My coworker's ears were baptized (my words not his) after listening to Okkervil River for the first time. He mockingly described it as 'black folk, and campfire music.' I see no problem with that assessment.

I watched Zodiac tonight for the first time. Fincher continues to impress me. I think I have a man crush on Donal Logue. Hey, he went to Harvard okay. I am continually disappointed by the fact that his latest show, Terriers got canceled. The more I think about, the more I am incline to believe it was the perfect first season. Stupid marketers, messed up everything.

I had a Mr. D's steak sandwich today. It filled my belly. The fries were undercooked though. How can people like them like that?

rob sward and the dead dog song

A LETTER TO HIS PSYCHIATRIST

DEAR GEORGE-There was this sound. It was leaves.
It was outside the windows, outside
The house I live in, the house that is
Inside two other houses. And leaves.
It was just leaves. And the wind was leaves.
And there was the sound
    . . . someplace in it
There was silence. Something that can kill you.
Worse than kill you. Make you into leaves.
Leaves in the leaves. Wind. Or the thing _fear_
Must always want, when there is nothing.
-I kept hearing it, the leaves against
Themselves. And the houses empty. Myself
And the sound. And my gun.-I went out,
Then, and shot the leaves. The trees. The wind.
I shot the wind, it was almost flesh,
It was leaves. It fell down on the lawn,
The uncut lawn. I shot it again.
And put it in my pocket. And walked
In the trees. And shot moths. And fireflies.
And my shadow, in the moonlight. Leaves . . .

I stumbled upon this poem after looking for lyrics to O.R.'s Dead Dog Song on songmeanings.com. I love that O.R. fans would think that Sheff had this song in mind when writing the song. As another commented pointed out the song is about Sheff actual dead dog. Either way, I am happy I stumbled onto this poem and (Chicago!) poet.   

~There is nothing more attractive then bloody lips.

~I am close to finishing Freedom. I'm not sure what I want to write about. It is so dense and the characters are so deep. I think I would like to write something about memories that took place in a park, and are slowly deteriorating in one's mind, but visually through natural disasters. Sort of combing the Art of Memory (memories organized by location) and Tinkers (seeing one's life on their deathbed). But, I don't want my character dying though. Hmmmm.I have to think really hard about this one. It seems like it could be expanded from the 5 to 6 page assignment to the 10 to 15 page final project to a possible novel.

~Okkervil River is making me not only want to learn to play the guitar and harmonica, but also start a band.
  

Why don't you follow the direction of your dick slipped out after she caught him avoiding the earmarked Savage Love page in the Reader. She then questioned when he always passed the section over and didn't enjoy reading the sexually punned classifieds(Thicker than a snickers?) with her. He avoided the question and studied the few customers in the empty coffee. He said thank you to the walking cliché waitress, with her Morton Salt girl tattoo on her left arm, skinny jeans and her magnified eyeballs behind her Harry Caray frames, as if trekked down to Costa Rica for the coffee beans herself. She left him sitting there, in the run down coffee in Albany Park. She walked down Kimball to the Brown Line and rode it downtown, not getting off. She looked at the river and into the office building windows, with the large stacks of papers and extra suits and ties hanging behind doors. She got off at Library and made way to Michigan and walked to Millennium Park. She lay in the grass and watched pigeons fly above, and through the grid it looked as if they were trapped. She lay for hours. When the buildings' windows began telling her messages, she walked to the train and headed home. When she arrived at their apartments, the windows were left open and the lights were off. She walked to their room. The sheets were loose and ruffled. There were knees imprints, deep as canyons on his side of the bed and hand imprints near the indention on her side of the bed. She thought to herself that he must have shellacked the hell out that waitress' too perfect ass. She put her knees in the indents and held the sheets up to her nose. She then went to the cam cord behind his kickball league championship trophy and turned on the TV. She went back to bed, clicked the remote, pulled the covers over her and unzipped her jeans.  

A blackbird

The magician kept his crowds on

the edges of the their seats as

he collapsed the cage and the

blackbird disappeared.

Of course, another blackbird was

up his sleeve the whole

time, as the prestige meant death.

The first blackbird always died.

It really wasn’t his best

trick, but it really was his life. He was

the blackbird, and the saddest thing was

he never knew if he was in the cage or up a sleeve.   

This poem was written for an obstruction assignment after turning in my first poem, The Prestige. I had some prompts, to keep it in third person and use some enjambments. It is far form the original at first glance, but of course I think it is close, if one has at least seen the film. 

Have you realized that my poem is about (great) bands?

