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The Accordion is a Flower
Posted 9:51 PM, Feb 27, 2006 |
my day is an accordion,
stretching out longer
than you’d think possible,
starting with a sigh,
the downbeat of my first waking breath
cueing the first measure of morning.
between the accordion’s folds
lie my pair of lost
car keys, the photograph of my niece
wearing a hula skirt in the middle
of winter, the slow white shuffle
of snowfall. the instrument
shakes the sleeping flakes off
its keys and keeps me awake.
the accordion is a flower that blooms
at noon and then slowly rolls
back into itself, its petals like
tongues stretching for an afternoon
to lap at the strong sun and pull
the taste of yellow back to their owner, food
to occupy the dreamscapes of flowers
through the quiet, windless evening.
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3 Wishes About Crickets
Posted 12:30 AM, Feb 24, 2006 |
i wish that we were crickets
and could jump the length
of football fields, our sharp,
bony little toes pressing into the turf
and launching us skyward,
you first,
me following close behind.
i wish that i could catch a cricket
and hold it in my hand and feel
its tiny bursts of breath like gentle
pinpricks against my palm.
i would turn it over and look at its
underbelly, the color of soap,
and run my finger the length
of its smooth green skin,
and look at how lean and graceful it is,
a rubber band wrapped inside
in a violin, waiting to turn
out a thousand quiet scales
inside my heart.
i wish that we were crickets
and i would play the six-string
guitar of your hair with the swell
of my ribs and we would whistle
ourselves to sleep.
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Blah Blah 50 Book Project Blah Blah
Posted 2:04 PM, Feb 22, 2006 |
So it’s apparently all the rage for bloggers (or bloogers, as I just typed) to read 50 books a year and then tell everyone about them because there’s no shortage of critics. I thought about stating my intention of reading 50 books last year, but then never did. (I ended up reading 42, plus 2 little books by Joshua Allen and Kevin Fanning that may or may not count.)
Then I thought about it this year, except that this year got off to a rocky start because Little, Big, which I didn’t even come close to finishing, and Heaven Lake, which I did eventually finish, ended up taking all of January. I wasn’t about to set myself up to fail.
However, I seem to have gotten myself back on track, reading 7 books in about 7 weeks (from Heaven Lake through Cracked, which I finished Monday.)
So I’m going to, like, read more books now. I might talk about them.
This post seems mostly pointless, but even more pointless would be to erase it.
Also, one of Stanley’s flowers is dying. I imagine this situation is much like that in E.T., and so I’ve bought a 1-lb. bag of Reese’s Pieces and expect that the flower will perk up sometime in the early evening.
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Slow Going
Posted 8:55 PM, Feb 20, 2006 |
I wrote and posted Chapter 17 today. I forgot (disclaimer) how badly I write any sort of action sequences. Oh well, that’s what rewrites are for.
Also, I started Chapter 18, but didn’t like it.
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Stanley Summation
Posted 7:25 PM, Feb 19, 2006 |
It’s been a crazy weekend — I’ve been unexpectedly busy, and thus didn’t get a lot of things I wanted to get done, done, but that isn’t to say it hasn’t been a good, enjoyable, and productive weekend. Stanley, also, has been productive this weekend.
This is Stanley on Friday morning, I believe. You can see one of the other flowers coming into bloom. Flowers 3 and 4, (Orin and Mario, respectively), bloomed about the same time. Here:
Simply an overhead view of Stanley, accompanied by Mel, Orin, Danny, and Mario (R to L); this photo isn’t very illumating:
This is Stanley today, Sunday evening, with his usual cast of characters. Orin and Mario are, it appears, fully bloomed, and I see no more flowers coming:
I don’t remember which flower this is, but wanted to give you a couple close-ups. Close-up #1:
And close-up #2:
That’s all I’ve got for Stanley now. It looks like the first flower hasn’t really diminished at all. I don’t know how long the flowers will stick around, nor what will happen when they all fall off; I assume Stanley will get more flowers, but I don’t know.
Of course, I could research this information on the Internet, but what’s the fun in that?
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Feed Me, Seymour
Posted 8:26 AM, Feb 17, 2006 |
Stanley was quiet last night, barely doing any growing or anything productive that a plant might do. I’ll wager he didn’t even emit any oxygen. He’s barely holding his own, like a roommate who doesn’t clean and leaves empty beer cans on the back of the toilet.
I happened to actually read my own website late in the day yesterday and noticed Stanley’s diatribe. He’s getting more and more brazen, not to mention cantankerous, and I’ll be keeping the door to my bedroom closed at night. Hopefully he won’t learn how to climb walls, turn keys, and duplicate electronic security pass-cards.
