practice

after john phillips 

 

could feel the earth spin on its axis 

could empty my self of all trivia 

like emptiness

like being ordinary in time 

like practice

simple sitting

& fail at but no thing again 

i am here once more 

here i am 

fucking nothing

no thing

haiku

rotting jack o'lantern on the porch

slowly, smiling 

into the years

quote unquote

we don't have so much time in this world, but we carry on as though we expect eternal life.  in that regard, that snail has progressed further.

it is when you are most burdened by duties that your desire to write and make poetry is at its strongest.

--olav h. hauge, translated from the norwegian by olav grinde  [luminous spaces: selected poems & journals; white pine press; 2016] 

TIMELAPSE OF THE FUTURE: A Journey to the End of Time (4K)

have your mind blown.  this is an extraordinary piece of science & speculation based upon the evidence we have now.  an outstanding piece of art.  & graced with timescales that our human mind cannot fully comprehend.  we can chart & know the equations, but we cannot hold these scales within our mind the way we can when someone asks us the weight of a gallon of milk.  or when you behold the grandeur & immensity of the Grand Canyon.  you can see it, but its sheer scale is almost beyond human comprehension.  we are humble before it, in awe of, in humility, the canyon's size & strangeness.  we've evolved on this planet with its seasons & modest timescales that we measure with the decades of our own lives.  we don't know deep time.  we can't intuit deep time or hold a model of it in our heads.  we didn't evolve to know scales of time beyond our few decades of life.  there are so many things i find humbling.  the beauty & terror of being a finite sentient being at this moment of time.  

haiku

we set the can of cat food on the porch 

midwinter, we wait

the opossum's eager face

i remember it was the year 2000.  before the world changed.  i was in SF with some friends.  i was in North Beach on Columbus Ave outside City Lights Bookstore.  a reading was happening inside.  to inaugurate the new SF poet laureate.  lawrence ferlinghetti was among the assembled.  i didn't recognize him among the faces in the crowd.  but then i did.  i saw him.  sitting & listening.  when i noticed him he noticed me.  i don't know who looked at who first.  for his eyes locked on to mine even before my brain registered who i was looking at.  i was amazed & astonished.  & in an instant turned my gaze elsewhere.  out of embarrassment & humility.  but for a moment a great poet looked at me.  probably trying to figure out who the fuck was this dude staring thru the front windows of City Lights Bookstore.  but there it was.  i saw him.  he saw me.

Road Scholar [1992]

any listener to NPR is familiar with the travelogues & cultural commentary of andrei codrescu.  codrescu came to the u.s. from transylvania, romania in 1966 to become a bohemian & poet.  he succeeded.  & i think codrescu is a very fine poet.  a long-time favorite of mine.

this documentary of a road trip codrescu made in 1991 was broadcast on PBS in '92.  anna & i watched it.  i loved it.  then it disappeared.  when i got my shit together & went to grad school to get my MA i referenced this docu in class.  i received blank stares from my fellow students & a big shrug from the professor.  maybe i hallucinated this flick?

no.  for some lovely person/organization has uploaded the whole docu to youtube.  hard to fathom that this documentary is now 30 years old.  the u.s. has changed quite a bit but in many fundamental ways, like its love of guns, has not changed.  codrescu learns to drive, buys a convertible cadillac, starts his journey in NYC & goes west to CA.  in between our poet encounters many characters & gets into lots of adventures.  how accurate is it a portrait of the united states of america?  i suppose it is pretty accurate.  these are real people doing real things.  but i think if this documentary were made today we would find less lovable eccentricities replaced by scarier things such as the rise of militias drilling in the forests of america.  

wherever you live is ordinary.  other places are exotic.  e.g. paris is home to parisians so when they go on holiday they travel elsewhere.  living in our own postage stamp of the u.s. we might not have the perspective of this country's strangeness & appeal to other human beings who live elsewhere & see the united states of america with a differing perspective.  codrescu does well by giving us his perspective.   

i'm glad to be able to watch this documentary again.  our america has changed so much since 1992.  the world has changed so much.  we are living in a global civilization now.  & yet these pieces of america persist in our imaginations.  i'm surprised codrecscu didn't make a stop at gracelend.  because that has become a holy place.  at least for some americans.  for the rest of us we can take a bemused delight in watching the crystal lady attempt to heal codrecscu with her new age crystals & homilies.  

welcome to america 

follow this link to watch road scholar

making catullus proud

this is now my favorite song

nobody [2021]

yes, because of the pandemic, & because i subscribe to a few streaming platforms, i've been watching a lot of movies & tv shows.  the plethora of choice for content is mindboggling.  gone are the days of the movie theater or the video store.  you can find yr movie fix online.  

