Beyond the house, the moon,
cresting the single pine,
is pale with listening
to branches creak, needles
whispering…whispering.
Whispering…whispering…
in the bedroom, I rest
waiting for her return,
my mind whispering, Sleep,
The sun will bring her home.
Other favorites of 2009:
2009 was a great year for American poetry (I say American because I just tend to prefer American poetry, both historical and contemporary). And although I wasn’t able to read a great deal of the new stuff, I got my hands on enough of it to create a top five list!
5. Joel Brouwer, “And So”
Brouwer’s second collection of poetry, “And So”, is filled with some of the best relationship poetry I’ve read in years, not to mention he sticks to my favorite poem length (half to three-quarters of a page), although a few do run longer, but always for 
good reason, and never long enough to get boring or tedious. For my money, there is at least one absolutely must-read in this collection, and that is Mona Lisa, a masterstroke of a poem in which Brouwer recounts a visit to the Louvre to see the titular painting…or is he recounting a love affair he had? Or is he addressing the homeless problem? Or…wait…just what the hell is going on here? It never feels like trickery, but then again, it never feels simple, either.
4. Rita Dove’s “Sonata Mulattica”
I’ve never been much for the poetry of black women (this isn’t racist, people–it’s truly a variety of poetry, and I just plain don’t usually enjoy it), but I’ve never met anyone who could turn away from Rita Dove’s beautiful lyricism, or her unassuming innocence, or her righteous anger. This year’s addition, “Sonata Mulattica”, did not disappoint, although it certainly wasn’t “more of the same”. “Mulattica” is a book-length poem following the career of a real-life violin student of Haydn’s. Sound boring? It does sound boring. It is anything but.
3. Deborah Meadows’ “Goodbye Tissues”
I admit, I was very suspect of this from the start. I thought it was going to be “chick lit” poetry, and nothing sounded worse to me than that! But it got such a rave review in an issue of Poetry magazine early in the year–written by Billy Collins, no less–that I sucked it up and gave it a shot. And boy am I glad I did! Meadows is a tremendous new talent, and this collection, despite it’s hokey title, delivers. What becomes revealed as Meadows works through this patchwork quilt of her life is that she’s not just referring to Kleenex-type tissues, but the bonding-tissues of life, love, and human relationships (and she’s saying goodbye to them!! Well holy moly!)
2. Timothy Liu’s “Bending the Mind Around the Dream’s Blown Fuse”
First, I’d like to just let everyone know that I once met Timothy Liu, when he came to speak at my college, Shippensburg University. I was “in” with the chairman of our English department, John Taggart (himself one of the most famous contemporary American poets), so when he’d arrange for other famous poets to visit, I’d sit with him and then before or afterward, he’d usually introduce me to them. Of course, later I’d look up their work and find out just who it was I’d just me (this process is probably what hooked me on keeping up with contemporary poetry). Anyway, Liu’s is the only poet Taggart introduced me to who I’m still following, and he gets more and more interesting as the years pass: he’s gay, he’s Asian-American, and he’s not entirely OK with what that means for him. But he’s getting amazing at how he expresses that. I’ve found a great write-up from Publisher’s Weekly that says things better than I can:
Known since the 1990s for his harsh blend of gay eroticism and visionary fervor, Liu (Of Thee I Sing) continues to pursue his high ambitions, from Whitmanesque odes to American jeremiads. This seventh book begins in a scarred and threatening America: “two boys hustling// in Union Square are Clubbed to death/ by a sack of rocks”; the southwestern desert shows only topographies of tumbleweed snagged on rusted barbs. Yet it soon veers into apparently autobiographical material, its language quieter and more reportorial, its landscapes much friendlier and mostly European—Athens, Rhodes, Edinburgh, Paris. (Most of the middle of the book describes an apparently fruitless search for a lover who disappeared in Greece.) Liu’s philosophical dealings with his own intensely chronicled frustration, and his tense stanzas, recall Frank Bidart, but his vibrant scenes might just as well please admirers of Philip Levine. These lyrics chase and capture insatiable desire, adrift in a sad and hostile world, with the heart’s purloined/ hermeneutics locked inside a box. A poem called simply Bittersweet begins: “Nothing made you disappear// faster than when I asked/ just what was going on// between us.”
1. Billy Collins’ “Ballistics”
It doesn’t get much better than Billy Collins, and any year when Collins releases a new collection is a banner year for American poetry. To those outside this tiny little hobby: imagine there was only ONE superstar novelist–like, say, John Grisham–and he only released a novel once every four years. That’s what it’s like for us poetry fans (no, NONE of us actually like Maya Angelou). Every collection by Collins is good. He’s the only poet I have ever read who manages to be funny, tender, insightful, and sorrowful all at the same time. “Ballistics” just builds on his previous material and actually improves upon it: the funny bits are even funnier, the sad bits even sadder, and the uplifting parts even upliftinger. My life would suck without Billy Collins.
There’s going to be an interesting episode of the NPR show All Things Considered tonight about a guy who just cheated at the national Sudoku champoinships, who may or may not be the same dude who cheated at a national chess championships a few years ago who they never caught. It’s just an incredibly interesting story. It airs at 8pm most places. Stream it here.
“Black Mission Goggles” by Man Man
The sky is falling like a
sock of cocaine in the
ministry of information.
Subway train’s derailing,
heads decapitating,
catch her reflection and it seems to sing to me,
and i say la-la-la-la.
She’s a warm bodega
high on Noriega
strung out in Brooklyn like it’s 1983!
She wears her legs around her
neck like a piece of ice,
her smile’s a neon marquee. Hipsters eat for free.
And i say la-la-la-la.
I am falling like a
sock of cocaine in the
ministry of information.
I’m a warm bodega
high on Noriega
strung out in Brooklyn cause i fell in love with her!
And I say la-la-la-la.
moon cut moon cuts tiny like eyelash
lonely cat nap whisper lonely cat nap whisper
and I walk around I whisper in her scalp
I whisper on the wind I whisper once again
“Top Drawer” by Man Man
You need a haircut.
You need a shoeshine.
You need aristocratic
glow-in-the dark erotic magnet.
I know!
You need a moped.
Half-boy half-horse head.
You need a black Cadillac
so death can drive him
or ride in the back
I know!
I am a smoke fire,
scared of holy water!
People claim I’m possessed by the devil,
but Mama, I know, I’m possessed by your daughter.
I know! I’ve been told!
I am dancing through.
I am the top dog, top dog.
Hot dog, hot dog.
You need a new body.
You need a latte.
You need the lingering scent
of holiday men doing hot Pilates.
I know!
You cry wet cement.
You lost accidents.
You wonder where true love went
cause the breeder in your bed don’t butter your bread.
I know!
I am a smoke fire,
scared of holy water!
People claim I’m possessed by your daughter,
but Mama, I know I’m possessed by a problem!
I know! I’ve been told!
I’m passing through.
I’m the top dog, top dog.
Hot dog, hot dog.
May I present to you the first of several year-end wrap-up blogs I will post to attempt to convince myself you all care about my opinions. First up: television! Feel free to yell at me in the comments (you will anyway, I may as well invite it). Notice I’ve finally caved to the pressure and am going to be calling these my “favorites”, not the “best” of 2009. I hope you’re happy!
#10: Mythbusters
The seventh season of Mythbusters (still in progress) has seen our guys Jamie and Adam quite revitalized, after an admittedly lackluster season 6. The myths no longer seem forced, and we’ve gotten back into–dare I say it?–good science. Especially exciting were the YouTube special and the duct tape episode. My favorite Discovery channel show might just have a longer shelf life than I’d thought!
#9: How I Met Your Mother
Let me address something right up front here that some of you are going to get at me for: I have not included any of the uber-hip “one camera” sitcoms on my list (The Office, 30 Rock, Parks and Recreation). I DO love these shows. These shows are very funny and expertly crafted. But I’ve never felt…I don’t know…close to these shows. They are hilarious, but their method of filming leaves me a bit cold, at arm’s length, sort of. And one of the things I need in my comedy is a feeling of comfort laced with a devious amount of “edginess” (asking a lot, I know), and this year, that is what How I Met Your Mother finally managed to do. HIMYM has always been edgy for a two-camera sitcom, with its over-arching mystery (who is the mother?), its multi-dimensional characters, and its occasionally intellectual jokes. But season 4 ratcheted it up a notch, giving
stock charcter Barney–the token sleazeball–something of a heart, a subplot that never got old, and paid dividends all season long. And I know I’m not very original when I say this, but Neil Patrick Harris is absolutely amazing, and is one of the best things on television.
#8: Eureka
This little-seen SyFy network show just keeps getting better. A quaint but exciting cross between Northern Exposure and The X-Files, season 3 saw Sheriff Carter 
taking on an interesting, different role in the community, as well as more imaginative, dramatic and–yes–believable phenomena taking place within the town. Oh, and Carter’s daughter, Zoe? Yeah–season three practically belongs to her. And that could never be a bad thing, could it?
#7: History Detectives
Long the most underrated show on PBS (and hence one of the most underrated on all of television), History Detectives continues, in its seventh season, to be entertaining, informative, and, sometimes, awe-inspiring. Check it out some time.
