No more air planes, or speed trains, or freeways.

I’m gonna put my cynic hat on here and say that I just really don’t *get* what is often referred to as “New Years” (despite there only being one of them).

You may be saying to yourself something like, This is probably because you’re a recovering alcoholic and New Years is all about drinking, and I say to you that even as a drinker, I didn’t *get* New Years.  In fact, I never really understood any of the “drinking” holidays, a la St. Patty’s, Cinco de Mayo, etc.  That may be because I was drunk every day, but still.  I don’t get them.

In addition, the New Year’s Eve parties I have been to were exactly like every other party I had ever been to, begging the question, what makes this a New Year’s Eve party?  And that ball dropping in Times Square?  The same every year, and those people crammed into that cold place always look like they’re trying really hard to deny they’re bored.  And cold.

I suppose the main point here is that folks use “New Years”—which I suppose encompasses New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day—as a marker of time’s movement, and as a way to metaphorically “wipe the slate clean” with a fresh start, as well as reflecting on the passing year.  And I suppose that any such heady material undertaken on a mass basis is probably a good thing.  But that’s just not the way I personally function.  I think the idea of a (basically) arbitrary date being used to reflect, start anew, celebrate and generally ponder the state of your life is, well…arbitrary.  I don’t know about you, but I do these things more frequently than once a year.  They happen organically, and I take keen note of them as they happen. “New beginnings” happen when…well, when things begin, not with some date.  I reflect on the passing markers of time in my life when…well, when they pass.  Reflection, introspection, and the subsequent celebrations of the positive or changes to correct the negatives are an ongoing part of my life (don’t get me started on the phony uselessness of New Years Resolutions).  I suspect that most people are like me, like I just described.  Yet we continue to pretend that turning over this new calendar is somehow a useful, important, symbolic moment for us.  And I’m sorry to sound cynical, but it just isn’t.

I do not see the need to be nudged into contemplation and celebration by a date.

(I guess I must be a tad cynical to type out such a blog, but I thought…why not actually type what I’m thinking?  I never claimed to be an over-the-top optimist.  Sometimes I’m happy, sometimes I’m sad.  As the great Walt Whitman said, “I contain multitudes.” )

Also, here is an amazing song by Death Cab For Cutie called “The New Year”, which contains both my cynical feelings about the day itself, and my feelings that life, in general, is completely amazing:

The New Year
by Death Cab For Cutie

So this is the new year,
and i don’t feel any different.
The clanking of crystal,
explosions off in the distance.

So this is the new year
and I have no resolutions.
No self-assigned penance
for problems with easy solutions.

So everybody put your best suit or dress on.
Let’s make believe that we are wealthy for just this once.
Lighting firecrackers off on the front lawn
as thirty dialogs bleed into one.

I wish the world was flat like the old days,
and I could travel just by folding a map.
No more airplanes, or speed trains, or freeways.
There’d be no distance that could hold us back.

Seth’s Favorite Poems

Poetry
by Marianne Moore

I, too, dislike it: there are things that are important beyond all
this fiddle.
Reading it, however, with a perfect contempt for it, one
discovers in
it after all, a place for the genuine.
Hands that can grasp, eyes
that can dilate, hair that can rise
if it must, these things are important not because a

high-sounding interpretation can be put upon them but because
they are
useful. When they become so derivative as to become
unintelligible,
the same thing may be said for all of us, that we
do not admire what
we cannot understand: the bat
holding on upside down or in quest of something to

eat, elephants pushing, a wild horse taking a roll, a tireless wolf
under
a tree, the immovable critic twitching his skin like a horse that
feels a
flea, the base-
ball fan, the statistician–
nor is it valid
to discriminate against ‘business documents and

school-books’; all these phenomena are important. One must
make a distinction
however: when dragged into prominence by half poets, the
result is not poetry,
nor till the poets among us can be
‘literalists of
the imagination’–above
insolence and triviality and can present

for inspection, ‘imaginary gardens with real toads in them’, shall
we have
it. In the meantime, if you demand on the one hand,
the raw material of poetry in
all its rawness and
that which is on the other hand
genuine, you are interested in poetry.

Wednesday’s Picture

Monday’s Song, “We Will Become Silhouettes” by The Postal Service

We Will Become Silhouettes
by The Postal Service

I’ve got a cupboard with cans of food,
filtered water, and pictures of you
and I’m not coming out until this is all over.
And I’m looking through the glass
where the light bends at the cracks
and I’m screaming at the top of my lungs,
pretending the echoes belong to someone,
someone I used to know.

And we become silhouettes when our bodies finally go.

I wanted to walk through the empty streets
and feel something constant under my feet,
but all the news reports recommended that I stay indoors,
because the air outside will make
our cells divide at an alarming rate
until our shells simply cannot hold
all our insides in
and that’s when we’ll explode
(and it won’t be a pretty sight).

And we’ll become silhouettes when our bodies finally go.

Audio Poem, “Like it Always Has”

Year Written: 2005
Collection: The Loosing of Clocks

Like it Always Has

The dog runs away when I come near,
like it always has.
Off to the garage somewhere,
or to nose around in the garden,
maybe.
The skinny gray cat, however,
allows me to stroke him.
I like the cat, with his rough,
sandpaper coat and vibrating
contentment.
The cat meets my gaze with honesty,
commiserating over the heat,
the long days,
and the loud cars
which are ceaseless.

The house towers above us,
is taller than even our cars.
It is lit up like a ballroom,
and tonight it promises
to keep all wild things out,
like it always has.

A view of Lake Erie in the process of freezing

50 More Things from 2010

Due to the severe limitations of “top ten lists”, as well as the sheer amount of crap I love each year, I’ve decided to institute this general list of 50 things I plain-old loved in 2010.  Most will be things that did not appear on my music or movies list, as well as things created, released, or performed in 2010, but I’m not going to limit myself with actual ground rules.  Here are, quite simply, in no particular order, 50 things I loved in 2010:

50.  The New York Times

Hear hear for a newspaper that still dares to have sections devoted to important things like science, business, and art.  I’ve found it difficult to spend less than two hours on a copy—even on a day like Tuesday.

49.  Red Bull Cola

It will probably be a short-lived experiment, but the delicious and almost-natural cola from Red Bull was a tasty shot of adrenaline (even if it was overpriced).

48.  Dwayne Johnson and Samuel L. Jackson in “The Other Guys”. 

The movie itself may have been lacking, but these two good sports’ 5 minutes of screen time made the enterprise worth the price of admission.

47.  “Dancing with the Stars”

For awhile, I hated myself for this guilty pleasure, until I realized it was actually genuinely compelling television.  Cynical hipster naysayers need to actually watch a season (I should know–I am a cynical hipster naysayer)

46.  The segment on NPR’s “Whad’Ya Know? with Michael Feldman” where they listed fake WikiLeaks

Far and away the most I’ve ever laughed at the radio.

45.  The new Ansel Adams photographs

Whether or not they are actually Ansel Adams’ is still in dispute—but they’re terrific photographs anyway

44.  This.

43.  “8: The Mormon Proposition”

The documentary that reveals (gasp!) how Prop 8 was engineered by the institution of the Mormon church.  Enraging, and engaging.

42.  VEVO on YouTube

Sure, this music channel on YouTube is 100% a corporate whore, but my year has been exponentially enhanced by concert footage of my favorite bands not shot by a drunk frat boy with a first generation iPhone.

