commonplacing

Becoming significant during the Early Modern Period in Europe and especially England Commonplace books were collections of medical recipes, quotes, letters, poems, tables of weights and measures, proverbs, prayers, and legal formulas among other types of quotaions kept by the educated, especially men of letters as reference books and sources of inspiration. I read this on a website, “The custom had the advantage of calling the reader’s attention into intimate contact with those passages that appealed to them most intensely. By copying passages longhand, the reader gains time to reflect both on the meaning and the construction of their favorite works.”  Francis Bacon famously authored commonplace books made up of quotations from reading and conversation.  The underlying premise of the commonplace book is rather messy, it is seemingly difficult at times to seperate it, the commonplace book, from a detailed journal.  The most distinguishing characteristic of Commonplacing in my mind is that of collection and organization. Of being exposed to something and wanting to record it, file it away in a some personal cabinent. Commonplace books from the early modern period tend to be organized alphabetically or by subject, they tend to include titles and subtitles.  These were personal collections or recollections that were edited, re-edited and put together so as to be easily navigated.

What makes this practice interesting to me is that it is quite formal and traditionally used as an aid to study or writing, but it is also uniquely personal. There seems to have been little rubric for determining what was appropriate to include in a commonplace book. The subjects encountered then are almost totally shaped by the personality and interests of the author at the time of recording. I think that reading a poem, or a paragraph from a section of a novel free of its context, but recontextualized into the daily thoughts of someone is interesting. Even neater.

I was at the Cleveland Public Library years ago, maybe I was in high school, I think I was. The CPL has just recently, within the last year undergone major renovations, the stacks are roughly double the size of what they had been. Meeting rooms, cafes, transitional corridors, it feels like a brand new hospital now, but this was not always the case. As a child I went to story time, and it was fabulous. Other than that it was a public library in a small southern town. this one day when I might have been in high school,  I was poking around and found a rather battered hardback copy of A Certain World: A Commonplace Book by W. H. Auden. At the time I knew that Auden was a poet. I couldn’t remember if he was English or American. It turns out he was both. The book didn’t seem to contain anything immediately familiar, but it was full of mostly poems, and letters from relations, often with commentary, and it was organized alphabetically by category. I did not check the book out and foster a life-long fascination with commonplacing. But I still vividly remember finding that book and the way it looked, it was a good size, and well worn. There seems to me to be something deeply satisfying or interesting about commonplacing, it is a practice I wish I more actively pursued and one from which I could possibly benefit.

Then they invented the internet. In many ways, the entirety of the internet is an exercise in commonplacing. The analogy with web logs, or blogs as they are commonly called, is quite extraordinary. What many people purport to be journalism, fact or even merely opinion is little more than just a collection of culture soundbytes. This should be embraced more. There is little need for new content on the internet. I just want to find things. In fact there are countless blogs of quotations copied out in long hand (sort of) that call themselves commonplace books. This should carry more cultural currency.  Old content recontextulized is super hip anyway, almost avant garde in some circles.

So, in the spirit of commonplacing, at least as I understand it. these are some Bruce Springsteen lyrics. The song is called “Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)”, and is the sixth track on Springsteen’s second album, The Wild, the Innocent and the E Street Shuffle. Which was released on Sept. 11, 1973

