February 18, 2009

I’m going to kick this thing off with lyrics to a song by Meryn Cadell.

SECRET

I’m here where I want to be
Seven thousand miles from infinity
No one knows where I am.
It’s quiet here with me
I’m filling in the spaces
where the killings used to be
There’s no phone
and no way home
It’s been a long time coming
It’s been a long time
I’m here
where I want to be
Seven thousand miles from infinity
No one knows where I am but me

UPDATE: JULY 10 2009

I’ve always liked this song, but I can see the problem with using it as an inaugural post.

That last line–doesn’t bode well for readership.

 

Part 1 of a 9-part story: blurted, sans proofing. Plunging in.

I Miss the Person I Thought You Were
Part 1

She met him on what the English majors called “the porch”—the walkway in front of the English department. There the smokers gathered, English majors and Theater majors alike. There were a lot of smokers, and there was a lot of cigarette-bumming and lighter-borrowing and flirting and philosophical bullshitting. She’d seen him, and she knew they both existed on the fringes of each other’s respective circles, but they hadn’t yet met. They shared a habit of regaling small, appreciative crowds with the expansive gestures of their witty stories.

On this day—probably a balmy spring day of the South Carolina sort when the tiny white blossoms on the heavy-laden boughs of the Bradford Pears (those overgrown shrubs which seem like full-grown trees, but which shear in half should an early-spring ice-storm hit) scent the air like jizz. On this day, she overheard him—he was quite a charming raconteur, with an inclusive, clique-ish delivery as if he were relating a story of Studio 54 exploits—telling a story in a muppety manner that reminded her of her own habit of flailing her arms when excited. She sidled near to better hear. Apparently some faculty member, a sparkplug chummy with the theater kids, had proposed to set him up: they met at Castle Bon Vivant, the dance club the next town over. He was appalled on sight: by the paunch, the trucker hat, the desperation. To weasel out of dancing, he opined about his Belgian-German ex-boyfriend Chimay Franziskaner—a lapsed Trappist, arriving from the Continent upon the morrow. They’d been estranged, he said, and yet the pull was inexorable.

She brushed past a few people and tapped him on the arm.

“I must be friends,” she said, “with such an inventive person.” And he looked very pleased.

He’d noticed her, he said, of course he’d noticed her with her almost frighteningly bright hair and her loud clothing. He’d heard of her, too—that she wrote poetry, and that she wrote the best papers in the hardest lit classes. He was not a lit major—no. Early Childhood Education. “Come on over to the dark side,” she said—well, she said that later, after she had read his poems, and after he had asked her to proofread an ENG 101 paper she thought exceptional. He bemoaned his presence in that 101 class—a bureaucratic fuck-up, he explained. He should have been exempt from all such lower orders. Alas.

He liked otters, and seahorses, and Hart Crane, and Elizabeth Bishop; she soon learned his whole remarkable life story. She was simply amazed that, when she had been eleven years old and walking around reading Flannery O’Connor in the fields of her childhood, he had been born in New York State—destined to meet her, and become her friend. But only, of course, after many trials for both of them.

His trials had been more cinematic; his trials had been much worse.

 

The Water’s Fine.

“YOU MUST JUST PLUNGE IN, [ ... ] PLUNGE IN—JUST BEGIN”
-Owen Meany (John Irving, A Prayer for Owen Meany)

Blog entry Number 1, June 18, 2009

First off, I’ve procrastinated something fierce—I’ve longed to blog for a long time. Daunted, I have continued to avoid it but today I’m determined to get something out there by golly. I used to post some thoughts on myspace, but that place barely has a heartbeat anymore. One thing I did like was the “what I’m reading/watching/listening to now” prompt, so I’ll begin with that.

At 11:00 a.m. exactly, I am listening to the hum of traffic on I-5. I have the Stones lyric “what to doooo-ooo, I really don’t know, I really don’t know what to do,” going through my head. That takes care of the aural portion of this solipsistic exercise (must look up solipsistic: is it really what I mean?) (paging through The Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary—11th edition: eh, close enough).

I’ve begun re-reading one of my long-time favorite books, The Widow’s Son. What to write about it? Robert Anton Wilson wrote it; it is the second volume in his Historical Illuminatus trilogy. Swashbuckling!—did you know (according to the same M-W dictionary I referenced above) that the word swashbuckler dates back to 1560? Which would mean that it was a word in use during the time of the novel, which teeters on the cusp of the French Revolution. 1771, 1772. There are also portions written during the Napoleonic reign (but perhaps more about this at another time, as I am becoming bogged down in the pleasure of researching terms in this dictionary—pleasurable, but distracting).

I have quite a few books checked out at present, and quite a few movies, and a few cds. I rememeber reading a Nick Hornby book a few years back (I’d look up the title but the internet is down due to…cloudiness?) wherein he listed his projected books-to-read for a month, then wrote an essay about his reading, following up with a comparison list of what was actually read. Often the books he read were totally out of left field. I think it is a marvelous idea. So what have I right now? By the way I have two active library cards, so things can get a bit tricky around here what with due dates and renewals and overdue fines. Close at hand are some of the movies & music, so let’s start with them.

In the Realms of the Unreal
I have this one because my friend Clark suggested it, and as he has pretty terrific taste in movies I am game.

The Sting
Huge Paul Newman crush. This is one I have not yet seen! I spend all my Paul Newman time switching back and forth between HUD (Oh! Patricia Neal!) and Cool Hand Luke. With the occasional Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (although I think Liz Taylor was miscast something fierce. Still, Burl Ives is something else!) or, well there are a few. Anyway. I am about to get Stung! (Ouch)

Nashville
I like Altman (Mostly. Oh and there’s an interesting Paul Newman role: Buffalo Bill. Annie Oakley is played by Geraldine Chaplin! Daughter of Charlie, another huge crush of mine—and I see she is in this one as well), I like Nashville (the Parthenon!), I like Lily Tomlin, I like Larry McMurtry (didn’t he write this? I may be mistaken. Surely his name would be on the case if he had). So I should like this movie! We’ll see, won’t we?

Faraway, So Close!
Wings of Desire is one of my all-time favorites. And even though I am developing a taste for horrible remakes by Nic Cage, some things are unconscionable. But I digress (well, that’s nothing new). Haven’t seen it, can’t believe I haven’t seen it, hope I actually manage to see it before it has to go back. Is Peter Falk in this one? I hope so. I wish he were my grandpa.

Middle Cyclone (Neko Case)
What can I say that you don’t already know? It is very good. But Blacklisted is still my favorite. I love the crickets on this one, but I only made it through about sixteen minutes (then the car ride ended).

Takk… (Sigur Ros) and another one whose name I cannot make out very well and so must wait until the internet decides to work again or I decide to move the laptop into the kitchen and hook up to the modem via the cheerful-yellow cable) I’m just now getting around to them, although I know that many of my Sparkle City friends (they have excellent taste in music, those Spartanburg kids) have loved them for years. The cd artwork is eerie and lovely. Most likely the music is, as well.

40 some-odd minutes of rambling around (including searching for the dictionary and refilling the coffee cup).

/rambling