Audio Poem: “What Do You Know of Unhappiness?”

Year Written:  2006
Collection:  The Salt Flats

What Do You Know of Unhappiness?

What do you know of unhappiness
you slathering happy fools?
You with your gallon lattes
Bermuda shorts from last fall
tailored Dolces that smell like
leather
and candid cellphone snapshots,
what do you know of unhappiness?

And what are you going to think of
when all this time runs out
has you by your throat is choking you
and all those stacked unhappy moments
fade with your peripheral vision?
Sports cars?  Swimming?

Today’s Oscar blurb:  Hans Zimmer needs to win for the “Inception” score.  Not sure who to root for in that category?  Just say the word and I’ll burn you a copy of the soundtrack and send it to you.

Something Ron Said Once

   “I like to pet things that you wouldn’t expect people to pet.”

OMG a documentary about the New York Times.  Did somebody sneak into my brain and ask what I wanted?

Erie Journal, 1/28/11

Thought I’d drop you a line via the Erie Journal to update my faithful readers on how the ol’ dreaded winter is going (click here for all previous Erie Journals).

Well, so far, so good.  By Erie standards, it’s been a mild winter.  We’ve actually missed all the huge snow storms that have made national news.  So far, the biggest “official” snow fall has been around 8 inches.  However, this does not mean the “lake effect” snow is not in effect; instead of getting a few multiple-foot events, what we get is snow every day.  Seriously.  One to three inches, every damn day.  So while we haven’t got any of the huge totals of other spots in the north, we still have a higher season-to-date inch total that most places (we’re around 60 inches so far this winter).

The reason I give you all this background info is to explain a phenomenon I only recently realized was happening to me (actually, two phenomena):  One, I quite seriously do not even notice the snow anymore.  I mean this very literally.  Both when falling from the sky, and gathered on the ground, I usually do not even realize it is happening.  And two, when you are constantly driving in snow, you get very, very good at driving in snow.

I don’t think I’ve ever been a bad snow driver, but sometime about 3 weeks ago I realized I had suddenly become very good at it.  This is not to say that I’m not still very careful when need be, but much of the techniques of snow driving (such as the differences of what to do between a rear-wheel skid and a front-wheel skid, and the subtleties of snow braking) have become instinct and happen without any thought.  And the fact is, skids happen a lot, but since almost everybody is always going an appropriate speed with ample distance between vehicles, if one knows how to properly steer out of a skid, it’s really not a big deal.  And since 80% of my driving takes place in areas with high concentrations of red lights, there are frequent stop-skids, but as I said, proper speed and distance are key.  Again, I have gotten off track here.  What I’m trying to get at is, it’s quite strange how quickly that driving part of your brain—where a lot is happening below the surface—adapts with skill to new environments.  I had done plenty of snow driving back home, but the difference between doing it 12 times a year to seven days a week is pretty huge.

And the fact that I don’t even notice the snow?  Weird.  I walk out to go to work, snow is falling from the sky, and it’s just…nothing.  No thought about how I am going to have to drive in this mess, not even an oh that’s pretty.  It has become way too normal of an event to be worth noting in even as much as a Facebook status.  Might as well say “It’s really hot” every damn day during the summer.  That is the equivalent of the snow in Erie.  And really, it’s not totally a bad thing, at least, not as long as it keeps only being a few inches a day.  If we start getting feet at a time, it will be a different story.

Oh, and there is a quality to the Erie air (I don’t fully understand it) that causes ice crystals to form on the inside of your car windows, but only on especially cold days (seems to happen at around 20 degrees).  It doesn’t happen to everyone, but it seems to afflict about half of all vehicles, by my very unscientific polling.  Here is a picture of the ice on the inside of my driver’s side window on a recent day:

 

As you can imagine, this is quite frustrating, as it is not at all easy to remove (especially from the windshield).  You can’t really use a scraper, and it seems to actually be hardier than ice on the outside windshield.  This interior ice often takes as long as 15 minutes to melt via defrost.  It is quite odd.  I’d love to know why my car is one of the afflicted ones.

OK, that will be enough for now, even though I’ve got enough material for another few Erie Journals, but this is getting kinda long.  More coming in the near future!

Today’s Oscar blurb:  here’s a snub nobody is talking about:  Ryan Reynolds in “Buried”.  Rent it and tell me I’m wrong.

