Month: July 2004

Categories
book personal

Sparse hair and an air of disparity

Okay, so I lied.
It’s not yet Friday
(as my keen-minded readers have surely noticed),
yet here I am, blogging! The humanity!

It’s Wednesday, yes, and I am in Boulder, yes, and it is sunny though it will rain today, yes, and this library is quite big, yes indeed. And as interested as I was in seeing what the library would be like, I admit that it was only an ulterior motive, a far second to my terrible internet addiction. Yes yes yes.

Tomorrow my odyssey begins anew,
blessed by Pallas Athena and all that,
you know. I’ve been making good time,
so perhaps even Hermes is looking after me a bit.
In the meantime, Boulder is your quintessential,
very tres hip college sort of town,
with myriad street performers like so many
toy robots, wound up and let loose in
the busy plazas.

I had coffee and a blackberry-chocolate scone,
two cigarettes – so far today.
I crave sustenance.
My driving arm is crab-apple red,
which is better than sea-cucumber purple;
I have two days yet to work on that.

The Boulder bookstore is large and
reminds me of the bookstore in Cambridge.
However, their selection of graphic novels
is far inferior. Pity. And I’ve a horrible
compulsion to buy books (lots of them), though
that would just be one more thing I would have
to tote along with me for 1300 miles –
and I’ve got a budget you know, and all that.
Sooooo, no books for me. *big sigh*

That sums up my traveler’s notes thus far.
Nebraska is still my least favorite state,
ever. My car WILL survive the next two days
(I hope), and Olympia will be there waiting for me.

Watch out for cyclops and sirens;
I’ve seen my share of the latter.
Now, back to the underworld I go,
and all will be grand if
I can keep from looking back.

Categories
love personal

So long; farewell; baby, bye-bye…

Well, this is it, here and now.
I’ve packed, and I’m ready,
and tomorrow morning begins a grand adventure;
or at least a long, long drive.

Farewell Ohio.
Farewell Oberlin.
Farewell Emily,
you most of all.

No updates on this blog ’til after Friday.
Cope, I know it’s hard.

I love you all –
goodnight!

Categories
love personal

Li-ke-Ho-rn-bl-ow-er-sl-ed-er-ho-se-n

Twenty-six hundred miles from now,
my life will have changed,
incontrovertibly; what’s more,
irrevocably. And your life too.

I feel a bit like I’ve been pulled into the wrong war. My body ripped to shreds over a conflict that is not, fundamentally, mine. So do soldiers feel on the battlefield: whose war is this?

I’ve got a lot of anger now,
that I need to learn to deal with.
I’ve got too much silence that
I need to learn to control;
or let go. It leaks from my pores.
Expect from me but silence,
at least for a little while.
I have no marks to differentiate:
my silence from my noise.

Goodbye; Farewell, Ohio.
Partings are bitter,
salty. I hope that when I emerge,
newborn, on the new frontier;
that you will see a stronger side of me.

“I am here to live out loud.”
-Emile Zola

Categories
love personal poetic

Battle without honor or humanity

She knows that all spinning tops
must fall. Nonetheless,
she snaps her fingers;
begins to fit the noose.

Had I the choice, I
would have mastered perpetual motion.

Categories
cinema

Spider-Man 2

The movie Spider-Man 2 is a giant, steaming pile of horse-shit.
I want my $3 back. I mean:

1. How many god-damned shots of Peter Parker looking pensive do we need to get the picture, “Yeah, he’s struggling with being a hero and being a person … AND?” Seriously, I don’t think a solid half-hour of the screentime needs to be devoted solely to Tobey Maguire’s friggin’ face. He’s not even that good looking.

2. Spider-Man is set apart from other superheroes really by one thing. He has a knack, really an incredible talent, for witty repartee in the heat of combat. No matter what the situation, he’s got something funny and completely asinine to say, and I like that about him. So, how many witty remarks does he make in this movie? None, zilch, zip, zero — I swear he doesn’t say a damn thing while he’s fighting, except to yell “Aunt May!” and “I’ll save you.” What crap.

