Le Cafe Avec Vous

Occurances: Too Many

2009-11-06T16:38:00.000-08:00

You're a mysterious body I can't quite coordinate.

And yet everything is laid out before me. Don't say a word.

What is it? Why this impulse, this magnetism surrounding the atmosphere? And. With one baleful glance on the corner street: flashing by yet again.

Thoreau of "House-Warming"

2009-10-13T23:45:00.000-07:00

The perfect recipe for a home:

"I sometimes dream of a large and more populous house, standing in a golden age, of enduring materials, and without gingerbread-work, which shall still consist only of one room...a house which you have got into when you have opened the outside door, and the ceremony is over; where the weary traveller may wash, and eat, and converse, and sleep, without further journey; such a shelter as you would be glad to reach in a tempestuous night, containing all the essentials of a house, and nothing for house-keeping, where you can see all the treasures of the house at one view, and everything hangs upon its peg that a man should use; at once kitchen, pantry, parlor, chamber, store-house, and garret; where you can see so necessary a thing as a barrel or ladder, so convenient a thing as a cupboard, and hear the pot boil, and pay your respects to the fire that cooks your dinner and the oven that bakes your bread, and the necessary furniture and utensils are the chief ornaments...where to be a guest is to be presented with the freedom of the house, and not to be carefully excluded from seven eights of it, shut up in a particular cell, and told to make yourself at home there--in solitary confinement."

Thoreau of "Solitude"

2009-10-07T20:10:00.000-07:00

This is a delicious evening, when the whole body is one sense, and imbibes delight through every pore. I go and come with a strange liberty in Nature, a part of herself.

I only know myself as a human entity; the scene, so to speak, of thoughts and affections; and am sensible of a certain doubleness by which I can stand as remote from myself as from another. However intense my experience, I am conscious of the presence of and criticism of a part of me, which, as it were, is not a part of me, but spectator, sharing no experience, but taking note of it; and that is no more I than it is you.

A Home Not a House

2009-09-26T17:59:00.000-07:00

A house. A home with one shut eye. The other spies out, keeping in contact with the world. Making sure the Coriolis Effect's still working and that life goes on. A home keeping house. Keeping everything in check while the owners sign off; disconnect. They have a right, right? It's their home acting as house--engaging with the world, its people its elements. Every weight rests on its wooden shoulders, its almighty rooftop which is God. And God isn't always perfect. No--sometimes the weight just falls, collapsing, crushing, screaming on top of all it ever loved.
But this home looks out onto the world, unafraid.

Costumes Encouraged

2009-09-24T19:05:00.000-07:00

Races. Trunk craft show. Kinetic sculpture. Public art. Music. Beer & Wine & Fine Food. Costumes encouraged.

"A terrifying steam-punk orgy!"

Check it out:
The Great Handcar Regatta

Kaleidoscope Street

2009-09-20T18:35:00.000-07:00

Looking out upon that sky-bright ceiling-blue space--
Doors blend,
Concrete and dizzy smells
mixed up the hill-tops
which we pace.

From Emerson's "Nature"

2009-09-11T20:54:00.000-07:00

But if a man would be alone, let him look at the stars. The rays that come from those heavenly worlds will separate between him and what he touches. One might think the atmosphere was made transparent with the design, to give man, in the heavenly bodies, the perpetual presence of the sublime. Seen in the streets of cities, how great they are! If the stars should appear one night in a thousand years, how would men believe and adore; and preserve for many generations the remembrance of the city of God which has been shown! But every night come these envoys of beauty, and light the universe with their admonishing smile.

It is this which distinguishes the stick of timber of the wood-cutter from the tree of the poet. The charming landscape which I saw this morning is indubitably made up of some twenty or thirty farms. Miller owns this field, Locke that, and Manning the woodland beyond. But none of them own the landscape. There is a property in the horizon which no man had but he whose eye can integrate all the parts, that is, the poet.

10:21 PM

2009-03-20T22:43:00.002-07:00

It has a strong, strong
blackberry taste. The nose sucks.
That just went down wrong.
Chuck.
…complete tale.
I didn’t dislike it.
Yea. Yea. Yeah.
Damn those must be old.
I prefer whiskey buzzes.
Nice, sit in your belly—nice candle
burning in your belly.
Music: play some music.
Netflix.
It’s on my bed.
We all sort of rely on you for
music
Drinking the kool-aid.
Bullshit what you talking about.
…ready to agree with him?
This is not a joke so please stop smiling.
What do you mean by death?
I am trying to break your heart.
What the Fu—I mean this is Bull—…
I absolutely believe this
at all…
Sand bag…that night
It’s not about having guts or…
I guess I am just saying…
That was delicious.
It was a...2003 was one of the best
years in France.
Some kind of bitter—
It’s a lot of air; have to let it sit
for at least 20-30 seconds.
Tastes more alcoholic.

From the hand of Djuna Barnes

2009-03-18T13:02:00.001-07:00

Excerpt from Nightwood

Those who love everything are despised by everything, as those who love a city, in its profoundest sense, become the shame of that city, the détraqués, the paupers; their good is incommunicable, outwitted, being the rudiment of a life that has developed, as in man's body are found evidences of lost needs.

Morning Catalyst

2009-02-25T05:26:00.001-08:00

Maybe it's time to try that 5 AM wonderment of waking up and acting on that dream or impulse - rather, sloshing from side to side in your head, for you would have been sleeping anyway (and sleep--what is sleep to the dreamer who needs a reality of uninhibited dreams to instill the strength of dreaming further? Why, wake up!).

Open Your Hand

2009-01-28T17:28:00.000-08:00

Open your hand
tightly.
Each vertebra—
bone by bone—
submerged
below cracks of mountainous veins.

Twist into two
and preserve yourself
There
in time
tautly clasped,
walking down the rue.