41.  James Franco’s “Palo Alto”

Franco’s collection of short stories is good—real good.

40.  James Franco on “General Hospital”

Yeah, it’s on before I leave for work, so sue me if I watch it every now and then!  Franco’s performance as–ahem–Franco was an over-the-top piece of performance art so nuanced (with nods to the real-world oddity of James Franco being on a soap opera) that I often found myself stunned something so lovely and sophisticated was happening on American daytime television.

39.  James Franco in “127 Hours”

Portraying a not-so-likeable man within a bare-bones script who also has to cut off his own arm, Franco manages to make us like him, and makes us want to be better people, too.

38.  James Franco’s art opening in New York

James Franco opened a gallery exhibit of his art in New York this year, and although not all of it is great, some of it is incredible, and it’s all very valid.  To imagine a Hollywood star opening an art show he says–out loud–is about the “sexual confusion of adolescence” makes me think we may be living in a culture with, well…culture.  See some of the art here. 

37.  James Franco in “Howl”

So, the movie kinda stinks, but Franco hits an underappreciated home run as the poet Allen Ginsburg, an unlikeable, grizzly gay man with so many conflicting character traits, it’s an amazing juggling act Franco had to do–and a bona fide joy to see.  Also, John Hamm is in the movie, too!

36.  Salvation Army Stores

Thanks to this discovery, the visual palette that is me (it seems absurd to call what I have a “fashion sense”) is evolving for the first time in a decade.  (read: more sweaters)

35.  Joel Stein’s column in TIME magazine

The most self-absorbed man in the newsmagazine business continues to get funnier, even as his subjects get more serious.  Every week, I’m sure he’ll be arrested.

34.  The Mac Wrap at McDonalds

I seem to be the only human alive not disgusted by this, either literally, morally, or some other, more etheral way.  But I’m not disgusted.  I’m delighted.

33.  “Gimme Shelter” performed at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony by U2, Mick Jagger, and Fergie.

Rock and roll heaven.  An absolute orgasm.  And I don’t even like U2!

32.  The repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell

Because even republicans want to get into Heaven.

31.  Jonathan Franzen’s “Freedom”

Franzen is this generation’s Hemingway.  And “Freedom” is his “A Farewell to Arms”.  Read it.  Just do it.

30.  The March to Restore Sanity

I wasn’t there, and I didn’t see a lot of it, but I love it anyway.

29.  The “LOST” finale

It’s much debated, but I was never an “I need answers to X, Y, and Z, and I need them freaking spelled out for me” kinda guy.  I didn’t have LOST theories.  I work more by “feel”.  And the finale certainly felt right.  I still cry, every time.

28.  The “twist” ending of “Remember Me”

Everybody hates it.  I love it.  What’s new?

27.  The Chilean miners

Seriously?  This story was too good to be true.  If they made this movie and it was fictional, you’d be all like “No way this would happen like this.”  Just an unbelievable story.  The rare event of real news being real entertaining–and then uplifting.

26.  John Updike’s “Endpoint”

Sadly, this posthumous collection is the last poetry that will ever be released by Mr. Updike.  Luckily, it’s amazing (but, also, terribly terribly sad.)

25.  “The Good Wife” on CBS

I’ve just discovered it, so I have to get caught up, but it is tickling me.

24.  Seeing Art Speigelman give a talk at Dickinson University

Seeing the legendary literary graphic novelist give a highly entertaining and informative talk was one of the live event highlights of my year, and nobody had a guitar.

23.  My super-secret crush, The View‘s Sherri Shepard.

I will do unspeakble things to this woman.  In the good way.

22.  Mila Kunis and–yes–James Franco in “Date Night”

See #48 and substitute these actor’s names.

21.  The comeback of The Atlantic

One of the oldest and most respected magazines in the world revamps itself and somehow does not end up sucking.  In fact, it’s now better than ever, and just announced a profit for the first time in a decade.  And thankfully, it is somehow still completely pompous.

20.  Michael Vick

I sure know when to get back into Philadelphia sports, don’t I???  I simply love this real-life tale of redemption; if I didn’t believe in second chances, my own life would probably look a little bit different.

19.  This.

18.  TurningArt

The Netflix-like service provides you with rotating art prints (and a neato frame).  Sure, they don’t do much but hang there, but it’s a great way to explore what you like and don’t like about art.  It’s interesting to find how your relationship with a piece of art changes as it hangs in your home; much different than seeing it for 5 minutes in a gallery.

17.  Dogs

Still the best thing going.

16.  “Late Night with Jimmy Fallon”

Fallon has really hit a stride that is pure magic.  Sure, he’s not breaking new ground like his competition Craig Ferguson (who’s got a bit of briliiance working, as well), but Fallon’s show works miracles within a formula.  Delicious.

15.  The Fusco Brothers

The smartest, funniest comic strip in (or probably NOT in) your local newspaper just keeps getting funnier.  And smarter.  And harder to find.

14.  BuyBack$

A store that is just cheap, used DVDs, CDs, and Blu-Rays?  Yeah.  I’m kinda all over that.

13.  The re-release of new-age symhony In C.

Composer Terry Riley’s experimental, semi-electronic classical piece In C was re-released on CD this year, and it is just as addictive as when I first owned it back in high school.  Shades of just about all my current favorite artists can be heard in this breakthrough work.

12.  Cherry Crush

Because it’s fucking delicious.

11.  “What Up With That?” sketches on Saturday Night Live

This is by far the most enjoyable recurring sketch on SNL I’ve seen in years.  It has a concrete element of the absurd, and a perfect setting for uproarious celebrity cameos.  And Keenan Thompson is a genius, I don’t care what you say!  Click here for a selection of this year’s What Up With That’s on Hulu.

10.  Roles For Women

There’s still not nearly enough meaty roles for women in movies—Hollywood, indie, or otherwise—but this year saw a few choicer roles than before, thanks to dandy’s like “The Kids Are All Right”, “Please Give”, and “Secretariat”.

9.  Dan Simmons’ “The Terror”

One of the most interesting, and also more difficult, novels I’ve ever read.  Simmons’ explorers-trapped-in-icelocked-ships-being-terrorized-by-unseen-monsters-yet-also-slightly-based-on-historical-fact-of-Franklin’s-lost-expedition has got to be the world’s first historical fiction gothic horror novel.  And it scared the shit out of me.

8.  Cleveland

It really does rock.

7.  slate.com

The one-time almost-sad story of an great website gone bad is now a must-read internet newsmagazine.  I have it set as my homepage.

6.  Blu-Ray discs in Reboxes

Hey thanks.

5.  The first fight scene in “The Book of Eli”, where Denzel cuts that dude’s hand off.

OK, so the rest of the movie is kinda hum-drum, but that knife scene by the underpass with above-mentioned amputation is pure badass movie magic.

4.  Free concerts in the square in downtown Buffalo

I got a free front-row Ed Kowalczyk show, courtesy of the city of Buffalo, in a very attractive, quaint little square with a big statue of some dude (Mr. Buffalo?) in the center.  Can’t wait to see next year’s schedule!

3.  Katie Couric doing CBS’s Evening News

I just plain trust her.  A throwback to old-school news.

2.  The poster for The National’s album “High Violet”.

Good art and good music, all affordable?  Sign me up.  Check out the poster here.