Friday’s Film Clip: “Citizen Kane”

This short but incredible clip from the film “Citizen Kane” is far from it’s most famous scene, but more than a decade after I first saw the movie, this little clip of minor character Mr. Bernstein (played by Everett Sloane) speculating on the possible meaning of “Rosebud” (Charles Foster Kane’s mysterious final word) still strikes a chord with me—and it gets more true every year I manage to stay alive.  I’ve transcribed the most precious part of the speech below the video.

“A fellow will remember a lot of things you wouldn’t think he’d remember. You take me. One day, back in 1896, I was crossing over to Jersey on the ferry, and as we pulled out, there was another ferry pulling in, and on it there was a girl waiting to get off. A white dress she had on. She was carrying a white parasol. I only saw her for one second. She didn’t see me at all, but I’ll bet a month hasn’t gone by since that I haven’t thought of that girl.”

Sure Enough (short fiction)

Sure Enough

After the cows had been pailed and the barn chores done the man and the boy walked in the twilight down the dusty lane toward a corn field on the other side of the meadow.

The man balanced his elbows on the top strand of fence and scanned endless rows of stalks that had sickened and jaundiced under the scorch of rainless weeks.  Sensing the man’s anxiety, the boy minded his place and stayed silent.

“She should’ve been knee-high by the Fourth of July, and look at her,” the man finally worried aloud.  From his mouth he pulled a stem of timothy and waved it in the general direction of the runty corn.  “We just got to have rain soon,” the man continued, more to himself than the boy, “or we aint gonna have fodder worth a tinker.”

Corn, as the boy well knew, was a mighty important crop to the family.  There had to be the yellow ears that’d feed the Berkshires into sow belly and hams for the winter; and from fodder came the ensilage for Holsteins that gave milk to fetch in what cash money there was.

The boy, still quiet, wondered why God never seemed to make the weather right for crops.  It was always too wet or too dry—too wet or too cold.  No, never exactly right, it seemed.  It rained when you needed to plow; and it didn’t rain when you wanted to grow corn.

Dusk blotted the parched field from view as the two tramped back up the lane.  Reaching the weather-blackened barn, the man and the boy, each in overalls of scrubbed-out blue, sprawled on the side of a grassy bank that formed a driveway up to the barn floor and its haymows.

Sitting in the quiet the boy felt a sudden closeness to this stern man who was his father.  It was nice, the boy allowed, just being there together—not talking words.

The feel of the moment was broken for the boy when the man exclaimed:  “Hey–smells like rain in the air right now!”

They got up and walked beyond the locusts near the watering trough for a better look at the sky.  Sure enough.  It was blacking up, and a breeze started freshing the evening’s stickiness.  In a few minutes a rumbling and a flashing let loose.

The man and the boy stood for a spell in the barn’s open doorway and peered silently at the rain as it spattered into the thirsty earth.  Even in the darkness the two could see the downpour give new green to grass and leaves.   The air smelled good in their noses.

“It’ll save the corn sure as shootin’,” said the man to the boy.  They grinned at each other, and, looking up, they let the rain pepper their faces as they walked side-by-side down the path toward a light in the kitchen window.

Just found out James Franco is in “The Green Hornet”.  This is getting out of hand.

Seth: Extreme Sledding

The Oscar Nominations…

…were just announced a few hours ago.  Here they are.  I’ll have some comentary on them at some point but have no time at the moment…

Best Picture
“Black Swan,” Mike Medavoy, Brian Oliver and Scott Franklin, Producers
“The Fighter” David Hoberman, Todd Lieberman and Mark Wahlberg, Producers
“Inception,” Emma Thomas and Christopher Nolan, Producers
“The Kids Are All Right,” Gary Gilbert, Jeffrey Levy-Hinte and Celine Rattray, Producers
“The King’s Speech,” Iain Canning, Emile Sherman and Gareth Unwin, Producers
“127 Hours,” Christian Colson, Danny Boyle and John Smithson, Producers
“The Social Network,” Scott Rudin, Dana Brunetti, Michael De Luca and Ceàn Chaffin, Producers
“Toy Story 3” Darla K. Anderson, Producer
“True Grit” Scott Rudin, Ethan Coen and Joel Coen, Producers
“Winter’s Bone” Anne Rosellini and Alix Madigan-Yorkin, Producers

Actor in a Leading Role
Javier Bardem in “Biutiful”
Jeff Bridges in “True Grit”
Jesse Eisenberg in “The Social Network”
Colin Firth in “The King’s Speech”
James Franco in “127 Hours”