I got my peers' responses for my "Have you" poem. No one figured out it was just a list of some of my favorite bands. One person got one of them, the flaming lips, who I only put on the list because seeing them live was one of my favorite concerts I've been to. They all seemed to enjoy the poem, even if they didn't discover the key. They want more context, something to tie it all together. I probably could have done this with the title, but even though I know being obscure and vague as a writer is my biggest weakness, I secretly relish it. I sort of like writing poems and stories where the reader has the faintest idea what is going on. I feel like this resulted from listening to indie music in high school, and not discovering it in college like most people. I think the idea of liking a band (or certain films, shows or books) and trying to keep to oneself is not productive, and I discovered it too early and held onto for too long. One doesn't want those bands ("") to sell out or have douches attend their future concerts, but bands like the Black Keys and Fleet Foxes becoming huge, and maybe mainstream, beats people listening to Bieber and Katie Perry. I guess the contradiction of a hipster, or someone such as myself who just listens to good music, is that we want bands to stay small in a sense, but then criticize them when they achieve mainstream success, but more importantly we criticize people who listen to Bieber and others, when we are actively trying to prevent great bands from becoming famous(even though it rarely works) and therefore, hopefully, replacing the Likes of Bieber and Perry atop the music charts.

Well, the one person in my class I was hoping would catch the bands references didn't. He did however get my last poem about baseball. He returned a marked up copy a week late, but got most of the references and even recommended improvements that I had realized and posted last week, and different recommendations as well.Have you ever felt you have to try to impress someone you don't really know? I am currently in this situation with this peer. I had him in class last quarter, and enjoyed his two short stories and his entertaining comments in class. Actually, he was in both of my German classes and in those, even though I didn't talk to him, (and still haven't) I thought he came off as an asshole. But now,  I don't think he is. I see some similarities between us. I feel like I somehow know him through his writing. Maybe he is living the life I imagined if I had decided to live on campus. Maybe I just need more sleep, but I know for sure it is not a man crush. He looks like a white, young version of Edward James Olmos. 

Speaking of classmates that look like celebrities, there is a young, not as curvy, but still curvy Christina Hendricks in my class. She makes it very hard to concentrate in ENV 200. She really does remind me of Hendricks, except the girl wears intense, dark eye shadow stuff that makes her eyes sort of look ancient Egyptian or that she has crust in her eyes and it is black. But, her red lip stick contrasting her pale face is such a turn on.     

I'm am troubled by my intense liking of songs about serial killers. John Wayne Gacy Jr. by Sufjan Stevens and Westfall by Okkervil River are possibly two of my favorite songs. Actually secret favorite songs. I feel uncomfortable thinking about telling people those are two of my favorite songs. Oh yeah, John Allyn Smith(which is actually one of my fav 5s) and Chicago are of course great, and pretty much any other song by Stevens and Sheff are, but is it okay to be fascinated with serial killers? There are countless movies, and shows (Dexter), that would lead to me say yes, but is it also weird that I'm kind of disappointed lately with today's serial killers? Is Drew Peterson considered a serial killer? Like 3 of his wives died suspiciously. He's so smug too. I want to write about him.

My mother usually reads Nora Roberts books, and trash like that, and she is currently reading Fern Michaels Game Over. The tagline is "The sisterhood believes in promises kept." The summary on the back says the story is about a mysterious sisterhood who is in some sort of political trouble and is relying on a friend (a former sister?) to become a Supreme Court judge so she can help pardon them. The sisterhood has to protect the friend from the media, while fighting for their freedom. I kind of want to know what kind of trouble this sisterhood is in. I flipped to the last page and the last line is "Myra laughed as she teetered toward an empty stall, Annie and a string of cats behind her." Wow, I want to end a story with a string of cats.

Seeing Game Over next to our couch lead me to finally internally reveal something about myself. My mother, well my parents, don't know I want to be a writer. I fear telling my mom, especially, because well, she reads books like Game Over. She doesn't really seem to like any kind of art. I don't think she feels strongly about any piece of music, book or film. I don't understand how we differ so greatly in this regard. And because I am the opposite of her, I feel like my life is a lie. I live two halves. One half is the general "English" major, who wants "to teach" and who is respectful and boring, really. The other half wants to get his M.F.A., see the world, listen to music and watch films and read books that make me feel something and think, and of course get published as well, but more importantly, touch people with my writing. So how do I reveal to her my dreams? I honestly feel that if I were gay, I would have an easier time coming out. I don't mean to diminish the act of coming out, as I can't imagine how difficult it is coming out in a society that is not accepting as it should be, but how do you reveal your dreams to the people who are supposed to be the most supportive, when you fear their negative reactions? I don't want to live the boring life, teaching high schoolers (no offense to high school teachers; I wouldn't feel what I feel today without the guidance I received from them) and wonder for the rest of my life if I could have made it as a writer.  
  