1.  “The Expendables”

The movie was pretty bad, but I’d watch these guys pop popcorn.

 

Christmas Eve on Presque Isle

 

This picnic table has somehow sunk into the sand, which is now frozen.

 

 

An elusive Cardinal

A frozen Misery Bay---this is where the American troops (with Oliver Hazard Perry) were iced in over a winter during the War of 1812--hence the name Misery Bay. There are two sunken 1812 warships in the bay.

 

Not even January and the car is coated in the salty mineral dust of winter

 

Self Portrait #1, Misery Bay in Winter

 

Self Portrait #2, Misery Bay in Winter

 

 

Me on the ice of one of the frozen lagoons on Presque Isle

 

 

 

My trusty steed

 

 

 

The bay, frozen

 

Eat ‘n Park wins National Business Ethics Award

While I avoid talking specifically about work as much as possible, I just had to give a shout-out to my company, Eat ‘n Park, (which I have worked for for 15 years now, but who in no way endorses or has anything to do with this blog) for recieving this year’s National Business Ethics Award.  This is not nothing–the previous two winners were Lockheed Martin and Hewlitt Packard.  I do love this company, and it’s now being validated that, in fact, we are a company full of good people and good intentions.  Please, if there’s one near you, patronize an Eat ‘n Park and support a good company.  Read the article here.

Seth’s Favorite Movies of 2010

 

I swear, I am not trying to just be “different” with my list this year, although it does look a bit different from most of the year-end lists I’ve seen so far.  It just felt like a year of great movies being overlooked (or, in my opinion, completely mis-read by the critics).  It was a great year for movies, with both a plethora of hidden gems and a healthy dose of well-publicized quality films.  And don’t get me wrong: a lot of the much-talked-about Awards-bait movies really are great, and they made the list, too.  Also make sure to see the “honorable mentions” section after the list for movies that just barely missed the cut.

This year I’ve been able to see just about every movie with major awards buzz (or major indie cred) so I feel as though this is the best year-end movie list I’ve done.  The only movies I wish I could have seen before making the list are: “Blue Valentine”, “Rabbit Hole”, “Another Year”, “I Love You Philip Morris” and I haven’t seen “Toy Story 3”, but I have never cared about the Toy Story movies.

So, here’s the list:

10.  Ondine

Neil Jordan’s mermaid-out-of-water film is absolutely the saddest, most serious mermaid film ever made.  It’s a fantastic show of cinematography meets soundtrack, and is a career best performance for Colin Farrell.  It’s also a pretty good movie about alcoholism!

(“Ondine” is currently available to watch instantly on Netflix)

 

 

9.  Exit Through the Gift Shop

 

 

 

 

This was definitely the year of the “meta-doc”; documentaries wherin you could not tell exactly what was real, how much was fictional, who exactly was making the documentary, and what they were “trying to say”.  “Exit Through the Gift Shop” seperates itself from the pack by being a movie claiming to be made by Banksy (the world’s most famous graffiti artist and also probably the world’s most elusive human being, to the point that one could have a lengthy discussion about whether he actually exists.  But–he does, ok?)  But aside from the intriguing Banksy element, the entire film (without for a moment actually seeming like it) is a long meditation on the nature of art unlike anything on film since Orson Welles’ “F for Fake”.  In the end, the film manages to ask if itself, as a film, is even worth your time; in essence, is the question even worth asking? (and what does it mean if a painting is worth more than a house?)

8.  Scott Pilgrim vs. the World

 

 

 

 

 

This was a cult classic the moment it was released.  In turns hilarious, action-packed, and heartfelt,  it’s also chock-a-block full of insider cultural references and populist brain candy.  Plus, the best Brandon Routh cameo since “Zack and Miri Make a Porno”

 

7.  Let Me In

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I had been a huge fan of the original version of this film, 2008’s “Let the Right One In”.  That film, a slow-moving, quiet Swedish meditation on childhood, eternal love and–oh yeah, vampires–is certainly an acquired taste and a nearly singular event in the world of movies.  When I heard there was going to be an American remake, I feared the worst.  (American re-makes of recent horror movies tend to make them all look like teenage slasher flicks).  I didn’t even go to see the this year’s remake until it was in the dollar theater (and Mary had harangued me about it enough, insisting it was really good.)  So I wnet, and it was really good.  In fact, some days I think I like it better than the Swedish original.  It maintains the contemplative, dirge-like heart of the original while satisfying what I did not realize was my desire to see just a little bit more vampire ass-kicking.  (and the one-shot interior of a car rolling down a cliff is joltingly energizing.)  And much kudos to the remake for maintaining the subtle yet gut-wrenching end of the first film and not feeling the need to show us more than we needed to see.

6.  127 Hours

 

 

 

 

Danny Boyle’s movie about the real-life hiker who had to cut his own arm off is as mesmerizing as the reviews would have you believe:  visually arresting, sometimes shocking, with the performance of a lifetime by James Franco (who I crown this year’s all-around Most Talented Man); Boyle, Franco and crew explore the very pit of human nature in what could have been a treacly, overcoming the odds story but what is instead a “Trainspotting” for the 2000s.

5.  Black Swan

 

 

 

 

 

It’s not very often that a gothic horror dance drama opens wide in American theaters, and rarer still that one of today’s most exciting filmmakers (Darren Aronofsky) teams up with some of the most under-utilized actresses in the business to make a movie that gradually makes them very unattractive.  (that is praise)  It’s not quite as creepy as the commericials make it look, but it was more “unsettling” than I’d expected.  Points scored for guts alone.  Also, like “Ondine”, a gorgeous pairing of visuals and music, often in hideous juxtaposition.

4.  Jack Goes Boating

 

 

 

 

 

Philip Seymour Hoffman’s directorial debut (from a screenplay by Bob Glaudini based on his celebrated play) is certainly the most ignored film of the year.  It’s theme of life never quite being the way we envision it—that relationship that is not perfect, the dinner that didn’t taste right, the car that you allowed to get dirty—is a difficult nut to crack, but Hoffman pulls it off with brio via a series of scenes in which his character, Jack, mimes his visualizations for his ideal life in the hopes that they’ll come to fruituion (including, naturally, boating).  More than any film this year, “Jack Goes Boating” has stuck with me and influenced my worldview (it doesn’t score higher on the list due to a few minor characterization flubs).  Also, thanks go to this movie for breathing renewed life into hipster-favorite band Fleet Foxes’ masterpiece self-titled album.

3.  Inception

 

I’ve probably blogged more than enough about this movie this year already.  You know how I feel about it.  A nutty head-trip on the level of huge blockbusters like “Star Wars” that is actually about the sanctity of the human mind and the mysteries of memory, filmed like a technicolor Escher painting and sporting the most adventurous film score in decades.  If Hans Zimmer doesn’t win an Oscar for this score, I’m moving to Canada.

2.  Winter’s Bone

 

 

 

 

 

To simply read the plot synopsis of “Winter’s Bone” makes the film sound trite and cliche: a young girl living in the country, taking care of her nearly comatose mother and two young siblings, must find her absentee bail-jumping father or the bank will take the family home.  But the plot itself is nearly forgotten in a maze of bizarre complications, both byzantine and grotesque.  We follow our lead character (a breaking-through Jennifer Lawrence) through a series of back-country set pieces so authentic and abyssmal that you can almost smell the cat piss inside, and the cow shit outside.  Although it is neither set in nor was it filmed in Pennsylvania, it is a world I recognize: backyards alitter with empty chicken coops, car engines and sun-bleached plastic swingsets, and in the houses men and women with rusty shotguns and unwashed flannel shirts and lice infestations.  This is a world filled with angry people who do vicious things, and they do not want to help Jennifer Lawrence’s character on her mission to save her family.  There is very little redemption in “Winter’s Bone” (though there is some) but it is a vivid, disheartening snapshot of a world almost never portrayed.