As a result of the tension between Stanley and I, no pictures today. Plus, did I mention that he didn’t do anything useful last night at all? If you want pictures of Stanley this morning, he looks just like he did yesterday morning. Just scroll down.
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Loose Soil
Posted 9:43 AM, Feb 16, 2006 |
Stanley continues to grow, with the second bloom almost fully open now.
When I took the photographs this morning, I noticed lots of loose soil around the pot. Maybe there was a small animal, a mouse or rat or five-lined skink, pawing around. I’ll have to keep my eyes open for dirty little footprints. (Hah, when I first typed the word footprints just now, I accidentally typed rootprints. That’s paints a funny picture in my mind.)
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Stanley Speaks
Posted 1:15 AM, Feb 16, 2006 |
First of all, let me point out how difficult it is to type with these goofy pistils. I’m lucky if I can type 15 words per minute, especially since I have to be quiet. He’s sleeping right behind me, but I couldn’t just sit around any longer.
He’s always taking pictures, shoving that flash right in my flowers. How do you think he would like it if I put a camera right next to his nose, say, and clicked and flashed away 3 or 4 times every morning before sunrise? I don’t think he’d like it at all, but does he pause to think about that?
And it’s before sunrise. Flowers sleep at night and wake up with the sun. (I love the sun.) Sure, it’s night now, and I’m awake and moving around, but this is an exception.
…
Sorry. Had to pause there. He rolled over in bed, and I thought he was going to wake up.
I suppose there will be more pictures of me later in the day. I’m considering cutting off my last two blooms if this fustlethrum continues. This is ridiculous. I’m not just some cheap ploy to get people to read his website. I’m bigger and better than that.
I have to go. My roots are drying up already. Maybe more later.
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A Now-Rare Mention of Politics
Posted 2:17 PM, Feb 15, 2006 |
Honestly, I don’t see what all the fuss is about Cheney and Whittington. Someone made a mistake, obviously, and potentially quite a serious mistake. There’s no denying that. Sure, maybe there’s no denying the fact that Cheney is a bumblefuss, too, and a bad shot. And maybe the Bush administration should have come out and said something about it sooner. Sure.
But ultimately, it was an accident. Oops. A mistake. It shouldn’t be the persisten(ly annoying) national news item that it has become. It is not a sign of all that is wrong with the administration, nor is it a sign of the administration’s secrecy. It’s just an incident, an accident. Everybody needs to cool it for about five minutes.
Look at Stanley. Cool as a cucumber. People should look to Stanley. People should grok Stanley and his calm nature.
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The Anthropomorphic Amaryllis
Posted 8:40 AM, Feb 15, 2006 |
Stanley was up all night, tossing and turning in his soil. I think he was nervous about today.
Today is the day, it looks like, that Stanley’s second flower gets into the action. It’ll be good for him, and for me. All week, it’s been like watching Lethal Weapon but without Danny Glover.
I’ve named the two flowers Mel and Danny, respectively. I’ll take suggestions for the other two flowers, as long as they aren’t Britney and Kevin.
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You Must Be Kidding, You
Posted 8:39 PM, Feb 14, 2006 |
I added two more chapters to the fiction (click on the words “fiction in progress” on the right sidebar) after much time spent, well, not writing. I also fixed up a little bit in the earlier chapters, some tense issues (which were more offensive than I had originally thought) but also some little details here and there.
Pretty clearly a rough draft.
Disclaimers aside, enjoy. More to come, I suspect. The story has been brewing in the coffeepot of my mind, and I’m ready to pour another cup.
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Morning, Stanley!
Posted 7:36 AM, Feb 14, 2006 |
I felt like I should have taken pictures of Stanley yesterday, when really, just between you and me, I was too lazy. I just didn’t feel like it. But then I had a dream where Stanley was suffocating me by wrapping my head in a gigantic blooming flower. So, Stanley wins.
In this picture, you can clearly see the four flowers/buds that will eventually be Stanley’s arms and legs.
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Stanley Update
Posted 8:34 PM, Feb 13, 2006 |
Today Stanley was pretty quiet. I thought I heard him singing, but he must have quit as soon as he heard the key in the lock.
I counted, and there are definitely four flowers in Stanley’s little green torso. One has already bloomed (see yesterday), and one is on its way, the first petal starting to curl out, like a baby bird leaving its nest. Maybe there will be pictures tomorrow, if Stanley is up for it.
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Adding to the List
Posted 1:33 PM, Feb 13, 2006 |
Was James Frey just following in Herman Melville’s foosteps? Perhaps. This article discusses the truthfulness of Melville’s Typee: A Peep at Polynesian Life, based on “ethnographic and archaeological evidence.” Apparently Melville deviated a little bit (or a lot) from the reality of the island of Nuku Hiva and the Taipi.