Tracking

I keep a note pad by my bed and some nights I wake up and scribble an image or line down. Most of the time, as I'm writing, I'm thinking I struck gold. But, when I wake up, I've been robbed: I either don't remember the context to the line or image or it was in fact fool's gold. I do this quite regularly, so I may make a weekly thing/ post out of it.

I actually scribbled a note about this post, before I wrote it:

'Ideas for poems are like animal tracks. You have to know how to identify them, follow the trail, backtrack, pick up a scent, put your ear to the ground, (other hunter terms I don't know).'

Well, here's the gold:

Elephant ears floating as lily pads, tusks rising as.....              
(I actual saw this at a faux safari down in Florida) 

Today is a circle.
Yesterday was a square
The weekend doesn't exist.

This is an oar.
This is a chorus.
Here is the stream.

A mannequin poses with her fingers
cut off reaching into the window.
(on second look I like hangs instead of poses)

[added after: (He tries to catch rejections into)]
the unbroken in pocket of his catcher's mitt.

the voice of a train
[what if the train speaks broken English? or it stutters(too obvious?)]

rain hits mounds of snow and it
all becomes corral that you can
scoop up into your hand
[look what's inside the snow,
a marble, a helicopter, a frozen ant.]

6 identical Chinese brothers
live the same life.
perform. sleep. eat.
trade. shave. hide.

I don't know if I'll be able to get anything out of these ideas, but I think I got something from thinking poems are like animals, and their tracks. I have to let them breathe, and as much as I can train them, I will never know what they're thinking. And as much as they can be my greatest companions, they can also eat my face off.

Things fondling/spooning my mind lately:

~The sexy, scratchy quality of Natalie Portman's voice.

~Professional athletes using ground up deer antlers as steroids. It can only able to be detected through blood tests at the right time. I feel a poem breeding.

~Having a sore throat feels like a dragon breathed fire down my throat.

~Grooveshark!

~Will Sheff's song writing abilities.

~Be awaken at 7 a.m. by a stampede of texts (which wasn't fun) but then looking at my window and it being completely blue. The sun was rising and it was like the darkness became blue. There must have been too many clouds in the sky because it wasn't really sunlight. Idk. Maybe I was just too tired, or what showing skill as a writer is not as strong as I think, but I can't of think of a better way to describe it. It wasn't really the you had to be there kind of description, but the pumping blood that is fifteen degrees colder that normal blood temperature, then feeling cold and not being able to get warm, but not being able to describe that better, then realizing that the best way to describe that is just saying the blood was fifteen degrees colder- the person was not able to get warm no matter how many layers she put on or anything else she tried.

~Girl by Jamaica Kincaid- wharf-rat boys!

~Everything that Rises Must Converge by Flannery O'Connor

~How can anyone compare the Illusionist to the Prestige?

~The denseness of Freedom. Damn Franzen. Really? I have read 530ish pages about character you don't seem to like?

~Single digit temperatures. I don't care if it's "Bears" weather, it hurts my teeth.

~Computer viruses that prevent me from putting new songs on my i-pod.

~I had hash browns tonight for the first time in months. I forgot how much I enjoy them. I feel so much healthier when I substitute them for fries. I wonder if they're actually healthier, well, from my favorite greasy spoon G.T.'s

~Speaking of fries, the waffles fries (and ketchup with a kick!) at Kuma's was a great way to send Maxwell back down to Urbana. I barely defeated the Zeppelin. Pretzel bun, burger, pulled and bacon almost killed me. But, it was the best non-fast food burger I've ever had.

~http://shearwater.bandcamp.com/album/buteo-buteo

~I think I pulled a muscle under my right arm pit. I don't think it should hurt to raise my arm to put on deodorant or wash in the shower.

For my little sparrow, or grasshopper:

Gabriel Blows His Brains Out

I’m playing a trumpet on barren highlands and am blowing as hard I can. Saliva is pouring out the spit valve. The C note is off key. I am blowing harder than I ever have before. My front teeth start to loosen, and then all my other teeth, but I can’t take my lips off the trumpet. My front teeth fly off, and then all the others, and I heard them ramble in the twists and twirls of the tubes of the trumpet. They shoot out of the trumpet like cannon balls, towards the mountains in the distance and they collide and make them crumble. Then I feel my tongue starting to slide through the mouth piece. It snakes out, and my intestines follow. They all drizzle out like confetti. Then my blood comes out and fills the valleys below. My bones come out as powder and paint the sky white. Then all that is left is my skin, but it isn't getting sucked in. I’m still standing, or floating maybe, on the hill, not a skeleton, just a caricature. Then trumpet turns to gold and smolders, after finally leaving my lips, and floats up and explodes into the sun. 


