At first I didn't quite know what I would do with the book, other than read it over and over again. My distrust of history then was still strong, and I wanted to concentrate on the story for its own sake, rather than on the manuscript's scientific, cultural, anthropological, or 'historical' value. I was drawn to the author himself.
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READIN
READIN started out as a place for me
to keep track of what I am reading, and to learn (slowly, slowly)
how to design a web site.
There has been some mission drift
here and there, but in general that's still what it is. Some of
the main things I write about here are
reading books,
listening to (and playing) music, and
watching the movies. Also I write about the
work I do with my hands and with my head; and of course about bringing up Sylvia.
The site is a bit of a work in progress. New features will come on-line now and then; and you will occasionally get error messages in place of the blog, for the forseeable future. Cut me some slack, I'm just doing it for fun! And if you see an error message you think I should know about, please drop me a line. READIN source code is PHP and CSS, and available on request, in case you want to see how it works.
See my reading list for what I'm interested in this year.
READIN has been visited approximately 236,737 times since October, 2007.
Dura menos un hombre que una vela
pero la tierra prefiere su lumbre
para seguir el paso de los astros.
Dura menos que un árbol,
que una piedra,
se anochece ante el viento más leve,
con un soplo se apaga.
Dura menos un pájaro,
que un pez fuera del agua,
casi no tiene tiempo de nacer,
da unas vueltas al sol y se borra
entre las sombras de las horas
hasta que sus huesos en el polvo
se mezclan con el viento,
y sin embargo, cuando parte
siempre deja la tierra más clara. -- Eugenio Montejo
(en que me hago sin objetivo fanfarroneas. Might as well, I don't see anyone else about to give me a rave rev)
Morir al final de un dÃa cualquiera
Imposible escapar de la violencia.
Imposible pensar en otra cosa.
-- La universidad desconocida
I find this statement of Bolaño's strangely comforting, strangely reassuring. Me demasiado preocupo sobre el valor de mi obra, de mis intentos a poesÃa y a trabajo. El cuento que tengo en progreso, soy convencido de que ese cuento va a hacer una lectura convincente, fascinante, se hace en verdad ya casi completo. Y lo mismo los poemas que componÃa usando los de Bolaño como provocaciones...
El pasaje del tiempo es lo que muere se mueren
los amigos de la infancia
envenenados por tiempo en los pueblos y las colinas de Nueva York
Today I finished mixing Mountain Station's set for Lazlo's Blow Up Radio (where NJ rock lives) -- very happy with it. We'll make a podcast of this at some point, after it has aired on Lazlo's show. Tracks:
Mountain Station *¡LIVE!* at Lazlo's Den: a Rollo and Crazy Grady production
All Around You (0:00)
NJ Transit (3:29)
Up to Valhalla (6:37)
East Tennessee Blues (trad.) (11:39)
Take Me to the River (Al Greene) (13:35)
Come Down Easy (Howard Eliott Payne) (16:36)
Red Overalls (20:01)
23 ½ minutes! And it seems to hold together pretty well, it is a nice listen.
John came over today and we played a Dylan-heavy set of new-to-us songs...
Gates of Eden (John singing)
The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll (me singing, a couple of times in a couple of different keys...)
Weary Day (a Delmore Bros. tune, with me singing -- we have played this before but not for a long time...)
Playhouse lies in pieces and the bolts that once connected them
the once (and future?) construct
scattered sunlight on the lawn
scattered sunlit lifeless hollowed out
the paint like skin that's covered over
veins of douglas fir and cedar
veins of age-old wood and creeping
vitiating rot
Drill battery is charging and I look out my back window
at the stillness of the breezes blowing
pushing round the trees
pushing blowing round the green enclosure
manifold imposing over
arching, dark reality
the creeping, pungent real story
never write it down, I'll never
write it down because it's hidden
hidden dark unnameable
illicit hanging conversation
twittering between cicadas
translate text of endless grayed-out
sussurating stop.
Finished two old projects yesterday -- The playhouse I built for Sylvia in 2005 and which Bill helped me pull down a few weeks ago is now completely disassembled (and Scott has indicated he'd be interested in using the wood to build something for Sasha and Maya); and the Windsor chair I built on my 2002 trip to The Windsor Institute is finally painted, a handsome shade of green. Lee Valley milk paint is the best.
In the Democratic Republic of Congo, along the banks of the great gray-green greasy Lomami river, a new species of Old World monkey has been discovered; the Cercopithecus lomamiensis or Lesula. What a deliciously expressively cryptic face this individual has!
