Our Forgetfulness

Our ability to remember is often reduced to a dream influenced by taste. 

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


This book is a great one. It takes place in a valley of despair, but shows how the Arts can shine through the darkness. A good book will give you an appreciation of the world you live in. This book is one of those books that in its bleakness and strange settings, illustrates what is important in our loud world. Sometimes we need to see our worlds stripped clean of all the bells and whistles, and see the undercurrent of hope that abounds in our eternal symphony.



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Replay is a Companion to Ready Player One

Replay: The History of Video Games by Tristan Donovan

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Replay was a fascinating look into the computer game world that I missed out on. After reading it,  I wish I would have made more time for video games. But, this book showed me the creative construction of "ready player one" like worlds. I am thankful that Tristan Donovan took his time to research this world so thoroughly and engaging. The book overall was interesting as a side view on the setting that I grew up in.  There were memories that came back to me as I listened: I remembered my aunt's Pac Man fever in Breckenridge Colorado.  She just had to find the game, and she did find the game at the basement of the ski chalet.  I remembered being a teenager in Boulder Colorado, and seeing my first view of virtual reality.  I remember the smell of the video game palaces. The palaces had the smell of sweat and victory over the space invaders.  I also felt led by the narrative in a way that I could expect what was coming next.  The author deftly led me to key moments in the narrative.  I did like the first part better than the last part, that of starting from nothing to create something.  Overall this book was a movement in time, and I was never a video game junkie.  I think I would have enjoyed this book had I had time with the games described. But this book has a strong enough narrative to bring the general reader along for a ride.  The audio performance by Gary Furlong was just right, not interfering with the history being laid out; yet interesting enough to keep you listening.   I listened to this book  while spraying trees and shrubs at Bella Trae in Davanport Florida.


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2018 I will Create:
 Sensible Goals and Work Plan:

1. Create a Space for writing/creativity.
2. Draw for 30 minutes per day.
3. Write at least 30 Minutes per day.
4.Write 750 Words on every normal schedule day.
5.Write on Blog at least 30 days of publication.
6.Submit to magazines one piece of creative writing per month for the first three months.
7.  Talk to individuals whom have created a sacred space for Creativity.  See if she would mentor me and my ambition.
8. Broadcast my goals so that I am held accountable.

What I need to do in order to join the writers in the SKY.
1. Schedule your smart goals on a calendar.  (
2.  Revisit goals monthly
3. Revisit goals quarterly.
4. Reward yourself for meeting your goals.
5. If you did not reach these goals then assess what went wrong and adjust your plan.  .
6. Pick someone willing to work with you on your goals. 

"Pie in the Sky Goal"
1.  Write 750 Words Everyday
2. Write on my blog.
3. Write a short story.
4. Write a Novel.
5. Write an essay.
6. Write a Play.
7. Publish with an outside source, a top tier company.   Start high and then move on from there.  
8.  Sell 5 creative pieces.  
9.  Speak on an author's panel.  
10. Combine my Art and writing into a cool project.
11. Work with my brother on a project. 
12.  Be able to live off the proceeds from my writing/art and creativity. 
13.  Then join the writers in the sky who annually go up in spaceships, leaving planet earth in order to join the CREATIVES.

Music Memories Pet Shop Boys

Maybe the Pet Shop Boys. Remind me of a time in bullet and riot-infested Jerusalem, where it was 3 am. I was returning from a night out at the Arizona Bar. And another dance club, next to that Sapporo Pizza (the one was bombed by terrorists well after our visit.) I was making global plans with four other guys. One from England, One From Australia, and one from the Netherlands. Even though there was tension in the air, from social unrest, you could also feel the sparks of a creative revolution. We were headed down into the old city where it had been closed up five hours ago.  All becomes closed off at about ten.  