(This was a frightening night-day dream that left me scrambling for a pen and pad at 2 p.m.) 

Next week's poem:

Have you?

Have you hymned with foxes?

Have you thrown golden rocks?

Have you listened to the stories the river has told?

Have you stood in a black dress with doves flying out of your mouth?  

Have you had the blues past you like a blue bird?

Have you heard the whistle of a bird?

Have you stood on a muscle car with a four foot sword?

Have you kissed and it burned like the sun?

Have you questioned Mike Piazza’s sexuality?

Have you been the soundtrack to Friday nights?

Have you listened to mathematicians?

Have you been abandoned by your father?

Have you treated your sister as your wife?

Have you had a girl on your finger?

Have you been the king of being gagged?

Have you realized you’re a pink robot?

Have you been greeted by a pigeon?

Have you asked the lake where to find me?

I hope someone finds the key.  

I think I'm going start posting all the poems I submit to my workshop class, then talk about the feedback and why it was or wasn't working for me and my peers.

How the Old Schoolers Saved the Game

It was after we stopped history

and Montreal had began to crumble.

After greed fought greed, forgetting

what it all was for. Too many seats

were empty. So number 8 turned two

and came down hard,

and after games, shook every hand

and signed every ball.

He charged hard, with the best of them,

and passed the iron horse.

A bulldog, stood on the mound

with his glasses and gut, looking

as if he could easily be chucking

beers in the stands instead.

He grew up on naval bases, never

losing balls overboard.

He escaped the ivy, spurned the

pinstripes and joined two aces to

go onto win a ring.

The Paul Bunyan of the arch and the leaping Dominican

distracted us from slick Willy, and

had us all look the other way, because, well,

innocence can take your breath away.  

And two sons, of two fathers, rose.

One became a prince, another a villain.

The villain grew up reading his father’s

hate mail. The mailman carried heavy bags.

The prince lost his legs, the villain kept

stealing, kept hitting. He went on to

shatter records, and made us look at ourselves.

And the game that has always

been the same continued to be. 

I knew for this poem, as soon as I even thought about it, that anyone who doesn't know anything about baseball would be lost. Even for those who know a little, it would still be completely over their heads. I need to get out of the habit of doing this. Only one kid in the class clearly broke the key, but he didn't return his marked up(if it was) copy of my poem. I think i'm going to confront him next class. He even was wearing a Montreal Expos hat, which is the reference in the second line. 

Overall, I was hoping that people would enjoy it even if it was completely over their heads. In the workshop, they seemed hesitant and my professor defended them. I expect a lot, too much, out of my readers and it is one of weaknesses. They still had some kind words, and after reading their marked up copies, they seemed to generally enjoy it, even without understanding it. 

Well do you want the reveal? Okay. The poem was intended to be about how baseball recovered after the strike of '94. That first stanza should be pretty clear is one knows who wore number 8, and passed Lou Gehrig, the iron horse, in games consequently played. The first two lines though, relate to the near tragedies that happened because of the strike: Kirby Puckett's seasons being cut short and thus ending his bid at being the first player since Ted Williams to hit .400. The other is about the Montreal Expos seasons being cut short as well. They were in first place, and had a good chance of finishing the season and making the playoffs, but the strike put a halt to that. They never recovered: they never got the stadium they needed built, they lost key players to free agency and spent the next several years in last place before collapsing and moving to D.C. 

The second stanza is about possibly the greatest pitcher ever: Greg Maddux. Looking at the poem now, why would any reader need to know that Maddux grew up on naval bases? Or is it also necessary to tell that he rejected going to the Yankees(pinstripes) after leaving the Cubs (ivy)? Probably not. I should have concentrated on playing up his body type, but more importantly his style of pitching, and how he helped Atlanta become the powerhouse it was. 

The Paul Bunyan of the Arch (McGwire) and the leaping Dominican (Sosa) race (the first breaking of Maris' record of 61 homers) did help the country be distracted from slick Willy (President Clinton and the affair with Monica L.). "Innocence is beautiful" (Pedro Martinez) is were 'innocence can take your breath away' comes from. Yes it is clichéd, but looking back at the race, McGwire was caught with steroids at that time and it was dismissed. Why? Because home runs are exciting to see. Also, Major League Baseball, or the monstrosity that is Bud Selig, hadn't yet banned steroids, even though every other major league sport had. So, McGwire was in the clear. Even at that age, I was a Sox fan, but I had a cut out collage of Sosa and McGwire. I remember watching both break Maris' record, and I was happy for them both. Baseball was as popular as it ever was, and for once the game seemed to be changing more signifcantly then ever before. Home runs hit were at numbers never seen and for almost a decade the games changed offensively. Looking back, certain pitchers were "juiced" as well, but I will not go down this road today. 