Spread out now Rosie, doctor come cut loose her mama’s reins You know playin’ blindman’s bluff is a little baby’s game You pick up Little Dynamite, I’m gonna pick up Little Gun And together we’re gonna go out tonight and make that highway run You don’t have to call me lieutenant Rosie and I don’t want to be your son The only lover I’m ever gonna need’s your soft sweet little girl’s tongue Rosie you’re the one Dynamite’s in the belfry playin’ with the bats Little Gun’s downtown in front of Woolworth’s tryin’ out his attitude on all the cats Papa’s on the corner waitin’ for the bus Mama she’s home in the window waitin’ up for us She’ll be there in that chair when they wrestle her upstairs ‘Cause you know we ain’t gonna come I ain’t here for business I’m only here for fun And Rosie you’re the one Rosalita jump a little lighter Senorita come sit by my fire I just want to be your love, ain’t no lie Rosalita you’re my stone desireJack the Rabbit and Weak Knees Willie, you know they’re gonna be there Ah, sloppy Sue and Big Bones Billie, they’ll be comin’ up for air We’re gonna play some pool, skip some school, act real cool Stay out all night, it’s gonna feel all right So Rosie come out tonight, baby come out tonight Windows are for cheaters, chimneys for the poor Closets are for hangers, winners use the door So use it Rosie, that’s what it’s there for  Rosalita jump a little lighter Senorita come sit by my fire I just want to be your love, ain’t no lie Rosalita you’re my stone desire  Now I know your mama she don’t like me ’cause I play in a rock and roll band And I know your daddy he don’t dig me but he never did understand Papa lowered the boom, he locked you in your room I’m comin’ to lend a hand I’m comin’ to liberate you, confiscate you, I want to be your man Someday we’ll look back on this and it will all seem funny But now you’re sad, your mama’s mad And your papa says he knows that I don’t have any money Tell him this is last chance to get his daughter in a fine romance Because a record company, Rosie, just gave me a big advance My tires were slashed and I almost crashed but the Lord had mercy My machine she’s a dud, I’m stuck in the mud somewhere in the swamps of Jersey Hold on tight, stay up all night ’cause Rosie I’m comin’ on strong By the time we meet the morning light I will hold you in my arms I know a pretty little place in Southern California down San Diego way There’s a little cafe where they play guitars all night and day You can hear them in the back room strummin’ So hold tight baby ’cause don’t you know daddy’s comin’ Rosalita jump a little lighter Senorita come sit by my fire I just want to be your love, ain’t no lie Rosalita you’re my stone desire

There is just so much exuberance in this song. It makes jump up and down, or in my car, speed.

“Someday will look back on this and it will all seem funny.”

Thanksgiving

I love the holiday season.  So many of my fondest memories rest in it. The weeks from Thanksgiving thru the New Year are the colors I remember best. Much of it, I think, stem from tradition and routine. The same music, smells, food, the same layers of clothing can be relied on. It gives my memories such a strong context. At this point I am at a loss to determine if my experiences were noteworthy, or simply more easily recalled and relied upon.

Thanksgiving came and passed this year. Everything was unprepared. I was unprepared rather, the build up was a collection of days working and sleeping in late. Days inching along in the process of applying to grad school. My parents and I ate dinner at Cracker Barrel. A first for me, the whole going out for Thanksgiving dinner game. It was nice, and removed somewhat from the pomp and circumstance of the holidays. I went to a movie with my sister and John Stubbs. I love going to the movies on holidays. It makes the whole experience seem bigger. Like the theaters have marquees.

I have put Christmas music on my informationPod. I have found my scarves. Things are lining up.  There is work to be done, but with festive socks on. I feel good, as if being back in my parents house is acceptable, at least on a personal level.  Not acceptable at all, more appropriate. I feel more confident in getting to the finish line in regards to graduate school. The reality of being back in school still seems foreign, but filling out forms and asking for letters, and making things up seems less impossible for now.

People have begun to comment on my facial hair in social settings. It is something different. It makes me more conscious of my appearance, and nervous ticks. I suppose I am trying to look a different part. That’s alright for now.

I keep on throwing around big terms, “period of transition”. Such buzz words. I get real stuck on them sometimes. Recently it has been “intentions” and “expectations”. I have been throwing these words around in conversation and especially in my head to the point where nothing makes sense. They stop being words with meanings and just become units of sound that keep the movement going. This has encountered mostly mixed results, but I spend a lot of time alone, so it’s constructive, or something like that.

Listening to podcasts though. So much free media, it is boggling. I am catching myself trying to talk like there is a microphone in the room. It is fun, conversations that you don’t even have to participate in. I like how it makes you go to personal interaction over jokes to find humor, though I know those two categories overlap mostly. People get more interesting, or I think I get more interested. Also reading poetry a bunch, which still makes me feel a touch to deep for my own good.  It is silly, but sometimes I still check myself to not just look like I am trying to impress someone by reading stuff that isn’t really popular, or is rather specialized. There is so many good resources now. I mean, no joke, pennsound alone is endless in its really good, approachable content. Why wouldn’t everyone want to learn about poetry when the best poets, and some of the best people talking about them, have been put into neat little sections organized alphabetically and by subject. It is such a great spring board. So much easy to navigate than forums about bands or WoW or whatever kills time the most effectively.

