tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-55801102024-03-13T11:37:15.318-07:00This is my MissivePatrickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17920662390713764053noreply@blogger.comBlogger112125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5580110.post-24636159992526404752010-05-23T20:36:00.000-07:002010-05-23T20:45:27.824-07:00The Record<span style="font-style:italic;">Invocations</span><br /><br />1.<br />Now I will do nothing but listen,<br />To accrue what I hear into this song, to let sounds contribute toward it.<br />I hear bravuras of birds, bustle of growing wheat,<br />gossip of flames, clack of sticks cooking my meals<br />I hear the sound I love, the sound of the human voice,<br />I hear all sounds running together,<br />combined, fused or following<br /><br />2.<br />All the Records previous to this. <br />Past peoples who yet thrive in my present.<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">The Record</span><br /><br />january. <br />a morning in inman, books to my body<br />coffee then with sabeen, we talked at 1369<br />for a few days i waited about the west<br />there were films, snowy nights, papers to write<br />long mornings and afternoon rest<br />late night walks with many people in the streets<br />monta's house<br />the druid where we all said goodbye<br />sabeen, teddy, shu, leah, maciej (as he was then known)<br />doug, sarah, jenny, kristen, sylvia<br />i was going to say something after that night<br />with so little time left but decided not to.<br />one last lunch at shaheen's, mack at the table<br />i drove west to buffalo<br />arriving in a blizzard, sleeping in a mute farmhouse<br />next was home, a day over, then to buffalo<br />boston again, <br />maciej and sylvia at the middle east<br />denounced on vodka<br />i almost did it, there was a moment it might have happened<br />and before i know it,<br />there are the plains, the mountains, <br />denver, vail<br />there's a full moon tonight, wave so i can see you<br />here i am in my new home<br />my back taking a week to adjust<br />time off in the lodge, waiting for gear<br />the sun at such a high altitude scalds your hair<br />it saturates your body with depth<br />each morning there is blood from your fingers on the bed<br />many talks, many chats<br />what happened was what i expected<br />i tried to be a good compatriate, and patient<br />the back room finally became safe<br />i drank with these kids, inhaling smoke<br />i took walks above the road and remembered the lights on the hills<br />deep in the trees there were fewer hesitations<br />i love you, but you lost me<br />after many years that story was over<br />andrew and i spoke in an empty room<br />i said, i can't believe<br />winter turned<br />now i have one wing of fear, one of hope<br />where will this lead<br />alabama <br />now all of this began to make sense<br />the true west, a point of access<br />when the door can stay open<br />in a soonly spring i reversed, gathering for the south<br />the day i left colorado, the air smelled like my own youth<br />an afternoon out of the mountains for a train <br />my heart started to pound, others could hear it<br />they turned their heads, i was sure<br />except for one<br />will you wait for my train with me<br />we talked in a park, saying i knew from the beginning<br />you didn't have the fortitude<br />i'm not sure if it's fortitude exactly, more like an impulse of making<br />the station silent, the late day sun across the pews<br />i said this is the universal there, i could do this, <br />i know this place without having been here<br />the platform cleared and i said this is like a song, an odd film<br />suddenly, breakfast in the landscape with a flower<br />a near suffocation, but soon came chicago<br />and chicago, home, and it was turning spring again<br />i went to durham, knocking in the evening<br />and then atlanta, a hot day in a cool office<br />westward to alabama, through deep red pine trees<br />it was a cool night, and rammed earth smelled like beets<br /><br />and alabama happened<br /><br />now it's a cold morning in the rain<br />the north has returned to get you, she said<br />i went that way<br />jb and i talked about alabama, risks worth taking<br />then in nashville to skate music, coffee with phenis<br />keepin cleanis,<br />long days here of repetitious sitting, i made lists<br />through the land between the lakes, at a nabokovian wayside<br />i miss your existence (oh is that right?)<br />then to ottawa in a crisp midwestern may:<br />deep wind, bright foliage, walking with andrew and rosie<br />melissa at the house, the back doors open <br />where there was once a garden trough<br />then chicago with dawn, a long companion as i call it<br />conversations that years ago may have been surprising<br />on a cold morning i went to the lake <br />soon again, in grand rapids with another long companion<br />you didn't fail, i tried to explain<br />tom,<br />conversations that years ago may have been surprising<br />ann arbor to d and k, ashton and wrigley<br />warm spring nights of hockey at the corner<br />eastward to cambridge now, with a stop in buffalo <br />hello, here is my home, here are my kin<br />can i join you? yes,<br />and a crossing into boston, an intepid anxiety<br />make it right, i said, make it right<br />this was not a weekend for graduation and procession<br />but reconciliation and setting out peace<br />peace, peace, and i nearly cried<br />evening at the cellar, and another with <br />teddy, ingrid, sylvia, cryan, emilyp, kate, echristo, daniel, caitlin<br />class day and light in the city like paris somehow<br />yang and i discuss the heaviness<br />michelle, shanks, ricky with champagne on a last night<br />flowers falling in the new yard, birds, resilience<br />this thing called harvard is over<br />monta for naps and coffee, lingering in the square<br />inman, people's republic, topher, saif, brigid<br />a final punjab with sabs, goodbye to you at ss<br />a final 1369 with teddy, and the road again, south <br />ricky in brooklyn, chang in union,<br />easy e in baltimore, and rightly proud<br />annapolis for phil, gail, dunc, mike<br />a strange almost sinister silence in this history<br />a day in washington, then durham by nightfall<br />a week in durham in a long, lingering song<br />abiding in many of the gaps, alex and emily<br />soccer beneath the oaks, a drive southly more<br />a walk up springer, then a goodbye, a long path.