i wonder what it would be like to hit
the median head-on. the world becomes
hot metal and pressure. i'd hear my tires
claw the pavement, smell something burning.
all of it, too much friction. too much...
maybe my body would be light, all the bad
parts filtered through another sphere
and kept away from me.
i'd be
another animal caught on
the wrong side of headlights.
20090228
.ואלס.עם.בשיר
Like rocks around a dying campfire, Lee's living room has a ring of assorted wrenches, handlebar tape, and chains lying in it. And from the fire within, we have brought Capt. Nemo back to life, a veritable two-wheeled phoenix.
Some cosmetic changes to be had, Lee asserts: a lavender phoenix. Strangely enough, the rest of the colour scheme is in an Easter egg theme.
With spring around the corner, reincarnation motifs are just all abound!
וגם אני יראה "ואלס עם בשיר" הלילה. שמעתי שהוא ממש טוב. אני מרוגש.
20090227
when god speaks
just listen: the birds in the holly tree
speak in tongues. their voices
rise like smoke, like a sacrifice.
i wouldn't have known it either
had i never felt that hurt before.
i was alone in my bedroom, watching the night
pull down its shades, the colour of an old bruise.
it frightened me, how little i wanted
to live another day.
i could never feel this whole again.
speak in tongues. their voices
rise like smoke, like a sacrifice.
i wouldn't have known it either
had i never felt that hurt before.
i was alone in my bedroom, watching the night
pull down its shades, the colour of an old bruise.
it frightened me, how little i wanted
to live another day.
i could never feel this whole again.
.spicy.thai.burrito.
Last time I saw Matt & Kim, Kim was in and out of the lady's room while Matt was talking to us. Apparently, she had eaten some spicy Thai burrito, and was trying to brush out the taste and smell on her breath.
It makes me wonder if I'll recognize what she had for dinner tonight, through all the sweat.
It makes me wonder if I'll recognize what she had for dinner tonight, through all the sweat.
20090226
on letting go
mostly i feel lonely
when i think of you.
i had watched the tree
outside my window
and how the wind
ran through it,
pulled it toward
the west. how can
one move when rooted
that way?
i toyed with the thought
of seeing you again
and thought
better of it.
when i think of you.
i had watched the tree
outside my window
and how the wind
ran through it,
pulled it toward
the west. how can
one move when rooted
that way?
i toyed with the thought
of seeing you again
and thought
better of it.
.unfindable.cities.
A trip to the library today revealed that despite my recollection of having returned Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities, the library does not in fact have it shelved anywhere. The implication, thus, is that apparently I have made a mistake.
Maybe I never returned it after all.
"Check around. It might have slid under a car seat or something."
It happens, right?
Except I don't drive. So now there are invisible cities all over my bedroom, being by nature undetectable. Not an altogether disheartening thought, in retrospect.
Maybe I, like Marco Polo, will plunge my hands into the unknown and return with a fistful of silk and pasta.
Maybe I never returned it after all.
"Check around. It might have slid under a car seat or something."
It happens, right?
Except I don't drive. So now there are invisible cities all over my bedroom, being by nature undetectable. Not an altogether disheartening thought, in retrospect.
Maybe I, like Marco Polo, will plunge my hands into the unknown and return with a fistful of silk and pasta.
20090225
.time.an.origami.rock.
It seems, for once, that my hand-drawn calendar is synched up with the mainstream ones. For a brief moment, I'm entertained by the image of recycled sheets, with shaky grids drawn on sitting on a white rack next to a perfectly quadrilateral, calendar of cats in buckets, the whole package cleanly sealed off behind a transparent film, as if cuteness were a sexually transmitted disease, waiting to spring off commercial merchandise to ruin your life forever.
And when that brief moment is over, I have finished drawing up the next thirty-five days of my life, not even bothering to use a straightedge this time. If these little boxes were houses, then poor March looks like a straw house waiting for a wolf to come along.
And what becomes of the thirty-five expended, experienced days?
I begin to think of the linguistic ways of talking about how one travels through time: we like to think of it in terms of the putting the past behind us, the future in front of us. We envision ourselves boldly stepping forward into tomorrow, as if we were retrieving a baseball we failed to catch from the past. The shining future is like the sun in our eyes.
And the Chinese, I seem to remember, and perhaps even the Vietnamese (to be honest I can't even remember off the top of my head), have a way of envisioning us falling through time, like a marble falling from the past above down the stairs to the deep pit of the future. One can't seem to fight gravity any more than one can fight tumbling into tomorrow. Surely if Newton had been Chinese, he would have realized the fourth-dimensional qualities of time concomitantly as he had notions of gravity pounded into his head by an impertinent apple.
But perhaps we can offer another metaphor, for they lurk under every pencil with lead in its belly. Why not think of time as nothing more than a sheet of paper, ripped off the wall when we are through with it?
Nobody moves us.
We are the movers,
the page turners.
Time is nothing more than ink in a pen, and when the veins are too dry to draw up any more numbered boxes, you are in some trouble, buster.
Time is nothing more than a leaf of scrap paper, fallen from a tree of trivia and flipped over, recycled. It'll be crumpled up when we're done with it, and if the trash hasn't been taken out yet, well by George, we're going to just fold it into itself a little more and shove it into our pockets to dispose of later.
And when our pants come back from the wash, and we extract the shredded pulp of discarded time past, we'll spread it around our palms, thinking it a digested concert ticket, and try to recall exactly where we were, and what all that blowing in our ears was.
And when that brief moment is over, I have finished drawing up the next thirty-five days of my life, not even bothering to use a straightedge this time. If these little boxes were houses, then poor March looks like a straw house waiting for a wolf to come along.
And what becomes of the thirty-five expended, experienced days?
I begin to think of the linguistic ways of talking about how one travels through time: we like to think of it in terms of the putting the past behind us, the future in front of us. We envision ourselves boldly stepping forward into tomorrow, as if we were retrieving a baseball we failed to catch from the past. The shining future is like the sun in our eyes.
And the Chinese, I seem to remember, and perhaps even the Vietnamese (to be honest I can't even remember off the top of my head), have a way of envisioning us falling through time, like a marble falling from the past above down the stairs to the deep pit of the future. One can't seem to fight gravity any more than one can fight tumbling into tomorrow. Surely if Newton had been Chinese, he would have realized the fourth-dimensional qualities of time concomitantly as he had notions of gravity pounded into his head by an impertinent apple.
But perhaps we can offer another metaphor, for they lurk under every pencil with lead in its belly. Why not think of time as nothing more than a sheet of paper, ripped off the wall when we are through with it?
Nobody moves us.
We are the movers,
the page turners.
Time is nothing more than ink in a pen, and when the veins are too dry to draw up any more numbered boxes, you are in some trouble, buster.
Time is nothing more than a leaf of scrap paper, fallen from a tree of trivia and flipped over, recycled. It'll be crumpled up when we're done with it, and if the trash hasn't been taken out yet, well by George, we're going to just fold it into itself a little more and shove it into our pockets to dispose of later.
And when our pants come back from the wash, and we extract the shredded pulp of discarded time past, we'll spread it around our palms, thinking it a digested concert ticket, and try to recall exactly where we were, and what all that blowing in our ears was.
20090224
mother
on the phone, she says,
I'm sorry I wasn't better. I should have
stayed with your father.
I should have
stayed for you.
she says getting older is just
god's way of making you dwell
on how shitty you've been.
the days repeat like a song
stuck in your head. everyday
she sees herself leaving her daughters
with the man she no longer loved
and not looking back.
I'm sorry I wasn't better. I should have
stayed with your father.
I should have
stayed for you.
she says getting older is just
god's way of making you dwell
on how shitty you've been.
the days repeat like a song
stuck in your head. everyday
she sees herself leaving her daughters
with the man she no longer loved
and not looking back.
.not.tooth.nor.nail.
A point of contention, no doubt, but the issue of zombie defences always seems to be on the forefront of cautious minds. What really is the best way to protect yourself?
And if you ascribe to offence as the best defence, then what is the ideal weapon?
What does it say about a person?
I'd wager that the latter group would be in better shape, and would taste better.
Unless tender meat is your thing.
In any case, if you were a zombie, you would probably one the fit people on your side.
And to leave the question of offence in the air for a hot minute, I still maintain that the best plausible protection against zombies would be chain mail. Because ask yourself, what on a human body can really get through chain mail? Not tooth nor nail. In fact, you might be hard pressed to even disassemble the metal links by hand.
The argument goes that a group of zombies en masse could still rip you apart in theory, or maybe more realistically, smother you. But really, if you're up against such a horde, let's face it, you're probably screwed anyway.
No the only real question is how one pees from inside such a fortress.
I suppose you're just going to have to deal with some rusty joints if you want to make it out of here alive.
And if you ascribe to offence as the best defence, then what is the ideal weapon?
What does it say about a person?
I'd wager that the latter group would be in better shape, and would taste better.
Unless tender meat is your thing.
In any case, if you were a zombie, you would probably one the fit people on your side.
And to leave the question of offence in the air for a hot minute, I still maintain that the best plausible protection against zombies would be chain mail. Because ask yourself, what on a human body can really get through chain mail? Not tooth nor nail. In fact, you might be hard pressed to even disassemble the metal links by hand.
The argument goes that a group of zombies en masse could still rip you apart in theory, or maybe more realistically, smother you. But really, if you're up against such a horde, let's face it, you're probably screwed anyway.
No the only real question is how one pees from inside such a fortress.
I suppose you're just going to have to deal with some rusty joints if you want to make it out of here alive.
20090223
.headful.of.hiss.
A look in
the mirror tells me
I could cut my hair tonight.
Don't you remember that feeling you get sometimes, if not usually, after you cut your hair? A hesitant moment, spanning days and nights, as your head acclimatizes itself to the shift in weight.
Maybe you can see better now with the hair out of your eyes.
Maybe you stagger, blinded by light, unfiltered
and you can't seem to hide the fact that you have been sleeping through class
and your best friend's wedding.
I could cut my hair tonight,
shave off those snakes
and watch as all those paralysing secrets slither away.
the mirror tells me
I could cut my hair tonight.
Don't you remember that feeling you get sometimes, if not usually, after you cut your hair? A hesitant moment, spanning days and nights, as your head acclimatizes itself to the shift in weight.
Maybe you can see better now with the hair out of your eyes.
Maybe you stagger, blinded by light, unfiltered
and you can't seem to hide the fact that you have been sleeping through class
and your best friend's wedding.
I could cut my hair tonight,
shave off those snakes
and watch as all those paralysing secrets slither away.
ladybug
there's nothing lady-like about you
on your back, capsized on the sidewalk.
cross your legs, pull down your
skirt, narrow your eyes, your gaze
on nothing in particular.
here you are, kicking a goddamn
tantrum. sun on your belly like the hot breath
of a man until he
stomps you clean through.
on your back, capsized on the sidewalk.
cross your legs, pull down your
skirt, narrow your eyes, your gaze
on nothing in particular.
here you are, kicking a goddamn
tantrum. sun on your belly like the hot breath
of a man until he
stomps you clean through.
20090222
poem from our window
thick fog where you breathe
on the window pane.
you draw
a heart in the quick-fading white
because it seemed like
the right thing to do.
outside, the world is just
another specimen behind glass,
everything cataloged.
here is a sparrow
caught on the wind.
and here,
the gray you find
swarming in the city.
but it seemed new
when your cloud of breath disappeared
and we were part of it all.
on the window pane.
you draw
a heart in the quick-fading white
because it seemed like
the right thing to do.
outside, the world is just
another specimen behind glass,
everything cataloged.
here is a sparrow
caught on the wind.
and here,
the gray you find
swarming in the city.
but it seemed new
when your cloud of breath disappeared
and we were part of it all.
.the.curtain.calls.
A laminated chore chart, waiting to snap in names like Lego bricks.
A Nalgene filled with root beer up to the "Made in USA".
Fingers still smelling faintly like bike grease.
Winter winds afraid of being forgotten.
I'll be done with this script tonight.
A Nalgene filled with root beer up to the "Made in USA".
Fingers still smelling faintly like bike grease.
Winter winds afraid of being forgotten.
I'll be done with this script tonight.
20090221
money
when i was a child, i saved
my five-dollars-a-week
to see what
$100
looked like.
at the time i thought
it was all the money in
the world, those crumpled
bills, nearly war-torn
from tours in my pockets.
my father lost his job, and i never
saw his shoulders slouch like that.
i pushed my money
in his hand and he said,
honey, this wouldn't feed us for a week.
my five-dollars-a-week
to see what
$100
looked like.
at the time i thought
it was all the money in
the world, those crumpled
bills, nearly war-torn
from tours in my pockets.
my father lost his job, and i never
saw his shoulders slouch like that.
i pushed my money
in his hand and he said,
honey, this wouldn't feed us for a week.