I have been reading John Ashbery often. I found a copy of selected poems at mckay months and months ago and it is wonderfully easy to pick up and carry around. I felt very much in over my head at first. I felt unschooled, like I was getting schooled. So many big words, and allusions to art that I plain don’t know, but it opened up, such good lines. The kind that I want to slip into conversation, or build opinions from. I guess that is the key thing for me about any media, I have to make it jive with my own thing. All my little concerns. That could be the benifit to being so second adolescent-y right now. The swath is a bit broader, I am feeling social concerns from across a few age divides right now. Like this,

“Who cares about what was there before? There is no going back, For standing still means death, and life is moving on, Moving on towards death. But sometimes standing still is also life.”

It’s great. It seems to be so negative in a way, but vaguely affirming. This is were I run into trouble. I don’t really have the words to say what I think about it in any real casual, confident way, but that’s the process then. George Oppen as well, I was listening to him read poems and his voice is wonderful.

“Obsessed, bewildered By the shipwreck of the singular. We have chosen the meaning. Of being numerous.”

That’s enough of that. It’s been my companion of late. Free form comedy and modern American poetry. That sounds ridiculous. Happy Thanksgiving. The year is almost out. It is exciting stuff.

suburban dogs

suburban dogs are in love with their chains.

I have been listening to a band called Real Estate.  They are from New Jersey.  Their first album is self titled, and I like the sound.  Like surfers to lazy to learn to surf.  There is a pervading sound of amber that coats every song.  The guitars sound slide-y and vaguely from the 60s.  The vocals muted and muttered, the drums far away.  I guess this is all just called lo-fi, but it sounds warmer and more comforting than that.  Warm and comforting, I guess that is a big part of my musical tastes.

The members of Real Estate are  all in slightly higher profile indie bands, I think. It said on pitchfork, but I can’t remember. They were also in a weezer cover band in high school.  I imagine they played the blue album side to side at house parties.

I find that I am preoccupied with regret.  Not with having regrets, but with regret as a form of expression.  That feels a bit wonky to say.  It stems from nostalgia, maybe.  How every fond memory is tinged with something sad, and that sadness makes recent memories so alien and far away.  I love that lengthening of time.  There is something in that slowing down which is overlooked, and which is vital, maybe it is the process of whitewashing memories to make them seem more cinematic, like everyone learned something from mistakes, and really appreciated what was good.  Of course, no one did any of these things, and I am short on experience, I can only imagine how much someone who has done more misses.  But that natural inclination, in me anyway, to make it all fit into some cohesive narrative, even if it is private, seems to be interesting.  Perhaps it is just that being frustrated with my apparent, self-perceived lack of creativity, this natural ability to turn my life into a coming of age tale seems like a glimmer of hope.  I was thinking about this the other day as I was listening to music, and came to the conclusion that every song ever written is specifically about the person event or thing that I am thinking of, and if I can’t make that leap, sometimes I changed the song.  “Something like: This is what you wanted to hear, so why Did you think of listening to something else?” This realization struck as incredibly underwhelming, I mean, yeah, so.  But it felt good, maybe like something small shifted, and lots of confused feelings cleared for just a moment.  The defrost warming up in my old bmw years ago. Creation doesn’t just pour out of me, but I feel it somewhere around the edges of my thoughts, and as I look back over strong memories good and bad, I know that the capacity to say something not rehearsed is there, somewhere.