<br />on foot across the land with<br />moondog, rocketbug, blue, doublecheck, magnolia, pearl, listener, etc.<br />the doc and the georgian<br />long days at the sunnybank with its porches<br />instruments in the evening and lingering rain<br />farther north into cold wet mountains<br />with the captain i closed out these days<br />coming to virginia with limping<br />waiting in a sundry town listening to storms<br />along she came in a car<br />a long-waited reunion at the francis marion<br />driving in the wet night and timeless day<br />farewell at the curb like a old radio ballad<br />i feel like i'm in a dream <br />beginning a new fall with gray<br />silence came over me, hesitations of words<br />after a month in the west<br />here was my brother and ross<br />teddy and clea walking into the mountains, buff in the water<br />an el camino for the last days of summer against mt. tabor<br />now to jill beyond alabama at the corroding beaches<br />doog and sarah in a strange flat land with odd silences<br />back to the east for tepid months of waiting<br />the land became fallow again<br />a purple evening at pamplona<br />like in a film i can only watch her as the train goes on<br />ending in the north again with persistent snow<br />easy e and mike d on the sides of hills<br />near calamity in the body, but also the heart<br />this is the point, a passing on of a stand<br />a trading of platforms and premises<br />the taubman college supper club with jen, ciej, teman<br />viva la revolucion at the house on heather<br />many returns to the comfort of a home when i had none<br />a harbor in more ways than one by dj and deniz<br />and again became spring, in a week in march<br />then april passes, and on the third of may, <br />regeneration. this never should have passed us by<br />some weeks of trepidation and hope<br />ultimately hope (against hope)<br />suddenly back in a place where i once began<br />an old crew, maggie and kasi, shaheen and fashion,<br />five years and one week gone by<br />and e<br />please be on the other side<br />another cold gray goodbye, and it is beautiful<br />flying west now over the same land as always<br />arriving back, returning forward<br />a period for grace and will<br />time and yes<br />and we're calling all the people<br />and we're calling all the people<br />that were here<br />this is a record of all the happenings<br />of another may to may, a year gone by.Patrickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17920662390713764053noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5580110.post-80511823561940176452009-10-18T11:51:00.000-07:002009-11-09T19:55:09.432-08:00Finally your home<span style="font-weight:bold;">Half Moon Bay</span><br /><br />Finally your home has changed<br />it has been coming with a limp<br />a long conveyance of moving soil <br />it was an immense creature with no eyes<br />trucking like a glacial till across the land<br />blanketed and abandoned in blossoming white<br />it came like the erosion of the beach heads<br />without violence but impossible to relent<br />there was a place then that is now<br />the meadow in your first letters<br />you think about this transition<br />it comes to you in small creatures<br />when you are standing in the fields<br />and your feet are wet because the fields are low<br />and the air is washed, the light is mute<br />the season is turning in slow strains<br />and the fields have been swept up into knots<br />combed by wind and stacked in rain<br />and your own hair is now long<br />and your eyes are now stones<br />you find it hard to think about where you will die<br />or the day of your birth with its tremors<br />its cracking ice, its cold high clouds<br />the long moment of your initiating breath<br />it came to you, and it was by will, your own will<br />that you came to us fighting<br />you actually gasped<br />in the swale you find a dog's bones<br />there are flowers in its eyes<br />leaves between the ribs, and you find a crow's wing<br />but the grasses are fluttering, the weeds rattle<br />how do you say all of this<br />that you are immersed among the birds?Patrickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17920662390713764053noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5580110.post-21186949727027491772009-08-31T15:59:00.000-07:002009-08-31T16:00:35.942-07:00Goodbye Franklin<span style="font-weight:bold;">Observational notes from a town visit</span><br /><br />The Confederate Army memorial is surrounded by half empty buildings from a dozen decades ago and others selling vintage things, family department stores as they once were, and the gap along Main is now a pocket garden, Antebellum dresses are next door in the window, paint scrapings and lace. Up the hill are a few tired houses, a curving driveway going towards nothing in particular out of view next to a pedestrian crossing sign and another which demarks BUS441. I go down now, pass the berm with its trees and flowing plants, right at the light, and cross the street. Here is the VFW hall, a windowless cat store with a fluttering flag of airbrushed kitties outside making faint noise in its shadow; it blocks the sidewalk at head height. The ubiquitous family appliance store, Ingles, hot parking lots, occasionally a tree that is old and large—its canopies sweep up the wind—are all scenes from the periphery of this busted sidewalk. There are odd corners where nothing stands but mowed grass and some perennials. A realtor’s hut with a shiny Hummer and sunflowers outside. The backs of the buildings on Main along the diverted