3. The entire premise for the character struggle: Peter Parker can’t succesfully be both a good nephew, college student, employee and Spider-Man all at the same time, is shown ineffectively. We get one solid example, when he misses MJ’s play the first time — but that says nothing about his employment or studies. Sure, yeah, being Spider-Man is taking up all his time, but you could at least take a second to show us how.

4. Docter Octopus is not some nice guy scientist who things go wrong for and who goes a little crazy when he and his arms start to disagree on things. He’s a bad guy. Bad guys should have one thing going for them: they should be unlikable. Not some pansy, misunderstood man just trying to do right in his own, whacked-out way. Evil, malicious, cunning, and nasty! I’m tired of them feeling like villains need to be crazy or misunderstood. There are genuinely mean and evil people out there, who are just plain, well … mean! Why the smoke screen?

5. Which leads me to the movie’s whole rated-G-ness. Not a drop of blood (Peter gets a scratch or two, a couple bruises), not a single swear word. In a word, nothing that would so much as upset a 5-year-old. Spider-Man’s biggest fans are in their teens and twenties anymore, we don’t need this pampered bullshit. I’m not looking for an x-rated blood and gore-fest either, but a little blood can really help the realism; a well-placed swaer-word can help character believability. Spider-Man in fucking Candyland, I swear.

6. Pacing. That was the most horribly paced action/adventure type movie I have ever seen. Also, the CG sucked by today’s standards. Mostly just with the broad, web-swinging shots.

I’m a big, big fan of Spider-Man. I have been since like 1990. As such, I simply cannot condone this movie. Therefore, I will be making my own sequel, in it:

Spider-Man won’t be a whiny, pensive little wimp. And he’ll have his witty repartee back. Also, there will be ABSOLUTELY none of this: self-doubt equals Spider-Man loses his powers crap. That was the most ridiculous, sophomoric philoso-hero psyche side-story I hope I ever have to sit through.

Doc Ock will be an evil genious. None of this misunderstood, insane crap. He’s a bad, bad man.

Harry will go mad and discover the Green Goblin suit at the beginning of the movie, thus giving Spider-Man two villains to deal with. There will be more interplay between Harry and MJ and Peter, because it’s an interesting love triangle.

Cameo appearances by other Marvel superheroes. Nothing big, just show the audience that these people all exist in the same universe, and open up some doors for future movies.

That’s all for now. I plan on suing Sam Raimi personally for pain and suffering. It’s too bad, I kinda like the guy, but he should have known better.

One last note: Bruce Campbell is still awesome.

Categories
personal poetic

Hotter than Meursault on the beach

I envy the mind of whoever
thought that up as a pick-up line; 
I doubt I could pull it off.

“Tick-tock, tick-tock.” says
the green crocodile, smiling behind me.
Time passes spasmodically,
without explaining itself.
Thoughts are mercurial;
hesitate on the razor-balance of
too rushed and too idle.

It’s in between the good times that
I feel like Sisyphus, and even like
Meursault. Times like now when all
movement is a relentless thrust upward,
and great energies are expended for
some purposeless toil.
This is what stars feel like. 

Things make more sense in hindsight.
I wonder if Sisyphus,
ever stops his push and turns
to look back down the mountain.

Categories
love personal

The hiatus is back off, again

The house is strangely empty as I prepare my departure. Only one week now. The dining room table is gone, as is the futon, the chest in the movie room, drawers and plants. Too empty to be austere. Emily and I have spent time together these last couple days, preparing for the best of all possible break-ups … still a break-up and I shouldn’t try to fool myself about that.

People at work threw me a bonfire going-away party.
It was an eye-opener, but these things always
come too late. Too late, really, to discover
the humanity surrounding those I work with.
Soon enough, they’ll be but shadows in my memories,
as I will be in theirs.

Categories
personal poetic

Haiku You

Post-work ritual:
porch-sit sunset,
cigarette and a beer.

Categories
book cinema music

Sisyphus seeks employment…

… skills: pushing boulders up mountains; having boulders fall down mountains; pushing boulders up mountains, again – cursed by gods to do this for eternity. References: Albert Camus – Camus says, “We must imagine Sisyphus happy.”