.what's.he.building.in.there.
Did you ever have Tinkertoys as a child? Or K'nex? Of course you had Legos. Everybody had Legos. Especially sons of clockmakers.
I built little houses
at first. And cars later
down the line, followed
by ships, and tanks, and subs
and I grew weary of
human transportation altogether.
I wanted to build something, not to move me around in this universe, but something that was an aspect of the universe itself. I wanted to build something pure and unarrogant, something that was prescribed by the universe, and not imposed upon it.
So like all little boys
I looked to the
stars:
blueprints for a grandiose machine
Have you heard that Tom Waits song, What's He Building in There?
That might as well be about me. What am I building in there? and out here? and everywhere. The stars are a subtle plan, but there is method in the madness, and as I narrow down the possible connections, my great device inches closer to completion.
::::::
"What's he building in there?"
"A celestial machine from the stars.
And he's not constructing it.
It's building him."
I built little houses
at first. And cars later
down the line, followed
by ships, and tanks, and subs
and I grew weary of
human transportation altogether.
I wanted to build something, not to move me around in this universe, but something that was an aspect of the universe itself. I wanted to build something pure and unarrogant, something that was prescribed by the universe, and not imposed upon it.
So like all little boys
I looked to the
stars:
blueprints for a grandiose machine
Have you heard that Tom Waits song, What's He Building in There?
That might as well be about me. What am I building in there? and out here? and everywhere. The stars are a subtle plan, but there is method in the madness, and as I narrow down the possible connections, my great device inches closer to completion.
::::::
"What's he building in there?"
"A celestial machine from the stars.
And he's not constructing it.
It's building him."
20090220
.the.juggernaut.vs.the.blob.
After Netanyahu flaps his right-wing agenda in the Knesset and receives the blessing of President Shimon Peres to become the official Prime Minister, he does the unthinkable and schedules a diplomatic talk to resolve the whole tired Palestinian affair with an all-star cast of Israeli political raptors: Livni, himself, Lieberman, Barak. He even goes so far as to invite some Palestinian officials. Nothing too radical, mind you. We'll just ask that Abbas fellow if he wants to attend.
He doesn't.
And as the meeting starts, off the record, someone begins on an off-kilter note, perhaps hoping to break the ice.
"Did anyone read comic books growing up? I was a big fan of the X-Men, and I talking about one of those typical all-star crossover fantasy battles. Namely, what would happen if the Juggernaut ran into the Blob? An unstoppable force colliding with an immovable force?"
"Strangely enough, I asked an expert once the very same question. And don't ask me what his expertise exactly was. His answer was quite simple, if unintuitive: both parties would simply do what they weren't supposed to. The Blob would be sent reeling, and the Juggernaut would stop dead in his tracks."
And a third voice chimes in impatiently.
"Oh, don't be preposterous. They solved that very question in the comics, when the Hulk, who admittedly is stronger than the Juggernaut, was able to pick up the Blob. And I suppose Blob's immovable nature is only defined by his relation to the ground beneath him, because when he was hoisted up he ripped up a great deal of ground with him."
"How interesting. So in a sense, the Blob never moved, as he was still stationary to ground he was upon. How clever a solution to move an immovable object by displacing the entire system it is immovable within."
"Yes, yes. But let's move on to politics."
He doesn't.
And as the meeting starts, off the record, someone begins on an off-kilter note, perhaps hoping to break the ice.
"Did anyone read comic books growing up? I was a big fan of the X-Men, and I talking about one of those typical all-star crossover fantasy battles. Namely, what would happen if the Juggernaut ran into the Blob? An unstoppable force colliding with an immovable force?"
"Strangely enough, I asked an expert once the very same question. And don't ask me what his expertise exactly was. His answer was quite simple, if unintuitive: both parties would simply do what they weren't supposed to. The Blob would be sent reeling, and the Juggernaut would stop dead in his tracks."
And a third voice chimes in impatiently.
"Oh, don't be preposterous. They solved that very question in the comics, when the Hulk, who admittedly is stronger than the Juggernaut, was able to pick up the Blob. And I suppose Blob's immovable nature is only defined by his relation to the ground beneath him, because when he was hoisted up he ripped up a great deal of ground with him."
"How interesting. So in a sense, the Blob never moved, as he was still stationary to ground he was upon. How clever a solution to move an immovable object by displacing the entire system it is immovable within."
"Yes, yes. But let's move on to politics."
20090219
.obtaining.mass.
Not to give you the wrong impression about my habits and obsessions, but I was reading an article the other day about the race to find the Higgs Boss. There are only two contestants really: the LHC at the CERN in Switzerland, and Fermilab in Illinois. In case you're not aware, the LHC had a supermagnet malfunction back in the fall or winter sometime, and is offline until maybe September, giving the fellows at Fermilab a bit a cushion.
And let me add that by race, I want you to imagine asking a 6 year old to draw you a treasure map for something he may or may not have buried at some point.
Not to say the Higgs boson doesn't exist; it's just still hypothetical, if not predicted.
In any case, what is it exactly anyway? Well, I can't give you any technical answers, and I certainly couldn't draw you a picture, but as with most things, I can describe it to you via its effects on its surroundings.
So, all you need to know is this:
The Higgs boson is a hitherto unobserved massive scalar elementary particle that would explain, if verified, how massless elementary particles acquire mass.
And here our ship is dissolved into flotsam and jetsam, and we cling by on timbers of splintery intuition. Massless particles? Acquiring the property of mass?
And what if we go one step further? What if we say sayonara to the lab coats altogether and talk about emotions and relationships closer to our hearts and lives:
Is there some minutia that explains how love acquires the virtue of passion?
that explains how hope is seeded with desire?
Maybe if we keep crashing against each other with all the force and velocity of modern life, we might be able to sort through the wreckage one day and say,
"Yes, life did acquire living."
And let me add that by race, I want you to imagine asking a 6 year old to draw you a treasure map for something he may or may not have buried at some point.
Not to say the Higgs boson doesn't exist; it's just still hypothetical, if not predicted.
In any case, what is it exactly anyway? Well, I can't give you any technical answers, and I certainly couldn't draw you a picture, but as with most things, I can describe it to you via its effects on its surroundings.
So, all you need to know is this:
The Higgs boson is a hitherto unobserved massive scalar elementary particle that would explain, if verified, how massless elementary particles acquire mass.
And here our ship is dissolved into flotsam and jetsam, and we cling by on timbers of splintery intuition. Massless particles? Acquiring the property of mass?
And what if we go one step further? What if we say sayonara to the lab coats altogether and talk about emotions and relationships closer to our hearts and lives:
Is there some minutia that explains how love acquires the virtue of passion?
that explains how hope is seeded with desire?
Maybe if we keep crashing against each other with all the force and velocity of modern life, we might be able to sort through the wreckage one day and say,
"Yes, life did acquire living."
name that abstraction!
define happiness:
a warm gun, according to The Beatles.
define your life's philosophy:
to let the world blow my mind
define passion:
let's touch eye balls
define neediness:
squid's wheel of wellness
define wonder:
a cave
define hope:
the holly tree on my mother's front lawn
define hate:
sexual repression
define heaven:
two pools of golden lava
define hell:
the shit garden that is my backyard, only with little gargoyles prancing around instead of my dogs
define god:
the north & south poles and all the electrons in between
define lust:
smelling the scent of a lover on your pillow
define violence:
wearing a codpiece at a milk bar
define health:
celery = negative calories
define mad:
Beakman's World
define sadness:
a puppy underneath a raincloud
define love:
codependency
a warm gun, according to The Beatles.
define your life's philosophy:
to let the world blow my mind
define passion:
let's touch eye balls
define neediness:
squid's wheel of wellness
define wonder:
a cave
define hope:
the holly tree on my mother's front lawn
define hate:
sexual repression
define heaven:
two pools of golden lava
define hell:
the shit garden that is my backyard, only with little gargoyles prancing around instead of my dogs
define god:
the north & south poles and all the electrons in between
define lust:
smelling the scent of a lover on your pillow
define violence:
wearing a codpiece at a milk bar
define health:
celery = negative calories
define mad:
Beakman's World
define sadness:
a puppy underneath a raincloud
define love:
codependency
20090218
mosquito
got caught in the sticky jelly of my eye,
whizzed in like a kamikaze man.
destroyed with a blink. see a wing
float on the crest of a hot tear,
the ruin you brought here.
whizzed in like a kamikaze man.
destroyed with a blink. see a wing
float on the crest of a hot tear,
the ruin you brought here.
.the.sin.in.syntax.
I attended a linguistics talk today, in a room where the linguistics faculty numbered the linguistics students (even including me). Or maybe it was about equal. Maybe even greater, because it'd be nice to think that we're all still learning.
Judith Tonhauser and Cynthia Clopper - whose exact academic titles escape me at the moment, but rest assured that they are highly esteemed and qualified - were giving a talk on their field work on the Guaraní language of Paraguay. Most notably, Judith (it's not as if I'm reducing the women to their given names; we like to be on a first name basis in the department) had spent a few years working on a thesis in Paraguay dealing with the supposed nominal tense markers (in actuality, she concluded in her research that they are actually aspect markers). Following that, she wanted to find out if there was phonetic/prosodic marking for conveying contrastive semantic meaning. Being a semanticist-syntactician by trade, she enlisted the aid of Cynthia, who proceeded to fly down to Asunción.
What does that all mean?
Essentially, Guaraní has morphological markers that can be added to nouns that give them temporal meaning, in the same way that tense can be attached to a verb (i.e. "-ed") to place it temporally. The distinction between tense and aspect lies in some murky waters, but essentially, it comes down to felicity, in that one can say "Fernando was a teacher and is now a teacher." (tense), but cannot say "Fernando is a former teacher and is now a teacher." (where "former" is serving as our temporal nominal aspect marker). Using this test was how Judith determined that the markers were aspect markers and not tense markers.
And maybe that doesn't really clarify things. Linguistics can be a bit of a headfuck, and so as Julie said to me tonight, let's put the 'fun' back in phonetics and lift the theory off the paper a bit.
(On a side note, we decided that I like to put the 'sin' in syntax. And we won't speak about semantics...)
A translation of the sentence, "Fernando is selling a cow." might be rendered into something along the lines of "Fernando is selling future-meat." Unfortunately, I don't have the glosses to give you a true sense of what's going on, but let's say that "cow" is hypothetically translated into a word "FPXK". In that case, let's further assume that "-DZ" is our future aspect marker. What Fernando is selling then, is "meat", translated not as a third morpheme, but as "FPXK-DZ".
Starting to get it a bit?
Maybe this is all a bit too technical still.
Can the things that surround us undergo fundamental changes without any action, any 'verb', acting on them? Can a standing tree simply lay fallen in the forest without falling? Does the world even need us?
So maybe on one hand, the self-confident lobbyist of humanity can claim that we people make our worlds occur, that we bring motion and change into the world around us. His more humble brother in the field of quantum physics might nod his head in agreement and add that just our observation of the world causes the static universe to collapse into verbs.
But if we're the verbs, what about the nouns? The cow, the trees, the cups. What do they care? Maybe the speakers of Guaraní know something that we don't:
everything in the world has its own sense of purposeful and purposeless past, present and future, and frankly my dear, it doesn't give a damn if we're here to put it into words or not.
Judith Tonhauser and Cynthia Clopper - whose exact academic titles escape me at the moment, but rest assured that they are highly esteemed and qualified - were giving a talk on their field work on the Guaraní language of Paraguay. Most notably, Judith (it's not as if I'm reducing the women to their given names; we like to be on a first name basis in the department) had spent a few years working on a thesis in Paraguay dealing with the supposed nominal tense markers (in actuality, she concluded in her research that they are actually aspect markers). Following that, she wanted to find out if there was phonetic/prosodic marking for conveying contrastive semantic meaning. Being a semanticist-syntactician by trade, she enlisted the aid of Cynthia, who proceeded to fly down to Asunción.
What does that all mean?
Essentially, Guaraní has morphological markers that can be added to nouns that give them temporal meaning, in the same way that tense can be attached to a verb (i.e. "-ed") to place it temporally. The distinction between tense and aspect lies in some murky waters, but essentially, it comes down to felicity, in that one can say "Fernando was a teacher and is now a teacher." (tense), but cannot say "Fernando is a former teacher and is now a teacher." (where "former" is serving as our temporal nominal aspect marker). Using this test was how Judith determined that the markers were aspect markers and not tense markers.
