silent shroud

A Sonnet to Make You Weep #1

2010-10-20T22:16:00.001-07:00

If you go, let me go with you.
I want to travel the grey road
beneath green hills, to where blood flowed
and gathered in pools from souls we knew.
Let us gather in the homes of the few,
now happy, chanting an old ode,
memorized and changed into code--
a song from which our bright bones grew

But give me some new song to sing,
to sing my way out from beneath
these hills to where sun and stars sting,
to love despite this grief underneath,
to walk beneath the moonlight singing
till oaks are my shade, with bells ringing.

A Crapload of Potential Poems Written as Prose Poems

2010-07-17T02:17:00.002-07:00

Disclaimer-these are all rough drafts posted here for the purpose of workshopping, so if phrases from appear in future work that I might try to publish, it will not be as it is presented here. For other readers-do your worst, as I would appreciate the feedback.

Poem #1
We are waiting for a paradox between the grain sown, the grain dying, the growing and dead and rising again, while waiting not for destruction, but for a light, blinding and revealing. I do not question the crumby soil or deep-veined trues, but my belief in them as if they are only waiting for men silent and thief-like to wheel them away to show the god waiting in the machine, waiting for the curtain to lower and fall, to bow and strut and wave, receiving creation as a genuine gift.

#2
It was near midnight and Johnny Cash was on the radio. The stray streetlamps glowed only as nightlights for the hollers, and the road was empty of cars. The gunpowder of 4th of July lingered in the air, turning in my seat I watched you fast asleep, and wonder why the moonlight and willow strands of your body could leave me worshiping you, but loveless. I admired your perfections, the way the lip's curve reflected the brightness beneath, but I was afraid that I could destroy it with ordinary desire, not for the stars or moons, but for the fingers to hands to arms, and toes to feet to legs running in the copse, lying beneath the open trees.

#3
I walk with a ghost, who is love vanished, and who is love replaced by the noon-time beauties that walk before me, around me. But the ones walking before me I am incapable of embracing; I cannot accept them, as if I cast myself into a myth, where I sing for the past and stillborn future.

#4
The angriest of men do not keep ledgers of all wrongs--real and imagined--but are half drunk on memories and dreams--the subtle changes in clouds over a vacant field while recalling a childhood where others buried themselves beneath their chores--domestic and churchly. And I step away and towards the glass doors all around, seeking refuge in destruction, and fearing its reprisals. Why not disintegrate upon impact? Fire extinguisher to door, and have it burst in flames: a ghost to carry away my un-reckoned hurricanes. But ghost-less, my ledger counts random destruction and the longing, fatigued beneath the sun, for all these bones to be mended.

#5
There is a leech, long and metallic, attached to my spine, and at night as I try to sing myself to sleep I listen to its mechanical whirring, and as my consciousness dissolves I feel my blood slip. As it siphons, I play with its centipedial legs, with care disabling the with closest legs, toying with it, picking it as with a scab. What pain that it might be, it's also a toy, an undying dog; something so sweet in its persistence that I love it.

#6
As I walk over the ground it feels as if it rumbles, its folds and bumps rise and fall as waves. I am unsteady, swearing off edges or heights, and favoring fields and streets clean and safe.

fragment
The ground with its bumps rumbles as the ocean when I walk--I am unsteady and reach for something

akh-kha

#7
I know nothing right now, not with this oceanic turf that pitches beneath as I walk.

I feel a danger to myself, and need something for courage and something for my nerves, but it is still not the end. I am a danger to myself, but not to you.

But an explanation: I have days, months, years (all discreet units so the stench from failure fails to carry over) where My heart feels loveless, where time seems endless and life and death seem to be two sides of the same coin, and only appear as the obverse of the other and if I were to die that life would carry over, but in the way that I imagined Australia when I was younger. I can't run and can't jump, and life breathes through my veins, echoes in my lungs in asthmatic fashion.

I am a danger to myself, but only slightly, like a dodgy tackle where I get a bit a leg and a bit of ball, but the other guy still falls, then rebounding in a fit of profanity. I am a slight danger to myself and unsteady, like the one time on the boat where I felt the fancy to throw my glasses overboard. I might get hurt, but I might only think of it.

I am a bit unsteady, unsure of whether to live more in the past or in the future or in the present, and if I live for this present moment, does it do me any good to compare how well I'm living in this moment to other times? It's circular and dizzying, but I want to take your hand and kiss it, take your head and cradle it, and wander together towards some sort of train (i'll take whatever is available) and declare my passions, coded into some language that only the two of us know.

Hopefully, not in so many words, but I'm verbose when drunk, coaxed out of my melancholy slumber, and all of this would require drink, perhaps more for you than for me, but what the hell, I'm on a roll, making a toast out of my fragility, singing a sad song for the glasses I tossed into the sea.

#8
The fear is sweet, as sweet as the chilling eastern wind in january, and so it is-- 2 hours after midnight, and sleep seems to be death. I'd rather watch Bob Dylan videos and forget my tiredness, and lose myself in the ramblings of the old man. why should I sleep? my eyes turn towards the darkness, towards the black wheel that spins above the snowy earth, and the stars bleeding into the its rim yell out in invitation and terror. I bite my lip; it looks so sweet: to lose this turncoat corpse, and seditious mind and blend into shadow.

fragment
But, but... I dread this sleep, this ordinary sleep free from any ties to death. Afraid to leave this charmed and cursed day, afraid to face a fresh brigade of moments and somehow turn them to my favor.

Мысли для сегодня

2010-05-09T20:50:00.005-07:00

Одна неделя Вера Сергеевна была с сестрой в Нижним, а была у нас (Петя и я) была ее мама. Один вечер после ужина бабушка со мной смотрели телевизор, а по нему “Летят журавли” передал. Он, конечно, классический фильм про ВОВ и жалости ее, и бабушка начала говорить об опыте ее; она начинала среднюю школу и увидела как старше школьники уехали на фронт и как никто вернулся. Она говорила про трех братьев своих, да из них один строен танком, но чуть не 160 сантиметров. Он и не вернулся.

Я думаю, что сейчас трудно понимать ужас Второй мировой войны, так как проблемы нашего века нас волнует, и редко мы можем думать об прежних проблемов. Также, мы можем смотреть памятники в Москве, во Владимире и в Волгоград, как можем мы понимать чувства--страх и смелость--из их, которые погибли и пережили?

Война зла. Но иногда надо драться против тех, что представляет ясные зло и страх, и требует, что жизнь подтверждает к идеалам ненависти их. Поэтому гибели из каких войн хуже других.

Нормально, с праздником мы желаем счастья или удачи, но сегодня наверно лучше желать памяти--память о том, что должен не приходиться еще раз.

Spambot

2010-04-20T03:03:00.002-07:00

I have just been spambot-ed epically by a Miss Jane. If anyone sees a big block of Chinese, please tell me, so I can get rid of it all.

Also, I recently read that spambots are the prototypes of sexbots, which might have been one of the single scariest things I've read in a long time.

How are yall doing anyway?

My Idea for a Church Library (A Library for Church Rebels of the Future)

2010-03-18T02:56:00.001-07:00

Some time ago, our church took the books out of the church library and turned the space into a coffee bar (which is nice enough--if you like coffee). I'm in need of projects, and I would like to find some other space in the building and turn it into a library. Anybody who knows me knows that I have spent a good chunk of my life in libraries (library cards from three states, Russia, and two counties in Oregon, not counting university id cards that work as library cards), and some of that time has been in church libraries, and I've volunteered for the WV library as well. This close familiarity of religious libraries has allowed me to observe the strength and weaknesses of these types of libraries, and, if I were to able to organize such a library, I would set if up in such a way that it would be strong so that it be both unique and helpful to lay congregants.

The weaknesses are simple, and I've read my fair share of crap, but I've grown past it and I have dispensed with it. These books are romances, end-times conspiracy theory books, hackneyed testimonials and books by Chuck Colson, who is a real piece of scum. (Would I say that to his face? Yes, though I would try to be more polite than that, maybe saying "Sir, you are a real piece of scum".)

So that is simple enough, and now what should be included? Things to be included should be commentaries and other such books that would be helpful in a lay scholarly. Likewise, books that accurately describe other religions and traditions should be included as well. I'm not terribly knowledgeable, so I'll let this part go without specifics, though it should be chosen thoughtfully. The thing that most interests me about church libraries is the necessity for readers to encounter lives outside of themselves, and to be able to better understand their lives, through books that explore the peculiarities of life. In other words, an ideal church library would have books about social justice, novels and poetry. The great theme that unifies all of these works is human suffering. To bless and alleviate human suffering is part of the original command to the church as outlined, directly or indirectly, in every part of the Beatitudes. There would be lighter works, sure, but, seriously, what do we need with them? Every three minute song on the radio would confirm and speak to someone's happiness, and if people are in a neutral emotional place, they should be led to consider the state of others, and bring comfort to others in their actions as they might be encouraged in a book by Ron Sider, Tony Campolo or Wendell Berry, or they should be encouraged to understand through fictional works the emotional pain experienced by those around them, and seek to ease that pain through empathy. As the great reverend John Donne once wrote "No man is an island entire to himself; every man is a piece of the continent, apart of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less... any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind", and to forget our elemental humanity means that we forget that we are not individuals 100%, but rather we are like leaves on tree--alone but still connected to a broader form. A serious lack of empathy is also a lack of reflection and honesty, and so we should recognize it in others, and offer comfort.

I want to talk further about sorrow and empathy and the ultimate necessity of these things at some other later point, but for the moment I need to answer some possible questions. What kind of novels and poetry? Religious? For the first--many kinds, and for the second--no, and certainly not just Baptist or Protestant writers, but writers of any religious persuasion or even those without any sort of faith. The reason for this is that these selected writers are concerned with the human condition, and read as a diary after the Fall, containing greater and more subtle shades of the human experience than it is usually displayed in canonical texts. These great texts were written with inspiration coming downwind of Heaven, so the scheme is usually greater than what we really can articulate. Likewise, the great human error has been to quarrel endlessly about the author of our mortal "narrative", when often we are in agreement of its themes and signs. To illustrate by example, Lev Tolstoi, the great Russian writer of "War and Peace" and "Anna Karenina", even now buried in the ground belongs to no established religious tradition (even his bones are in excommunication from the Orthodox church), but his writings (sometimes) belong to the looser, un-established trends of Christian Anarchism, which in turn nicely dovetails with the traditions that fall within the Anabaptist spectrum. Where would we be without Shakespeare, Dostoevskii or Camus? A bit of scum, floating in the sea, isolated from our brothers and sisters.

2010-02-07T22:47:00.002-08:00

I've been enjoying a lot of music lately that combines trad roots with rock elements. Consider this a visual (sometimes) mix tape.

Fairport Convention documentary clip

Audio of the Fairport song "Matty Groves."

Led Zeppelin deserve a place (or several places), and so here is their song "Bron-Y-Aur Stomp". For geeky points, note Plant yelling "Strider" at the end.

My Brightest Diamond covering Led Zeppelin's "No Quarter"

I'm going to have to move ahead a few decades on this one, since trad was not fashionable for the eighties and nineties. It also moved around a bit, with bands from America and Scandinavia indebted to Fairport Convention.

