cryptomnesia

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Location: Brooklyn, New York, United States

Saturday, April 29, 2006



don't
feed
the
monster

Ghazal

Murderers, like lovers, often come in pairs.
In 2000, Bush cracked that Gore liked electric cars.

The little city glistens like memory from above.
The other bus driver lets him out at the broken light.

At 7 am on April first, two Iraqi children were killed in their home near Baghdad.
After Hiroshima was bombed, a brilliant verdancy sprung up over the destruction.

People everywhere have always dreamed in stories.
Thirty-one travelers on this train are riding backward.

He used a towel to open the public bathroom door.
Things on the surface of the river suggest life underneath.

How long will your life consist of this back and forth, Caitlin,
Your home in cars and boxes and bags flung over your form.

Tuesday, April 25, 2006

The Wisdom of Josh Stark

Josh Stark of Gloria Deluxe and Matty Charles and the Valentines is working at SUNY New Paltz now, which means I got to eat thai food with him the other night. He said lots of things that moved me and made me think. Here are few of the highlights:

on decisions: He recommends poker. Poker teaches you about the way your mind works. You have to give up wanting to win and just play your hand as best you can. You learn about how much we make decisions based on what we want to be true instead of what's actually true.

on relationships: Dudes just don't know the half of what goes on. We think we have some control, but we don't. We think we're making decisions like when to ask someone out or when to break up with someone, but there's all this stuff going on behind the scenes that we know nothing about.

on commitment: I just realized there's stuff that I want, and if I'm going to do it, it's gotta be now, (he's 33 and his wife is 39). As soon as we took the plunge everything just started to fall into place.

on exes: There are dudes that get in a relationship and they think they're in it for the whole package. They sign up for the whole package and they reap the benefits, but deep down these dudes know they're not really in it for the whole package. When it comes time to move in or take the next step they gotta get out. Those are the dudes that aren't going to be able to keep in touch with you and they might even be like "you're so fucked up" because deep down these dudes know that they fucked up and they can't deal.

on babies: (His wife is six months pregnant.) I realized about a month ago that that kid's well being is more important to me than my own.

Friday, April 21, 2006

Will whatever is chewing on William Logan's balls please release him...
the man is clearly suffering extreme discomfort.

I mean, really, bloodless recluse? sludge?!

On other fronts, Mr. Green Johnson of the International Urban Lottery emailed me today to tell me I won a million bucks! (I know, I know.)

Thursday, April 20, 2006

adrienne rich

she's got wisdom too:


...In speaking of lies, we come inevitably to the subject of truth. There is nothing simple or easy about this idea. There is no "the truth,";"a truth"--truth is not one thing, or even a system. It is an increasing complexity. The pattern of the carpet is a surface. When we look closely, or when we become weavers, we learn of the tiny multiple threads unseen in the overall pattern, the knots on the underside of the carpet.

This is why the effort to speak honestly is so important. Lies are usually attempts to make everything simpler--for the liar--than is really is or ought to be.

In lying to others we end up lying to ourselves. We deny the importance of an event, or a person, and thus deprive ourselves of a part of our lives. Or we use one piece of the past or present to screen out another. Thus we lose faith even with our own lives.

The unconscious wants truth, as the body does. The complexity and fecundity of dreams come from the complexity and fecundity of the unconscious struggling to fulfill that desire. The complexity and fecundity of poetry come from the same struggle.

Wednesday, April 19, 2006

my new hawt boots

Tuesday, April 18, 2006

some of my opinions

Tuna-fish is absolutely foul.
Nell Freudenberger is the real deal; she will write things that will endure.
One should not rush to be made public.
Art that is risky and flawed is the most interesting.
Men who advertise on dating sites that they are only looking for women younger than them are insecure in a problematic way and to be avoided.
Ann Carson is a genius.
There are lots of people teaching who are bad teachers, just like there are lots of people parenting who are bad parents.
Charter schools are necessary; they up the ante.
Wisdom is more important to society than genius.
James Baldwin had wisdom.
Joan Didion has wisdom.
Women without female friends are suspect.
Intelligence often holds a converse relation to happiness.
Larissa Szporluk is one of the most interesting poets writing.
Cynthia Hopkins should be celebrated.
Fear of one's own misogyny or racism gives them more power.
Therapy is a necessary evil and a useful tool, but not a solution.
Humans need to be more in touch with water.
There is a ghost of a life unlived breathing next to every life;
I pay too much attention to it.

Thursday, April 13, 2006

I worry only as long as I don't want to be happy.

Fear is the darkroom where negatives are developed.

Joan Didion

Tuesday, April 11, 2006

the cruelest


There are two black socks on my bedroom floor.
To love something you must consider its absence

From another city, looking up at the same ripening moon, mine over poet's walk, his over union square, he considers the stresses on my body: the anniversary, the moon's achey pull, the persistent whiplash, the transition problem.
I am grateful for the way the sun blinks against those red bricks, eases the mind along our outlines. This is your time of year, my father said the other day;
there have been locks and rubberbands, red and yellow pills, broken glass, officers of the law. There was melted wax, an insomniac butterfly, phone cords pulled from their walls,
walls that thinned, linings that thinned, perfume sprayed over husbands, boats tipped and journals thrown in the sea. This is my time of year. I am opening old important and tattered books, stretching my head from side to side, letting damp things begin to dry. I leave the socks where they are, like a kind of punctuation...

Sunday, April 09, 2006

specially prepared american meat

From Blisse Debor:

times. Could you abandon me? I knew you when. You were so small. Your
because of him. Now that my head is clear, I know why. It was right to save
There was no lying to this magniflcent skillful being, no matter how
Any wish, hah! If that were true, I sure wouldn't be here. I'd be living


From Milady Splay:

to cry, but I couldn't. All I saw was emptiness and sadness. Kirill, my
a bigday for him, a day whose sunrise he no longer remembered.
markings, blueprints of some kind, and photographs of familiar objects from
more. I won't let you through the door.

Monday, April 03, 2006

late at night on vicodin

I was trying to find a way to stay afloat. The whole house became a boat. I slept next to the man who paddled. He asked if he could get me anything. I wanted orange juice. I told my doctor I wanted to try the head kind and the whole session came back as one big ellipses. The scariest thing is to love someone more than they love you. The scariest thing is for someone to love you more than you love them. The whole house became a boat. The lesbian at the party talked about French theory. As she became increasingly articulate, her face lost its sensual appeal. They lay down and spoke across me like lovers. We were all alternately beautiful and ugly. Pregnancy loomed like the ocean, which became a wild river. There was a dog, an alligator; really, there was real danger. We started on land but had to get away. He is many people and I'm not sure who's coming. The scariest thing is being heavy with significance and losing track of love. We were afloat, the whole house, on the river. We were staying afloat.