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Game of Thrones Daily
if i look back, i am lost
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izzy's playlists!
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Claire Keane
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@discrepantawareness
Sufjan Stevens Albums by Prevailing Emotion
A Sun Came Confusion
Enjoy Your Rabbit Jubilation
Greetings from Michigan, the Great Lake State Longing
Seven Swans Mystery
Come on Feel the Illinoise Hope
All Delighted People Regret
The Age of Adz Repentance
Carrie & Lowell Peace
Two Great Wastes
In the course of my dissertation, I’ve been going through a lot of saints’ lives, texts that make up the genre known as hagiography. Here’s a little poem I wrote concerning one of the most interesting themes that runs through those stories: the consuming nature of the wilderness, where so many saints decided to go and try to get closer to god. The tradition started in the North African deserts, but it eventually came to embrace mountains, the sea, any place where people could escape. I’m not attached to any ideas about god, but I derive a lot of spiritual satisfaction from hiking through difficult or deserted places. There’s something magical about being in a place so perceptibly larger than yourself that it could consume you without noticing. Paradoxically, your irrelevance to the landscape has an edifying impact. I’m not sure if that’s what drew saints toward the hermit life, but the common element we share is the wilderness. For me it’s mountains, but the most diametrically opposed wilderness settings seem to be the oceans and the sandy deserts. Their effect on our whole person is what underlies this poem. I hope you like it!
“Two Great Wastes”
there are two great wastes. sand, water distill the spirit leave the body drowned in water buried in sand.
Fast food workers in NY just won a $15/hr wage. I’m a paramedic. My job requires a broad set of skills: interpersonal, medical, and technical skills, as well as the crucial skill of performing under pressure. I often make decisions on my own, in seconds, under chaotic circumstances, that impact people’s health and lives. I make $15/hr. And these burger flippers think they deserve as much as me? Good for them. Look, if any job is going to take up someone’s life, it deserves a living wage. If a job exists and you have to hire someone to do it, they deserve a living wage. End of story. There’s a lot of talk going around my workplace along the lines of, “These guys with no education and no skills think they deserve as much as us? Fuck those guys.” And elsewhere on FB: “I’m a licensed electrician, I make $13/hr, fuck these burger flippers.” And that’s exactly what the bosses want! They want us fighting over who has the bigger pile of crumbs so we don’t realize they made off with almost the whole damn cake. Why are you angry about fast food workers making two bucks more an hour when your CEO makes four hundred TIMES what you do? It’s in the bosses’ interests to keep your anger directed downward, at the poor people who are just trying to get by, like you, rather than at the rich assholes who consume almost everything we produce and give next to nothing for it. My company, as they’re so fond of telling us in boosterist emails, cleared 1.3 billion dollars last year. They expect guys supporting families on 26-27k/year to applaud that. And that’s to say nothing of the techs and janitors and cashiers and bed pushers who make even less than us, but are as absolutely crucial to making a hospital work as the fucking CEO or the neurosurgeons. Can they pay us more? Absolutely. But why would they? No one’s making them. The workers in NY *made* them. They fought for and won a living wage. So how incredibly petty and counterproductive is it to fuss that their pile of crumbs is bigger than ours? Put that energy elsewhere. Organize. Fight. Win.
Jens Rushing (via albinwonderland)
*TEARS* (not a big reblogger but DAYUM)
Grand Budapest’s Abortive Poems
One of the best parts of the Grand Budapest Hotel has got to be this recurring motif. M. Gustave’ interest in overwrought romantic poetry inspires him to rhyme off volumes of the stuff, but in every instance except for one, the verses get cut off by some piece of action. In any case, they’re all such charming, ridiculous little snippets, so suited to their immediate contexts and each so uniquely bad, that I just had to take them down and place them here. Enjoy!
Calming Tilda While questing once in noble wood of grey, medieval pine I came upon a tomb, Rain-slicked, rubbed cool, ethereal, Its inscription long-vanished. Yet still within its melancholy fissures…
M. Gustave’s Sermon The painter’s brush touched the inchoate face By ends of nimble bristles, And with that blush of first colour Rendered her lifeless cheek living…
M. Gustave’s Second Sermon, Delivered from Checkpoint 19 Criminal Internment Camp by Means of Zero Moustafa, Lobby-Boy A moist, black ash Dampens the filth of a dung-dark rat’s nest And mingles with the thick scent of wood-rot While the larksong of a guttersnipe…
Escape! ‘Twas first light when I saw her face upon the heath And hence did I return day by day entranced. Though vinegar did brine my heart, Never w—
Cliffhanger “If this do be me end, farewell!” Cried the wounded piper-boy, Whilst the muskets cracked And the yeomen roared, “Hurrah!” And the ramparts fell. “Methinks me breathes me last, me fears,” said he…
Star-Cross’d Brothers Whence came these two radiant, celestial brothers, United for an instant As they crossed the stratosphere of our starry window? One from the east, And one from the west.