And maybe that doesn't really clarify things. Linguistics can be a bit of a headfuck, and so as Julie said to me tonight, let's put the 'fun' back in phonetics and lift the theory off the paper a bit.
(On a side note, we decided that I like to put the 'sin' in syntax. And we won't speak about semantics...)
A translation of the sentence, "Fernando is selling a cow." might be rendered into something along the lines of "Fernando is selling future-meat." Unfortunately, I don't have the glosses to give you a true sense of what's going on, but let's say that "cow" is hypothetically translated into a word "FPXK". In that case, let's further assume that "-DZ" is our future aspect marker. What Fernando is selling then, is "meat", translated not as a third morpheme, but as "FPXK-DZ".
Starting to get it a bit?
Maybe this is all a bit too technical still.
Can the things that surround us undergo fundamental changes without any action, any 'verb', acting on them? Can a standing tree simply lay fallen in the forest without falling? Does the world even need us?
So maybe on one hand, the self-confident lobbyist of humanity can claim that we people make our worlds occur, that we bring motion and change into the world around us. His more humble brother in the field of quantum physics might nod his head in agreement and add that just our observation of the world causes the static universe to collapse into verbs.
But if we're the verbs, what about the nouns? The cow, the trees, the cups. What do they care? Maybe the speakers of Guaraní know something that we don't:
everything in the world has its own sense of purposeful and purposeless past, present and future, and frankly my dear, it doesn't give a damn if we're here to put it into words or not.
20090217
boy in tree
he stared at the branches knotted skyward
like his father's raised fist. the lawn was
trashed again, another night tallied by beer
cans, and inside he heard
his mother in the kitchen, methodically
opening and closing
drawers. he dangled from the first branch
and held his legs to his chest, then kicked up
to a higher stoop, up and up,
his perch over the quiet street.
he watched the sun sink
below the evening's quicksand.
he could stay here unnoticed, webbed
in leaves and dark, his loneliness
like a cloak.
like his father's raised fist. the lawn was
trashed again, another night tallied by beer
cans, and inside he heard
his mother in the kitchen, methodically
opening and closing
drawers. he dangled from the first branch
and held his legs to his chest, then kicked up
to a higher stoop, up and up,
his perch over the quiet street.
he watched the sun sink
below the evening's quicksand.
he could stay here unnoticed, webbed
in leaves and dark, his loneliness
like a cloak.
.american.apparel.statement.of.interest.
Not that I ever really expect to hear back from them.
"
Is it a biting irony for someone with questionable beliefs in America to apply to American Apparel? Certainly not. Is it something of an irony that American Apparel hails to labor practices that are contradictory to the outsourced slave labor that most of corporate America has invented and sustained? Certainly not. Any hipster that doesn't stare in the face of self-contradiction and scoff apologetically has revoked his scene points. Because let's face it, I'm a hipster. And if you are an American Apparel employee reading this, chances are that you are too.
Everyone wants to work for American Apparel because of the totally rad non-slave labor and stuff. I'll skip over that. No doubt, I hold fair labor practices close to my little leftist heart, but there is no need to rehash something that you already try so hard to publicize. Instead, let me talk about what I would hope to get out of this job, other than a paycheck and the shirt off your back(room).
I am unabashedly a student, currently waiting to hear back from graduate schools. My intent, as a graduate student, is to study the changes undergoing Modern Israeli Hebrew as a result of language contact. And before you decide that that is totally irrelevant, think about who it is that is responsible for modernizing language. Young people? Good, keep going. Young hip people. Cool, groovy, hip, epic, sweet, awesome young people.
Each generation is reinventing language word by word. They aren't just recycling their old vocabulary; they're importing words left and right, PBR cans in hand. I have heard a literal Hebrew translation of the phrase "da bomb", direct from English. The borrowed Arabic curses would burn your ears. This demographic is my demographic, whether or not I slipped into the skinny jeans of hipsterdom myself. If I'm going to understand the linguistic neologisms that occur because of these people, I'm going to have understand the things that motivate them. Sure, I could float around parties, you say, but that certainly doesn't give me an structural insight on an institutional column of hipster culture. If hipsters prescribe to the medicine of fashion, and American Apparel is the doctor, I want to be the pill-cutting pharmacist.
Ok, so maybe it's still a stretch. Maybe you think that being able to interact with a social subculture responsible for language change is a rather flimsy excuse to get hired. That's ok. I have other skills. I can do a skid stop with a leg dangling over the handlebars; I can play the obscure music game with the best of them; I can name drop existentialist philosophers like a pledge of allegiance, and even compelling argue for or against their works. Wii Fit even tells me I'm underweight, but we'll just pretend I'm tall.
Perhaps more importantly, I am amiable and resourceful, important factors, no doubt, in working with customers. And for someone applying to a fair labor employer, I work like a slave, with high expectations of myself with regard to diligence and efficiency. Computers are yesterday's news, and I can work with them natively.
So if you don't hire me, don't do it on the pretense that I'm an ostentatious pseudo-intellectual, but by all means do it on account that I can't grow a beard.
"
"
Is it a biting irony for someone with questionable beliefs in America to apply to American Apparel? Certainly not. Is it something of an irony that American Apparel hails to labor practices that are contradictory to the outsourced slave labor that most of corporate America has invented and sustained? Certainly not. Any hipster that doesn't stare in the face of self-contradiction and scoff apologetically has revoked his scene points. Because let's face it, I'm a hipster. And if you are an American Apparel employee reading this, chances are that you are too.
Everyone wants to work for American Apparel because of the totally rad non-slave labor and stuff. I'll skip over that. No doubt, I hold fair labor practices close to my little leftist heart, but there is no need to rehash something that you already try so hard to publicize. Instead, let me talk about what I would hope to get out of this job, other than a paycheck and the shirt off your back(room).
I am unabashedly a student, currently waiting to hear back from graduate schools. My intent, as a graduate student, is to study the changes undergoing Modern Israeli Hebrew as a result of language contact. And before you decide that that is totally irrelevant, think about who it is that is responsible for modernizing language. Young people? Good, keep going. Young hip people. Cool, groovy, hip, epic, sweet, awesome young people.
Each generation is reinventing language word by word. They aren't just recycling their old vocabulary; they're importing words left and right, PBR cans in hand. I have heard a literal Hebrew translation of the phrase "da bomb", direct from English. The borrowed Arabic curses would burn your ears. This demographic is my demographic, whether or not I slipped into the skinny jeans of hipsterdom myself. If I'm going to understand the linguistic neologisms that occur because of these people, I'm going to have understand the things that motivate them. Sure, I could float around parties, you say, but that certainly doesn't give me an structural insight on an institutional column of hipster culture. If hipsters prescribe to the medicine of fashion, and American Apparel is the doctor, I want to be the pill-cutting pharmacist.
Ok, so maybe it's still a stretch. Maybe you think that being able to interact with a social subculture responsible for language change is a rather flimsy excuse to get hired. That's ok. I have other skills. I can do a skid stop with a leg dangling over the handlebars; I can play the obscure music game with the best of them; I can name drop existentialist philosophers like a pledge of allegiance, and even compelling argue for or against their works. Wii Fit even tells me I'm underweight, but we'll just pretend I'm tall.
Perhaps more importantly, I am amiable and resourceful, important factors, no doubt, in working with customers. And for someone applying to a fair labor employer, I work like a slave, with high expectations of myself with regard to diligence and efficiency. Computers are yesterday's news, and I can work with them natively.
So if you don't hire me, don't do it on the pretense that I'm an ostentatious pseudo-intellectual, but by all means do it on account that I can't grow a beard.
"
20090216
what is it about the last load?
the chores i half-finish: laundry,
dishes, dog walks. the list is
half crossed out. doesn't count.
i'd be half a lover if you'd
let me. fake a headache every
two nights. put out the light.
dishes, dog walks. the list is
half crossed out. doesn't count.
i'd be half a lover if you'd
let me. fake a headache every
two nights. put out the light.
a.coastal.road.in.central.spain.
It was all happening again, or at least, I was convinced of time's duplicity. There I was in a two story apartment building set up in Southern Spain, in a room overhanging the parking lot and a spiral staircase leading up into the centre of my living room, like a giant drill bit boring its way in. The name of the town is unimportant and forgotten. I wasn't even sure what I was doing there, but one thing was for certain: it was a set up.
And was it the government? Mine? Theirs? Am I actually a Spanish citizen? What year is this anyway?
In any case, the guard at the parking lot gatehouse doesn't like my looks and I think he needs to stop smoking. I'm positive he's keeping tabs on me with that notebook of his, and so what? What have I done.
And just like that, I don't what sets it all off, but I'm under house arrest. Maybe they told me via letter, sealed and stamped. Or a phone call. What drove it home was the guard's twitchiness as I inched down the spiral staircase to the ground, before changing my mind and footing my way right back up.
After some time in the apartment, long enough for night to have settled in sleeplessly, as I lounged around looking at the parking lot and waited to see if dawn would bring any revocation of my arrest, a small car or motorcycle collided into one of the columns supporting my overhanging apartment. Nothing collapsed, but the driver sprung out of the metal and ran up the stairs into my apartment telling me that my window of escape had come. I suppose she must have simultaneously taken out the gatehouse with her collision.
In any case, I took her advice and took off, following the highway leading north, avoiding the road directly, but keeping it in sight as I ran along the hills to the side of it. My unprisoner was hot on my heels, and with the removal of whatever outfit she had been wearing as a driver, turned out to be my friend and former coworker Beth. Lord knows what she was doing in Spain springing my ass from secret house arrest.
We sprinted down the hills for awhile, cutting through the tall grass like scythes, staying low in case any government vehicles or curious people saw us from the road. Daylight had switched on like an interrogation light, and I tried to calculate how far we had really run.
Far enough.
We descended to the highway and jogged down it, residual momentum, I suppose, and I stuck out my thumb, gaining nothing but an obstinate look of disgust from a white haired woman careening down the highway. I jogged backwards, staring at Beth and held my thumb out hopefully, not bothering to wonder if the Spaniards had the same hand signals for hitch hiking.
Rather quickly, two figures on scooters in red and blue pulled over to the side of the road, and with nothing more than an excited greeting beckoned us to hop on the back of their scooters. I took to the back of the guy's and Beth to the girl's, and frankly, in retrospect, I don't know who was wearing what colour anymore. I don't think they were even curious where we were coming from, but simply where we were headed. Wherever this road is taking us! Madrid!
We drove down the road, overlooking some large expanse of azure water, reclining like a femme fatale. What are we going to do now, Beth asked. No worries, this road will take us to Madrid, which is about 12 hours from here, and from there, we can go anywhere. In fact, there are plenty of small towns along the way, since I doubt we'll be on the road for another 12 hours anyway. We can disappear in the towns for a bit, or find rides anywhere we need to go. I think we've put enough distance between whoever's behind us. And fuck it all, after Madrid, maybe we should just keep barrelling down the road towards France. We can cross the Pyrenees and be having champagne in no time at all. And don't worry, believe it or not, this exact scenario happened to me recently, just a summer ago. These roads are like old songs to me, and we were going to sing along to the last refrain.
Our drivers were rather excited by the whole concept as well, and if I didn't know any better, I would say that they didn't have much of a destination themselves. They seemed rather content to drive us all the way to Madrid, and just to show their enthusiasm, instructed us to grab tight as they roared their scooters ever faster down the highway.
And was it the government? Mine? Theirs? Am I actually a Spanish citizen? What year is this anyway?
In any case, the guard at the parking lot gatehouse doesn't like my looks and I think he needs to stop smoking. I'm positive he's keeping tabs on me with that notebook of his, and so what? What have I done.
And just like that, I don't what sets it all off, but I'm under house arrest. Maybe they told me via letter, sealed and stamped. Or a phone call. What drove it home was the guard's twitchiness as I inched down the spiral staircase to the ground, before changing my mind and footing my way right back up.
After some time in the apartment, long enough for night to have settled in sleeplessly, as I lounged around looking at the parking lot and waited to see if dawn would bring any revocation of my arrest, a small car or motorcycle collided into one of the columns supporting my overhanging apartment. Nothing collapsed, but the driver sprung out of the metal and ran up the stairs into my apartment telling me that my window of escape had come. I suppose she must have simultaneously taken out the gatehouse with her collision.
In any case, I took her advice and took off, following the highway leading north, avoiding the road directly, but keeping it in sight as I ran along the hills to the side of it. My unprisoner was hot on my heels, and with the removal of whatever outfit she had been wearing as a driver, turned out to be my friend and former coworker Beth. Lord knows what she was doing in Spain springing my ass from secret house arrest.