A clip about the Decemberists' album "Hazards of Love".

A solo Colin Meloy playing "We Both Go down Together"

Opeth "Harvest"

One of the more old world sounding songs from the Fleet Foxes "White Winter Hymnal".

Esper's "Travel Mountains"

Two White Stripe songs that I always count as one.

"Prickly Thorn, But Sweetly Worn"

Video game highlights set to "St. Andrew (The Battle is in the Air)" by the White Stripes. As you can probably tell from the title, there are bagpipes in the song.

One noble YouTube user has paired Midlake's "Acts of Man" with F.W. Murnau's film "Sunrise".

Part of the movement returning trad music to Britain are The Smoke Fairies, with their song "Sunshine".

Church Rebels of the Future

2010-02-07T10:43:00.002-08:00

Right now my brother has a note on his desk addressed to him (and others) as "Church Leaders of the Future". As you could probably tell I did not get such a note. In my family I'm the liberal, so that my cousins can be liberal. This role is similar to my place at church; I'm willing to say some stuff and do some things (even though I consider myself to be quite orthodox), so that others will have a little bit of breathing space. Everything can be quite repetitious and a bit of a echo chamber at church; it's nice when a different voice can be heard.

There's not much use in being baptist (or Protestant) if you don't try think for yourself, and learn without parroting.

Soccer!

2010-02-04T20:11:00.002-08:00

Meiska, you can skip this one.

An article in the Times about Arsene Wenger, manager of the Arsenal.

An article from the Daily Mail about the Arsenal youth program.

An interview with writer Aleksander Hemon about soccer, and his essay "If There Was a God, He Would Be a Solid Midfielder". I photocopied the essay at school, and would recommend reading it, very perceptive about life and using the people and events he has known through pick-up games to explore more of life.

An essay from Zadie Smith about American writers and their hair. About halfway through the piece, she writes about Hemon's bald, immigrant head, and his passion for soccer.

Ukraine, icons and soccer.

Daily Notes, Day 2

2010-01-19T01:05:00.002-08:00

Tomorrow in blogging terms is whenever I post again. So from last week today is tomorrow.

I'm working on two longer posts (to be broken down later)--one on the word love and how it is used, and another about linguistics (nothing technical; I just want to talk about languages).

Here, I want to write more directly about something. I'm tired of Sundays. My church is nice enough, but still I'm tired. I'm tired because sermons are speeches and not conversations, and there seems to be no place for me to speak freely. Not that I'm qualified; I'm not a trained pastor, full of theological nuances. But there is no place for me, not in any Sunday school, and it drives me crazy when I hear broad, unqualified and sometimes untrue statements and I cannot counter the statements. These statements can be made by anyone (and I can make them too), but think that they are made too often at church. We need simpler conversations that allow for nuance and questions and clarity. These sort of conversations will bring us closer to the truth.

Also, never use "dialogue" to refer to actual speech. If you use it as a verb, you will go to a special hell. The problem in using it to refer to actual speech is that is now what the word means. It means written speech to spoken by actors in a play or characters in a book. If you use it to refer to live, unrehearsed speech (supposedly), you do it a disservice, and imply that you cannot speak freely.

And finally...

I like clarity. One of my friends wants revolution. I want introspection. I guess it wouldn't be a much of a surprise that my heroes are people like Kierkegaard and Dostoevsky.

Another video

No Notes Today

2010-01-11T17:01:00.003-08:00

No note today, since I'm sick and needing to write a short something for an application about my teaching philosophy. I can't post it here, because it would then involve complicated explanations that their bright, shiny grad student sometimes blogs under the name taken from a fantasy novel. Unless of course I was applying for a course in Quenya.

Chuck was fun last night. Cheese-puff addiction is dangerous, so it was good to see Zachary Levi and co. warn the world of that. Also, in the first episode of the double-header was the song "Backwards Walk" by the band Frightened Rabbit. Just talking about the band leaves me with Glaswegian accent. I hope to have something up about linguistics tomorrow.

I leave with Frightened Rabbit.

Daily Writing, Day One "Chuck"

2010-01-10T13:13:00.004-08:00

(Note-I'm trying to write more (daily, in fact), and I intend to have a short essay up here every day (or almost every day). Enjoy!

Tonight, the tv show Chuck is coming back. Somehow it has survived to its third year, and I'm very grateful that it has. The show may not have begun in the best of ways considering that I spent the first few minutes of the pilot shouting advice at the tv. I generally don't do that. But then a supercomputer program is downloaded into his brain, and becomes an asset protected by a NSA (Casey, played by Adam Baldwin) and a CIA agent (Sara, played by Yvonne Strahovski). Over the last two years Chuck, the man and spy, has grown, and now it appears he'll no longer have to sit in the car (the most repeated line in the first two seasons is "Chuck, stay in the car!"), but has become an agent in his own right.

The program has also grown. When the promos first aired it seemed the show would be nothing more than a form of wish fulfillment--the lonely geek whose life seems to be a dead end in a fictional version of a box store (The Buy More) geek squad (the Nerd Herd, catchy, isn't it?), and he is suddenly rescued from these doldrums by a beautiful blonde, becoming a geek James Bonds. It's more than that, really. All those things are true, but what it's really about is being a young man, talented, but drifting, with all the education you can buy (Stanford, in this case), leaves only him with a job that pay little better than minimum wage, and then suddenly thrust into a role of some kind of responsibility and trying to grow into it. It is a way that I often feel. I have my skills and ambitions, and I hope that this will all pay off.

Not only does Chuck find that the life of a spy not that it's all cracked up to be, he also discovers having a beautiful handler(hehe)/fake girlfriend also proves to be complicated. First, desire is real but cannot be expressed. Second, even if two people have the same sentiments, it does not mean that they can share these sentiments. These complications are ones that we all experience as we grow older. When we are young with infatuation as training wheels we think that our emotions will lead the and they will be 100% shared with the one we love. As we grow older we realize that love is really the emotional barometer of trust, which is our willingness to put our lives in the hands of others. As our trust in others fluctuates, so do our emotions. Love is really a game of trust, and we are left hoping that our gamble will be rewarded. This gamble does not always pay off in Chuck's new world as he tries to keep up with the parallels of relationships and spy-craft, with their covers, disguises and two-timing.

The show may seem to be superficial, but really it handles many difficult topics deftly, slyly, till only later you realize its depths. Chuck is first rate escapism--don't get me wrong--, but it escapes from our misconceptions to stranger and more covert facets of our lives.

A Suggestion

2009-04-21T00:05:00.002-07:00

If coolness is the objective, then you can't get higher (evolutionary speaking) than a male Silverback Gorilla, but we're human with a consciousness unique to us, and so then use of this consciousness is one of the most valuable things we can do, meaning the geek really will rule the earth.

(Feel free to quibble with choice of "coolest organism." A pretty good case can be made for the Bengal Tiger, after all.)

An Odd Question

2009-04-21T00:00:00.001-07:00

If someone were to describe his/herself as an allegorical agnostic, what would that mean?

Sorrow: A Poem for Venedict Erofeev

2009-03-15T16:28:00.001-07:00

Venichka, the Heavenly Angels are laughing
and your red-haired witch
is here, ever present as the
December fog that's covering the steeple crosses
in soft-focus, weakening lingering pain.

Venichka, the devil rides the Moscow train,
and your red-haired witch
waits at the station with the alcoholics,
passing around Putinka and Zhiguluvski.
She said she doesn't mind the drowning,
waking is the problem.

Venichka, God only speaks when in pain
and your red-haired witch
sits with the begging grannies on the street,
fingering her crucifix, telling anyone
she is like the compassion
before death and springtime love,
smiling, crying, laughing.

Razing the Bar: The Buddy System

2009-02-24T19:54:00.001-08:00

Razing the Bar: The Buddy System

Yes, this is very serious and would very sad if he were to go.

Cool Dylan Poster

2009-02-22T00:26:00.003-08:00

hat-tip to Queen of Arts for the tip-off

Get Your (Hate) Boots On

2009-01-31T17:13:00.003-08:00

There is one week until the 2nd leg of the North London Derby between the beloved Arsenal and the hated Sp*rs.

Helping us get our hate on is the Guardian with this headline

Spurs blow as foot injury strikes Defoe

Yes, the Sp*rs do blow. And suck. And everything.

Thinking about a Dylan song

2009-01-29T16:43:00.004-08:00

It'd been a while since I've subjected anyone around here to another one of my Dylan rambles, so here we go from Love Minus Zero/No Limit.

People carry roses,
Make promises by the hours,
My love she laughs like the flowers,
Valentines can't buy her.

There is a girl walking around town, going to work, going to school and trying the door handles. Doors with keyholes that when she peeks through them she sees gardens. With her is a book and inside is a ring of keys, and every day she tries a few doors, finding a magical swirling ship one day, a parade of clowns another. I don't really know what she sees.

Once we had tea together on a rainy day overlooking the missing Mississippi and joining us were Buddha and Christ, and we talked for a little while, but we had to leave after a little while when one ascended and the other just levitated, so it made conversation just a little bit difficult. We had other things we wanted to do anyway.

We walked among trees frequented by lovers, who hunt for a make out places just off the main walk. Carrying a unopened bottle I walked up to contorted couples asking for a corkscrew. Eventually we got one, but our efforts weren't much appreciated, even with a sweet looking girl looking on with a grin borrowed from Puck. Every guy preferred to whisper those sweet-whatevers they want to say between locking lips, hoping that their flowers could see them home.

She learned about recycling on the Valentine's day in the first grade; she preferred to drive down the highway, blasting Hendrix's "51st Anniversary," singing

And then you come saying
So you, you say you wanna get married
Oh baby trying to put me on a chain
Aint that some shame
You must be losing your, sweet little mind
I aint ready yet, baby, I aint ready
Im gonna change your mind...

Those weren't times for us to ramble and talk, afterall there was solos that needed to be played, and I needed to play them.

Apparently little brothers can do some things right

2009-01-25T21:28:00.003-08:00

Go over to Why's blog and see his latest round of "Paint" images.

Poem #34 (I don't actually remember when I wrote this. I think I wrote it in Russia)

2009-01-19T23:36:00.002-08:00

The living and the dead, we always
want to know where we are going,
how we are dying, and how we will live,
and how they will live too.

And I am also anxious for life,
to learn how to live, to learn
how to move beyond the simple breaths
and pulses and steps and hope
to live among the living as if I was one...

As if...
I said that because sometimes,
or most times I think that I'm like
a dead man living, resurrected, or simply
revived to walk again, full of grey sorrow
unexplained by the passing days.

I feel my faith and my sorrow, and times
pray to not to have been born, but now
that's impossible, and so does
being born again. So I walk, stand, sit
and lie, sometimes alone, sometimes not
in a melancholy form.
And when I feel
caught I write a few lines:
solo soul looking
for solace, looking for a pair of eyes
that look back at him, seeing the
india ink lines, seeing some beauty,
someone to brush off the dust off my body,
the dirt from my clothes, who can love
a fresh creation, taken from the earth.

