Tuesday, November 30
Tuesday, November 23
"I placed one word beside another and finally with a great deal
of effort managed to create a whole sentence--naturally not one
that 'meant something' but one that was composed of word-
nuances. It was the hidden meaning that I was seeking--a kind
of Alchimie du Verbe. One word has its meaning and another
has its own, but when they are brought together something
strange happens to them: they have an in-between connotation
at the same time as they retain their original individual meanings . . .
Poetry is this very tension-filled relationship between the words,
between the lines, between meanings."
--Gunnar Ekelöf, tr. Auden & Sjöberg
Friday, November 19
Friday, November 12
Thursday, November 11
"After a long and arduous journey a young Japanese man arrived deep
in a forest where the teacher of his choice was living in a small house he
had made. When the student arrived, the teacher was sweeping up
fallen leaves. Greeting his master, the young man received no greeting
in return. And to all his questions, there were no replies. Realizing there
was nothing he could do to get the teacher's attention, the student went
to another part of the same forest and built himself a house. Years later,
when he was sweeping up fallen leaves, he was enlightened. He then
dropped everything, ran through the forest to his teacher, and said,
'Thank you.'"
--John Cage
fr. Silence [Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1961]
in a forest where the teacher of his choice was living in a small house he
had made. When the student arrived, the teacher was sweeping up
fallen leaves. Greeting his master, the young man received no greeting
in return. And to all his questions, there were no replies. Realizing there
was nothing he could do to get the teacher's attention, the student went
to another part of the same forest and built himself a house. Years later,
when he was sweeping up fallen leaves, he was enlightened. He then
dropped everything, ran through the forest to his teacher, and said,
'Thank you.'"
--John Cage
fr. Silence [Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1961]
Works in Progress, 14
1.
maneuvering around car-sized potholes
designing legal strategies
speaking solely in terms of racial justice
examining burial pits and naked skulls
2.
sticking to issues that directly affect them
bemoaning the cautiousness of today's athletes
co-opting the arguments of their opposition
tracking Latino immigrants at the border
3.
supporting any effort to unionize
failing to generate meaningful responses
feeling the centipede in oneself
getting some good poems out of it
4.
rewriting the country's labor laws
seeing a psychic map of our obsessions
building electoral coalitions that will win
emphasizing the overlapping interests of the affluent
5.
slumbering until nightfall
setting this brain of mine afire
reaching irritably after fact & reason
shunning easy consolations
6.
subsidizing extinction industries
helping women victimized by male violence
doubling the sign-up bonus for volunteers
supporting the troops while doubting the war
7.
naming the dead
waiting for him to break silence
descending the steeps of the soughing twilight
assimilating foreign cultures
8.
freeing the slaves
admonishing those who do evil
stamping out political brushfires
democratizing the US
9.
getting in touch with the cable guys
swinging the birches
testing the waters
pushing radical music agendas
10.
getting out the vote
fetching water from the well
educating the masses
confessing to our personal demons
11.
clearing minefields from past wars
laying them for wars yet to come
staying executions, pardoning the innocent
blurring the boundaries, the borders
12.
reading maps in the dark with the top light off
folding them all back up rightly
cramming them into the glove compartment
getting moving again in the right direction
13.
cooling our heels
voting early and often
keeping our fingers crossed
paying full-price for our journey
14.
assembling a glossary of oft-used phrases
keeping silent while the tea is poured
maintaining an inventory of our beliefs and belongings
finding time to clean up around the house
15.
1.
maneuvering around car-sized potholes
designing legal strategies
speaking solely in terms of racial justice
examining burial pits and naked skulls
2.
sticking to issues that directly affect them
bemoaning the cautiousness of today's athletes
co-opting the arguments of their opposition
tracking Latino immigrants at the border
3.
supporting any effort to unionize
failing to generate meaningful responses
feeling the centipede in oneself
getting some good poems out of it
4.
rewriting the country's labor laws
seeing a psychic map of our obsessions
building electoral coalitions that will win
emphasizing the overlapping interests of the affluent
5.
slumbering until nightfall
setting this brain of mine afire
reaching irritably after fact & reason
shunning easy consolations
6.
subsidizing extinction industries
helping women victimized by male violence
doubling the sign-up bonus for volunteers
supporting the troops while doubting the war
7.
naming the dead
waiting for him to break silence
descending the steeps of the soughing twilight
assimilating foreign cultures
8.