On the big speakers: Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Reading: The Tale of Despereaux; Kate DiCamillo

I meant to say this awhile ago,
but I forgot, so I’ll say it now.
Anyone who has not yet watched,
“FAHRENHEIT 9/11″ –
GO WATCH IT NOW!
Go ahead, I’ll wait.
Seriously. Whether or not you agree
with Michael Moore,
this film deserves to be seen.

Anyone who stops by here more often that occasionally may have noticed that I’ve included links and such on the sidebar. I’m also thinking about a complete template overhaul in the near future. Too much black at the moment. Anyway, if anyone knows of any particularly fantastic links/webcomics/blogs I should know about, please do tell.

Categories
personal

Happy Bastille Day!

Today, July 14th, is France’s Independence Day, also called Bastille Day. For a brief summary of the significance and history of this day, click here.

I, for one, think that France is awesome.

Holy crap, Theo! It’s a picture of the St. James!

Lyon is my favorite city in France, and Vieux Lyon is my favorite part of Lyon (and where I lived for about two months). Just above La Place de la Baleine, to be exact. Good times.

My Favorite Museum in Paris
French Cinema
Club des Poetes
French blogger nearly arrested
Fromage et Vin
French Comics

That’s enough for now, I suppose. Go France!

Categories
book cinema music personal

No such word as “cipitate”

Today, the sky precipitates cipitation.
It’s as if a mist hasn’t exactly fallen,
but risen from the ground up –
invisible and damp and thick.
My lungs feel like sponges,
tarred and viscid;
my heart beats double-time to keep up.

We have, tentatively, a house in Olympia.
A nice 4-bedroom westside mansion,
except much, much smaller than a mansion,
and it needs some yard-work.
Still, can’t beat the rent.

On the big speakers: Joss Stone
Reading: Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World;
Haruki Murakami

Last night I cleaned some,
made some phone calls,
and watched Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

Things to do in Olympia when I’m dead:
Swing-Dance: no idea how active the swing scene is now.
French: tutor, speak, translate, read – rediscover.
Madden: kick some butt.
Write: I’ve got some good ideas brewing.
Laser-tag: ’cause Evergreen is the best damned battleground.
Poetry: there should still be an open mike or two around.
Guitar: actual, real lessons, so I don’t play like an ass.
Aikido: if I can swing it, financially.

The hypotenuse of an hypothesis is
the shortest distance between two ideas.
Or the longest.
I just felt like saying that.

Categories
humor

A Brief Jot

I admit, most of the time,
I feel pretty blasé about The Onion.
However, this particular article
I thoroughly enjoyed.

Nation’s Liberals Suffering From Outrage Fatigue

So true.
And hey look, I can code in HTML …
well, sorta.

Categories
cinema work

Dieu est grand, je suis tout petit …

… was a cute movie, but I don’t think I got much out of it.
Other than the fact that Audrey Tautou is awesome, of course.
But I already knew that. On a few levels,
the movie actually aggravated me.
Arguments are trifling; beliefs are vapid;
love is nothing more than a heavy make-out session.
Audrey’s awesome, but if I ever dated her character
in this movie, I would strangle her. Swear to Dieu.

Today is a Sunday.
Day’s off are long, plodding beasts.
I almost miss work, as it makes time pass.
Tomorrow marks two weeks until I leave.
Excitement and trepidation;
a burden and a lightening around my heart.
Lightning around my heart – but I don’t know
what that means anymore.

Categories
music

Prozac Minority

Crack of dawn the rooster moans
Wake up boy you’re far from home
Serpentine the tracks in flames
Longest path the devil laid
Led you straight aboard this rusty train

Lift your head cuz you can’t sleep
Bite your lip cuz you can’t eat
Darkest den the devil made
Jesus weeps but he’s been paid
Not to ride inside this rusty train

Buzzard’s breath the rooster moans
Stow it boy you’re far from home
Stow your sorrows stow your fear
What’d you do to end up here
End up on the devil’s rusty train

-Iron & Wine, The Rooster Moans

And I say “Good morning” to the world.
But I’m lying.

Categories
love personal work

My endless numbered day off

Sometimes it’s difficult to keep silence at bay.
It threatens to overwhelm me.
Especially this long Friday,
my day off. The house is empty,
save for Moko and I. The Sun makes
fraudulent attempts at cheer –
sunlight and shadow, coins and paradox,
everywhere elements of duality.