and split one-way highway. Everybody here has a sign in the window, some gentlemen are setting out antiques. Where do these power lines go besides into the canopy? And why are there streetlights here? It is nice outside; warm with no humidity. Drafting services, radio towers, police parking lot, Latino men walking down the highway. That lazy sound of cars. Bright teals and reds and yellow beiges. Shiny cars parked along shady trees, in the center of a town that doesn’t seem to bother. Everywhere is a nowhere. For Rent, For Sale, Now Open. Air conditioners and one-way delivery drives. Inexpensive clothing; billboards. Well drilling, Ruby City. Everything in need of a trim, a touch-up, rebuilding, alignment. Some things are freshly painted. Odd background bird calls. The Sapphire Inn down the hill in the distance. Music is coming from the cars and leaves are falling.Patrickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17920662390713764053noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5580110.post-80479655031333204022009-03-06T20:44:00.000-08:002009-03-06T20:46:00.871-08:00Pot Diet<span style="font-weight: bold;">I like brothy soup</span><br /><br />To save money and kill time, which I have too much of, I've started eating from a pot. I am a soup man; most of my life, I have been a soup man. The pot diet involves a spoon, a bowl, and a pot. In the pot I make soup by combining anything that is available in my cupboard and fridge. Lately, this has been clams and onions and spinach and milk with some other things also. Mostly, it's delicious. Spending two hours a night making a brothy soup (broth and I are in love. We are lovers) is probably the best way I could spend my time in boring Vail. Colorado, though, isn't so bad.Patrickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17920662390713764053noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5580110.post-30672030722892265882009-02-26T18:21:00.000-08:002009-03-06T20:44:35.685-08:00February 26<span style="font-weight: bold;">A poem</span><br /><br />This vast earth carries the burden<br />of countless scabs buried in its skin.<br />Here I am in a premature spring<br />scraping them from the surface<br />in gravel fields and flowerbeds<br />with a disposition for fracturing.<br />I put my ear to the till<br />left wondering, what world is this<br />where magma and tempering water<br />spring forth from its crust?Patrickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17920662390713764053noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5580110.post-86935765683341680452009-02-17T14:57:00.000-08:002009-02-26T18:28:40.149-08:00Dopamine<span style="font-weight: bold;">Personality profile</span><br /><br />Michelle had me take a personality type test at chemistry.com.<br /><br />The results are below. Text in blue is pretty much true. Text in green is circumstantial. Text in red is pretty much not true:<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">EXPLORER/Director</span><br /><br />ABOUT YOUR PERSONALITY TYPE<br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 153);">You are very curious and you love adventure, either or both intellectual and physical. So when you get interested in something, you can become extremely focused on it, sometimes to the exclusion of all around you. You pursue your interests thoroughly, too, often with originality and exactitude.</span><br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 153);">You are adaptable, competitive and a problem-solver, as well as skeptical, tough minded and determined. Because you have a lot of energy and tend to be enthusiastic about your theories and projects, you can be very persuasive. You are eager to make an impact on those around you, too, as well as in the wider world.</span><br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 153);">You are <span style="color: rgb(51, 204, 0);">irreverent</span> and highly independent. So you can be oblivious to authority figures, as well as to rules, schedules and social customs. And although you enjoy people and can be charming and humorous, you are not interested in routine social engagements or anyone whom you regard as boring. Instead, you seek stimulating and focused conversations; and you are comfortable being by yourself, pursuing your own many interests.</span><br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 153);">Of all twelve (primary/secondary) types, you are also the most sexual-because both dopamine and testosterone stimulate the sex drive.</span><br /><br />IN LOVE AND RELATIONSHIPS<br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 153);">As an Explorer, you look out not in; you are foremost interested in the world around you. So you are attracted to a mate who is also intellectually and physically adventurous and interested in dissecting this complex, tangible universe. You particularly like imaginative and theoretical people, a "mind mate." And you like a partner who is sexual, because you regard sex as an important aspect of a relationship. <span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">You have nerves of steel and thrive on the edge. </span>You are also <span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">decisive</span> and direct. So you are unconsciously drawn to those who can balance out your highly independent and tough-minded spirit--those who are novelty seeking, yet compassionate, verbal, intuitive, trusting, flexible and emotionally expressive.</span><br /><br />RELATING TO OTHERS<br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 153);">You like to have good conversations on important topics; so people tend to admire you for your knowledge and innovativeness. You shy away from emotional or self-revealing conversations, however; introspection leaves you cold. Instead, you derive intimacy from doing things with friends or a partner. So you make an exciting, although at times aloof, companion.</span><br /><br />THINGS TO BE AWARE OF<br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 153);">* You can be highly emotionally contained, even pretending that you are fine when you are in deep psychological or physical pain.