this evening sun light strawberry orange topped with cones of soft cloud when nick asked me for the time to give away

dailies

what do you mean when you say
yr heart flops in yr chest like a dying fish

then you give me that look
full of pity & love

shaking against the cold
telling me i look like a punk scholar

then i feel my own heart flip
flop in its cage of bone

open against our time now
& when you shimmy and i swirl

to that tune we both love so well
hang on babe

you sd giving me a kiss
it will be alright

everyday is halloween

ah!  the jump scare.  that favorite technique in horror films where the picture is framed in such a way that one additional element, usually arriving in the frame at the speed of light, makes us jump out of our seats.  jumps scares seem like they are easy to do.  they are not.  plenty of scare films attempt the jump scare only to flop it in failure.

well, below is an example of a damn good jump scare.  it comes from the 2012 horror movie sinister starring ethan hawke as a true crime novelist at work on a new project.  only the project isn't content to rest on the pages of a book but would rather torment our hapless hero and his family.  the movie is so-so scary but it has gotten a lot of attention here at casa de bronson/lopez because it is the scariest movie nick was brave to watch thus far.

some context.  hawke's character is tormented by a cache of super 8 films.  each reel filmed the gruesome murders of a family.  these films are what are truly frightening of this movie.  here the director has done his homework and created a jump scare that works even on hardened hardcore horror fans.  the soundtrack and the images work in harmony.

watch this clip and be scared out of your britches.



boo

dailies

jose kozer sd it should take no more than 20 minutes to write a poem that is all the time a poem deserves or better still when asked how long it takes julian schnabel to make a drawing he would add 5 minutes to his age so here i sit 48 years plus 5 minutes give or take a few which reminds me that poetic speech should be as simple and clear as wishing a friend good morning or cursing the asshole who cut me off with a friendly fuck you because even if the world is whacked out of proportion and reading the news can make me cry i would write a poem when i can each day even if in its making the poem will look quite utterly like some other thing

everyday is halloween

movies that scared the pee out of me: exorcist II: the heretic [1977]

i don't remember when i saw the original.  i was baptized catholic before my father renounced his religion and became an agnostic.  for the record i am an atheist.  but when i was a kid i was fascinated and frightened by the occult and mysticism.  i braced my young thinking on the scaffolding of catholicism even if i never fully understood it.  but certainly the thought of the devil ran wild in my imaginings.

so what the hell were my parents thinking bringing me and my brothers to the drive-in to see this flick?!

okay, in retrospect my parents were very young and they wanted to see a movie.  i was crazy-insane for drive-in theaters and the movies shown at the drive-in.  it was, to use an early 21st century expression, a win-win for us all.

all but for the devil.  see, old itch scared my shitless.  my parents didn't know.  i never told them.  so this movie, starring linda blair reprising her role as tormented regan, richard burton as a priest, and louise fletcher as regan's doctor, starts in africa where resided, i assume, a demon.  the same demon that possessed regan?  i don't know.  for what i remember was a kind of hoky spectral presence haunted the flick.

and the movie is awful.  so bad is this pic it hurts the eyes and insults the brain.  burton must've been hard up for roles at the time.  but then again john boorman was at the helm and he had a smash success with deliverance [1972] a few years earlier.  perhaps everyone had high hopes on this sequel.

what i remember is a scene that chills me even as i type.  regan and doctor are strapped to a device that enhances a hypnotic effect to allow the doctor to delve into the patient's subconscious.  regan is a little girl in need of deep therapy considering all the hell she went thru in the first flick.

then the demon shows up.  only regan can see it.  the demon starts digging into fletcher's chest, thru the rib cage and down to her heart.  the demon giggles.  the demon is having a grand time.  i was frozen in fear.  i was scared so badly my sight telescoped to a single dot of the demon at play on a woman's chest.

i don't remember the rest of the movie.  too traumatic i suppose.  i haven't sought it out either except in bits and pieces. i do remember the car ride home from the drive-ins.  my parents were in a good mood.  i don't remember what my brothers were doing.  it was dark.  the trip simultaneously lasted forever and was too short.  i knew i would have to step in to the inky black of night.  was there a demon waiting for me in the blackness of night?  i would have to enter a darkened house and travel the long corridor to my room.  i remember the pathway from the driveway to the front door.  the longest path i would, at the time, have to walk.  blackness surrounded me.  my parents were nearby but they might as well be on the moon for all the help they could provide.  for i was in hell that only i experienced.  a hell that existed solely in my head.  i had no idea what waited for me in my room.  all i could do was run to my bed and dive under the covers.


boo

dailies

i need brains!!! sd the zombie
when he got home from work
because mine are fried 

quote unquote

I have, perhaps, three absolutes about sexual expression.  The first, the most obvious and infinitely arguable one, is that we should avoid harming each other whenever possible.  Second is my belief in the importance of self-determination -- the right of every mature individual to make decisions for herself, for himself.  Last is my unquenchable belief (in spite of sometimes quaking neuroses and plenty of evidence to the contrary) in the final goodness of humans -- of human life, the human journey, and the human body.

