A leg, a breeze, or something hackneyed, a chirp, a leg in the breeze. We wait months for this moment of rebirth, of spring's return from the dead, and it comes not with circumstance, but with accidental intent. The first community boaters of the year are on the Charles River, and it hits, that spring has been with us for a week and a half. A birthday gift that arrives late, a nice memory we think actually happened.
That's the trick of the season, though: spring never died at all. It just found a place to settle down, take a rest, and show up like a lost child who wasn't lost at all, just playing hide-and-seek.
And we, the victims of this prank? We're pissed off and we're angry and we're embarrassed that we fell for it again. Then, as an innocent leg passes on a dangerous breeze as a lovely devil chirps, we're thankful to live through a horrible season of silence so that the next, the joy of words, awakes.
Friday, March 28, 2008
Thursday, March 13, 2008
Rodomontade
"In 1990 mission controllers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), which operates America's unmanned interplanetary space probes, noticed something odd happen to a Jupiter-bound craft, Galileo. As it was flung around the Earth in what is known as a slingshot manoeuvre, Galileo picked up more velocity than expected. Not much. Four millimetres a second, to be precise."--"Wanted: Einstein Jr," The Economist
The article went on to note that some scientists that monitored JPL's other unmanned craft, regardless of mission, are reporting the same phenomenon--a slight change in speed, unexplained by gravity, inertia, or any of the known forces of the universe. A craft should be going at X speed, and something, some thing, it knocks what was once perfection and predictability subtly out of place. Just like Einstein did to Newton, and Newton did to the Bible. Who will do this to Einstein and his physics?
Four millimeters, whether faster or slower, matters. But my thoughts are more terrestrial, as children are ever more a part of a once-solo life, and thoughts of the next one to come will surely make time much more of a challenging thing than a incidental no thing. Will I notice seconds that are wasted, or minutes that expire without a connection to my kin?
My dad is the one who brought me back to earth, from a recent visit we had. Words with my father, a means of transportation, takes me back just a bit, back to times when time just was a space between other things. It felt nice to remember not being beholden to time, and appreciating that now, for fleeting moments only, can I waste moments without consequence.
My dad has gone home. The past returns, the future is very near. And as my past becomes intertwined with fog and falsity, I'm reminded of words I am sure to write some time in my seventy-sixth year:
I close every time you open,
opening only as you close.
It is this, much more than years, that has aged me.
This is a consequence of being sublunar.
At this point, those like me (there are too many)
have endured extortion for years and,
life-sentence prisoners starting to enjoy the attention of a beating,
we’re beginning to understand our crimes.
But just as the energy is exhausted.
What a horrible machine we are,
this sophisticated, cruel design assembled on the cheap,
unable to handle full occupancy and a full tank.
Loaded up, it doesn’t go far; filled with fuel, unshared elevation.
And so, life: enough to go halfway with some one for an adequate ride.
Enough. Thank the world for epiphantic instants (there are too few)
when consequences aren’t ignored, but embraced and brought along.
Gas it up, seat the world, it all burns.
What a ride
Ha: Would I have explained this fifty years ago?
Obscurity used to be so cool.
At a certain point, though, brilliance is a waste of time.
Or too tiring? At least to this thief.
I stole my own wisdom years ago, and now I reach back for my summer.
How real is any season from the past?
I’m too evolutionarily beautiful to care,
content that the world celebrates my beaux-zeaux art
in unanimous silence
just like my greatest day at the end of a millennium
when NASA put my initials on Mars.
The article went on to note that some scientists that monitored JPL's other unmanned craft, regardless of mission, are reporting the same phenomenon--a slight change in speed, unexplained by gravity, inertia, or any of the known forces of the universe. A craft should be going at X speed, and something, some thing, it knocks what was once perfection and predictability subtly out of place. Just like Einstein did to Newton, and Newton did to the Bible. Who will do this to Einstein and his physics?
Four millimeters, whether faster or slower, matters. But my thoughts are more terrestrial, as children are ever more a part of a once-solo life, and thoughts of the next one to come will surely make time much more of a challenging thing than a incidental no thing. Will I notice seconds that are wasted, or minutes that expire without a connection to my kin?