freeing the slaves
admonishing those who do evil
stamping out political brushfires
democratizing the US
9.
getting in touch with the cable guys
swinging the birches
testing the waters
pushing radical music agendas
10.
getting out the vote
fetching water from the well
educating the masses
confessing to our personal demons
11.
clearing minefields from past wars
laying them for wars yet to come
staying executions, pardoning the innocent
blurring the boundaries, the borders
12.
reading maps in the dark with the top light off
folding them all back up rightly
cramming them into the glove compartment
getting moving again in the right direction
13.
cooling our heels
voting early and often
keeping our fingers crossed
paying full-price for our journey
14.
assembling a glossary of oft-used phrases
keeping silent while the tea is poured
maintaining an inventory of our beliefs and belongings
finding time to clean up around the house
15.
Tuesday, November 9
Sunday, October 31
"It chanced that the Sunday morning that we were there [in Provincetown
harbor], I had joined a party of men who were smoking and lolling over a
pile of boards on one of the wharves, (nihil humanum a me, &c.,) when
our landlord, who was a sort of tithing-man, went off to stop some sailors
who were engaged in painting their vessel. Our party was recruited from
time to time by other citizens, who came rubbing their eyes as if they had
just got out of bed; and one old man remarked to me that it was the custom
there to lie abed very late on Sunday, it being a day of rest. I remarked
that, as I thought, they might as well let the man paint, for all us. It was not
noisy work, and would not disturb our devotions. But a young man in the
company, taking his pipe out of his mouth, said that it was a plain contra-
diction of the law of God, which he quoted, and if they did not have some
such regulation, vessels would run in there to tar, and rig, and paint, and
they would have no Sabbath at all. This was a good argument enough, if
he had not put it in the name of religion. The next summer, as I sat on a
hill there one sultry Sunday afternoon, the meeting-house windows being
open, my meditations were interrupted by the noise of a preacher who
shouted like a boatswain, profaning the quiet atmosphere, and who, I
fancied, must have taken off his coat. Few things could have been more
disgusting or disheartening. I wished the tithing-man would stop him."
--Henry David Thoreau
fr. Cape Cod (1865)
[New York: The Library of America, 1985]
harbor], I had joined a party of men who were smoking and lolling over a
pile of boards on one of the wharves, (nihil humanum a me, &c.,) when
our landlord, who was a sort of tithing-man, went off to stop some sailors
who were engaged in painting their vessel. Our party was recruited from
time to time by other citizens, who came rubbing their eyes as if they had
just got out of bed; and one old man remarked to me that it was the custom
there to lie abed very late on Sunday, it being a day of rest. I remarked
that, as I thought, they might as well let the man paint, for all us. It was not
noisy work, and would not disturb our devotions. But a young man in the
company, taking his pipe out of his mouth, said that it was a plain contra-
diction of the law of God, which he quoted, and if they did not have some
such regulation, vessels would run in there to tar, and rig, and paint, and
they would have no Sabbath at all. This was a good argument enough, if
he had not put it in the name of religion. The next summer, as I sat on a
hill there one sultry Sunday afternoon, the meeting-house windows being
open, my meditations were interrupted by the noise of a preacher who
shouted like a boatswain, profaning the quiet atmosphere, and who, I
fancied, must have taken off his coat. Few things could have been more
disgusting or disheartening. I wished the tithing-man would stop him."
--Henry David Thoreau
fr. Cape Cod (1865)
[New York: The Library of America, 1985]
Works in Progress, 13
1.
maneuvering around car-sized potholes
designing legal strategies
speaking solely in terms of racial justice
examining burial pits and naked skulls
2.
sticking to issues that directly affect them
bemoaning the cautiousness of today's athletes
co-opting the arguments of their opposition
tracking Latino immigrants at the border
3.
supporting any effort to unionize
failing to generate meaningful responses
feeling the centipede in oneself
getting some good poems out of it
4.
rewriting the country's labor laws
seeing a psychic map of our obsessions
building electoral coalitions that will win
emphasizing the overlapping interests of the affluent
5.
slumbering until nightfall
setting this brain of mine afire
reaching irritably after fact & reason
shunning easy consolations
6.
subsidizing extinction industries
helping women victimized by male violence
doubling the sign-up bonus for volunteers
supporting the troops while doubting the war
7.
naming the dead
waiting for him to break silence
descending the steeps of the soughing twilight
assimilating foreign cultures
8.