1.  I’m Still Here

 

 

 

 

 

That’s right.  My #1 movie is the Joaquin Phoenix “documentary” that just about everybody seems to hate.  Well, first, it is not in any way a documentary, and second, it’s totally amazing.

I admit, on first viewing, I was also unsure how much was real and how much was fake.  Either way, I knew immediately that I loved it.  The “character” of Joaquin is a horrible man undergoing an almost comically difficult transformation.  His friends (including Casey Affleck) seem to care very little, and facilitate his destruction to the very end.  The final shot of the film is a cinematic kick to the balls that, quite literally, haunts my dreams.

A viewing of the filmmaker’s commentary on the DVD (which includes tracks by both Affleck and Phoenix) reveals in no uncertain terms that not one moment of the film is “documentary”.  This is a fictional movie, which had a screenplay and everything.  The one major difference between “I’m Still Here” and other fictional films is that, built into the story is a need for the film to be played out in public, with the world at large believing the events to be real.  Rather than a “hoax”, this is just a natural necessity of the plot of the film.  When viewed 20 years from now, after Phoneix’s “public meltdown” is long since forgotten, “I’s Still Here” will be able to be seen context-free and the nature of the masterpiece might then finally become clear.

(on a sidenote, mere weeks ago Entertainment Weekly quizzically wondered why “I’m Still Here” had not submitted itself for consideration in the Documentary category of the Oscars.  Needless to say, this enflamed me. Had nobody at the world’s foremost entertainment magazine watched the film and then the commentary track?  I promise you, world, there is no doubt that this movie is fictional and is intended to be seen as fictional.  For instance, just a few minutes into the film—when watching the commentary track—Joaquin Phoneix’s “assistant” is seen on screen, at which point he says her “real name” and tells us “she’s the actress that played my assistant in ths movie.”  This kind of reveal is repeated over and over again thoughout the commentary.  You know.  Like in a real movie.)

Never have I seen such bold, ballsy, artful filmmaking.  There is, in the end, little “point” to the exercise.  It is not a meditation on the nature of fame, or on the heriditary nature of drug-addled falls-from-grace.  It is a character study, but an intensive one, and like all character studies, in the end analysis it makes us come face to face with our own characters, who we are, and what is right with us and what is wrong with us.

 (“I’m Still Here” is currently available to watch instantly on Netflix)

 

Honorable mentions:

“True Grit”, “The Social Network”, “The Town”, “The Kids Are All Right”, “The Fighter”, “Ghost Writer”, “Greenberg”, “Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work”, “Babies”, “Tron Legacy”, “Fair Game”, “Paranormal Activity 2”, “The Tempest”, “Jackass 3D”, “Secretariat”, “Please Give”, “A Solitary Man”

 

Seth’s Favorite Poems

O Tell me the Truth About Love
by W.H. Auden

Some say love’s a little boy,
And some say it’s a bird,
Some say it makes the world go around,
Some say that’s absurd,
And when I asked the man next-door,
Who looked as if he knew,
His wife got very cross indeed,
And said it wouldn’t do.

Does it look like a pair of pyjamas,
Or the ham in a temperance hotel?
Does its odour remind one of llamas,
Or has it a comforting smell?
Is it prickly to touch as a hedge is,
Or soft as eiderdown fluff?
Is it sharp or quite smooth at the edges?
O tell me the truth about love.

Our history books refer to it
In cryptic little notes,
It’s quite a common topic on
The Transatlantic boats;
I’ve found the subject mentioned in
Accounts of suicides,
And even seen it scribbled on
The backs of railway guides.

Does it howl like a hungry Alsatian,
Or boom like a military band?
Could one give a first-rate imitation
On a saw or a Steinway Grand?
Is its singing at parties a riot?
Does it only like Classical stuff?
Will it stop when one wants to be quiet?
O tell me the truth about love.

I looked inside the summer-house;
It wasn’t over there;
I tried the Thames at Maidenhead,
And Brighton’s bracing air.
I don’t know what the blackbird sang,
Or what the tulip said;
But it wasn’t in the chicken-run,
Or underneath the bed.

Can it pull extraordinary faces?
Is it usually sick on a swing?
Does it spend all its time at the races,
or fiddling with pieces of string?
Has it views of its own about money?
Does it think Patriotism enough?
Are its stories vulgar but funny?
O tell me the truth about love.

When it comes, will it come without warning
Just as I’m picking my nose?
Will it knock on my door in the morning,
Or tread in the bus on my toes?
Will it come like a change in the weather?
Will its greeting be courteous or rough?
Will it alter my life altogether?
O tell me the truth about love.

No Steps Forward, Two Steps Back

Ok, I’m soliciting theories for an odd occurence here in my apartment the last two days.

First, when I got home from work yesterday, the wall clock in my bathroom was two hours behind.  Not too odd, you’re thinking.  Except it is a battery powered wall clock, and it was exactly two hours behind, and it was ticking the seconds off just perfectly, and it had been on the correct time 12 hours before when I left for work.  So, how does a battery-powered clock get exactly two hours behind in a matter of only 12 hours while still ticking properly? 

I decided to essentially not think about it, assuming there was some perfectly reasonable explanation I was simply not thinking of.  When I left for work last night (16 hours after my initial discovery that the clock was behind) it was still exactly two hours behind (I hadn’t changed it yet because it’s kinda a ladder ordeal, so I’ll be fixing it on my next day off).  Then, whenI got home this morening, the clock was exactly FOUR hours behind!  (an additional two hours behind the first two hour lag).  Now mind you, it is still EXACT.  The minutes are correct.  The second hand is still ticking around very nicely, at the rate of about a second a second.  I just took a shower and when I got out, the clock had elapsed about ten minutes and was matching with the timestamp on the bottom of the television screen on the Today show (yeah, I have a TV in the bathroom).

So, the only workable theory I have is that someone is breaking into my house and just slightly messing with me, just to have fun.  (if you don’t think someone would do this, watch the horrible movie “Now You Know”, written and directed by the guy who played Randall in the “Clerks” movies.  It’s a bad movie but people do shit like this in it.) Anyway…theories, anyone????

Wednesday’s Picture

Christmas Eve in Rehab

A few good years ago, on my old MySpace blog, as Christmas was approaching, I was searching for something to write about it.  I ended up blogging this small account of the Christmas Eve I spent in rehab.  Looking back on it now, as a piece of writing, it certainly has it’s flaws, but I’ve decided to present it again without changing anything at all.  Rather than continue trying to come up with some new Christmas-themed blog every year, I’ve decided to begin a tradition of posting this every year (kinda like it’s a Peanuts special), warts and all.  Thanks for reading.

I have had the somewhat unique experience of spending a Christmas in rehab.  This Christmas was my fourth since then, and hopefully I’ll never let a Christmas go by that I don’t remember that day and–more intensely–the night before.

Christmas Eve in rehab.