My dad is the one who brought me back to earth, from a recent visit we had. Words with my father, a means of transportation, takes me back just a bit, back to times when time just was a space between other things. It felt nice to remember not being beholden to time, and appreciating that now, for fleeting moments only, can I waste moments without consequence.
My dad has gone home. The past returns, the future is very near. And as my past becomes intertwined with fog and falsity, I'm reminded of words I am sure to write some time in my seventy-sixth year:
I close every time you open,
opening only as you close.
It is this, much more than years, that has aged me.
This is a consequence of being sublunar.
At this point, those like me (there are too many)
have endured extortion for years and,
life-sentence prisoners starting to enjoy the attention of a beating,
we’re beginning to understand our crimes.
But just as the energy is exhausted.
What a horrible machine we are,
this sophisticated, cruel design assembled on the cheap,
unable to handle full occupancy and a full tank.
Loaded up, it doesn’t go far; filled with fuel, unshared elevation.
And so, life: enough to go halfway with some one for an adequate ride.
Enough. Thank the world for epiphantic instants (there are too few)
when consequences aren’t ignored, but embraced and brought along.
Gas it up, seat the world, it all burns.
What a ride
Ha: Would I have explained this fifty years ago?
Obscurity used to be so cool.
At a certain point, though, brilliance is a waste of time.
Or too tiring? At least to this thief.
I stole my own wisdom years ago, and now I reach back for my summer.
How real is any season from the past?
I’m too evolutionarily beautiful to care,
content that the world celebrates my beaux-zeaux art
in unanimous silence
just like my greatest day at the end of a millennium
when NASA put my initials on Mars.
Sunday, March 9, 2008
21 weeks: formation
She's next to me, most of her asleep except for our baby, who for the first time I feel moving against the contours of my hand. Like any fool I assume the pre-infant knows that I am his father and that he is reaching out to me, or pressing into me for comfort. Maybe he is trying to kick me away from his peace, or protect his living incubator, his mother.
This moment is happening and I have no answers. No answers: the title of the journey that is starting. As we buy a crib and talk to friends about names and fight over something nonexistent because hormones and antihormones flare up like epic Greek conflicts, the reality of what her belly means affects me more each day, each waking night. And there are no answers. What will his laugh sound like? What will make him laugh? Which play will become his favorite? What stupidity will he learn from? Which women and men will bring him joy, and which suffering? Will he embrace one of our many cultures, or go his own way? Will he, in times of need, go to his mother, his father, both, or an empty neither? Who will his heroes be? Who will change the course of his life? Are they people I know? Is it she? Is it me? Or is it someone I will never know?
To owe gratitude without being able to repay it: may that be the harshest pain I need know in this lifetime. My person has left this earth, and did so prematurely (he was for so long 12 years older than me, but now it is less). I know my pain. May life work out in such a way that I never know my dad's pain for the same loss.
This moment is happening and I have no answers. No answers: the title of the journey that is starting. As we buy a crib and talk to friends about names and fight over something nonexistent because hormones and antihormones flare up like epic Greek conflicts, the reality of what her belly means affects me more each day, each waking night. And there are no answers. What will his laugh sound like? What will make him laugh? Which play will become his favorite? What stupidity will he learn from? Which women and men will bring him joy, and which suffering? Will he embrace one of our many cultures, or go his own way? Will he, in times of need, go to his mother, his father, both, or an empty neither? Who will his heroes be? Who will change the course of his life? Are they people I know? Is it she? Is it me? Or is it someone I will never know?
To owe gratitude without being able to repay it: may that be the harshest pain I need know in this lifetime. My person has left this earth, and did so prematurely (he was for so long 12 years older than me, but now it is less). I know my pain. May life work out in such a way that I never know my dad's pain for the same loss.
7w2d: Flicker
His heart, I saw it flicker. Seeing a heart beat without sound is how things go in early gestation. I didn't even notice until afterwards, when so much is obvious. The ultrasound imaging, so cloudy, such a Rorschach test with guidance. But when the lens discovered that cavern of life amid so much gray, and the enormous centimeter within, our lives changed, predictably and wonderfully. There he was, real and protected and visibly alive, a flickering pulse lighting the screen and everything inside me.