We sprinted down the hills for awhile, cutting through the tall grass like scythes, staying low in case any government vehicles or curious people saw us from the road. Daylight had switched on like an interrogation light, and I tried to calculate how far we had really run.
Far enough.
We descended to the highway and jogged down it, residual momentum, I suppose, and I stuck out my thumb, gaining nothing but an obstinate look of disgust from a white haired woman careening down the highway. I jogged backwards, staring at Beth and held my thumb out hopefully, not bothering to wonder if the Spaniards had the same hand signals for hitch hiking.
Rather quickly, two figures on scooters in red and blue pulled over to the side of the road, and with nothing more than an excited greeting beckoned us to hop on the back of their scooters. I took to the back of the guy's and Beth to the girl's, and frankly, in retrospect, I don't know who was wearing what colour anymore. I don't think they were even curious where we were coming from, but simply where we were headed. Wherever this road is taking us! Madrid!
We drove down the road, overlooking some large expanse of azure water, reclining like a femme fatale. What are we going to do now, Beth asked. No worries, this road will take us to Madrid, which is about 12 hours from here, and from there, we can go anywhere. In fact, there are plenty of small towns along the way, since I doubt we'll be on the road for another 12 hours anyway. We can disappear in the towns for a bit, or find rides anywhere we need to go. I think we've put enough distance between whoever's behind us. And fuck it all, after Madrid, maybe we should just keep barrelling down the road towards France. We can cross the Pyrenees and be having champagne in no time at all. And don't worry, believe it or not, this exact scenario happened to me recently, just a summer ago. These roads are like old songs to me, and we were going to sing along to the last refrain.
Our drivers were rather excited by the whole concept as well, and if I didn't know any better, I would say that they didn't have much of a destination themselves. They seemed rather content to drive us all the way to Madrid, and just to show their enthusiasm, instructed us to grab tight as they roared their scooters ever faster down the highway.
20090214
valentine
gray day, the kind that never lives up
to its expectations. rain promised
in the pregnant clouds never comes.
look what America taught me:
i can measure your love
by the carat.
my father married my mother
on valentine's day
with the ring her mother gave her.
but you look at me across
the table, your hands turned
up, an offering.
to its expectations. rain promised
in the pregnant clouds never comes.
look what America taught me:
i can measure your love
by the carat.
my father married my mother
on valentine's day
with the ring her mother gave her.
but you look at me across
the table, your hands turned
up, an offering.
.the.sound.of.hands.clapping.
If you ask my friend Gianna what her favourite memory of my youngest brother is, it might go something like this.
On a trip our families took to the various countries of the Levantine, her family and mine, as well as other family friends happened to all be in Lebanon. There was a day trip planned for Syria in the near future, as well, but my family didn't secure the visas in time, so we were on our own that day.
Or maybe we were still in Jordan when the story happened.
In any case, we were in motion. We had stopped at a hotel, and were in the process of checking out of it, and amid the hustle and bustle, we succeeded, launching ourselves out of the parking lot and further into the sands.
At some point, we stopped at a rest stop not too far down the road, and as everyone exited the cars, Gianna will give you a tremendous impression of my father yelling, "Where's Steven?"
We stuffed ourselves back into our cars like hot little peppers into olives and made our way back to the hotel. Sure enough, Steven was seated in the lobby, and upon seeing us arrive, leapt up vigourously, not towards my father, but away.
Gianna starts laughing uncontrollably at this point, joined in by her sisters, should they be present. They mimic the hands of my brother clapping over his ears as he runs around the family car apologizing with my dad in hot pursuit.
And just so you know, there is a precedent for this. Discipline in my family came in only a few ways, but they were generally effective at instilling us with a certain Pavlovian terror. My mother went through more wooden rulers than I can remember.
In any case, their favourite technique for use in public, faced with unarmed combat, would involve my father pinching our earlobes and tugging upwards, half dragging us and half leading us away.
I was no stranger to this, and I have my own memories of being on the alert for my dad's pincer grip. When I still lived in Texas, I must have been no older than three at the time, I was taken to a shopping mall with my parents. My brothers hadn't been born yet, and my parents had not yet assumed the role of shepherds of their offspring.
Predictably, at some point I became separated, and lost in the sauce of shops and shoppers. I don't remember how long I was lost for, but I know a few things: I never cried. I found either a mall guard or a police officer and somehow informed them of the situation. My parents were summoned over the intercom (as if it weren't bad enough that these coloured people were reproducing, but they were letting their brood run rampant as well!). One can imagine the officer flapping over the foreign consonants like an injured bird.
The true terror for me, though, shouldn't have been being lost, but being found. As my parents materialized, I ran over to them, relieved to be reunited, and more than a little proud of having recovered them on my own.
My ear were immediately between my father's pincher pincers. I was being told to not get lost again in the future. They had, I supposed, worked hard to fling themselves out of poverty and over the ocean to squeeze me out into America.
So maybe it is Pavlovian indeed that, today, the mere mention of having my own children sends my hands over my ears, filling my head with nothing more than the incessant ringing of the too many and too loud concerts of my teenage years.
On a trip our families took to the various countries of the Levantine, her family and mine, as well as other family friends happened to all be in Lebanon. There was a day trip planned for Syria in the near future, as well, but my family didn't secure the visas in time, so we were on our own that day.
Or maybe we were still in Jordan when the story happened.
In any case, we were in motion. We had stopped at a hotel, and were in the process of checking out of it, and amid the hustle and bustle, we succeeded, launching ourselves out of the parking lot and further into the sands.
At some point, we stopped at a rest stop not too far down the road, and as everyone exited the cars, Gianna will give you a tremendous impression of my father yelling, "Where's Steven?"
We stuffed ourselves back into our cars like hot little peppers into olives and made our way back to the hotel. Sure enough, Steven was seated in the lobby, and upon seeing us arrive, leapt up vigourously, not towards my father, but away.
Gianna starts laughing uncontrollably at this point, joined in by her sisters, should they be present. They mimic the hands of my brother clapping over his ears as he runs around the family car apologizing with my dad in hot pursuit.
And just so you know, there is a precedent for this. Discipline in my family came in only a few ways, but they were generally effective at instilling us with a certain Pavlovian terror. My mother went through more wooden rulers than I can remember.
In any case, their favourite technique for use in public, faced with unarmed combat, would involve my father pinching our earlobes and tugging upwards, half dragging us and half leading us away.
I was no stranger to this, and I have my own memories of being on the alert for my dad's pincer grip. When I still lived in Texas, I must have been no older than three at the time, I was taken to a shopping mall with my parents. My brothers hadn't been born yet, and my parents had not yet assumed the role of shepherds of their offspring.
Predictably, at some point I became separated, and lost in the sauce of shops and shoppers. I don't remember how long I was lost for, but I know a few things: I never cried. I found either a mall guard or a police officer and somehow informed them of the situation. My parents were summoned over the intercom (as if it weren't bad enough that these coloured people were reproducing, but they were letting their brood run rampant as well!). One can imagine the officer flapping over the foreign consonants like an injured bird.
The true terror for me, though, shouldn't have been being lost, but being found. As my parents materialized, I ran over to them, relieved to be reunited, and more than a little proud of having recovered them on my own.
My ear were immediately between my father's pincher pincers. I was being told to not get lost again in the future. They had, I supposed, worked hard to fling themselves out of poverty and over the ocean to squeeze me out into America.
So maybe it is Pavlovian indeed that, today, the mere mention of having my own children sends my hands over my ears, filling my head with nothing more than the incessant ringing of the too many and too loud concerts of my teenage years.
20090213
.small.cabbage.worlds.
Health magazine considers kimchi to be one of the healthiest foods you can shovel down your gullet. For those of you not in the know, it is a red mess of fermented cabbage and carrots, "loaded with vitamins A, B, and C, but its biggest benefit may be in its 'healthy bacteria' called lactobacilli, found in fermented foods like kimchi and yogurt."
I have some vague memories of either trying it, or simply being around it as a child. If anything, Asian families seem to love all manners of foods, pickled and preserved into eternity. The smells of these exploits, especially those involving the infamous fish sauces of that noxious dragon of the Orient, are legendary, and I should qualify that even if I didn't directly consume fermented potions, I surely experienced them all the same.
My real memory of kimchi in recent memory was when I lived about ten blocks and three years down the street, in a small brick apartment complex, half sunken into the grass, but threatening anyway to topple over into the parking lot and roll down into the Olentangy River. With a messy grin, the dumpster in the lot loomed greedily over a sad plot of what appeared to be a failed pepper garden.
My roommate at the time was half Korean. His mother, allegedly, was a descendent of the Korean royal family: a numbered child of a numbered wife. I was told how her brother and her used to go up into the mountains early in the morning and practice traditional tae kwon do and tang soo do. That is to say the mystical sort of legends, taught by white-browed masters grunting approvingly as dishevelled students punch trees and thrust their fists into sacks of grain.
As far as I could piece together, Paul's father, scarred by chemical fires and dirty blood left the Korean War with a new bride in bag, a silent wife ready to take leave from her homeland, and like Orpheus, resisting the temptation to look backwards. Only there was no lover hot on her heels - indeed, she was the Eurydice as soon as this story crosses the ocean - but only the body of her brother, with an arrow in his chest, like the last coloured belt to prove his martial arts achievements.
Dirty blood ran in the family, however, and Paul was told his kidneys were failing while he was in high school. He was expected to maybe have a year left. He chose to keep it to himself. Maybe he wanted to spare his teenage friends the distress of worrying about somebody else's problems, greater than their own. Maybe he had come to terms with it. And after all else is said, after all logic has coursed through one's veins like the flu, there is maybe that fear of mortality.
It was enough to turn anyone into a God-fearing Christian.
And so he somehow made it into college, sitting next to me in my first university math course, wherein I discovered what my future didn't hold in store for me, and I devised ways to derail myself from the tracks my father had waved me off on. I don't remember the first words we really said to each other, but desperate for friends after having been displaced for the n-th time in my life, I was ready to concede to the first awkward engineering student talking about something other than the major. We spent our freshman year playing video games and cooking pasta in his rice cooker, the only legal heating element in the dorm rooms.
So when we moved in together, I don't suspect it had much to do with anything other than our relative isolations in the sea of alien undergraduate students. It was convenience. It was a year in which I discovered other friends, found a bike to get myself around, and struggled to push myself out of the womb of my freshman year into the hands of Columbus's closed-door parties and shows. Paul was an umbilical cord to my freshman year, the last real connection I had to those days, and rather than riding out on my ankles like Jacob and Esau, I saw him turn more recluse over the next year, becoming more involved with World of Warcraft and talking about transferring schools, or dropping out altogether. His eating habits deteriorated from a daily stint at the Rally's down the street to leaving giant bagfuls of chicken wings in the freezer for months at a time, and barbecue sauce in the pantry that I eventually used in semi-secrecy.
In any case, one of the times that his mother came down to visit us, I found out at the last moment, not only about his mother coming down at all, but also that it was Paul's birthday. It put the visit in context, but I was surprised to not have known about it beforehand.
She took us out to a sushi restaurant in the Short North, happy that I was Paul's friend and roommate in Columbus, and was more than happy to pay for everyone. In fact, she made sure to push her beer over to my side of the table when the waiter was gone, urging me to drink like a white-browed gong fu master, or just a mother hosting a three person birthday dinner party. I picked through the food, unsure of what was vegan and what wasn't, and tried my best to look full and content.
When we returned to the apartment, she was in good spirits and revealed a bottle of sake the size of my shin, declaring that the party was just getting started. Paul never drank, and shrugged off the invitation, leaving me to go shot for shot with his mother, who was becoming increasingly belligerent. Paul had long since retired to his room, to entertain himself to who knows what ends, only emerging occasionally to try to join in on the conversation briefly before returning to his lair.
His mother, in the meantime, had become insistent on the idea of feeding me, and made a pot of rice, and revealed some of the food she had brought down to give to Paul (who would invariably allow it to grow wretched and moldy in the refrigerator). Sure enough, she produced some of her homemade kimchi, and served it with the hot rice and sheets of nori. She assured me that it had not been prepared with fish sauce or any of the like, so I enjoyed it tremendously, although in retrospect these days, I have some doubts about the whole scenario.
In any case, it was delicious, and I finished the plate, until it was replaced with another. The bottle of sake was becoming lighter and more transparent as Paul's mother was growing flusher and rambunctious. She had eventually come to the point of slapping my ass every 15 minutes or so and shouting out "Gay boy!".