Actor in a Supporting Role
Christian Bale in “The Fighter”
John Hawkes in “Winter’s Bone”
Jeremy Renner in “The Town”
Mark Ruffalo in “The Kids Are All Right”
Geoffrey Rush in “The King’s Speech”

Actress in a Leading Role
Annette Bening in “The Kids Are All Right”
Nicole Kidman in “Rabbit Hole”
Jennifer Lawrence in “Winter’s Bone”
Natalie Portman in “Black Swan”
Michelle Williams in “Blue Valentine”

Actress in a Supporting Role
Amy Adams in “The Fighter”
Helena Bonham Carter in “The King’s Speech”
Melissa Leo in “The Fighter”
Hailee Steinfeld in “True Grit”
Jacki Weaver in “Animal Kingdom”

Animated Feature Film
“How to Train Your Dragon” Chris Sanders and Dean DeBlois
“The Illusionist” Sylvain Chomet
“Toy Story 3” Lee Unkrich

Art Direction
“Alice in Wonderland”
“Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1”
“Inception”
“The King’s Speech”
“True Grit”

Cinematography
“Black Swan,” Matthew Libatique
“Inception,” Wally Pfister
“The King’s Speech,” Danny Cohen
“The Social Network,” Jeff Cronenweth
“True Grit,” Roger Deakins

Costume Design
“Alice in Wonderland,” Colleen Atwood
“I Am Love,” Antonella Cannarozzi
“The King’s Speech,” Jenny Beavan
“The Tempest,” Sandy Powell
“True Grit” Mary Zophres

Directing
“Black Swan,” Darren Aronofsky
“The Fighter,” David O. Russell
“The King’s Speech,” Tom Hooper
“The Social Network,” David Fincher
“True Grit,” Joel Coen and Ethan Coen

Documentary (Feature)
“Exit through the Gift Shop,” Banksy and Jaimie D’Cruz
“Gasland,” Josh Fox and Trish Adlesic
“Inside Job,” Charles Ferguson and Audrey Marrs
“Restrepo,” Tim Hetherington and Sebastian Junger
“Waste Land,” Lucy Walker and Angus Aynsley

Documentary (Short Subject)
“Killing in the Name”
“Poster Girl”
“Strangers No More”
“Sun Come Up”
“The Warriors of Qiugang”

Film Editing
“Black Swan”
“The Fighter”
“The King’s Speech”
“127 Hours”
“The Social Network”

Foreign Language Film
“Biutiful,” Mexico
“Dogtooth,” Greece
“In a Better World,” Denmark
“Incendies,” Canada
“Outside the Law (Hors-la-loi),” Algeria

Makeup
“Barney’s Version,” Adrien Morot
“The Way Back,” Edouard F. Henriques, Gregory Funk and Yolanda Toussieng
“The Wolfman,” Rick Baker and Dave Elsey

Music (Original Score)
“How to Train Your Dragon,” John Powell
“Inception,” Hans Zimmer
“The King’s Speech,” Alexandre Desplat
“127 Hours,” A.R. Rahman
“The Social Network,” Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross

Music (Original Song)
“Coming Home” from “Country Strong,” Music and Lyric by Tom Douglas, Troy Verges and Hillary Lindsey
“I See the Light” from “Tangled,” Music by Alan Menken Lyric by Glenn Slater
“If I Rise” from “127 Hours,” Music by A.R. Rahman Lyric by Dido and Rollo Armstrong
“We Belong Together” from “Toy Story 3,” Music and Lyric by Randy Newman

Short Film (Animated)
“Day & Night,” Teddy Newton
“The Gruffalo,” Jakob Schuh and Max Lang
“Let’s Pollute,” Geefwee Boedoe
“The Lost Thing,” Shaun Tan and Andrew Ruhemann
“Madagascar, carnet de voyage (Madagascar, a Journey Diary)” Bastien Dubois

Short Film (Live Action)
“The Confession,” Tanel Toom
“The Crush,” Michael Creagh
“God of Love,” Luke Matheny
“Na Wewe,” Ivan Goldschmidt
“Wish 143,” Ian Barnes and Samantha Waite

Sound Editing
“Inception,” Richard King
“Toy Story 3,” Tom Myers and Michael Silvers
“Tron: Legacy,” Gwendolyn Yates Whittle and Addison Teague
“True Grit,” Skip Lievsay and Craig Berkey
“Unstoppable,” Mark P. Stoeckinger