#6: 24
Sure, the premise has gotten shaky over the years. Sure, they’ve really pushed the limits of believability and sometimes even respectability. But 24 remains a vital show to television, because–if you haven’t watched it–its a lot more than what you think it is, and it’s even a lot more than what is has to be.
24 is not just some serialized action series. If it were that, I certainly wouldn’t watch it and evangelize it so much. 24 explores current, important, hot-button political issues–without even telling you it’s doing it. But more impressively than that, 24 explores vital philosophical questions. In fact, I have seen no better exploration of Utilitarianism in all of popular American culture, ever. 24 has been exploring Utilitarianism for 7 seasons now, and I dare say, has had more to say about it than John Stuart Mill ever did.
Season seven was certainly not the best season, but it was far from the worst, and featured one of the most exciting (though too-brief) set-pieces of the whole series: a terrorist invasion of the White House (which is incredibly exciting when viewed on the surface level, yet also has alot of say when viewed symbolically or allegorically). Here’s some of the White House hostage crisis:
#5: Heroes
Yeah yeah yeah, it had a real crappy Season 2. And Season 3 started off shaky–in fact, it didn’t even gain its footing till halfway through, when the season changed titles from “Villains” to “Fugitives”. The “fugitives” half of the season was spellbinding, and finally seemed as though the half-thought crap we’d sat through for a year and a half had all been adding up to this, and all this wayward character development finally had a point. Consider me impressed.
#4: Big Love
HBO’s Mormon polygamist drama found some serious legs in Season 3, and those legs have a name: Harry Dean Stanton. 
How this show ever scored the elusive, reclusive, least-famous legendary actor we currently have alive is beyond me, but he’s been the main driving factor behind my continuing to watch this show. Sure, Bill Paxton’s marital woes as the head of an illegal four-way marriage is interesting and at times spellbinding (and I’m in love with wife #3, Ginnifer Goodwin) and would make for a show to check out occasionally, but it’s Stanton’s creepy, Godfather-esque Roman Grant who makes this show must-watch, and has kept it that way for three seasons now.
#3: FlashForward
OK, so it’s only aired 5 episodes so far, but it has come out of the gates just swingin’ away. This show is just utterly captivating and frustrating and dramatic and mind-boggling and emotional and plain-ol’-neat wrapped up into one, and I give big kudos to any show that could do all those things all within 5 episodes, all while making me care about almost all the characters (I could do with less of John Cho’s Agent Noh, who is, in a word, unappealing). Not only is every episode expertly written and acted, but they feature something rarely found on television: careful and thoughtful use of music. I can’t wait to see where FlashForward takes us, and even if it derails, I daresay these first 5 episodes are good enough to land it in my #3 spot.
#2: Dexter
In all honesty, the full breadth of Dexter is, at times, flimsy. It can run into cliches and predictibility fairly often, and at times seems to throw a twist at you just for the sake of doing it; more than anything, it suffers from not knowing which reality to reside in: the hyper-real reality the show’s viewers live in, or the somewhat unrealistic world the show has created for itself. It often flip-flops between these realities on an almost whimsical basis. And, really, Showtime can’t cough up any more money for the Police Department set? It looks like Who’s the Boss in there!
So why, you ask, do I love it so damn much? In a word, Dexter. The character of Dexter Morgan is so complex, sometimes you wonder if he’s not actually simple. So simple he’s complex. Ug. To try to know or understand Dexter (even as a viewer) is like trying to know smoke and mirrors, and that’s why it’s so amazing that the writers of Dexter have managed to make him so likeable, interesting, and watchable. With every episode, we see a Herculean writing task pulled off, but we don’t feel it as a writing task, we feel we’re getting a little closer to our quirky friend Dexter.
Season three got even more exciting, however, as we watched our friends at Dexter try to change their main character without ruining the premise of the show (which pretty much requires Dexter to remain static), and we watched in awe as they somehow managed to change Dexter in a way which showed he was…unchangeable. Huh? I’m still not sure what happened. I only know it was television magic.
#1: Lost
For the past 5 years, there has not been a better show on television than Lost. There has not been one year in the last 5 years in which I have not thought that. It has everything good dramatic entertainment and art needs. I won’t go on and on, or say much more: there’s certainly enough being said about Lost all around us all the time, you don’t need me to fill you in. If you’ve never seen any, every episode is available streaming, for free, right here.
Honorable mentions:
Season 2 of Californication–Duchovny at his smarmy best
Season2/3 of The Big Bang Theory–More 2-camera sitcom ground-breaking
Season 1/2 of Dollhouse–best parts for females on television since…well, maybe ever, but at least since Roseanne or thirtysomething.
Kings, the four episodes it existed for: incredibly ambitious, engaging, epic. Too big for television, I’m afraid.
Full disclosure (shows the critics love which I haven’t seen):
Mad Men, Breaking Bad, Fringe, Weeds, Damages, Monk, In Treatment, Brothers and Sisters, The Closer, Ugly Betty
Over the past 18 hours, movies and television have taken me to extremes of three very different kinds of human emotions. I am about to just lay down and die! but rather than lay down and die, I thought maybe I’d blog about it.
First, I was laying down to sleep last night in the wee-early morning hours and I was flipping through the channels looking for something to fall asleep to. I came upon a show on MTV2 called “Silent Library”. Have any of you seen/heard of this? I don’t often pay attention to what’s going on on MTV, VH1, etc etc, so this could be old news for all I know. But if you don’t know, here’s the short version: this is a game show where a team of six (young, college-aged males, from the three episodes I watched) people endure humiliating things in a fake library, and get points if they are, as a team, able to endure these things in complete silence. It doesn’t sound like much (and it certainly won’t be hilarious to everybody), but to me, it was pretty much the funniest thing ever. It’s so simple, but so complex. Often, the humilations are funny, but more often than not the funniest thing is watching these guys try not to laugh. I can’t explain it much more than that. Seriously, I am not exaggerating: I laughed harder and longer at the three episodes I watched than any television program I have ever seen.
Please watch this clip. It is so strange! And this one isn’t all that funny, but there’s not alot of “Silent Library” available for streaming and embedding. The funniest part is by far the guys trying not to laugh or make noise…I could watch it all day!
Then, this morning, I went to an early screening of “Where the Wild Things Are”. I don’t want to go on and on about it. I’ll amost certainly be writing and saying much about it in the months to come. But I am fairly certain, after one viewing, it is my favorite movie of all time. That’s right, it is bumping “Magnolia” from its long-held top spot. This movie fucked. me. up. I was a damn mess. Every scene, every frame of this movie, every snippet of dialogue (save for one stupid line uttered by Mark Ruffalo) is dripping with genuine emotion, drenched with a simultaneous joy and sorrow without pretense or pomp. It exists naturally, organically, and it is pure of heart and not without genius. I spent 75% of the movie on the verge of tears, and when they finally came, I absolutely lost my shit. Please, please, do yourself a favor and see this movie in the theater. And forget that you “loved the book when you were a kid”–we all did, OK? The book is twelve sentences. This movie is pretty much a seperate, new piece of work. Please, I implore you, click on this link (embedding was disabled) and watch this short clip of the film.
Then, a few short hours later, I was back at the same theater for “Paranormal Activity”. This is one of the few horror movies that, for me, has survived being over-hyped and lived up to all the press. Even after everything I’ve read about it, and all the scares I already knew about, I found myself utterly engrossed, completely enmeshed in the world of this boyfriend and girlfriend who are experiencing “a haunting”. Now, this is very much in the vein of “Blair Witch”, so if you weren’t into “Blair Witch”, you might not be into “Paranormal Activity”. It is presented as being “real” footage. Hence, there is no music, no fancy editing, etc etc. But if you let yourself be pulled into this reality…holy crap. Trust me, you haven’t seen everything in the commercials and trailers. There are a few really good scares and creepy moments that they have saved for the theatrical experience. I’m pretty sure, as the final scene unfolded, I yelled out “Holy shit!”, but I can’t be sure, because the 20 or so other people I saw it with all yelled something as well. There are no clips available from the movie, but here is the trailer:
So, I’m kinda exhausted and emotionally spent. I never expected any of these three things to be so incredibly effective, but it’s been a great 18 hours! (I did lots of other stuff besides watch things, I swear!)
Days without smoking: 30
WARNING: At a few points in this entry, you may feel as though I’ve given you “too much information”. Proceed at your own risk.
I suppose this is it, eh? I guess I’m finally a non-smoker, and I can’t really get away with calling these entries “Chantix Diaries” anymore. This is fairly awesome.
Really, I’ve gotta be honest with you. It was pretty easy. Relatively so, anyway, compared to my previous experiences with quitting addictions. Only the first few days were especially strange or contained significant cravings, as far as the actual quitting smoking goes. Of course, this was because of the Chantix, which helped me tremendously when it came to quitting smoking, but in fact also made my life a living hell. I had an easy time quitting smoking, but a hard time doing much else.
In fact, my problems from Chantix aren’t over yet. I have a doctor’s appointment tomorrow morning to talk about continuing digestive/intestinal problems and insomnia, although last night I fell asleep unaided and slept a full 8 hours, and if I can do that again tonight, I probably won’t bring that up with the doctor. But for over two weeks after quitting Chantix, I still couldn’t sleep. And I mean I couldn’t sleep. Not I had trouble sleeping. I mean, if I didn’t take a medicinal sleep aid, I wouldn’t sleep, period. This got scary, but appears to be abating. As for the digestive problems–you don’t want to know, but it really sucks, and he better have an answer for me.