Garrincha

2009-01-18T22:32:00.002-08:00

On January 20th 1982 the Brazilian soccer legend Garrincha died. Outside of Brazil he never was better known than Pele, and his slender fame is decreasing, even Pele acknowledged Garrincha's skill as being fundamental in Brazil winning its first three World Cup winners medals. Here is a reflection on the legend. And here are some videos.

A Sad Story of Some Happiness
Part I

Part II

Part III

Random thought about poetic language

2009-01-12T22:52:00.002-08:00

A problem that I've discovered is that no one has ever described how the stomach or the belly feels or, rather, appears. A belly is happy and satisfied or a stomach growls or there is a bad feeling in the pit of the stomach, but these conventions are strictly introspective, but to describe how one's own stomach feels from the outside, that is something else altogether and incomplete. A baby's will be described as soft and an athlete's will be hard, but you, my friend, if you were to rub your stomach how would it feel? The skin drags against bone or against fat. It might baby soft or athlete hard, or hairy or smooth, but to move more imaginatively from this simple tactile language is really difficult.

What are your random thoughts?

Why Obama

2008-11-04T06:26:00.002-08:00

Why Obama?

You probably aren't going to be reading this as you leave this morning, and you probably already voted, and you probably won't be influenced, but lemmee give this a shot.

Obama's policies aren't that exciting. If I was going solely off of policies I'd be really sore that John Edwards isn't the one on the ballot, and so those massive crowds are not showing up to hear him give a policy talk. It is about Change.

Change, especially to my Republican friends seems like a dumb cliche, and it may be totally empty, but let's wait and see about that. Change may be something that he says, but it's really something that he knows. As if one day he put his head to the ground and heard it rumbling down the tracks. Change, what we need, what we talk about is real.

And so is Hope. Another cornball phrase that makes you wonder if Frank Capra is the one running for president, but like Capra, it's true. War. Torture. Decline. Unhappiness. Collapse. Recession. Failure. I talked about this kind of stuff, three, two years ago, and what I heard back was that it wasn't going to change, that it was hopeless. But things are changing, there is hope. The government, though it will never really be "by the people of the people for the people" it can still hold off the encroachment of other powers, there is still some possibility that our representatives will actually represent us. What seemed impossible, is now looking possible, if not probable, or doable, or done.

Once a upon a time Bob Dylan sang sbout times changing and he was right. He didn't say anything specific really, but doesn't matter much, because things really did change, and probably in ways that he didn't expect. War came, but there also came people who resisted war, and society's apparent compulsion to fight wars, and I think something similar is happening with Obama.

He represents a change in American thinking, american thinking about itself. No longer is America the top dog that can do everything by herself. She is humbled. Also, She is no longer the representative of a certain class only, or a sort of breeding. The US can now welcome the world back as she did at the turn of the 20th century, or after the Second World War. Also she can open up her doors and welcome in the world, she can open herself, listen to the world, and actually care and consider what others are saying. This doesn't detract from her greatness, though greatness is just the best excuse for being a bastard. This helps to restore her goodness. This helps to insure that the part of the country that sometimes decides to carry around pitchforks and torches for the heck of it will not be deciding the country, and that they will not be ruling it.

Obama is not doing any of this all by himself. He could just be a figurehead for all I know and care, but he's a figurehead, a totem, talisman of everything that I want to see in this country. And from this, his guidance, and from others in his party (though not everyone in that party, good grief! there's some real chicken-livers in that bunch. But Jim Webb? Dreamy. :)

I don't have much more to say. Just I hope when I wake up on Wednesday that it'll be to the news that Obama is our new president.

Why not McCain

2008-10-22T09:51:00.002-07:00

I'll try to write something positive, pro-Obama, but I think the first, essential piece of the arguement is "why not McCain?"

Why not McCain? We don't need four more years of a president who places war before peace, and who has never needed to understand the lives of ordainary Americans. The man has no idea how many houses he owns (I lost track after 6), and he obviously has no idea how the economy works. Politicians like to talk about Band Aid solutions, but it seems that McCain doesn't know if Band Aids are more suitable for headaches or cuts. He can't even begin to try.

Obama has often said that we don't need eight more years of the same policies. You know who agrees? My Russian host mom. Putin is her sweetie, so she's obviously no leftist or communist, and she likes Obama, rates him as a decent human being who may not be like other politicians. Also, my Arab-American friends (who are Christians, as if that matters) are high on Obama and dislike McCain, because they and my host mom see in Bush and McCain the same things--the embodiment of reckless American arrogance towards the rest of the world. When Egypt and Russia are no longer abstract places, policy has a concrete meaning, and these boms and guns and aid are affecting places and people that you love.

Why not McCain?
The National Socialists are reporting that membership in their party is increasing, because his most ardent supporters have the look of a mob about them, not caring about the racism that they are spouting, and maybe even proud of it. For the first time in a long time Americans are voicing actual racist thoughts, everythng they've kept shut about is now coming out of their mouths. And they're unashamed about it. I saw a video clip where a "values voter" said that she would never vote for someone named Obama, and no Christian would have the name "Obama". This is disgusting. Does she also think that Desta, Eyasu, Sameh, Pei-Wei and Sung-Han are not names Christians can have? Her view of Christianity is narrowed by race, and you can see that in this election that it isn't just her. The woman at the McCain rally who said that Obama couldn't be trusted because he's an "Arab" (scare quotes for obvious misinformation). And you can read Palin's speeches about the pockets of "Real America" that apparently proping up our country. What she's talking about is the "invisible republic", the "old, weird America " (both terms are Greil Marcus') and somehow this forgotten conscience of the nation is pushing itself through. How? But through the rascist chants that can be heard at McCain/Palin rallies. But Greil Marcus was talking about an underside to the nation, a subconscious memory of the old days (and new days) that isn't part of the American dream, and it's place where Americans can see the ghost of Tom Joad, and where Dock Boggs is singing "O Death." The place whence Flannery O'Connor found her anti-heroes and they found their Revelations. It's a place between heaven and earth and life and death, and where we are no longer thinking about two cars in the garage and a chicken in every pot. In Palin's mouth and hustled by her hot air voice this America is the mad house with the shut in Klansmen, stuffing their slave picked cotton into their ears the moment they hear the strains of "Swing low sweet chariot, coming forth to carry me home, swing low..." And the moment the repentant trader begins his song of amazing grace. Palin is speaking of a place where there isn't grace and their isn't merit either. Only the pure power of birth. The only thing She and her hubby have been using to attact Obama has been his birth and ancestry and the possibility that he's a "Secret Muslim." They're resorting to the school yard insult of calling the fatherless kid a bastard, a son of a bitch, a son of a whore. This is disgusting.

Of course, not every McCain supporter is some kind of racist, and I'm not trying to suggest that. A number of people that I know who do support McCain do so because they think that he'll overturn Roe vs Wade (quick poll, what did Roe vs Wade actually decide?), and so throwing them together with these racist hooligans is nonsense.

I only want to ask one question: do you want your vote to be swept up and counted and tarred with the votes of these thugs? Is this something you really value?

If you're going to talk integrity and doing things the right way and living the right way and no comprimises, do you want your vote to be compromised in this way?

In the song "When the Ship Comes in" Bob Dylan painted an apocalyptic scene of both triumph and despair, and towards the end of the song he sings
"Then the sands will roll
Out a carpet of gold
For your weary toes to be a-touchin'.
And the ship's wise men
Will remind you once again
That the whole wide world is watchin'."

Once again the whole wide world is watching, and do you understand what they're seeing?

McMenamins Grand Lodge August 17th 2008

2008-08-19T11:50:00.003-07:00

Family Camp at Ft. Stevens, August 16th 2008

2008-08-19T11:21:00.006-07:00

Obama Poster modified, now in Russian

2008-08-09T01:18:00.004-07:00

I found this Obama poster online,

and changed the words, and gave the message in Russian.

In English it says "Our President: Obama in 08
and the word below it is "Hope." (of course).

It's common in Russia for the ads to be about how a certain candidate is "ours," and I continued that here, especially with the hope (pesky word!) that he won't loved in only one part of the country, or by one group of people; that he'll be loved universally.

Sometimes he gets mocked for running on hope, but when I have posted my political thoughts on this blog, people have responded that they feel hopeless about politics and how the system could be changed. Obama's policies aren't very different from most other people's, but he brings this style to it, and biography that challenges the system (whatever the system is). George W. Bush got into Yale, cause his dad graduated from Yale--Obama went to Harvard and graduated from there because he is very intelligent and he worked very hard. And so I hope in November that'll I walk by a newstand in Russian and the words will read Обама- Президент США.

Buddha and his plastic friends

2008-08-05T02:07:00.002-07:00

Still life of a glass of beer and a lemon

2008-08-05T02:05:00.003-07:00

July 18th From PSU to Pioneer Cthouse Sq. to a park in SE Portland via the Hawthorne Bridge

2008-08-05T01:56:00.003-07:00

2008-08-05T01:28:00.006-07:00

2008-08-05T01:19:00.002-07:00

2008-08-05T01:11:00.002-07:00

2008-08-05T00:50:00.005-07:00

Poetry # 33

2008-08-04T01:32:00.002-07:00

The paper said a man died last night
in the dawn's light
it was one last ride,
the police are calling it suicide;
he left behind a guitar
and a book of poems in a car,
also stashed with notebooks
filled with half-began hooks
and unfinished songs
(everyone sing along)--
Never knew about him,
but I want to read it again.

But, but
with ashes or a green grass grave,
I won't be brave
Either, and guts will come to an end
If I read this again.

Should have written this one years ago

2008-08-03T00:25:00.006-07:00

Smell the gunpowder in the air,
wish you could see the moon play with your hair
We're here with everyone we know
Crowded around a lonely Tennessee road,
all gathered together on a 4th of July
to watch rockets ripple through the sky
Who was I? Just a lonely kid
who spoke his dreams and hid
from anyone who could care, and that night
I sat on the hill, away from the fire light,
scared of crowds, and watching the sky--
I saw you--I caught your eye
I caught you walking from your home
by yourself--you were rarely alone--
Beauty doesn't get friends, parades
is more style, but there you stayed
and I asked if you wanted to stay
and I waited, hoping you'd say:

Let's run through the hollers,
take shelter in the trees,
make a home in the hills,
let's live free;

Run through the hollers
and the hills,
let's live free
in the trees of Tennessee.

Future Adventures

2008-07-31T23:04:00.002-07:00

When I am in Russia, I'll be detailing my Russian adventures once a week as opportunity allows at
http://yakvaslyubil.blogspot.com

as Price, and if you want updates of travels, try me at my (alternate) gmail account ksprc84@gmail.com

My friend C.B. has great ambitions to do quite a bit of video blogging there as well. Linguistically, it'll be a polyglot, so English, Russian, Welsh, whatever you have up your sleeve would be welcome.

Thank you.

Когда я живу в России, я вам буду писать на сайте http://yakvaslyubil.blogspot.com и если вам итересно читать о моей жизни в России, и хотете получать e-mail, пишите мне ksprc84@gmail.com

Мой хороший друг, Ч-Б- хочет снимать маленькие фильмы и стaвит их туда.

Мы будем писать по-английски и по-русски.

Спасибо.

