31 Random Songs Played on 4/12/07

God Knows (You gotta give to get) – El Perro Del Mar / Pilot Can at the Queer of God – Flaming Lips / Chases – Mclusky / Map Ref. 41°n 93 °w – Wire / Roll Another Number (For the Road) – Neil Young / Montego Bay – Merle Haggard /Mezzanine – Massive Attack / Alison – Elvis Costello / Turn it up – Ugly Duckling / Side to Side – Blackalicious / Promising Light – Iron & Wine / Do you ever think of me – Laura Cantrell / One Mo’ Gin – D’Angelo / Long Division – Fugazi / If – George Shearing / I can’t give you anything – The Ramones / Who loves the sun – The Velvet Underground / The Natural Arc – The Places / Heirloom – Björk / Obstacle 1 – Interpol / No Lullaby – Jethro Tull / Don’t Bring Me Down – David Bowie / Invisible – Modest Mouse / The Last one Standing – Ladytron / Rallying the dominoes – Danielson / Pass it on – Ugly Duckling / Way out is the way out – Lungfish / Hare Krsna – Husker Dü / Watermelon Man – Herbie Hancock / On/Off – μ-Ziq / Loomer – My Bloody Valentine

LJ Carpenter

+=

He started writing with a furious intensity

He started writing with a furious intensity:

“He started writing with furious intensity. This is so rare to see these days. A man actually writing. Not typing. Writing. In a notebook. In his own penmanship. He brought a notebook with him. No, not a notebook, a journal. How old fashioned. How quirky. How inspired. Was that a special pen as well?”

The muse of public performance “struck him” while waiting for the train. He thought that people would take note. He thought that people would be curious. When he wrote, he dared not look up and around him. To do so would be a disruption to the intensity with which the muse struck him.

But he certainly hoped someone was taking note. He was hoping that someone was intrigued to find out what was on the page. To find out what the muse had given to him.

He finished writing the last word with flare, dashing the pen across the page with assertive finality. Then he violently tore the page from his journal, crumbled it up and threw it down on the ground. He turned his back to it and looked out into the distance until his train arrived. Then he boarded and was gone.

The coast is clear. Now those who were curious would have the opportunity to go and investigate. In his mind, a woman, perhaps the one with the long red scarf, would sidle up to the bench at the station, sit down, and nonchalantly pick up the page. She would stuff it in her pocket and board her train a few minutes later. Safely away from the scene of the crime, she would take the page from her pocket. She would uncrumple it as if she were savoring it. Then, she would flatten it out. Her eyes would be closed and then, after a long exhale, she would open her eyes and start to read.

But this isn’t what happened. The paper remained crumpled up under the bench. The glint of the gilded page drew the eye or curiosity of no passerby. The next morning, a janitor that spoke broken English mindlessly swept the page into a dust pan on a stick, dumped it in a trash bag, and later tied up that bag and threw it in the dumpster in the receiving dock behind the station below the tracks.

37

Sanford told me that god didn’t have his email address. Or, if god did, he wasn’t letting on. Sanford realized that god’s email, though requested in prayer, might seem unsolicited. After all, the email server couldn’t hear our prayers. He was worried that god might accidentally get filtered in with his spam. So, he started checking his spam each and every day. He was worried that god might not send email in English, so he used Babelfish to translate the foreign spam. But he stopped when he realized he was using a translation service that ultimately derived its name from a tower that angered god. If god sent him a message in a foreign language, he had a reason.

RR 32 I sat up in bed and tried to arrange my thoughts

We’ll talk of dosages and passing ships and how Staten Island doesn’t really look like much from a distance. The conversation hums along as good banter, witty white noise with which to fill empty space and allay fears of being awkward.

But, do you have a contingency plan? Software licensing doesn’t segue well into the career pitfalls and high points of Nicholas Cage. Does he even read the scripts anymore or is he just trying to break some record for the most movies made over a lifetime? I don’t know how a nautical thermometer works, is it just like a regular thermometer? Yes. It is; it just has an anti-glare matte finish. I never thought about how it’s sad that the lights on the bridges never go out. But, I can see how it makes them seem less special to those that see it every day. But, isn’t that true of anything? People live across the street from the Forbidden City and all they think is “Man, it would be great if I could cut through there to get to work faster.” Err, I mean “人, 它 會 是 偉 大 的 如 果 我 能 穿 過 那 裡 得 到 快 速 地 工 作” But wait, is that the right flavor of Chinese? I have no idea. It looks like Chinese to me. But, maybe this is more correct: “兄弟, 我能去快速地工作如果宫殿这里不是” Someone who reads Chinese will have to tell me if I’m even warm on this and what flavor looks more like Mandarin. Spell check is no help on this. I hope we get there soon. I don’t know anything about child psychology and have nothing to contribute to the conversation here.