I am on a few crusades right now.  The first is to stop giving up on my body, but that seems so boring to talk about, even to myself.  The second is to take myself a little less seriously.  Which is odd, because I swing violently between feeling that this is necessary or it is completely fabricated.  I want to do an experiment, where I let go of everything that I hold on to, but don’t know where to begin.
Periodically, I go through these spells of self-improvement.  I think that most people confuse self-improvement and self-preservation.  In the end the wrong choice seems to be the only option.  I decided that I was going to start trying to write everyday, nothing in particular. I am no author, but I would like to improve my hand writing, and empty journals seem so false.  I bought a disposable fountain pen, this time I am serious.   When this fog clears, not much will be different, I am not writing something everyday. My journals have gained a few half pages, my legal pad a few crumpled sheets lighter, but it feels right, right now anyways.  Maybe I’ll end up a famous poet, or a not famous one.

“Tomorrow is easy, but today is uncharted”

Whenever I feel that I have fully adjusted to my new schedule, I have a night that doesn’t end. The absolute best part of my job is driving home, I never want to arrive.  Driving down Blythe Ferry between Old Tasso and Ocoee could go on for miles and miles, and that would be fine.  Freed momentarily from the stress and nervous energy which has come to dominate me, it always seems so hopeful, turning the heat on and rolling windows down, smoking cigarettes and singing along.  Somehow, those ten minutes give me a one up on everybody and their plans.  Everyone who seems to be moving on in their own way except me.  Between 1100 and 1115 pm weekdays, they can’t touch me.

Fall

Meaningful blogging has stopped.  All of the blogs, well, most of them which I used to regularly read have stopped updating.  It has been months.  I hope all is well and there lives are going through dramatic changes which they will look back at and remember fondly.

My parent’s house is very isolated. As days pass, it seems more of a challenge to get out of here.  My social life is a bit wonky now.

For a long time, I have had mixed feelings about illegally downloading music.  I used to get in long drawn out arguments with friends and siblings concerning the different moral stance one could have.  On a lot of issues like this I find myself taking a more conservative position than I think acceptable for myself.  It always seemed like cheating somehow.  The idea that some music had to be sought after, some work had to be gone through to get a piece of art, that seemed like a good process to me at least.

I have started downloaded music voraciously over the past few weeks. It has been awesome.  Sometimes music just sounds better.  Maybe it is my part-time job as a dishwasher that has allowed me to really begin to enjoy music again.  It is something, I think that there have maybe been two albums that aren’t getting much attention out of the several which are new on my iTunes.  I even think that I like Animal Collective now, and my distaste for that particular band had very personal and emotional ties to the person whom I thought I was.  Isn’t it funny how ridiculously people (or at least me) can act for extended periods of time without even realizing it.

This post is so poorly constructed.  There should be themes and overarching structures, a frame story, a running gag would be great.  It is really the scattered, journal-y nature of my blogging  that keeps me from doing it more often.  It makes me feel immature, but shit. That’s where we are.

I had an amazing hat last winter.  Anyone remember.  It was toboggan style, green at the crown and white around the edges.  In hindsight, I am not sure if the hat was really that amazing or I was able to wear it pretty consistently all winter without misplacing it. Not important, it’s gone now, is the thing, and I needed a hat so the other day I went to goodwill.  There were these crocheted toboggans that made me thing, that someone’s Grandmother spent some serious time making these.  I am excited about my new hat.  I will try and wear it when the weather permits.

The next time you see me ask if I have written a CV, if I answer no, or try and stall, just walk away. walk away.

I have been putting off the res of my life like it isn’t going to happen and time is slipping away quickly, the weather has already changed.

So, I like historical reenactment, but this is ridiculous.  I was volunteered to participate in Rediscovery Historic Cleveland: Cemetery Tour, or whatever it is actually called this year, which is fine.  I think it is an amazing program for Lee students and for people who live in Cleveland, but now I am getting dressed up three separate time, in front of three separate groups of people to give the same spiel about Fate Hardwick (great man by the way).  I am not nervous yet, but there is a tiny sense of dread growing in the pit of my stomach. The costume budget did get upped this year, which is good.  The clothes look better, my gunpants are fabulous. The costumes will make it easier.

I feel nauseated from all this “free writing”.  It’s okay.  I am going to watch that Levi’s commercial with the Walt Whitman Poem, and get down to business.  I can’t wait any longer.

end of july

And then the weather changed and celebrities started dying.  Suddenly summer is finished and my plans all seem confused.