Sound Mixing
“Inception,” Lora Hirschberg, Gary A. Rizzo and Ed Novick
“The King’s Speech,” Paul Hamblin, Martin Jensen and John Midgley
“Salt,” Jeffrey J. Haboush, Greg P. Russell, Scott Millan and William Sarokin
“The Social Network,” Ren Klyce, David Parker, Michael Semanick and Mark Weingarten
“True Grit,” Skip Lievsay, Craig Berkey, Greg Orloff and Peter F. Kurland

Visual Effects
“Alice in Wonderland,” Ken Ralston, David Schaub, Carey Villegas and Sean Phillips
“Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1,” Tim Burke, John Richardson, Christian Manz and Nicolas Aithadi
“Hereafter,” Michael Owens, Bryan Grill, Stephan Trojanski and Joe Farrell
“Inception,” Paul Franklin, Chris Corbould, Andrew Lockley and Peter Bebb
“Iron Man 2,” Janek Sirrs, Ben Snow, Ged Wright and Daniel Sudick

Writing (Adapted Screenplay)
“127 Hours,” Screenplay by Danny Boyle & Simon Beaufoy
“The Social Network,” Screenplay by Aaron Sorkin
“Toy Story 3,” Screenplay by Michael Arndt; Story by John Lasseter, Andrew Stanton and Lee Unkrich
“True Grit,” Written for the screen by Joel Coen & Ethan Coen
“Winter’s Bone,” Adapted for the screen by Debra Granik & Anne Rosellini

Writing (Original Screenplay)
“Another Year,” Written by Mike Leigh
“The Fighter,” Screenplay by Scott Silver and Paul Tamasy & Eric Johnson; Story by Keith Dorrington & Paul Tamasy & Eric Johnson
“Inception,” Written by Christopher Nolan
“The Kids Are All Right,” Written by Lisa Cholodenko & Stuart Blumberg
“The King’s Speech,” Screenplay by David Seidler

Gripey McWhineypants

I just want to put it out there that I was going to post a new Erie Journal today, but I was at work 3 hours late, so I can’t, and I thought I’d whine about it here.  :(  New Erie Journal coming soon!

Monday’s Song: Kings of Leon, “Knocked Up”

Knocked Up
by Kings of Leon

I don’t care what nobody says,
we gonna have a baby.
Takin’ off in a Coupe de Ville,
She’s bundled up, Old Navy.
She don’t care what her mama said, no,
she’s gonna have my baby.
I’m taking all I have to take,
this taking’s gonna shake me.

People call us renegade
cause we like livin’ crazy.
We like taking on the town
cause people gettin’ lazy.
I don’t care what nobody says, no,
I wanna be her lover.
Always mad and usually drunk
but I love her like no other.

And the doc say, say he don’t know.
I’m a ghost, and I don’t think if I know
where we’re gonna go.

People call us renegades
cause we like livin’ crazy.
We like taking on this town
cause people gettin’ lazy.
I don’t care what nobody says, no,
I’m gonna be her lover.
Always mad and usually drunk
but I love her like no other.

And her daddy say, say he don’t know
where we’re gonna go.
I’m a ghost and I don’t think if I know
where we’re gonna go.

I don’t care if you don’t care.

 

Audio Poem: “To Smash Things”

Year written:  2006
Collection:  The Salt Flats

Click the gray arrow to hear the audio version.

To Smash Things

The kids outside the courthouse with their hair done up
and their button-down V-necks and suits
are the shirtless tattooed varmints by night
tipping gravestones
drinking stolen Scotch whiskey.

Tonight they’ll be going out again
with fines and citations
to smash things,
to make sure the world still feels them.

Peering out her window,
she’ll see the flicker of their lighters
across the field.

Something Ron Said Once

  “I bet if I could taste my own tongue, it would taste like ham.”

Friday’s Film Clip: “Perfume: The Story of a Murderer”

Seth’s Favorite Poems

In a Station of the Metro
by Ezra Pound

The apparition of these faces in the crowd;
Petals on a wet, black bough.