Though he was seven weeks and two days into existence, I was created that day. On this first day of a new world, I have such hopes to never miss a thing, and be ready with the words to somehow capture observations, weaknesses, exaggerations, hopes, tears, silliness, and wonder at this common miracle, this uncommon joy, this unique and universal sense of creation and the responsibility that carries.
Though he was seven weeks and two days into existence, I was created that day. On this first day of a new world, I have such hopes to never miss a thing, and be ready with the words to somehow capture observations, weaknesses, exaggerations, hopes, tears, silliness, and wonder at this common miracle, this uncommon joy, this unique and universal sense of creation and the responsibility that carries.
Sunday, December 16, 2007
What wild ecstacy? I react on pee
Living with a talented six-year-old is a recursive indulgence. Brandon, he's my son, he picks up language with surprising skill--surprising for me, anyway, this being my first go-around living with and raising a developing mind. He is, in most ways, a regular 21st Century boy: likes Power Rangers S.P.D. and attention from his older brother, can be selfish with his toys and selfless with his love, is lost in catatonia during shows, snapping out precisely as the first commercial begins its whorish song.
He doesn't think about it, and ay, that's the Hub. He doesn't know that he continues to pick up new words, abstract ideas like imagination and responsibility, technical terms like detach and meditate, perfectly placed verbs that outrebound the basics of prepositions.
This morning: "Mommy, Stephan tickled me, I peed! I peed! I didn't mean to--he tickled, so I react on pee." One can try to teach this, but it won't work. There is a capacity here with context that will continue to build on itself. Vocabularly increase plus contextual expansion is a forming universe.
Is he John Keats reborn? Is he just another kid? Either way, on a blizzardic day where leaving is no option and the denizens of our homes are too loud for thoughtful odes, I can't imagine a better conceit.
He doesn't think about it, and ay, that's the Hub. He doesn't know that he continues to pick up new words, abstract ideas like imagination and responsibility, technical terms like detach and meditate, perfectly placed verbs that outrebound the basics of prepositions.
This morning: "Mommy, Stephan tickled me, I peed! I peed! I didn't mean to--he tickled, so I react on pee." One can try to teach this, but it won't work. There is a capacity here with context that will continue to build on itself. Vocabularly increase plus contextual expansion is a forming universe.
Is he John Keats reborn? Is he just another kid? Either way, on a blizzardic day where leaving is no option and the denizens of our homes are too loud for thoughtful odes, I can't imagine a better conceit.
Monday, December 10, 2007
Hear the joke now
No one tells a story like a Trinidadian. There is a skill at work when one in the group gets things started with a key phrase, signifying something new is about to be shared. The room never gets quiet, the group never fully stops talking, but the attention, even if partial, goes to the speaker. Sometimes the interest is keen, sometimes the spite is evident, but never does anyone leave. It's on.
The oral traditions of poetry are clearly in motion. A rousing call turns microscopically aural in a turn of a phrase: absolute intonation incantation, and always an occasional silence to allow the others to comment, very much like your vision of a new testament church service, that same passion and shared focus, just irreverently so. Changes in pitch complement not just brilliant language colors, but the props of the play--a suck-tooth, a whoo-whee, a well boy, and dozens of onomatopeiac accents. Understanding dialect is not an issue for stories that hit us in a core many of us don't visit or even knowledge.
The story itself? Almost irrelevent to the joy of communication, the community of memory and purpose. I fear describing this too much from the side, but I also refuse to try to transcribe the moment. How quickly nice stories can rub us the wrong way; a journalist of different cultures toes lines of characteristics that too often spoil the point: as my beloved poetry professor William Kloefkorn said as only he can say, no guts, no sausage.
The oral traditions of poetry are clearly in motion. A rousing call turns microscopically aural in a turn of a phrase: absolute intonation incantation, and always an occasional silence to allow the others to comment, very much like your vision of a new testament church service, that same passion and shared focus, just irreverently so. Changes in pitch complement not just brilliant language colors, but the props of the play--a suck-tooth, a whoo-whee, a well boy, and dozens of onomatopeiac accents. Understanding dialect is not an issue for stories that hit us in a core many of us don't visit or even knowledge.