</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 153);">* You become impatient with cautious people or wordy conversations.</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0);">* You can become so wrapped up in your own interests that you spend too little time with your partner.</span><br /><br />SPARK FACTOR<br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 204, 0);">You tend to naturally gravitate to EXPLORER/negotiators.</span>Patrickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17920662390713764053noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5580110.post-1999241551611875902008-12-13T16:36:00.000-08:002008-12-13T16:48:45.879-08:00A Chat with Jennifer<span style="font-weight: bold;">From last spring</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br />me</span>: what should i do when i graduate?<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Jen</span>: Travel the world, sample exotic foods and wine, recite poetry to beautiful women, skydive, buy a small plot of land with a vineyard.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">me</span>: that sounds about right<br />it’s a cash problem<br />i'm no trust fund baby<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br />Jen</span>: Make lots of money. Get rich quick. Then do the above.<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br />me</span>: how do i get rich quick?<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br />Jen</span>: Um, become a pimp.<br />Sell illegal drugs.<br />Start gambling.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">me</span>: actually, you know what occurred to me today?<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Jen</span>: What occurred to you today?<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">me</span>: i won't really survive at all financially unless i get married.<br />no joke.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Jen</span>: To a trust fund baby?<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">me</span>: no, anybody at all.<br />who has an income<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Jen</span>: So not anybody at all?<br />You couldn't marry me because I don't have an income.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">me</span>: but you will, right?<br />before too long?<br />plus you're already married. which saddens me :(<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Jen</span>: Someday, perhaps. Before too long? Not sure.<br />Already married, no, but plan to be, hopefully sooner than later.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">me</span>: so what the fuck am i supposed to do now<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Jen</span>: Since I'm not marrying you?<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">me</span>: yeah, since you're not marrying me.<br />i never thought I’d need to get married out of pragmatism.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Jen</span>: You use the f-word too much.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">me</span>: that's once.<br />and it was for emphasis.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Jen</span>: That's once too many.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">me</span>: it sounded good in my head.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Jen</span>: It looks bad on chat.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">me</span>: sorry.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Jen</span>: And sounds bad in my head.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">me</span>: sorry.<br />ahh, sorry.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Jen</span>: No worries. I love Jesus, so I forgive you.<br />So you need to find some hot mama with an income.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">me</span>: yeah.<br />who is tolerable.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Jen</span>: Tolerable? How do you mean?<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">me</span>: who isn't annoying<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Jen</span>: Hmm, you're being a little picky, aren't you?<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">me</span>: wanting to marry somebody who isn't annoying is picky?<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Jen</span>: First she's gotta have an income. Then she's got to not be annoying.<br />I'm sure you have other criteria as well.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">me</span>: yeah, but they are pragmatic criteria.<br />i mean, both of the above are pragmatic.<br />my other criteria are probably similar.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Jen</span>: No other pragmatic criteria?<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">me</span>: like, can't have psychosic allergies and isn't awkward around trees.<br />i don't really ask for much in any part of life.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Jen</span>: Awkward around trees? Are there people who are awkward around trees?<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">me</span>: yeah.<br />especially when there are lots of them.<br />such as in a forest.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Jen</span>: What - are they scared of them? Do they not look at them? Are they afraid to get within a certain number of feet?<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">me</span>: i don't know. ask them.<br />my point is, marriage is utterly abstract to me and isn't something i'm really after.<br />so to realize that, pragmatically, i should get married puts a large burden upon me.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Jen</span>: Are there no single architects in the world?<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">me</span>: architects are ugly and inept.<br />i am a case in point.