happy birthday edward

love is a place
& through this place of
love move
(with brightness of peace)
all places

yes is a world
& in this world of
yes live
(skilfully curled)
all worlds

Diana Arbus' Masked Woman in a Wheelchair PA, 1970

"A woman drew her long black hair out tight
And fiddled whisper music on those strings
And bats with baby faces in the violet light
Whistled, and beat their wings
And crawled head downward down a blackened wall...."
~ T.S Eliot

Before and After: Better than Ezra Pound

If this post is just disjointed, you all should consider yourself lucky, as I have seven or eight threads of thought running through my head at the moment and I don't really have the will to untangle them.

I like poetry, I really do, but it's always so hard to get into. Every once in a while I'll just choose a poet who I've heard of and start reading some of their stuff. I always like it (because I only pick the greats, I guess), but I guess I forget about it.

Ezra Pound is a lunatic, I suppose... whether he was ever truly insane or not, is a moot point in my mind. He looks like a raving mad-man and he writes like one, so why not. Apparently he even spent twenty days outside in a cage once.

He was famous for his anti-semitism, for his treason, for his support of Mussolini... but despite all that, what he's really famous for is his poetry. He's famous for being the founder of modernism... Can I hate him for being a horrible, hate-filled, vitriol spewing, lunatic? Of course... but does that mean I dislike his writing any less? I don't really know... I don't like I do.

It would be different if I lived during his time, I'm sure... just as it would be different had I lived with Vlad the Impaler or Cesare Borgia or even Alexander the Great. But do I hate them? No... they did some awful things, sure, but they're interesting, they're curiosities.

If he ate a lot of babies or destroyed the moon or something... maybe I'd boycott his work, but I just can't. I can't just ignore his contribution to mankind because he was a horrible person.

Despite everything, he still wrote this:


" Ancient Music

Winter is icumen in,
Lhude sing Goddamm,
Raineth drop and staineth slop,
And how the wind doth ramm!
Sing: Goddamm.
Skiddeth bus and sloppeth us,
An ague hath my ham.
Damm you; Sing: Goddamm.
Goddamm, Goddamm, 'tis why I am, Goddamm,
So 'gainst the winter's balm.
Sing goddamm, damm, sing goddamm,
Sing goddamm, sing goddamm, DAMM."
(courtesy of www.english.uiuc.edu)

It's Ezra Pound week... because I proclaimed it to be, despite the fact that the week's almost over. Maybe that's all he deserves. Maybe he deserves nothing, but his writing does, because I think it was better than he was.

Next week it might be another poet's turn, but I sort of doubt it... I just wish I had the time.

The Moon, a Preview

"Lately I've found my thoughts, my soul, and my every meditation losing themselves from me and ascending away to the cool-black seas of the moon. My beautiful lady Luna, my final peace."

"the harsh bright soil of Luna"

But that is neither here nor there. Just a quick heads up, Matt is gone, I'm in charge, so.... MORE MOON. So sweet. Other than all that I don't have much for you, but thanks for all the comments on the Wendy's letter; I'll post a response from the corporation if I ever get one.

What's next? More book reviews, more letters. Love you beautiful sonsofabitches.
best,
CML

The Literary Roundup

This summer has been a summer of reading for me. While I haven;t had that much free time lately I've still managed to pack my days with pages and pages of reading. I'd say a good 80-90% of my waking thoughts are turned towards literature. So, I thought it'd be interesting to bring just a few of the little, entertaining, and weird bits of writing or literature related things that I've been playing around with online.

Thou caluminous rampallian flap-dragon! Thou puking guts-griping blind-worm!
This is a really simple but fun page to play with. I found it completely on purpose (unlike most everything els) because I there are some situations where only the harsh and scornful words of the bard will do. I'm sure you've all been there. Its always seemed very important to me that when insulting someone to be smart about it. It isn't all that fun or impressive to just hurt someone's feelings because belittling someone else doesn't do anything to raise yourself up. Insulting a person is really more about proving not how dumb they are but how smart you are, how creative and witty you can be on the spot. With the Shakespearean Insulter you don't need to be either and you can still look smart... or at least well read. If anything no one will ever doubt again your nerdiness.