T.S. Eliot Made Me Do It

2008-12-18T13:37:00.000-08:00

They come and go
They come and go
Talking of the tide that’s low
Thinking that they’ll have a go
With an almond filled croissant.

Often times they come in to flaunt
The hummer they drive, the jewels they want
(These are issues of importance for young debutantes!)
I could continue—on and on—but I shaun’t
For one is now at the front to weigh

His options; so after much strenuous delay,
Digging through purses, pockets, pickles, he finally pays
Then starts to chitchat of the day
Remarking “how do you like your job” by the way;
I merely laugh and prepare the over-calorific drink.

Next moment, hot water near the sink
Splashes on a girl who’s pink
And red due to the ignorant fink—
The one who originally started the kink
In the coffee maker.

All of the jolly, sweet-tongued bakers
Crowd the joint—a place ridiculous to exclaim an acre—
Debating with the boss, (the ultimate creator),
If the lad should be kept, tossed or dealt with later
But good ol’ Bruno makes a speech.

He first glances inside each
Of the bakers’ eyes to angrily leach
Out the truth of the matter; their motive to impeach
The youthful boy who did nothing worse than James of the Peach,
But fair is fair and Bruno begins his words:

“My boy you did not learn from your last curd,
When you tripped over the herd
Of baguettes lined up to be shipped to Lord Uward,
The greatest ruler I have ever heard
Who cried straight 88 nights in a row.

You did not think that I would see you and every crow
Who fumbles more than once running to and fro,
Losing my money with each cup he spills on a newly ironed bow,
(The ones you can only purchase in Cairo!)
No—you did not think at all.

Well, what’s done is done, so time to make that call
The one to the girl who you caused a fall
And gain a new burn, an original
One on her left shoulder, halting her admittance in the semi-final
Coffee Making Competition.

Oh ominous partition
I am forced to graze upon! Tell me lad, what’s your definition?
What’s the cause of this debacle? Was it a premonition?
Was I or my shop worthy of your spiteful ammunition?
I have no more to question upon.

The decision is made; Son, go wait out there on the lawn.
I will call ahead my workers who never once partook in a con
Or thought to thwart their jobs; Mon Dieu they always got here at dawn
To serve my people without the slightest yawn.
But wait, what’s this, a possible rumor…

A letter from a fellow consumer,
A kindly one who thought it a humor
Of the situation I made for tad boy (which frankly has given me the greatest tumor!)
I’d be better off to rest with slices of cucumber
On my eyes. Alas! No time for that, let’s forget the note.

I am faltering, fading away like a little boat.
Quick get me to bed, I might roll over right now of this tumultuous goat,
The boy who ruined me. I am done. Je suis fini was all he wrote.
They said some prayers and then wrapped him in his red petticoat…
But onward his café continued for all relations near or not of kin.

A Blank Page

2008-11-22T14:13:00.000-08:00

You told me to write, so I'll write. And I'll write, and I'll write and I'll write.

How could it have slipped away? Itself, a privilege with time (and damn- there is only so much). Nowadays they prescribe a quantitative, not qualitative measuring dose of time. How much you got? Value? Scotch value. It's all about the number of lines crossed off the list. A day in the park with the dog would be nice, but no- you've got work to do. Let's dissolve this method. Let's loosen it up. Breathe some fresh air and get outside. Let it all melt down to the wick. Prerequisites and thesis galore: throw them up in the air. Let them flutter and fly. Give them the life they deserve and grasp onto your own.

It's known as a requirement of life; necessary by all means. You want to make it in life don't you? What kind of question is that? What if I do, what if I don't? I'll take my own route, thank you. I wont' put up with that. You'll get squashed, they say. Hey now, at least I tried. I'm gonna put an end to the numbering of what's important in life. What's now merely an act forced between a coffee here, an essay there; it needs to die. Stop it, just stop it! Write. Go ahead now, the pages are crisp, creamy and waiting.

Les 'Elms,' Au Revoir!

2008-10-13T21:44:00.000-07:00

"After years of study and with advice from arborists and plant pathologists, the College has made a difficult decision regarding the dying elm trees that form Scripps' historic and beloved Elm Tree Lawn. Rather than continue the policy of replacement as needed, which Scripps has followed since late 1999, the College will renew the entire landscape with contract-grown trees in five or six years.

Elm Tree Lawn, an allée of 18 paired American elms, is one of the signature landscapes at Scripps.Annual commencement exercises and other major events at the College take place under this canopy, designed by Edward Huntsman-Trout in 1939. For several years, the College has had concerns with the health of the trees. Elm trees are not native to Southern California; in this climate, they live for only 75-80 years.

Over the past several years, the College has engaged two consulting arborists to study the condition of the elm trees. In December 1999, the Buildings and Grounds Committee of the Board decided to remove and replace trees as they neared the end of their lives or became a safety concern. One tree was removed in 2001 for safety reasons, and three of the weakest trees were removed during the 2004-05 semester break.

In the summer of 2004, Jim Clark, a plant pathologist with a specialty in elm trees, was contacted to examine the trees. His report was received by the Buildings and Grounds Committee in September 2004. Along with the recommendation to renew the entire landscape with contract-grown trees in five or six years, Dr. Clark advised that the College continue to carefully onitor and prune the remaining elms until the replacement trees reach a height of 25 or 30 feet.According to Lola Trafecanty, director of grounds, the replacement trees will be disease-resistant Princeton elms.

Don Johnson, chairman of the Buildings and Grounds Committee, said:

'Contemplating the removal of the trees in Elm Tree Lawn has been one of the more difficult topics we have faced on the Buildings and Grounds Committee over the last several years...The difficulty has been in arriving at an approach which will provide for the safety of all persons on campus and preserve the traditional setting for our graduation ceremonies. Elm Tree Lawn is a special place on campus and is in the heart of each and every alumna.The adopted approach of removing any trees posing a hazard, while contract growing replacement trees, will provide the required safety while minimizing the impact upon the campus.'"