Did they (the big giant they that designed the Forbidden City) ever think that those turtle statutes that face the residential palaces are wishing the emperor a slow death rather than a long life? I bet they smirked to each other when they did that.

Forsan et haec olim meminisse juvabit

Forsan et haec olim meminisse juvabit

RR 30 10/10/06

I catch a glimpse of a man wrapped in black lawn and leaf bag plastic sleeping on the side of the highway as I blow by to get to class. The air smells like tar and when you look at the city the air forms a high brown halo around it. I’m in this halo but can’t see the brown in front of my face. It’s only visible from a remote distance.

She's talking and I hear sibilant S’s added into her speech. I want to reach in to her mouth and give her tongue a massage so she can form the words correctly. Of course, I don’t and can only think of her sibilant saliva spraying in my food. Actually, is it her tongue or lips? I exhale the sounds myself as a test and I’m certain the sound comes from a tongue held near, but not pressing, the roof of the mouth.

Comics always talk about the DMV because of the limits of their experience. They need to associate to something familiar to everyone else, and the DMV is what they have to draw on. They don’t have nine to five jobs. They don’t sit in rush hour traffic. They have time to watch daytime television.

Who’s that singing? “You sold me what you want me to buy.” “What else would I ever want to sell?”

Inspected by 65 rr28

They strolled side by side, with about an arm's length between them, and spoke towards the ground. The intensity and intimacy in their voices showed familiarity with each other and, more importantly, with the subject matter. Again, they would try to talk it out. Again, they would make promises. Both are tired of it. Both knew they wouldn’t change.

She tells him about her emptiness and swears it had nothing to do with him. She says that she’s not happy, but she’d rather be unhappy with him than with anyone else. She’s being honest when she says it. Deep down, it isn’t the truth. But, deep down hasn’t yet been tested. So, the truth is the truth for now.

He feels her lie. He is uncomfortable with how angry his is about it. But, he doesn’t want to shake anything up. This isn’t the truth and he knows it. He wants to fight with her. He wants to say clear, incisive phrases with the hope that she’ll want him more for attacking her words. It’s fear that prevents the attack. He’s not much of a gambler and even less a debater. He won’t put stock in himself on his ability to successfully call her bluff.

single-handedly slab

The below message was delivered to one of my work email addresses onSunday 8/27/2006 at 2:13am. None of the wording or spacing has been altered:

I do like, said Anne, but I want to impress on your mind that wehave MUCH finer moons in Avonlea. Only yesterday Katherine had beenpositively insulting at a staff meeting. Do you think it doesnt hurt me toknow it? For the first time it camehome to Katherine that life might be beautiful, even for her. Only yesterday Katherine had beenpositively insulting at a staff meeting. You couldnthave known them when I got through with them. For the first time it camehome to Katherine that life might be beautiful, even for her. And a dog really is such a protection at night. Do you think it doesnt hurt me toknow it? And youll feel deliciously sleepy after this walkin the frosty moonshine =

Of stranger (RR 27)

Her words wandered though she was trying to be formal. I know her well enough to know she was fighting back her feelings.

“When they draw these caricatures, I don’t see it as a negative. Someone has taken the time to look at my face, to study it and pull out the nuances of it. That the result is ugly is immaterial. It’s a rendering. It’s how I am seen by this person. It’s one artist drawing another. I am important enough to be rendered by another. I am important enough to have that rendering printed in a magazine. It would be sadder if I were completely ignored.”

She didn’t look at me while she was saying this. Her eyes were looking down and to the left. If they had been focused, they would have been staring at crumbs from the croissant on the corner of the table. But, they weren’t. Her mind was focused enough to compensate for her eyes.

She read articles about Neil Young. She wanted to be as strong as he and let everything roll off her back. But, she couldn’t do what he did. She couldn’t go on tour and get booed every night while road testing Greendale. On stage, she had a habit of politely whispering ‘Thank you’ very quickly after every song as if she was in disbelief that we weren’t mad at her yet.

I said the only thing I could think of, “What’s wrong with letting it hurt your feelings? It’s natural. I would be hurt too.” Truth told, I don’t know if it would hurt. I’ve never had anyone take the time to render me. But, I can imagine being hurt. They picked on things of which she was already self conscious and gave her new things of which to be aware.