The story itself? Almost irrelevent to the joy of communication, the community of memory and purpose. I fear describing this too much from the side, but I also refuse to try to transcribe the moment. How quickly nice stories can rub us the wrong way; a journalist of different cultures toes lines of characteristics that too often spoil the point: as my beloved poetry professor William Kloefkorn said as only he can say, no guts, no sausage.
Sunday, November 18, 2007
Obsession
Though I live within words, I'm always there as an outsider. I've so rarely had that moment, a one true moment of literary ecstasy. This frustrates me terribly, because I expect inspiration and life-changing events from what I read, and it doesn't play out. My life has changed in cataclysmic ways, though, and I have had those moments accompanied with music. Please enjoy one account from February 2005 that captures that. I include it here in hopes of jump-starting my soul to activate from words, to make love with what I see the way I have heard such perfect and horrible and changing chords and choruses that carried me in my occasional moments of quiet destruction.
Listening to the same songs over and over, I get that from my mom. I remember her playing “I’m Just a Gigolo” by David Lee Roth so many times that I would wake up humming the chorus. (Don’t hold the song choice against her—your moms loved that song too.) It wasn’t my favorite song, what with the strange words I didn’t understand; I was still trying to figure out what a casbah and Der Kommissar meant, let alone this “gigolo” thing. But I never minded it—I loved seeing my mom so taken with a song that it made her smile every time she played it. Maybe that’s the first time I understood music as some kind of escape.
I listen to the same songs all the time. I wore out my CD player listening to “Dig for Fire” when I spilled my confused heart onto paper at age 18, writing a letter I never intended to send. Or before cross-country races, I’d play some truly pathetic songs on repeat—I’m talking things like “Ain’t Nothin’ Gonna Break My Stride” over and over, okay? I tell you this not because I don’t get embarrassed—I assure you I am Loverboy-red as I write this—but so you trust me that you’re getting an honest piece of writing from me.
I always have honed in on certain songs and played them so many times in a row. I don’t do it because I’m trying to learn the lyrics or how to play air drums to the song, or even because I want to. I guess there’s some kind of comfort with it, boring as it is, so it just happens without me thinking about it. And while I certainly pick better songs these days, I’ve found that I revisit songs much more so now than I used to, which surprises me. It seems like a teenage thing to do, playing on repeat. Maybe it’s that I now listen to most of my music through iTunes, which given the fact I use the built-in speakers must horrify all lovers of music.
I think it’s the ease of repeating songs that has made this habit worse. I’m aware that I do this now more than I used to because of this horrible data field on the interface called “Play Count,” which lists the number of times you play each song. Where I once overlistened to anything without compunction, I must say that seeing 48 plays of “Hey Ya!” doesn’t make me feel particularly cool. To be fair to me, I can tell you that 46 of the listens were before that song started appearing on every awards show commercial in the world.
This Play Count started fascinating me, though, as I thought about not just what I listened to so much, but why. Is it the pretty sounds of The Flaming Lips' “Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots” that generated 78 listens, or do the words, eccentric as they are, just inspire some part of my life? What about tripe like 311’s “Amber” or Elefant’s “Misfit,” to which I’ve given 47 listens each? Does the easy stuff help me as I work on my computer? These large play counts may be less an indication of what I like and more a practical effort—these songs help me get stuff done, not so much an escape as an aid through what I’m not escaping.
Even with all of this on my mind, I’m shocked at what’s happened to me in the last month, when Interpol and Antics entered my life. I’m always a bit behind what others are doing; do you know anyone else who doesn’t have a cell phone? So, I didn’t start listening as this album came out, even though several friends had it and loved it. One friend let me borrow the CD right away, but after importing the songs, I proceeded to listen to Modest Mouse some more (92 listens of all songs to this point, and so many more for “The World At Large”—talk about a literal interpretation of “I know that starting over’s not what life is about, but my thoughts were so loud I couldn’t hear my mouth”...okay, so I’m still not particularly cool).
Then, it was just right. Interpol crashed into my world. It might have been a Tuesday or a Saturday, possibly in the day but more likely at night. Was I sad? Was I distracted? I don’t remember anything specific, not until I took the time, why I don’t know, to take in the album’s second track, “Evil.” At this point I stepped away from my life—but not to escape. I stepped away from my life to leap back into myself. If you’re honest with yourself, you know we all detach at times. But me, I was adrift, and I didn’t even realize it until I landed.