Ten Mini-Memoirs: High School

1.  I only got in any real kind of trouble one time.  I got detention for saying the F word at lunch.  To this day, however, it still mystifies me.  It was given to me by my favaorite teacher, who also really loved me (we’d ran into each other at the mall once and walked around together for awhile; he was a younger guy and in reality was pretty close to our age.) and who hung around our lunch table most days.  We had said some truly horrific things in front of this man before!  Then one day, I drop the F bomb like always, and he comes up to me all furious and writes me a detention slip.  He looked like he hated me!

2.  I wrote for my high school newspaper, The Spectrum.  My first day on the paper, we were all assigned “beats”—parts of the school we were responsible for covering.  I remember, I got mainly crappy ones that weren’t anywhere near my own interests.  But the marvelous thing was that most days, during newspaper class, we had a free pass to just walk around school wherever we wanted.  We had a “newspaper” pass that allowed us to do just about anything.  My first day on the paper, I decided to get what I considered to be my most boring beat out of the way—the FFA (Future Farmers of America); they inhabited their own little wing of the school, way out by the “shop” classrooms, a wing of the school I only entered with my mother when I was a little boy, when I accompnied her to vote, as for a brief time, the polling place was in the shop class.  So, I cautiously arrived in the FFA classroom and soon found myself talking to a kid who must have been their star student.  Over the next few years, this guy would actually be my go-to guy for stories; they were always boring, but they always had something going on!  But all I can remember from that first encounter is how he had the world’s largest booger hanging out his nose.  I mean, it was huge. 

3.  My friend Tasha and I had a hit on our hands.  Our English class was studying Julius Caesar, and we had been given the task of acting out the famous death scene.  And we really knocked it out of the park, with real acting, props, and me (playing Caesar to her Brutus) doing a pretty convincing fall from a chair as I died.  Sure, it was just a little play-acting in front of a class of 25 kids, but Tasha and I still reminisce about our glory day, our shining moment of Julius Caesar.

4.  It’s kind of ridiculous how early you have to wake up for high school. 

5.  I was driving to school, and my girlfriend at the time was in the passenger seat.  We got to the top of the hill, where I had to make a left turn into the parking lot.  At that time of morning, the sun was in my eyes to such a degree, I literally could not see if anyone was coming.  So I placed a bet and turned.  Everything seemed fine, until I was almost in my spot and I looked in the rearviewmirror.  A huge pickup truck was following me so close, it was like it was attached to my car.  I figured out right away that I must have really come close to getting in an accident with this truck when I turned.  I parked, watching the rearview closely.  Out hopped one of the more “famous” super-dooper “rednecks” of the school.  Like, this kid and I could not have been more different.  It is not exaggerating to say that we almost spoke different languages.  He ran up to my window and beat on it furiously.  I rolled it down slowly, putting on my best tough-ass face (which isn’t that convincing, but I did leave my burning cigarette in my mouth for effect) and this kid let loose such a string of threats and expletives, in the most threatening tone, I almost crapped my pants.  But, my girlfriend being in the car, I kept my cool, and just stared at this kid through the cigarette smoke .  When he was done, I wordlessly rolled the window back up.  The kid would continue to threaten and frighten me the remaining two years of high school.

6.  One year, I had a routine at my lunch table where I ate a honey bun as though I were performing cunnilingus on it.  An unfortunate adolescent routine that everyone remembers.  There are still certain people, when I run into them every three years, they say “Hold on, let me go get a honey bun!”  Ah, youth’s folly!

7.  One of my favorite things ever was staying after school to watch my girlfriend’s cheerleading practice.  I’d sit high in our football stadium’s bleachers, all by myself, on warm autumn afternoons, and know that everyone on the cheerleading squad thought I was just being the world’s most thoughtful, doting boyfriend, but of course I was watching all of them quite keenly.  I had a cheerleading show all to myself!

8.  I was a wrestler for two years in high school.  I was not any good, but that was to be expected; wrestling isn’t something you typically pick up at the age of 16.  But I did it anyway.  And even though I was crummy, I did win a few JV matches (even getting a few pins), and let me tell you, there is little feeling in this world as good as walking back to your home school locker room after pinning another human being, and finding yourself all alone in the locker room, and peeling off your singlet, and showering in silence, then sitting on the locker room bench and eating a candy bar you had brought along for just this unlikely moment, the world for once matching up with your daydreams.

9.  I had three best friends in high school.  Together, we called ourselves the Quadre.  In retrospect, it is very interesting that we were all completely different–four totally different high school archetypes, yet somehow we came together and formed a merry band.  And then we disintegrated almost immediately following high school.  Isn’t this such a sad thing that happens to us all?  If you got all four of us in a room now, it would be the most awkward meeting ever.  I do miss them, though, or the versions of us that we were.

