's man's nets
I ate all the tentacles last night
Li Nan, Poet
"only those who do love
are far from love"
-Li Nan
LI NAN'S BOOK, SMALL AVAILABLE AT VISUAL ARTIST'S COLLECTIVE
are far from love"
-Li Nan
LI NAN'S BOOK, SMALL AVAILABLE AT VISUAL ARTIST'S COLLECTIVE
Tuesday, March 06, 2007
Pauses
RASA KALINAUSKAITE, a journalist from Vilnius:
"...when I construct voices by myself, a montage is done, performed by you - you cut out pauses. If we consider voice as a construct of modern epoch, that is the voice without pauses. These days, people avoid pauses, they fear pauses. Because voice without pauses is information...and the more information, the more it is valuable. Although I think that the voice principally resists such castration, as perhaps the most valuable elements are sighs, natural inhalations, exhalations, some kind of bodily physiology, everything what is inclusive in pauses...You just observe it how physical bits of voice...are cut out...the voice is no longer there…"
I have translated one of Kalinauskaite's poems, Coversations with Teo. I take great care in the pauses when reading.
"...when I construct voices by myself, a montage is done, performed by you - you cut out pauses. If we consider voice as a construct of modern epoch, that is the voice without pauses. These days, people avoid pauses, they fear pauses. Because voice without pauses is information...and the more information, the more it is valuable. Although I think that the voice principally resists such castration, as perhaps the most valuable elements are sighs, natural inhalations, exhalations, some kind of bodily physiology, everything what is inclusive in pauses...You just observe it how physical bits of voice...are cut out...the voice is no longer there…"
I have translated one of Kalinauskaite's poems, Coversations with Teo. I take great care in the pauses when reading.
Monday, March 05, 2007
Friday, March 02, 2007
Apoplectic Butterfly / Fin de siècle
winged and warping,current event raws her;
a vegetation still life,
garage slipcover, combustion dance,
this random cluster of cork
typical of the Aesthetic movements
fleshtones, flavors. agricola
and villa collide to make agrilla,
an Edwardian viceroy illustration
each line a place to burn
the census, thorax
threaded against time.
Published in Fifth Wednesday
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