freeing the slaves
admonishing those who do evil
stamping out political brushfires
democratizing the US
9.
getting in touch with the cable guys
swinging the birches
testing the waters
pushing radical music agendas
10.
getting out the vote
fetching water from the well
educating the masses
confessing to our personal demons
11.
clearing minefields from past wars
laying them for wars yet to come
staying executions, pardoning the innocent
blurring the boundaries, the borders
12.
reading maps in the dark with the top light off
folding them all back up rightly
cramming them into the glove compartment
getting moving again in the right direction
13.
cooling our heels
voting early and often
keeping our fingers crossed
paying full-price for our journey
14.
1.
maneuvering around car-sized potholes
designing legal strategies
speaking solely in terms of racial justice
examining burial pits and naked skulls
2.
sticking to issues that directly affect them
bemoaning the cautiousness of today's athletes
co-opting the arguments of their opposition
tracking Latino immigrants at the border
3.
supporting any effort to unionize
failing to generate meaningful responses
feeling the centipede in oneself
getting some good poems out of it
4.
rewriting the country's labor laws
seeing a psychic map of our obsessions
building electoral coalitions that will win
emphasizing the overlapping interests of the affluent
5.
slumbering until nightfall
setting this brain of mine afire
reaching irritably after fact & reason
shunning easy consolations
6.
subsidizing extinction industries
helping women victimized by male violence
doubling the sign-up bonus for volunteers
supporting the troops while doubting the war
7.
naming the dead
waiting for him to break silence
descending the steeps of the soughing twilight
assimilating foreign cultures
8.
freeing the slaves
admonishing those who do evil
stamping out political brushfires
democratizing the US
9.
getting in touch with the cable guys
swinging the birches
testing the waters
pushing radical music agendas
10.
getting out the vote
fetching water from the well
educating the masses
confessing to our personal demons
11.
clearing minefields from past wars
laying them for wars yet to come
staying executions, pardoning the innocent
blurring the boundaries, the borders
12.
reading maps in the dark with the top light off
folding them all back up rightly
cramming them into the glove compartment
getting moving again in the right direction
13.
cooling our heels
voting early and often
keeping our fingers crossed
paying full-price for our journey
14.
Friday, October 29
Friday, October 22
Works in Progress, 12
1.
maneuvering around car-sized potholes
designing legal strategies
speaking solely in terms of racial justice
examining burial pits and naked skulls
2.
sticking to issues that directly affect them
bemoaning the cautiousness of today's athletes
co-opting the arguments of their opposition
tracking Latino immigrants at the border
3.
supporting any effort to unionize
failing to generate meaningful responses
feeling the centipede in oneself
getting some good poems out of it
4.
rewriting the country's labor laws
seeing a psychic map of our obsessions
building electoral coalitions that will win
emphasizing the overlapping interests of the affluent
5.
slumbering until nightfall
setting this brain of mine afire
reaching irritably after fact & reason
shunning easy consolations
6.
subsidizing extinction industries
helping women victimized by male violence
doubling the sign-up bonus for volunteers
supporting the troops while doubting the war
7.
naming the dead
waiting for him to break silence
descending the steeps of the soughing twilight
assimilating foreign cultures
8.
freeing the slaves
admonishing those who do evil
stamping out political brushfires
democratizing the US
9.
getting in touch with the cable guys
swinging the birches
testing the waters
pushing radical music agendas
10.
getting out the vote
fetching water from the well
educating the masses
confessing to our personal demons
11.
clearing minefields from past wars
laying them for wars yet to come
staying executions, pardoning the innocent
blurring the boundaries, the borders
12.
reading maps in the dark with the top light off
folding them all back up rightly
cramming them into the glove compartment
getting moving again in the right direction
13.