[. . .]

Sex can help us to like ourselves and find a generosity of of spirit, open ourselves to the world and simply be alive.  We forget that sacred, respectful sex may not look like heterosexual monogamy, and we forget that human beings are sexual every moment of their lives.

-- sallie tisdale [talk dirty to me: an intimate philosophy of sex (doubleday; 1994)]

dailies

hi
did you read that s.f.
is too expensive
for teachers to live
except in tiny rent-controlled flats
shared out by 5 or 6 roommates
yes? then come to sac!
cool place, lively arts community
lots of uber hip restaurants and shops
affordable as yet as fuck
and if you complain about the late-summer heat
well at least it's a dry heat
as you combust in your work clothes
waiting for the light to change
on a crowded midtown corner
watching the pretty transgender woman
cross the street to the other side

i took a stack of books to cayucos and tore thru all of them.  one of the tomes was a bio/study by thomas salumets, unforced flourishing: understanding jaan kaplinski [mcgill-queens's university press; 2014].

i have been a reader of kaplinski for close to 20 years.  what attracts me to the estonian poet is his deceptive simplicity.  kaplinski's poems read almost like diary entries.  they are clear, plain and concise like the classical chinese poets.

kaplinski is a student of buddhism.  as i am.  as many of us are in the world.  the title of salumets' study, 'unforced flourishing' signals a taoist idea of wu-wei, non-action, that what we do is natural, without force, that we strive to be in total harmony with nature.

i write more like kaplinski but i have a great appreciation of difficulty and difficult poets.  this is a hard, problematic world after all.

jose kozer's poetry is difficult.  he too is a student of buddhism.  kozer's poetry is not plain but dense, knotty, thematically hard.  i do not write like kozer -- who can? -- but i can read him with great great pleasure and learn much from the old cubanazo.

paul e nelson travelled to hallendale beach, florida to meet kozer last january and brought back this interview.  actually this is a summary with photos and a few audio links of this interview because of pending publication.  but you get a wonderful portrait of jose kozer as he is a living human being/poet.

i loved this bit that poems should be written quickly, in twenty minutes or less and he agreed with the assessment that his poetry is organic/spontaneous. His says the act of writing the poem is as natural as defecating.

wholly agree with that statement.  write as if it were the most natural thing in the world to you.  because it is.  i look forward to reading/hearing all of this interview conducted by nelson who deserves nine bows for his good work interviewing jose kozer.

dailies

it was crowded on the corner of 24th and j st on a hot late summer thursday evening i noticed most if not all of the people were connected to someone or something via their mobile devices and i mean it seemed as if humanity ditched physical space for cyber space but still there were scores of young and older couples and singles outside enjoying their evening out cafe restaurant or beer garden while i wait for the light to change so i can cross the street i see a homeless man splayed on the grassy median and a man standing over him punching his finger to his mobile phone i wondered if the homeless man was dead or hurt and the man standing over him was calling 911 but as i watched the man turn his back to the homeless man spread on his back and put his phone to his ear in the meantime the light changed i crossed the street watching the homeless man stretched out before us and see him with earbuds attached to his mobile device punching his finger to his screen

'indigo eyes' by peter murphy

beautiful live performance.  this is my favorite peter murphy song.  my favorite part of this performance is when murphy leans toward his son, who is playing acoustic rhythm guitar, and gives his son a kiss right in the middle of the song.  that pulls my dad heartstrings!

last week of summer

but when something ends another thing begins.  so it is the end of summer but it is also the beginning of autumn.  i love hot weather, suntans, and swimming as much as the next california boy but i am a creature of fall, short days, long night, cool weather.  i had my first slice of pumpkin pie tonight and, to quote a poem by james wright, i am in love.

nick goes back to school this week.  he's had a great summer filled with adventures.  we'll round out the sweating season this labor day weekend at the pool.

after this weekend the season will be, for me, early fall.  a time of pumpkin patches, falling leaves, shorter days, and halloween thrills.

would it be weird for a man in his late 40s so in love with halloween?  would it were!  i think it would be more odd not to love and be in love with the world and for me halloween is part of the world i love so dearly.

finally i raise a glass to the memories of filmmaker wes craven and neurologist and writer oliver sacks.  two large souls with distinct bodies of work who left this world a bit more livable and lovable for their being in it.