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Jen</span>: You are neither.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">me</span>: architects are scary people who believe in fantasies<br />such as the virtual future<br />and deconstructivism<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Jen</span>: But if they are ugly and inept, then there should be lots of single ones in the world.<br />How do they afford to be so?<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">me</span>: there are plenty of single ones and they're degenerate. they can't afford it.<br />they don't make any money.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Jen</span>: Hmm, when do you graduate?<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">me</span>: next january<br />i wish i didn't have any student debt.<br />then i could be the person i need to be.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Jen</span>: You and me both!Patrickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17920662390713764053noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5580110.post-78208058785668908902008-11-12T19:16:00.000-08:002019-02-24T11:22:40.298-08:00Toro<span style="font-weight: bold;">Poem regarding Enric Miralles</span><br />
if it weren't obscured by other things in the world<br />
what we would see over the water<br />
is a bull thrashing from the shore<br />
pulled to the tesselated surface of the sea,<br />
confined to limbs and horns.<br />
its points are gathered from the burning bodies<br />
of spheres, distended along empty lines,<br />
rationally void, light years between them.<br />
here on the sea, we measure the myth<br />
with hands, and bows, and the moving tides.<span style="font-weight: bold;"><br /></span>Patrickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17920662390713764053noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5580110.post-45313098961333542472008-10-25T14:09:00.000-07:002008-10-25T14:11:06.205-07:00Palinisms<span style="font-weight: bold;">Bless her little heart</span><br /><br />Sarah Palin:<br /><br />"I say, you know, when is enough enough of taxpayer dollars being thrown into this bill out there?" she asked. "This next one of the Democrats being proposed should be very, very concerning to all Americans because to me it sends a message that $700 billion bailout, maybe that was just the tip of the iceberg. No, you know, we were told when we've got to be believing if we have enough elected officials who are going to be standing strong on fiscal conservative principles and free enterprise and we have to believe that there are enough of those elected officials to say, 'No, OK, that's enough.'"Patrickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17920662390713764053noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5580110.post-7548373424767833592008-10-04T21:13:00.000-07:002008-10-04T21:19:31.241-07:00Notes on an Unletter<span style="font-weight: bold;">Time capsule</span><br /><br />Going through notebooks this weekend from my first year at Harvard, I found this written in one of the pages:<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">The Velocities of Wind and Rain</span><br /><br />1. Justice. A quotidian photograph indicates the voluntary judgments we make for each other, rending barriers in otherwise tactile places of interaction. The arm from Daniel versus the shoulder from Kate.<br /><br />2. A story: a person who becomes a puppet is an undenotated inverse Pinnochio theme. Wag the dog. A boy turned into a puppet. Rumpelstiltskin--what do we do faced with incredible burdens of injustice? A king who loved his gold so much he loaded it onto his lassy. A girl who loved her faith in silence so much that she cut out her companions tongue, burned him with silence out of her own misunderstanding.<br /><br />3. Tangibility and sensation (Kant). Descending music notes, wind velocity v. rain velocity.Patrickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17920662390713764053noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5580110.post-40462203218202640542008-08-01T08:30:00.001-07:002008-08-01T08:31:19.714-07:00lunarsee<a href="http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/on_demand_video.html?param=http://mfile.akamai.com/18565/wmv/etouchsyst2.download.akamai.com/18355/wm.nasa-global/ccvideos/GSFC_20080801a_aug1eclipse.asx&_id=143289&_title=Aug.%201%20Eclipse%20Sequence&_tnimage=264818main_aug1eclipse_100x75.jpg">http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/on_demand_video.html?param=http://mfile.akamai.com/18565/wmv/etouchsyst2.download.akamai.com/18355/wm.nasa-global/ccvideos/GSFC_20080801a_aug1eclipse.asx&_id=143289&_title=Aug.%201%20Eclipse%20Sequence&_tnimage=264818main_aug1eclipse_100x75.jpg</a>Patrickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17920662390713764053noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5580110.post-86329403460279790472008-06-21T17:47:00.000-07:002008-06-26T07:12:47.406-07:00the out there or the total here?this line by rilke came up in my final review:<br />the heaviness, give it back to the weight of the earth.<br />they asked why'd you do it? what brought you to this?<br />it's a nice line.<br />i would speculate that most people can relate to heaviness. a humid walk on a southern night will make this apparent. when you think about not just the thickness of the air but the things that cause all the sounds around you--the flora, the bugs--it becomes recognizable that the stuff of our senses is mass-ive; massivley mass-ive. the tress are thick, the underbrush is heavy. it belongs to the earth. so give it back.