I’m a person who has listened to songs repetitively my whole life, but I have never been taken like this, not by an album, not by one song. I can’t stop listening to the album, to “Evil.” I can’t stop and I don’t want to stop. I listen at work when I’m busy, I play it in my head on the way home, I take it in at night as I close my eyes after a night on my computer, desperate to give my eyes a break, grateful to open up my blanketed insides one last time. Not so much repetitive as recursive. Or obsessive.
It’s with me so deeply right now that I may someday look back and be concerned. But now, I accept its necessity in my life and its strange relevance to what seems to be an ordinary life: mine. They talk directly to Rosemary and Sandy, but this song is me singing to…someone. Myself? You? Do I even know anymore? Can I be that honest? In a sky full of distant lights, can I reach up to grab the one that no one else sees igniting?
I must be building up to something, or maybe I’m being shown that I’m already there. The past tense world we fall into sometimes has shattered with this infinitive pulse, these dark notes and these simple truths. What does it mean to be evil? Is the world so black and white if everyone says it is, even if you know better? If those around you say something is wrong, who are we to say it is right? And how do those guitars so completely absorb and excite me, a first-time energy repeated forever?
I’ve put off writing this article for so long. Sometimes we distract ourselves when we’re afraid of what we might find. But I’m not afraid. I feel new, like I’m experiencing a first kiss, but with an adult’s ability to understand its significance, then ignore all that to taste the purity. We all know music can be an escape. But sometimes, if we let it, it brings us back to who we are. I am both contestant and audience of my own show. I am a dog, loyal to what I’m told but driven by instinct, and I am owner, taking his dog out so he can find the local news. We are all walking contradictions—we just realize it at different times. Maybe it’s just most of us. Maybe it’s just me. Those that don’t realize it: they are probably happy all of their lives.
Do I make sense to you? When deep into an obsession, we don’t always care about others, but I want you to understand who I am right now. This is my time to not sleep, to not eat, to go about my day in a daze—not to find who I am, but to let myself be found. If you don’t know me better from this, how can it end? Or do I really want you to know me this way? I’m honest with myself—that doesn’t mean I’m always brave about it. I’ve been so honest with you. Is it because I can’t be honest with myself? I will stop listening some day, when I am someone different and less complicated. But not now.
In a soul with this many complications, do you understand why I can listen one thousand times to something so intensely, beautifully, completely, and weightlessly simple?
Hey wait.
Great smile.
Yes.
This piece originally published in Some Other Magazine.
Listening to the same songs over and over, I get that from my mom. I remember her playing “I’m Just a Gigolo” by David Lee Roth so many times that I would wake up humming the chorus. (Don’t hold the song choice against her—your moms loved that song too.) It wasn’t my favorite song, what with the strange words I didn’t understand; I was still trying to figure out what a casbah and Der Kommissar meant, let alone this “gigolo” thing. But I never minded it—I loved seeing my mom so taken with a song that it made her smile every time she played it. Maybe that’s the first time I understood music as some kind of escape.
I listen to the same songs all the time. I wore out my CD player listening to “Dig for Fire” when I spilled my confused heart onto paper at age 18, writing a letter I never intended to send. Or before cross-country races, I’d play some truly pathetic songs on repeat—I’m talking things like “Ain’t Nothin’ Gonna Break My Stride” over and over, okay? I tell you this not because I don’t get embarrassed—I assure you I am Loverboy-red as I write this—but so you trust me that you’re getting an honest piece of writing from me.
I always have honed in on certain songs and played them so many times in a row. I don’t do it because I’m trying to learn the lyrics or how to play air drums to the song, or even because I want to. I guess there’s some kind of comfort with it, boring as it is, so it just happens without me thinking about it. And while I certainly pick better songs these days, I’ve found that I revisit songs much more so now than I used to, which surprises me. It seems like a teenage thing to do, playing on repeat. Maybe it’s that I now listen to most of my music through iTunes, which given the fact I use the built-in speakers must horrify all lovers of music.
I think it’s the ease of repeating songs that has made this habit worse. I’m aware that I do this now more than I used to because of this horrible data field on the interface called “Play Count,” which lists the number of times you play each song. Where I once overlistened to anything without compunction, I must say that seeing 48 plays of “Hey Ya!” doesn’t make me feel particularly cool. To be fair to me, I can tell you that 46 of the listens were before that song started appearing on every awards show commercial in the world.