1.
maneuvering around car-sized potholes
designing legal strategies
speaking solely in terms of racial justice
examining burial pits and naked skulls
2.
sticking to issues that directly affect them
bemoaning the cautiousness of today's athletes
co-opting the arguments of their opposition
tracking Latino immigrants at the border
3.
supporting any effort to unionize
failing to generate meaningful responses
feeling the centipede in oneself
getting some good poems out of it
4.
rewriting the country's labor laws
seeing a psychic map of our obsessions
building electoral coalitions that will win
emphasizing the overlapping interests of the affluent
5.
slumbering until nightfall
setting this brain of mine afire
reaching irritably after fact & reason
shunning easy consolations
6.
subsidizing extinction industries
helping women victimized by male violence
doubling the sign-up bonus for volunteers
supporting the troops while doubting the war
7.
naming the dead
waiting for him to break silence
descending the steeps of the soughing twilight
assimilating foreign cultures
8.
freeing the slaves
admonishing those who do evil
stamping out political brushfires
democratizing the US
9.
getting in touch with the cable guys
swinging the birches
testing the waters
pushing radical music agendas
10.
getting out the vote
fetching water from the well
educating the masses
confessing to our personal demons
11.
clearing minefields from past wars
laying them for wars yet to come
staying executions, pardoning the innocent
blurring the boundaries, the borders
12.
reading maps in the dark with the top light off
folding them all back up rightly
cramming them into the glove compartment
getting moving again in the right direction
13.
Tuesday, October 19
"He who rides a tiger cannot dismount. Chinese proverb. Applied to action: what you get is history. Action is capitalism, the armaments industry. Malplaquet--Borodino--Port Arthur--150,000 dead, 200,000 dead, 250,000 dead--no one can now see history as any-thing but the justification of mass murder: rapine and glorification-- there's the mechanism of power. And what history records is not the nations' folk-memory of themselves, but their funny papers. If you look at them twenty years later, you recall the fashions for war- widows, but not a word of that the battles were about. A shrapnel splinter on the watch-chain draped over the belly of the good-time boys, the sharks, the profiteers, while they bait a chippy at the thé-dansant--that's what remains, that is the aere perennius, that outlasts the general staffs, that's the nail that holds history to the flagpole. All that travail brought forth a stone--that's history: a legend, a dream! Think of all that is now growing a beard in some Kyffhäuser: the Manchus and the Hohenstaufens, the Tennos and the Shoguns and the Lancashire woolmongers--the beard growing without hairtonic through all those table-tops, and the ravens have croaked themselves hoarse and are sick and tired of it and have gone flapping off over the hills: history, much too classical for these down-and-out nations, pinchbeck offspring of the Titans, more heroin than heroism, froth on their lips from talking platitudes--counter-jumpers of history! "Anyone who has nothing at all to offer the present day talks history! Rome, the Rubicon. The jaws of Caesar and the brains of troglodytes, that's their type! Wars, knouts, tyrants, plagues to keep the masses in check, there you might see a touch of the grand manner, but history, no, that's nothing for--heroes! À propos, victories and mis-victories, will and power--what labels for these broth-cubes! On the table free groceries and under the table looted Persian carpets: there you have the cold facts of history. What history destroys is usually temples, and what it loots is always art. Everyone gets his turn among the firms and the Pharaohs. The sapphires from Amphitrite's eye-sockets find their way on to the Madonna's mantle of beaten gold, then on to some imperial Colleoni's sword-knob. Malplaquet--Borodino--Port Arthur--in the mollifying light of cultural philosophy: states of levitation, that's all. Yet behind it all there stand, calmly and collectedly, the missionaries of formal reason, the leisurely collectors and artificers of decisions."
--Gottfried Benn written 1937, published 1949
fr. "Wolf's Tavern" tr. Ernst Kaiser and Eithne Wilkins
in Primal Vision: Selected Writings of Gottfried Benn
[New York: New Directions, 1971]
--Gottfried Benn written 1937, published 1949
fr. "Wolf's Tavern" tr. Ernst Kaiser and Eithne Wilkins
in Primal Vision: Selected Writings of Gottfried Benn
[New York: New Directions, 1971]
Saturday, October 16
Works in Progress, 11
1.
maneuvering around car-sized potholes
designing legal strategies
speaking solely in terms of racial justice
examining burial pits and naked skulls
2.
sticking to issues that directly affect them
bemoaning the cautiousness of today's athletes
co-opting the arguments of their opposition
tracking Latino immigrants at the border
3.
supporting any effort to unionize
failing to generate meaningful responses
feeling the centipede in oneself
getting some good poems out of it
4.
rewriting the country's labor laws
seeing a psychic map of our obsessions
building electoral coalitions that will win
emphasizing the overlapping interests of the affluent
5.
slumbering until nightfall
setting this brain of mine afire
reaching irritably after fact & reason
shunning easy consolations
6.
subsidizing extinction industries
helping women victimized by male violence
doubling the sign-up bonus for volunteers
supporting the troops while doubting the war
7.
naming the dead
waiting for him to break silence
descending the steeps of the soughing twilight
assimilating foreign cultures
8.
freeing the slaves
admonishing those who do evil
stamping out political brushfires
democratizing the US
9.
getting in touch with the cable guys
swinging the birches
testing the waters
pushing radical music agendas
10.
getting out the vote
fetching water from the well
educating the masses
confessing to our personal demons
11.
clearing minefields from past wars
laying them for wars yet to come
staying executions, pardoning the innocent
blurring the boundaries, the borders
12.