10.  There was a kid, who I didn’t know, who everyone in school knew would freak out if you called him a certain nickname, which I am not going to type here.  One day, I (for reasons long forgotten) found myself totally alone in a classroom.  I was gazing out the windows when I saw this kid walking alongside the building, heading toward one of the entrances.  It was almost summer, so the windows were open.  So on a whim, I put my head up to a window and yelled the offending nickname, then I quickly ducked down below the window and hid.  Moments later, I heard his voice directly above my head.  “Who was that?!  You think that’s funny? I will come in there and beat your ass!”  His dis-embodied rant went on and on, just feet away from me, but unable to see me.  I was cowardly.  I remember feeling bad, too.  You could tell in his voice that the nickname didn’t just anger him, it hurt him.  I may have been a typical teenager asshole, but I never liked hurting people.  When he stopped yelling, I ran out of the room for fear he would remember which room it was and come inside then to find me.

Yet more snow/ Presque Isle pics, MLK Day

Taken while standing on the lake...

 

Ice fishermen on the lake

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cross-country skiers

 

 

Monday’s Song: “What Sarah Said” by Death Cab for Cutie

What Sarah Said
By Death Cab for Cutie

And it came to me then,
that every plan
is a tiny prayer to Father Time,
As I stared at my shoes
in the ICU
that reeked of piss and 409.
And I rationed my breaths
as I said to myself
that I’d already taken too much today.
As each descending peak
on the LCD
took you a little farther away from me.

Amongst the vending machines
and year-old magazines
in a place where we only say goodbye,
it stung like a violent wind
that our memories depend
on a faulty camera in our minds.
But I knew that you were a truth
I would rather lose
than to have never lain beside at all.
And I looked around
at all the eyes on the ground,
as the TV entertained itself.

‘Cause there’s no comfort in the waiting room,
just nervous pacers bracing for bad news.
And then the nurse comes round
and everyone will lift their heads.
But I’m thinking of what Sarah said,
that love is watching someone die.

So who’s going to watch you die?

Audio Poem: “A Burning Poem”

On our journey through my own selections of my “greatest hits”, we have reached the collection The Salt Flats, which I believe to be, without a doubt, my best work to date. Written between 2006-2007, the poems in The Salt Flats are absolutely ON FIRE. I could not be stopped! There is a clear style specific to the collection (this is the height of my “parenthesis phase”) and a deliberate over-arching mood, voice and intent that, frankly, I haven’t quite been able to find my way back to yet. So anyway, just a little self-aggrandizing commentary. I’ll be doing audio poems out of this collection for a few months, as just about every one in this collection is a “greatest hit”. So sit back, relax, and enjoy this barn-burner of an opener; this is the first poem in The Salt Flats, and it’s called “A Burning Poem”:

A Burning Poem

I am writing wildly
poems about total nonsense
(who fucked who
and the meaning of life)
with unabashed glory;
I am scribing vividly
accounts of lives in shambles
(people who dance on tables
for money,
men with nothing to worship,
women who—while showering will—
slice their wrists with
disposable
razors in nonlethal ways
for the attention of nobody whatsoever,
groups of folks with so little to do
they fire rifles at the moon)
with undiminished enthusiasm.
I am charging forward
with images and words
nonsense
about life on fire,
on metal striking bone
pushing for someone (or something)
to take note of it all
(the children riding clouds in umbrellas,
the chimneys falling down brick by brick)
because sooner or later
it will all catch fire
(in fact, things catch fire all the time)

Something Ron Said Once

    “I’m wearing my thong backwards.”

A widdle video I done made.

Thanks to my buddy Kyle, I have just discovered the joy of Windows MovieMaker.  I have been somewhat limited to what I’ve been able to do by all the snow here today, but I did manage to make this little (quite amateurish) video of a snow-covered cemetary by my apartment, with the Fleet Foxes’ song “White Winter Hymnal” playing in the background.  The bulk of the video is a little boring, and it gets jumpier closer to the end as I started to get really cold, but I loooooove the beginning, where the train right beside the graveyard is sputtering out steam and making loud steam noises….I just think it goes incredibly well with the music.  Anyway, I’m probably not going to be able to resist making and posting a ton of these for awhile, this being a new (to me) toy.  Please feel free to ignore them.