That last one, actually spoken by Agatha, really nails it. All the madcap adventures aside, there’s some real emotional punch to this film. It depicts loss and inevitable decay in spite of charm and tradition. It’s lovely that Agatha, the only person to complete a recitation in the whole film, gets the last word on that.
“Oh, what a day… what a lovely day!”
So this Business Insider article has been floating around the internet for a while, but a friend recently shared it with me again. It's basically my favourite piece of relationship-writing, and totally worth the read once you get to its meaty back end.
The main argument is that partners who respond actively and constructively to "bids" from their counterparts, defined as "requests for connection," help to provide a more relaxed and consequently healthier environment for the relationship to flourish. So if you partner says something about birds, or books, or an achievement they're proud of, respond with real interest. Simple.
What I like about this concept is that in spite of its simplicity, it's not platitudinous. (like some other pieces of advice I could point to) And like most simple-but-excellent advice, it actually conceals a whole foundation of useful practices that require concerted effort over time. It's simply expressed, but needs constant attention. Just like, y'know... affection.
A Timeline of Canadian Mission-Creep
Fall, 2014: Canada's Conservative majority contributes to the coalition against ISIS by deploying strike-jets, cargo planes, and support personnel to Kuwait.
Winter, 2015: A CF18 strike mistakenly kills 12 civilians in a makeshift medical centre, including one doctor. In response, ISIS issues a hostile statement specifically targeting Canada.
Spring, 2015: The first Canadian casualty in the fight against ISIS. Prime Minister Stephen Harper orchestrates a large-scale, media-saturated state funeral, mobilizing moderate right-of-centre Canadians into support for escalation.
Summer, 2015: First Canadian ground-combat troops arrive at NATO bases in Turkey.
Fall, 2021: A ten-year plan for withdrawing 7000 Canadian troops stationed in Turkey is outlined.
There's a Storm Coming...
Before we get started, you should know that I love The Terminator. Everybody should. It’s basically a perfect story. But I think we can all agree that its closing scene, with that groan-worthy "there's a storm coming" line, is the worst. It's just about the most eyeroll-inducing piece of Hollywood foreboding a writer can include.
That doesn't keep it from being overused.
"There's a storm coming" is lazy, low-hanging fruit; whatever else you want to say about artistic expression, those two things are never good. Fortunately, there are good writers out there who can redeem even this tired motif. I'm just finishing Cormac McCarthy's Border Trilogy, and he never disappoints...
The final book's third act is about to reach its violent conclusion. (it will definitely have a bloody conclusion because Cormac Mcarthy's full name is Cormac Violent Conclusion McCarthy) The young protagonist learns that his fiancée, a Mexican prostitute, has been murdered by her pimp, and he rides off to ponder his next move, pausing to look out over the landscape. This is the passage that follows: "To the south the thin green line of the river lay like a child's crayon mark across that mauve and bistre waste. Beyond that the mountains of Mexico in paling blues and grays washing out in the distance. The grass along the mesa underfoot twisted in the wind. A dark head of weather was making up to the north."
It's subtle. McCarthy conspicuously avoids the word "storm." There's such a tasteful restraint in that.
That night, the protagonist makes his way back to the home he had prepared for his fiancée before he learned of her death. He decides to enact revenge for her murder across the border in Mexico: "When he rode out again it was dark and windy and starless and cold and the sacaton grass along the creek thrashed in the wind and the small bare trees he passed hummed like wires. The horse quivered and stepped and raised the flues of its nose to the wind. As if to sort what there might be in the coming storm that was not storm alone."
Good. Lord. It's not until the last sentence that McCarthy even uses the word storm. Everything before that is a naturalistic image or sound or description of action. And when he finally decides to explicitly name it a storm, he respects his audience enough to deconstruct the device right in front us. That action, "to sort what there might be in the coming storm that was not storm alone," is precisely what we as an audience do when we encounter a textual metaphor. We identify its explicit identity in the narrative and then consider its emblematic significance. He never has anyone murmur to themselves or their companion those four words, "there's a storm coming." Instead, he has an unspeaking animal perceive the dramatic situation, "raisi[ing] the flues of its nose to the wind." Rather than using something as clumsy and explicit as dialogue to bludgeon the device to death, he situates its interpretation in the animalistic instinct rather than the rational. Even though McCarthy is using a highly literary technique, he doesn't want you to register the tension in your mind. He wants you to feel it in your gut. I know I did.