I retired to my room as politely as I could, and immediately called a close friend, not just to tell her of the absurd direction the night had taken, but more so to prove my preoccupation in my room should Paul's mom insist on finishing the bottle altogether.
Recently, Sam stole an issue of VegNews home from work, having caught glimpse of a recipe for bánh bao, or perhaps more accurately, baozi, as well as a recipe for kimchi. I looked it over and was pretty excited about being able to make my own kimchi, and was even more excited to see that it didn't take nearly as long as I had originally imagined. I joked that, being jobless currently, I could probably only afford to eat a diet of rice and kimchi from now on.
The first batch I made a few nights ago ended up being far spicier than I had planned. As my roommate Stacie pointed out before trying it, "It's hot for you?".
It's still edible, even enjoyable, in my opinion, and I'm still working through the batch, now that it's been transferred to a plastic container. The move was actually spurred not by better accessibility to eating directly from the container, but because the Ziploc bags I had made the kimchi in turned out to have slowly been leaking inside of our produce drawer in the fridge. The last thing anyone wants is the smell of pungent Asian food overwhelming their entire refrigerator. No amounts of baking soda would help.
So now, I have a burning in my belly, reminiscent of my first taste of whiskey. I picture the fiery kimchi working medical wonders in my intestinal tract. I think about all the bacteria transplanted into my body on cabbage arks and the wings of scallion doves. And as my insides broil with their heat, like rolling magma in the bowels of our planet, I imagine a small world beginning to take shape within the darkness I will never pierce.
I have some vague memories of either trying it, or simply being around it as a child. If anything, Asian families seem to love all manners of foods, pickled and preserved into eternity. The smells of these exploits, especially those involving the infamous fish sauces of that noxious dragon of the Orient, are legendary, and I should qualify that even if I didn't directly consume fermented potions, I surely experienced them all the same.
My real memory of kimchi in recent memory was when I lived about ten blocks and three years down the street, in a small brick apartment complex, half sunken into the grass, but threatening anyway to topple over into the parking lot and roll down into the Olentangy River. With a messy grin, the dumpster in the lot loomed greedily over a sad plot of what appeared to be a failed pepper garden.
My roommate at the time was half Korean. His mother, allegedly, was a descendent of the Korean royal family: a numbered child of a numbered wife. I was told how her brother and her used to go up into the mountains early in the morning and practice traditional tae kwon do and tang soo do. That is to say the mystical sort of legends, taught by white-browed masters grunting approvingly as dishevelled students punch trees and thrust their fists into sacks of grain.
As far as I could piece together, Paul's father, scarred by chemical fires and dirty blood left the Korean War with a new bride in bag, a silent wife ready to take leave from her homeland, and like Orpheus, resisting the temptation to look backwards. Only there was no lover hot on her heels - indeed, she was the Eurydice as soon as this story crosses the ocean - but only the body of her brother, with an arrow in his chest, like the last coloured belt to prove his martial arts achievements.
Dirty blood ran in the family, however, and Paul was told his kidneys were failing while he was in high school. He was expected to maybe have a year left. He chose to keep it to himself. Maybe he wanted to spare his teenage friends the distress of worrying about somebody else's problems, greater than their own. Maybe he had come to terms with it. And after all else is said, after all logic has coursed through one's veins like the flu, there is maybe that fear of mortality.
It was enough to turn anyone into a God-fearing Christian.
And so he somehow made it into college, sitting next to me in my first university math course, wherein I discovered what my future didn't hold in store for me, and I devised ways to derail myself from the tracks my father had waved me off on. I don't remember the first words we really said to each other, but desperate for friends after having been displaced for the n-th time in my life, I was ready to concede to the first awkward engineering student talking about something other than the major. We spent our freshman year playing video games and cooking pasta in his rice cooker, the only legal heating element in the dorm rooms.
So when we moved in together, I don't suspect it had much to do with anything other than our relative isolations in the sea of alien undergraduate students. It was convenience. It was a year in which I discovered other friends, found a bike to get myself around, and struggled to push myself out of the womb of my freshman year into the hands of Columbus's closed-door parties and shows. Paul was an umbilical cord to my freshman year, the last real connection I had to those days, and rather than riding out on my ankles like Jacob and Esau, I saw him turn more recluse over the next year, becoming more involved with World of Warcraft and talking about transferring schools, or dropping out altogether. His eating habits deteriorated from a daily stint at the Rally's down the street to leaving giant bagfuls of chicken wings in the freezer for months at a time, and barbecue sauce in the pantry that I eventually used in semi-secrecy.
In any case, one of the times that his mother came down to visit us, I found out at the last moment, not only about his mother coming down at all, but also that it was Paul's birthday. It put the visit in context, but I was surprised to not have known about it beforehand.
She took us out to a sushi restaurant in the Short North, happy that I was Paul's friend and roommate in Columbus, and was more than happy to pay for everyone. In fact, she made sure to push her beer over to my side of the table when the waiter was gone, urging me to drink like a white-browed gong fu master, or just a mother hosting a three person birthday dinner party. I picked through the food, unsure of what was vegan and what wasn't, and tried my best to look full and content.
When we returned to the apartment, she was in good spirits and revealed a bottle of sake the size of my shin, declaring that the party was just getting started. Paul never drank, and shrugged off the invitation, leaving me to go shot for shot with his mother, who was becoming increasingly belligerent. Paul had long since retired to his room, to entertain himself to who knows what ends, only emerging occasionally to try to join in on the conversation briefly before returning to his lair.
His mother, in the meantime, had become insistent on the idea of feeding me, and made a pot of rice, and revealed some of the food she had brought down to give to Paul (who would invariably allow it to grow wretched and moldy in the refrigerator). Sure enough, she produced some of her homemade kimchi, and served it with the hot rice and sheets of nori. She assured me that it had not been prepared with fish sauce or any of the like, so I enjoyed it tremendously, although in retrospect these days, I have some doubts about the whole scenario.
In any case, it was delicious, and I finished the plate, until it was replaced with another. The bottle of sake was becoming lighter and more transparent as Paul's mother was growing flusher and rambunctious. She had eventually come to the point of slapping my ass every 15 minutes or so and shouting out "Gay boy!".
I retired to my room as politely as I could, and immediately called a close friend, not just to tell her of the absurd direction the night had taken, but more so to prove my preoccupation in my room should Paul's mom insist on finishing the bottle altogether.
Recently, Sam stole an issue of VegNews home from work, having caught glimpse of a recipe for bánh bao, or perhaps more accurately, baozi, as well as a recipe for kimchi. I looked it over and was pretty excited about being able to make my own kimchi, and was even more excited to see that it didn't take nearly as long as I had originally imagined. I joked that, being jobless currently, I could probably only afford to eat a diet of rice and kimchi from now on.
The first batch I made a few nights ago ended up being far spicier than I had planned. As my roommate Stacie pointed out before trying it, "It's hot for you?".
It's still edible, even enjoyable, in my opinion, and I'm still working through the batch, now that it's been transferred to a plastic container. The move was actually spurred not by better accessibility to eating directly from the container, but because the Ziploc bags I had made the kimchi in turned out to have slowly been leaking inside of our produce drawer in the fridge. The last thing anyone wants is the smell of pungent Asian food overwhelming their entire refrigerator. No amounts of baking soda would help.
So now, I have a burning in my belly, reminiscent of my first taste of whiskey. I picture the fiery kimchi working medical wonders in my intestinal tract. I think about all the bacteria transplanted into my body on cabbage arks and the wings of scallion doves. And as my insides broil with their heat, like rolling magma in the bowels of our planet, I imagine a small world beginning to take shape within the darkness I will never pierce.
20090212
material girl
the diamond is made of carbon, the conflict
of blood.
i'd wear the teeth of men
if they could spit light
out again.
of blood.
i'd wear the teeth of men
if they could spit light
out again.
20090211
squid
with your two arms and two legs--
what kind of squid are you?
aren't you terrified
of the sea?
no beak, no cone head.
just those ocean-deep eyes.
but maybe your name
came another way:
when you were young,
i'd wrap my arms around you
so no one could tell
my arms were not yours.
what kind of squid are you?
aren't you terrified
of the sea?
no beak, no cone head.
just those ocean-deep eyes.
but maybe your name
came another way:
when you were young,
i'd wrap my arms around you
so no one could tell
my arms were not yours.
.a.conservation.of.momentum.
People
writing
autobiographies are
like slinkies.
They stretch
forwards and backwards,
trying to recall passing
days
like stairs.
It's a race to one end or
another.
Or maybe, it's
more like a contest of sorts.
Not exactly a tug
of war, but like
trying to peel off one's
mind like a sticker
from the skin of
an apple.
Let the ripe flesh obide
gravity
and
replenish the
earth.
Let the sticker blow
away in
the wind, unable to cling
to much of
anything anymore.
Let it tumble to
the ground in
time, and with
the final compression of
empty silver
coils
it will also come to
rest illegibly
under the
dirt
writing
autobiographies are
like slinkies.
They stretch
forwards and backwards,
trying to recall passing
days
like stairs.
It's a race to one end or
another.
Or maybe, it's
more like a contest of sorts.
Not exactly a tug
of war, but like
trying to peel off one's
mind like a sticker
from the skin of
an apple.
Let the ripe flesh obide
gravity
and
replenish the
earth.
Let the sticker blow
away in
the wind, unable to cling
to much of
anything anymore.
Let it tumble to
the ground in
time, and with
the final compression of
empty silver
coils
it will also come to
rest illegibly
under the
dirt
20090210
.elected.day.
It was rather easy to separate the loyal, the faithful,
from the dissenters:
they wore their own yellow stars often,
patterned kuffiyehs like cloth waterfalls.
More importantly, they spoke with a harsh tongue,
as if all their stories and memories were thrashing in their throats
like fish writhing in nets.
And it was rather easy to remove their spines,
filleting muscles from organs, disposing of the heads
as children challenge each other to touch the unseeing eyes.
Their branches were pruned,
to keep the faiths apart
within a people already walled up
like a reversed siege.
The fallen olives were smothered into the dust,
the pits picked out from the treads of the bulldozer,
the oil seeping into the earth.
It's all rather easy when, after all,
God has chosen you.
from the dissenters:
they wore their own yellow stars often,
patterned kuffiyehs like cloth waterfalls.
More importantly, they spoke with a harsh tongue,
as if all their stories and memories were thrashing in their throats
like fish writhing in nets.
And it was rather easy to remove their spines,
filleting muscles from organs, disposing of the heads
as children challenge each other to touch the unseeing eyes.
Their branches were pruned,
to keep the faiths apart
within a people already walled up
like a reversed siege.
The fallen olives were smothered into the dust,
the pits picked out from the treads of the bulldozer,
the oil seeping into the earth.
It's all rather easy when, after all,
God has chosen you.
the hen
potbellied, puffed
up, she pressed against
the wire cage. bizarre
hiccup, each cluck.
her neighbor plucks
its feathers the way
a child strips flowers,
one for love, one
for rejection. the hen
opens her mouth, but for what?
she knows only fear,
only useless wings.
up, she pressed against
the wire cage. bizarre
hiccup, each cluck.
her neighbor plucks
its feathers the way
a child strips flowers,
one for love, one
for rejection. the hen
opens her mouth, but for what?
she knows only fear,
only useless wings.
20090209
losing sleep
where do the pages of night go
once they've been turned
and the stars lose their spot
fastened to a fleeting robe
of dark? the daybreak
is unremarkable, business-
minded in its wakefulness,
its constant routine, until
buried under the labours
of evening, that slow tide
pulling the sun down lower.
the days smear together.
they look like my mother's
favourite poem, the one she cried
over for years.
once they've been turned
and the stars lose their spot
fastened to a fleeting robe
of dark? the daybreak
is unremarkable, business-
minded in its wakefulness,
its constant routine, until
buried under the labours
of evening, that slow tide
pulling the sun down lower.
the days smear together.
they look like my mother's
favourite poem, the one she cried
over for years.
.economic.diets.
It's not that my job sucks. I mean it's a relatively decent job, I suppose.
Oh, come on, how much are you making?
Well, ten bucks an hour, but
Exactly! I mean, you're getting paid for it.
Yeah, but the amount of work and responsibility we have is ridiculous.
Well, I will grant you that. You guys have more responsibilities than I do as an assistant professor.
Oh, John, lay off her.
I'm just saying, I think people just like to complain about their jobs!
Well, like I said, I don't think my job is the worst one out there. They just come down really hard on all the employees unnecessarily.
You know what they need to come down hard on is their prices.
John.
What. We bought our meal, didn't we? It's just pretty steep.