The last stanza is about Ken Griffery Jr. (the prince) and Barry Bonds (the villain). Both were the sons of former major leaguers. Sadly though, tragedy, if you want to call it that, struck both players. For Griffey, it was injuries that ruined the second half of his career. For Bonds though, it was his childhood. His father Bobby Bonds received many death threats and racist, hateful letters. He grew up watching his father be a side kick to Willie Mays, and was taught growing up to not trust anyone. He also grew up wanting to be the best player to ever play the game. Drafted a year out of college, he was in the big leagues almost a year later. He went onto win a few MVPs, golden gloves and was a great base stealer as well. This was all before Sosa and McGwire had broke Maris' home run record. Before the '98 season, Bonds had almost 420 steals and 375 home runs. Those are arguably Hall of Fame numbers right there. It was after Sosa and McGwire broke the record (and Bonds hit 37 home runs, stole 28 bases, knocked in 122 and hit .303 that season) and Bonds got little attention, finished 8th in MVP voting, and well, the rest is history. I like to paint players, or people, not just as good or evil, Bonds included.

I just wrote a solid four paragraphs on my poem, so I think it is deeper than it should be. Also, I seem to contradict and not even answer my title. Bonds, McGwire and Sosa didn't save the game; they actually but the game in serious jeopardy. I also don't write about how the game got back to the way it used to be. Players like Ichiro and Derek Jeter are just as old school as Maddux and Ripken. Originally I intended the poem to be just about how Cal Ripken saved the game. But, then it led into Maddux, which looking back, doesn't fit in. After that it spiraled into Sosa, McGwire and Bonds. Maybe I can write a poem about how America's past time can get the country through its darkest times (Clinton scandal, all the way up to post 9-11). It would contrast earlier generations of ball players actually joining the war (Ted Williams), but in a just important way, help the country's moral. In all honesty, football relating to the country would work just as well too (Pat Tillman enlisting to the Saints helping New Orleans recover). 

To best understand this poem or understand where the inspiration came from, or more accutarely summarizes, watch Ken Burn's The 10th Inning.  God, I love baseball. And Ken Burns.  

At 2 p.m.

A clock keeps ticking, without its hands moving;
and I can't find the scissors anywhere.

The refrigerator is humming and so are the walls;
the heater clicks and the lights screech.

The floorboards are crooked and
the woodwork is loose.

Sometimes the front door's lock twitches.
In the alley, a motorcycles is being strangled.

Have you ever been walking and a car zooms past you, and you
hear that loud explosion from it, but the car keeps on going,
roaring into the night?

I've felt that, when you're going along as fast as you can
and you flick off the ignition and the engine shudders, only a second,
and then stampedes, and throws you back.

I'll grip the covers, then switch on the light.
Grab pen and pad, vomit it all on the pages.
Finish with, the scissors are in the basement sink.

I'm not sure if I have what it takes to be a professor. Let me explain. For my intermediate poetry night class, that meets once a week, we have to write a new poem each week, but also workshop 20 of my peers'/poets' poems, as part of our homework. I got my peers' poems last Tuesday and read them a few nights ago. I wanted to throw up after reading most of them. I was so disappointed, especially since we had a month to write them (we actually had to write two poems over winter break, and one was a series of prompts, but we didn't have to workshop that one). I can understand how people want to relax and party over break, but this is an INTERMEDIATE poetry class. I can understand if my peers blow off an intro poetry class or bullshit their way through it or are only taking it to get an easy A, but it's a poetry class for poets! My peers should be serious about their writing and dedicated to not turning in garbage. And, the most shocking thing about reading those 20 poems a few nights ago was that they were worse than the poems I had to read and workshop in my intro poetry class, and that includes in the beginning of the class. (Actually for that intro poetry class, I was the first to be workshopped, and I put much effort into that first poem partially because I am serious about about my writing, but also because I was subtly trying to set a standard. I wanted my peers to take the class as seriously I was, and for the most part they did.)  

In my other night class, reading prose, a professor I had last quarter handed out two poems, "The Colonel" by Carolyn Forche, "Decorum"  by Stephen Dunn  and Nabakov's Good Readers and Good Writers. I'm not going to compare my peers' poems to those by Dunn and Forche, because that would be grossly unfair, but Nabakov points out the three things a writer can be considered: a storyteller, a teacher and an enchanter. I agree with him, and what interested me the most about his view was the writer as a enchanter, magician , etc. None of my peers left me enchanted. Hell, they barely taught me anything. I'm sure my peers have read authors who have left them feeling as their head were chopped off or there spine tingling or as if they had just been kicked in the balls, so they should know what kind of writing that is. Knowing/identfiying is much easier then being able to produce it, though. However none of their poems left me feeling anything except sick, and not like pain in the stomach while reading "River of Names" by Dorothy Allison.