It was a more relaxed day for us.  We didn’t have to be at quite as many group sessions.  We had more smoke breaks, more leisure time.  Most of us had been together for a few weeks by then, so there was a good ‘family’ feeling.  It was actually a very nice day, although it did make you realize there was an outside world.  One can’t help but picture their family, at home, watching The Grinch, burning apple-scented candles.  In the corners of your mind, you dare to hope they are wondering what you are doing, too.  And that they still love you.  (They do.)

Late in the afternoon, just as the light was dying and the gloaming light took over the world, snow began to fall.  It was going to be a white Christmas, and here we were, sealed away, smoking in our enclosed courtyard, catching errant snowflakes whose majesty had been ruined by accidentally falling into a rehab courtyard.

We were told to gather in the ‘Big Room’(this is the main gathering room) at 8pm.  We did so.  Once we are all present (about 30 of us) Bob comes in.  Bob was a counselor and lecturer, and probably one major reason why I am alive today.  Most everyone loved Bob.  Some people didn’t love Bob, cause Bob didn’t let you bullshit him, or anyone else.  Bullshit kills sobriety.  Bob taught me that.

Bob gathered us together and ushered us down the halls, without telling us where we were going.  We ended up going into the pool room.  Yes, my rehab had an indoor pool (it doesn’t anymore.  Nowadays it’s just another fucking room.) in a room with a glass ceiling, much like a greenhouse.  All the lights were out, and there was soft, relaxing music playing in the background (what I suppose is called ‘Meditation Music’); I never could tell where they had that music coming from.

The room was so serene.  You could hear the snow landing and immediately melting on the glass roof, and even with the lights out, the pool reflected ambient light, just a little tiny bit, but enough to see where you were stepping.  The music made it the most inviting, relaxing room I’ve ever been in.  I want to spend every Christmas eve in that room.

As we filed in, one of the interns handed us each an orange glow stick…you know, those things that you shake, then crack, and they glow with an eerie iridescent light of various colors.  Well, all of our glow sticks were orange and hadn’t been cracked yet.  They weren’t glowing.

Bob instructed us to gather around the edge of the pool, and attempt to space ourselves evenly all the way around.  It took us a few minutes, as there were thirty of us, but eventually we were there, in the dark, entirely surrounding the pool.

Bob talked for a few minutes about Christmas, and recovery in general—stuff I can’t specifically remember anymore.  But then he started talking about Faith.  Not necessarily Christian Faith…just.  plain. faith. Faith—in anything—Bob said, was the only way to start properly on the road to recovery.  And if you didn’t have any at all—if you were starting from a position of no Faith at all—all that you really needed was just a little spark, a tiny, almost invisible spark of Faith, and then you could blow on it, and fan it, and protect it and nurture it until it was a roaring, unstoppable flame.

But most important, Bob said, was to surround yourself with others who had sparks or flames, and together, your flames could grow high, strong, everlasting: a testament to a Power higher than ourselves who could keep us collectively sober and alive.

“Crack your glow sticks,” Bob said.

We did.  Suddenly surrounding the pool there were thirty orange lights, glowing in the darkness.  It was a neat sight, but the room remained largely dark.

“These are your sparks of Faith,” Bob said.  “But still, each spark is alone.  You see how you still cannot see each other’s faces, from across the pool?  A spark of Faith has difficulty growing on it’s own.  Now, throw them in the pool.”

We looked around, hesitantly.  After a few seconds, someone threw their glow stick in the pool.  Just the single glow stick seemed to light the whole pool up with an orange, fire-like glow.  A bright orb of light followed it to the bottom of the deep end.

Immediately afterwards, twenty-nine other glow sticks flew through the air, an amazing sight that looked somewhat like anti-aircraft fire, or a brief plague of Lightning Bugs.

The room became aglow.  The pool lit up like a miniature sun.  Everyone’s faces, the tears already starting, were clear as day.  The room was orange now, and still you heard the snowflakes melting on the roof, the quiet music coming from nowhere, the merest hint of the sound of happy lapping water.

“Faith burns brighter in numbers.  Stick together, help each other, and fan each other’s flames,” Bob said, himself on the verge of tears.  “Now let’s clasp hands.”

We formed a tight circle around the pool, staring at the amazing glowing water, and on that Christmas Eve, us thirty recited the Serenity Prayer together, to whatever we happened to think of as God, to whatever being there could be that would allow such a perfect moment to occur in this world of folly and disaster.

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.

We retrieved our ‘sparks’ from the pool, and each kept one.  Mine still sits on my entertainment center, beside a Beanie Baby and my stereo.

Monday’s Song: Fleet Foxes, “White Winter Hymnal”

White Winter Hymnal
by Fleet Foxes

I was following the pack,
all swallowed in their coats
with scarves of red tied round their throats
to keep their little heads
from falling in the snow.
And I turned round and there you go—
and Michael you would fall
and turn the white snow red as strawberries in the summertime.

 

The One Where I Whine About Things

1.  Everyone who gets my phone number here in Erie says, “Oh, 717, that’s the New York area code!”  No, no it’s not.

2.  We are almost at the shortest day of the year!!!  Which means soon they’ll start getting longer! Yaaaayyyy!!!

3.  After a very promising start, the Columbus Blue Jackets are once again in last place in their division.  They started as one of the best teams in the NHL!  Granted that was just in the first few weeks, but still, I was getting excited.  And still, even while it was happening, I could find NO mention of them in the press or anywhere, and in all the sports-themed stores at the mall (3 of them) I cannot find a single item with their logo, whereas I can find almost every other pro team in every sport.  Why does the whole world ignore the Blue Jackets???

4.  Entertainment Weekly‘s year-end top ten list of novels did not include—anywhere on the top ten—Jonathen Franzen’s Freedom.  This goes beyond bizarre.  I mean, for it to not even BE ON the top ten list seems like it must be an actual accident.  (for those not into books, this omission is like “Avatar” not being on a top ten list of movies in 2009, except the book doesn’t suck.)

5.  Just because you see I very recently posted soemthing on Facebook does not mean I am all of a sudden obligated to text you back.  I am not just laying around, posting to Facebook in a void of activity.  I often post something right in the middle of the stream of life. I’ll text you back when I’m good and ready!

(sorry, just doing some venting)

Audio Poem, “Ebbing”

Year written: 2005
Collection: The Loosing of Clocks

Ebbing

The line passively rocks,
the weight of warm wool socks
freshly laundered.  Now dry.
I suddenly ask why
I can picture the wool
in the washer, still full.

Wednesday’s Picture

Erie Journal, December 2010

 I know there’s a lot of typos here, but I’m in a time crunch.

It has started snowing in Erie.  And that’s pretty much the only way to put it.  It snows here.  And snows.  And snows.  And snows.

Some days are just laced with intermittent squalls with no visiible accumulation.  Other days are one long flurry; like those rainy days that just drizzle and drizzle and drizzle.  Other days are “snow events” with inches or feet of accumulation.  But every day has one thing in common:  it snows.

It waited until later than normal to start, but once it started, it has essetnially not stopped.  There’s not a whole lot of snow on the ground.  The wind blows so hard all the time, the snow just drifts up in the most conspicuous places, leaving just a few-inches layer of smow everywhere, being held to the ground by ice like a paste. 