not that i don't don't miss the movie-going experience.  the great sac 6 drive in theater [westwind drive-in movies, to be more precise] suffered a massive fire this morning.  the projection booth survived but the lower part of the building that housed the snack bar was scorched.  this is the last drive in theater in the area.  i know that in the lockdown portion of the pandemic the drive-ins had a boost of popularity on account that we can go out to the movies in our own vehicles & still observe social distancing.  & yet the drive-in theater is an endangered species.  when they are gone they will not return.  my hope is that that sac 6 drive ins can make their repairs & get back to full strength.

as for this movie under discussion i just watched it on the HBO app.  i've been watching clips of this flick on youtube.  now that i've seen the movie i can say that it is a hell of a lot of fun.  it's a comic book yarn about a retired government assassin cum family man who comes out of retirement to take on the russian mob.  is it realistic?  you gotta be shitting me!  

comedian bob odenkirk is hutch mansell, a former government cleaner who tried to go straight & clean with a lovely wife, played by connie neilsen, & two young tots.  but man! that urge to be back in the shit is strong.  mansell has a cathartic night of violence dealing with a bus full of young troublemakers.  one of those young men was the brother of a ruthless [ain't they all?!] russian mafia boss.  said boss wants revenge.  when the mob boss, played by aleksey serebryakov, attacks mansell's home with his wife & kids on the premises mansell's inner demon is let loose.  

deftly directed by ilya naishuller, who helmed the goofy but fun ultraviolent first-person shooter flick hardcore henry [2015], this movie also features rza as mansell's brother & christopher lloyd as mansell's dad.  both get in the shit with hutch mansell for blood is thick than water.  want a movie to make some logical sense?  go elsewhere.  but if you want to see a flick about a middle-age badass family man come back into his bloody own then this is the movie for you.

& please please please i hope the sac 6 drive in theater comes back to full strength.  for there is the happiest place on earth. 

it was a gorgeous spring-like day/sometimes when you drive around to get the shit done/you must roll down yr windows/to feel the air/& sun/it's easy to forget/in our technological advanced ways/when we can keep the windows rolled up/& set the interior temp to/whatever degrees we need/but remember/like creeley sd/when we are in the car/'drive he sd, for/christ's sake, look/out where yr going'/i say when you drive/you gotta/roll the window down/feel the wind & the sun/dig the places yr at

absolute music

nora en pure is one of my favorite electronica artists.  when her music plays on the car radio the windows roll down & everyone nearby gets to listen.  

i've not been writing.  i am chin deep in a couple of projects that i will announce when they are done.  but not writing is also a creative act should it be married to the arts of reading/watching/listening.  life is fucking tough.  living is the practice of being kicked in the nuts.  & but so i must always remind myself that there is always something that makes living exciting as fuck.  like watching/listening to nora en pure live onstage a year before the pandemic.  like the great poet elizabeth bishop told us, the art of losing is not hard to master/write it/write it like disaster.  fuck yeah

it came from the trailer park!

this morning i was scanning my shelves for a tome to read on the john.  hey don't judge me.  i know we take our phones in the bathroom now but call me old fashioned.  i like to read a book or journal printed on paper sometimes too.  i've been slowly reading thru the letters of thom gunn.  a couple of poet friends mailed/emailed me some books too in pdf & hard copy.  but i wanted to read about the detritus of our popular culture.  i wanted to read an essay or movie review.  because i had forgotten about the deep pleasures that a really bad movie can provide.  below is the trailer for a flick i have yet to see.  but this movie features one of the exploitation movie greats, sid haig.  he's the dude in this trailer who calls himself 'the dingiest.'  does this kind of racing exist in today's modern world?  i doubt it but i recall figure 8 racing was a thing when i was a wee lad.  this shit is nuts.  in a good way.  i fucking love this trailer.  it's goofy manic devil-may-care fuck you kinda vibe.  this is the kind of movie that was made for the drive-ins.  turn on tune in have a beer or a few.  & dig it!

the book of the pandemic, of these mad/wild days, has yet to be written.  for to give our time the proper/necessary description & analysis requires time + distance to give it its due.  there are plenty of good works being constructed right now.  but to give this crazy time its fair due that requires time & distance.  still, one must live in the present.  i drove nick to & from the local comic con.  nick is a huge fan of manga & anime.  sac convention center was buzzing with young people in cosplay & so on.  all of us at casa de lopez/bronson are triple vaxed & double masked when we venture outside.  nick tells me everyone at comic con were also so masked.  nick told me of discussions that he had with his fellows at the convention.  they all think the way we live now is the way we will live tomorrow.  masked, vaxed & doing our best to protect ourselves from the virus.  but will we always behave like this?  i don't know.  the new normal, or the new new nromal, will dictate life as we live it.  but for now, nick's generation, i gather, & the rest of us human beings, must come to peace with the world as it is.  but for the better perspective we need to live thru these days before we can accurately record the madness of our age.    

another time another age the retro sound of the future today

buenas tardes, saturday!