Bono writing about Johnny Cash

2008-07-31T22:01:00.003-07:00

Here's the liner notes that Bono wrote for the Cash compilation, God--

--Johnny Cash doesn't sing to the damned, he sings with the damned, and sometimes you feel he might prefer their company...

--So the sugar is turned to salt and the triumphalism is quieted bu the brokenness of a voice that knows compromise of real life. Big John sings like the thief who was crucified beside Christ, whose humble entreaties had Jesus promising that night he would see paradise.

--Johnny Cash is a righteous due and he keeps righteous company with June Carter Cash and the Carter Family, but it's the "outlaw" who would break and enter your heart, and leave you with a nagging question, "Were you there when they crucified my Lord?"

Random thoughts

2008-07-24T19:15:00.002-07:00

The post will live up to its title, and I've got a bunch of things on my mind, so let's start this urban ramble...

Your perspective on somethings change when you're told that you'll go to hell for eating pork. The person wasn't Jewish or Muslim; he's Adventist.

Adventists: part of the body of Christ so they can condemn the rest to hell. I wonder when'll blast me for not going to church on Saturday.

This can eventually lead to a discussion about faith, specifically Romans when Paul tells them to remember that not everyone can eat everything (that's my camp, except for olives), and to remember the "weaker" ones who are vegetarians (the Adventist). Weaker definitely should be in scare quotes since he's seen the inside of a Chinese prison.

So dear Saint, who's stronger?

I'm a brat; let's get this out at the beginning. I've experienced some stuff, but currently I'm leading a cushy life. I don't have to worry about food, and I don't have to worry about internet access.

Geek!

I don't want to start a theological p!ss!ng match, but look at the Apostle's view of "strength." It's basically an ability to live in the world, on the same terms as everyone else, and not be trashed by it. If that's the yardstick, I'm the holiest person I know. Heathen. Paul says more than that, and Paul likes leading a simple, agreeable statement and follow it with enough clauses to make an used-car salesman queasy.

I'm not sure that was a look, closer to a glance.

The Dark Knight is a very cool movie, and the thing is Bat-man himself is subverted, because he's not the one who can save people, ultimately the people choose to let others live.

Whenever Joker was on screen I had this feeling. I call it "Etern-i-go." Quick, put TM behind it.

"Etern-i-go" is a made up word combing eternity and vertigo, so it's a kind of queasiness you might feel when confronted with your existence, and you wonder what the world will be like when die, or what kind of afterlife awaits you. Rest in Peace. It sounds nice.

Yeah, I really am that morbid. Anyway the Joker was cool; he's like a Chaplin from Hell.

I think the current standard for "faith" is how long somebody can sing praise songs.

This Sunday I'm going to a concert by the Hold Steady, the most incredibly awesomest band in the world. Their template is Cash song "Sunday Morning Coming Down" and then rewritten 40 times over and then reinterpreted by a wanna be E Street Band.

It's difficult to learn that not everyone thinks like me.

Or gets sarcasm.

If anyone sees my family, tell them hi from me.

Meiska, I won't be able to get your party. You should live-blog it. I'll send like a million books.

I remember once upon a time that this would be a poetry blog and not a photography blog, but here come the photos. But I have a million poems holed up in my notebooks. I'll excavate them before I leave. Promise. This batch (like cookies!) are sometimes dark and some old and some were composed when the city of Portland tried to build a highway beneath my ear.

Happy now?

I'm reading Dream Songs, a biography of the poet John Berryman. Poets make painters look joyous. No- scratch that. Poets have the souls of supernovas, and are constantly struggling with their thoughts and lives. Painters live in France and paint naked women. Advantage?

No really I wish I was in Tennessee, hanging out with my Ukrainian friends, and my Colorado friends happen to drop by, and then my study-buddies pop on over in order to visit some pubs. Anything aside from waiting.

I warned you.

I'm trying to go see the Fleet Foxes tomorrow night, anybody want to come?

And finally I made this:

cool, no?

So long from your chatty, compulsive, theologically half-baked, somewhat poetic, overly sincere and obviously ironic friend,
Courageous
Honest
Rebellious
Intelligent
Sarcastic

(that's an acrostic someone made for me)

The Insomniacs at Mt. Tabor 7-8-08

2008-07-19T22:22:00.005-07:00

2008-07-19T22:05:00.002-07:00

Fourth of July (later) at the Rose Gardens

2008-07-19T19:00:00.004-07:00

Roses are nice but I like clouds better

2008-07-19T18:53:00.004-07:00

Fourth of July on Hawthorne

2008-07-19T18:44:00.004-07:00

A happy fourth from Hawthorne, where rather interestingly American flags were placed as if the street was the moon. This post and the following untitled posts are from that day.

2008-07-19T18:26:00.003-07:00

2008-07-19T18:20:00.002-07:00

2008-07-19T18:15:00.001-07:00

Ivonrose Family Jamboree

2008-07-19T16:05:00.000-07:00

lament

2008-07-15T00:54:00.002-07:00

You can call me something-
maybe anything,
you know she didn't call me afterall
I'm just here,
on my computer,
or downtown,
or lying in my bed, running away, running free,
and I'm not much to see-
too unused cartoon fists,
and parabola hair,
decked with a Bob Dylan beard.
Not much to see,
and I can't recall the last time
someone told me
the simple truth,
and I can't remember when
my worth--in change and dollars-
was measured in something
that isn't A's, and I can't recall
when a girl said "yes," but I remember their lies.
I'm not straightedged, but
I wish I was,
not tossing money on beers,
and wishing for girls,
and maybe hardlined,
using these cartoon knuckles
on hopheaded punks.

Hawthorne Street Portland, OR-June 30th 2008

2008-07-01T13:09:00.007-07:00

2008-06-07T23:13:00.002-07:00

I don’t want anyone to mistake what I’m doing. I’m not advocating anything like this. I’m trying to write a lyrical story similar to what Flannery O’Connor would write about; the desperateness that religion can bring, especially in youth, especially now. Right now, the Evangelical and the Fundamentalist Church is in one of their special phases where they stress spiritual purity far above the material life, and thereby treating the body and the pleasures that can be experienced as somehow inherently wrong; weight that needs to be cut away.

I was inspired to write this after reading Greil Marcus’ book The Old, Weird America, and in particular his passage on the Shakers. He explains that the Shakers believed that man is irredeemable, and that the only true religious possibility is to refrain from having children, so that the Earth will become depopulated until Mankind finally dies, and only then can Christ return. He quotes a little bit of a Shaker hymn that goes

Come life, Shaker life

Come life eternal

Shake, shake out of me

All that is carnal

And I tried to manipulate this hymn into a desperate plea from someone who was confused in the same way that I was confused, only more violent than I ever was (he also has a girlfriend, that makes him a bit of a jock). I know people, who when they think about themselves in relation to Christ, they think violently of themselves, and wish Christ would do something to them. “The Lord chastises those whom he loves.” They speak of things like “The fire of the Lord” as being a good thing, even though Jeremiah said that it was something that burning him alive, cursing him. The fire of the Lord is a destructive force, a biblical metaphor for the Wrath of God. Why does anyone want this? Why do people mindlessly repeat these lines?

Now, I have to confess that once I thought, believed and lived like this. I wondered why didn’t people just kill themselves if life was nothing but a lightless forest that separated God and us. It’s funny that it is in the dark passages of Ecclesiastes that any kind of hope is evident. The Hope of keeping warm to outlast the winter nights, to enjoy my labor, to enjoy wine (beer, please), to enjoy my wife (but of course I’m not married, and I’ve been rather monkish all my life, but if Luther could buck this trend…). And then the Bible has the gall to follow it up with the “Songs of Solomon”! The language of fire and trial and martyrdom that my cushy American peers have used thereby rings falsely. (And for good measure I’m including the relevant passage from Jeremiah at the after the song. After reading that lament I think there’s such a thing as ironic worship.)

Jesus, use your sword of the Lord

--as a knife,

and gut me of this life.

I’m American boy,

And my girl is an American too,

And we’re waiting for you;

We’re waiting to be heavenly creatures,

Redeemed with heavenly features.

We’re waiting to glow

With something besides the tv;

With something besides this city light.

Come like a thief in the night!

Cut this life out of me!

My dad comes from a town where faith is real

And Hell is something you can feel,

And the willows provide no relief

For any lack of belief

But here, my girl and I

Feel buried under this gray sky

As we wait for you

But my girl will take me outside of town,

And heap stones together on the ground,

And she'll bind my wrists,

Jesus, you know how long

I’ve been waiting for this?

I’ll be like Isaac,

And I won’t turn back

And as she lifts her knife to sky

I won’t have a reason to cry.

Jer. 20 7-18

O LORD, you deceived me, and I was deceived;
you overpowered me and prevailed.
I am ridiculed all day long;
everyone mocks me.

8 Whenever I speak, I cry out
proclaiming violence and destruction.
So the word of the LORD has brought me
insult and reproach all day long.

9 But if I say, "I will not mention him
or speak any more in his name,"
his word is in my heart like a fire,
a fire shut up in my bones.
I am weary of holding it in;
indeed, I cannot.

10 I hear many whispering,
"Terror on every side!
Report him! Let's report him!"
All my friends
are waiting for me to slip, saying,
"Perhaps he will be deceived;
then we will prevail over him
and take our revenge on him."

11 But the LORD is with me like a mighty warrior;
so my persecutors will stumble and not prevail.
They will fail and be thoroughly disgraced;
their dishonor will never be forgotten.

12 O LORD Almighty, you who examine the righteous
and probe the heart and mind,
let me see your vengeance upon them,
for to you I have committed my cause.

13 Sing to the LORD!
Give praise to the LORD!
He rescues the life of the needy
from the hands of the wicked.

14 Cursed be the day I was born!
May the day my mother bore me not be blessed!

15 Cursed be the man who brought my father the news,
who made him very glad, saying,
"A child is born to you—a son!"

16 May that man be like the towns
the LORD overthrew without pity.
May he hear wailing in the morning,
a battle cry at noon.

17 For he did not kill me in the womb,
with my mother as my grave,
her womb enlarged forever.

18 Why did I ever come out of the womb
to see trouble and sorrow
and to end my days in shame?

Poem # 32

2008-05-28T02:44:00.003-07:00

Two cars, a pickup and two minivans
traveling a gravel road
an half hour from anyone's homes,
we are heading to Gale's creek,
and its headstones.

We could be the only ones here today.

A Lincoln is already there.
Flags dot the hillside;
some of the flowers are fresh.
We never have flags, only flowers.

Slowly we walk to the graves,
and discuss what's going on,
--Dad's grave doesn't have any grass--
it's just red clay,
my great grandmother lies under
a bed of lush green grass
--I'll get the flowers--
My aunt kneels,
trimming her roses,
doffed of thorns,
--Robert, can you fill the bucket--
he walks off towards the spout.

My brother walks Papa down the hill--
the downward slope isn't kind
to his 77 years--while I worry;
I'll be gone for four months
what if...?
what if ...?
what if 77 is perfection and consummation?

The uncles are hovering around Elijah's grave.
1928.
Eighty years on
here I stand
I can do nothing else.

