Well here is my weak sister response to Dr. Write's sonnet assignment: (sing it!)

The desert was so dry it could take a
Baby's breath away. We hiked up the swell
Of splayed red rock, drawing in the decay
Of the maroon, pink and yellow kettle
Dotted with twisted sage brush and mesquite
We talked about how nature poetry
Does indeed suck since it can not compete
With a simple photograph snapped quickly
From the summit: the world spreading before
You on glossy paper, until that day
It fades all yellow, cracks, becomes unsure
And no one remembers who climbed anyway
And what it was and why it was taken
On a dry desert day, just after ten.

What the hell? audioblogger decides it is all fine and dandy now. (The current entry is not silence, by the way. Listen closely. First one to guess what it is gets a free personalized "howdy" form yours truly on the self-same audioblog.)

Damn I had some cool yammerings from SF now lost...lost...lost.*

(*I'm gearing up for Shakespeare in the summer.)

Dr.Write has two assignments (uno) (dos) for you. Late papers will be reduced one grade per day late.

Shit, I'm 4 days late. There goes my imaginary grade.

While the Jazz were losing last night, I thought I was getting ill again. I had a feverish feeling and there was a pain in the back of my throat. My condition wasn't improved when Kirilenko landed on his wrist, breaking it, while trying to make a move to the basket. Not pretty. To top that off, of course, they lost by one point to Washington, again, despite stealing the ball with (what was it?) 10 seconds to go.

Unlike the Jazz, I have made a miraculous recovery this morning. No sore throat. No feverous chills. This is the recovery process I am used to. It is nice to be back on my game.

Now if only the Jazz could...

 There are definite advantages to technology, you know. I can sit here on public transport and listen music and type. This is the shittiest start ever.

Start over.

I just passed a FedEx truck. Did you know they purposefully designed the FedEx logo so that an arrow (-->) would appear in the negative space caused by the E and the x? I read that somewhere on the internet and as I am on public transport typing this and listening to music…back to that again? Certainly there must be something better to write about. I mean my hell it has turned into a rather nice day from a rainy morning. There were even daffodils on State Street for Christ’s sake.

Ok backspace over the top of all that.

You see, this is some sort of experiment in free writing. It is certainly nothing you ever are supposed to really share with anyone, perhaps not even yourself. How do you not share it with yourself? Well first of all you don’t look at what you are writing; just the letters as they tick out of your keyboard. You try not to backspace or think of what you are writing about. I suppose it is kind of heuristic meditation, but it is what we writing teacher geeks call freewriting. I recommend it when you are stuck. I recommend it to get the words flowing. Peter Elbow recommends it, too. (Did you know there is a game in the teaching writing business that if you meet Peter Elbow, you get bonus points if you actually touch him on the elbow?) I don’t recommend that you do it and then turn it in to your 9:00 am 1010. Unfortunately it is what many people call a final draft these days. Me too, I suppose. Well at least for now. (I was going to link you to some particularly heinous political extremist blog, but I’ll spare you the pain and them the link traffic.)

So you are there, your fingertips throwing down word after word and not really thinking about what you are writing and it is funny to see how patterns begin to develop and you really do write about something, no matter how convoluted.

By the way, would you really call Tennessee Williams convoluted? A City Weekly review of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof said so and it got me thinking about his plays. Are they really that convoluted? CHTR just seems like a play of unfulfilled desire—and it seems pretty damn clear that it is that in the play. How the hell is that convoluted? “Tennessee Williams at his convoluted best.” Is it just the big secret that doesn’t seem so damn mysterious these days that makes it convoluted? Well that’s going exactly nowhere. What the hell do I know about Tennessee Williams, anyway? By convoluted do they mean obscure?

Take 4.

The clouds stream out over the valley. I’m up high enough now to see to the end of the valley. It looks like it is snowing out there, somewhere over Riverton. Lone Peak is obscured, and Mount Olympus is being enveloped in white. The contrast of the blue sky emphasizes its blueness; a rich blue you only see in the sky in the West. The clouds rolling in from the West are blueberry grey.

Not the music again.

“Love’s an excuse to get hurt.
Do you like to get hurt?
I do! I do! Then hurt me
Bright Eyes “Lover I don’t Have to Love”

Word play

You can throw them around like spices, and if you put too much in, the sauce is ruined. I hate aphorisms. What the hell is this? Mark Twain? Anyway I like playing around with words, and I probably will go through all this again and fiddle with it. I can’t leave any words alone, even those that are meant to be.

Clouse

The clouds really are striking right now. I think I’ll go pay attention to them instead.

I had to go downtown today to take care of bidness and had quite a sound track going in my handy-dandy handheld businfotainment device. Before I left for SF I cleared out all the MP3s on said device and dumped a bunch of random ones that had been collecting on my desktop P.C. for several years now. I know why some of the songs are on my computer, but some are just baffling. Why, for example, do I have 3 versions of the Girl from Ipanema?

I didn't listen to the device at all while I was on the road, mostly because I have everything on my PowerBook, and it sufficed just fine for the plane trip and in my hotel room. So I was mildly amused at the following line up:

Bach: Fugue 18 in G sharp minor
A pleasant way to begin a trip, indeed, enhanced only by the wind that blew a woman's newly-purchased pillow out of her possession and across the street. I felt bad for her, but by the time any action could be taken the pillow was far far away.

Bright Eyes: "Do you Feel at Home."
An extremely young Bright Eyes, I have to let you know. This kid has been pumping out interesting CDs since he was 12 or something. At first when I heard the voice I thought it was an effect like "Push the Little Daisies" from Ween. The kid has passion, that's for sure.

Grace Jones: Libertango
You remember Grace Jones--fade haircut androgyn who modeled, made wacky disco albums, and starred in a Conan.

Jackie Gleason: Deep Purple-Blue Velvet
I really have no clue why this is on my computer other than I liked the postmodern conjunction of the band Deep Purple with David Lynch. I was on State Street passing by people who were caught up in their own sadness. It kind of worked.

Juana Molina: Rara.
Ah Juana, Juana, Juneet. Very cool goth-girl (goth-girl--is that right?) kind of voice in Spanish. Damn fine stuff. The sad song cheered me up after the PoMo blues experienced directly before.

Mindless Self Indulgence: "Tornado"
If a 1:50 second song with the lyrics "like a fucking tornado" doesn't perk you up, nothing will.

The device then went on a serious jones for Rufus Wainwright: "California," "Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk," and "Pretty Things" followed directly by Sage Francis' "Makeshift Patriot." I don't know what that combination means. It has something to do with George Bush, however.

Tears for Fears: "Mad World"
Tears for Fears? Tears for fucking Fears? What the hell? Don't you know I hate 80's music stupid device? Oh wait, I went on a Donnie Darko obsession a while back. But still. Tears for Fears?

Just as the device started in on a Polyphonic Spree love-fest, I arrived home. It had just started to rain.

Ah, much better.

Sleep still does wonders.

I've been in a foul mood since I got back--well even before then. There are several things that could be the cause of this foulness, but it is still nice to be home. I'm not feeling much like speculating about causes since I'm very well aware of what they might be and don't really want to write about them anyway. So fuck off.

See, I told you I was in a foul mood.