And THAT is how you do "there's a storm coming."
Dementia
I was listening to a CBC broadcast today. This CBC broadcast.
The most interesting part was a segment on personal narratives, our perceptions of ourselves and our identities as a story that we construct and tell to others. That has specifically weighty implications for the person suffering from dementia. That condition runs in my family, so I find it especially terrifying. Imagine your knowledge of your own story slowly disappearing, and with it the construct of your identity. Like I said. Terrifying.
In any case, that's a problem for Future-Alex. In the meantime, I wrote a poem about it. Here's "Dementia." I hope you enjoy it! (the poem, not dementia)
*** so much has been lost my story is being untold drifting away like so much ash book's paper burning darkening crumbling aloft page after page so much has been lost ***
That's definitely a bit of a downer. So for a partial pick-me-up, have a bunch of bored-looking hipsters singing a really pretty song that treats some of the same themes!
Seascape, Significance
Every so often when I'm reading scholarship, something meaningful comes my way. Peter F. Fisher's articulation of the maritimer's relationship to the sea is outstanding.
"To the imagination of a seafaring people, the power of the sea would be connected with a power not under human control, yet interwoven completely with the pattern of their lives."
Beautiful. It's not just that I recently returned from the East coast of Newfoundland and I'm still hung up on that magnificent seabound landscape. I like what this passage says about our relationship with the larger patterns at work in the world, these concepts we minimally understand and dimly perceive. But understanding and perception aren't prerequisites to our existence. They're just attempts to engage with it.
Landscape, love, city, society, cosmos, creation. We can't escape them. We can't control them. All we can do is feel their modulations, give them respect, and appreciate their beauty. I think that's lovely.
Poem: "All or Nothing"
I was reading about medieval heresies tonight and came across Bogomilism and its more famous cousin Catharism. There's some pretty interesting stuff there.
I'm no expert on mysticism and theology, but from what I can tell these heresies seem to be related to Gnosticism, a much older belief system. Gnosticism was dependent on ideas about the purity of spiritual beings and an evil consciousness that entombed those spirits in prisons of flesh. So all of life is a struggle against the fleshier aspects of our nature like eating meat and having sex and all those lovely embellishments of earthly existence.
It's troublesome to make too simplistic a narrative out of complicated historical events, but it's interesting that these medieval heresies seem to have flourished in periods when the church was exacting greater and greater control over the lives of European Christians. It's almost as though these systems of thought were a kind of theological allegory expressing anxiety about the constraint of an increasingly influential church and then locating that struggle in the spiritual realm. The tragedy, then, is that free spirits trapped in bodies become fleshly people moving about in another layer of constraint, an oppressive society. So if these beliefs were true, we'd be at the mercy both of social constraint and its allegory, the spirit's prison, the flesh. That's kind of a sad thought.
In any case, all of that is just the process that led to this little poem called "All or Nothing." I hope you like it!
Spirits into bodies, bodies, spirits structured, bound, disjoined from nothing, All and nothing.
Twitter Makes Language Better
My favourite thing about Twitter is the way it makes us play with language, manipulate it, and craft it.
When I write a poem, I start with an idea or an image, express it as fully as possible in my mind, assign words to my thoughts, then pare it down to a convenient packet of meaning. Twitter is an exercise in that same process. I generally write a tweet that starts on the long side. Then I choose words more carefully to fit the simple restrictions of the medium. It's just like the times I feel a certain metrical pattern might suggest an idea more fully, and I need to select words that run with that metre.
Aside from the process of brevity and reduction, Twitter also forces us to examine patterns of language. For example, if I'm riding the bus, I can tweet "I'm riding the bus," or "riding the bus," or even more simply, "on the bus..." Does the first tweet seem more straightforward, maybe a little more chipper? Does the last suggest some kind of fatigue or annoyance, perhaps a little frustrated ennui? I get to choose one, and that free play with connotation can be a productive challenge. It also tells us something about language. The latter two tweets aren't even complete sentences, but they're clear enough. That says something about how we communicate, what words we absolutely need or can leave aside. It might also give us hints about where language is headed in the future. That's exciting!