I watch carefully,
the hedging, gardening, grooming of the afterlife,
and I know that one day
I'll have to do it myself,
worrying about grass seed instead of tears.

Here comes Stacy carrying Ali--
Stacy gave her grandmother her wedding bouquet,
and we cried--up the hill.
They stand under the Oak tree,
as everyone gathers around,
and I look around--
cousins are playing games--needing to watch,
but I wish there was a prayer,
an old Indian dance and chant;
I wish to the sky and earth
to know what I need to do.

Poem # 31

2008-04-20T00:26:00.004-07:00

It can very hard to live at home,
to still be living with my parents,
two brothers and a sister,
and reciting their names
to new-found strangers,
and describe their occupations
past. present. future.
And it can be hard
to still be at home,
since sometimes my sister steals my friends,
she distracts them from me,
and I'm not sure that any girl would
ever love me.
It can be hard to live at home,
but I am still glad, full of
unmentioned joy at having those four letters,
and to have a bed and dinner,
but I think that girls can smell it on me,
ash from the hearth, or an older scent,
and that when I wake
I make
my bed, in a disciplined way,
ensuring that the blanket is straight,
and that nothing is lying on top of it,
and gently they would call me "dork,"
and maybe laugh at me later--
but not too hard--
their pity won't let them take me seriously--
some gentle flirting in the evening,
but nothing on the way
to the doorway,
and really no dinner, maybe some tea alone together,
but hearts are someplace else--
someplace near. someplace far.
This is forgivable;
I'm unsure of my own love, (
I know who I love, but the
verb and noun
have escaped the dictionary),
and I could sit next to her,
and not believe she is real,
without touch or feel.
And that slowly my family will appear,
and absorb me, and she will be taken in,
and then
I could be nothing more than a brother,
and I'll be the unpopular brother furthermore,
and until she cannot see me anymore--
I've offended her--
her true love arrives next week--
I've lied about her (untrue, I swear!)--
and pawed her and that
I've...I've...I've....
given up...
She could come for dinner next week.
No thank you! I'll eat pizza, or eat in my room
with headphones on, watching
Buffy, Xander, Willow (sigh).
It can be hard to live at home.

Guest Poet # 1, Anonymous

2008-03-20T17:16:00.001-07:00

To Live and Die In Buckman and Do Graffiti On It Also

Touring around the town tight pants on bikes.
Trimmed lawns and Tibetan prayer flags shown-off,
Reflected in tall towers of windows.
Ticking clock thrusts them towards their true end.
They built a condo on me while I slept.
For real, that’s how I died, at least I was
Asleep. In my time things were different.
Buckman seemed more like a place to come get
A car fixed or a typewriter repaired.
Sure, we partied, but we kept steady jobs
Because our immigrant parents were poor.
As a ghost, I feel I must haunt something.
Black spray-paint on the back of my condo-
Body I joke, LESS HIPSTERS AND MORE CRIME.

Poem # 30

2008-03-15T21:35:00.001-07:00

1

To reach one hundred

It is no longer possible to crawl, run, walk, hobble or crawl.

To reach one hundred

It is necessary

To live in a room where life comes three times

Every day with pills

For digestion, pain and sleep.

2

Nurses and visitors and well-wishers

Shuffle in and out of the hall

With the same soft steps

That I used

to pace the hall

Cautious not to make echoes

3.

When my time would end

I would walk home (just across the street)

In the early morning

Leaving solitary streetlights

Standing Sentry,

But now TVs stare out at my old room

blinking and winking

4.

To reach one hundred

Is like waiting for a train

When only the steam is visible,

But the tracks rattle anyway,

And I know it will come to take me away.

Interesting Video on Poetry

2008-01-27T19:14:00.000-08:00

Barack Obama Speaks at Dr. King's Church

2008-01-23T00:46:00.001-08:00

Books I've read this year

2008-01-06T16:56:00.000-08:00

The year didn't matter, since to me a new book means it was written in 1980. I kept the list since it meant that I could keep track of the books that I've read.

And I'm going to present this list with time-saving/time-wasting categories

Religion/Politics/General Non-fiction
The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe
The Creationists: A history of Scientific Creationism by Ronald Numbers
Russian Thinkers by Isaiah Berlin
The Sickness unto Death by Soren Kierkegaard
The Message in the Bottle: How Queer Man Is, How Queer Language Is, and What One Has to Do with the Other by Walker Percy
A Short Life of Kierkegaard by Walter Lowrie
Crazy for God: How I Grew Up as One of the Elect, Helped Found the Religious Right, and Lived to Take All (or Almost All) of It Back by Frank Schaeffer
Killing the Buddha: A Heretic's Bible Editied by Peter Manseau and Jeff Sharlet

Novels
Rabbit, Run by John Updike
Trouble is My Business by Raymond Chandler
The Long Goodbye by Raymond Chandler
The Little Sister by Raymond Chandler
The Jump-off Creek by Molly Gloss (class)
Jujitsu for Christ by Jack Butler
Children of Men by P.D. James
The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky
White Teeth by Zadie Smith
Baby Jack by Frank Schaffer
Ecotopia by Ernest Callenbach (for class)
A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
The Austere Academy by Lemony Snicket
The Ersatz Elevator by Lemony Snicket
You Know Me Al by Ring Lardner
Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer
Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh
The Dain Curse by Dashiell Hammett
On Beauty by Zadie Smith
Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman
The Winter Rose by Patricia McKillip
The Goalie's Anxiety at the Penalty Kick by Peter Handke translated by Michael Roloff
The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov (second time) translated by Diana Burgin and Katherine Tiernan O'Connor
Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf (class)
Vile Bodies by Evelyn Waugh (class)
Howards End by E.M. Forster (class)
Dubliners by James Joyce (class)

Comics/Graphic Novels
The Watchmen by Alan Moore
300 by Frank Miller
The Sandman 1: Preludes and Nocturnes- written by Neil Gaiman
The Sandman 2: The Doll's House- written by Neil Gaiman
The Sandman 3: Dream Country- written by Neil Gaiman
The Sandman 4: Season of Mists- written by Neil Gaiman
The Sandman 5: A Game of You- written by Neil Gaiman
The Sandman 6: Fables and Reflections-written by Neil Gaiman
The Sandman 7: Brief Lives-written by Neil Gaiman
The Sandman 8: World's End-written by Neil Gaiman
The Sandman 9: The Kindly Ones-written by Neil Gaiman
The Sandman 10: The Wake- written by Neil Gaiman
Persepolis-Written by Marjane Satrapi

Soccer/Sport
Soccer Against the Enemy by Simon Kuper
Education of a Coach by David Halberstam
Soccer in Sun and Shadow by Eduardo Galeano, translated by Mark Fried
Futebol: Soccer, The Brazilian Way by Alex Bellos
Brilliant Orange: The Neurotic Genius of Dutch Soccer by David Winner

Movies/Music/Art
Through a Screen Darkly by Jeffrey Overstreet (This could count for the religious section as well.)
Kandinsky and Old Russia: The Artist as Ethnographer and Shaman by Peg Weiss
Who the Hell's in It: Conversations with Hollywood's Legendary Actors by Peter Bogdanovich
A Concise History of Modern Painting by Herbert Read
Pagan Mysteries of the Italian Renaissance by Edgar Wind
Escaping the Delta: Robert Johnson and the Invention of the Blues by Elijah Wald
Eno: His music and the vertical color of sound by Eric Tamm
U2 by U2

Yeah!

2008-01-04T11:21:00.000-08:00

U!S!A!

Video list part two

2007-12-28T15:04:00.000-08:00

I'm back with this list-making thing, and I'll start this thing with Thom Yorke playing "Videotape."

And moving onto Feist's "My Moon My Man"

Feel free to suggest other videos that you've enjoyed this , new or old. Now, I'll add songs that I really enjoyed this year, some are old, and some are new covers of older songs.

Starting with The Clash's "London Calling"

And progress to David Bazan's (aka Pedro the Lion) "Secret of the Easy Yoke"

Then move further on from that weight to more stellar dimensions with David Gilmour (of Pink Floyd) performing "Astronomy Domine"

There are probably more videos worth posting, but I'm kinda running out of time now. There's still all of youtube.

Video List

2007-12-20T17:15:00.000-08:00

In an attempt not to be boring, while also trying to destroy your computers, I present Silent Shroud presents the songs of 2007 from Youtube.

Some songs are new, while others I heard for the first time this year.

Starting with the obvious one

U2 Windows in the Sky

Both Bruce Springsteen and Arcade Fire released stellar albums this year, and so here's the two of them together for "Keep the Car Running"

Here's a video of Wilco's "Impossible Germany" which features what probably is my favorite guitar solo of the year

Best 3 dollars I ever spent were spent on Radiohead's In Rainbows. If you see me with earphones implanted to my skull I'm probably listening to them. Here's "Reckoner," a terrific atmospheric song full of streetlights and low level clouds and lyrics of a (profound sounding critical word, you know something Overstreet might use) nature.

Tomorrow or next year I'll post some more videos.

Repulsion

2007-12-08T22:44:00.000-08:00

Sorry, I cant talk well.

jees are out of te question and so are contractions, and also my backspace bar is bloody broken.

Accept my errors as they come.

Youtube is a fantastic site. Its democratic (not the party), but sometimes its closer to anarchy .

I was on yt because I was reading about people who are racists and oppose immigration, and I followed a link tat led to a video of a woman wo said te vilest tins about Mexican men, simply because they are Mexican. Se equated all Mexican men wit rapists and molesters of kids.. I looked down at te comments and saw many racist and unsourced comments coming from a particular poster, so I followed that link and looked at friends and tis led to a whole ring of racists.

I looked at one video a member favorited, and it was a video clip of a Nazi marc tat finised wit tat cockroac speakin. I feel sick. Anoter video is called The Glory of National Socialist Deutschland

Ill type up a list of videos, please write youtube and ask tem wy tey tolerate tis crap.

National Socialist Parade and Speech by Leader

Deutschland über Alles

Adolf Hitler - The Savior of Germany

National Socialist honour

Rudolf Hess - The Man of Peace

Now, let me write names of offenders

AryanCrusaderIX

panzertank3945

Skin808

Now, eyeful of their comments.

Condolences from Brazil
for the thousands of dead Germans.
and for the thousands of Jews alive .

They got good shit going at the time, I give them credit for that.

Too bad they got their shit ruined by COMMUNISTS. Really shameful.

Yes this is great.Beautiful reich color set!
Heil from Estonia!

Magnificent.

Video been favorited 148 times. 148 living, beating Nazis, people our ancestors (Ukrainian and American) routed. Look this sit in the eye, call it for what it is.

Te Chosen People are still chosen.

To parafrase our best folksinger, Woody Guthrie said about his guitar: This blog kills fascists.

Have Fun Tomorrow with Your Family and Enjoy the Ritual Sacrifice!

2007-11-21T22:59:00.000-08:00

From the "Buffy: The Vampire Slayer" episode, "Pangs."

Buffy: With Mom at Aunt Darlene's this year, I'm not getting a Thanksgiving. Maybe it's just as well.

Anya: Well, I think that's a shame. I love a ritual sacrifice.

Buffy: It's not really a one of those.