Aside from those glitches, however, this is one of the coolest things EVER. It feels like I have more time. Like, somehow, there’s just more time in my life. My whole body feels great. My lungs feel REALLY great. There has been a noticeable improvement in my, um, intimate relations, which I hadn’t even realized needed improvement, but a mere four days after quitting smoking, I seemed to have a little something extra, if you know what I mean. Also, I can smell everything. My sense of smell is almost freaky-good.
I don’t seem to have gained a lot of weight. Five pounds, maybe, and I don’t see it getting any worse, as my eating habits seem to have already returned to normal. My apartment is clean and smells clean. I am more productive at work. I have more fun at the movies.
I still get cravings, but they are minor little things, shadows from my past. I’m sure I’ll get them for most of the rest of my life, just as I still get the occasional urge to drink, nearly seven years sober. But I learned some very important lessons on my quest to get sober, and I see no reason I won’t be using them to stay smoke-free. Namely, if I smoke one cigarette, I’ll be right back where I left off, in terms of my physical addiction. And I simply cannot dwell on a fantasy of smoking. I can have a fantasy for about a minute or so, but then you just have to stop thinking about it. And for me, it really is that easy: just don’t think about it. And if I do sometimes slip and dwell on a thought, I just won’t smoke. I just won’t smoke. Pretty easy, eh?
OK, so it might be tough from time to time, but I’m not going to lie and make it sound like it was some great upheaval for me. I sure expected it to be, but it wasn’t. Perhaps Chantix intentionally loads you up on horrible side-effects in order to distract you. But whatever happened, however it happened, I’m a fucking non-smoker, muthafuckas!
You call yourselves Alice in Chains and make an album called Black Gives Way to Blue. Man, what a piece of crap!
There really is just too much being said about time flying by, and days ticking off, and how quick and fast and horribly brief it all is, he thinks to himself, sitting down at his computer to write. So many poems and stories and cliches and greeting cards about it. Nobody can stop anything.
Then, leaning back in his chair, wishing maybe he was smoking a cigarette, he unexpectedly tears up, his breath chokes a moment in his throat. How he missed everyone so suddenly!
you try to keep people around, you try to stay in touch, you try to keep caring, but oh, life just has its way. life just has its way. and no matter how much people talk about it–oh boy–it just won’t stop being sad when people drift, drift like willful continents, into and out of your sphere so crassly, brazen, like it didn’t even matter, as if it were up to them, as if the same thing weren’t happening to every poor damned soul roaming around–
Of course he’d put on the most melancholy record he owns. Some dirge-like rock without words, an album called All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone, as he sits to remember, drinks his Sprite like a good little boy and is mindful of the volume this late at night,
–anything can remind me of everyone. friends, girlfriends, flings, all the same, that summer grass, that shiny egret, this itch on my scalp, just now, just there. the jingling and glinting of a set of keys, the way she always jingled her keys, how he always kept them on his end table, coughing in the middle of the night, illuminated by the night light, looking green like an evil lizard, we spent every day together back then. it was spring and the air lifted us, smelled of comraderie, that gaggle of hot air balloons–how many was it? five–we pulled over and kissed in the gloaming underneath the hot air balloons, he held my arms behind my back so I couldn’t leave, but it was for my own good–for years I accused him of “alpha-male”ing me–but it was for my own good, the brown of the basement, the four of us inseperable, always laughing, the high pitched sound of uncontrolled laughter, unchecked joy, your tears coming for any reason. the big round green eyes. the purple shit in birdshit–that’s shit, too. the lazy rolling enormous clouds, the warmed arm left to hang out the driver’s side window, the long drive with the windows down, your flesh just tickling, the voice over the payphone, that feeling in the tips of your toes that someone out there could actually…well, you know…and the perfume she sealed her letters with, and the trees, and the swaying branches in the lazy perfect summer wind as we talked about what it all meant, and all of a sudden I miss everyone, and I am glad of it, and I am glad of it.
Joyce knows the surface of water, but that is all. She cannot remember how many feet a fathom is, does not know the paths of currents, never learned to swim. Once, while washing her hands in a public restroom, she looked up and caught the reflection of a woman with perfect features emerging from the stall behind her. Anonymous beauty. Water is like that for Joyce. She paints seascapes, her waves blue-gray, but strangely warm looking, pink-tinted as though blood pulses beneath the skin of the water. Since she moved into Gabrielle’s house, Joyce has painted oceans from memory, ignoring echoes of past teachers who said always paint from life. Joyce considers blues, looks at cobalt and ultramarine, rejects ultramarine as too obvious, a postcard sort of blue. As she starts squeezing cobalt from the tube, a hand on her shoulder interrupts. Gabrielle is behind her, asking, “Have you seen Callie?”
“I think she’s taking a bath.” Joyce is relieved that she can answer, that she heard Gabrielle’s words clearly. Her ears and eyes are still good. She is not sure that Callie is in the bathroom, but it seems likely. Gabrielle’s daughter is always taking baths, brushing her teeth, looking at her profile in the mirror and reading magazine articles on how celebrities use makeup to make their noses seem shorter, more tip-tilted, how the right shadows changed everything, how a dab of concealer could hide a bump on the bridge.
Gabrielle says, “Father would have envied your oceans.”
A slight tremor shakes her mother’s hand as she sets the brush down. You never know with Parkinson’s, the doctor had told them, sometimes it moves very slowly. Still, Gabrielle had suggested Joyce move in with her. Three generations of women, all together now.
“He knew water too well to paint it,” Joyce says, wiping her fingers clean with a cloth. He knew about things below. Rocks, colored fish, enemy submarines. Too many details crowded the surface of his seascapes, so instead he painted portraits, started with his own, but the skin of his face always had a greenish cast, cold blue in the lips, like the face of a dead sailor floating. So he painted his wife, large portraits where features flowed together and waves of hair lapped the edge of the canvas. Never cut it, he told her years ago, his palm stroking the length of hair that fell to her waist. They had three good years together after he left the Navy, not traveling as some retired couples did, but staying home, waking up together every morning holiday enough. When Gabrielle asked her to leave the coast and live with her, he had been dead nearly two years. Joyce cut her hair before she left.
Gabrielle leaves her mother at the easel. She goes out to water the garden, again, because it is a dry season even for this dry town. She calls for her daughter, but there is no answer.
Upstairs, Callie watches her small breasts floating above the water, surrounded by bubbles. Her friend Tracey says bubble baths are for kids, that you take showers when you’re an adult. Sometimes you even take them together. Tracey’s mother and father shower together. Callie lives in a household of women and knows little about sharing bathrooms with men, but she remembers her father with a towel around his waist, his chest bare and hairy and wet. He’d gone into the bedroom with her mother and before they’d closed the door, Callie had seen Gabrielle take another towel and rub his chest in slow circles. That was a long time ago, before Callie even started school.
Breasts. Some of the girls in eighth grade have bigger breasts than Callie. She blows at the bubbles that cover her nipple, and watches foam fly, feels the tickle of air against her skin. Jeff thinks she has nice breasts. He whispered that to her as he jogged by in gym class, slowing down just long enough to breathe the words in her ear. Of course, he didn’t call them breasts. Jeff is a year older than most of the other boys. His upper lip is shadowed with the promise of hair.
Gabrielle twists the hose onto the tap. Her next-door neighbor watches her bend over. He is setting up his sprinkler, too. His wife left him a few years ago, after a section of water-logged roof caved in on their living room. You never fix anything, she said, nothing works. The rain spouts, the gutters, the pantry door. He asked, What about the rest, what about the bedroom? She had said A dry living room is more important than that. Now he mends everything. There is not even an occasional drip where the hose screws onto this tap. There are no leaks, so when she comes back he can say, look, look here and here, everything is fixed. A freak storm had caused the roof to cave in, three inches of rain in less than an hour. He likes his neighbor Gabrielle, but he does not know how to say so.
“How are your begonias?” he asks.
“Very dry,” Gabrielle says and turns away slightly, directing a gentle spray of water toward the flowers. As the drops hit the broad green leaves, they make a sound like rain on the curve of an umbrella. The summer she met her husband, Gabrielle had been a waitress at a small cafe with tables outside on the street. Each table had a yellow umbrella to keep the sun from broiling the bald heads of buisnessmen as they bent over gazpacho. She was earning money for college by working for a Spaniard who spoke English with strange rhythms, punctuating his sentences with smoke exhaled from strong European cigarettes. One night near closing time, a warm rain began to fall and a man came into the cafe. The owner said, Pick your table, sir, you have the place to yourself, and the man picked an outdoor table, seating himself beneath the umbrella. Gabrielle took his order, bending close to him in order to shelter herself from the rain that wet her shoulders. The small space beneath the umbrella was musky with the smell of warm bodies in damp clothes. His elbow joint pressed the flesh of her thigh when he opened the menu. I’ll have the paella, he said, and she caught a glimpse of his tongue as his lips opened for the last syllable. You’re wet, he said, then and again later as they ran through the rain to his car, and he’d said it once more before she left him at six in the morning, wedges of sun shining through clouds.
“It’s a dry time,” her neighbor says.
