Saturday, September 27, 2008

Fuck! George Saunders!

That's it! He's right! Palin is so familiar to me because she sounds like my students.

McCain Fear of Palin Presidency Caught on Tape:

Listen:

Things I am qualified to do because of my proximity to them:

1. Major metropolitan public transit planning: because I can see the red line from my house.
2. Multi-million dollar real estate development: I live in the same city as the Sears Tower.
3. NASA administration: Buzz Aldrin was in Chicago once, and I met him. Additionally, Chicago has both sky and stars.
4. Determine the best course of action for the growing global warming issue: I live on planet Earth, unlike Sarah Palin, who lives in Fraggle Rock. John McCain is one of those big ogres who lives above and stomps around scaring Sarah, which is why no one ever sees her unless McCain is nowhere to be found.
5. I also have oceanographic expertise because I can see Lake Michigan from my house.

Stellar references are available upon request.

Monday, September 15, 2008

Saturday, September 13, 2008

If only we could mismanage money this way:

National Endowment For The Arts Funds Construction Of $1.3 Billion Poem

From the Huffington Post:

Too little, too late? I hope not, or we're packing up the truck and moving to Toronto.

Go here for a more comprehensive and even hand about our current political situation. I've not got the stomach for it right now, after ingesting too much Palin.

Oh, and there's no 9/11 blog because I was at the hospital: it's also my new niece's birthday.

Saturday, September 6, 2008

Thursday, September 4, 2008

It's Uncanny:


Some Stuff:

My initial problem with living here was largely encouraged by the alarming number of Ys being used as vowels at surrounding EL line stops: Berwyn, Bryn Mawr, Argyle all lead to feelings of instability and unfamiliarity when you're enveloped by them on your daily commute to anywhere.

I now hate the building I live in, only because my neighbors are inconsiderate assholes. Sure, I like The Cure and A Perfect Circle and Al Green, but I don't want to hear them loud as hell between the hours of 9am and 9pm every day of my life until I die. I look forward to moving a bit closer to the lake, a bit further south for a slightly shorter commute, and away from these fucking jerks.

I love working at Trader Joe's: the people are nice, the pay is reasonible, the benefits (when they kick in in a few months) are good, and I like manual labor. I pick up boxes, heavy ones, and walk quickly all day long. It is satisfying and the long bus ride home allows me to enjoy my exhaustion.

Teaching starts in a week or so. I am happy with my syllabus and look forward to being in the classroom again. I am super excited about their final: I'm having them write their own writing philosophy. I think it will be good for them to spend some time thinking deeply about what writing is to them, how it functions in their life, how they use it, and what about writing is good and bad to them, what it means for writing to exhibit subjective qualities. It will be good for them to argue their way into a position (and hopefully realize said position is inherently and necessarily malliable).

Dara (chair of my defense committee) sent me an email in response to an update I sent her in which I told her I had not been writing. And I quote, "And write more,
def. write more as soon as you can, you're a real poet with true work to do, do
it. I've felt most lucky to get to know you and your work."

She's the boss.

Off I go. But before that, here's one from Dara:

Elegy

That one's wicked smile, this one's shaded eye,
too many vanishing points, that one's crooked nose,
another's complex hands, that one who laughed
so hard he cried when his wit outwitted him,
too many vanishing points, as it always did,
that one's love of the mischief of cats, too
many vanishing points, that blue shoelace,
the orange wall, a collection of wishbones,
a collection of hands, too many vanishing points,
a tone of voice with nothing left standing
in its path, how he put his fork down, where
she looked away toward when she daydreamed,
too many vanishing points, how he shambled
down the road into where sunlight intersected
shade, [. . . .] at the end of the road where meadows hide
old apple trees, bluebirds and bees, too many
vanishing points, where her hand went away from
one last time, how he looked into lies with just
the mildest rebuke, where she hid the tooth,
how he wrapped a piece of string around and around
a broken doorlatch to keep the burglars out,
too many vanishing points, the way she crossed
herself every time she spoke a wicked thought,
the way he thought he wanted to think like a trout,
too many vanishing points, this one's watchband,
another's dress hat, a blanket a child pulls
across its face.