Since the first day I moved here, countless people have told me, over and over and over again, how “they know how to handle to snow up here”.  Well, they lied.  Either that, or despite our constant complaints in Harrisburg, it’s possible that Harrisburg is amazing at handling snow, because Erie fucking sucks at it.  They pretty much DON’T plow.  They just let us drive over the snow and count on the traffic to flatten the snow.  The most heavily-used arteries do get salted and end up being very navigable, but even the just-barely-secondary roads are totally ignored.  The street  that I live on has not seen a plow since the snow started.  It has icy ruts and ridges as though they were tire ruts deep in the moistest of mud, and then flash frozen.  Walking from my apartment to my car is sometimes treacherous.

In my neioghborhood, nobody shovelled for the first three days of the snow.  Now I see why.  To shovel every time it snows would be insanity.  One must wait until a good amount builds up and then take care of it once or twice a week (shovelling down to the base of ice which I suspect will be with us for a few months).

Mostly, though, I am so far struck by the similarity to central PA.  Sure, there’s a lot more snow and wind and crappier roads, but everyone and their brother has been saying to me since I got here “Just wait until you experience Erie’s winter” and now they’re all saying “So how do you like Erie’s winter?”, to which I have in recent days started replying, “I’m not from Hawaii!”  I know about snow.  Granted, we have yet to get one of these multi-foot dumps we are bound to get (in a city that averages 80-some feet of snow a year, multiple “feet” of snow events are inevitable) and I may feel different after 3 months of constant snow, but so far I’m not seeing the huge deal.

I am confident I will write another entry like this very soon, however, where I admit that this shit is serious!

Monday’s Song: Phish, “David Bowie”

David Bowie
by Phish

David Bowie!
UB40!

Audio Poem: “The Lady Down the Street”

Year written: 2005
Collection:  The Loosing of Clocks

The Lady Down the Street

She waits for death and it will not come
(with its grace and majesty
somehow inevitable)
each day a wait
beside her cane
sometimes wheelchair she waits,
fleeing through each moment briefly
as though it were a spectacle
put on specially for her,
shocked that each yet passes
rather than magically stand still
for a lark.
And it will not come
as she daily slumps
bag of bones
in an heirloom couch
searching the muddy corners
of each dark room
in her dark house
for promises the years made to her
and then forgot:
kisses in stairwells
and gilded book-pages
alive now only
where one wall
meets another
in muted history.
And it will not come
on summer noons
surveying her finite square of tulips and tomatoes,
working the breathing soil
with bare hands.
Seed in, flower out. Weeding to be done.
As she watches, still things grow,
are born, die when they are ready.
But not her,
having been planted in too-fertile ground,
growing for so long
the sun scorches her hair.
And it will not come for her,
while she pleads ceaselessly
with passive faith,
active desire.

Something Ron Said Once

  “I think I might need to get an ass wig.”

Friday’s Film Clip, “Mean Creek”

A wonderful sense of dread created solely by a subtle screenplay, expert editing, and terrific acting:

VHS 008

Yes, I’m going to post a blog every time I get a new print from TurningArt.  Just get over it.

So, I just got a new print from TurningArt.  (not sure what I’m talking about or want to see the previous prints?  Click here.)  After getting two very similar prints by the same artist, I thought I’d go as close to polar opposite as possible, so I went with “VHS 008” by Hollis Brown Thornton.  Thornton is a very interesting artist who uses all kinds of mediums, but is probably most famous for is pencil and marker drawings of “dead media” such as VHS, Atari cartridges, and 8-track tapes.  Check out his personal website here.   Here is the piece currently on the wall at the top of my stairs:

And here’s how it looks in my stairwell (I keep them in my stairwell, rather than in one of my actual rooms with my other artwork, because I make a point of stopping to look at them intently as I come and go):

Seth’s Favorite Poems

It feels a little cliche or obvious to include Emily Dickinson’s “Because I Could Not Stop For Death” in a list of favorite poems, it being, of course, one of the most famous poems in any language in the history of time and the universe, but, hey, it’s one of my favorite poems, so here it is.  There is and always will be a “major literary controversy” as to how this poem should be laid out on the page (there being many different interpretations of how Ms. Dickinson’s handwritten manuscripts can be transcribed) and I have simply chosen the one that I like best.  You can click here to see all the previous poems in my Favorite Poems series.

Because I Could Not Stop For Death
by Emily Dickinson

Because I could not stop for Death,
He kindly stopped for me;
The carriage held but just ourselves
And Immortality.

We slowly drove, he knew no haste,
And I had put away
My labor, and my leisure too,
For his civility.

We passed the school, where children strove
At recess, in the ring;
We passed the fields of gazing grain,
We passed the setting sun.

Or rather, he passed us;
The dews grew quivering and chill,
For only gossamer my gown,
My tippet only tulle.

We paused before a house that seemed
A swelling of the ground;
The roof was scarcely visible,
The cornice but a mound.

Since then ’tis centuries, and yet each
Feels shorter than the day
I first surmised the horses’ heads
Were toward eternity.

Wednesday’s Picture

The Fruit that Ate Itself

Shawn had me in a headlock.  I’d never been in a headlock before—at least, not one that was meant to hurt—and so I was confused.  There’s not much worse than being confused, hurt, and restrained all at the same time.  Especially when you’re seven years old.

Really, I should have seen it coming.  Even though I was only seven and had never been in a fight in my life, I knew that Shawn was bad news, and I had seen him in the church yard before I went in there myself.  And he’d been giving me awful, evil kid-signals for months.  I should have seen it coming.  But what do you want from me?  I was seven.

(decades later, I’d spend 3 years mistakenly thinking he was dead after a friend erroneously told me he’d flipped his truck into the Big Spring while driving drunk)

I walked into the church yard with a tennis ball and a baseball mitt, planning to throw my ball against the big wall on the south end of the church and catch the bounces; to this day, one of my favorite things to do.  But I saw him.  Shawn, the neighborhood’s resident bad kid.  The badass. His family lived in that gross house with all the trash in the back yard, and he never seemed clean; always had a brown undercurrent to his skin, as if he’d just survived a house fire.  And the neighborhood was filled with the stories of the kids he’d beat up, spit on, ran his bike into.  I’d never been in his class at school but I’d seen him on the playground, and it seemed he lived up to his reputation.  But I must have assumed, for whatever reason, that I would somehow be safe from him.

And there he was, in the church yard on an otherwise abandoned afternoon.  Who knows what he was doing?  Probably breaking branches off of trees, throwing rocks into bushes.  Something pointless that seemed mildly primitive.  I chose to ignore him and walked around the church’s large beige utility shed toward the wall where I’d throw my ball.

(most of my life, this day at the church yard stood as my definition of terror.  Powerlessness.  Rigid cold fear.  What death might be like)

So I threw my ball.  Plunk, plop.  Plunk, plop.  Plunk, plop.  A joy in the mindlessness, in the solid feeling of the ball entering the glove’s sweet spot, in the lively reaction of tennis ball meeting brick wall.  And the emptiness of the church yard, the silence, the perfect echoes.  No cars, no distant sounds of grown-ups on telephone calls, just me, the ball, the mitt, and the echoes.

And then Shawn was beside me.  I managed a weak “Hi” but I could see this wasn’t friendly.  The hairs on my neck stood up, my heart dropped to my knees.  He ran at me, but neither a fight nor a flight instinct kicked in.  I did not fully understand this development.  The moment before he struck me (with what the kids back then called a ‘clothesline’) I tried to speak, to say something, to reason him out of this, but it was too late, and I flew to the ground as though I’d been pulled by stage wires.