Anya: To commemorate a past event, you kill and eat an animal. It's a ritual sacrifice... with pie.

Cycle #2: Part 4 (A Prayer from the Night before a Quiz)

2007-11-05T19:06:00.000-08:00

The goal is to
give this thing up,
To give it up piece by piece,
and scatter my first tongue.
It is my home,
my old bed,
my desk nearby,
my clothes, now put-off and thrown-down.
To take this thing,
Another speech,
Another voice,
Piece by piece
as a little cracker,
and pray that I will be better.
To take this speech
and its flock of words
and let it be mine, and nothing else.
To take this speech,
and its flock of words,
and to build a cage with
my voice, and to have sentences
construct, and raise up
the beams of a small house.

To give this small thing over,
and say it is dear,
but obsolete
by casting the words in
my mind's sea and let
words break ashore
at some future time.

Playing in Pain

2007-10-29T23:22:00.001-07:00

Anybody who has suffered through a football post here knows that I am a Patriot fan, and I have no need for exceptions (Massholeishness ends here). One team I haven't particularly cared for has been Chicago Bears and none of their (recent) players have been interested me. However, that has changed.

Brian Urlacher, middle linebacker for the Bears, has said in an interview with Fox Sports', Jay Glazer that he is playing in pain with an arthritic condition in his back. I'm interested because I have a similar problem.

Shortly after my 16th birthday I learned that I had Ankylosing spondylitis. That I had a problem was no big news. After all, I had some sort of problem with my hips and lower back since I was five. It was a relief to have a diagnosis, since now the world went from being senselessly cruel to being senselessly cruel with the option of treatment.

For the last six years I've been able to get some form of treatment consistently at the number of very good hospitals. One of these was the medical school at Vanderbilt, which means I'm a Vandy fan as well. Oh, that's right the famous linebacker. If Urlacher does have AS, I wish him the best, and I am glad that now he knows what his problem is. Maybe everything will get a little bit better. Maybe his teammates will respect him a little more. Maybe he'll keep on playing, despite the pain, despite the pain.

I want Urlacher to play. And to win. And to have the rest league refuse to play him. Just bow low and salaam him. It's freeing to gain these kind of facts, since it removes the scary possibilities of fatality, and accusations of softness. Also, it flips a Californian Condor sized bird to those doctors who think all my activities should of consist of slowly swimming in a heated pool. It might sound nice, but this is coming from people who think soccer is too dangerous for me, much less football. I know the possibilities for complications; I hope Urlacher does as well. But still playing despite the possibilities are better than living life as one giant game of Martyball.

Some talk about Democracy

2007-10-22T23:15:00.000-07:00

While preparing for tomorrow's European Studies exam I thought I'd pass along this quote from Rousseau's The Social Contract.

We may add that there is no government so liable to civil war and internecine strife as is democracy or popular government, for there is none which has so powerful and constant a tendency to change to another form or which demands so much vigilance and courage to maintain it unchanged. It is under this constitution, more than others, that the citizen must be armed with strength and fdelity, and repeat from the bottom of his heart every day of his life the words a virtuous Palatine once spoke in the Diet of Poland: "Better freedom with danger than peace with slavery."

Cycle #2: Part 3

2007-10-07T23:11:00.000-07:00

I know a girl with cornflower eyes
and she talks to me when she cries
and How Her clothes came unburied from a foreign field;
Her own wheat-form dress is finally revealed.

I met her there; she said that she'd found home;
I thought that maybe I was not so alone.
And then and then again I met her here
and the flagblue sky grew clear
from the cloudbanks of ancient memory
and remembrance of how things used to be.

I know a girl with cornflower eyes
and I know how the pain comes as she cries
When the "Star Spangled Banner" plays
and the gutpunch of comradeship is unmade,
and crying as she is forced from the flag's shell,
clutching a full passport with no stories to tell.

A Page from "A Wrinkle in Time"

2007-09-23T20:24:00.000-07:00

"If we (Mrs. Whatsit is speaking) knew ahead of time what was going to happen we'd be--we'd be like the people on Camazotz, with no lives of our own, with everything all planned and done for us. How can I explain it to you? Oh, I know. In your language you have a form of poetry called a sonnet."

"Yes, yes," Calvin said impatiently. "What's that got to do with the Happy Medium?"

"Kindly pay me the courtesy of listening to to me." Mrs. Whatsit's voice was stern, and for a moment Calvin stopped pawing the ground like a nervous colt. "It is a very strict form of poetry, is it not?"

"Yes."

"There are fourteen lines, I believe, all in iambic pentameter. That's a very strict rhythm or meter, yes?"

"Yes." Calvin nodded.

And each line has to end with a rigid rhyme pattern. And if the poet does not do it exactly this way, it is not a sonnet, is it?"

"No."

"But within this strict form the poet has complete freedom to say whatever he wants, doesn't he?"

"Yes." Calvin nodded again.

"So," Mrs. Whatsit said.

"So what?"

"Oh, do not be stupid, boy!" Mrs. Whatsit scolded. "You know perfectly well what I am driving at!"

"You mean you're comparing our lives to a sonnet? A strict form, but freedom within it?"

"Yes," Mrs. Whatsit said. "You're given the form, but you have to write the sonnet yourself. What you say is completely up to you."

2007-09-08T21:44:00.000-07:00

Madeleine L'Engle died today.

How very sad.

Here's one for QAE (This should answer your ?)

2007-08-15T11:00:00.000-07:00

Three video versions of "Stand by Me." First the original and then the Lennon version (with a "Hey Jude" moment) and then U2 and Bruce Springsteen performing the song together with Bono's arm in sling and the Boss and Edge duel with their guitars. Enjoy!

Arsenal 2 - Fulham 1 (Mother tested, Gooner approved)

2007-08-14T15:35:00.001-07:00

Why do I post these videos? Because it's all part of a healthy eat-breathe-dream soccer diet.

Facing facts

2007-08-11T12:52:00.000-07:00

I think Eucharisto challenged me back in 2006 on this, and so I have to face the facts: the current Democratic led congress sucks. It has caved into Bush's demands several times, and the leaders of congress are either wrapped up in their presidential races or they are yellow-liver weaklings who can't lead. Some are both.

I think that most Americans want a more liberal, stronger congress, and according to the RealClear Politics poll index congress has a lower approval rating than Pres. Bush.

I thought things would change, but they haven't.

Cycle #2: Part 2

2007-08-08T08:44:00.000-07:00

As kids we played on vacant stairs;
I stood on the bottom
and called upwards,
quoting garbled nursery rhymes,
And listened to the
helix of your voice
and echoes.
You sang "Happy Birthday" to me
in the middle of July,
But the hours pooled,
and as days happened,
you slowly descended,
and slowly, warily
I climbed the stairs,
unsure of who
I was going to meet
and how you would seem without
the echoes in between.

Ingmar Bergman, 1918 to 2007

2007-08-02T16:34:00.000-07:00

A I have to confess that I have only seen two films of Ingmar Bergman's The Seventh Seal and Wild Strawberries. But in the upcoming weeks I would like to better educate and entertain myself. Let's put this plainly: Bergman was a genius. Despite this he seems to have fallen out of favor; Ebert in re-review of The Seventh Seal, said that the movie is now unfashionable. That particular movie came out in 1957 so there have obviously been fifty years between that film and his death, but he had already been directing for 10 years, and so he had almost a half century of directing. That is more than enough time to become an old fogey and your grandparents' favorite art house director. Plus some of the aspects of the movie, the whole idea of Death playing chess was consistently parodied and somber monks and hyperpsychoanalytical closeups found their way into Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

Take all of that away and you are present with a masterpiece. A masterpiece that may inspire you to get drunk, but only because of its unrelenting pursuit of the truth that lies at the end of life by a death pursued knight. He tries the church, death and his fellow pilgrims, but Death is catty, and when the knight comes to give his confession, Death is the only one listening. The priests and monks are too busy crying the end of days to listen to one's confession, too busy demanding repentance to actually listen to it. His friends are not helpful, too bound to the earth, to notice opening graves, or like the pseudo-witch too bound into their minds and the minds of others to offer any revelation.

In the end, the mystery is not something that is knowingly understand and grasped and carried. It is given wordlessly and it is a while before anyone understands what has happened. Death is only delayed, but the delay still has a glint of hope. A knight would make a bad savior.

The other film is Wild Strawberries and is about an old man going to the university to accept an honorary award and along the way he makes peace with his past, daughter in law and son. It is not entirely that simple, but is a gentle masterpiece like a Renoir film.

I would like to write about it more in upcoming days. :) (I need to watch it again!)

But please watch these movies. Especially if you're the person who doesn't ask questions. Also, if you want to read more about these and other films by Bergman go to Greencine and browse through the post on Bergman.

Right now

2007-07-13T12:01:00.000-07:00

Why we fight a documentary by Eugene Jarecki

2007-07-11T16:17:00.000-07:00

This is Jarecki's prize winning documentary on what President Eisenhower called the "Military-Industrial Complex." The director is a liberal, but his film is very balanced. A number of influential conservatives appear in interviews in the film, and the director lets them speak their peace and no one is ridiculed. Part four is heart breaking.

Part one

Part two

Part Three

Part Four

Bill Mallonee

2007-07-10T23:09:00.000-07:00

Last night I was invited to go to a private house performance by Bill Mallonee, former leader of the Vigilantes of Love and a renowned Americana artist. Foolish Knight and I have some of his songs and a tape of his. I first heard his music on the Mark Heard tribute album “Strong Hand of Love” where he played “Freight Train to Nowhere.”
Mallonee was performing with his wife, Muriah Rose, who joined in on piano and harmony vocals. As they sang and played together it was with a sweetness that left us feeling like intruders. Bill Mallonee by himself is very much how someone could imagine a singer/songwriter: a body crouching before the microphone, sometimes playing a really nice guitar in a ragged sort of way, with a second guitar, whose body is bound in duct tape. Between songs he speaks softly telling the stories behind his songs and re-tuning his guitar after every song, but after he counts 1,2,3,4 he sings with a November wind coming from his leaf and twig frame.
His lyrics are story like, usually in the first person with occasional Dylanesque metaphors that logically do not make sense but are still effective leaving the hearer with a sense that they are feeling as he is. An example of this is in his opening song, “Solar System,”

"come in here and have a taste
yeah what's one more hopeless case
when your short wave dies and there's no one to listen
and the stars going cold in your solar system

well her lips were red and her hair was brown
yeah feeling like the luckiest kids in town
she said "i'll follow you boy to the ends of the earth"
said "i'm not going that far for what it's worth"

and i really love to see you like this
the moonlight dripping off your fingertips
off your fingertips
well put all your love where it hurts the most
expect a little visit from the Holy Ghost
but when your short wave dies and there's no one to listen
the stars going cold in your solar system"

A really fun part of the show was when he played Bob Dylan’s “My Back Pages.” He described it as the song that made him want to become a writer. Actually, he said it was the Byrds’ version that he first heard and would later inspire a lot of the VOL sound. He had us sing with him the song’s chorus “I was so much older then, I’m younger than that now.”
I’d really encourage you to listen to his music, and buy it as well (if you like it) because he’s a true artist, which seems to be a scarcity nowadays.