<br /><br />i didn't get around to writing my annual record this april. i've always called it Premay because May is a hinge in my life and has been since being in college. May is limbo. this year i had a job and school to think about until june but in truth after final review comes and goes everything else is frosting. nobody gets rid of the frosting so you could make it out of infused fish guts and with a little sugar you'd be alright. people eat frosting because it's fluffy and they think it's the cake of the cake. frosting is not the cake of the cake. anyhow, my intention here is not to use metaphors. rilke, i believe, wasn't writing metaphorically. aside from that, i resolved a few times this past semester to give up metaphors as a way of communication. muncey said it right, however, when she saw this as a mechanism to communicate the truth and not a strategy of avoidance. but you just can't count on others to get this all the time. this reminds me of a friend from high school who said that the only person you can count on for love is god. how true.<br /><br />if it was the mid-90s and i lived in los angeles i would write here: "so cometh the point." seeing that this is the Hay and we're closing in on another decade that won't happen. get a garage for heaven's sakes, folks. put a guitar in it and draw evening tatooes on your arms and freak the fuck out. befriend the bums since, as dave hickey puts it, they might steal your television but they won't tell you the same story twice." a dream of eden is better than utopia. the quality of a work of art is the amount of sublimation we take out of it. these are all hickyisms. so is this: that crazy bitch in the audi drives you up on the curve...now you're conscious. you can taste your spit; you can think about your children; you can smell the grass...and when you do finally get to work you complain. to no end.<br /><br />here are notes from a best man speech for andrew:<br />didn't like each other at firest (this is the way all such speeches begin)<br />disposition for the practice of dumbfoundedness<br />the cure<br />homemade coffee<br />the wagon<br />it became cluttered with the mechanisms of a low-rider's worldview<br />never a shotgun, always a slingshot<br />lives in a world of cuts on a cutting board,<br /> tapwater,<br /> curled book covers,<br /> fumes,<br /> elbows in relation to windows,<br /> good hip-hop,<br /> light,<br /> sounds of being still<br />a mountain philosopher, as i explain it, whereas i am a valley philosopher<br />he just don't smell like vinegar<br />whereas others say cookie, cookie, cookie andrew says eat the void<br /><br />and later that weekend, notes on things seen/felt in o'hare waiting for a flight back to boston:<br />do you like the person you are right now sitting waiting for a plane?<br /> harvard has made for weakness, the hairs standing on the neck--survive.<br /> where are the folks with the core (chicago? ann arbor? the west?)<br /> i need to be a good man<br /> am i eating the void? (the answer is yes)<br /> i need to work from the ground<br /> document the mundane<br /> tell her she is silly<br /> i'm pissed off by the former's lack of fortitude<br />also:<br /> my hair in the sun at wednesday's pinup gave me the sense of the south (this shit shimmered like gasoline and it was bright brown and red and translucent)<br /> in cambridge, mack talked to us with the lights off int he lounge and the door opened to sounds from outside where it was warm and the wind smelled like spring<br /> was i hopped up on valium when andrew picked me up at o'hare? whatever the case, we had coffee waiting for flights at a diner by the airport<br /> the next morning i walked between apartments with untied shoes and a hoody and boxers and the sun was too fucking bright to have my eyes open and it was bitterly, bitterly cold. (hickey: now you're conscious)<br /> piss cloud in the backyard, search for gent's root beer, persEverance, drinks, stars outside, empty house that feels abandoned but it's the love nest instead, smell of cabin, cigarettes, Andrew pissing on the lawn, double-shot craving to supplement the ale, stories, stories, stories, stories, stories<br /><br />and stories, and stories,<br /><br />andrew was in the sacristy being quiet. i told him to stand straight so i could take his portrait.<br />and sparklers. the next morning i picked them up from the street.<br /><br />and now back away from the notes. this is the conflict: the out there v. the total here.Patrickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17920662390713764053noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5580110.post-46779317708757436622008-03-30T10:37:00.001-07:002008-03-30T11:15:57.962-07:00Postgraduate<span style="font-weight:bold;">What to do after graduation</span><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://bp3.blogger.com/_0VvbUOosRsc/R-_YkulMQ4I/AAAAAAAAABc/d4ba2hHs1G8/s1600-h/postgrad.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://bp3.blogger.com/_0VvbUOosRsc/R-_YkulMQ4I/AAAAAAAAABc/d4ba2hHs1G8/s320/postgrad.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5183599821617644418" /></a><br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Requirements</span>:<br />room for dog<br />room for a truck<br />trees<br />access to water<br />porch(es)<br />hill or moraine<br />old things<br />music<br />salvage around<br />things to document<br />room to cook<br />place for a fire<br />smokehouse<br />decent coffee<br />local myth<br />some sort of past<br />graffiti<br />soccer field<br />bikes<br />taco bus<br />wind<br />river<br />bookstore<br />crickets <br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;"><br />Activities</span>:<br />dusk<br />walking<br />soccer<br />ultimate<br />the blues<br />gardens for beer<br />public old space<br />college<br />and more<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Precedents/Possibilities</span>:<br /><a href="http://www-cds.aas.duke.edu/index.html">Center for Documentary Studies</a><br /><a href="http://appalshop.org/">Appalshop</a><br /><a href="http://www.designcorps.org">Design Corps</a><br />the government/the foreign service<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Manifesto</span>:<br />this will be my next posting.Patrickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17920662390713764053noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5580110.post-88591236698367729372008-03-05T21:48:00.000-08:002008-03-05T22:29:03.485-08:00Dave Hickey<span style="font-weight:bold;">Interview</span><br /><br />Dave Hickey came to Harvard this week and imbued us wisdom on the fifth floor on a somewhat warm rainy day. A good time, this guy. Lecturing the next day in the big aud, I witnessed the finest, most well-crafted cussing I have ever encountered. A dearly needed morsel of fun in our bunker o' 'crete. The paramount moment of his lecture? Probably when he observed, discussing the unspoken burdens of getting paid as a professor versus as a magazine writer: "If I tell Vanity Fair that I have trouble deciding how much money to spend on heroine and how much to spend on Arab boys they don't give a shit!"