(I’ve spent much of my life evaluating and pondering my own level of “fear”, it having defined so much of my first three decades, and often I come back to my earliest experience with desperate clawing fear, here, at the church yard.  How much of the fear was of my own making?  How much was of Shawn’s  making?) 

I stood up, not yet crying.  Bewildered and disoriented, trying to focus my vision,  trying to ask him why he did that.  I mean, I was just playing with my ball.  Had he mistaken me for someone else who had wronged him in the past?  Was he rabid, like the dogs my parents told me about?  Was he—

—and then I was hit again, with another clothesline, and was knocked down even harder than the first time.  I hadn’t even seen him coming, I simply felt the hit and went down without any warning.  But now I had wizened up just a little bit.  Still having no idea why the attack was occurring, I had at least figured out that it WAS occurring, and I got up immediately and began running.  I did not run toward home, as it was too far away and Shawn would catch me for sure.  Instead I ran toward the swings and the slide.  Kids seem to figure out pretty early that playground slides are an excellent tactical position; once you’ve climbed the stairs of the slide and are safely perched atop it, others trying to get at you will have a tough time; if they try to come up the stairs, you can just slide down, then as they are coming down, you can go back up.  This is not a foolproof system, but it does buy time, and so it was to the slide that I presently ran.  And I made it to the landing at the top, swiveled around, scanning for Shawn.  Sure enough, there he was, ten yards away, in front of the slide itself, as though I might be foolish enough of a child to just see a slide and go down it; as though I would have some Pavlovian play response.  He stood there grinning like the Devil himself, like he wanted to kill me.  And at that moment I believed he would.

As far as I knew, I was not just in some childhood tale of woe.  I was in a fight for my life, and I knew nothing about fighting.  I was a tiny kid by any standard.  Short, skinny.  I was also quiet, shy, a little withdrawn.  Nothing had prepared me for a moment like this.  I knew to go to the slide by watching other boys fight during recess.  It’s been largely my experience that contrary to what is portrayed in films and television, boys typically avoid beating up small boys.  It does little to advance their hierarchical positions and may even make them seem weak.  Up until this day in the church yard, I’d been left alone.

(Shawn and I went on, a few years later, to form an on-again, off-again friendship until adolescence proved we were too different to be pals.  Even after years of relative peace, we’d be playing in my sandbox and I was still terrified of him, under the surface.  A few weeks ago, my dad saw him–Shawn was working with a roofing team that was fixing a local restaurant’s roof—and Shawn still knew my dad by name, and asked how my mom was.)

I held my ground on the slide fairly well.  Shawn came up a few times, I escaped down the slide, and then I made it back up again after he came down after me.  A few times, as he lurked below, simply watching me atop the slide, I called down to him, asking him why he was doing this.  I imagine it must have sounded pathetic, pleading, like a man begging his executioner for his life when he knows he’s doomed.  I pleaded my innocence and the senselessness of what he was doing.  I did cry.  He was sinister.  Truly sinister.

After an interminable amount of time, Shawn did a perplexing thing.  He sat on one of the swings that was directly beside the slide, and he started swinging.  I was, however, only perplexed for a short time.  I saw the ruse.  I would either think he was done with the attack and try to leave, whenupon he would murder me, or I’d actually go sit on the other swing to swing with him, whenupon he’d murder me.  I decided I could do neither, and so I simply continued to stand atop the slide, watching Shawn swing.  It felt like days passed.  I wasn’t sure if maybe I could actually die atop the slide merely from the passage of time.  It seemed I probably could.  But leaving the safety of the slide also equalled death.  My young mind swam.

(one of my few vivid memories from Shawn and I’s brief friendship in later childhood was a time that he told my mother that he was going to be having onion rings for dinner that night.  I had no idea what onion rings were yet, but I thought they sounded awful.  The three of us were standing in my backyard, and the sun was setting on a beautiful summer evening, back when summers still meant all those things that summers mean to kids)

I finally made a run for it.  I wooshed down the slide steps, through the lawn of the playground area, onto the newly built, woodsmelling porch of the Newville Area Senior Center (an old house that stood and still stands on the church property), around the side of the Senior Center and into the bush-lined, circular sidewalk toward Big Spring Avenue.  Only about thirty more feet of church yard to go!  I could see Big Spring Avenue, and the houses that lined the street!  Civilization, and grown-ups, and policemen inhabited that street.  Certainly I couldn’t be killed within sight of the street!

But then he hit me from behind.  I catapulted through the bushes, off the Senior Center’s sidewalk, and out of sight of the street.  And then he was upon me.

Shawn had me in a headlock.  I’d never been in a headlock before—at least, not one that was meant to hurt—and so I was confused.  There’s not much worse than being confused, hurt, and restrained all at the same time.  Especially when you’re seven years old.  But Shawn was also seven—a thought that hasn’t occurred to me until just now.  How two boys can have such different breadths of experience with headlocks mystifies me.

I couldn’t breathe.  He had all his weight on me.  I was crying without breathing, the most alarming bout of terror I have ever experienced sweeping over me.  Here was death, here was the end.  I did not think of any of the cliche things dying folks supposedly think about.  I simply thought how horrible dying was going to be.  I was pretty sure nothing happened after you died—nothing at all.  Just an infinite blackness.  Why would he do this to me?  I had just been playing with my ball.

And then it was over.  He was off me.  I still don’t know how or why.  I never saw him get off me, or waited to speak to him.  When I felt him release me, I got up and ran as fast as I possibly could toward home, which was only one block away but to a seven year old it’s a decent little distance.  I was crying so hard I thought I’d throw up.  I was so mad, and sad, and confused.  Then, as now, being made helpless is about as bad as it gets. 

I hated Shawn for showing me that for the first time.  As I ran, I thought of the most horrible things a seven year old can conjure and wished they were at my command:  the light that shines on nothing, the mirror that reflects only another mirror, the fruit that ate itself.  These things were worse than helpless, they were hopeless, and I would engulf the world with them.

When I got home, Mom was working in the garden out back.  I hugged her so hard and cried so hard.

Monday’s Song: Radiohead, “2+2=5”

I was just looking around fo a good video of this song and found this glorious rendition from the 2009 tour.  I saw them on this tour and it was a very unique experience; in a quest to find more “green” ways to tour, the band decided that instead of traditional concert lighting (which is very energy intense) they used these long LED light sticks, which not only use less energy but as you can see, create a very unique concert environment.  Plus this song rules!  I love how this crowd anticipates the tempo change well before it happens.

 

2+2=5
by Radiohead

 

Are you such a dreamer
to put the world to rights?
I’ll stay home forever
where two and two always makes a five.
I’ll lay down the tracks,
sandbag and hide.
January has April showers
and two and two always makes a five.
It’s the devil’s way now.
There is no way out.
You can scream and you can shout.
It is too late now.
Because you have not been payin’ attention!
I try to sing along
But the music’s all wrong,
Cause I’m not!

I’ll swallow my pride,
buck and hide,
but I’m not…
oh hail to the thief,
oh hail to the thief,
but I’m not!
Don’t question my authority or put me in the box,
cause I’m not.
Oh go and tell the king that the sky is falling in
but it’s not!
Maybe not!