As Rob Helpy-Chalk phrases it over at FB, "He's offering some kind of comfort, but not the kind that depends on being delusional about the way the world is."
A-and omg, look at the youngsters holding hands:
posted evening of September 15th, 2012: 2 responses
the automatic CAUTION door swings open and my heart beats faster panicked panting racing down the corridor I know not where
(click through for the dulcet tones of Dolph Chaney)
I'm headed what I'm fleeing whom I'll see if I look back behind me emptiness of ignorance and fear and pain and nervous sound
the automatic PANIC switch engages and I'm climbing up the walls I'm falling paralyzed and endless should have seen that coming no way back tonight my friend the waterfalls of history are soaking me I'm sweating broken searching for the path to bring me home
the automatic wicked bolt of FEAR slides home and punctures my resolve I'm quaking trembling feverish looking in the mirror what I see is sending waves of manic pity through me tell me truly help me I can't find a hand to hold a charge of hope and love and weary resignation say you'll keep me in my pit of fear and solitude and quavering frustration help me turn toward these scaly walls and understand my history my saving grace my destiny my almost unrequited FEAR
The cloud formations over Oaxaca are more spectacular each time you look at them.
I've never been able to capture their grandeur on my camera, and I'm hardly enough of a poet
to describe them to you, you'll have to take my word for it. They roll in slow over
the mountains to the north-east, creep slowly toward the city, they pile up around the
edge of the sky. I can hear the thunder far off, I look nervously upward, wonder
if I can make it home before the rain gets here. I can already feel the first drops
on my shoulder.
Laura told me I was making a mistake, and she's probably right.
It's raining a little harder now. I duck in to Hernán's cafe, I'll wait here until it
passes, it usually goes by in a half hour or so. (The thunder is louder than before --
it may last longer than usual this evening.) I order an espresso and ask after Hernán's
wife. He has a distant smile as he tells me Soledad is getting better, she should be
coming home Friday at the latest. I'm leafing through the book of poetry I've been
carrying around all day, I'm looking for the piece about la madre paralizada de la noche, it caught
my eye this morning, made me think about Soledad, when the lights go out. Hernán mutters
a curse and looks down the street to see if there is a blackout everywhere. For a few
minutes now it has been raining with the fury of Poseidon over Athens.
It was in this very cafe that Laura and I met, just a few months ago -- it seems like much longer.
I'm sipping my coffee in the darkness and trying not to think about Laura. The rain
is lightening up a bit, I'll head home before too long. I'm concerned about Soledad:
Hernán's wistful confidence seems false, seems forced, and I don't think she's going to
be back any time soon. The two of them have made this cafe my favorite place in the city
over the past year that I've been here -- maybe they're the closest thing to friends
that I've found here.
Laura's glad I came over but wishes I would have called earlier. Yeah, whatever...I'm not sure what to say here. So you're serious about going back to California?
Listen, of course I am. You're coming, too.
The firmness of her tone always startles me -- the line and contour of her body always catch me off guard. She takes my hand, gives me an inquisitive look and a squeeze, turns away to the book she was reading. I'm a little edgy right now (thanks to the espresso I guess, thanks to the glint in Laura's eye) and trying to figure out what I can say. What's holding me here? What future do I see? How the fuck can I justify letting her go without me? I'm responding with my own wistful, confident smile, trying to get her attention, mumble something about a friend up in Santa Cruz, maybe I could stay with him... But she's pissed off. I'm giving her too little too late, and we aren't really talking.
...I'm worried about Soledad.
She sighs, Yeah, I know,... She turns in the soft evening light. Not to mention her husband.
I look at her more closely, she's been crying. Catch her eye, I want to be with you.
Peter, it doesn't make any sense for you to stay here. What we have is what you're looking for.
...
Laura yawns and looks away. Suddenly I flash on an image of her and Soledad, the first time I saw her at the cafe, I know I'll be leaving Oaxaca with Laura and I know I'll regret it. What to say, what to say, I don't feel like I can tell her quite what's on my mind. I'm not sure how much I have left in the bank, exactly, I may have to lean on you some while I look for work... And she's holding me, leaning against me as she shakes her head, her brown hair is rubbing fuzzy against my cheek.
paralizada
sus movimientos lentos
crecen como las nubes
que crezca hipnotica, paralizada
que sea la totalidad
que sea la madre de la noche
lejano la miro
le sonrío
a ella
paralizado
posted evening of September 7th, 2012: Respond ➳ More posts about Projects
At Open Culture, Colin Marshall presents Federico Fellini: A Director's Notebook -- 1969 made-for-TV documentary introducing the director to Americans. Thanks for the link, CK!