House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Awesome. Okay more than awesome. But this book is so big that your mind will need time to settle into it. I recommend reading Mark Z Danielewski several times, not because his books are confusing; but because there is so much to get the first time; most people will not get it the first time. I plan to re-read this book, which I rarely do. I had found this book from a fellow participant in my writing class. I had read one of my dreams to the class. The dream involved a corridor where there was infinite space and an innumerable amount of doors, and false paths. I record my most vivid dreams. Once I was finished a girl in the class asked, "Have you read Danielewski." Like a bloodhound my head turned suddenly and i was like "Huh, what?" She replied "Danielewski the author of House of Leaves." Your dream is just like Danelski." Then I had her spell the name out for me so that I could find a copy. I found a copy and began reading immediately. My dream was similar to this statement in the book, " everyone else sees a series of lefts eventually leads them to the apparently endless corridor which again to the left offers entrance into the huge space where..." The book was great. One aspect that Danielewski does expertly is getting details correct: The train in Tucson. Yes the tracks run right down the street. I am lead to believe that I have been at the bar he talks about, but it was morning, and the light of the night was extinguished. So totally different viewpoint but the bathroom was clean and the place looked fun. I remember a large grand piano on a small black box stage. There were curtains pulled. The whole effect was elegance, just like this book. I did not have the time to stay there, but I wish I had. He also describes a southwest sunset with the right splashes,"Reds finally marrying blues. Soon night will enfold us." I love the word enfold.
 His books are also beautiful and are worth having a hard copy of.   I even made a new folder on Good Reads, because of the look of his books: Books Worth Owning a Hard Copy Of".   Now, I know most of his books are paper bond but I would collect any book that is as beautiful as Mark's books, including Only Revolutions, (The Familiar, #1), and of course House of Leaves. .  He has given reason to buy books from a bookstore, and not just download copies.   I plan to buy his books as soon as I am able, as money right now is tight.  


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Man I love yacht rock, nothing better to set the mood for a romantic night than a little glen fry, billy ocean, or anything written by Diane Warren. Man the temperature is hot. And I am glad that I belong to the city, I belong to the night, living in a river of darkness beneath the neon lights, you were born in the city, concrete under my feet. Man I am tough...

Hypnos by H.P. Lovecraft


This book is a great example of how Lovecraft was the master of horror from the far realms. He gets us so close yet safely away from the evil we know is there but we can not find. He reveals the tapestry that our paranoid minds explain is there, and our sain neighbor says, "No it is not there."
Lovecraft, with Hitchcock were masters in great use of tension and conflict that scares one silly.


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Cult Movies on the Make

I have watched this movie three times and still want to see it.  This is rare for me.  But this movie is awesomely ridiculous with a heart.   Not since  Spicolli in fast Times at Ridgemont High have I been so enamored with a character.  But in Moonwalkers it is more than one character. The big question: Did we or did we not land on the moon? And does it even matter?  For an answer watch Moonwalkers...

The Road Goes on Forever and the Party Never Ends.

The Well of Lost Plots by Jasper Fforde

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Funny and good for the laundry and other house chores. I enjoyed. I had a difficult time getting into the first two now I will begin the series from the start. Interesting enough I have read books from Wales and Scotland this year, now I need to read a book from England. Then onto Ireland.



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Na Po Wri Mo- Pastiche: Library Thing-first lines

 First Lines In First Lines in My Most Recently Entered Library Thing Entries.

There were five bedrooms.
The night that Lyndon came,
The witches were waiting.
 "the fatal flaw," that showy dark crack
  I told you last night
 "Bring your bathing suit"

I cheated death.
 It was there when I woke up
I first discovered I was trash…
 After the long quiet of the grave,
 After an unequivocal experience…
It is graduation day at Annapolis
There was a razorstorm coming in.


The cow-speckled landscape is an ashy grey color.
A steady drizzle fell from a gunmetal-grey sky 
With a single drop of ink for a mirror
 It began as a mistake.



I used Library Thing to help me create a poem utilizing the first line of a number of stories.  Then Juxtaposing those lines in a picture of something different.  Thank you to all the others I used. You can find them on Gregorio Roth's books library thing.  I did not want to take away from the poem by distracting the author who would have to continually look down the page to see who the author or book the quote came from.  I have not edited any of the lines. I just put them in a new order.

NaPoWriMo #15 Couplets

Sir Richard Quince's Footfall
      
Why go to the theartre?
                       ye utter.
Why not a movie?
or even T.V.?
 There once was a prince
named Sir Richard Quince.
His belly was like a pear
it hung over his chair;
his farts were acid,
and his penis flaccid.
But each night he performed
recasting, rewriting, re-formed.
The script he could not memorize,
as his brain was small and unwise.
But he held his spot,
and gave it a good shot.
Until one night during curtain call,
he lost his footing, his downfall.
As the lights fluttered
we could hear him utter;
         "Oh Shit"
          "I quite."
    


Note:  I am the Sir Richard Quince in this story, at least partly.  In college I could not memorize lines so I would ad lib as I went.  Then one night the exit of the stage was not well lit.  The director wanted me to exit only I missed the steps, and fell into the air uttering "oh, shit."
Why is Sir Richard Quince described as he is?
A quince is a noun:   aromatic acid-tasting pear-shaped fruit used in preserves.  So that is why I described him pear shaped and his farts acidic.  I am not sure why I used the word Flacid, just adding to the humor.   

Atomic Chains: NaPOWRIMO 14

O, I ate a Pig's Eyeball?!