New TurningArt: “Faith” by Bina Altera

...and on my wall.

Wednesday’s Picture (it’s a box of cabbage)

Same deal as last time: vote as many times as you like.  Voting closes at midnight, Sunday, January 16th.  New options will be available for voting in each poll (though some will re-appear).  If you have questions about what an individual theme entails, feel free to ask in a comment.

Ten Mini-Memoirs: Early Childhood

1.  As far as I can tell, my earliest memory is when I was two-and-a-half years old, playing hide-and-seek with my mother.  I was hiding between the loveseat and the wall, in the tiny space created by the natural curvature of the loveseat.  It was dark in there, but I was very happy.  How do I know I was two-and-a-half?  Because at the time, I was thinking about how old I was, and repeating to myself in a little-boy whisper, “Two-and-a-half, two-and-a-half”.  At the time, I thought it sounded quite old.  That’s about all I remember of that.

2.  I used to go to Freemont’s with my father.  Freemont’s was a “drug store”, in the old fashioned sense.  What it really was, was a coffee shop where grown folks sat around drinking coffee (and, in those days, Tab soda) and smoking a ton of cigarettes.  I felt very grown up and happy at Freemont’s.  I was allowed to play around behind the counter, and even in the stock room (and sometimes even under the tables!) while Dad chatted up his grown friends.  Kenny–the guy behind the counter–often got roped into playing imaginary parts with me, and he’d show me oddities the store had for sale:  shoe polish, Swiss army knives, pipe cleaners.  But the best parts were the walks to and from Freemont’s.  We lived only a few blocks away, so Dad and I would walk there when we went.  Walking somewhere with your dad when you are very young is a special time.  Once, it started snowing as we walked there.  It felt like we were the sole, hardy souls on a blizzard planet.  I felt invincible.

3.  I have not hated anything in all my life as much as I hated starting school.  What a life one lives before Kindergarten!

4.  For a few years, I was insperable from my Cabbage Patch Doll, Troy Elias.  I loved (and still love) Troy quite dearly.  I would devise many fake but rather elaborate things for us to do.  I remember for a fact that Troy and I went on a vacation to Italy (in the living room), that the couch was often the cockpit of a space shuttle, with Troy as my co=pilot.  Then, one day…he disappeared.  I panicked, and soon the parents got involved and the house was turned upside down.  No Troy.  A week passed.  No Troy.  I was devastated.  Then one day my mom showed me the most recent copy of the tiny local newspaper, the Valley Times-Star.  My grandma Cohick–who lived two doors down from us for most of my childhood–had placed an ad in the classifieds, seeking Troy’s whereabouts.  At the time, I did not fully appreciate the gravity of her gesture.  Now, I see how marvlous she had been.  I found Troy a few months later, tucked way far back in my closet.

5.  One day, my dad brought home a dog.  She was a cocker spaniel, and her name was Cocoa, though over the years her name would somehow morph into Cocoa Rae Leena.  This is how I spell it in my head, but the rest of my family may have other ideas.  She was a lovely dog, despite taking a turn biting all of us in quite nasty fashion.  She’d die eventually, of course, but before she died, she mastered the art of walking through the large curtain in the living room and stopping at just the right moment to make it seem like she was wearing a very long cape that stretched up into the sky, herself the most beautiful dog queen of the universe.

6.  Nobody did birthdays like my parents did.  Sure, there were rarely lavish parties or hyper-expensive gifts (though I did once get one of those parties at McDonalds, and I still feel kinda cool from that experience), but what they did was make you feel entirely like that day was all about you.  We had birthday candles we lit every year, and let burn until they burnt down past that year’s number.  It was always so neat to see the candle again, once every year–an interesting marker of time.  We’d have the meals we wanted, and a cake, and our presents to unwrap at the kitchen table.  And then they would take our picture, with all of our presents (and sometimes the candle) prsented in an array on the table.  And then they’d mark our height on the wall in the living room.  And then (often) I’d go to Freemont’s with Dad.  I’d fall asleep on those nights feeling more special than perhaps anyone else on the planet.