<br /><br />Read his interview in the <a href="http://www.believermag.com/issues/200711/?read=interview_hickey"><span style="font-style:italic;">Believer</span></a><br /><br />Dave Hickey: I'll see you on the sixth tray.<br /><br /># Peeps.Patrickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17920662390713764053noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5580110.post-36815264563598133322008-03-05T21:17:00.000-08:002008-03-05T21:25:27.548-08:00Sound<span style="font-weight: bold;">After life</span><br /><br />I'm beginning to think that the most interesting sensory capacity we have is for sound. What is it about the sound of small things, such as setting a watch on a table top, that make objects seem like they are massive, fantastic worlds? I remember napping in a Chicago hotel one afternoon in spring. Because the weather was warm, I opened the window and could hear what you might call the constant sweeping sound of the city outside (like passing air) that lets you "hear" your way up the grided streets, out to the lake, out to the prairies maybe, in between buildings...<br />Measuring a silence in the room provides a middle scale. Waking from a nap, hearing the drapes blow in a breeze, picking up your watch from the night stand. Then set it down again, and it resonates with an afterthought. What Bergson attributes to the space of keeping count in duration would in this case be the echo of the world-in-sound unleased all up in your brain, bouncing around. I'm beginning to think that sounds, the most mundane, unremarkable sounds, have the ability to cast hypnosis.Patrickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17920662390713764053noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5580110.post-1559864652801744202008-01-07T22:21:00.000-08:002008-01-07T22:22:34.241-08:00No quantum veilsMy body and yours are<br />little and more than<br />the vast and infinitesimal<br />suspended in fluid<br />we are not bound up <br />in gravity and dark energies<br />in quantum veils<br />but in the reaching out of<br />one vessel to one other<br />in them, <br />souls, bodies, bodies in bodies,<br />organs, minds<br />you flushed through me<br />sweeping the tiniest <br />of beings in creationPatrickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17920662390713764053noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5580110.post-3469609555967959062007-11-28T22:14:00.000-08:002007-11-29T18:14:11.630-08:00Fall into Winter<span style="font-weight:bold;">Why do people forget what they once believed?</span><br /><br />Maybe the only good book I've read for any of my classes at Harvard is E.B. White's <span style="font-style:italic;">One Man's Meat</span>. It was good enough to show its cover juxtaposed to the burning rubble of suburban riots in Paris to provoke a concept of why our houses are important during my final presentation in the housing studio last year. My friend Andrew, a mountain philosopher living on the prairie, has brought this up before but I read it in White's book as well. Both pointed out one of the most poignant truths of the living world as observed by Darwin in his landmark study of earth worms and their ways and means:<br /><br />"I was thus led to conclude that all vegetable mould over the whole country has passed many times through, and will again pass many times through, the intestinal canals of worms."<br /><br />This is to say, the earth is moving all the time, worm-bite by worm-bite. If we could take a time-lapse video of a section of the ground, we would see it shift and swirl and fluctuate and move in indeterminant directions according to the ingestion and redepositings of earthworms. So too do roots push the earth one way or another, and digging moles, digging voles, burrowing things, nesting critters, the compressions of the feet of we surface dwellers with our Newtons of force-in-step.<br /><br />So the point of moving the earth isn't to heave it. I too wish to move the earth, in fact it's something that I long for. My earth is all the dimensions of a vital world, in three, four, twelve, and many more that are fictional. It is our nature to become so acquainted with the soil of being human as human beings that we ingest it and pass it off, one way or another (though I am surely speaking more metaphorically here) and to provoke the shifting but re-establishing of its stuffiness. This is a strange thing to do, and it's strange to think about. White also observed: <br /><br />"Try to tell a child even the simplest truths about planetary, cosmical, or spiritual things, and you hear strange echoes in your own head. 'Can this be me?' a voice keeps asking, 'can this be me?'"<br /><br />I take this to be the essence of whatever pulses through the mind before one utters "I believe that..." The most essential things are often some of the silliest. You must be a fool to ingest and a sage to redeposit. What then am I talking about? I'm not quite sure but it has to do with a confession I have. If faith moves mountains, then I would like to glutton myself upon it. I have been timid, afraid, witholding, and now I'm desperate for the courage to put myself at risk. I wrote somebody who means a great deal to me earlier this semester that risks were worth it and then failed to live up to this very conviction--the same conviction which says that faith moves mountains, our world is in constant motion, re-creation is always and everywhere, and that we must give our world to those among us in our lives.Patrickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17920662390713764053noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5580110.post-31500048668090974382007-11-03T17:34:00.001-07:002007-11-03T17:37:18.098-07:00Noel<span style="font-weight:bold;">November Again</span><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://bp1.blogger.com/_0VvbUOosRsc/Ry0UH2c7vfI/AAAAAAAAABA/0cyn8rBhDxI/s1600-h/novemberagain.