Excerpt from "The Fall" by Camus

2008-09-17T21:30:00.000-07:00

"Besides, this country inspires me. I like those people swarming on the sidewalks, wedged into a little space of houses and canals, hemmed in by fogs, cold hands, and the sea steaming like a wet wash. I like them, for they are double. They are here and elsewhere.
Yes, indeed! From hearing their heavy tread on the damp pavement, from seeing them move heavily between their shops full of gilded herrings and jewels the color of dead leaves, you probably think they are here this evening? You are like everybody else; you take these good people for a tribe of syndics and merchants counting their gold crowns with their chances of eternal life, whose only lyricism consists in occasionally, without doffing their broad-brimmed hats, taking anatomy lessons? You are wrong. They walk along with us, to be sure, and yet see where their heads are: in that fog compounded of neon, gin, and mint emanating from the shop signs above them. Holland is a dream, monsieur, a dream of gold and smoke- smokier by day, more gilded by night. And night and day that dream is peopled with Lohengrins like these, dreamily riding their black bicycles with high handle-bars, funeral swans consistently drifting throughout the whole land, around the seas, along the canals. Their heads in their copper-colored clouds, they dream; they cycle in circles; they pray, somnambulists in the fog's gilded incense; they have ceased to be here. They have gone thousands of miles away, toward Java, the distant isle. They pray to those grimacing gods of Indonesia with which they have decorated all their shopwindows and which at this moment are floating aimlessly above us before alighting, like sumptuous monkeys, on the signs and stepped roofs to remind these homesick colonials that Holland is not only the Europe of merchants but also the sea, the sea that leads to Cipango and to those islands where men die mad and happy. "

A Day, A Thought - Vanished

2008-09-07T19:58:00.001-07:00

Glitter skims the horizon with beauty breathless each time.

Freedom to be- as I please; walk the earth without a woven rhyme.

Shake of the trees balance sun

and shoulder invisible whispers made for none

but the birds.

Start something, Now;

before fog masks another cogitation to allow.

Morning ignites unseasoned thoughts,

Till evanescent hang the words once bought

upon a dusk - A silence.

It's Creeping Under My Skin

2008-07-09T06:03:00.000-07:00

Paris was never wrong. It was always right.

I was almost displeased when I first arrived and it wasn't the Paris that I imagined. I waited to see everyone's face thick with lines from concentration and a cigarette balanced on one side. I waited to find the gypsy accordion players and the boys riding on scooters with roses in their mouth. No- most of that I found, just not as sappy. In fact, I am glad Paris is not a whimsical dream in reality.

I've walked through hundreds of rues already, seen many arrondissements and assimilated into the Parisian student's life. I went to the park across the Cite Universitaire and sat and watched the people, the dogs, and the sun move along until darkness arrived around 10.

Monday I walked to Shakespeare and Co. from the Notre Dame. The British boy asked me, "Are you here for the reading?" Why, of course. It was a change from all of the constant French I have been surrounded by. Two NYU professors with a strong American presence of plaid shirts read pieces of their poetry while rain tapped on the rooftop. The enthusiasts were all smashed together between books and bodies and legs.

Tuesday I sat in the Jardin du Luxembourg to read "A Moveable Feast." I didn't get far, before I turned the page an Argentinean-French boy plopped beside me and said something I had no comprehension of. We somehow managed to discuss music, history, Paris, and politics in our broken french. Julie and Justin arrived from class to accompany us in the park. There was one thing we understood: the sound of the choir singing under the windblown trees as the storm approached. What a lovely July afternoon. I am beginning to see these small details quite like nothing that can be discovered back home.

PARIS

2008-07-06T13:17:00.000-07:00

Oh, I am here and it is lovely, tres lovely. I am staying in the southern part of Paris. Commuting by metro and RER is like breathing. To listen to Carla Bruni, walk the streets in chilly July weather and see the Seine at night- that is Paris. I must go do all of the above right now. No time for sleep. The city is calling.

Au Revoir.

Previous Travels

2008-06-27T04:54:00.000-07:00

The slash means you are now leaving Bocholtz. I followed this road surrounded by thick fog.

First beer in Holland. Holland pride- before they lost the eurocup.

A parking lot in Amsterdam.

The Roots world music festival in Amsterdam.

Near the hostel in Berlin.

Berlin.

Berlin- Mitte, the historic district.

Prague- the city.

Little boys and girls danced to slavic music near the Prague castle.

The view from the hostel in Prague.

First Amsterdam- then Berlin- now Prague

2008-06-24T11:51:00.000-07:00

Europe is becoming a normal habit. I no longer listen to the streets in the middle of the night and break out in excitement just from the sound of a motor scooter. I feel apart of the lifestyle.

In Amsterdam we went to a world music festival. The sunshine was perfect. We sat on the lawn grass listening to beats from Marsailles. Everyone basked in the sun and absorbed the day. We went to a small jazz club and everyone was smiling and enjoying the dark atmosphere.

Berlin is not one city. It is multiple districts within one city. We stayed in the old district- the Mitte. It took one day to orient ourselves with the underground. After a few hours of taking metros back and forth we found our way. Many of the people in the open air market could not speak English. We gestered back and forth to agree on a price. I purchased a pair of glasses with beautiful brown frames for only a euro. I eyed a pipe which was crafted of wood and the seller wanted me to smoke it right away. He ran to the back and filled up the pipe with something. I said it was not for me and started speaking in French because I feel deprived with only German around me. He just laughed. How guffy he was. The whole market stared at me.

