Saturday, June 25, 2011

Friday, June 24, 2011

Oakland USA

"Run frogmen, or die!
Run little frogmen, run, from
blades of lawn reaper."-
Cried Thelonious Monk the Love Bird


Thoughts I had when mowing the lawn; there were a multitude of little frogs jumping out of the way from the lawn mower.   I thought they must be trembling and worried for their lives.  What would it feel like to be a little frog when one is lawn mowing?  It is hot June weather here in Florida.

Thursday, June 23, 2011

Reading Ventures

Stephen King is the Monarch of Maine 

50+ States of Reading

Maine: Stephan King "Eye of the Dragon"


Saturday, June 18, 2011

Oakland USA

Standing in front of the Brown and Beige Episcopal Church, painted with left over paint from the old Rail Road Station.  I watched my fifth Jefferson  County Watermelon parade: 
Cop cars, 
Fire Trucks; 
Ashville Fire Trucks
Jefferson County* Waissa Truck # 7; Engine # 1; 
Gainesville Volunteer Fire Department; 
Convertable BMW's with grand Marshall for the 60th Watermelon parade; 
Marine Marching Band from Georgia playing "From the Halls of Montezuma"; 
Baby photo contest winners on flat bed trucks,
Teenage Watermelon pagent winners,
Miss. Watermelon;
regally wave at their servants.
Smokey the bear in a John Deere Tractor says "Only You!"; 
Scottish Bagpipes Marching in Plaid Kilts 
Cylar Howard Family Reunion members having fun with a  
Remote Control Car that zips around;
Candidates for future elections hand out pencils, and wave eagerly.
Free Masons and Vietnam Veterans 
Marzuq Bandits in mini clown cars doing circle eights; 
Mini Nascars driven by Mason gearing up; 
Swamp Thing- a hunting platform driving down main street; 
A mini big foot built from a Suzuki Samurai Body; 
Jefferson County Football Warriors play at 6 pm.                                                     
Confederate Soldiers march for a war that has not ended (yet)
I wave my Confederate  Battle Flag at the
boys, in the alligator hunting platform.
Memories of
when I was a hyper kid
jumping up and down for parades.
I am carried to the festival by
smells of fried Mullet, 
 wafting into
 muggy air.
Followed
by the
Sheriff
and Street
Sweepers.

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

1855



Moby Dick Chapters XXXII-XXXIV


Stubb


Throw away the rod,
we aint on the path;
set by God,
walk slim on the lath.

For we toil in mire
our backs loaded, bent;
may aspire
blue whale's disfigurement.

*To Read with more clarity click on the Moby-Dick Label and all of the Moby-Dick responses will be together.

Sunday, June 12, 2011

101 Things My Love Bird Says


56.  "A pause from tweeting, can be a period of eternal contemplation."

*Translated into English from Love Bird by Gregorio Roth

Saturday, June 11, 2011

101 Things My Love Bird Says


54. "Good Books make good nests!"*

*Translated into English from Love Bird by Gregorio Roth

Friday, June 10, 2011

1855


Queen Mab-XXXI



Stubb


Rest in the bottom lay,
his peg leg went up me,
like a tentacle from a many handed creature,
his peg leg went up me, his wood leg - up me.
It did violate my sensitive nature.
His peg leg went up me.

Flask


Oh put, story to rest
of whale bone cane and ye silliness
your dream a good laugh at least-
and what of the Merman's weariness?
Look whales from the North-west!