Was her neck that long? Was her posture so bad? Did her nose hook so much? Was her face so round? Did her teeth separate that much? Is this how everyone saw her?

On the way out

“These small napkins will never go out of style…unless the world finds there is no longer any room for a little decorum.” The loose folds of her neck shimmied as she spoke and betrayed a deep-rooted lament for a world gone lost.

Overly-polite, in hushed tones, we ate lunch with the ramrod posture and hesitation of youth desperately trying figure out “a little decorum” on the fly.

I usually eat lunch standing outside next to the day’s street vendor of choice.

I usually drink a wheat germ soy protein banana peanut butter shake for lunch while walking back from the gym.

I usually eat a salad at my desk while talking on the phone with my mother during my lunch break.

I usually close the door to my office and smoke a cigarette while watching joggers in the park during lunch break.

I usually microwave a Lean Cuisine and watch TV in the lounge for lunch.

Yesterday, the theme was crutches.

Does each day have a theme? I'll often notice something early in the day and it will repeat
throughout the day.

Yesterday, the theme was crutches. I feel I saw more people on crutches yesterday than usual. Maybe it wasn't more than usual and was simply given more attention than usual.

While jogging a few days ago, I noticed a pair of crutches set out on the curb for disposal. Perhaps
the image endured in my subconscious for a few days only to resurface as a daily theme.

Perhaps this is the beginning of mental illness. These traps we set in our subconscious could easily spiral out of control and turn us into rabid conspiracy theorists or an elected official.

Pink

Pink

Hanging uncomfortably close to his stall,
The cape still holds the scent
Of other bulls whose sides it has brushed.
But,
It no longer burns so bright;
For days he has tried to reach it
And now he is tired.

“We say to ourselves,
‘Why do we bother?’”
Said Madeleine Asher,
51,
Who pushed her curtains back one morning
To see the garbage man on Medina Drive
Dump lawn clippings in with the trash.



The second stanza is a quote from the following article. I’m not sure if I have to cite my source since this is a poem. But this is the source information:
Schwartz, Noaki. “Residents Say Crews Are Trashing Recyclables” Los Angeles Times 22 June 2001: B1+.

Rant Rant 22: The Weatherman

"All of the people I could be," he tells us, "they got fewer and fewer until finally they got reduced to only one -- and that's who I am.”

All promise in a person eventually disappears. In small increments, it’s replaced by disappointment, missed opportunities, and fear. Eventually, senility and physical decline will creep into this list. At the moment I am too young to know and can only speculate their addition. Perhaps, as we cross a certain point in our lives, the size of the increments increase at a constant rate. In other words, once the ball starts rolling, it builds into an avalanche. One disappointment easily sets off a chain of disappointments.

While the idea of an avalanche is illustrative of the increasing rate, I find myself applying a different metaphor to the entire idea. I see a roofed veranda being shuttered up. How southern, maybe I’ve read too much Tennessee Williams. But, the shuttered veranda is applied differently. It represents the person left behind, not the rate of decline. In the beginning the veranda has light coming in on all sides. The person can look out in all directions. But, there are shutters and, when they are all closed, only odd trickles of light beam into the veranda. What’s worse, shutters always let in a soft glow of light. What’s the glow? It’s a reminder.

It’s fitting that I name check Williams. The entire idea smacks of “Sweet Bird of Youth.” Then again, it also smacks of Willie Loman in “Death of a Salesman,” Charles in Madame Bovary, Swann in Remembrance of Things Past, Jake in The Sun Also Rises, Dean in On the Road, or all the surviving members of the Compson family in The Sound and the Fury. Part of the tragedy in all these characters is that they survive in the husks of wasted lives.

A large percentage of us are destined to be the walking husks of wasted potential. ...

Every day is an artifact (Rant Rant 21)

I found the page on the sidewalk. I brought it home and read it. I photographed the page, had it enlarged to a 6' x 4' print, and framed it. Now, upon entering the living room, my guests are confronted with it:

“Rocky. Shaky. With wings like tobacci. In the age of information, how can one keep themself optimistic about the future? Am I getting fat? The books have tired pages. Torn pages. I read small snippets and wonder “where is my tattoo?” Happy Birthday…all is full of love. But the movie is late and I’ll pay fines for having it. We’ll all pay fines for me having my movie. Does this tooth taste like pencil lead? Tis nigh, tis nigh. A low is expected to roll in tomorrow all around the car. Two hundred and seventy seven. The number must be mathematically significant to someone. But that is all beyond me. Granules of sea salt and drying ink. Take off the dust jacket before you put it in the case.”