I am now in Prague. It fees like I am inside a wonderland of icing and cake. Art Nouveau buildings are everwhere. We went to the Moucha museum and learned that he decorated the stained glass windows of the cathedral at the top of the hill. A man from South Vietnam insisted that he take a picture with us. Then he took an individual shot with Christina. Perhaps because she had long hair. Some children around 12 years old were dancing in the street. They were flicking their brown heels and spinning in circles with their military jackets and long veils of white linen. I do not feel that I can stay here forever as a resident but only as a passer by. Perhaps I will be back again. I see the green hills beyond the Charles bridge and picture a deep fog rolling in with sojourners arriving on horsback a long time ago. Now it is unbearably hot. Some man on the train from the Czech Republic with bright blue eyes asked why I was heading to Prague. Hmmm... Only because of the beautious architecture and the central Eurpean red rooftop houses and the coffee and the fact that I am in central europe, perhaps...Christina and I are planning to move the Carroll family back to Europe to rediscover their roots.

Koln

2008-06-08T01:21:00.001-07:00

I hear church bells from across the street ringing back and forth. They chime on the hour, every hour. Each town has it's own sound and rhythm. Yesterday I was in Koln, Germany. It took an hour driving through rain to park the car and hop the train to the city. We flew past German suburbs and junkyards. Their apartments are stacked high and tight but seem less forced than Los Angeles' ever-growing high-rises. Germans are keen on flower boxes hanging out of each window.

Arriving in the town square of Koln was my first metropolitan shock. The Koln cathedral swallowed my eyes with its gothic architecture. To see photos in art history class is one thing, but to go inside and feel smaller than an insect amongst the array of tourists should be made a life requirement. Sandalwood crowded the air along with the pure light that flooded the stain glass. Everyone looked up in awe. As I toured around, a group of amatures started singing glorious hymns, which I thought came from a true church choir.

We walked about the city. There was a French group of students halfway listening to their instructor about the structural elements of the ancient buildings. They were shockingly stereotypical French. Every single one of them wore black, some with barres and cigarettes; all looked at me with deepest eyes and parched lips. I couldn't help but slap on my American grin. We stumbled past another church where bells where playing a whimsical tune that made me feel I should belong in a Swiss clock. A wedding ceremony was letting lose. The bride photographed with the groomsmen and the family talked amongst themselves while the children in ponytails and Dutch dress pranced around.

After walking through the mess of the crowd we stopped for coffee. People were screaming and groups of men were wildly dressed, some in Lederhosen with beers in each hand. It was the opening of the Euro08 football tournament. Even women were going nuts. I had to imagine the American perception if it had occurred in Fashion Island...

The German train system in Koln did not make any sense. It took us 45 minutes of waiting in line for help to then toss the idea of further waiting and grab a train on the whim. Luckily an American man studying music directed us back to our train. I didn't mind being lost.

Chapter One: The Path

2008-06-05T09:49:00.001-07:00

It's early afternoon, probably around 1:45. I am sitting on a bench, I'm not quite sure where. I may have passed the German boarder, for they don't clearly mark it when you're this far out. There's a tree arching over head and water droplets slowly drip from it onto my neck as I look down to write. I stare straight ahead of me and I see short, lengthy crops of some sort that have a brilliant grey-blue stalk. About forty feet out all visibility is lost due to the thick fog. It looks like the sky is filled with white all around, up and down to the ground. I don't know what time it is; I don't wear a watch. I have no one to talk to, no cell phone, no people. Only passerby's who say "hoy." I've walked a good distance now. I was told the road I was on would lead me from Bocholtz to a small town on the German boarder. There isn't a sole in sight besides the second car that's passed by in thrity minutes. There is a gravel road which I followed and the occasional lone bench on the side near the threeway split in the path. It's funny, as I walk further down the road I can estimate when a bench is near for they are all beneath trees of some sort. Encountering the first bench felt like reaching a landmark. The cross of Jesus was posted up against that tree.

I feel like Dorothy on this road. It's misting now. Perhaps I'll head back the way I came.

Skeptics still exist?

2008-05-22T19:11:00.000-07:00

An exciting topic specific bombardment of information to fire at the global warming skeptic.
Too bad no matter what you say they just won't listen.

Check it out: GRIST

Be Drunk

2008-05-13T21:55:00.000-07:00

You have to be always drunk. That's all there is to it—it's the only way. So as not to feel the horrible burden of time that breaks your back and bends you to the earth, you have to be continually drunk.

But on what? Wine, poetry or virtue, as you wish. But be drunk.

And if sometimes, on the steps of a palace or the green grass of a ditch, in the mournful solitude of your room, you wake again, drunkenness already diminishing or gone, ask the wind, the wave, the star, the bird, the clock, everything that is flying, everything that is groaning, everything that is rolling, everything that is singing, everything that is speaking. . .ask what time it is and wind, wave, star, bird, clock will answer you: "It is time to be drunk! So as not to be the martyred slaves of time, be drunk, be continually drunk! On wine, on poetry or on virtue as you wish."

-Charles Baudelaire

Night Grass

2008-05-09T12:16:00.001-07:00

Night grass
Shades the earth
And insects dance
To the heat
Step two by two
Along the fallen leaves
When whistles fill the
Air of banjoes and
Toe-tappers;
Summer’s den
Open-

Friendship with the trees
Relations with bird’s
Sweet glances
Wake you up
In the sweat of night

No other time begins
So brightly
And ends
With a burn

Daylight fills the senses
Of lecherous dreams
And wants-
Of nothing and all

The time to live-
To aspire and dream,
Love, create, lounge
And do nothing,
Just nothing
At all.

Picturing Encinetas

2008-05-09T11:26:00.000-07:00

A Parking Stall

2008-04-29T20:53:00.000-07:00

A parking stall suits the caravan gypsy car
Cluttered with meaningless papers, velvet curtains and dust.
The cops suspect debaucheries of all sorts.
These country-dwellers wouldn’t have dreams to match.

They stare out from within – reticent in their ways.
Grit casts a darkness upon the windshield.
No one cares to notice.

The girl with the red bicycle passes by each day.
Have you observed her errant sideway glances?
She’s allured.
A sardonic motive they suspect.