This Play Count started fascinating me, though, as I thought about not just what I listened to so much, but why. Is it the pretty sounds of The Flaming Lips' “Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots” that generated 78 listens, or do the words, eccentric as they are, just inspire some part of my life? What about tripe like 311’s “Amber” or Elefant’s “Misfit,” to which I’ve given 47 listens each? Does the easy stuff help me as I work on my computer? These large play counts may be less an indication of what I like and more a practical effort—these songs help me get stuff done, not so much an escape as an aid through what I’m not escaping.
Even with all of this on my mind, I’m shocked at what’s happened to me in the last month, when Interpol and Antics entered my life. I’m always a bit behind what others are doing; do you know anyone else who doesn’t have a cell phone? So, I didn’t start listening as this album came out, even though several friends had it and loved it. One friend let me borrow the CD right away, but after importing the songs, I proceeded to listen to Modest Mouse some more (92 listens of all songs to this point, and so many more for “The World At Large”—talk about a literal interpretation of “I know that starting over’s not what life is about, but my thoughts were so loud I couldn’t hear my mouth”...okay, so I’m still not particularly cool).Then, it was just right. Interpol crashed into my world. It might have been a Tuesday or a Saturday, possibly in the day but more likely at night. Was I sad? Was I distracted? I don’t remember anything specific, not until I took the time, why I don’t know, to take in the album’s second track, “Evil.” At this point I stepped away from my life—but not to escape. I stepped away from my life to leap back into myself. If you’re honest with yourself, you know we all detach at times. But me, I was adrift, and I didn’t even realize it until I landed.
I’m a person who has listened to songs repetitively my whole life, but I have never been taken like this, not by an album, not by one song. I can’t stop listening to the album, to “Evil.” I can’t stop and I don’t want to stop. I listen at work when I’m busy, I play it in my head on the way home, I take it in at night as I close my eyes after a night on my computer, desperate to give my eyes a break, grateful to open up my blanketed insides one last time. Not so much repetitive as recursive. Or obsessive.
It’s with me so deeply right now that I may someday look back and be concerned. But now, I accept its necessity in my life and its strange relevance to what seems to be an ordinary life: mine. They talk directly to Rosemary and Sandy, but this song is me singing to…someone. Myself? You? Do I even know anymore? Can I be that honest? In a sky full of distant lights, can I reach up to grab the one that no one else sees igniting?
I must be building up to something, or maybe I’m being shown that I’m already there. The past tense world we fall into sometimes has shattered with this infinitive pulse, these dark notes and these simple truths. What does it mean to be evil? Is the world so black and white if everyone says it is, even if you know better? If those around you say something is wrong, who are we to say it is right? And how do those guitars so completely absorb and excite me, a first-time energy repeated forever?
I’ve put off writing this article for so long. Sometimes we distract ourselves when we’re afraid of what we might find. But I’m not afraid. I feel new, like I’m experiencing a first kiss, but with an adult’s ability to understand its significance, then ignore all that to taste the purity. We all know music can be an escape. But sometimes, if we let it, it brings us back to who we are. I am both contestant and audience of my own show. I am a dog, loyal to what I’m told but driven by instinct, and I am owner, taking his dog out so he can find the local news. We are all walking contradictions—we just realize it at different times. Maybe it’s just most of us. Maybe it’s just me. Those that don’t realize it: they are probably happy all of their lives.
Do I make sense to you? When deep into an obsession, we don’t always care about others, but I want you to understand who I am right now. This is my time to not sleep, to not eat, to go about my day in a daze—not to find who I am, but to let myself be found. If you don’t know me better from this, how can it end? Or do I really want you to know me this way? I’m honest with myself—that doesn’t mean I’m always brave about it. I’ve been so honest with you. Is it because I can’t be honest with myself? I will stop listening some day, when I am someone different and less complicated. But not now.
In a soul with this many complications, do you understand why I can listen one thousand times to something so intensely, beautifully, completely, and weightlessly simple?
Hey wait.
Great smile.
Yes.
This piece originally published in Some Other Magazine.
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