It’s the only picture that hangs in the apartment. I’ve no idea who wrote it. I’ve no idea what it means. This is why I like it. Each day, before stepping out the door, it is the last thing with which I am confronted.

What Brownfield?

What Brownfield?
a)2 pounds of Italian Cookies, the fancy ones dipped in chocolate.
b)"Who will take care of me when you're gone?"
c) 6:15, Thursday

The Well Of All Things That Remain To Be Known

From December 2001:
=======================

The Well Of All Things That Remain To Be Known

I stumbled across The Well Of All Things That Remain To Be Known while walking around an airfield in Lakehurst, NJ. There was a woman guarding it. She called herself the well keeper and was really quite attractive. I asked her if I could look into the well. Of course, she said no; if I could just go and look, she wouldn’t need to be there. I suggested that she allow people to look into the well for a modest fee. She said no. I asked if she had ever looked into the well. She hadn't. She had been curious many times in the several centuries that she had been standing there, but was told not to look into the well and obliged. I asked how she knew that it was indeed The Well Of All Things That Remain To Be Known. She said obviously I had missed the sign next to the well. I apologized for my ignorance; there was indeed a sign that affirmed the well's identity. I asked her what she thought the well contained. Again she pointed to the sign. We stared at each other for about a minute without saying a word. At this point I asked her if I could make a bold conjecture as to the well's contents.

She said sure.

I suggested that the well was empty, or simply full of water. Continuing, I started what should have been a long diatribe about religion and mysticism being like flossing. Before I could get very far into my harangue, she stopped me to ask about the floss thing. I skipped to the point: maybe people don’t think about this stuff. Similarly, people won’t admit to not flossing…but most don’t. She asked how this was relevant to the well's contents. I told her that even if I were confronted with all that remained to be known I probably wouldn’t be able to comprehend it and, truth told, didn't really care about the deeper secrets in life so long as the price of gas didn't increase. As a matter of fact, the only reason that I wanted to look into the well was because I thought she was attractive and it was a reason to come over and speak to her. She paused for a long pondering and then looked me directly in the eye and asked if I wanted to go out for tacos.

I said okay.

Rant Rant 5: How to never finish writing a novel

Hang yourself up on the unattainable word. That always helps. I myself am looking for a specific word that means “a cabin that you sleep in whilst on a train.” It is out there. I know it. Everything has a name but not everyone knows the name. My suggestion for all the writers out there is to pick a very vague concept. When your friends ask, try to explain it but not very hard. Agree with them when they try to clarify it in their own words. When they suggest up a word, and they will, tell them “No, that’s not quite right, something is missing. I don’t think we’re on the same page.” The great thing about this is that you can reuse it over and over. Vagueness is the key; it has worked in every election. It has worked to fill in plot holes. It’s a good sedative. Vagueness is an ally. Choose carefully, people know more than you.

Circular logic is always good. What I mean by this is never try to move ahead in the novel. Make August Mobius proud. Find a problem with your story line and try to resolve it within the pages that you have written. Then, re-evaluate the beginning and find that the end doesn’t really match. Retell the beginning to match the end. During this retelling, you will change the entire story all the way through and then the new beginning will not match the new ending that you have created. Repeat. See the beauty of this? This assures that you will be hung up endlessly on the same four or five pages.

When you reach a critical juncture in the novel, start writing something different. That’s right, walk away from what you have written. You find that you have sent your main character to the doorstep of his lover. He rings the doorbell. She answers. Their eyes meet. He has been a bastard and has known it for sometime. She accepts him for all his flaws. Her anger falls away from her like down sprinkled from an upper story window at the sight of him. The softness is apparent to him. It makes him feel sorry for everything that he has ever done to her. How could she still love him, but she does. He knows he doesn’t deserve her. He knew it the day he meet her. He was a fake, a sham. Everybody at the circus knew it. He hadn’t been to clown college. He had been lying the whole time. She knew from the beginning that he was lying; lying to impress her. She liked the attention and the fact that she could make such a seemingly important man nervous by her presence. And he, the droll clod had her. Had her in the palm of his hand. They could have had many years together, happy, in an overgrown Conestoga wagon going from town to town with its metal fry pans and skillets banging loudly against its wooded sides with every bump in the road. Instead, he cheated on her with a woman who could whittle miniature feet out of poisonous mushrooms. While he was in Vermont smoking mushroom shavings with the hairy adulteress, his love was stuck in a shabby brownstone near Central Park, toiling endlessly over spring fashions and imported Brie on Melba toast. It had been thirty-seven years since their three-day romance, and not one day had gone by without her thinking of him and what could have been. Sometimes she would walk the parks checking for people under benches, or sleeping in their own filth, in case he would turn up. She had just about given up hope and here he was. What would he say … Once upon a time, Myrtle liked vegemite. But not since he actually tried it. Do you see how that works? That critic juncture was reached and we were all eager to see what would happen. We wanted to see the love rekindled and the story end happy with what should have been. But, instead, I turned to the amazing story of Myrtle and his unexplainable cravings. And when we get to the point where Myrtle is going to finally discover the ingredients to Kim-chi, I will start another story. In this manner, we will leave a wake of endless unfinished stories. For supplementary reading on this, consider reading my related text, ‘How to Avoid the Climax At All Costs.’ Apparently, this title sold well until people realized it was about writing, not masochism.