Well, our price point is pretty set with the amount of organic and local sources we try to use.
What are you defending them now? You were just attacking them a second ago.
I didn't say there weren't things I didn't like.
Leave her alone, John. Eat your food.
For a ten dollar burger, I'll eat it whenever I damn well like. Why don't you quit, though, if you don't like it so much?
I need the money. And the economy sucks so much right now I don't think I could find another job anyway. Not one that wasn't worse. I mean, we do make a decent wage here, I guess, and we do sorta get tips too, even if it's probably not as much as I could make at an actual serving position.
Do you make a lot in tips here?
I bet she does. This doesn't seem like crowd: single-handedly supporting the economy out of their pockets. But who knows. Maybe they're tightasses anyway.
When it comes to helping other people, yeah. Most of them expect you to wait on them hand and foot, as if we didn't have better things to do. As if they couldn't walk up to their counter and pick up their damn drinks themselves.
Don't you guys have some kind of communal tip thing? Like you split it at the end of the month or something?
You ever slip a little into your pocket off the table there? Ha!
Yeah, we divide the tips by the hours and everything we all work. I don't know. It's weird.
Hm.
Oh man! Did I tell you guys about the guy that stole money from the tip jar?
No!
Yeah, he totally came in and was really sketchy looking, smelled real bad.
Did he just take off running with the money or something?
No, no. He just kind of stood around the counter and said he was waiting for someone.
The shower police, no doubt.
And he was just fiddling with a pen on paper and everything, and it was really busy so we weren't really paying attention to him, you know. We were helping all these other people, and I guess that he must have been sneaking bills out of the jar periodically while we weren't looking, because all the money was gone when he finally left.
How much did he take?
Like eighty bucks.
Jesus Christ! Did you call the cops?
Nah, they wouldn't let us for some reason.
Really?
That's bullshit.
Yeah, you're telling me. Anyway, I called my mom about it, since I was so pissed off, and she felt really bad. Told me she was going to come in the next day and put in eighty dollars herself.
Really?
Yep.
You should have told her it was eighty dollars for each person working.
Yeah right, like she would put in that much money.
Well, the woman is putting in eighty dollars out of her pocket regardless.
Yeah, I guess that's true. I don't know. My mom's weird about these kind of things, I guess. Like she felt bad for us and everything, and this is her way of helping. But I mean, on one hand, she's going to just drop eighty bucks off in our tip jar because some dude ran off with it, but she's not going to help me with my student loans?
Did you ever catch the guy?
No. But get this! The fucker came in the next day and tried to do it again, as if we weren't going to notice him. He flipped his hat around too. Ha.
Did you call the cops this time?
No, but it wasn't busy at all so Casey and I were just staring right at him the entire time, while he was at the counter. I had been putting the big bills behind the counter all day anyway, but there were still a few singles and all that. He asked for a pen at some point, and I handed him one so he had no excuse to reach over the tip jar.
What'd he do?
I mean, what was he going to do? Steal while we were staring at us? He just left after a while. And I had taken the tip jars behind the counter anyway. He seriously thought he could try the same thing twice. I told everyone after that what he looked like so they'd know who he was.
Wow.
Oh man, but that's not it. We found his wallet outside after that. I guess he must have dropped it or something?
Ha!
Ironic, right? In any case, it had all his shit in it: social security card, food stamps, ID. Food stamps, right?
What did you do with it?
Nothing yet, but we just have it.
I think the better question is what will the guy do without his food stamps and ID. He'll probably have to go rob another store.
Yeah, well, as long as he stays away from our tip jars.
So have you done a tattoo recently?
No... business is slow, with the economy and all.
That sucks... I was thinking about getting one, though.
Really?
Yeah, I'll send you the design soon. I think I have it figured out, but I need to make sure I have enough money for it.
Ok, yeah. Let me know. I'd love to see it soon.
Yeah, she needs some money to support her jewellery addiction.
It's not an addiction. I just like jewellery.
As long as I don't have to buy that shit for you.
I never asked you to. Is Mike still unemployed?
Yeah. He's just been sitting around the house. I'm kind of jealous of him. I want to just sit around and be able to afford to do nothing.
How's he doing that?
His parents are helping him out right now, and he's waiting for the bike shop hours to pick up again, since it's been getting warmer.
What's he do at home all day?
Who knows. I think he reads a lot. He's trying to learn Arabic right now from a book.
Sounds hard.
Yeah, we looked at it together once,
I wish my dad had spoken Arabic to us while we were kids. That way, I could have been perfect at it! I prefer to blame him, rather than my own lack of effort.
Didn't Mike live in Saudi Arabia for a while?
Yeah, like ten years.
Jesus, and he didn't learn Arabic?
Guess not.
Tell him he should call me soon. I don't have class on Fridays.
Sure.
And I'm free on weekends too. Tell him to come get another tattoo!
I think he wants them. He just is living on a budget right now.
I thought his parents were helping him out.
Yeah, but he's still in budget mode. I can see him cringing at buying groceries, you know? Oh, and that being said, I read this article about how Americans spend the least percentage of their expenditures on food, compared to the rest of the world. Isn't that crazy? If we could just spend a little bit more money on better food, we wouldn't have to put up with all this gross corn subsidy garbage all the time.
I think that those numbers might be a bit deceiving though. I mean, I think Americans don't spend less on food; I think they just spend more money on a bunch of other crap.
Yeah. I guess that's true. But still, I was reading the stats for how much money Americans spend on food a year as well. For our age group and everything, and Mike and I spend way less than the average person our age. And we buy good food too. We try to buy mostly organic foods from the co-op, and we only end up spending like a hundred to a hundred twenty five dollars each a month.
Wow. That's really good.
Yeah. And I'm pretty excited since I just got my tax return.
Oooo. I should probably do those soon.
Ruth, you don't have a job.
I know... but don't I need to do taxes anyway?
Mike just sends them to his parents. I think he's still a dependent. I guess he says it's so he can get health care and everything.
So you did yours already? And you already got your return?
Yeah, if you do it early enough, it's really fast. What time is it?
Almost four thirty.
Oh man, I'm almost on shift soon. I gotta go change soon to get ready.
Ok, we have to go grocery shopping anyway. Thanks for eating with us!
Pshhhh. Anytime. Even though I'm sick of the food here. But you know what, after this tax return, I finally realized that I can afford to eat at the place I work.
Haha.
You're moving up in the world.
Oh, come on, how much are you making?
Well, ten bucks an hour, but
Exactly! I mean, you're getting paid for it.
Yeah, but the amount of work and responsibility we have is ridiculous.
Well, I will grant you that. You guys have more responsibilities than I do as an assistant professor.
Oh, John, lay off her.
I'm just saying, I think people just like to complain about their jobs!
Well, like I said, I don't think my job is the worst one out there. They just come down really hard on all the employees unnecessarily.
You know what they need to come down hard on is their prices.
John.
What. We bought our meal, didn't we? It's just pretty steep.
Well, our price point is pretty set with the amount of organic and local sources we try to use.
What are you defending them now? You were just attacking them a second ago.
I didn't say there weren't things I didn't like.
Leave her alone, John. Eat your food.
For a ten dollar burger, I'll eat it whenever I damn well like. Why don't you quit, though, if you don't like it so much?
I need the money. And the economy sucks so much right now I don't think I could find another job anyway. Not one that wasn't worse. I mean, we do make a decent wage here, I guess, and we do sorta get tips too, even if it's probably not as much as I could make at an actual serving position.
Do you make a lot in tips here?
I bet she does. This doesn't seem like crowd: single-handedly supporting the economy out of their pockets. But who knows. Maybe they're tightasses anyway.
When it comes to helping other people, yeah. Most of them expect you to wait on them hand and foot, as if we didn't have better things to do. As if they couldn't walk up to their counter and pick up their damn drinks themselves.
Don't you guys have some kind of communal tip thing? Like you split it at the end of the month or something?
You ever slip a little into your pocket off the table there? Ha!
Yeah, we divide the tips by the hours and everything we all work. I don't know. It's weird.
Hm.
Oh man! Did I tell you guys about the guy that stole money from the tip jar?
No!
Yeah, he totally came in and was really sketchy looking, smelled real bad.
Did he just take off running with the money or something?
No, no. He just kind of stood around the counter and said he was waiting for someone.
The shower police, no doubt.
And he was just fiddling with a pen on paper and everything, and it was really busy so we weren't really paying attention to him, you know. We were helping all these other people, and I guess that he must have been sneaking bills out of the jar periodically while we weren't looking, because all the money was gone when he finally left.
How much did he take?
Like eighty bucks.
Jesus Christ! Did you call the cops?
Nah, they wouldn't let us for some reason.
Really?
That's bullshit.
Yeah, you're telling me. Anyway, I called my mom about it, since I was so pissed off, and she felt really bad. Told me she was going to come in the next day and put in eighty dollars herself.
Really?
Yep.
You should have told her it was eighty dollars for each person working.
Yeah right, like she would put in that much money.
Well, the woman is putting in eighty dollars out of her pocket regardless.
Yeah, I guess that's true. I don't know. My mom's weird about these kind of things, I guess. Like she felt bad for us and everything, and this is her way of helping. But I mean, on one hand, she's going to just drop eighty bucks off in our tip jar because some dude ran off with it, but she's not going to help me with my student loans?
Did you ever catch the guy?
No. But get this! The fucker came in the next day and tried to do it again, as if we weren't going to notice him. He flipped his hat around too. Ha.
Did you call the cops this time?
No, but it wasn't busy at all so Casey and I were just staring right at him the entire time, while he was at the counter. I had been putting the big bills behind the counter all day anyway, but there were still a few singles and all that. He asked for a pen at some point, and I handed him one so he had no excuse to reach over the tip jar.
What'd he do?
I mean, what was he going to do? Steal while we were staring at us? He just left after a while. And I had taken the tip jars behind the counter anyway. He seriously thought he could try the same thing twice. I told everyone after that what he looked like so they'd know who he was.
Wow.
Oh man, but that's not it. We found his wallet outside after that. I guess he must have dropped it or something?
Ha!
Ironic, right? In any case, it had all his shit in it: social security card, food stamps, ID. Food stamps, right?
What did you do with it?
Nothing yet, but we just have it.
I think the better question is what will the guy do without his food stamps and ID. He'll probably have to go rob another store.
Yeah, well, as long as he stays away from our tip jars.
So have you done a tattoo recently?
No... business is slow, with the economy and all.
That sucks... I was thinking about getting one, though.
Really?
Yeah, I'll send you the design soon. I think I have it figured out, but I need to make sure I have enough money for it.
Ok, yeah. Let me know. I'd love to see it soon.
Yeah, she needs some money to support her jewellery addiction.
It's not an addiction. I just like jewellery.
As long as I don't have to buy that shit for you.
I never asked you to. Is Mike still unemployed?
Yeah. He's just been sitting around the house. I'm kind of jealous of him. I want to just sit around and be able to afford to do nothing.
How's he doing that?
His parents are helping him out right now, and he's waiting for the bike shop hours to pick up again, since it's been getting warmer.
What's he do at home all day?
Who knows. I think he reads a lot. He's trying to learn Arabic right now from a book.
Sounds hard.
Yeah, we looked at it together once,
I wish my dad had spoken Arabic to us while we were kids. That way, I could have been perfect at it! I prefer to blame him, rather than my own lack of effort.
Didn't Mike live in Saudi Arabia for a while?
Yeah, like ten years.
Jesus, and he didn't learn Arabic?
Guess not.
Tell him he should call me soon. I don't have class on Fridays.
Sure.
And I'm free on weekends too. Tell him to come get another tattoo!
I think he wants them. He just is living on a budget right now.
I thought his parents were helping him out.
Yeah, but he's still in budget mode. I can see him cringing at buying groceries, you know? Oh, and that being said, I read this article about how Americans spend the least percentage of their expenditures on food, compared to the rest of the world. Isn't that crazy? If we could just spend a little bit more money on better food, we wouldn't have to put up with all this gross corn subsidy garbage all the time.
I think that those numbers might be a bit deceiving though. I mean, I think Americans don't spend less on food; I think they just spend more money on a bunch of other crap.
Yeah. I guess that's true. But still, I was reading the stats for how much money Americans spend on food a year as well. For our age group and everything, and Mike and I spend way less than the average person our age. And we buy good food too. We try to buy mostly organic foods from the co-op, and we only end up spending like a hundred to a hundred twenty five dollars each a month.
Wow. That's really good.
Yeah. And I'm pretty excited since I just got my tax return.
Oooo. I should probably do those soon.