“Very dry,” Gabrielle agrees, turning the hose toward the grass, which is flat and solid and does not sound like an umbrella when drops hit it.
The trick to painting water is to not make it too blue. Joyce mixes a little burnt sienna with cobalt, making a warm gray. Sometimes the ocean is green and that is more difficult because the green of salt water is different, more transparent and more blue than the yellow green of leaves or the emerald green of Gabrielle’s well-kept lawn. Joyce and her husband had set up their easels on the cliffs overlooking the harbor. Joyce painted the water and he painted her, sometimes in profile, sometimes in formal poses. They were quiet together, the sound of their brushstrokes lost in the lap and crash of waves against the rocks. She posed for him nude once, in the glassed-in porch, drowsy-eyed, limbs heavy with sunshine. Her breasts rose out of the blue background like smooth stones and the shadows beneath them flowed onto her belly and between her legs. Eddies of white-pink formed the curves of her body. She’d wrapped the canvas in brown paper after he died. It’s upstairs, at the back of the small closet in the room Gabrielle has given her. She had brought one other painting with her, a portrait of herself sitting in a chair, reading a story to Gabrielle. He had looked at an old photograph to paint his daughter’s face. I know her best from photographs, he’d said.
The portrait is good. Mother and daughter, no sense of where Joyce’s dress ends and where Gabrielle’s begins. They both wear white, their features loosely painted, necks tilted at the same angle. Joyce has been allowed to hang the picture in the dining room, beside a window whose light is blocked from time to time by Gabrielle’s passing as she waters the plants outside. At a certain time in late afternoon, the slant of light casts shadows on the easel, forcing Joyce to stop painting. During this pause, she studies the portrait of her and young Gabrielle. She has come to think that she looks like the woman he painted, even though she knows from the mirror that her nose is wider and her skin less smooth.
Gabrielle works her way around the house to the back yard. She wants to set up the sprinkler before starting supper. Her neighbor comes around the corner of his house in time to see her bend over again, this time trying to attach the hose to the sprinkler. He fiddles with the knobs on the barbecue, starts it even though he has already eaten. The sprinkler is not working. Gabrielle goes round the house, checking the hose for kinks. It is hot despite the fact that the sun’s rays have stretched and weakened, making long late-day shadows of her arms and legs. It was the heat and the dry air that had driven her husband away. It was long, diaper rash afternoons with the child. I’m a rainforest man, he’d said, a jungle lover. She had said It will rain soon. But it didn’t, and he disappeared for three weeks, coming back one night to her bed when the sound of thunder rolled over the house from the west. Rainfall was unusually high for the rest of August, and he’d seemed content to stay, to spend his days listening to the drum of water on his own roof. But the next summer, Gabrielle had come home from work to an empty house, found notes that said things like, “Callie at Jean’s. Have gone east,” or “Gone south with Callie. Took food.” He chased thunderstorms all summer, listening to weather reports, the car full of gas, ready to cross the praire in search of rain. He returned late at night, his hair damp, carrying the sleeping little girl into the house.
The hose is unobstructed. Gabrielle checks the tap, turns it off and then on again. One day, he had left and not come back. The note said, “Going with Bill’s brother to the Queen Charlottes. Will write.” And he was gone. At first, there had been letters, more notes, really: “Air so moist here you can drink it Forests so thick leaves drip for days after a rain. Kiss Callie for me.” A few months later: “Getting cold here and no sun for weeks. Think we will move on, South America maybe.” Then finally: “Sold the car, here is your half.” A money order, nothing after that. Gabrielle walks back to the sprinkler, unscrews the hose and looks at the attachments. She sticks her finger in the round hole where the hose is supposed to go.
“Can I help?” the man next door asks.
The bath water is cool now and most of the bubbles have evaporated, their soapy membranes bursting with a million soothing little pops. Time to get out. Callie sits up, enjoying the way the water grips her shoulders before releasing her. She stands and water flows from her hips, drips from her fingers. Today she likes her body, remembering earlier when she and Tracey had walked to the convenience store for ice cream, and some boys went by on their bikes, slowing down to look back at the girls before turning the corner. A few minutes later, they heard the sound of the bike wheels again. Callie had let the lower part of her body grow heavy, relaxing her hips so that her steps swayed and swung her along the sidewalk. The boys whistled.
The oceans in Joyce’s paintings are always empty. She does not paint the boats that carried her husband away, nor the storms that carried her daughter’s husband away. Joyce has a photograph of her husband taken years before they’d met, when he was fifteen, sixteen years old. He stands, stripped to the waist, in front of fishing boats. So young, yet still she knows him, knows the long torso, the triangle of his arm as he rests a hand on his hip. Joyce always expected to paint her husband’s face, but when he sat before her, home for such short times, she could not work. Those weeks were like a honeymoon. Sometimes they did not sleep, the moon on the water too bright, light shining in the window on bodies both strange and familiar. I’d forgotten the taste of your skin, he’d say, I’d forgotten the curve of your spine.
Those last years, when she’d tried again, she had never been able to finish a sketch. Her eye wandered the wrinkles round his eyes, the brown spots on his skin from too much sun. Her pencil lost its way in the whirls of his fingertips.
In Gabrielle’s living room, Joyce touches the brush to her canvas, marking the top of a wave with light. The slight quiver in her fingers makes the painted waves dance until they blend, smooth and gray, at the horizon line.
“Okay, turn on the water,” the man from next door says, and Gabrielle twists the tap. Nothing happens. She walks over and kneels beside him as he jiggles attachments. There is a swift swooshing sound, a warning, but both are too slow to move. An arc of droplets catches them, ice cold, gasping. He cannot see through his glasses and her hair hangs wet in her eyes. Made blind by prisms of light, they stumble, fall against each other, and feel for a moment the touch of their bodies, her shoulder blades against his chest, his hand reaching, settling on her rib cage. His fingers make warm spaces in the icy rainbow world of water that holds them before the sprinkler curves away.
A noise from outside. Is that Gabrielle laughing? Joyce looks up from the canvas, sees the faces in the portrait. Gabrielle’s father used to lift his child high in the air and bring her down laughing, used to rock her to sleep in the boat of his arms. Years later, his hand held a brush that stroked Gabrielle’s cheek, shaped it rosy and dimpled, dried the tears of his leaving. Does the little girl remember his hands?
The bathroom mirror is wet with condensation. The drops reflect Callie’s features in fragments, so she looks like the huge-eyed woman on the cover of her grandmother’s art book, a Byzantine mosaic. She opens the window to let out the steam and hears the end of a breathless laugh. Tracey practices laughing that way. She says boys like it, it’s sexy. Callie wonders who is laughing like that in her own back yard.
The light is going. Joyce leans away from the easel, looks out the window and sees Gabrielle walk by with the man from next door. The last of the sun shines on her hair–dark, glossy hair. Joyce stretches her arms upward, lets them fall clumsily, tired from forcing the brush to move evenly across the canvas. Late-day light touches the portrait on the wall across from her. The little girl smiles and the mother’s hands are steady as she turns the book’s pages. Paintings often look better from a distance. Joyce steps back three paces from her easel and as the edges of each wave become less distinct, their rhythm becomes more pronounced. Water arranges itself in a pattern of arrivals and departures. It comes and goes.
Upstairs, Callie dries her wet hair with a towel that smells of laundry soap and apple shampoo. She remembers being small, sitting in a car while the lightning colored her skin blue and the rain blurred everything but the tiny upholstered world inside. Sometimes her father sat beside her, sometimes he stood outside, getting wetter and wetter in the rain. Sometimes if there was not too much rain, he took Callie out in it with him and she got wet, too, so he dried her hair after he wiped his own face, using the same towel. It smelled of wet grass and something sweet, something her father wore on his skin. Callie hangs her towel on a peg before leaning over the tub to pull the plug. She likes the sucking sound water makes when the tub drains. It sounds like the end of something good, like a milkshake or an ice cream float and it doesn’t matter that it’s over, because you’ve had it and it can’t be taken away.
I couldn’t believe how refreshing it was when, last week at the Carlisle Independent Theater, a movie started playing and it was a smart, witty, foul-mouthed, politically charged comedy for grown-ups.
Don’t get me wrong. I have enjoyed the reign of the Apatow comedy as much as everybody else (“Superbad”, “Knocked Up”, etc etc), but I didn’t realize how much I’d been missing real adult comedy until I heard a British man tell another British man he was “the baby from ‘Eraserhead'” moments after a hilarious, semantically-charged language joke that could have been written by an Oxford prof. Which is not to suggest the movie is only made for an exclusive club: the fun comes so fast and furious, and is so varied in tone, it’ll be funny to just about anybody. Anybody, that is, over the age of 20.
Please, don’t be turned off by its label as a “British comedy”. Monty Python, this aint, and besides, half of the actors are American. The plot–what little of it there is–involves a group of mid-level British politicians who desperately want to be “in the loop”–that is, they want to transcend their “mid level” status–encountering a group of American politicians who are equally “mid level”, all while both countries are on the verge of a war with a country that is never quite specified. Most of the action takes place in board rooms, offices, meeting rooms, and various governmental halls and junkets. Not much really happens–which must be part of the point–but what we do get is just 
under two hours of some of the most razor-sharp dialogue I’ve seen in years. And I’m certain I missed some of the best jokes; sometimes things were going so fast, I didn’t know which end was up.