Why Not

2008-04-17T13:08:00.001-07:00

A mix of my thoughts past which keep haunting me because I let them.

Why not go to Sarfari Sam's tonight?
Carrick and I; teach me how to dance.
Detention for a cup of joe.
China Town.
Ask for directions and end up with his address.
Walking through the fog down the hill and back up it in the dark.
Panic- The security guard thinks I am a threat. Why won’t you let me pass?! I need to get to her!
You-talking behind my back.
Me-can't get through to you.
Us-pretending it’s all fine in the face of our mothers.
She runs into someone she knows every time.
Rockridge coffee now and chocolates for eating on the lawn grass.
The Claremont Hotel.
Meet you in Berkeley for lunch; too bad I won’t be around for the fourth of July.
Old, cracked white doors; circular shower curtains.
The father that looks like a homeless hippy free-spirit.
Let me tell you girls a little bit about fair trade coffee...
Garage sale so she can leave the foggy city for Florida.
Look- Irish coffee- "you guys are going to be alcoholics"
Blue knitted hat.
Situational opulence.
Data Rock or Date-a-rock?
Sheet cycling and pretending its fine if we just laugh.
Some Kerouac and Ginsberg to get you started.
#104 Thai dish; don't wear your shoes.
Fresh pizza at 10:30 am.
Last cup of Peet's before we leave.
Making the flight with twenty minutes to spare.
Ride along the boardwalk; lounge about at Alta.
Blonde Redhead tickets.
Frank Lloyd Wright docent.
Standing outside of piano class- waiting to talk to you; wanting to see you less.
A sweaty night to watch a movie.
Wake up at six am.
Sleep at two.
Bike ride down the hill on the hottest day only to get lost and go back up it.
Goodbyes with Goldenspoon.
Meeting the man who told me I am doing everything wrong right now.

Assault

2008-04-14T21:25:00.000-07:00

I had forgotten how the frogs must sound
After a year of silence, else I think
I should not so have ventured forth alone
At dusk upon this unfrequented road.

I am waylaid by Beauty. Who will walk
Between me and the crying of the frogs?
Oh, savage Beauty, suffer me to pass,
That am a timid woman, on her way
From one house to another!

-Edna St. Vincent Millay

The Cool Breeze Came

2008-04-13T16:23:00.000-07:00

The cool breeze came rushing through the window in floods, blowing the posters and newspaper clippings up into the air. Retraction brought them down slowly, as if they were angels descending from space- weightlessly drifting down to earth.

The room thrived just when day descended into late afternoon. Light would dance along the walls, inviting the gray lint to bask within.

He waited for times when his room came alive. It was the only life he cherished.

He knew people, I guess you could label them friends, but his vacant enthusiasm kept distance between them. Social events were a placeholder for his body. All he could hear was silence when he looked about the room at those yapping bodies. How utterly pathetic, he thought. He didn’t try to run away; it would cause too much commotion, let alone, too much effort. As long as he showed up and gave them his presence he could be left in solitude.

He had no cares for the physicality. He thought his body not even worthy of grace.*

What should be valued, he thought, was the mind. His raced, longing for escape.

There lay a typewriter on the carpet in the middle of the room. Sometimes Mozart’s somber Adagio would filter through the window from two floors above, thus igniting a wildfire of thoughts.

He was no writer but a drifter between dreams. He’d go to bed at eight P.M. some nights, others at three, depending if inspiration struck him well enough. The early nights to sleep were escape routes into the dream world when he could no longer handle his idle presence on earth. Dreams fed him stories of magnificent oasis’s far away- intangible worlds that were beauteous and right.

Humans of his generation didn’t understand and never would. To him it was so simple. That is why he slept. His infatuation with the other reality was all he had and why he chose to live.

*Please note the difference between worthy and important. He did not think of solely himself as unworthy, but all bodies unworthy of the magnitude of grace prescribed to them. Their importance, he thought, was to suffice as containers of being.

Kerouac

2008-03-28T00:24:00.000-07:00

The only people for me are the mad ones,
the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk,
mad to be saved, desirous of everything at
the same time, the ones who never yawn or
say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn,
burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles
exploding like spiders across the stars...

The Group

2008-03-07T13:07:00.000-08:00

Excerpt from Mary McCarthy's The Group:

"You and your social friends," he continued, "have a finer functional adaption. Full, low-slung breasts" -he stared about the room- "fashioned to carry pearls and boucle sweaters and faggoting and tucked crepe de Chine blouses. Narrow waists. Tapering legs. As a man of the last decade, I prefer the boyish figure myself: a girl in a bathing cap poised to jackknife on a diving board. Marblehead summer memories; Betty is a marvelous swimmer. Thin women are more sensual; scientific fact- the nerve ends are closer to the surface." His grey eyes narrowed, heavy-lidded, as though he were drifting off to sleep. "I like the fat one, though," he said abruptly, singling out Pokey Prothero. "She has a thermal look. Nacreous skin, plumped with oysters. Yum, yum, yum; money, money. My sexual problems are economic. I loathe under-privileged women, but my own outlook is bohemian. Impossible combination."

Two of a Kind, They Met

2008-03-02T22:12:00.000-08:00

Two of a kind, they met in the vast array of the non-fiction aisle. Only Dorothy Parker was to blame, for she drew them close, magnetized and confounded. Why would anyone else want to read Laments for the Living? How utterly peculiar. They thought their weirdness strictly a solitary quality -not shared with an attractive other. Once she spied the romance and he the comics, each literary taste went wayward.

Let's Sue California

2008-02-28T16:40:00.000-08:00

Excerpt from Buy Now, Pay Later, by Adam M. Bright, featured in GOOD Magazine.