I can feel my throat tightening all the way down into my chest.  A year and a half ago, the sinus infections which have been a mainstay of my life, began to trigger a lingering acid reflux which convinced me for a time that I was moments away from CHF, a heart attack or a stroke, in my chest!

There was a stretch of maybe four months awhile back where i never really got past a particularly stubborn sinus infection, my lungs felt small, the back of my throat singed, and all of my energy evaporated.  Now summer is ending and deep breaths are becoming more difficult to manage.

I guess that these things are brought on by stress or by the ups and downs of my life: exercise then no exercise, no smoking then smoking, lots of eating then normal eating.  Intentions are so true, but seem to change so quickly.

My sister is moving back to Tennessee, and this fine state welcomes back one of its favorite daughters with her arrival.  My best friend/roommate has suddenly moved to Portland to start a new life.  I feel isolated, all these interpersonal shakeups magnify my post-grad manic-depressive mood as of late.

I am not prone to shout outs, but here goes: Bad Housekeeping’s latest entry made me proud to have hosted its author at a Christmas party once.  It is written with a certain skill, confidence, and knack that makes me want to remove the keyboard from my feeble laptop.

I am most likely moving back into my parents house in a month.  This chaps my ass a bit.  My parents are absolutely wonderful people.  They are willing to provide me with food, a roof, support, not many rules out side of common courtesy all to allow me to save money during the fall season at the lab (I am working at a photo finishing lab this fall, it’s the busy season.).  Now in an almost empty apartment which I have called home for four years, I need some sort of change, and my parents house is the best option, logistically and financially at least until the end of this year.

It all just feels like a failure.  It, of course, is not but somehow, the very idea of being back in my parents home living there seems to be the opposite direction from which I was hoping to move during these short hot months.  This is pride, the is nerves, this is frustration at my life suddenly being so unstructured, and it is taking me a minute to shake it.

The food will be really good though, and the spectacle of having my entire family reunited in the same house for the first time in five and half years will be fun, to visitors at least.

The future, in all its groovy mysterious glory is so great.  In my mind I imagine all of my wildest dreams (on a small scale) coming true, and packing it all up and moving to a new city to attend grad school a year from now, and no matter what, in my own fantasies for god’s sake, I am just coming apart at the seams, just a loose bundle of nerves, fraudulence, and fear.  It’s going to be so wonderful. I will throw myself a party or something for people to see.  I hope it gets here.

I am not good at blogging.  I lack the wit, and use the pronoun I far to often. Regardless, it feels good to type.  It would be so great to tell stories, to make arguments, to teach in this small public space, but now is the time for complaining, or at least looking at what the complaining i do to myself or others might look like.  this is good, this is constructive.  this is the end of summer, almost.

bees

Honey bees have long fascinated me. This fascination stems from a memory from childhood, which concerns candy as opposed to insects.

My father had taken me with him to a local nursery to purchase a Christmas tree. I was maybe 7 years old.  I remember it was quite cold and there were spotlights above the lot full of dying trees. There seemed to be a somewhat festive atmosphere. I have no explanation for this, perhaps it is just memory overriding fact, but there were booths, and food vendors, at the very least hot chocolate. My father led me to the booth of a man selling honey, and they began to talk about whatever it was I thought adults spoke of when I was that age. The man gave me a piece of candy he had made. It was wrapped in wax paper and looked like a cough drop. After popping it in my mouth I discovered that it was rather bland. The man at the booth told me to bite down, and there it was. Full of honey harvested from his very own apiaries. This is why I want to keep bees.

There are some unanswered questions about this memory. Why did my father lead me over to that booth, and begin speaking with this man?  Why was there a man selling honey in December? Honey is collected in June and July. Homemade (i suppose that is the way to characterize it) honey tends to be a summery, farmer market-y type endeavor. Nevertheless, this is where it all starts.

Bees communicate by dancing. This isn’t newly discovered information. It seems that before I began doing any research I  knew this fact, but only vaguely from a web comic.