One of my favorite nuances of “In the Loop” is how director Armando Ianucci, along with all five credited screenwriters (!), treat both the English and the American characters with equal disdain. This isn’t a movie made by British people about how stupid Americans are. Rather, it’s a movie about how selfish and ridiculous politicians are, regardless of their nationality. “In the Loop” also doesn’t think politicians are evil, it just thinks they are bumbling, self-important idiots (or geniuses who are squandering thier potential). This was an important choice, I think. It’s 
hard to laugh at evil people, but easy to laugh at idiots.
One of the best surprises of “In the Loop” is James Gandolfini. Sure, we all know Gandolfini can act, and we’ve all probably assumed we haven’t seen his full range of acting ability. But in “In the Loop”, his General George Miller–a high-ranking military official with political ambitions who resembles a bumbling Norman Schwarzkopf–is a true highlight. He’s the only character who manages to speak slowly, and because he takes his time, we take notice of him. We start to think that maybe, amongst the din of idiot characters, perhaps we’ve found at least one man of value, one character who actually cares about the people, the country, and the ideals he’s trying so 
hard to represent. But it’s not long until we see through his ruse–he’s just another buffoon, and the lesson is learned: jackasses come in many different varieties.
Though it’s unlikely “In the Loop” will get much recognition of any kind come awards season, I’d like to put in my vote for an Oscar nod for James Gandolfini. His nuanced, hilarious, yet at times touching and heartfelt, turn in this “British” comedy deserves more attention than the handful of people who’ve been lucky enough to see this in a theater. Hopefully they hurry up with a DVD release so more people can enjoy this lovely little gem. And when it catches on as a cult hit, and your weird friends are walking around saying “Difficult, difficult, lemon difficult”, remember you heard it here first!
Also, somebody buy this for me.
I know they do something to the voice
that deadens the highs and lows. They translate it
into electricity
and microseconds later they relay it as an echo,
a hollow mimicry of speech.
They have to do this.
Sound is too slow, the thunder far behind the spark,
almost part of something else,
someone else.
The following is intended as a fun writing exercise for myself. If you’ve been reading my blogs from the very beginning, you’ll remember I did something quite like this about 7 years ago on my very first OpenDiary blog. This is going to be a “fake interview” with a somewhat fictionalized version of myself, which is being conducted by an entirely fictional small arts magazine called Cold Clothes. If you read the old OpenDiary one, rest assured, this is a completely new edition of this. You’ll see I have tagged the entry as both “memoir” and “fiction”–and that’s why it is so fun for me! I am playing in a semi-real world (specifically a semi-real Carlisle) and with a version of me that both is and isn’t me, and there will be no cues for what is fiction and what is memoir. And put up with the early conversation about “art”–it’s just to make the reason for the interview believable.
Cold Clothes brings you Part One of it’s planned 12-part interview with Pennsylvania bohemian Seth Dellinger. As our magazine has only a circulation of about 231, we are “simul-publishing” the interviews on our website–www.coldclothes.com–as well as Dellinger’s blog, Notes from the Fire. And since we are a very irresponsible and erratic publication, we make no projections as to the frequency of the installments. Now, Cold Clothes managing editor Rufus Paisleyface’s Part One of the interview:
I first meet Seth Dellinger at an outside table at his favorite Carlisle coffee house, the Courthouse Commons. It’s an early autumn day, but Dellinger doesn’t seem to know it yet: it’s jacket weather, but he’s still sporting just
Dellinger outside the Courthouse Commons coffee shop in Carlisle, Pennsylvania
a t-shirt and shorts. A few times throughout our conversation, he appears to regret this wardrobe decision. He orders a tall caramel latte.
Cold Clothes: So, here we are, on a sunny afternoon at an outdoor coffee shop, and you appear to have quit smoking?
Seth Dellinger: Yep. And yeah, if this isn’t the perfect time and place for a smoke, what is, eh? But I had to quit, you know?
CC: Why? Lots of your peers haven’t seemed to give it up yet.
SD: I think smoking always seemed to effect me physically a little more than most people. I had a diminished lung capacity almost immediately after picking up the habit. I’d be laying in bed and I could feel my heart beating in my head. I mean, here I am, a 31-year-old guy who’s been away from drugs and alcohol for years now, who likes to be physically active and moving around and doing things, and I’m feeling my heartbeat in my head. I didn’t like that.
CC: Does any part of you feel that as a drug and alcohol free non-smoker, your validity as an artist has been breached? A lot of creative types hang their hats on the guttural experience of “use”.
SD: (laughs) So true. Certainly one doesn’t need to have ever used any drugs or mind-altering substances of any kind to make quality art, but I do think you need a sizeable well of life experience to be any good as a creator, and the folks who have always shied away from substances tend to be the same people who shirk a lot of life experiences, although this is certainly not always the case. Let me say that again: this is certainly not always the case. And yeah, sure, at first I worried I’d be called a “sellout” or, worse, a “straightedge”, but then I just thought, you know, I’m totally clean because I used things so much I had to stop or die, which is more badass than most of these smokers and drinkers can say. I’m still badass.
CC: Has if affected your creativity?
SD: Not really. Now, as before, I’ve not completed any major work that was at all worthwhile (laughs). But I actually find myself writing a lot more, but the quality downgrades at the same rate as the volume of output, so in the end, I have the same amount of usable material. I did have to postpone getting together with Duane (Miller) to work on an album we’ve been kicking around for a year now. I found I wasn’t ready for collaborative work without a smoke yet. I’m very comfortable writing at home in my own apartment in front of my computer, but the thought of kicking ideas around in Duane’s studio without a cigarette kind of terrified me.
CC: I was under the impression you’d been doing collaborative work with Rothman Hogar very recently?
SD: Well, yeah, but that’s all correspondence work. Rothman (ed. note: Hogar is Dellinger’s frequent “best friend” and occasionally his “nemesis” artistically. The two have a long, storied friendship which both are hesitant to talk about.) is currently a writer-in-residence at a university in Norway, and we’re collaborating on a screenplay via e-mail, so it’s still basically solo work because I’m alone while I’m doing it.
CC: Has Rothman’s absence changed the nature of the artistic life here in Carlisle?
SD: Only in the sense that a friend’s absence changes the dynamic of that group of friends. Since Carlisle’s rise to prominence in the East Coast art scene, there’ve been plenty of personnel changes around here, but the core group remains the same and the general aesthetic remains the same.
CC: OK, now that we’re talking about it, take us back and tell us about the “rise of Carlisle”. How did it happen?
SD: I’m sure you know that’s not the softball question it appears to be. There are a few differing versions of how it happened. Personally, my memory of the first national art media coverage was when Mary (Simpson) and I wrote and produced a play at the Cubiculo Theater here in town that built a slow media following: first the local papers, then the regionals, then the niche national publications, until finally it got a blurb mention in The Atlantic.
CC: That play was Conceited Eagle.
SD: Yep. Eagle still largely pays my rent, too. After it’s blurb in The Atlantic, a few regional theaters asked if they could put on a production of it. Every year it circles a little further out. This year they’re doing it in Fargo, Kennebunkport, and Denver. It’ll never make me rich. It doesn’t even pay the utilities. Coneited Eagle exactly pays the rent, more or less.
CC: Do you harbor any hopes it will ever go “big time”?
SD: What, Broadway? Yeah, it’ll probably make Broadway some day, and it’ll play for 18 shows and star someone unusual, like DMX. I probably won’t like it.
CC: So what made Carlisle become a hotbed of artistic work, rather than this just being the unlikely story of an independently produced play?
SD: It’s almost impossible to say how these things happen. There were just a lot of us in the right place at the right time. Some folks interviewed Mary and I about the play a few times, and we mentioned a couple of friends we had–visual artists, musicians, writers, etc–and occasionally they went and interviewed those friends of ours, and people started getting into their stuff and interviewing them, and it was one big cycle.
CC: How famous do you think you can all get? Could this become a cultural phenomenon?
SD: No way. The Carlisle scene is bound to stay culty, for a couple reasons. First, none of us are really pop artists. I’m mainly poetry. Rothman writes everything but it’s all very avante garde. Mary’s a painter. Jarly (Marlston) is a sculptor. Duane plays space funk. Tony (Magni) draws wads of meat. I mean, c’mon. The kids are never gonna flock here!
CC: Ryan (Straub) plays some fairly accessible singer-songwritery music.
SD: haha, true, but we’ve been trying to talk him out of it.
CC: How important is it for art to be accessible?
SD: That all depends how accessible you want it to be. If you’re going for something you want everyone to understand and enjoy, and you end up making something daft, dense, or confusing, then I’d say you’ve certainly failed. But it doesn’t have to be simple to be accessible. Charlie Kaufman makes movies lots of people love, including myself. They’re never going to make a hundred million dollars, but there are lots of fans. I think it’s just about making what you set out to make, making it play on the level you wanted it to.
CC: Can you give me an example of a time you think that translation has failed?
SD: Sure. I think Jonathan Franzen’s much beloved novel The Corrections is a failure in that vein. He seems to want to be writing a really complex, codified novel like Pynchon, but he ends up writing it like a Grisham book. It was an Oprah book back before Oprah started picking surprisingly good books. It reads really strange because you can literally see Franzen trying to be dense but it comes off as populist. It’s like beating off with a limp dick.