A San San to My dream Last Night:

Snow accumulated along the tracks
life after chaos echoed
Nuclear winter buses.
Snow relocations of our packs,
life after chaos bellowed.
We huddled at our leisure's 
Nuclear winter musses,
we huddled to escape zephyrs.

Book Review: Chuck Klosterman - Killing Yourself to Live 85% Of a True Story

Killing Yourself to Live: 85% of a True Story by Chuck Klosterman

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Chuck Klosterman is a voice of my generation. He was born a little before me, and because of this his voice (at times annoying) gives reason to some of my abstract thoughts. This book is a road trip with Klosterman to find why rock and roll died? Or a quest to see how did certain members of the rock and roll community die? What makes rock and roll alive? And how does rock and roll relate to our lives? And how are relationships affected by music? 

His catch-phrase "well anyway.", did get annoying at times. It was good not great.



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NaPoWriMo Day 8

Alas no picture of a Lily in Bloom

Nuns Blush In Spring Gardens

Camera lens captured dew
on Lily's pistil,
florid ready to screw,
with superior skill.
Nuns blush in spring gardens.

Pistil's honey dew drips.
Bees suck onto pollen; 
onto swollen red lips.
Petals lay crestfallen.
Nuns blush in spring gardens.

 Petals perspire, suns rays
make the convent grounds
wet, hot, vapid, ablaze;
dew drips down filaments.
Nuns blush in spring gardens.

Poem influenced by the pictures of Robert Mapplethorpe 







 

Role of the Poet:

April is poetry month here in the United States.

When one mentions poetry, the response from others is a collective fear.

However, I believe the role of the poet is to reawaken the sense ordinary things, the hum drum, the things we trip over when we are on auto pilot.  Poets reconnect us to the things we have become blinded to.  Therefore, all poetry should be understood by all adults.  (Sorry kids but some poems are not understood by you yet, because you need experience to understand the feeling.)

So poetry should be so dull that everyone gets it? No! Poems should be flexible and understood at a variety of levels.  When I say all adults, I mean the poem at a concrete level should be understood by all adults.   If a professorsesque snobs writes poetry to look intelligent and fails entrance to the poem at a concrete level, they should not be writing poetry.  These snits are jerks who think that they are proven smarter when others feel dumb.  They are not cool at all.

An example of a great poem is  William Carlos Williams the Red Wheel Barrow:

so much depends
upon
a red wheel
barrow
glazed with rain
water
beside the white
chickens

This poem could be just a simple portrait of a farmhouse with chickens and tools.  Most adults know what a red wheel barrow is, have seen morning dew, and have experienced white chickens,  But the fun part is trying to figure out why white chickens, and why red wheel barrow.    And it does not matter which level of meaning you gleam from the poem, if it creates a picture, or emotes a feeling than the poet has succeeded.  
By the way:
 William Carlos Williams was a doctor by trade and wrote his poems in between seeing patients.  He also felt that poetry was to be experienced by all and that concrete things, not ideas were the way to awaken the spirit. 

 For an analytical look at Wm. Carlos Williams the Red Wheel Barrow  : (click the link)

NAPOWRIMO #7 A Tritina: CSA soldiers.

Downtown Lakeland stands a monument,
dedicated to soldiers on the skids.
Civil wars, leave footprints.

Scent of citrus, footprints
remembered in this old monument.
I linger in the midst of historic skids.

The North burned the South to its skids;
and all that remained were ashen footprints.

The sky is blue, but its a grey monument.

NaPoWriMo #6

Inspired by a Publix Sandwich
I stopped to pick up a sandwich,
I dressed up for my writers group.
Ciera greated me with pained lips,
Sandwich maker hands,
Chicken Tenders in a bag:
mixed up with texas pete's sauce,
a bit of ranch dressing,
a pinch of blue cheese.
She sliced open the bread
and then she smiled.
She laid out the bags contents,
held by cheddar cheese. Plop!
Isolated elements, placed into oven.
And all the flavors became one.

A Sonnet to Brian Owner of BC REcords and Tapes

Dear Brian (Owner of BC's REcords)

BC's records on the corner of third and main
My brother and I would search thru the bin
of used vinyl, and tapes: music preordained,
Brian a guide to our novice Cashire Cat grin.

 We would move up down surprised
by the Molly Hatchet record cover
looked too mean to take as a prize,
but we looked the record over.

Brian would say, "Start with the blues,
I think ZZ Top is a good place to start."
My mind would seize in breakthroughs
 From Miles Davis's Bitches Brew: ART?

Thank you Brian for taking our ten year old senses
teaching us with graces and taking little offenses. 

NaPoMo: My Familiar Cat

My Familiar Cat:

Oliver follows,
shadowesque;
he trips me up.