Here’s the VOL website.

Bill Mallonee’s website and his MySpace page. I’ll leave you with a lyrical parting shot in his song

“Skin”
ow i'd seen him despondent
a few times as of late
sometimes the answer that love gives
is the hardest one to take
i know he was prone to paint
the voice of his own fear
so vincent he picked up the blade
and he put it to his ear

look at yourself in the mirror
you're all rumpled red stubbled and gaunt
you walk a dead end path in a dry corn field
and now this morose response
your princess she don't wanna see you
no your princess she don't wanna hear
so vincent he picked up the blade
and he put it to his ear

now look if you're gonna come around here
and say those sort of things
you gotta take a few on the chin
you talking about love and all that stuff
you better bring your thickest skin
sometimes you can't please everyone
sometimes you can't please anyone at all
you sew your heart onto your sleeve
and wait for the ax to fall

you there with the paint box
you there with paper and pen
me i got this blunt instrument
i'm gonna play on 'til the end
and you know you come with empty hands
or you don't come at all
you deal your best hand out in the marketplace
and let the chips fall
the package it comes wrapped up
there is a lesson here
vincent he picked up the blade
and he put it to his ear

now look if you're gonna come around here
and say those sort of things
you gotta take a few on the chin
yeah you're talking about sin and redemption
well you better wear your thickest skin
sometimes you can't please everyone
sometimes you can't please anyone at all
sew your heart onto your sleeve
and wait for the ax to fall

2007-07-08T13:36:00.000-07:00

I'm an 100 posts old but I can still hunt and peck like a spring chicken.

This is the one hundredth post on Silent Shroud, and it's only taken me two and a half years to get this far.

I've got this cool banner and a sidebar that is way too long. I've got poems from myself and others, along with political posts and youtube videos.

The poems have gotten better and a whole less lot cosmic, very little of the good v. evil and the world is about to end and by the way I love you poems are less common. If you like that kind of stuff, I can point you in a certain direction...

And I've got something else: a small band of loyal commentors who like the poems, argue the politics and tolerate the sport posts with mild ironical smiles. So thank you loyal commentors, and welcome any noobies, who are just looking around.

Also, thank you to "Poets and Priests," "Dinglemunch," "That's On Point" and "Self-styled Siren" for having linked to me.

Thierry Henry...

2007-07-03T10:35:00.000-07:00

Is gone. It's old news now that he's in Barcelona; It just took me awhile to process that information. Henry is gone. He's the one that attracted to Arsenal in the first place. If he had signed with Barca last year, I probably would have followed him. It's not like I have anything invested in Arsenal: I don't own a scarf or a shirt, nor have I ever been to a game to see them play. Just the roller-coaster of last season, where I became more involved with the club, and experiencing the happiness of beating Manchester United (the eventual champions) twice, knocking Liverpool out of the cup competitions, and the 3-1 win over Bolton in the FA cup fourth round.

Now Arsenal has signed Eduardo da Silva, a Croatian of Brazilian ancestry, as a striker to help replace Henry. His former club is Dinamo Zagreb. The man is known to be a clever goal poacher and should fit in nicely with Arsenal, since no one on the club is anything like him. He's like the anti-Cesc. It would be nice if the club made a few more signings. Another striker and a winger would be good.

That's on Point on TH14

Guardian on Eduardo da Silva

George Bush thinks that George W. Bush is a Traitor

2007-07-02T19:49:00.000-07:00

Today Pres. Bush commuted Scooter Libby's prison sentence, and will probably give Libby a full pardon when he leaves office. Libby was convicted earlier of obstructing an investigation into who named a CIA covert operative, Valerie Plame. Someone gave her name to the press in order to dishonor diplomat, Joseph Wilson, who knew that the President had lied when Bush said that there was enriched uranium in Niger and that Saddam Hussein had tried to buy it. An independent investigation was launched into the matter, and Libby, the after whom are only the Pres. and Veep, stone-walled, halted and obstructed the investigation. Valerie Plame is Wilson's wife, and so the whole sordid mess was nothing more than petty political payback.

In case this is not clear, or that you don't believe me: Someone, who is part of the White House and close to Dick Cheney gave away the identity of an undercover spy. And this did it during the "War on Terror." That's weird. What's weirder is that the White House won't let us know who is responsible for the leak. Wouldn't that be something an Al-Qaida agent try to do?

The title comes from a speech that George H. Bush made in 1999. He said, “I have nothing but contempt and anger for those who betray the trust by exposing the name of our sources. They are, in my view, the most insidious of traitors.” Libby covered for someone who gave away the name of a source, and President Bush has said in effect "That's okay; it's not that big of a deal. It's like smoking pot in college." Libby will pay a fine and be on probation but will not serve any jail time. This is wrong. It's a travesty of justice. People get worse punishment for smoking pot in college.

I said earlier that the president had lied. Well, he also told another lie. When Plame's identity was leaked in 2003 he said, “If there’s a leak out of my administration, I want to know who it is . . . If the person has violated law, that person will be taken care of.” There was a leak in the administration, the law was violated... and the culprit is walking away without giving us the truth. Free. As. A. Bird.

Futhermore, if you're in the CIA you have to feel like your life isn't worth the ground the president walks on.

IMPEACH!

(All of the information thanks to Crooks and Liars) Watch the video on that site.

UPDATE: This is a response to Eucharisto's comment. Scooter Libby is guilty of obstructing justice. A judge appointed by George W. gave him the sentence, and three judges, all of whom were appointed by either his father or Ronald Reagan, upheld the sentence, and the case was still in the appeals process. Special Prosecutor Fitzgerald said that Libby was throwing sand in the umpire's eyes. He was most certainly guilty. A jury of his peers believed him to be guilty, and over 70 percent of Americans believe that he is guilty. Let me get back to something I mentioned earlier: the case was still in the appeals process. Libby was on his way to jail when the pardon was given, but there was still a chance that a higher court would find the sentence to be harsh or Libby was to be innocent. By commuting his sentence Bush subverted the legal system because he does not trust the legal system and he did not want Libby to get a lighter sentence if Libby were to give the name of the leaker(s) instead.

If you don't get it, we have a crime here of greater than Watergate proportions. Let me back this up. Nixon had his "plumbers" break into the Democratic offices in order spy on the Democratic candidates and ensure his re-election. This is fact.

Here, we have a diplomat that went to Africa on a National Intelligence mission to find if there was any "yellowcake" in Niger. He reported to the the CIA that there was no such substance. Meanwhile, in a State of the Union address, Bush claimed that Saddam Hussein tried to buy "yellowcake" in Africa. This statement was false, and the documents used to support this idea were forged. Joe Wilson (the Ambassador) said it was false, and the CIA said it was false (so Wilson was not the only one who knew about the uranium scandal. Also later in the linker article find this sentence "The White House concedes that information wasn't true."), but President Bush used this false claim as a reason to invade Iraq. When Joe Wilson published a series of editorials that said the reason was false. The White House tried to find a way to discredit Wilson. It was leaked to the press that Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, was an agent at the CIA, and was responsible for high getting the job. They did not say that Plame knew that her husband was knowledgeable in foreign affairs, being married to him and all, and that he was the right guy for the mission, instead they said that Wilson was some schmuck who had to depend on his woman to get a job. Hehe look at him; he doesn't know anything, he had to get a woman to help him out. And it worked; everyone ignored until some time last year. Now the American people are upset about this.

Nixon obstructed justice so that he could be re-elected.
Bush by way of his vice president's chief of staff obstructed justice so that he could unnecessarily invade Iraq. Later Nixon resigned. What will Bush do?

You mention that there is not any cold hard evidence? Why is this so? The legal process has been subverted. Fitzgerald was stonewalled. If you can't find any other evidence, the evidence that led to this case, or about any of the other alleged lies about the Iraq war, just bloody google the words.

The whole yellow cake affair is also related to the Downing Street Memos. Wikisource has the memo, and check here on the journalist who published the memos and here's some commentary on the importance of those memos.

I feel pretty, oh so pretty

2007-06-20T12:01:00.000-07:00

In a Russian goth sort of way, but I feel pretty, oh so pretty, witty and ...! (Wait, I'm not feeling like that...) However, please tell me what you think of the new banner.

The Tall One

2007-06-19T21:13:00.000-07:00

Right now I'm here make a pitch for my music.

With Eucharisto's help I set up a Virb music page as Vy_sok_ets, which is Russian (I think) for "The tall one." It's one word spliced into three different parts. Thus far it is not me wailing on my guitar, but electronic Garage Band (from Apple).

Check me out.

Poem # 29 (Did anyone read my thus-far-unfinished cycle?)

2007-06-17T22:25:00.000-07:00

Talks outside in the winter weather
Pacing along the snow,
And stating the meaning in ellipses
Slowly he begins to speak…

He says
I met this woman in Jamaica,
She called to me
So I followed her.
I saw her standing in the sea,
She beckoned me.
With the sunshine over the sea.

Then he breaks,
His friend has left.
He lights a cigarette, and the lights
The snowman’s pipe
And heads inside.
Thinking of the sunshine over the sea.

He tries to write a letter,
He doesn’t know who it’s for.
He put the kids to sleep,
And his wife is still watching TV.
He wants to write about his vacation,
He’s thinking about the sun over the sea…

His wife has fallen asleep.
The TV is playing static.
He turns it off, and lies next to his wife.
He feels his thinning hair,
And thickening paunch.
And thinking of the sunshine over the sea.

He wonders:
Why did she beckon me?
The dream is a nightmare,
I’m a classic make, but all out of shape
The song came from her,
But I ran off.
Paradise is a fantasy he says
As he lies dreaming of the sunshine over the sea.

Onion: A nation honors Ken Griffey Jr.

2007-06-01T23:29:00.000-07:00

Oh bad words. I wish this one were true.

Women In Art

2007-06-01T22:33:00.001-07:00

Why do I need text?

Whitman on Falwell

2007-05-23T00:22:00.001-07:00

Andy Whitman has a very good look at the life of Jerry Falwell, and it is either the best or the second best I've read thus far (the other would belong to Leonard Pitts Jr.).

I really can't say much about him. I won't miss him, and I think he harmed Christianity in the U.S., but to be cold to someone else's passing... doesn't seem quite right, even if he did damage the Church. Probably pray for mercy for soul (even if it was tainted); it's all we would want for ourselves.

A good quote from GK Chesterton

2007-05-10T22:40:00.000-07:00

"The whole modern world has divided itself into Conservatives and Progressives. The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of the Conservatives is to prevent the mistakes from being corrected."

via Wikipedia

We Have a Winner! (Barely)

2007-05-09T15:22:00.000-07:00

The Queen and Eucharisto both tied with 22 correct names, so then I had to go to tie-breaker and the Queen won. For his finish, he will get a Trabant U2 style with a Fly at the wheel made out of paper.

The Queen will get Edge with the Explorer guitar.

The Gibson Explorer is guitar heard on early U2 albums and can be heard on songs like "Out of Control" and "I Will Follow." Edge decided that if U2 were to have an unique sound, then he would need to play an unique guitar. The Explorer has made a comeback in recent times and is featured on the song "Beautiful Day."