CC: So, back to the Carlisle movement: how important is the “group” aspect here? Would any of you be successful without the group?
SD: We’re not the Beats, if that’s what you mean. For the most part we participate in different mediums, we have different outlooks, are at very different spots in life. Mostly, what we create does share a certain tone, a base idea of grit, or the grime of life, but we’re also not afraid to uplift. You’d be hard pressed to find a photograph with more than three of us in it at any given moment. I’d love to play up the idea of a group, or movement, because people love that story, but really it’s more like a loose group of friends who are all creative types.
CC: How many of you have been able to quit your jobs?
SD: Most. But we quit our jobs with the trade-off of living uncomfortably. We’re not rich. We’re barely living off of what we do. Remember, you’re interviewing me for Cold Clothes, not Rolling Stone! (chuckles) A few of them still labor for their money. Jarly still works (for the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation). There’s not a big market for original sculpture right now, but I always say, a decade from now, that guy’s gonna be so rich he won’t even remember where Carlisle is!
CC: OK, maybe we’ve got ahead of ourselves. Let’s go back before Carlisle. Tell me about growing up in Newville, a small town about 20 miles from here.
SD: Newville is a very idyllic, perfect little shithole of a town. It was an ideal town for a boy to grow up in.
CC: haha…um, explain?
SD: It had that quintessential “small town” feeling, that sort of close-knit Thornton Wilder thing that makes you feel comfy and safe and free to ride your bike alone all over town at a very young age, but at the same time, it’s a shithole. It had seen it’s best days. It had abandoned factories, forgotten corners of the town where the streets quite literally had no name, drainage ditches full of standing water, back alleys with weeds growing through the pavement. But despite all this, I never found anything sad about it. My childhood eyes saw all this blight as a great story. I loved thinking about Newville’s past, what it had been like as a boom town, what those men in tall hats from the black-and-white photographs would think if they could see it now. It filled me with a deep sense of time very early in life.
CC: How did your family end up in Newville?
SD: Well my grandma and grandpa Cohick–that’s my mom’s side–lived in the area. My mom grew up on their farm in Oakville, an even smaller town a little further out. I suppose at some point in time they sold the farm and moved to Newville. I know Gram worked for the dress factory in town that was shuttered right around the time I was born. After my parents were married they must have moved to Newville to be closer to them, although I don’t know those details for sure. Isn’t it strange the questions you never even think of asking your parents? Dad’s family was from closer to the river (the Susquehanna), the Mechanicsburg, Wormleysburg-type area. It’s odd to think about, because my parents are divorced now, and Mom left the area, but Dad still lives in Newville, a place he’s not actually from. It’s weird how life moves you around.
CC: And here you are, living in Carlisle.
SD: Well yes, but there’s not really a difference between living in Carlisle and living in Newville, geographically. It’s like the difference between living in Chelsea and living in Greenwich Village. And I suppose there’s barely a difference between where my dad’s parents raised him and where he ended up. It’s all south-central Pennsylvania. But I think it’s just neat how life picks you up, moves you around, and sets you down. Sometimes it’s a lot more dramatic than Mechanicsburg to Newville.
CC: Did you enjoy your childhood?
SD: Listen friend, if you didn’t enjoy your childhood, you weren’t trying. I fucking loved it! I mean, sure, there’s plenty of sadness in childhood. In fact, about half the poems I wrote in 2004 were trying to figure out why childhood seems so sad. My childhood certainly wasn’t more sad than anyone else’s–in fact, it was probably happier–but I think as children we just haven’t learned how to deal with the truths of the world yet, and we’re very tuned in to the way things feel. The passage of time feels quite acute to a child. Boredom feels very acute. Unfairness, not getting what you want, not feeling loved at every moment–these things take a lot of years to get used to. And thank goodness we do get used to them, thank goodness childhood doesn’t last forver, because until you get your emotions and reactions under control in the early teens, you’re essentially useless. But anyway, despite and maybe because of this deep sense of feeling, childhood is an amazing, magical time. It’s this same “blank slate” idea that makes us so emotionally sensitive which also makes the world an extraordinary place to a child. “Puddle-wonderful”, as Cummings called it. Try as I might in my adult life, I’ve never been able to acheive the kind of free-form imaginitive play I had as a kid. And that’s the thing: I do try. I mean, I live by myself, I don’t have a job, I’m single and no kids. Some nights, when I’m home, there’s nothing to watch, I’m sick of the book I’m reading, and I don’t feel like writing. I look around my apartment and think, I should play. And why shouldn’t I? There shouldn’t be anything wrong with a grown-up playing. So I turn everything off, make my hands into guns, or my golf bag into a dragon, or any number of things, and I give it a go. But it never works. My hands become hands again way too quickly, and the golf bag always looks much too much like a golf bag, and I just end up putting on a Radiohead album and pretending I’m a rock star, which is play to an extent, but it’s totally useless grown-up play. It’s more about commerce and culture and self-glorification than childhood play. I always remember this essay I wrote in 12th Grade english class about childhood play, and how my teenage life was really missing my childhood play. That essay is still one of my favorite things I’ve ever written, because in it, I described childhood play in such a luscious, compelling, chunky way. I could never write about childhood play like that nowadays. It’s like my 18-year-old self was still tenuously connected to my childhood self. I still had a visceral notion of what it had been like. Not so anymore. Nope, nowadays remembering childhood is like watching a movie through a bedsheet. I can’t imagine what it’s like when you get older still; it must be like that childhood happened to somebody else entirely.
CC: Were you a social child?
SD: Reluctantly. Which is another way of saying “no”, I guess. I was pretty much terrified of people I didn’t know. In fact, I was more scared of kids I didn’t know than I was of strange adults. Now, don’t get me wrong, I had friends, but it was a long process for me to feel comfortable with them. I had much more fun playing by myself, controlling all the plot points and characters. But most of it comes down to fear. I was one of the most scared kids around.
CC: You were scared of other children?
SD: Absolutely. In both the theoretical and the very concrete sense. Theoretically, I was afraid no one was going to like me, that I wouldn’t be understood, that I’d be ridiculed. Concretely, I was literally afraid other kids would end up beating the shit out of me. I’m not sure if this just came from being a short kid or not, if maybe it came from somewhere deeper, but it wasn’t until perhaps the age of 14 that I stopped worrying everyone wanted to hurt me. It had nothing to do with my home life: my parents were not violent or physical. I got spanked a handful of times, very civilly, very by-the-book. Sometimes I think I just got born with a “scared” gene, and it’s been the major story of my life, overcoming it.
CC: Did you get in many fights as a kid?
Dellinger, age approx. 2 years, admiring one of his grandfather's sweet potatoes.
SD: No. One or two, really, though the one was very, very terrifying. It was this kid Shawn Wilson. He was one of the baddest ass kids in Newville. Like, you did not fuck with Shawn Wilson, even at the age of seven. And I was in this church yard one day, this church yard that was a few blocks from our house on Big Spring Avenue. I used to go there to play all the time. They had some swings, a really big lush lawn, and even a small topiary maze. Of course now, as an adult, it looks like a shrub-lined walkway, but at six, seven, eight years old, it was a topiary maze. I was there playing by myself, and Shawn Wilson shows up. At first, he played with me, but then for some reason he pushed me to the ground, got on top of me, wouldn’t let me up. Of course, I cried immediately, did a kid version of pleading with him, but my fear just fed his aggression. So he got a bit sadistic on me. He let me up, but he wouldn’t let me leave. I’d try to walk toward my house, and he’d run in front of me, knock me down again. It turned quite epic. I remember, what seemed like hours into this ordeal, I managed to escape, finally getting onto the sidewalk, y’know, that sign of civilization, and having this immense feeling of relief wash over me. I felt like I had barely survived with my life. That’s a moment from my childhood I remember with precision clarity, that feeling. It’s poignancy is not diminished because I was so young at the time. I felt like my life had been spared. That’s a heavy feeling for a kid. I ran the two blocks home and breathlessly told my mother the story. She was a substitute teacher at the time, so was often home during the day. I breathlessly recounted my ordeal. She was concerned, of course, and very motherly to me, but must have been unconvinced of the epic severity. I remember wondering why she wasn’t calling the police and giving me some secret grown-up medicine and calling the local news. And the few times I’ve recounted this story to people over the years, I’ve gotten the same reaction. You see, you can’t ever actually make someone feel how you felt. It is important to remember this when making art, too. You can only get them really, really close, and then only if they’ve felt something similar before as well. I will always be disappointed by anyone’s reception of this story, because I still get worked up thinking about it, over twenty years later. I probably shouldn’t tell it anymore. Oh, and Shawn Wilson? He’s dead now. A few years back, car accident.
CC: So now you’re the only one who remembers.
SD: Yep. I’m the only person with the memory of that childhood fight. And I like it that way. Shawn Wilson may have grown up to be a different sort of man than the evil bastard who held me hostage in that church parking lot, but I’m still happy to not share anything with him, not even a memory.
CC: What else were you scared of as a kid?