Today my car got its “summer care” package.
A first step in what may soon become
a mad flurry of activity, centered around
my leave-taking. I am ready for a new beginning,
but am forced to procrastination.
A work-ethic sense of responsibility,
to a job that’s never given reason to
deserve it. True, I enjoyed my job;
and I am leaving none too soon.
Responsibility and compensation;
an employment duality. It is too often
skewed towards responsibility.
Compensation gets the shaft.
What a world, what a world.

Two Mormon missionaries came to my doorstep today.
I stood out on the porch and spoke with them
for about 10 minutes. I told them that I
was in a good place, spiritually, and that I
begrudged no-one the right to their own beliefs.
They said it was nice to talk to people,
even those like myself who had no particular interest
in church; better than getting doors slammed in their faces.
They were nice, and it served me well to remember:
we are all suffering through our own experiences,
fighting to determine our unique senses of humanity.
Make the best of today, speak with the people
who knock on your door. Belief systems aside,
we are all struggling to be human.
Existential to the bone, am I.

The Oberlin Library is going through something similar
to what the Grafton Library is going through.
The Board meets, middle management is cut –
everyone will do everything like a true
communist state. But again, compensation is never equal.
All these decision-makers, deliberating,
and they’ve no idea how a library runs.
Those who run the scut-work of 9-5 understand;
and are kept far from the decision-making process.

Olympia beckons like a dream;
one with too much reality.
After all, these are not the problems
of living in a certain place.
These are the questions that haunt my humanity.
They will surely follow me.

Emily keeps me at bay.
We held each other for an hour,
shared a beautiful moment – now
she wants nothing that will make
parting more painful.
I want anything that will make
these last two weeks less so.

The fatal difference of perspectives.

Categories
personal poetic work

The closing breaths of a long weekend

This weekend, I basked in unrepentant sloth:
watched movies, read, blogged and surfed and emailed;
I captured the very essence of laze.

Now this long weekend pulls its closing breath,
toil and bustle are my bunk-mates for the week;
raucous, crude and ignoble beasts.
I’ve little choice in the matter.
As with us all, the basest demands of
our humanity: eat, sleep, warm;
in turn demand industry, the
scutwork of nine-to-five –
thrum-thrum-thrum – and heartbeats
measure seconds in the work-day,
and seconds count the long hours down;
but slowly. The work-week is time’s
opportunity for indolence; it passes sluggishly.

ENOUGH!

It’s little use to bask in my drudgery.
My fingers are neither cracked nor raw
from long days in cotton fields.
I’ve known no days under hot suns,
amidst stinging insects and sugar-cane.
Every step of every day has been my own
and I will allow no regrets to cast
their shadows over the journeys that lay ahead.

The inchworm inches.
Ibsen idly switches
Pavlov’s hitches:
machines to measure men,
not bitches.
A heartbeat frantic twitches;
no pedantic riches halt –
time moves in stitches,
inching inches which is
over time, feet.
The road is lined with ditches,
niches, and is miles long.
Over time, the inchworm inched,
flinched,
and finished;
a journey of a few feet,
yet still –
complete.

Categories
love music personal

“Love and some verses”

“Love is a dress that you made
Long to hide your knees
Love to say this to your face
I love you only
For your days and excitement
What will you keep for to wear?
Someday drawing you different
May I be weaved in your hair

Love and some verses you hear
Say what you can say
Love to say this in your ear
I’ll love you that way
From your changing contentment
What will you choose for to share?
Someday drawing you different
May I be weaved in your hair”

– Iron & Wine, “Love and some verses”

A quiet night – no thunder over my lawn,
mini-lightning strikes feel soft,
like pillows to rest my thoughts.
I’d lie in bed,
curved at the stomach and
hungry, but
I know I will go unsoothed.

Instead, I sit out on the deck,
watch lightning strike –
like it once did.

Categories
book cinema personal

Trippin’ the energy electric

Winds blowing strong, and I hear thunder in the distance. We get a lot of false warnings here, thunderclaps in the background and blows past us, miles away. I hope it blows directly over my head. I could use a good thunderstorm.