Karl von Frisch was born in Germany in 1886. Born into a family which included doctors and naturalists, Frisch seemed predisposed towards the sciences and would eventually be a professor of Biology at the University of Munich. In 1973, Karl Von Frisch was awarded the Nobel Prize for his research, published as The Dance Language and Orientation of  Bees, which amounted to the end of nearly fifty years of research and observation.

 

Karl von Frisch

 

When von Frisch first published his research on honey bees it was widely met with skepticism.  There were several viable reasons why concluding that honey bees have a true system of communication would be met with doubt.  Insects are not highly evolved and it simply seems unlikely that such comparatively simple creature could have a system of communication which could possibly approach a level of complexity which would allow it to be classified as a language.   Time has in many ways vindicated von Firsch’s original propositions that in fact the dance language of honey bees is quite precise and explicitly and consistently communicates information from an individual worker bee to the rest of the hive.  While research into pheromones, and other chemically based form of communication has greatly expanded our knowledge of how honey bees communicate, the basics of the dance language have held up over the past thirty years.

There are two dances, mostly, which make up the dance language.  The dance which is most often used by bees is the wag tail or waggle dance.  This dance is used in a number of circumstances, mainly to alert worker bees of a food source which is more than 100 meters from the hive and to alert the hive of new potential hive sites during swarming.  the actual action of the dance consists of a worker bee wagging its tail from side to side in a straight line usually not for more than two lengths of its body and then circling back around to its starting position.  It was hypothesized that the angle of the worker bee to the sun indicates direction, while the duration of the waggle indicates distance from the hive.  During swarming similar information is communicated.  A number of workers (150-200, usually) are sent out from the swarm as scouts to find new hive sights, as they return they begin performing wag tail dances which indicate the location of a potential site.  The hive as a whole (including the queen) will not move to a new hive site until all of the scouts are preforming the same dance, and thus have agreed upon the same location.

wag tail dance

There are still many detractors.  Those who simply don’t agree with the von Frisch’s premise.  I am no biologist.  I make no claims to fully understand the intricacies involved in the claims of the honey bee dance language.  In my limited reading and amateurish interest, I have operated from a platform in which the dance language has been observed and is real.  Because rather or not animals have “instincts” or if there is some intrinsic understanding in all animals.  These questions are not my primary concern.  When I think about honey bees communicating using the dance language it makes me think about how amazing it is that a creature so small, who life is so uncomplicated, who only lives between six weeks and six months, can fully communicate everything it needs to through movement.  I think about the complexity of communication in my own life, and wonder if humans got off track far back on the evolutionary cycle, and if maybe there are traces of this more direct system of communication still around.  Words are so messy, they mean so many different things, I am envious of the directness of the dance language.  Sometimes I wish that my angle in relation to the sun, the duration of my movements could communicate what so often seems to escape me.

The state in which I have found myself most often over the past weeks, has been overwhelmed.  I find myself staring into the eyes of a loved one, or the space in front of me, the road ahead of me, literally, and I can’t find the words to get across the beach ball of feeling pressing down upon me.  the last few weeks and days I was required to walk around Lee’s campus I would find myself wanting to break into a sprint.  I still feel that expectancy now.

There seemed to be so much dancing  at the end of 2008.  Maybe it was the season, the holidays, or something unexplained, but now it seems like I never dance, and as a result it is more difficult to get across what needs to said.  Maybe there is some space in my brain, in everyones brain,  which still recognizes the immediacy of movement, a dance language all our own.  I don’t mean body language necessarily, I have never been good at reading between the lines.  Something more basic, instructions instead of emotions. 

If you could see me, maybe you would understand.

summer

I have committed to a week of vacation.  A week without working or saving.  Essentially seven days of waiting, culminating with a wedding.

My family took summer vacations throughout my childhood.  Never longer than a week, the one year we experimented with two weeks in a condo in Panama City Beach, Florida.  I witnessed an unusually fierce argument between my parents which ended in my father driving around and my mother, sister and I watching movies and not speaking very much for the rest of the evening.  My parents rarely fight with such force.

It feels wasteful to not already be doing all the things I have planned.  I am waiting, patiently, to find out if I have a job this summer, this provides a frame work for the next week, and for that I am grateful.