SD: Just about everything. I was scared of moving things, very much. Motorcycles, horses, trains, amusements park rides. I still won’t ride amusement park rides or horses. I still haven’t conquered everything! But yeah, fast things. Bugs, snakes, the sky, night time. Death was a big one. I thought about death a lot. My grandparents. Rain. You name it. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t unable to leave the house, or quivering like an idiot any time I was in public. I’m sure there are plenty of people who had as fearful childhoods as I did. I learned how to act through most of it. Sure, I was still scared shitless when our parents would take my sister and I to, say, the Newville Fair, but I gradually learned how to hide it. Well, hide it the best I could. It was still no secret to those around me that I was mostly terrified. But the acting is a skill I’ve really refined in my adult life. While the fear is mostly gone from me, I now use it to disguise foul moods, sadness, worry. I could be afraid I’m dying and hide it from everybody for a long period.
CC: Were you creative as a child?
SD: Sure. But I never had one of those big moments you hear a lot of people talk about. You know, I knew the moment I opened “Where the Sidewalk Ends” that I was going to be a writer or My parents rented “E.T.” and I knew in the first ten minutes I was going to be a film director. No, I never saw art that compartmentalized, and I still don’t, or at least, I try not to. As a kid, I just knew I liked things that used that creative part of the brain, that idea that you can laugh or cry or sweat because of things that aren’t really there, or aren’t actually happening. I was always drawn to that, and to the depth of emotion you can allow yourself to feel at these things. I was always amazed by those depths. Also, I remember losing my breath a little bit the first time I saw those little lights along the aisle floors in a movie theater. That looked like real-world magic to me.
The Seth Dellinger interview from Cold Clothes will be continued!
Just got back from driving a friend of mine to the District Justice’s office. Inside, I saw this sign:
You will be prosecuted if you bring a handgun on these premises, and/or cause a handgun to be present.
A few questions: so…rifles are OK? And how do I cause a handgun to be brought?
Heard on NPR on the way to the District Justice:
Silversun Pickups just might be the next U2.
This is both awesome to hear someone say, and also makes me nauseous.
Also: currently reading my third book on Aaron Burr. I may be bordering on obsessed. He’s definitely the absolute most interesting figure in American history, so far as I can tell.
Also: I think I may finally understand String Theory. And it seems like total nonsense!
Just got back from the Silversun Pickups show in Norfolk, Virginia, and boy are my arms tired! Seriously though. That is a long ass drive! But well worth it, fo sho.
The NorVa is a fantastic club! It’s a fairly well-renowned mid-sized rock club and I was excited to finally see a show there. It has a very old-timey feel inside (and apparently it actually is really old), and it’s also fairly intimate, with a capacity just over 1,500.
I’m a bit too tired for any long, detailed story, plus by my count I only have three friends who might even care about this blog entry (hi April, Sarah and Joel!), so I’ll get to the point: yes, I left early enough to get front row! Check out this good shot I got of Brian:
Brian Aubert, "Well Thought-Out Twinkles"
A rarity: I really enjoyed BOTH opening bands. Cage the Elephant was especially exciting, they are very much rock. Loved every second. The first opener, An Horse, I’d actually been exposed to a bit of before and mildly enjoyed their more mellow, oddball rock. The live experience delivered more of the same, and was totally grooving.
So Silversun Pickups came on sometime around 9:30. They open with the song off their new album which I’ve been obsessing over since the album came out, “Growing Old is Getting Old”. It was no big surprise–they’ve been playing a fairly consistent setlist this tour, and I haven’t seen a single setlist that didn’t open with “Growing Old is Getting Old”, but it was my first time ever seeing the band, so it didn’t matter to me that I could basically guess what song was coming next. Here’s the setlist:
1. Growing Old is Getting Old
2. Well Thought-Out Twinkles
3. There’s No Secrets This Year
4. The Royal We
5. Little Lovers So Polite
6. It’s Nice to Know You Work Alone
7. Sort Of
8. Booksmart Devil
9. Future Foe Scenarios
10. Kissing Families
11. Panic Switch
12. Lazy Eye
Encore:
1. Catch and Release
2. Common Reactor
Nikki Monninger, "Well Thought-Out Twinkles"
We actually did get one surprise in this setlist: “Booksmart Devil”, a song off their first, little-bought album Pikul. They’ve been playing one song off this album all tour–“Kissing Families”–and I hadn’t yet seen any other song from Pikul make a setlist. Not only that, but it didn’t swap out with a normal song in the set, but instead was just a straight-up addition. And it sounded awesome!!! Both Pikul songs were much more full and rounded in the live arena than on the somewhat lackluster studio album.
Highlights without a doubt included “Well Thought-Out Twinkles”, “Future Foe Scenarios”, “It’s Nice to Know You Work Alone”, and “Lazy Eye”, just a gaggle of some of my favorite songs, and a true joy to see. This band has an odd combination of pure sadness laced with uplifting joy in every chord they play. It really makes you feel alive. But nothing could compare to the show-closing “Common Reactor”, a song I sometimes miss completely when listening to the CD, but the power of this song cannot be denied. It builds, it swells, it punches you in the gut. Brian Aubert played and sung this song like his life depended on it–like all of our lives depended on it, and bassist Nikki Monninger sparked to the most alive of the evening, jumping, swaying, sweat flying from her forehead. There was a moment when I thought I was about to have a heart attack (the only other band that consistently makes me fear for my health is LIVE). I left NorVa feeling as alive as I have in months. Oh, and the solo roadtrip without smoking? Easy peasy lemon squeezy. I really need to go to bed now.
CAN YOU BELIEVE THIS SNUGGIE COMMERCIAL?!?!?
I’d like to make the observation that they have STOPPED playing “Brother” for the American shows. :(
Set List: Last Exit, Corduroy, Severed Hand, Brain Of J., Elderly Woman Behind The Counter In A Small Town, Amongst The Waves, Johnny Guitar, Even Flow, Unthought Known, Parachutes, Daughter, I Got Shit, You Are, Force of Nature, Got Some, Do The Evolution, Army Reserve, Rearviewmirror
1st encore: The End, Red Mosquito (featured Ben Harper), Given To Fly, Last Kiss, The Fixer, Life Wasted
2nd encore: Why Go, Black, Better Man(Save it for Later), Little Wing (featured John Szantos and Bud Whitcomb), So You Want to Be a Rock and Roll Star, Alive, Yellow Ledbetter(The Star-Spangled Banner)
Tour stats:
Openers:
Why Go (5)
Long Road (4)
Sometimes (3)
Of the Girl (2)
Small Town (1)
Release (1)
Hard to Imagine (1)
Gonna See My Friend (1)
In My Tree (1)
Interstellar Overdrive–>Corduroy (1)
Last Exit (1)
Main Set Closers:
Rearviewmirror (4)
Go (3)
Do the Evolution (3)
Alive (2)
Life Wasted (2)
Blood (2)
Porch (2)
Got Some (1)
Blood (1)
Spin the Black Circle (1)
MFC (1)
Closers:
Yellow Ledbetter (12)
Rockin’ in the Free World (4)
Indifference (2)
Alive (2)
Fuckin’ Up (1)
Song counts:
Got Some (21)
The Fixer (21)
Alive (19)
Even Flow (19)
Do The Evolution (17)
Elderly Woman… (16)
Given To Fly (15)
Why Go (15)
Daughter (13)
Yellow Ledbetter (13)
Corduroy (12)
Better Man (11)
Black (11)
Unthought Known (11)
Severed Hand (10)
The Real Me (10)
The End (9)
Amongst The Waves (8)
Present Tense (8)
Red Mosquito (8)
Save You (8)
Johnny Guitar (7)
Just Breathe (7)
Life Wasted (7)
Porch (7)
Rearviewmirror (7)
Dissident (6)
Down (6)
Go (6)
Hail, Hail (6)
Insignificance (6)
Lukin (6)
Not For You (6)
State Of Love And Trust (6)
Animal (5)
Brother (5)
Crazy Mary (5)
Last Exit (5)
Love Reign O’er Me (5)
Rockin´ In The Free World (5)
Spin The Black Circle (5)
Supersonic (5)
Unemployable (5)
All Night (4)
Comatose (4)
Faithfull (4)
Gonna See My Friend (4)
I Got Shit (4)
In My Tree (4)
Indifference (4)
Inside Job (4)
Long Road (4)
Low Light (4)
Off He Goes (4)
Rats (4)
Wasted Reprise (4)
World Wide Suicide (4)
Bee Girl (3)
Blood (3)
Force Of Nature (3)
Grievance (3)
I Am Mine (3)
In Hiding (3)
Light Years (3)
MFC (3)
Nothingman (3)
Once (3)
Sad (3)
Wishlist (3)
1/2 Full (2)
Brain Of J. (2)
Breakerfall (2)
Footsteps (2)
Free Jazz (2)
Gods´ Dice (2)
Gone (2)
Hard to Imagine (2)
I Believe In Miracles (2)
Immortality (2)
Last Kiss (2)
No Way (2)
Of The Girl (2)
Smile (2)
Sometimes (2)
The Needle and the Damage Done (2)
Whipping (2)
All Along the Watchtower (1)
All Those Yesterdays (1)
Alone (1)
Big Wave (1)
Breath (1)
Come Back (1)
Crown Of Thorns (1)
Driven To Tears (1)
Fuckin´ Up (1)
Glorified G (1)
Green Disease (1)
Happy Birthday (1)
Hunger Strike (1)
Interstellar Overdrive (1)
Jeremy (1)
Kick Out the Jams (1)
Leash (1)
Leaving Here (1)
Little Wing (1)
Man of the Hour (1)
Marker In The Sand (1)
Mountain Song (1)
No More (1)
Nothing As It Seems (1)
Parachutes (1)
Release (1)
Satan´s Bed (1)
Save It For Later (1)
Sleight Of Hand (1)
So You Want To Be A Rock ‘n Roll Star (1)
Soldier of Love (1)
Sonic Reducer (1)
Sugar Mountain (1)
The Golden State (1)
Throw Your Hatred Down (1)
Tremor Christ (1)
You Are (1)
You´ve Got to Hide Your Love Away (1)
Have you heard of this movie “Paranormal Activity” yet? Because if you haven’t, now you have: it just debuted at #4 at the box office while playing at 159 screens! Basically, the few theaters it’s at, were beyond sold out: see the numbers here.