You may be thinking, what the frak does this kid know? My poems may not be enchanting yet, but that is what I'm striving, in all of my writings. I may as well reveal to you the two poems (the former the prompt poem, the latter the free verse my peers will workshop) I turned in:

The Prestige

Ladies and gentlemen, life is one long magic trick.

But I, the Great Provisioner, have no cards up my sleeve.

The best magic trick involves killing one’s self, night after night after night,

and the secret is from a man who harnessed the falls. 

I am telling you the secret that I built my career on.

My pathetic rival never killed himself for three straight weeks to sell out crowd

and only lived half a life.

But, my grasp exceeds your and his wildest imagination. 

Step up on stage, smell this cabinet, try to see through the wood.

This cabinet can murder and give life.

The electricity you will see will strike me and leave me cold.

You will see me, and then you won’t, so it must be magic, right?

No hocus pocus, no Avra Kehdabra, just watch.

My ghost will smell of death, but you’ll be able to see me.

The bewilderedness of the yawl’s imagination will soar.

Then there will be deafening silence, then roaring applause.

And if you could only see below this stage, you would see me dead.

Our Hands

She’s fingering my cuticle

pushing it back, showing me more and

more of my nail. I don’t know what’s worse

her trying to get to get inside me

or her showing me what I don’t want to see. 

Her fingers are strong, from

griping 12 inch neons and

her big palms are calmly,

bleached, but her knuckles raise

like bronzed hills.

Her hand alternates from

looping notes two rows wide

to playing whack a mole

on my crotch, leaving damp

marks on my school belles.

When we walk in the halls

she strangles my hands, as I

try to escape, and she holds on

and puts my fingers in her mouth.

 I feel her tongue on the scar I have

on my middle finger, that slices out

of my nail. I don’t tell how I feel

every taste bud where the stitches

once where.  

I don’t realize I’ve forgotten how

to snap my wrist, or arch my back

or follow through. My repetition wasn’t

as thorough as I thought, and nothing ever

seemed to curve or fall or move again. 

I hadn't looked at my poems since I turned them in. I can now see many areas I can improve, but hopefully my peers feedback will better than their poems. I did see some themes from the 20 poems, and previous classmates' writings that I would like to to list and a  few lines that really made me sick.

~"Menopausal women are fiery hot flashes"...............um, yeah, cpt. obvious, but so
~Not wanting to eat, after getting dumped (one example said tomatoes had no taste, but fruits then tasted toxic)
~lines about cigarettes
~"O saintly Muse?" grrrrr
~"Marshmallows are fluffy." opening line. wow
~guys in leather jackets, that smell like cigarettes
~mentioning the Golden Nugget, without mentioning which location, or for non Chicagoans what the Golden  Nugget is
~a poem about spilling coffee. that's all. i dislike coffee. i hate the smell of coffee. i dislike coffee poems
~ending a poem with "I'm a poet and I didn't even know" without coming to that conclusion originally
~It may be a stretch, and I could have read it wrong, but I think one of the poems is about a baby sitter fantasizing/romanticizing about the child she is watching, well, at least until when the kid grows up (still creepy!)
 ~a poem about a person running late, and then not being the late, and me not knowing what the narrator is running late to or what that says about a person. oh, and clichéd time examples and made up excuses
~Morton Grove, or any mentions of suburbs, without a meaning why they're in the poem

[Note: I read this these poems after receiving bad news. I was in a bad mood, and on looking at them a second time, they weren't as bad as i thought. I was in a I-don't-give-a-shit-about-anything-mood, to the point that school seemed pointless and i'd never felt that before. On second thought, I think I could be a professor, by which I mean I could handle reading less than acceptable poems and/or short stories. I think one of the potential benefits of being a professor is reading actual good, entertaining writing, but sometimes I worry if i would ever use some of my students material as a jumping off point, and if that would be morally acceptable. I should ask my professors about that, hopefully one night over drinks!]

I think one of the good things that came out of the 20 poems was that it temporarily got out the bad ideas of my head, and was flooded by good ones. That night, at around 2 a.m. I woke up, switched on the lights and outlined a story I have to write for my novel class. It is actually just an addition on a story I wrote a quarter ago.

 I wrote this blog while watching SNL. It almost disappointed me as much as those 20 poems. It barely delivered on the Black Swan skit and pretty much everything else blew. Lorne Michaels, please, please, please get ride of Kristen Wiig. Let Andy Samberg be in more skits. Or make a whole episode of digital shorts. Luckily The Black Keys came though and saved the night.