Gutty Sark and the Night of the Shave, part 1 of 121

Welcome to an exciting new blog series here at Notes From the Fire!  I’m not going to over-explain what will be happening here (about once a week), but I do want to point you to this, the fake manifesto of a fictional Ron Gutshall, which was written by the real me about an imagined version of my real friend Ron Gutshall.  I think if you read that manifesto, you’ll see that what I’m doing here is just a continuation of that.  And although this first entry begins as a somewhat pedestrian work of narrative, I in no way intend to hold myself to that in future installments.  Also, close readers of the manifesto will notice that I here again use the character of Gerald Chapcheeks.  I’m just addicted to the name; consider the Chapcheeks from the manifesto and the Chapcheeks here different Gerald Chapcheeks (or consider “Ron’s” version in the manifesto to be a version written by a compulsive liar).  Anyway, I hope you enjoy.  There will be no futher explanations posted on future installments.

Gerald Chapcheeks was a scamp. Always had been, at least as long as he could remember.  Usually he could be found riding the rails, eating lukewarm sardines out of dented tins in the livestock and empty coal cars of the state train systems, criss-crossing prairie states with the frequency that the rest of the world was stopping at red lights.   

 But nowadays, Gerald Chapcheeks was no longer riding the rails for lack of anything else to do.  No, the last few years, he’d been riding the rails (and stowing away on an occasional riverboat and UPS cargo plane) to stay one step ahead of his nemesis, Ron Gutshall.   

Gutshall had been many things throughout the years—stage magician, ambassador to the Central Arab Emirates, hat model, dark lord of the multiverse, and a coat check boy at the Ritz Carlton—but lately he’d been focusing most of his energy on being the scourge of the hobo underground.  The hobo underground is a loose syndicate of the most powerful hobos, bums, winos and otherwise invisible men and women who litter the landscape of the great nation of America (and a few enclaves in Canada).  While there is no official leadership system to the hobo underground, and no elected officials or set rules, all the hobos just sort of “know” who is in charge.  It’s much like the “cool kids” in high school.   

A few years ago—nobody knows how many—Ron Gutshall took a break from his now-famed 4-year-long transfusion to become a full-time hobo (while his famed hetero lifemate, Seth Dellinger, pursued a career in dopplegangery), and after only half a cross country trip inside what he describes as “a train car only slightly more full of homeless skanks than a Holocaust death train” he had already taken over the coveted spot of East Coast Vice Hobo, a title that he won from Tully Two-Bones in a game of Mexican Pinochle.  By his third month of hoboery, Gutshall  had ascended the ranks of the hobo underground all the way to Southeast President (Albuquerque chapter), and he was champing at the bit to go for the big enchilada: Main Hobo, a title that had been held by our man Gerald Chapcheeks for well over 20 years.            

 Except our man Chapcheeks didn’t want to give up his title.  See, in the world of hoboing, there are very few perks.  But Chapcheeks, as Main Hobo, had enjoyed some of the only perks of the lifestyle for quite a few years.  Namely, a monthly oral de-lousing regimen administered by none other than Babs Baseball (the Minnesota Babs Baseball, not the Leningrad Babs Baseball, who, trust us, are two very different women), a nice name badge, preferred seating on any shared stowaway trip, and a pretty decent VHS copy of Air Bud, which is remarkable mostly for having been manufactured in the dying days of the medium, when fewer major big box retailers were selling video cassettes at all.            

  So Gutshall wanted Chapcheeks’ title and all the perks that came with it (have you seen Babs Baseball?  Or more to the point, have you ever needed de-loused?) and yet Chapcheeks did not want to give it up.  So you can see, right there, is the main conflict of our story, and you can imagine, it is going to be quite a wild ride.              

For the better part of a year Gutshall pursued Chapcheeks across the rickety infrastructure of our nation (once even on horseback, after which Gutshall dismounted, vomited, and immediately blamed this reaction on [to anyone who would listen] that particular horse’s “affection for Rachmaninoff”).  Chapcheeks always stayed  barely one step ahead of Gutshall due to his extensive network of hobo pals, and what the heterosexual Chapcheeks mistakenly called his “gaydar”, clearly having no idea what the term meant.  During this year of pursuit, Gutshall and Chapcheeks came into direct contact three times:  once resulted in a prolonged battle of black magic, of which both men were masters, and the other two times were in line at Golden Corral restaurants, where they both pretended not to see each other.           

Which bring us to where our story begins:           

Gerald Chapcheeks was a scamp.  Always had been, at least as long as he could remember.  Except now, he was a scamp on the run.  On a greyhound bus to Providence, Rhode Island, to be exact.  It was quite rare for Chapcheeks—Main Hobo, I might add—to be on actual paid transportation, but this was a special occasion.  The Northeastern Hobo Alliance, or NEHA, was convening a meeting to discuss what some of it’s members referred to as “the Gutshall problem”.  Everyone on the hobo underground knew that Chapcheeks was in danger; some were in his corner, whereas others were in Gutshall’s corner.  This meeting with NEHA would sort out who was on whose team, with the ultimate goal of finding a way to end Gutshall’s endless cross-country pursuit of Chapcheeks.            

The bus pulled into a rest stop in the black night of rural Connecticut.  Gerald desperately needed to stretch his legs, fart, and smoke 1/16th of a cigar he’d been hoarding for well over a week, so he deboarded the bus, let one out, lit one up, and settled onto a bench overlooking the picturesque Connecticut countryside, although it was almost too pitch black to make out anything more than the most rudimentary shapes.

Suddenly, Chapcheeks’ field of vision was taken up entirely by what at first appeared to be a blob of marshmallow that smelled mildly of Slim Jims.  This blob screamed in his face, “Mustache burglar!” 

Chapcheeks knew that voice.  It was Ron Gutshall.  Chapcheeks’ vision adjusted quickly, and now he could see Gutshall clearly, just a few feet from his face.  Gutshall had on an Abe Lincoln top hat, a purple feather boa, a skin-tight army green M*A*S*H*  t-shirt, and finely presed khaki Dockers.  Gutshall leaned his head back and screamed into the Connecticut sky, “Gerald Chapcheeks, you have finally met your match, you scamp!  Prepare for the battle of your life!  Also, do you have a shoehorn?  I seem to have dropped a piece of gold boullion into one of my knee-high Doc Martens and it is bugging me to no end.”

To be continued!

Audio Poem: “Sad Clarity”

Year Written:  2005
Collection: The Loosing of Clocks
Click the gray arrow to hear the audio version

Sad Clarity

She’s not the most beautiful woman ever—
even I can see that—
sometimes she doesn’t smile too well,
or, when she does smile, she does so
as though there were a rifle to her back.
When she watches her TV
she pretends to be a statue
of chipped granite,
grainy and stoic,
making occasional faces
at my socks.
I open and close the blinds
many times,
but the light never seems
to hit her just right,
never highlights her features
the way I know it could,
and ought to.
But to see her from a distance—
the ungraceful flow of woman,
the manner of walking she has
which is half-limp, half-skip,
the urgency she implies by moving slowly—
is to trace a striking set of lines and twists
which flash from the ground to the sky
like lightning.
Holding the complete image in your mind,
then may you slowly approach her,
watching her uniqueness develop
and remain intact upon close inspection;
it is at this moment of transcendant clarity
that you will fall in love with her,
convinced the slightest gesture of her waist
is a crumb dropped from God.
Then I, and you now, too,
will beg for her to be still closer,
weep for her to touch us.