And here’s a trailer.
September 30, 2009 Universal City, California, Gibson Amphitheater (LA night one)
Set List: Why Go, Animal, World Wide Suicide, Got Some, Tremor Christ, Force Of Nature, Elderly Woman Behind The Counter In A Small Town, Unthought Known, Even Flow, Amongst The Waves, Insignificance, Rats, Present Tense, Big Wave, Down, The Fixer, Porch
1st encore: Just Breathe w/string quartet, The End w/string quartet, Red Mosquito w/Ben Harper, Black, Life Wasted
2nd encore: State Of Love And Trust, Alive, Rockin’ In The Free World
Tremor Christ from LA night One:
October 1, 2009 Universal City, California, Gibson Amphitheater (LA night 2)
Set List: (Interstellar Overdrive)/Corduroy, Severed Hand, Got Some, Do The Evolution, Dissident, Given To Fly, Johnny Guitar, Amongst The Waves, I Got Shit, Daughter, Jeremy, Unthought Known, Small Town, Driven To Tears, The Fixer, Rearviewmirror
1st encore: Just Breathe w/string quartet, The End w/string quartet, Lukin w/string quartet, Red Mosquito w/Ben Harper, Jazz Odyssey, Better Man/(Save It For Later)
2nd encore: Gonna See My Friend, I Believe In Miracles, Once, Alive, Yellow Ledbetter/(Star Spangled Banner)
Lukin w/ Strings from LA night 2 (literally the funniest moment I’ve ever seen from a PJ show):
Austin City Limits Festival
October 4, 2009 Austin City Limits, Austin, Texas
Set List: Why Go, (Interstellar Overdrive)/Corduroy, Got Some, Not For You/(Modern Girl), Elderly Woman Behind The Counter In A Small Town, Given To Fly, World Wide Suicide, Even Flow, Unthought Known, Daughter/(WMA), Hail Hail, Insignificance, Present Tense, State Of Love And Trust, The Fixer, Go
Encore: Jazz Odyssey, Red Mosquito w/Ben Harper, Do The Evolution, The Real Me, Alive, Mountain Song w/Perry Farrell, Rockin’ In The Free World
October 6, 2009 Universal City, California, Gibson Amphitheater (LA night 3)
Set List: Sometimes, Breakerfall, (Interstellar Overdrive)/Corduroy, Save You, Elderly Woman Behind The Counter In A Small Town, Got Some, Unthought Known, Faithfull, Even Flow, Unemployable, Daughter, Johnny Guitar, Given To Fly, Off He Goes, Comatose, The Fixer, Do The Evolution
1st encore: Just Breathe w/string quartet, The End w/string quartet, Lukin w/string quartet, Red Mosquito w/Ben Harper, Jazz Odyssey, Rearviewmirror
2nd encore: Once, Footsteps, Hunger Strike w/Chris Cornell, Alive w/Jerry Cantrell
CHECK THIS OUT! Jerry Cantrell (Alice in Chains) comes out at the end solo and plays guitar. Mike takes his guitar off and runs around the stage. And kudos to this YouTuber for getting great shots of the crowd “fist pump” during the solo–always a highlight of the experience for me:
Los Angeles, 10/7 Gibson Amphitheater (LA night 4)
Main Set: Long Road, Animal, Hail, Hail, Gonna See My Friend, Got Some, Alone, Nothingman, Amongst The Waves, Even Flow, Untitled/Unthought Known, All Those Yesterdays, Why Go, Wishlist, Present Tense, Force of Nature, The Fixer, Spin The Black Circle, Porch
Encore: Just Breathe w/ String Quartet, The End w String Quartet, Lukin w/ String Quartet, Red Mosquito w/ Ben Harper, Jazz Odyssey w/ strings, Love Reign Oer Me, Blood(atomic dog)
2nd Encore: State of Love and Trust, Crown of Thorns, Kick Out The Jams w/ Jerry Cantrell, Alive, Indifference w/ Ben Harper
Tour stats:
Openers:
Why Go (5)
Long Road (4)
Sometimes (3)
Of the Girl (2)
Small Town (1)
Release (1)
Hard to Imagine (1)
Gonna See My Friend (1)
In My Tree (1)
Interstellar Overdrive–>Corduroy (1)
Main Set Closers:
Rearviewmirror (3)
Go (3)
Do the Evolution (3)
Alive (2)
Life Wasted (2)
Blood (2)
Porch (2)
Got Some (1)
Blood (1)
Spin the Black Circle (1)
MFC (1)
Closers:
Yellow Ledbetter (11)
Rockin’ in the Free World (4)
Indifference (2)
Alive (2)
Fuckin’ Up (1)
Days without smoking: 18
I really wish that, having stopped taking Chantix 48 hours ago, I’d have been able to sleep last night. But apparently that’s not in the cards yet. I fell asleep at 9am and my alarm went off at 11am. I didn’t take any sleep aids last night as I thought I’d be OK without them. So…ug. On the upside, when I woke up, my mom was here to see me!!!!
Days without smoking: 16
I spent all day yesterday in a serious depression. That’s right. For little to no reason. If you’ve known me over the past 6 years, you know that’s fairly uncommon. Sometimes I’ve even been bold enough to claim it was no longer possible for me to feel “depressed”. Sad, sure–depressed, no way.
It wasn’t until sometime in early evening that I remembered depression was a possible side effect of Chantix. Thank goodness! I breathed a sigh of relief, as it had been becoming worse as the night drew on. Of course I made an immediate decision to stop taking Chantix. I’ll put up with a lot of shit, but not depression. I freakin’ love my life, and I’m gonna love it no matter what, even if it would mean slipping back into smoking.
I don’t think it means that, though. I’m now 16 days smoke-free. Chantix or not, that’s a lead I’m just not going to give up. I didn’t take my Chantix this morning. So far, so good. Of course, the drug is still built up in my brain and it’ll take a few days to see how I feel “on my own”, but I’m not worried. I still feel weird not smoking, and I really, really want to get to the time when not smoking feels natural and I can really begin to live my life. So the plan for now is, once the Chantix works out of my system, if I get renewed cravings, I’m just…not going to smoke. Sounds easy at the moment, but I’ll let you know how it goes.
Oh, and the depression–it’s mostly gone. I’d be lying if I said I felt entirely like myself right now, but it’s much better than yesterday. I’m confident that I’ll be back to normal in a day or two.
Ask the kids who’ve shot themselves in the head
how the world is;
Ask their parents how hard things can be
(how love can misfire backfire trumpeting hallelujah)
All the way to dusty mosscovered graves.
Go ask the kids at
Kent State what it’s like to have
a hole in the chest,
to look down in wide-eyed wonder as your insides
leak out
so unexpectedly;
Ask the Vietnam babes with the crushed skulls
how fair life in the jungle was
or if they would do it
all
over
again
if given a chance;
Go ask the Tienenman square
tank drivers
just what this whole guilt thing
is all about
(how hindsight seeps dreams);
Go ask the cathedral builders
the stone masons
the crop dusters;
Go ask the robed emperors
the suicide bombers
the deafanddumb;
ask them all
how much their cell phone bill is,
how hard it can be to get
a nice parking spot.
Explosions in the Sky’s “All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone”
Days without smoking: 12
Ug. I just wanna put it out there that it is really unfair when, almost 20 days onto a medication, you continue experiencing new side effects. I’ve now got the nausea. It lasts about an hour or two after I take each pill, and it gets pretty serious…the running saliva, the belches…you know, when you are this close to running to the bathroom but you never quite have to. It sucks. At this point, I’m only taking Chantix for 9 more days. It’s a little scary, because I’m still having some cravings, and I’m afraid once the Chantix is out of my system I’ll have to go through a kind of second withdrawal, but at this point that seems easier than insomnia/nausea/extraordinarily painful gas/mild depression and mood swings/blurry vision and who knows what I’m forgetting. It still seems worth it to me. I mean, c’mon, I haven’t smoked for 12 days!!! It seriously wasn’t very long ago that I couldn’t imagine that. I keep having thoughts for very interestng blogs about how this is making me feel–namely how becoming a non-smoker effects my sense of self, my identity (sounds pretentious, I know, but read the description of the blog at the top of the page, people!), but every time I sit down to write it, I just don’t feel like it. So instead, I give to you this boring and useless entry about my nausea. Hey, beggars can’t be chhosers!
Notes From the Fire 