Now I shall watch Ken Burns' the Tenth Inning. I will take notes and hopefully knock about my poem about Cal Ripken and hopefully get an few more ideas for poems.

[Note: Pedro Martinez speaks as a poet, and threw like one too.]

A few year years ago, most males between 16 and 60 had a mad man crush on Tom Brady. He had just gotten married to Gisele, had knocked up another supermodel, and was having not only his best seasons, but one of the best seasons by a quarterback ever.Oh, and he is a attractive guy and makes millions of dollars playing a game he loves. But in this day in age, the quicker celebrities and athletes rise, the faster they fall. There was much hate towards Brady especially after losing in the Superbowl, after the perfect season.

Admiration turned into jealously. How could it not? There are many examples of this (Tiger, LeBron, A-Rod , George Clooney, etc.) A recent personal example would James Franco. He has been in some of the funniest movies to come out in the last few years, and is also a solid dramatic actor. What really gets me is that while is acting he is going back to school, to some of best schools in the country, and taking the maximum amount of course. Then he gets his short stories and novel published. I just read that he is planning to direct and star in Faulkner's As I Lay Dying. Oh, and he got to make out with Mila Kunis. Everything that is going for him makes me want to hate him, but he is pretty hilarious. I really want to see 127 hours. And watch the first two Spiderman movies again

School returns

Ack.

For my intermediate poetry class, I have write a poem each week, read a poetry book or collection and comment on 21 other student's poems. Yowser! Plus, I have a mid term project, and another presentation. For my novel class, I have to read about half a dozen novels and write in the style those said novels were written in. then turn in 10-15 novel excerpt for the final (easier).My global cities class seems just like quite a bit of reading and a little writing. Unfortunately a group project as well, grrrrr. I still  have Hannah's Reading for Prose class on Thursday to go to. hopefully the quarter goes well. I don't want to think about anymore tonight.  

In honor or Hobart's likes/dislikes section, I will attempt my own:

Dislikes:   Traffic, holiday scented soaps, Terriers being canceled by FX, having to wait a month and a week till I turn 21, tic tacs new powerful mints (too powerful), having got a new v-neck tee shirt and having to wait till I have a big enough whites load to wash, so it doesn't lose it's whiteness like the two previous others, loud neighbors who partied to four in the morning on New Year's Day, sports broadcasters (on the radio) saying the Bears got shellacked by the Packers (it was 10-3!), MY MOTHER'S RIDICLOUSLY LOUD AND ANNOYING SNORING AS I WRITE THIS POST!, wrong number calls, wrong number texts, not wearing long johns under your jeans and then walking home from the train stop and the denim getting so cold it was chaffing against my things, drunk, arrogant and smelly homeless guys on the train, annoying people in class who obviously are trying to kiss the professor's ass and don't even do a good job of it, DePaul losing close games

Likes: Throwing dozens, upon dozens of frozen tires out of a pickup and the sound of the ice frozen in those tires shattering, the Chicago Public Library's checking-out-books-from-any-library-in-city -and-shipping-it-to-your-local-library policy, OKKERVIL RIVER!!!, buying a harmonica for like four bucks, Jax's smoking/pretty half sister (I think) on S. O. A., magic, seeing my aunt's pool (which is almost as big as my house) on skype, my new phone, True Grit, Hailee Steinfeld's performance, Matt Damon's 'stache, great movies on VHS for 50 cents at the thrift store, derrick rose's vertical, DePaul games on 26.2, the female broadcaster on the Big East Network (good voice and very knowledgeable)
                                                                                          

Things that have been fondling my mind lately:


~Why does chunky peanut butter smell different than smooth?


~I've been trying to remember skits I watched at the summer camp I went to as a boy scout, and all I
can remember is one of them's punchline being "yellow fingers!" I also remember watching a game that was a hybrid of baseball and cricket that was played in the knot fort.


~The power of a country road is different when one is walking along it from when one if flying over it by airplane. In the same way, the power of a text is different when it is read from when it is copied out. The airplane passenger sees only how the road pushes through the landscape, how it unfolds according to the same laws as the terrain surrounding it. Only he who walks the road on foot learns of the power it commands… Only the copied text commands the soul of him who is occupied with it, whereas the mere reader never discovers the new aspects of his inner self that are opened by the text, the road cut through the interior jungle forever closing behind it: because the reader follows the movement of his mind in the free flight of day-dreaming, whereas the copier submits to its command.

–Benjamin, Reflections 

(that quote is off of wewhoareabouttodie.com, weeks ago, and has been floating in my mind for awhile.)

