Is the poetry scene at the Apache Cafe on Sunday night worth checking out? I’ll be in Atlanta Sunday night and it’s around the corner from my hotel.
ETA: So based on this, looks like I’ll be visiting Java Monkey on Sunday night in Atlanta. Hope to see y’all in the neighborhood there!
and I’m voting Green again.
A pretty decent take on a lot of my feelings is here.
Put simply, Biden rubs me all kinds of raw and has for years. The choice is just offensive. The “I have a long way to go, and look how I’ve learned to adapt” argument described in the article doesn’t wash for me, and the choice stinks of caving to conventional wisdom.
If someone had said something like that about me, he’d never have been on the list to be considered.
The illusion was nice while it lasted.
I’d like to introduce you to something I hope you’ll find interesting:
I recommend you read it a couple of times as is before you explore it in depth.
Really, really interested in seeing what you think. Let me know, and feel free to friend “him” if you want.
This is just a starting point, and I can’t wait to see what develops.
Many of you have contacted me about my post of a couple of days ago that looked like a private post. The one that said, more or less:
If you can read this,
you’re the only one
who can read this.
As you may have guessed, that was a post to my entire friends’ list. Anyone on my friends’ list could read it.
A little sneaky, but I did it as a sort of opening shot on a project I’m thinking about.
Specifically, I’m thinking of creating a poem or series of poems that take advantage of the unique structure of LJ — that would contain links, LJ cut text, filtered links leading to sections of the poem locked to some folks and not to others, sections of the poem in comments fields, etc. I’m not sure yet exactly how to do it, how to begin, or anything more than that broad concept, really; I’m just thinking at this point about using the functionality of the site to create an unusual art project that stretches and challenges how we think about blogging, the tension between public and private thought, the use of hyperlinking, whatever. I figure it will evolve with time, and I may not start it for a week or two simply because I’ve got limited time to work on it till then and I want to “storyboard” the initial sections, so to speak, before I begin.
If you were fooled by this and are offended, I’m sorry; call it a little experiment that went a little astray in the execution. But I’m definitely moving forward with this — maybe even to the point of creating a new username to put it under.
Any thoughts? Who would be interested in being a party to this if I move forward with it?
It doesn’t matter
what you’re thinking.
You’re too small to think.
You’re too small to bother with.
One bad experience doesn’t make up
for a lifetime of ease.
You don’t get to say otherwise.
You don’t have a right to feel persecuted.
Still — you wanna be haunted? Looking for
an exorcism, but want it done by a spoiled priest
to make it feel slightly dirty
but still a bit legit,
strong enough for to claim absolution
but not strong enough to require penance?
You aren’t worth a ghost’s bother —
certainly, you’re not worth mine.
Keep looking.
And cross the street
if you see me coming —
I’m not your kind of confessor.
The natural order
is this:
first, we breathe,
then, we cry.
Nursing, sleeping, dreaming,
eating, drinking, elimination
all follow,
but the breathing is constant,
will be often unnoticed,
will be sweet and foul equally,
continues through smiling, laughing,
writhing, crawling, walking,
reading, writing, eventually
sex and its attendant foibles,
compounded from everything already mentioned,
working — grieving and recovery,
losing, winning, parenting
and more of all the above, and still
the breathing continues, up until
it stops, forgotten at once upon cessation
along with everything else.
We create so much along the rails of breath,
marking the events
left trackside as being our truest expression
when the miracle
is measured in breath upon breath
taken in spite
of all the rest,
and in our continual recovery
from the first sharp cry we gave
after drawing the ripe tang of the world
into our lungs —
why do we focus on the crying and laughter,
desiring one over the other
when the breathing is what remains constant?
We are not made to be happy or sad forever:
we were meant only to breathe,
and to count the rest of it as mere consequence,
just the fruit
of the natural order,
just the rumble of a train
going home.
And my AM shuttle to the airport comes at 5 AM.
So therefore…off to bed…
More tomorrow.
Boring, eh?
ANNND, now, posting from my least favorite place on earth: O’Hare Airport. At least, stuck until the flight leaves at 1:30. I got here at 9:30 AM.
I’m bored.
A couple of Tecate beers are helping with that, at least for the moment.
I do usually run into some one I know, or at least some kind of minor celebrity, at O’Hare. No sightings yet.
Austin, it’ll be good to see you.
ALSO: new spoken word streaming station is up! Some Duende this week, as well as a couple of other folks you may know:
http://vocalizedink.ning.com/xn/detail/2034477:BlogPost:19481
I am going to Austin for work on Sunday. (Sorry, Austin crew — no real time to socialize; the last two trips have been whirlwinds so I’m not even going to try and make plans…they inevitably go awry.)
Which means I don’t have to choose between two killer events on Sunday night in Worcester:
One — the mighty MOLLY MEACHAM will be at the Poets’ Asylum at Jumpin’ Juice and Java, 335 Chandler St, at 6:00 PM;
Two — the equally mighty YOMO TORO and FRANKIE MORALES are playing for free at the Latin Festival on the Common, 7:30-9:00.
I adore Yomo Toro, sometimes called the “Jimi Hendrix of the cuatro,” an instrument I’ve been fascinated with for more years than I can recall. And to see him with Morales and crew would be wonderful.
Here’s a clip from YouTube:
Ain’t he the coolest cat since sliced bread?
why I’m posting this…
In fact, it’s a very sad story. Be warned, those of a sensitive nature:; some of the comments people post here in response will likely seem, um, irreverent:
http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/08/15/shaken.baby/index.html?iref=mpstoryview
Several aborted fetuses refused to comment. (I warned you.)
Christ, I want to put other voices
into the heads of these people:
put a strong woman’s voice into
the head of the jock at the back table,
the one who won’t talk, who juggles his facade
of listening to me with his fascination
with the Blackberry; make that redhead next to him
do more than nod, switch out her monosyllables
for the chirp of the little guy at the front of the room
who has a story for every thought anyone utters,
and they’re off point, every last one; because I think
she’s with me and I want to know more about her, how she thinks,
what she has to say about work and how it goes for her
in meetings where it’s always like this, with the loudmouths
doing all the talking or the ones whose attitudes come through
without saying a word and whose attitudes color the atmosphere
in this breakout space with no room to do more
than sit nearly in each other’s laps and take the measure
of how the middle aged trainer is handling the pressure
of the long silences, of them sitting on their hands
every time I ask a question designed to get at something,
how it is for them, do they get what they need
at work, do they let their employees speak up, ask them
who they are, how they are, what they want, what they need.
The whole world loathes a trainer. We even loathe ourselves: too often
we bore ourselves with what we have to say. We’d rather
shake them, walk out when they’re silent,
toss a slide into the regulation Powerpoint
that suggests that the key to good leadership is to shut up and pay attention
to what’s around them, get to know their people
as if they were people instead of collections of aggravations —
which of course, is just how I see them right now: just faces, types, full of disdain
for the guy asking them how they think and feel,
trying to get them to turn to each other and say, “Yes, I hear you,
and it’s that way for me too — we need to talk more and remember
who we are no matter how we dress or talk.” I earn my living this way
and there are days I hate it as much as I hate anything
I have to do: comfort the unwilling, dance for the blind,
make a monkey of myself to get them laughing; I’m just another clown here,
and I don’t know how to get out of it,
to start being worthy of the role,
to start acting like I really mean it when I say
we have to be more to each other,
we have to give a shit about each other.
Dark Matter 