Just so the Queen Mum won't feel so inclined to "help out" in future contests, she'll be receiving the Larry Mullen Jr. in Drag paper doll. Hope it was fun.

1993-2007, Drew Bledsoe Calls Quits

2007-04-11T23:09:00.000-07:00

Drew Bledsoe, the former quarterback of the New England Patriots, Buffalo Bills and Dallas Cowboys retired on Wednesday, and I wonder if I should be sorry to see him go. This man made me a Patriots fan and one of the reasons eleven is one my favorite numbers, so why shouldn't I be sad to see him go? Well, his final years with the Bills and Cowboys that turned him into a joke, and the fact that he left New England because Bill Belicheck knew that Tom Brady was the quarterback of the future. So Bledsoe's gone, now I don't have to worry about my loyalties being confused (rooting for the Cowboys?!), and now he's passed into the football afterlife, where Patriot fans will revere him as a minor god. Sure, give Brady his due as the champion quarterback of 3 Superbowls, but he's been surrounded by talented role-players with a world-class defense, and so he's never had to try to win the games all by himself. But Bledsoe... Bledsoe with epic game winners against the Dolphins, on one occasion he threw the winning touchdown with a broken thumb. Even as we traveled through the valleys of suck there was still Drew Bledsoe.

Two other things, supposedly he's never taken painkillers, while routinely being sacked multiple times every game every season. Also after every season he would hold an all-you-can-eat-buffet for his linemen, and gave them expensive gifts (but what's expensive for a pro sports star?), grateful that he didn't spend the whole season on his butt.

Cycle #2: Part 1

2007-04-09T22:05:00.000-07:00

I wait outside my professor’s office.

She is sitting and grading papers,

And in a minute I’ll talk to her.

While you’re waiting,

think about when I’ll be done,

after I have spent ten minutes

trying not to mutter,

hoping that I say everything right,

and that I won’t mangle her chosen tongue.

II.

And then later I will talk to a friend,

And she will ask me why I chose her tongue.

Maybe, I will start slowly and talk about a prince,

Who tried to balance revolution and rank

In his unsteady mind, while two women

Fought outside then danced or recited Pushkin.

I will try to talk about these things, and I will

Finish by mentioning teaching in Russia

In some obscure village, like one

I might already know.

But you know that confession is a game.

Out of touch

2007-03-30T21:46:00.000-07:00

I was over at TomDispatch reading the blogger's post on protests and the Iraq war/occupation. I found it to be a really good post detailing protests and how the media has been reporting protests, who is protesting and and how protests relate to the ones in the 60's and 70's. He makes three points and the third hits the ball out of the park.

"this is a third point seldom mentioned today -- the young in the streets, however frustrated by the moment, however unresponsive or even criminal they found their leaders, still believed that, at some level, they would be, and should be, listened to. And the fact is they were being listened to. When President Lyndon B. Johnson complained about "that horrible song" ("Hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?"), he was listening; when Richard Nixon went out of his awkward way to claim that he would be watching a Washington Redskins football game as demonstrators arrived in town, he was signaling that he knew they were coming.

"Today, it crosses no young minds that the top officials in the White House might be listening. Many fewer young people, I suspect, have any remnant of that deep faith that our political system could be responsive to them or that anything they could do might change it. When they look to Washington, what they see is fraud, dysfunction, conspiracy, cronyism, cabal, influence-peddling, corruption, fear -- in short, a system, a world, beyond response, possibly beyond repair, and utterly alien to their lives. In such a situation, despair or apathy tends to replace anger and hope."

Last November the President's plan took a huge hit in the polls, and a good part of it was done by people by own age. These weren't simple polls being taken, but they were votes. Polls can be ignored, but votes have the impact of removing out of touch or dishonest senators and representatives, and retain other congressman and governors. But thus far, where the president's actions are of concern, the only fruits shown have been raspberries.

I personally do not protest, but I have friends who do. These friends are classmates are concerned with the war, with the military being overstreched and with over-spending now that leave them with nothing but debt later. Also, they're concerned with Katrina and global warming. Bush lost Iraq when he lost New Orleans, and waited four days before acting. Don't say that he didn't know. He didn't know anything about Iraq, and he still acted pre-emptively. He showed that happened was not a grave national threat, and that it didn't warrant our resources to be reorganized to be better help our country. Global Warming is the threat of flooding to our most populous areas of our country. The fact that he is sluggish in facing this imminent threat seems to say that he doesn't care about the future security to our country.

It's been frustrating to me. I want change. I don't want Cheney, Rove, Gonzales or anybody else from his office. I want him to quit surrounding himself with flags and calling reporters traitors. I want him to do something real that will better the country and do it humbly without bragging about with "Mission Accomplished" signs. Fighting Iran won't accomplish that. I guess what I want from him is humility, and for him to realize that the Executive branch wields only one-third of the nation's power, and of that one-third, greater than two-thirds are opposed to how he is wielding that power.

I guess this is what I want from any political candidate now. If Barack Obama doesn't have the humility that he represents more than African-Americans or Democrats, then I don't want him, no matter how charming he is, but I think he does possess this quality.

U2 Contest! We have a winner! (maybe)

2007-03-27T19:02:00.000-07:00

Only two people submitted entries: eucharisto and the Queen. Eucharisto tallied 20 points while the Queen barely edged him with 22. So we have a winner? Maybe. Eucharisto had five artists disqualified, meanwhile the queen had 6 artists kicked out. Since this contest was based on my ability to recognize artists, so both contestants will be able to re-enter the disallowed artists provided that they give an approximate time of the appearance OR say who are the artists that precede and follow the discounted artist.

Eucharisto: The Beatles, INXS, Janet Jackson, John Mayer and Joan Baez.

Queen: The Police, Alicia Keyes, Little Richard, George Harrison, Queen, Stevie Wonder

I don't doubt that these people were in the video, but I didn't recognize them, so please the track time, or mention the immediate artists for a chance of a better score.

Sheed beat the buzzer Against Nuggets

2007-03-27T11:35:00.001-07:00

My granddad's favorite joke is "Why does Sheed 3-pointers? Because there aren't 4-pointers." (I'm not joking; it really is his favorite.)

Introducing the Nut Case of the Week

2007-03-26T01:17:00.000-07:00

Okay, I think I lost half of you already, and when I tell you that in general the nut cases will be religious, the other half will leave. It's not to mock anybody's religion, but kind of explore various kinds of people and their motivations... while maybe having an occasional chuckle.

Maybe you'll understand after I tell this story. A little more than a month ago, I was eating lunch in the Park Blocks close to PSU. In the part close to PSU, there is a small stage designed for small, outdoor concerts. As I finished lunch, a lone man climbed onto stage and he began to preach. The text was the ever-popular "You will all die and go to hell." Compounding the problem was that I was with a classmate, who is rather intelligent and a free-thinker (that is a compliment), so I was rather embarrassed by the good news being preached. Well, we were talking, and in the course of our conversation we noticed that the preacher had gone quiet. He was talking on his cellphone. Within a minute, he had closed his phone, and announced to everybody who was trying not to listen, "I just got a job!" He walked off the stage and walked to his new workplace.

Socrates is the Devil

2007-03-24T17:33:00.001-07:00

If you don't get the title, ask eucharisto or foolishknight or Kristen about it, and if you don't get the video, go talk to David Quine.

Cycle #2 (Prologue)

2007-03-19T22:07:00.000-07:00

My teabag dropped into the paper cup

With sugar and milk, and stirred when

I try to dream of an answer.

Once, I was a stranger, and then

The strangeness began to echo,

Like a song with frequent rhymes,

So then ten times I was a stranger,

But I have left on my shoes, while

I am without my house slippers,

So why should I not go someplace

Very faraway?

I told someone else that I felt so far

From home, that there were parks that I

Missed that were filled with friends,

Who have vanished again.

There is a lake

That I used to visit, but that vision

Has departed from me.

My three old homes

Feel as though they have slipped from me,

Reeling from my young hands.

But it is not true.

I heard from my neighbors once again.

My stepfatherland is no longer sick,

And wracked by two crooked quacks, doping him.

The letter was written on a table;

I once had

Lunch there, eating potatoes and chicken,

With salt and pepper appearing only

As garnishes.

And she wrote the letter,

While the village loudspeaker swerved

Between centuries and regimes, with ballads

And dance music, interrupting weddings

And funerals.

She looked from her window

Onto the park where I used to play.

I do not wonder about it, but bread

Is better than perfume.

I wander near

To the ovens and hope that I will waft with

The scent, like ascending incense.

But my friends have told me of shopping malls

And speaking English, with English always nearby.

I cannot go there. I was in an old

Place where grandmothers ruled villages

With feasts and Marys and memory,

And those things are icons that I cannot

Remove, that I cannot question, they are

In a space above my head, where piety

Is at home.

Arcade Fire - Intervention - Live

2007-03-06T10:23:00.001-08:00

Today is Arcade Fire day! Neon Bible was released in North America today. I hope you enjoy the video.

Round-up

2007-03-02T10:43:00.000-08:00

I hope everyone has enjoyed the new-look silent shroud. There isn't any less poetry here, but it is surrounded by political and soccer videos, with occasional references to baseball and Russia, and so forth.

With the political stuff, I am not trying to convert anybody to my views (which I really need to elaborate on), but to include other people's expressions of what I am thinking. It is part of the silent shroud ethos, of "hearts emerging from their silent shrouds." And this is a free place of expression, so when you disagree with me you can leave comments that express your point of view. It is part of being an "effective artist," to be able to express oneself, romantically and politically. Obviously, I am not a political artist, but I don't live in a hole in a ground, and I care about what's happening to this country.

The soccer videos are fun to watch, if you think soccer is fun to watch, if you don't care for them, that's fine. I don't mind.

If you're here for the poetry, please be patient as I am working on a few poems that should be published at the end of the month.

About the contest: yes, I've received all of your lists, but I won't publish them until my winter term is up. You can't rush art, and so paper doll Edge won't be ready until then.

And for all two of you who have sent me lists: I would encourage you to double-check your lists (if you still have them. If not, ask me for them via e-mail.) and make sure that if you said a member of a band, please change it from the individual member to the name of the band.
Also, there is a whole part of music history that has been left out, so I would encourage y'all to brush up on your punk and proto-punk.

I hope you have a great day, with your choice of raging liberals and Russian poets.

Rep. Miller Closes Debate - The Employee Free Choice Act

2007-03-01T21:53:00.001-08:00

Great speech from a Democratic congressman from California. I think it's shameful that businesses in America (like Starbucks and Wal-Mart) have been allowed to become successful without having properly organized unions. Before the unions were legalized in the 1930's, workers died trying to gain good benefits and decent hours for their work. So, I think that an arbitrary dismissal labor laws and history in the U.S. is just plain wrong and endangers the country by not taking care of our workers.
Later, I'll elaborate on some of my political-related thoughts in another post.

Olbermann - Special Comment: Condoleezza Rice Goes too Far

2007-02-27T17:15:00.001-08:00

This special comment by Keith Olbermann is brilliant. I think that we, as Americans, really need to understand how the country is going the wrong way with the wrong people in charge. I thought the 2006 elections settled it, but Bushco is doing everything it can it screw things up. How long till the next president?