Just another element to the list.
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Stanley
Posted 8:18 PM, Feb 12, 2006 |
Stanley is an amaryllis that is blooming in my apartment. It’s pretty rare that anything in the jungle actually ever flowers - I think there are only about four that are even capable of it, and one of the plant’s flowers looks more like a belly button than anything else.
Stanley looks to have about three more flowers to go.
Note that the flower is not cuttable, i.e., for use in a vase, because the flowers are grouped in umbels, and thus arise from the same point.
This space will be used to monitor Stanley’s progression into adulthood and (probably) not his descent into the later stages of plant life.
Here is Stanley:
He says hello.
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A Culture of Narcissism or The Death of Objectivity
Posted 1:03 PM, Feb 9, 2006 |
“[Embellishments, fabrications, and distortions in memoirs] remind us that self-dramatization… is just one step removed from the willful self-absorption and shameless self-promotion embraced by the ‘Me Generation’ and its culture of narcissism.” - Michiko Kakutani
“[The death of objectivity] relieves me of the obligation to be right; [it] demands only that I be interesting.” - Stanley Fish
I’ve spent some time thinking about these ideas, all prompted by the James Frey incident, and spent some more time in the last week brainstorming about possible topics to tie on to the ideas summarized by Kakutani and Fish. A brainstormed list includes, in no particular order:
- Oliver Stone-type historical films (not documentaries) (JFK, Nixon, even, say, Glory or more obviously (?) fictional films like Dances with Wolves.
- The opening statement in Fargo that claims the film is based on actual events, when it actually isn’t.
- The plagiarising and outright purchasing of college application essays (in which it’s less important that the content is true, and more important that the content resonates, to borrow from Oprah.)
- James Frey over and over again.
- The explosion of the memoir genre, from things like unauthorized biographies, biographies written from a fictional character’s point of view, to “actual” memoirs like Dave Eggers’, etc., about which I’m sure there are countless issues re: truthfulness.
- Wikipedia.
- The honesty (and reliability) or lack thereof regarding today’s news media (see Fox’s notorious conservativism, etc.)
- Shows that pose as real news shows but are, in fact, thinly-veiled opinion shows.
- Parodies of news media that are obviously (again, ?) parodies (The Onion, The Daily Show).
- Novelistic journalism (the non-fiction novel) (In Cold Blood, The Executioner’s Song).
- High schooler’s imagining that Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar is fact.
- The persistence of urban legends and people’s immediate acceptance of them (this was really played up in that movie, um, Urban Legend.)
- Nearly the same thing as the previous, email forwards about things like the Neiman-Marcus cookie recipe.
- Documentary-style shows such as The Office.
- The increase in popularity of film documentaries, especially about timely cultural topics (Fahrenheit 9/11, Super Size Me).
- The abuse of statistics and subsequent acceptance of those statistics.
- The blurring of the line between theories and beliefs (see evolution v. intelligent design).
- JT Leroy
- Jayson Blair
- Jonathan Franzen’s adherence to truth and accuracy re: his father’s death, which got him labeled as “spoilt,” “ungrateful,” etc.
- Bush’s statements about the media living in a “reality-based community,” and also asserting that, paraphrased, “We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality.”
- Reality shows in general.
- Paraphrasing, “It depends on what your definition of ‘is’ is,” and other bold attempts to simply redefine long-accepted facts and definitions (see, again, evolution v. intelligent design).
- A recent Wall Street Journal article about the expense of fact-checking to publishers, and whose responsibility it is to fact-check.
And lastly, a couple other quotes, from Tim Adams in The Observer, January 29, 2006:
“Readers of [memoirs about people with miserable pasts] would previously have looked to fiction for their emotional engagement but now they respond to the extra ‘integrity’ of fact.”
“It is… hard to ignore the financial incentives that lie in exaggeration and fabrication.”
And, from someone in Oprah’s book club, “The fact squad, these people make me sick!”
I’m going to take some of this brainstorming and try to roll it into a nice little package.
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TriMet
Posted 9:56 PM, Feb 4, 2006 |
I spent about 3 days in the rainy, glorious confines of Portland, Oregon. Nearly all my transportation needs were met in a similarly glorious fashion by the TriMet, Portland’s public transportation system. Buses! Light rail! Streetcars! All were boarded, all were enjoyed, most were on time, and those that weren’t were close enough.
The trip was studded with visits to the Oregon Museum of Science & Industry, three visits to Powell’s bookstore (2 locations), great Greek food at Nicholas’s Restaurant, great South American food at Oba, some gallery viewing, rain, rain, and rain.
I also bought an umbrella.
There was also a hailstorm.
One hotel room did not have a trash can. The other had a chalkboard in it.
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