I finished watching the first season of “24″ last night. Absolutely amazing series; but, as all things that run for so long and then end, the ending itself was a let-down. It reminds me of the anime series “Berserk”, where none of the main characters die at any point during the show, so you expect them to live through it all, and then BAM! – everyone, EVERYONE! dies in the last two episodes. “Cowboy Bebop” kills off Spike in the last episode; and “Neon Genesis: Evangelion” – hoo boy, I don’t even want to talk about that ending (though I guess there is a new ending I haven’t seen yet). Having invested so much time in these series, a crappy ending really is a huge let-down. Also, in the case of “24″, too many of the characters started to annoy me. I began to guess who the traitors were, what the plot-twists would be, etc; and I was always right. Very annoying. There is a lot of character action, but not as much character growth as I like to see when I’ve invested so much time into them. I will make allowances that most shows span days, weeks, and months; while “24″ only spans one day – even so. RAR.

I got an email from my most excellent friend, Daniel. He is back in the States, which is excellent; and I get to see him in August, at the latest, which is most excellent indeed. It’s been too long, and too much seperation from my friends – I’d like to just start some commune somewheres where we can all just live on the land and hang. Realistically, though, I really do think it’s good that we’ve all had our own adventures, far away though they might have taken us. We have each grown, learned; and remained friends, which is the most important. Even so, I ache to see them all again.

I’ve been reading the book, “Eats, Shoots & Leaves”. So I’m now mildly obsessed with punctuation, though I still have no clue whether or not I am semicoloning correctly. The one way I really grasp it thus far is that it is useful to prevent confusion in lists, by setting groups off from each other. For instance, a phrase: “The school had to choose between the colors: red, white and gold; orange, blue and grey; or magenta and cyan.” Very useful in this sense. I know there are other ways to use it, and I’m experimenting haphazardly; if you are a true and real punctuation stickler, please offer your advice. As Lynne Truss mentions, the biggest danger of the semicolon is its addictiveness. Like a drug; I need to get my fix, but I don’t want to abuse it.

Categories
love personal

Up too late …

It’s not that late, yet, but my brain feels fried by: time off, future considerations, watching “24″ entirely too much, and general uncertainty. It’s hard to pack up your life and move, but perhaps it’s even harder still just to consider it. The doing is easier than the thinking about. So, for now, I’ll stop thinking about it.

Eyes wary, like I was a wolf wandered in from the wilderness, unpredictable. I’m fairly calm, simple; I don’t feel much like a wolf at all until those eyes are on me. Still, I wonder how much of it is all in my head. I wonder how my eyes portray my vision, and I’m not even sure of what it is I see. That’s all a bit vague, I realize, but my brain is numb tonight – a pulsating, electric cotton-ball; synapses not firing, but perhaps – letting off the occasional back-fire.

I told Emily that I think she made the right decision:
that we need time and the chance to change,
and to become the people we yearn to be.
I still don’t know how our relationship
slowed this down. But I think she may be right.
From my perspective, it was not the only decision.
It is, however, the decision that has been made.
And I do, I really do, think it was one of the right ones.

All that’s left: take advantage –
all things in life present an opportunity.
Carpe Diem you know,
and all that.

Categories
personal

Reactions and reconsequences

Since I’m proud of thus far being able to blog every night, I here refuse to give in to the slack-monster and skip a day. However, I warn you now that I feel I have little to say at present time. I suppose, first off, I will set in stone here my coinage of the term “reconsequence” – use it as you like, just remember the genius madman that first came up with it. It even sounds nice with a french pronunciation: ray-kon-say-kon-seh (with proper nasals and only a very light “seh” at the end).

Random facts about me:

I’m a hardcore liberal.
Blackberry pie is my favorite.
I spent three months in France, once.
I have the strangest Russian accent, ever.
I’ve been addicted to Everquest,
multiple times.
Washington is the best state ever.
I like Volkswagens.
Sam Beam inspires me.
I suck at keeping in touch with friends.
Blue surreal fandango porpoise.

I’d feel much obliged to anyone
who has come here and read my blog,
to post a comment.
I have none as yet,
and I feel somewhat slighted.

I am constantly working on learning to replace my arrogance with the proper mix of confidence and humility. I can be arrogantly humble (imagine that), and confidently arrogant. I’m sure I can work it out in the long.