Ruth, you don't have a job.
I know... but don't I need to do taxes anyway?
Mike just sends them to his parents. I think he's still a dependent. I guess he says it's so he can get health care and everything.
So you did yours already? And you already got your return?
Yeah, if you do it early enough, it's really fast. What time is it?
Almost four thirty.
Oh man, I'm almost on shift soon. I gotta go change soon to get ready.
Ok, we have to go grocery shopping anyway. Thanks for eating with us!
Pshhhh. Anytime. Even though I'm sick of the food here. But you know what, after this tax return, I finally realized that I can afford to eat at the place I work.
Haha.
You're moving up in the world.
20090208
.floaters.and.sinkers. are.both.still.shit.
So I saw something in a movie yesterday which was too outrageous to really let go of. I won't mention which one, since it doesn't even deserve that.
In any case, after our protagonist had driven his car off of a bridge into the lake, he found himself sinking quickly, and for various plot reasons, he wasn't allowed to be separated from his vehicle. So, obviously, quick thinking chap that he was, he proceeded to release the air in his tires into some duffle bags, which he then proceeded to somehow attach to the car, and no shit managed to float his car to the surface using nothing more than the air from his tires.
I kid you not.
So my first impression, of course, was that if the air were already in the tires, why would the car sink in the first place? Sound thoughts, but maybe we can skirt around that loosely by assuming that the air was pressurized and therefore the lack of volume in expansion prevented buoyancy from kicking in. After all, helium tanks don't float up into the heavens.
But then, as I was considering trying to run the mental math of estimating the air pressure of the tires, their volume, approximate volumes of the bags and the air pressure within them, and so on, I realized that no! I didn't even have to go that far.
The bags clearly had less volume than the interior of the car, and a cabin full of air is incapable of keeping a car afloat, so there is certainly no way that the duffle bags, with less volume, filled with air would be able to float the vehicle upwards. We don't even need to factor in that the water pressure on the duffle bags would have made it even less buoyant than a cabin full of air at normal air pressure.
I won't get into the fact that his window was magically restored after he had kicked it in earlier on in the movie. Or the fact that after being fished out of the lake, he was able to immediately drive off on a high speed chase on what should have been flat tires.
So, feeling vindicated, I then realized that
a. I had seen the Hollywood garbage in the first place and
b. I had turned it into a physics problem.
I lost anyway.
In any case, I think it just went to remind me that every so often I need to expose myself to what passes as American pop culture, just enough to remember why I avoid it so desperately.
In any case, after our protagonist had driven his car off of a bridge into the lake, he found himself sinking quickly, and for various plot reasons, he wasn't allowed to be separated from his vehicle. So, obviously, quick thinking chap that he was, he proceeded to release the air in his tires into some duffle bags, which he then proceeded to somehow attach to the car, and no shit managed to float his car to the surface using nothing more than the air from his tires.
I kid you not.
So my first impression, of course, was that if the air were already in the tires, why would the car sink in the first place? Sound thoughts, but maybe we can skirt around that loosely by assuming that the air was pressurized and therefore the lack of volume in expansion prevented buoyancy from kicking in. After all, helium tanks don't float up into the heavens.
But then, as I was considering trying to run the mental math of estimating the air pressure of the tires, their volume, approximate volumes of the bags and the air pressure within them, and so on, I realized that no! I didn't even have to go that far.
The bags clearly had less volume than the interior of the car, and a cabin full of air is incapable of keeping a car afloat, so there is certainly no way that the duffle bags, with less volume, filled with air would be able to float the vehicle upwards. We don't even need to factor in that the water pressure on the duffle bags would have made it even less buoyant than a cabin full of air at normal air pressure.
I won't get into the fact that his window was magically restored after he had kicked it in earlier on in the movie. Or the fact that after being fished out of the lake, he was able to immediately drive off on a high speed chase on what should have been flat tires.
So, feeling vindicated, I then realized that
a. I had seen the Hollywood garbage in the first place and
b. I had turned it into a physics problem.
I lost anyway.
In any case, I think it just went to remind me that every so often I need to expose myself to what passes as American pop culture, just enough to remember why I avoid it so desperately.
20090207
.simple.cycles.
it feels good to relearn how to ride my bike
not that you forget totally, of course
as the axiom goes
just the little things
the pushing and pulling
pulling and pushing
that's pretty much it:
simple lines for a simple machine
each wheel turn and pedal stroke
reminding me of cyclical natures
and the green lights of spring
the four chambers
funny, this thing, the heart. the diligence
with which it works, the clockwork precision of each
beat. a warehouse
of oxygen and blood.
a fickle
little
creature.
with which it works, the clockwork precision of each
beat. a warehouse
of oxygen and blood.
a fickle
little
creature.
20090206
.written.in.blood.
They called him an idiot. And when the impending pounding of political correctedness piled on, they apologized profusely, and pushed the letters of Philip's pejorative over: idiot. For good measure, to garner some form of restitution and immunity, some of them tacked on a savant.
It was such an easy accusation when one can't dress himself, can hardly tie one's own shoes. But what do you expect from those exotic parents anyway? leaving their country to squander in ours, playing with nails in a salon, coercing nails into walls. Let their hunger and poverty be the nails in their cross, as they die for the family of Phan-kind.
So, really, what more could anyone expect of their progeny?
Nevertheless, Philip Phan managed to persist through primary school, assisted greatly by his older sister, one grade ahead and several grades better.
It was quite the tragedy, then, when on August 21, 2006, she was brutally raped by a gang of, wouldn't you know it, no good niggers. It is simply appalling the sorts that are allowed to run around in this country.
Penny Phan stopped being Penny that day, resorting and responding only to her native name and tongue, which, let's face it, is rather unpronounceable anyhow.
Philip, then, was by all accounts failing on his own accord.
What an idiot, to draw a triangle with four sides.
But the day came, when Philip Phan realized how redundant the alphabet was. Not just his native Vietnamese, which he was never taught anyway, lest it confuse him, but even the English one, which for all intents and purposes looks nearly identical to Vietnamese stripped of those annoying exotic flourishes and embellishments, letters wearing tailcoats and hats beyond all rhyme and possibly reason.
No, no, those diacritics had reached a critical mass. And for that matter, the English was no better.
No, the day came when Philip was able to reduce his alphabet into four letters:
A - the letter Adenine
T - the letter Thymine
G - the letter Guanine
C - the letter Cytosine
The more Philip read in his newfound language, the more plots and characters unwound themselves for him, unzipping their prom dresses like no sensible girl ever would.
Eventually, his language was discovered, and his name quickly shifted its weight towards his surname, savant, catching him and his family off balance completely. In the gravity of this miracle of molecular-biological, genetic revelation, gravity dissolved from under Philip's toes, as he was elevated into the Asgardian halls of bearded scientists, drunk with divination.
They started slowly, checking and double-checking Philip's reading mistakes.
He made none.
They accelerated, checking and double-checking the limits Philip's reading capacity.
He had none.
They wondered, was there a terminal velocity of his voracious literacy?
He showed none.
So finally, we cut to the chase. Forget the mice. Forget the sheep.
Can Philip read us our stories before we are tucked in to our eternal sleep?
He could.
The lines queued up on cue, as the bearded scientists nodded sagely that world leaders should have their biographies read to them, to test their merit, to weigh their hearts and fists. As blonde Valkyries were dispatched to round up the leaders of the world, twitching like giddy children, the movie stars and celebrities pounded on the oaken hall doors and demanded that their pecuniary sacrifices be heeded.
And why not?
Soon, Philip's shelves were filled with more and more novels, in little vials, petri dishes, and even corked up eye-droppers from enthusiastic suburban parents-to-be. He was loved. He was adored. He was the world's most revered storyteller, cantering through the cantos of the biographic bras under those genetic zippers, his tongue enunciating every bodily curve and notch like a lover's kiss.
But the day came, when low lit monitors and bright-skinned books took their toll on Philip's eyesight. Atrocious that he should have been devoid of proper healthcare as a child! The Phan family should learn to take care of their young like proper respectful folk. For a child to lose his eyesight at the shallow age of 24, daylight fading away with each passing hour.
If only such a prolific reader had been born in this country, to the right, white people. Then we wouldn't have to suffer from such trifling setbacks.
They tried braille. They tried reading to him.
It was pointless.
Literature is meant to be read, and Philip could not understand the jumbled sounds and dots that clamored over him like ticks.
Oh, but if he had the fortitude of Beethoven, to continue giving the world his gifts. But we must remind ourselves, it is in his own selfish natures and cultures that we must respect his incompetency and shortcomings.
He, after all, has the right.
The howling crowds tore down the doors of the Asgardian halls, as the bearded scientists threw up their hands in despair. Let the wolves come in, if the pigs can't keep them out! After all, Rome was founded by a son of a bitch; we will see what becomes of this Ragnarok.
When Philip died shortly thereafter, his body was whisked away from the Phans, his sister clinging to the body defiantly with perfect nails. They were to incinerate a genetic Rosetta Stone! The audacity of such scientific rejection.
No, the bearded scientists had found their Rome in Philip's brain, and all roads led from it.
And besides, the Phans were given an even bigger house with a commemorative plaque, having borne such a hero. What did they have to complain about?
And why were they still working that damned nail salon? shopping at that same atrocious market?
You can lead a horse to water.
And after another decade, after Philip's parents were long dead and gone, after Philip himself had faded from public memory, it seemed that there was no scientific answer at hand. Horses had become scientists. Rome had burned. Years of planning had led to a collapse of the empirical research, as the barbarians at the gates had criticized the project into bankruptcy.
Finally, in disgust, they returned Philip's body to his sister, to accompany her lonely spiraling towards death. Their final report was drolly written, a somber voice of defeat, and the conclusions were read by few and forgotten by everyone, save Philip's sister, who was the only person delusional enough to claim to have understood the bottom line.
"Philip Phan's brain is made of flesh and blood like everybody else's."
It was such an easy accusation when one can't dress himself, can hardly tie one's own shoes. But what do you expect from those exotic parents anyway? leaving their country to squander in ours, playing with nails in a salon, coercing nails into walls. Let their hunger and poverty be the nails in their cross, as they die for the family of Phan-kind.
So, really, what more could anyone expect of their progeny?
Nevertheless, Philip Phan managed to persist through primary school, assisted greatly by his older sister, one grade ahead and several grades better.
It was quite the tragedy, then, when on August 21, 2006, she was brutally raped by a gang of, wouldn't you know it, no good niggers. It is simply appalling the sorts that are allowed to run around in this country.
Penny Phan stopped being Penny that day, resorting and responding only to her native name and tongue, which, let's face it, is rather unpronounceable anyhow.
Philip, then, was by all accounts failing on his own accord.
What an idiot, to draw a triangle with four sides.
But the day came, when Philip Phan realized how redundant the alphabet was. Not just his native Vietnamese, which he was never taught anyway, lest it confuse him, but even the English one, which for all intents and purposes looks nearly identical to Vietnamese stripped of those annoying exotic flourishes and embellishments, letters wearing tailcoats and hats beyond all rhyme and possibly reason.
No, no, those diacritics had reached a critical mass. And for that matter, the English was no better.
No, the day came when Philip was able to reduce his alphabet into four letters:
A - the letter Adenine
T - the letter Thymine
G - the letter Guanine
C - the letter Cytosine
The more Philip read in his newfound language, the more plots and characters unwound themselves for him, unzipping their prom dresses like no sensible girl ever would.
Eventually, his language was discovered, and his name quickly shifted its weight towards his surname, savant, catching him and his family off balance completely. In the gravity of this miracle of molecular-biological, genetic revelation, gravity dissolved from under Philip's toes, as he was elevated into the Asgardian halls of bearded scientists, drunk with divination.
They started slowly, checking and double-checking Philip's reading mistakes.
He made none.
They accelerated, checking and double-checking the limits Philip's reading capacity.
He had none.
They wondered, was there a terminal velocity of his voracious literacy?
He showed none.
So finally, we cut to the chase. Forget the mice. Forget the sheep.
Can Philip read us our stories before we are tucked in to our eternal sleep?
He could.
The lines queued up on cue, as the bearded scientists nodded sagely that world leaders should have their biographies read to them, to test their merit, to weigh their hearts and fists. As blonde Valkyries were dispatched to round up the leaders of the world, twitching like giddy children, the movie stars and celebrities pounded on the oaken hall doors and demanded that their pecuniary sacrifices be heeded.
And why not?