While it was promoting Greener Miles, Ford was already at work on another initiative: to slow down change. The company, represented by its trade association, was suing the state of California for attempting to pass the nation’s first law capping automobile carbon-dioxide emissions. The automakers claimed that California was passing legislation that only the federal government had the right to demand. Then, this June, when Congress looked as if it was finally ready to raise national fuel-economy standards (they have been virtually frozen since 1985). Ford’s president and CEO, Alan Mulally—along with other auto industry leaders—flew to Washington for a day of closed-door lobbying. Automakers built up to the showdown with an ad blitz warning voters that an increase in fuel-efficiency standards would “take your pickup truck away.” In his public statements, Mulally reminded everyone that the industry had already made “tremendous progress” and was “absolutely committed to increasing fuel efficiency.”

Where is this "tremendous progress" from Ford and why on earth would you want to slow energy emissions when that is a main concern of the nation? (besides losing profits, of course) Will companies ever have a heart or respect for themselves when the world as we know it starts to deteriorate? No, not even then.

Play In Repeat

2008-02-14T17:41:00.001-08:00

The taste, savory-
bitter, the kiss.

Eyes lock,
though behold, there is no key.

All is asked,
One moment, please?

To feel and receive
the brush of feet,

Airs colliding,
two faces deep.

Smokeless Cigarettes

2008-02-13T22:07:00.000-08:00

I was deep in sleep, submerged for fifteen minutes or so in pure bliss. It was nothing special; no flying from rooftops, no hopping freight trains to India - no. I was indulging in something my mind has often said “stay away from, they will kill you, those dirty cigarettes.” Yes, I was in a room all to myself, and I lit up.

My conscience followed me partly: Just this one, enjoy it while you are young, every breath of it, for you’ll be gone some way or another. The cigarette, the thing I fought against oh so strongly, happened to be most terribly satisfying.

I sat atop a desk in a dark, dated office situated near the ocean. The view, blocked by the closed shutters, allotted only the sound of crashing waves. Air melted into a soft texture I could wrap myself around, as if inside a painting. I imagined this scene akin to one of the 1930s, where a sex bomb journalist angles herself beside a desk and smokes in the darkness of black and white. Her red lips staining the roll of the cigarette with each touch; slowly melting the hearts of men…

The best part of my indulgence was that it never occurred, and yet I felt ecstasy the whole way through.

Imagine-

Just think what this could behold for the future for smokers and nonsmokers alike.

Pure Nature of Life

2008-02-06T18:33:00.000-08:00

Jaques Prevert, a French surrealist poet, paints the end of a relationship in bare, simplistic language over a cup of coffee, without the subject ever speaking a word.

Déjeuner du matin
Par Jaques Prevert

Il a mis le café
Dans la tasse
Il a mis le lait
Dans la tasse de café
Il a mis le sucre
Dans le café au lait
Avec la petite cuiller
Il a tourné
Il a bu le café au lait
Et il a reposé la tasse
Sans me parler
Il a allumé
Une cigarette Il a fait des ronds
Avec la fumée
Il a mis les cendres
Dans le cendrier
Sans me parler
Sans me regarder
Il s'est levé
Il a mis
Son chapeau sur sa tête
Il a mis
Son manteau de pluie
Parce qu'il pleuvait
Et il est parti
Sous la pluie
Sans une parole
Sans me regarder
Et moi j'ai pris
Ma tête dans ma main
Et j'ai pleuré.

9.21.07 - Sitting on a park bench

2008-01-23T20:29:00.000-08:00

The rain plays nicely with the end of a hot, Indian summer. As the air freezes over, all of life seems to change. Silence- greater, and the noise- dead and gone until Spring's alarm unravels it from a well deserved rest. Sitting by myself I can observe two minute people in the world. The only ones, for that matter, who surround my thoughts at this time. Perhaps it is the recipe of their pronounced, emphatic voices, mixed with the atmosphere's calm. I am just the right distance away to engage in their soothing rhythm of cries; an indescribable satisfaction to the ear. I want to sit here for hours, only to watch.
"Why did I ever marry you?!"
Clearly she is not actually screaming these words in honesty, for she has the pacing of an actress. Her engrossing stance won't allow my eyes stray. One hand clasps the script, the other flails about as she hotly tries to embody the spirit of her character. Stepping into their world- the actor's world- is an intimate experience, perhaps because I am watching from a distance, taking their moment as my own.

2008-01-08T18:11:00.000-08:00

The world and I are young!
Never on the lips of man, -
Never since time began,
Has gladder song been sung

-Edna St. Vincent Millay

Edna St. Vincent Millay

2008-01-08T18:02:00.000-08:00

Ashes of Life

Love has gone and left me and the days are all alike;
I must, and sleep I will,—and would that night were
here!
But ah!—to lie awake and hear the slow hours strike!
Would that it were day again!—with twilight near!

Love has gone and left me and I don't know what to do;
This or that or what you will is all the same to me;
But all the things that I begin I leave before I'm through,—
There's little use in anything as far as I can see.

Love has gone and left me,—and the neighbors knock and
borrow,
And life goes on forever like the gnawing of a mouse,—
And to-morrow and to-morrow and to-morrow and to-morrow
There's this little street and this little house.

It's just writing

2008-01-04T11:43:00.000-08:00

I have a fascination with great female writers of the mid twentieth century. The trouble is they write as manic depressives. It's quite beautiful and brilliant, but such a morbid genre. I am drawn to it. I don't think the grimness of it all allures me, but something else. I feel connected to the authors, though I am nothing like them in lifestyle or meditation.

Much of my personal writings- poems, thoughts and such- which I show no one, have a morbid undertone. But it is not about death. They carry an understanding of life; the way things have to be, though no one understands why.

I am afraid to put anything out in the open for fear of being labeled as a person who can't handle life. But this is how I handle, how I release. Perhaps posting these thoughts online isn't the best way to express myself, and I find the idea of a "blog" to be almost pathetic when used to write about yourself. After I write something that means a great deal to me, I don't want to shove it back my notebook and call it a day, either. I need some sort of recognition, without being labeled a psychotic depressive writer.

