Rock & Roll Farm

Thursday! Apr 29 2004 // 12:31 am // permalink

I can’t remember

There are some people I know who haven’t seen this yet. The subways of the world at the same scale. Via I can’t remember.

Same goes for you are now a ninja. Via I can’t remember.

Wednesday! Apr 28 2004 // 2:40 pm // permalink

effort

Last night I took the train home from Kalamazoo. Today I’m back to the old routine. Job-search, meal planning, home improvement and wondering what’s going to happen next. I have to admit that I did not want to get on that train. My host was generous and kind, and I wanted to ask him more about his life. I confessed this weekend to having a dream of being a personal assistant. And maybe a personal chef. Subsequently, I may be returning for another visit to JD soon to offer my services as a talented organizer of things.

Visits like the one I had this weekend often make me a bit melancholy. Simple meals shared, wine opened, walks in the rain, books, music, fellowship - all this serves to make me wonder if I could mantain that life forever. But how do I get that life? Is it something internal I need to work on? Or is it something I’m not grasping about how the world works around me? Like there’s some trick out there to being happy, and I’m just choosing the wrong bottles of wine and nights to walk. This reflection is part of the larger redirection effort in which I’m currently involved. I think it boils down to the people with whom you choose to share meals and books and music and walks. I’ve been finding few people interested in these things, or at least who will admit it. The problem in my case is also that my close friends are few and scattered these days. My guys here have helped keep this feeling at bay, but sooner or later one gets to missing those not here. It’s complicated. Maybe I’ll think about it and write more later.

semi-related: Over the past week or so I’ve had several eerily parallel conversations about poetry, and here are a few of the poets and poems…

Larry Levis, Elegy for Whatever Had a Pattern in It
Robert Haas, Meditations at Lagunitas
Kobayashi Issa, Don’t worry, spiders

unrelated: Giant Snails [thanks RT]

Monday! Apr 26 2004 // 11:54 am // permalink

time

I’ve been visiting friends in Kalamazoo for the past two days. M invited me to meet and spend time with JD, and I’ve had a great time here. I haven’t spent a lot of time in Kalamazoo in the past and I’ve found that I like it a great deal. As JD said last night, it’s a big sleepy town, and I like sleepy towns. Last night we took a walk in the rain, and stopped in front of the Kalamazoo Intstitute of Arts to watch a sort of perpetual motion sculpture. It was one of the most beautiful pieces of public art I’ve ever seen. I’ve always had a strained relationship with public art, as the idea makes me happy but the execution is most times ugly or inaccessible. This sculpture had specially weighted arms at the top of a tall pitchfork-like structure. The arms spun slowly as the wind blew, and caused the sculpture to spin at its base, making the arms at the top spin in different directions…and the whole thing just keeps going. Every few moments the balance of the weight would make the sculpture pause, and it felt like you were seeing a new sculpture every time. The configurations were endless, and it seemed random and choreographed at once. I tried to memorize the name of the artist, but it didn’t work. My apologies. If I come across it again, I’ll update. *update* The name of the artist is George Rickey, and you can read about him, and a sculpture just like the one I saw here

JD has a book of Jorge Luis Borges poems, and he showed us a poem last night that I’ve had a hard time getting out of my head. I want to post it here in its original Spanish, and then a translation by W.S. Merwin.

El sur

Desde uno de tus patios haber mirado
las antiguas estrellas,
desde el banco de
la sombra haber mirado
esas luces dispersas
que mi ignorancia no ha aprendido a nombrar
ni a ordendar en constelaciones,
haber sentido el circulo del agua
en el secreto aljibe,
el olor del jazmin y la madreselva,
el silencio del pajaro dormido,
el arco del zanguan, la humedad
—esas cosas, acaso, son el poema.

The South

To have watched from one of your patios
the ancient stars,
from the bench of shadow to have watched
those scattered lights
that my ignorance has learned no names for
nor their places in constellations,
to have heard the note of water
in the cistern,
known the scent of jasmine and honeysuckle,
the silence of the sleeping bird,
the arch of the entrance, the damp
—these things perhaps are the poem.

Saturday! Apr 10 2004 // 5:49 pm // permalink

Open for business.

I’ve decided to start writing for sans sheriff again. From what I can tell, Mike’s been doing a lot to improve the editing features, and it may take me a bit to learn how to use them effectively. They look fun, though.

I’m going to start slowly, with almost exclusively new material. Behind the scenes I’ll be editing and opening the archives, but on a limited basis. I’m opening media in right away, because I plan to update it regularly. I’m not sure if I’ll bring back the knitting, and definitely won’t be introducing new polls any time soon, if at all. I’m keeping the colors and design the same, for now, because I still like it a lot.

It is with no small amount of nervousness that I reopen this log, and it could end up being a short-lived project. A major part of coming back to sans sheriff is my recent move. I want to stay connected to my friends as I start down a new path. Not surprisingly, it was reading a friend’s log that brought me to the final decision.