Soon, Philip's shelves were filled with more and more novels, in little vials, petri dishes, and even corked up eye-droppers from enthusiastic suburban parents-to-be. He was loved. He was adored. He was the world's most revered storyteller, cantering through the cantos of the biographic bras under those genetic zippers, his tongue enunciating every bodily curve and notch like a lover's kiss.
But the day came, when low lit monitors and bright-skinned books took their toll on Philip's eyesight. Atrocious that he should have been devoid of proper healthcare as a child! The Phan family should learn to take care of their young like proper respectful folk. For a child to lose his eyesight at the shallow age of 24, daylight fading away with each passing hour.
If only such a prolific reader had been born in this country, to the right, white people. Then we wouldn't have to suffer from such trifling setbacks.
They tried braille. They tried reading to him.
It was pointless.
Literature is meant to be read, and Philip could not understand the jumbled sounds and dots that clamored over him like ticks.
Oh, but if he had the fortitude of Beethoven, to continue giving the world his gifts. But we must remind ourselves, it is in his own selfish natures and cultures that we must respect his incompetency and shortcomings.
He, after all, has the right.
The howling crowds tore down the doors of the Asgardian halls, as the bearded scientists threw up their hands in despair. Let the wolves come in, if the pigs can't keep them out! After all, Rome was founded by a son of a bitch; we will see what becomes of this Ragnarok.
When Philip died shortly thereafter, his body was whisked away from the Phans, his sister clinging to the body defiantly with perfect nails. They were to incinerate a genetic Rosetta Stone! The audacity of such scientific rejection.
No, the bearded scientists had found their Rome in Philip's brain, and all roads led from it.
And besides, the Phans were given an even bigger house with a commemorative plaque, having borne such a hero. What did they have to complain about?
And why were they still working that damned nail salon? shopping at that same atrocious market?
You can lead a horse to water.
And after another decade, after Philip's parents were long dead and gone, after Philip himself had faded from public memory, it seemed that there was no scientific answer at hand. Horses had become scientists. Rome had burned. Years of planning had led to a collapse of the empirical research, as the barbarians at the gates had criticized the project into bankruptcy.
Finally, in disgust, they returned Philip's body to his sister, to accompany her lonely spiraling towards death. Their final report was drolly written, a somber voice of defeat, and the conclusions were read by few and forgotten by everyone, save Philip's sister, who was the only person delusional enough to claim to have understood the bottom line.
"Philip Phan's brain is made of flesh and blood like everybody else's."
20090205
the news
early this week in Rochester, a 14-year-old boy shot a cop in the back of the head.
boom. down.
my boyfriend can't understand why i'm not surprised. i ask, haven't you read Native Son? but he doesn't get it.
i imagine the boy trapped beneath the moonlight, a searchlight, after the drug bust. the police were gonna let the kids go, but the adrenaline was already pulsing full-force. what else can you do with a .22 shotgun other than aim & fire?
desperation is a funny thing. it can make you think you've got nothing to gain, nothing to lose.
boom. down.
my boyfriend can't understand why i'm not surprised. i ask, haven't you read Native Son? but he doesn't get it.
i imagine the boy trapped beneath the moonlight, a searchlight, after the drug bust. the police were gonna let the kids go, but the adrenaline was already pulsing full-force. what else can you do with a .22 shotgun other than aim & fire?
desperation is a funny thing. it can make you think you've got nothing to gain, nothing to lose.
.of.tunneling.natures. and.shadowing.futures
The groundhog, General Beauregard Lee, has been blind for years, a fact he has grown accustomed to. What does he need sight for underground anyway, he thinks to himself.
Nevertheless, he doesn't tell his friends or his fans.
Nature and natures favor resilience.
It's been a few days since Lee's big day, not quite a holiday. More of an omen, ominous festival, really.
It seems that the people have become fed up with the temples of Delphi, and oracles of riddles, and have moved across the ocean to something more natural: a temple tunneling downwards, a silent prophet.
Nature and natures favor zeal.
What does he care about his shadow? He lives underground, where shadows serve to remind him of patchy ceilings, holes in the temple domes. Shadows, General Beauregard Lee scoffs, are all light and heat down here, doing nothing but begetting more shadows. And how much easier is it for him to simply be blind to it all, and live in the simple darkness.
Nature and natures favor simplicity.
And this year, as he had regaled out of his home, castle and temple, his corpulent mass into the bundled masses of his Mass, as he capered through all the divinities of his insightful charade, he wondered if, this year, his shadow could see him.
Nevertheless, he doesn't tell his friends or his fans.
Nature and natures favor resilience.
It's been a few days since Lee's big day, not quite a holiday. More of an omen, ominous festival, really.
It seems that the people have become fed up with the temples of Delphi, and oracles of riddles, and have moved across the ocean to something more natural: a temple tunneling downwards, a silent prophet.
Nature and natures favor zeal.
What does he care about his shadow? He lives underground, where shadows serve to remind him of patchy ceilings, holes in the temple domes. Shadows, General Beauregard Lee scoffs, are all light and heat down here, doing nothing but begetting more shadows. And how much easier is it for him to simply be blind to it all, and live in the simple darkness.
Nature and natures favor simplicity.
And this year, as he had regaled out of his home, castle and temple, his corpulent mass into the bundled masses of his Mass, as he capered through all the divinities of his insightful charade, he wondered if, this year, his shadow could see him.
20090204
.but.these.chords.have.7ths.
Chef Team Lacey and Sam gave us a tour of Asia today, with our stomachs as vehicle of choice.
bad news
here is how today ends:
you get an email telling you that you are on the waitlist to get into your first choice MFA program.
you get an email telling you that you are on the waitlist to get into your first choice MFA program.
20090203
.it.matters.it.antimatters.
all things come in pairs
A basic premise, be it physics, or literature.
My professor illustrated the point with arrows
one showing the force vector of the bullet,
another recoiling backwards
presumably into a shoulder.
My aunt illustrated the point
with just one photo
of a prison cell
and a handful of letters.
all things come in pairs
Positron: an antielectron composed of antimatter,
comprised with the totality
of all the opposite traits of an electron.
+1 charge
1/2 spin
mass: identical
Alternatively, I've had it described to me that a positron is nothing more than an electron that moves along the opposite time vector as the rest of us.
Crab canon: two things arranged complimentarily and backwards
similar to a palindrome.
See J.S. Bach's A Musical Offering.
all things come in pairs
And I can't help but think about myself
comprised of all the things I'm not
faltering backwards through time
seeing all things that came before
as easily as all things that lay ahead
A basic premise, be it physics, or literature.
My professor illustrated the point with arrows
one showing the force vector of the bullet,
another recoiling backwards
presumably into a shoulder.
My aunt illustrated the point
with just one photo
of a prison cell
and a handful of letters.
all things come in pairs
Positron: an antielectron composed of antimatter,
comprised with the totality
of all the opposite traits of an electron.
+1 charge
1/2 spin
mass: identical
Alternatively, I've had it described to me that a positron is nothing more than an electron that moves along the opposite time vector as the rest of us.
Crab canon: two things arranged complimentarily and backwards
similar to a palindrome.
See J.S. Bach's A Musical Offering.
all things come in pairs
And I can't help but think about myself
comprised of all the things I'm not
faltering backwards through time
seeing all things that came before
as easily as all things that lay ahead
the long walk
It is early evening and I still haven't left
the house today. From my bed,
everything looms: impossible dresser and
its flank-like shutters, the bellow
of the old furnace, a letter
I have not responded to. My mother told me
about a man who walked 2,000 miles until
his shoes wore through and each step
ate a little more of his feet. She doesn't know
why and our long distance call
ends.
Outside the window, the trees in winter
are skeletal. The pigeons prefer
the sizzle of power lines for a perch,
and I count them, my electric choir.
I put on my coat, wrap my scarf
like a noose, and take
the walk no one knows about.
the house today. From my bed,
everything looms: impossible dresser and
its flank-like shutters, the bellow
of the old furnace, a letter
I have not responded to. My mother told me
about a man who walked 2,000 miles until
his shoes wore through and each step
ate a little more of his feet. She doesn't know
why and our long distance call
ends.
Outside the window, the trees in winter
are skeletal. The pigeons prefer
the sizzle of power lines for a perch,
and I count them, my electric choir.
I put on my coat, wrap my scarf
like a noose, and take
the walk no one knows about.
20090202
another mourning
I wake up this morning happy for the first
time in weeks. The sun sleepily eased
through the blinds, throwing
lines like notebook paper across
my bed. The dogs shift to the movement
of dreams. I fasten
a robe around my body, flex
my hands and toes.
I could leave here, I
could just go.
time in weeks. The sun sleepily eased
through the blinds, throwing
lines like notebook paper across
my bed. The dogs shift to the movement
of dreams. I fasten
a robe around my body, flex
my hands and toes.
I could leave here, I
could just go.
.home.thawing.
Mark O. sits at his desk, bowls formerly containing food sprawled out in front of him.
He is waiting for the mail to arrive. His W-2 form should be here today.
He has lived here his entire life.
Mark O. looks out his window as if it were a painting.
There was a time, steeped in escapism. He read Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities, and was envious of his namesake, travelling through Venice after Venice, and recounting everything to Kublai Khan.
He had even bought travel brochures.
Mark O. doesn't leave his house very often, much less his city.
The mail arrives.
Somewhere, he can hear birds telling each other stories of where they've been.
He slides into his jacket. He walks to the door. The weatherman said it was exceptionally warm today. Possibility of more snow next week, though.
Maybe his kids will walk home after school. The sidewalk snow seems to have melted.
Mark O. opens his front door and can see, for the first time, the street that he lives on.
He is waiting for the mail to arrive. His W-2 form should be here today.
He has lived here his entire life.
Mark O. looks out his window as if it were a painting.
There was a time, steeped in escapism. He read Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities, and was envious of his namesake, travelling through Venice after Venice, and recounting everything to Kublai Khan.
He had even bought travel brochures.
Mark O. doesn't leave his house very often, much less his city.
The mail arrives.
Somewhere, he can hear birds telling each other stories of where they've been.
He slides into his jacket. He walks to the door. The weatherman said it was exceptionally warm today. Possibility of more snow next week, though.
Maybe his kids will walk home after school. The sidewalk snow seems to have melted.
Mark O. opens his front door and can see, for the first time, the street that he lives on.
20090201
what remains
the gravel beneath
my feet
does not remind me
of you, the rock
in my shoe.
they are just
shards of stone
hot with travel,
stuck between
the toes
of a girl who
forgot you.
my feet
does not remind me
of you, the rock
in my shoe.
they are just
shards of stone
hot with travel,
stuck between
the toes
of a girl who
forgot you.
.long.island.iced.tea.
Hey.
-Hi.
I'm leaving again.
-I heard. New York, right?
Yeah. Long Island.
-When are you leaving?
Next Sunday. A week.
-Sounds fun. Are you moving in with the boy thing?
Yeah. Isobel is going to be with her dad for a week while I figure things out.
-We should hang out before you leave.
That'd be nice.
-At least there will be more there than Arizona, right?
Yeah.
-We should really hang out.
Yeah.
-You can bring Isobel. I haven't seen her in a while. She's, what, almost two come April?
Yeah. She's a little terror now. Gets into everything.
-I bet.
Yeah.
-When was your last day at work?
Friday.
-Cool. I still don't have a job, so I'm pretty free all the time.
Yeah.
-We can take those family pictures and send them to Nick, like we were going to a year ago. Just to piss him off.
Haha. We could.
-I guess maybe it's a little late for that.
Maybe.
-I guess maybe it's a little late to hang out, if you need to pack and all. It's cool, I guess. Don't worry about it if it doesn't work out.
We'll see.
-I'm sorry.
Me too.
-Hi.
I'm leaving again.
-I heard. New York, right?
Yeah. Long Island.
-When are you leaving?
Next Sunday. A week.
-Sounds fun. Are you moving in with the boy thing?
Yeah. Isobel is going to be with her dad for a week while I figure things out.
-We should hang out before you leave.
That'd be nice.
-At least there will be more there than Arizona, right?
Yeah.
-We should really hang out.
Yeah.
-You can bring Isobel. I haven't seen her in a while. She's, what, almost two come April?
Yeah. She's a little terror now. Gets into everything.
-I bet.
Yeah.
-When was your last day at work?
Friday.
-Cool. I still don't have a job, so I'm pretty free all the time.
Yeah.
-We can take those family pictures and send them to Nick, like we were going to a year ago. Just to piss him off.
Haha. We could.
-I guess maybe it's a little late for that.
Maybe.
-I guess maybe it's a little late to hang out, if you need to pack and all. It's cool, I guess. Don't worry about it if it doesn't work out.
We'll see.
-I'm sorry.
Me too.
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