~John Allyn Smith Sails by Okkervil River, who have catapulted into my fav. five bands.

~Daddy's by Lindsay Hunter- nothing bets shorts about using one's pet's electric shock to get off

~Hannah Pittard's short story in McSweeney's 

~The looseness of the floorboard trim of my front room. 

~Writing about missed belt loops.
~The perfection of Sarah Silverman's teeth 

~Neighborhood cats getting it on in this weather. Stop moaning outside my windows! I'm trying to write!

Btw: I attempted a magic trick poem, well, a poem about a magic trick and my lack of clarity resulted in a funny stanza, that wasn't meant to be funny. 

I present to you:  

Ching Ling Foo

I hide a goldfish between my legs

at all times, but that isn’t the saddest

thing about me.

I’ve spent half my life acting as if

I were crippled, hunched over so

my whiskers touch the ground.

The saddest thing is the that the

goldfish has more freedom than I,

and the trick has turned on me. 

The poem completely collapses after the first stanza (granted it is only a rough first draft) but looking at the first stanza, it has a affect that I did not intend. Ching hide the goldfish in a jar, jar being the key word missing, (the reason for the humor) and the poem also collapses upon itself without that knowledge. I desired to write a poem about the sacrifice that, in the book and film, Ching made. He committed himself to the magical trick he was most known for, on and off stage. He was so committed to the trick that he endeared himself crippled for most of his career. The same can said about both magicians in both film and novel. But, from just looking at Ching's wikipedia page, there seems to be quite a story about him and one of his rivals. Ching's rival seems to lived most of his live posing as Chinese magician (he was white) after a feud with Ching. I wanted to capture all those elements in a poem: the deception, the sacrifice, the glory, the conflict and of course the reveal. I don't know if it can be done, and I most likely  will have to narrow my scope.        

While poems about magic have proven to be difficult, so have shorts about western shootouts. I attempted one last night. It is untitled:

~ Four cowboys ride out minutes before sunrise. One lone rider is at the opposite side of town. Blood orange is rising above the tallest saloon. The lone rider keeps his eyes ahead, draws one of his pistols and shoots the rooster climbing up the building to the right of him. A tumble weed skirts across them and picks up in the wind for a second. It comes back down and two cowboys drop dead off their horses. One of the cowboys looks at the others, faints and falls off his horse. The last cowboy goes for his pistol and as he draws, the lone rider fires a bullet right into the barrel of the pistol. The pistol explodes, and the horse throws off the last cowboy twenty paces away. The lone rider rides up to him, and fires four bullets into the other hand. He puts his pistol away, rides up to the fainted cowboy and unpins his star and drops it and rides off into the mountains. 

Screw roosters. I want a better ending though. Rooster zombie?

'11 resolutions

1. write everyday
2. read everyday
3. exercise a few times a week
4. save money
5. research grad schools
6. study music
7. eat healthier


The New Year has arrived. I've watched quite a few films lately. Today I saw True Grit. I forgot how much I love Westerns, especially good gun shootouts. True Grit only had a few, two that big one that involved snipers essentially, which I find to be weird in Westerns, (but were well done) and of course the best kind of shootout, on horseback. Everyone in the film was excellent. Jeff Bridges when I could understand him, was hilarious and yes, gritty. The girl, who was acting in her first film was superb. She's a natural, and she reminded me of a young Hilary Swank. Matt Damon was surprisingly believable as a Texas Ranger, especially after fetching a stick?, even after he spank the young actress. The Coens did a good job, and I would like to see the original, and look into the book it was based off of.

Speaking of movies based off books, i finished the prestige tonight. It was superb. I loved it. The way Priest framed the story, and kept Telsa's invention alive and working over a century blew open the book. I can see why Christopher Nolan choose it, and I could how he probably struggled having to leave many things out. After finishing the book, I realize that he changed the main characters slightly. I used to believe that one of the reasons the movie wasn't as well received as it should have been was because of Hugh Jackman. Even though he was a popular actor at the time, and still is, i used to feel he was the weak link compared to Christian Bale, Michael Caine and David Bowie's characters. But, after finishing the novel, Jackman's character was toned down, and maybe even underwritten.

Another film I enjoyed was Rounders. If watching that movie doesn't make you want to player texas hold 'em, I don't know what will. It made me want to sit in front of a mirror and practice a face that showed no tells.

I also watched Date Night. Tina Fey and Steve Carrell work very well together, especially when Carrell is relaxed. i believe he is funniest on the Office when he either is funny without realizing it or isn't trying so hard, which is pretty much only when things really don't go his way. There were many good one liners and they were perfectly distributed between action sequences and a moral that didn't get to heavy handed.