Lately I've been telling my students they should start tweeting if they don't already. The ultimate value is that it makes people think about language and clarity. (Not to mention the fact that it cuts down those giant, paragraph-long sentences I hate to read)
It's poesis and cognition, expression and play. Social media isn't undermining language; it's a fascinating part of its progression.
Poem "Tantalus"
Here's a poem that occurred to me the other night. I've been paring it down since then. It's more an image than a complete thought, but I quite like the premise: indifference to suffering endlessly prolonged. That's the most captivating thing about notions of eternal punishment as expressed through legends like Tantalus'. What do they do with boredom and acclimatization? Is getting used to eternal punishment a form of torture in itself? In any case, I hope you like it!
"Tantalus"
A listless hand bobs up toward the fruit and down toward the pool.
A flick of the fingers, careless, resigns him to waiting another forever until he tries again.
Today I made a mental list of every relationship or serious romantic prospect I've ever had and why it failed.
Upon close inspection, nine tenths of the reason most of them foundered was my own immaturity and its outgrowths.
My question: to have a real, functioning, permanent relationship, do I have to become more mature or does the strength of connection overcome that consideration?
A comment or two...
1. Jay is just adorable.
2. This is such a design victory. That degree of integration is difficult to attain and it adds a lovely aesthetic to unique functionality. My favourite part is the bathroom, but the desk nook is a close second.
3. His kitchen is bigger than mine. Seriously. *Sigh...*
4. Although it's an extreme example, Jay's lifestyle illustrates just what a spatially limited existence we can happily carry out if we're only willing to be flexible and ingenious. I'm not the best environmentalist, but a reduction to something approaching bare necessity appeals to me, especially if it's as charming as this little house. The human adaptation is as important as the curation of space and material. A tiny house is about lifestyle-design as much as home-construction, and that makes the creative core of a project like this more than just craftiness and material efficiency. It's about personal growth.
5. This is the most important point. Mobile, comfortable, sturdy, small windows... this is the perfect refuge for when the zombies arrive.
I want one.
Today I had an idea for a screenplay I want to write. I really like this one too, but I don't have time to put it to paper. There's a lot on my plate right now.
This has happened before. Had I world enough and time, there are probably three or four screenplays, novels, and clusters of short stories I'd be working on. But writing stuff is so time consuming. If you really have respect for the art, you have to take it seriously. That means agonizing over structure and crafting every phrase into the perfect vehicle for your thoughts.
I wish I could duplicate myself for the sake of exploring every project I want to undertake. There'd be the Alex working on his doctorate in Medieval studies. Next to him is the tea-drinking, weak-eyed novelist, Alexander. Then there's Zander, the screenwriter, whose pages are dominated by labyrinthine notes, rough-hewn storyboards, and coffee stains. (We all think he's a bit of an asshole, especially since he started asking everyone to call him "Zander", but he has some solid ideas)
Even this fantasy has its problems though. Almost immediately after wishing for my artistic duplicates, I realize that I'd probably start to mistrust them. I'd be reading an article on Old English versification of Latin prose and glance over at Alexander. I'd ask how his latest chapter's coming and just wouldn't be able to resist making a suggestion or two, maybe questioning his overtly terse sentence structure. Knowing he's me, he'd in turn be worried that I wasn't working hard enough or on the right track. "Have you finished sketching out your Major Field proposal?" he'd say with a smug little glance over his thick glasses . I'd resentfully turn back to my article. He just doesn't understand the process... Naturally, Zander would be working on his screenplay at some barely known coffee shop. Pretentious fuck. Do you really have to be seen writing something to write it?
That actually sounds like kind of a fun story that I won't have time to write. This post is not quite as therapeutic as I'd hoped.
In any case, I suppose I'll just have to keep slogging through my impulses and ambitions, and the ones that lodge themselves in my brain long enough just might find realization some day.
Sex and Love Among the Misanthropes
On sex and love: "Don't think I don't understand... I mean, what can any one of us ever really fuckin' hope for, huh? Except for a moment, here and there, with a person who doesn't want to rob, steal, or murder us? At night--mayhap sunup--one person against the fuckin' wall, the other, mayhap, on the fucking bed, trusting each other enough to tell half the fucking truth? Everybody needs that. It becomes precious to them. They don't want to see it fucked with." -Al Swearengen, Deadwood
It's awful to think of human interaction, especially intimacy, depicted this way. Still, expressed with all that raw, drunken, vicious verve, it's compelling... if only for when you're inhabiting the cynical extreme of the spectrum. Otherwise it probably does one better to be a bit more idealistic about things.