Thursday, June 9, 2011

101 Woes


101 Things that go wah, wah, wah: 

22.  Google's Homogenized You Search Results


I think, Google thinks they know me.  Or does Google want to know me?  I am glad that Google wants to be the advanced search engine in the cybernetic wilderness.  They want to help me find a path from a multitude of answers, some good some not.  But sometimes Google goes too far, and they interfere with my ability to find contrary viewpoints. And yes, I know that one can take the cookies off your cookie cashes but that is another thing I fail to remember to do, at least daily do.
 Life is full of likes and dislikes; and not everything is catered to my own mental map.   Google's search results are attempting to put people in little boxes where everyone appears to think the same way, drive the same cars, and live in the same little box.
Am I paranoid, or do they want to reduce me to a code in a machine.  For example, when I wrote my mother a haiku about my buddy Sid Raccoon and Berry Beetle; I saw adds to the side that offered ways to exterminate bugs and ways to get a Raccoon off of your property.   I am thankful that Google wants to be so helpful, but I want to be more than a consumed XY cordinate on an XY Graph.

Note: I am not woeing all the time but this is my Andy Rooney thoughts on the world.

Wednesday, June 8, 2011

101 Things My Love Bird Says


55. "Swear Creatively: Shakespeare Did!"*

*Translated into English from Love Bird by Gregory Rothbard

Tuesday, June 7, 2011

Review


 Jennifer Egan's A Visit from the Goon Squad: Part One Imagined Malice 


"I can't imagine; then I imagined. Howling like a lunatic howls at the moon."  Then snap - back to reality.  A kind of poltergeist... giving me whiplash from those horrors that go bump into the night.


In Egan's a visit from the Goon Squad her imagined horrors allows Jocelyn to throw Lou into the pool, and then allow her to drown him with disgust.  pg. 68  Egan uses the same technique with Scotty, and Bennie in Chapter 6 page 77.  Scotty imagines ripping Bennie's head off with his bear strength.  "I pictured carrying it into his swank waiting room by his bushy hair and dropping it on Sasha's desk."  Our natural, troglodyte self raises its hairy head and  howls at our current horrible condition.


Ghost stories are not just the supernatural but also include eerie moments. Horror stories create a setting  where we are forced to deal with our preoccupied private malice.  These moments are eerie, they seem more than an  every day occurrences. We embrace imagined horrors; because we want to be able to handle a crisis by our own hands.

Monday, June 6, 2011

1855


Chapter XXX: The Pipe 124
Elijah, and Ishmael Discuss the Man that Is Ahab.

Ishmael: 
_"Be Humbled by God and pray like a child?
persevering through our LORD?"_
Ahab's an Anglican?
He uses faith instead of stars, how sly.
Ahab's pipe highlights a pale, pale man,
who uses God's power as alibi.
Ahab's an Anglican?

Elijah:
But this is not his WaY,
We know that all things work to HIS PLEaSURE.
Our ship has been foreordained, before first DaY,
Where we lay our eyes, will be our TREaSURE.
So, this is Our God's WaY.

Reading Ventures:


To Read Or Not to Read Again.


Good literature should be able to grow with us. "The Breakfast Club" (for want of a better example) is a movie that grew with me as I gained experience from the world. I remember watching the Breakfast Club when I was junior high school and thinking, "Wow I can't wait till I get old enough to be in high-school, and be cool like these kids.  I love that rebel dude, he won't take all of the teacher's shit, and he doesn't care." The second time I watched it was in High school. I thought, "Wow these guys are stupid, but fun definitely fun." The third time, I watched it was when I had graduated from College, at the time I was working on a teacher certificate, and thinking these kids would be a pain in my ass.   I felt bad for the assistant principal and understood what he was telling Judd Nelson in the cleaning closet.  Good writing, be it presented in movies or books should change and still be interesting as we age.

Oakland USA









Alexia Lovo (sounded like Lobo) was a beautiful women with a beautiful name,  who could not find anyone to talk to.   If you saw her you would think, why does she not have any friends? One imagined Alexia with a throng of groupies.  One imagined a Hollywood Starlet with her name selling millions of tickets.  One imagined Alexia hosting a morning talk show.  

But, this image was shattered when she opened up her mouth. She always started in the middle of her thoughts. Her mouth lined with red lipstick, small but always moving, twitching, running down the stream of her ever expanding mind. She read a lot because she had a lot of time to spend alone.