Here’s the year I got Troy:

7.  One of the strangest things about childhood is the fleeting, foggy nature of many of the memories.  You sometimes try to piece things together, try to figure out what something was, or who something was, but it’s all for naught.  Almost as though, before a certain age, you were kinda somebody else.  For instance, I have a memory of a man being in our living room wearing a full Santa outfit.  Mom and Dad were happy to see him, and he gave me something.  I cannot even see Adrienne.  I do know that I hated the man’s presence, but I was not afraid of him.  This flash of a memory comes to me often.  I have no idea why.

8.  One of the major treats of my childhood was spending the night at Grandma Allie’s.  She ate different food, watched different TV, had different couches.  The sort of thing adults describe as a vacation, but kids just see as interesting change.  The very best thing about spending the night at Grandma Allie’s?  The baths.  Compared to ours, her bathtub seemed huge, and it was blue, and the whole bathroom was blue, and there were tub toys, like a wind-up SCUBA diver, and boats, and there was bubble bath, too.

9.  My sister and I used to create fake vending machines out of shoeboxes.  We’d dispense surprises to one another out of holes whenever the other sibling would insert coins in slots we had cut.  This entertained us for far longer than you might imagine.

10.  Once, Mom and Adrienne and I spent the night in the backyard in a “tent” we had made from sawhorses and blankets.  I don’t remember much.  I remember we had our “jambox” out there, and I remember listening to a tape of Club Nouveau’s cover of “Lean on Me”, which was very popular at the time.  I remember being extraordinarily happy to be outside in a tent made of blankets at night.  But then it started to get very cold, and it rained a bit,  and we had to go back inside and sleep in our beds, and I was sad at first, but then less sad once I was warm and under my blankets in my bed, but remembering how great it had been to be outside in the tent.

More snow pics. Sure, it’s getting tired, but I’m having fun, so buzz off! Also, these were taken no flash, using only that bizarre “snow light”. A few are super dark but I really really like them like that.

 

 

Monday’s Song: Arcade Fire, “We Used to Wait”

I may have officially decided on Grinderman’s album as my album of the year, but Arcade Fire’s “We Used to Wait” is undoubtedly my song of the year (their album, The Suburbs, was prevented from being #1 simply by having too much filler, but the good parts of the album are so good as to be timelessly classic rock and roll).  “We Used to Wait” is about as great as a rock song can get: it’s about big but real human stuff (how is technology changing basic human emotional experience?), discussed in unique, innovative ways (lyricist Win Butler never feels the need to over-explain, while not being overly daft or dense), on top of layered sound which is not too-produced but is obviously passionate.  Please enjoy this live version of the song (and in a nod to Dellinger family heritgae, notice the images of U.S. mail the band uses on a screen on the stage, mostly toward the end of the song.  And seriously, how rad is that to use this as the main propulsion of the concept of the song, that we don’t have to wait to recieve our discourse in the mail anymore?  Writers of any ilk—let alone wongwriters—would be extremely fortunate to find such a creative and effective linguistic device!)  And there is very little triumph of rock and roll more succinct and powerful than the ending crescendo of this song, with Butler belting out “Wait for it!”

Three more things right quick:

may I plead with you to re-familiarize yourself with this blog post of mine, about Arcade Fire’s truly incredible online experience centered around “We Used to Wait”, and if you decide to do it, I encourage you to go through the experience a few times, using different addresses from your past.

It has also come to my attention that embedded YouTube on my blog is best when viewed using Firefox or Chrome, but is often quite bad through Internet Explorer.

And in case you missed it, click here for my top 15 albums of 2010.

We Used to Wait
by Arcade Fire

I used to write letters,
I used to sign my name.
I used to sleep at night,
before the flashing lights
settled deep in my brain.

But by the time we met–
by the time we met
the times had already changed.
So I never wrote a letter,
I never took my true heart,
I never wrote it down
So when the lights cut out
I was lost standing in the wilderness downtown.

Now our lives are changing fast;
hope that something pure can last. 

It may seem strange 
how we used to wait
for letters to arrive,
but what’s stranger still
is how something so small
can keep you alive.
(We used to wait.)
We used to waste hours
just walking around.
(We used to wait.)
All those wasted lives
in the wilderness downtown.

(We used to wait.)
Sometimes it never came.
(We used to wait.)
Still moving through the pain.

So I’m gonna write a letter
to my true love,
I’m gonna sign my name.
Like a patient on a table,
I wanna walk again,
wanna move through the pain.

We used to wait for it,
now we’re screaming,
sing the chorus again!

I used to wait for it,
hear my voice scream
and sing the chorus again.

Wait for it!