1.
maneuvering around car-sized potholes
designing legal strategies
speaking solely in terms of racial justice
examining burial pits and naked skulls
2.
sticking to issues that directly affect them
bemoaning the cautiousness of today's athletes
co-opting the arguments of their opposition
tracking Latino immigrants at the border
3.
supporting any effort to unionize
failing to generate meaningful responses
feeling the centipede in oneself
getting some good poems out of it
4.
rewriting the country's labor laws
seeing a psychic map of our obsessions
building electoral coalitions that will win
emphasizing the overlapping interests of the affluent
5.
slumbering until nightfall
setting this brain of mine afire
reaching irritably after fact & reason
shunning easy consolations
6.
subsidizing extinction industries
helping women victimized by male violence
doubling the sign-up bonus for volunteers
supporting the troops while doubting the war
7.
naming the dead
waiting for him to break silence
descending the steeps of the soughing twilight
assimilating foreign cultures
8.
freeing the slaves
admonishing those who do evil
stamping out political brushfires
democratizing the US
9.
getting in touch with the cable guys
swinging the birches
testing the waters
pushing radical music agendas
10.
getting out the vote
fetching water from the well
educating the masses
confessing to our personal demons
11.
clearing minefields from past wars
laying them for wars yet to come
staying executions, pardoning the innocent
blurring the boundaries, the borders
12.
Friday, October 15
Works in Progress, 10
1.
maneuvering around car-sized potholes
designing legal strategies
speaking solely in terms of racial justice
examining burial pits and naked skulls
2.
sticking to issues that directly affect them
bemoaning the cautiousness of today's athletes
co-opting the arguments of their opposition
tracking Latino immigrants at the border
3.
supporting any effort to unionize
failing to generate meaningful responses
feeling the centipede in oneself
getting some good poems out of it
4.
rewriting the country's labor laws
seeing a psychic map of our obsessions
building electoral coalitions that will win
emphasizing the overlapping interests of the affluent
5.
slumbering until nightfall
setting this brain of mine afire
reaching irritably after fact & reason
shunning easy consolations
6.
subsidizing extinction industries
helping women victimized by male violence
doubling the sign-up bonus for volunteers
supporting the troops while doubting the war
7.
naming the dead
waiting for him to break silence
descending the steeps of the soughing twilight
assimilating foreign cultures
8.
freeing the slaves
admonishing those who do evil
stamping out political brushfires
democratizing the US
9.
getting in touch with the cable guys
swinging the birches
testing the waters
pushing radical music agendas
10.
getting out the vote
fetching water from the well
educating the masses
confessing to our personal demons
11.
1.
maneuvering around car-sized potholes
designing legal strategies
speaking solely in terms of racial justice
examining burial pits and naked skulls
2.
sticking to issues that directly affect them
bemoaning the cautiousness of today's athletes
co-opting the arguments of their opposition
tracking Latino immigrants at the border
3.
supporting any effort to unionize
failing to generate meaningful responses
feeling the centipede in oneself
getting some good poems out of it
4.
rewriting the country's labor laws
seeing a psychic map of our obsessions
building electoral coalitions that will win
emphasizing the overlapping interests of the affluent
5.
slumbering until nightfall
setting this brain of mine afire
reaching irritably after fact & reason
shunning easy consolations
6.
subsidizing extinction industries
helping women victimized by male violence
doubling the sign-up bonus for volunteers
supporting the troops while doubting the war
7.
naming the dead
waiting for him to break silence
descending the steeps of the soughing twilight
assimilating foreign cultures
8.
freeing the slaves
admonishing those who do evil
stamping out political brushfires
democratizing the US
9.
getting in touch with the cable guys
swinging the birches
testing the waters
pushing radical music agendas
10.
getting out the vote
fetching water from the well
educating the masses
confessing to our personal demons
11.
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