Will someone loan me their thoughts? Tell me what they think of my feeble attempts to write something of meaning. It won't matter to you, and you won't understand it the way I do in my head, but I need to get some of it out.

By Edward Hirsch

2007-12-18T17:14:00.000-08:00

Green Night
(Summer, 1982)

We walked down the path to breakfast.
The morning swung open like an iron gate.

We sat in Adirondack chairs and argued
for hours about the self—it wasn’t personal—

and the nature of nature, the broken
Word, the verse of God in fragments.

We trotted back and forth to readings.
The trees were the greenest I had ever seen.

We cut bread from a large brown loaf
at a long wooden table in the mountains.

A farmer hayed the meadows
and the afternoon flared around us.

Pass the smoky flask. Pass the cigarettes:
twenty smoldering friends in a package.

We swam in the muddy pond at dusk.
The sky was a purple I had never seen.

Someone was always hungover,
scheming with rhymes, hanging out.

Nothing could quench our thirst for each other.
At the bonfire, we flamed with words.

The houses were named after trees.
I slept with someone at the top of a maple.

It was a green night to be a poet in those days.
We didn’t care if the country didn’t care about us.

This elusive "it"

2007-12-12T08:48:00.000-08:00

pronoun, nominative it, possessive its or (Obsolete or Dialect) it, objective it; plural nominative they, possessive their or theirs, objective them; noun
4.(used to represent a concept or abstract idea understood or previously stated): It all started with Adam and Eve. He has been taught to believe it all his life.
9.(used in referring to a source not specifically named or described): It is said that love is blind.

Oceans overflow with it
skies beam in extremity of it
souls gravitate towards it

Rays extend my heart
each to its own direction
and length

This sensation of thankless joy
overwhelms my desires-

To bottle this feeling would leave me in
complete ecstasy

With glee or simple acceptance
of being-
the illumination occurs,
replenishing the drought all endures
during loss of love.

The deplorable crime:
Not all ever taste a drop.

Naming of Travels

2007-12-11T19:06:00.001-08:00

To-day we have naming of travels. Yesterday,
we had shopping. And tomorrow morning,
we shall have what to do after booking a flight. But to-day,
To-day we have naming of travels. Rio de Janeiro
captivates like coral in all the neighboring beaches,
And to-day we have naming of travels.

This is the North American continent. And this
is the South American continent, whose use you will see,
when you are given your map. And this is a credit card
which in your case you have not got. The airplanes
hold in their luggage, fully packed,
Which in our case we have not got.

This is Antarctica, which is always avoided
during a blizzard. And please do not let me
see anyone using the shipping boats to get there. You can do it quite easy
if you have a warm cap on your head. The Eskimos
Are brawny and adaptive, never letting anyone see
Any of them catching their dinner.

And this you can see is Europe. The purpose of this
is to visit the historical sites, you see. We can sight see
quickly or slowly: we call this
being a tourist.And quickly or slowly
the Americans are assaulting and fumbling the Bobbies
They call it being a tourist.

They call it being a tourist: it is perfectly easy
If you have a warm cap on your head: like the traveler's checks,
and the plane ticket, and the cultural food, and the double-decker bus
which in our case we have not got, and the Eskimos
silent and adaptive in all of the journey and the
Americans going quickly and slowly
For to-day we have naming of travels.

Cycling Trivialities

2007-11-03T14:25:00.000-07:00

Too blind to know your best.
Hurrying through the forks without
regrets.
Different now,
every step feels like a mile.
All the lights seem to flash and pass you by.
So how's it gonna be.
When it all comes down you're cycling trivialities.
Don't know
which way to turn.
Every trifle becoming big concerns.
All this time you were chasing dreams,
without knowing what you wanted them to mean.
So how's it gonna be. When it all comes down
you're cycling trivialities.
Who cares in a hundred years from now.
All the small steps, all your shitty clouds.
Who'll remember all the players. Who'll remember
all the clowns. So how's it gonna be. When it all comes down
you're cycling trivialities.
-Jose Gonzalez

2007-10-17T11:41:00.000-07:00

Time Out
by Mark Smith-Soto
The gift of death glows through the October afternoon.
Nothing stranded in the seasons belongs to eternity.
But I feel like a god sitting on my back porch.

Only a god would look to the left like this
and understand the redness of maple leaves
and hear the cardinal shiver in the holly

and feel the sun and cold wind sweep
through the porch screens and not care
what time it is, or what time is,

barely remembering when things were different,
the azaleas aflame, the lawn a velvet rug,
the loved woman wandering somewhere in

a poem. And this moment too will end, is ending,
the acorns pattering on the roof are saying so
with the fanfare of their leave-taking,

the gray neighbor dragging her recyclables to the curb
is saying so, even the geese calling over the house
proclaim I am not a god, no, not a god —

but my hearing’s tuned beyond any murmurings,
the afternoon stretches on, golden and heedless,
and death itself is just half-listening.

It all starts with grey hair

2007-10-10T16:14:00.000-07:00

I wonder what their lives are like together? Two men, grey haired: one in full pony- the other groomed silky like a grandmother's- sit near me on a lonely bus. I couldn't help but glance twice as I notice their matching white soccer socks pulled up a few inches past ankle length. Further along their fit, curly-haired legs hangs their almost identical olive shorts at the knee. As we ride further through our six minute bus ride, the pony-haired man starts a conversation loud enough to satisfy, or annoy the bus travelers of six. It isn't so much that he is feeding words to and from someone, but that he is spitting them out loudly enough to evoke a sort of wisdom in his tone of voice- quaint enough to match his grey hairs. Although the techno music playing softly aloft the bus is nice, I decide to listen to what this intriguing old man has to say. "I live next to Alvera's." If I was a native, I would know exactly where he was talking about. It is probably some little Mexican stand the Angelenos go to for a late night pick-me-up of mouth-numbing hot sauce drizzled on a mountain of green tacos. I must say, southern California knows how to prepare a mean Mexican dish, for obvious reasons. A thought enters my mind at that given moment: Why can't I live here? I always dreamed of the romantic, bohemian lifestyle of Los Angeles: going to concerts every other night and having a circle of friends who only know how to play the guitar and paint a masterpiece of modern interpretive art. But that is just a dream. A dream often reminisced when I come to visit a different artery of LA each time. But being alive and sitting next to a real-live Los Angeles native made my want even greater. "That's the street I grew up on" That one? "Yeah, I lived here my whole life." That's a nice street.