Find a friend who will persistently draw your attention away from your writing. If you don’t have a friend, don’t worry, you can easily substitute friendship with a close range metronome or talk radio. Every time you sit down to write, invite that friend over. Or for those without friends, turn on the radio or set the metronome at a disagreeable tempo. I know, I know, I get the following question all the time: “How do I know which tempo is most disagreeable to me?” Well, I have devised a time intensive method for determining this. First, listen to about an hour of talk radio from each program that is available in your area. Don’t forget the AM radio stations. When you find a program that really irks you, find the meter at which the host of the show talks. Try the match this meter with a set tempo on the metronome. For example, I myself find a particular distaste the malformed brain of Dr. Laura, and her self-righteous cackle lets me know I’ve hit a gold mine. Now, determining the tempo of our fair Harpier can be quite difficult. Dr. Laura in known to take odd tempo-ed pauses to let to righteousness build steam. Dismiss these pauses as crescendos and holds. Try to visualize in your mind the rate at which she would wave her pointer finger while giving the malformed hokum. That, my friends, is the tempo at which you want to set your metronome. But, that isn’t it. Once you have that tempo achieved, write it down. Her pace is usually in the lower limits of a presto. Next, we want to average that out with the tempo to your personal pick for the worst song on Abacab. For me, that track is easily “No reply at all” which has a somewhat allegretto pace. So, I set my metronome at a compromise between these two paces and fwham!, non-productivity a go-go.

Let other writers intimidate you. Everyone is better than you are and you know it. Stephen Crane wrote The Red Badge Of Courage in only two days. How does that make you feel? How can you ever be confident of yourself with people like him easily finding their muse? One time I had several pages of text. It looked like I was going somewhere with my writing. But, I was spared completion by the words of none other than Kurt Vonnegut. In one of his thinly veiled retellings of his life, he mentioned that he had gotten this far in life (by then he was at least seventy-something) without ever using a semicolon. He detested them; they were completely unnecessary. Well, that was it. I had been using semicolons all along. Since they were an accepted part of speech I had no idea that I shouldn’t have been using them. I sank into some low feelings. How could I have been so wrong? I immediately thought of myself as an inferior author and it took days before I approached my writings again. Even when I did finally readdress them, I had to spend weeks telling the story without semicolons.

What’s all the fuss about?

“As I live and breathe…”

Thumbs hooked in jeans pockets,

Pelvis jutting forward.

“There is jazz in the park tonight.”

Sweat glands activated,

Erratic avoidance of eye contact.

“A drink first.”

Backward glance,

A slow gait.

“A drink first.”

A quick flutter of the fingers,

Foot forward to the kitchen.

“You know where everything is”

Arms spread on top of couch,

Ankle on ankle.

“Of course.”

Facial capillaries dilating,

Equilibrium off.

“Well…”

Beginnings of a smirk,

Eyes narrowing.

“You’ve always been better at this.”

Squint, arms folded,

Fingers clenched in a cradle.

“Oh?”

Guffaw and knee slap.

Dismissive whisk of hand.

This whole thing is made of rubber bands

"This whole thing is made of rubber bands, wow."
(I need to find something better to do on the weekends)

"Yeah, I bought a couple of bags of rubber bands. It took me a couple of days to do it." As she said this, she swayed back and forth with her hands clasped behind her back. She was staring at the corner where the wall met the ceiling.

"How did you start it? Is there a ball in the middle to give it a round shape?"
(I really care about your rubber band ball)

"No, it started looking kind of smooshed so what I did was evened it out by having the rubber bands intersect at different points. And I had to do a lot of overlapping."

Gumming bananas