Solitude was her only friend.

She read so that she could share her knowledge to all victims. Her mouth held steamed wisps of absolute truthful absurdity. 


"Do you know Big Birds address for his nest on TV's Sesame Street?  She did not expect anyone to know the answer. So, she waited for ten seconds, counting in her head: ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one and then answered aloud-"123 1/2 Sesame Street." (Her victim would stand, with a look of , Why the heck did you just tell me that.  How does that have anything to do with what we were just talking about kind of look.)


 She would shoot steam at anyone that crossed her path. Ms. Lovo was like a mail train who brought bills to all the people who accidentally crossed her path. When people saw her pushing carts, (her job at the local grocery) they walked with a determined step to the entrance.  They attempted to get to the front doors before she did.   She attempted to wave at her victims, but her victims kept their eyes forward and moved fast.  

Ms. Lovo could be talking about macaroni and cheese, or the death of her beloved grandmother in Sioux City Iowa with the same urgency. She was a runner, a runner on rails, who ran her mouth like she was a steamed-up locomotive; but there were no crossing guard to prevent people from being ran over.  Her mouth was a small powerful weapon, and she left her victims scattered for their fear of being vaporized from her released steam. Ms. Lovo stood, talked, and ate alone (chugging along all the same). People wanted to reach out to her but her smoky-whispers repelled them.

(This post was a revision from one I posted on 6.26.2010- for a note on what I think so far about revision read further).

Saturday, June 4, 2011

101 Woes

101 Things that go wah, wah, wah: 
55.  That the Audio C.D. and the Book are not easily correlated: come on finding out the track and chapter is like rocket science only not with the big bang at the end.

Friday, June 3, 2011

1855


We see the Silhouette of Ahab. He is talking madly to himself, on the open deck.   He does not pay any attention to the men who are in the shadows preparing the ship for this part in the voyage.  He does not want to disturb their sleep. The old man would emerge, gripping at the iron banister, to help his crippled way.

It is the magic hour when the sun is just about to go to bed for the night.

Ahab:
"Not so my heart, but there is fruit
And thou hast hands."**
Nights like these I sing like a cage
bird, but of what dream, ending dispute.
Truth's a whale trapped in a wettened iron cage.
The horn did sound -
awakes my courage to fly up in me;
my nerves, flip flop, cartwheel, aha;
I'm raw. I'm raw. (Rubbing an apple on his forearm).


Stubb enters:
Stubb: 
Captain, are you blind? What is it you see?
Ahab: 
Ass, clear your head!
Stubb: 
Your ghost is aboard;
and the men are sinking in great fears.
Concious forbears
it, sailors are in need-
Ahab:
-Dont want my load.
My load will make the most sane man wild.
I give my word,
be Humbled by God and pray like a child:
persevering through our LORD.
(Looks at the apple, and gives the apple to Stubb).

*George Herbert _The Collar_ (Lines 19-25)
**Ahab began talking aloud at this point in the story from last time.

Thursday, June 2, 2011

1855


Captain Ahab Some More


Shadow closeted behind captain's door.
The woe aboard,
now consuming Ahab, rotted pine;
steered the ship straight as a Roman Road,
towards Miss Calamaties' shores.

Captain Ahab's starch suit,
did not move in the wind, still born
of the cross-roads purpose it bore.

A white whale, Ahab's craved fruit,
ate from sea's vine;
swam towards the Pequod around Cape Horn.
Last time, Moby-Dick, she bit
into the currents of Ahab's sea.

Swore not to say, "Our Ships been hit!
It's Blasted!
Alls  Wasted!"
But despite the cold winds of memory
the ones tainted with sorry,
Ahab smiled and knew his story:
"Not so my heart, but there is fruit
And thou hast hands."**

**George Herbert The Collar (line 17-18)






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