My senses came to me at that second. I took a look outside the Plexiglas and noted Los Feliz on the street sign. A town hip but edgy enough for people in their mid-twenties to reside. Not as easy as say Beverly Hills. The desire in me is growing now. More because I see what I could have. Do you see it? Probably not by the way I describe this snow globe world in my mind. Do I really want it though? Meaning, would I like it once I commit myself to actually moving? I have no choice but to make the best of it. It could go terribly bad, though. If that circle of friends doesn't blossom then I have no choice but to exist in a solitary manner, trying to make it through the day and prove to my parents I was right in choosing this life. The one I want so desperately. Right? The one that in fact leads to misery. For it is the dream that beauty thrives in, Not the reality.

Griffith Park passes by my dreamy window: again my wants and imagination take lead of me. I strive for a loft on this fuzzy, urban boulevard. That would be it. I would have come! No more thoughts of my future reality living in a cardboard box equivalent to an apartment for one. Wooh. Sounds like a nice box. Actually an apartment equal in size to a box is more like it. I would be producing my free lance articles an hour before due time. Coffee-ring stains would line my "nightstand" composed of books entitled: So You Want To Be A Journalist. "Retro" coffee cups from the mid-nineties would fill my cupboard up to the top. A nice benefit is that they also serve as cereal, soup and ice-cream dishware at the same time! Now that's innovation. I don't mind. I would sacrifice it all: the glamour in the details of fine living to obtain the LA life.

Ding! Get off the bus and to your home now- your time dreaming is up.

But wait. There's those guys again, walking next to another pair of men from the same bus. They look happy soaking up the sun and enjoying one of the day's simplistic gifts, such as a bus ride down Los Feliz. Who knows where they are going. Their lives don't look too far off then mine. Perhaps it's my Gatsby of a dream that is too remote to even consider anymore. It's just a thought. My thought. A place I can visit each time I read this.

2007-10-06T21:58:00.000-07:00

A new love to my ears:

"Ferraby Lionheart wants to be like Gene Wilder.He wants people to care about the planet.He wants people to care about other people.He wants a garden, and some chickens.He was born in LA, although it is often written that he was born in Nashville.This is because he grew up there.And perhaps because his music sounds a little country sometimes.His sister watched Mary Poppins a lot when he was a kid, so maybe that’s why he likes show tunes so much.His 8th grade Algebra tutor had a guitar. That’s where he got the idea.He practiced singing to Chet Baker records when he went to art school in Chicago.Ferraby started making 4-track recordings when he was 18.They might have been a little crappy.He kept trying to write songs for a long time.He moved back to LA because Chicago was too cold.He tried being a grown up, but it wasn’t very good.He is pretty smart.But not that smart.He served pizzas for a little while.Jon Brion played shows next door, and somehow Jon knew one of his songs and invited him on stage one night.He was so nervous.Ferraby had a rock band, but after a few years he got sick of it.He’d rather sing softer."

From "On The Road"

2007-09-12T17:07:00.001-07:00

Across this plateau the big manufacturing town of Monterrey sent smoke to the blue skies with their enormous Gulf clouds written across the bowl of day like fleece. Entering Monterrey was like entering Detroit, among great long wall of factories, except for the burros that sunned in the grass before them and the sight of thick city adobe neighborhoods with thousands of shifty hipsters hanging around doorways and whores looking out of windows and strange shops that might have sold anything and narrow sidewalks crowded with Hongkong-like humanity.

I need you so much closer

2007-09-08T13:58:00.000-07:00

Goodbye.
I haven't said that, nor will I ever.
There is no need to end something so raw.
My heart tugs to leave you and the memories under the covers in my mind.
The for sale sign is just a formality,
And yet it stabs the bank of my memories.
Your home and the recollection of life past will be wrapped up inside me,
The time will come to release. Not now, though.

Romantic your life was.
It still dances down Yale Avenue, and inside the Village Grill where we shared many a milkshake and cheeseburgers long ago.
Summers when we both could walk around the block and stop to play in the sandlot.
How simply beautiful the dreams of others were possessed within you
and the home you brought to life.
Pretty could never sum up your love, face or life.

I want what you had. I don't want it now in present day,
but in the exact form when you left your skates in his car,
exactly when you took your first breathe of married life,
and when you cried in the kitchen holding me.

You could have chosen differently.
You could have been dancing with Fred or laughing with Clark. But, what good would that do when you lived out the incredibly satisfying life you were given.
No, all was right and all was as is should have been.

I was there mostly all the time.
I wanted to give you my sight, and share with you my travels of the grand world.
You lived the beautiful life. I can only imagine.
I have my sight to see and reflect on all that you have been submerged in.
No sight was alloted to you,
For you were the beauty I saw.

You'll never know how much I adore you.
Maybe you did.
But I want you to know I love you,
You're safe now.

L'ete

2007-08-09T16:45:00.000-07:00

Quote of the moment

2007-08-09T13:03:00.000-07:00

"I go by no name no label and no title. To label me is to limit me, to chain me, to the convictions and prejudices of the human mind. No, I'd rather remain untitled, free to exist, free to soar, and free to love."