"The Book Really Focuses on Vietnam, For Some Reason"
You know what I always wanted more of as a child? Stories about creepy old guys and Vietnam. Something with a real David Lynch feel to it. Well, the infantile and juvenile youth of this country are going to be getting just that it. Meghan McCain, the daughter of Republican nominee John McCain, is writing a children's story about her father; and I'm sure it'll be accidently scary as hell. Imagine Strega Nona, but with more pandering, lying, and illusions to war.
(For an added creepy thrill check out Meghan's blog, McCainBlogette.com. Have you ever seen anything as unnatural looking as conservatives playing playing around and having fun? Me neither.)

Move Under Ground
This, like everything beatnik or Lovecraftian, is totally bat shit insane by the looks of it. "Jack Kerouac witnesses the rising of R'lyeh off the California coast. With Neal Cassady and William S. Burroughs, Jack takes to the road, crossing America to save the world from a Lovecraftian cult." See what I mean? Totally insane bat shit. I was pretty excited though when I found this because I'm reading Naked Lunch right now and I just finished some of H.P. Lovecraft's "better" works. I was also excited about finding this book not because I have any intention of reading it but because it supports my belief that Lovecraft fans are some of the best intentioned but worst endowed (of taste and talent) than any science fiction or horror fans you can find. And that's saying something. You can find the full ext here. I haven't read any of it, and I never will. Lovecraft and Burroughs reviews to follow.

I'm your pusher. But I don't mind. Here's some great lit. product.
Grammar
Irony
Shakespeare 1
Shakespeare 2

CM!

Fences

Once you have a fence you can’t really get ride of it easily. I’ve been trying to think of a way that you could, but I can’t. I think that’s because no fence is really yours. It’s your fence, but also three other peoples’ fence too. Whoever lives next to you, on either side, owns part of your fence, and the same with the person living behind you. The gate is yours, the rest of it is only partially yours, a fraction yours, a third. And like anti-ballistic missiles in a peace agreement no one wants to get ride of their fence first. And in fact with a fence you can’t. Maybe if you convinced your neighbors on all three sides to take their part of the fence down with you, had mutual permission to remove the fencing from around your property a person could do away with fences. But that doesn’t seem very realistic. Even so, if your fence were gone then the three other properties and your own would look like one great big green inverted T or like one of those Tetris pieces that’s shaped like two perpendicular lines. Even if you convinced the surrounding five properties to your home to each remove a portion of their fence, so you and the neighbor across the backyard would lose three fences and those homes which bookend the two of you would only lose two fences, one which they shared with you and the home across the backyard from you and the other which they shared with the other respective bookend homeowner on their end of the six properties there would still be the upset that six garages would be left scattered seemingly aimless through out an expansive green lawn made from six different and before individual plots. Maybe though, if a neighbor on one side were to move and you were to act in the dead of night and quickly remove one third of your entire fence, the fence shared with the emigrating neighbor before the home was bought but while still vacant the problem of fencing could be dealt with however slowly. And, if you lived in that one home long enough then maybe, just maybe, eventually there would be no fences; at all, anywhere. It’s possible. After all, each fence does lead to next.

Where I live now there aren’t any fences. I guess I just got lucky. I know one day though I'll probably live in a place that is more fenced in than this one now and I don’t know if there will be anything I can do about that. Hopefully I’ll have really nice neighbors, or neighbors with the same sense towards fences as I have and we can take our fences down together on some sunny summer afternoon; mow our lawns and water our grass and respect the boundaries our lawnmowers and hedge clippers carve into the earth instead of using the ugly aluminum and iron fences that were there before. But then again maybe that’s wishful thinking, or maybe it’s just passive aggression, and maybe it would just a quitter way of separating myself from people around me. What’s better, an unspoken fence, or a real one you can lean on, climb over and build a gate in?

He will not go behind his father's saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, "Good fences make good neighbors."
-Robert Frost

Caleb, prospective home owner