It seems difficult to know what exactly to do with myself right now, but in a calm way.  It is not displeasing or upsetting.  It feels like a situation which rarely presents itself, and needs to be taken advantage of.

Books are continueing to go unread, blogs lightly updated, poems still misunderstood, but I feel light and free, riding a wave of well-wishes and gifts.

I like thinking about my life right now.  I am so happy, so surprised by this happiness.  There seems to be great potential, or at least potential for many new experiences all about me, and that deserves a few days for reflection.  It is easy, for me to just assume that I am scared to take the next step, but I’ll be cynical when I don’t get this job.  There will be plenty of time.

The backyard of my apartment is smaller than it used to be, and consists of bushes, overgrown weeds, two gradens which are slowing turning into bushes overrun by weeds, and a picnic table.  It’s best just before it’s dark.

Thank You

I graduated from college yesterday.
Thank you to everyone who helped so much.  This weekend and over the last four years.

I have accepted that I tend towards sentimentality.  If it is kept in check, there’s no problem, but as to be expected a big weekend with lots of ceremony is a touch overwhelming.  There are so many people who love me so much, that it is hard to feel anything but surprise and gratitude.  Again thanks to all.

Also, if you haven’t gone up the Incline Railroad in Chattanooga recently, you should consider it, it’s fun.  I have the commemorative penny to prove it.

blank

I try and wait until I have something to say to update this. There have been no updates for weeks, months maybe. I have lost all track of time.

What does it mean that my mind is perpetually blank? Not much, obviously.

There is something just over the horizon.  Some breaking loose, rushing forth of creativity or at least emotion.  Something feels pent up right now.  Everyone looks like they have something on their minds that they aren’t saying just yet.  It must be the weather.  This feeling always come swooping down on me during the spring, the tendency to get wrapped up and stressed out.  School will be over soon.

In my frustration, I have wasted most of my break between classes today looking at facebook, pitchfork, and the itunes music store.  If too much time is spent in any of these places, especially facebook, it makes me feel sad.  Not sure why, and its not an incredibly negative type sadness.  Just sort of hollow, maybe its all of the people i used to know, or music I won’t ever listen to, all the information being created and updated and moved around in front of me.  Just makes it feel like all of this is going by quickly and I can’t get caught up.   There are some pretty sweet apps out there though.  that’s a lie, facebook applications are very cumbersome.

Spring break is over now.  I hope everyone had a good time.  I slept a lot in a really big bed in a new state.  It was great.  Now, I have to trick myself into finishing the work ahead of me, of not sitting idle in front of computers, of thinking and acting and feeling immediately.

I have a lot to do today.

library

David Anitin contends that poetry simply doesn’t exist beyond the performative utterance.

We are poets as we give thoughts voice, I think is the contention.

I don’t know how much I believe that, but I like to think about it, especially after I see someone who is a good public speaker. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is a good public speaker. This thought has been on my mind lately. About the creative, imaginative characteristics of mundane thought, speech, and action. There is a sort of poetry to day planners. Visually I think they can be very striking. Announcements can be, news shows, advertisements, conversation, talking about the weather I think are creative acts, are moments of creative experession people have trained to view as commonplace. Maybe I am just painfully boring, and find these things interesting, but I don’t think so. There needs to be someone who understands these things better, to explain them to me, or at least discuss. they’re out there. We can talk about how crazy the weather has been lately.

This semester I am required to write three book reviews on historical monographs. This is not in all truth, that big a deal, but for a student who is really trying to stay current with readings in his final semester of his undergraduate, it feels daunting. People read so much more than this all of the time. I wonder how they keep all of the divergent strains of thought, examples, and theses  straight in their brains. I feel that the American Civil War is tripping over the War of the Reform which is smashing into the Venetian republic which Nathanael West is making fun of in grand fashion. At first, alarming, as the semester gears up, as there is actually more to do, it is somewhat enjoyable, my mind swimming with so many things in combinations no one else can guess.

I just read this a few minutes ago, “I held the feeling in my heart; the urge to discuss it died out. There was all the time in the world. In the endless repetition of other nights, other mornings, this moment, too, might become a dream.”

That is a beautiful thought, I thought.