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://bp1.blogger.com/_0VvbUOosRsc/Ry0UH2c7vfI/AAAAAAAAABA/0cyn8rBhDxI/s320/novemberagain.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5128777675753373170" /></a>Patrickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17920662390713764053noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5580110.post-86781800887270416952007-10-21T15:55:00.001-07:002007-10-21T15:56:55.652-07:00On the Everyday Reasons for Preservation<span style="font-weight:bold;">Don't say it's nostalgia</span><br /><br />This is a nice speech about historic preservation given recently by Garrison Keillor at the annual conference of the National Trust for Historic Preservation in St. Paul.<br /><br />http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2007/10/05/midday2/Patrickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17920662390713764053noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5580110.post-83755759455938402542007-10-16T21:58:00.000-07:002007-10-18T09:21:39.778-07:00Bird<span style="font-weight:bold;">A diagram</span><br /><br />This is how I think about life:<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://bp1.blogger.com/_0VvbUOosRsc/RxeH-kh2zqI/AAAAAAAAAA4/UKOH_DNLJ_Y/s1600-h/beach3.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://bp1.blogger.com/_0VvbUOosRsc/RxeH-kh2zqI/AAAAAAAAAA4/UKOH_DNLJ_Y/s320/beach3.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5122712610184548002" /></a>Patrickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17920662390713764053noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5580110.post-19223078652793217752007-10-15T20:00:00.000-07:002007-10-15T20:06:07.675-07:00Phone Conversation<span style="font-weight:bold;">Overheard at the table next to me at 1369</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">guy</span>: <br /> hello?<br /> hey.<br /> what's up.<br /> yeah.<br /> good.<br /> yeah.<br /> okay.<br /> cool.<br /> sure.<br /> definately.<br /> nice.<br /> okay.<br /> alright.<br /> cool.<br /> bye.Patrickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17920662390713764053noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5580110.post-8768307255724203432007-08-02T16:46:00.001-07:002007-08-02T16:47:22.468-07:00Not ten hours after I wrote the last entry I see this article on Yahoo News:<br /><br /><a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070802/ap_on_re_us/bridge_safety">http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070802/ap_on_re_us/bridge_safety</a>Patrickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17920662390713764053noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5580110.post-38768998493023436922007-08-02T08:21:00.000-07:002007-08-02T08:38:23.452-07:00Freeway Infrastructure<span style="font-weight:bold;">Entering a corrosive era</span><br /><br />There is a deniable fact-of-the-matter that has been and will continue to be dangerously ignored by public officials and cheerleaders of our nation's pornographic addiction to economic growth by way of road development. The fact is simple: freeway infrastructure, the lifeblood of the American economy and the single most influential element of post-war American socio-political identity, is busted and unsustainable. For all the billions and billions and billions of dollars federal and state governments have doled out to construct the dizzying expanse of concrete and steel wastelands around our country have a half-life of right about now. Freeway collapses like the one seen in Minneapolis this week will certainly become more common because concrete and rebar don't last forever. The sages of neo-liberal free market capitalism who consecrated the mendacious delusions of the suburban disposition in late-modernity America were successful in convincing those thirsty for the pornographies of the free market that Growth was invincible, all-accelerating, and permanent. Well, unfortunately, Growth is designed for lifespans of 50-60 years, and every time Growth reaches this milestone Growth must be restored, reconstructed, reworked, dismantled, or demolished. State governments already are struggling to repair all those teeny bridges that cross creek beds and gullies on the two-lane highways of the American countryside, let alone the truss arched interstate bridges over large rivers in the cities that carry tens of thousands of cars a day. Now imagine all those roads out there: all the freeway bypasses, the four-lane median US highways, all those bridges in all those little towns across the entire breadth of the continent--all of them facing their golden anniversaries, with failure--death--imminent. The simple, undeniable fact of the matter is that none of it is sustainable. We nihilistically manifested the suburban buildout once, but there is simply no money to do it twice.Patrickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17920662390713764053noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5580110.post-46318465129122770522007-07-14T15:06:00.000-07:002007-11-29T07:34:00.142-08:00Ice Bergs, Not Antarctica<span style="font-weight:bold;">Here now is a prelude</span><br /><br /><br />Still,<br />I am heeding the words coming from the high places<br />And the low, buried places<br />As in the troughs of the dunes and the ancient ways<br />Where many bents of humans planted trees<br />Aware of rows and delineations of order<br />There were many who never transgressed<br />The cast gates of cities with their watchmen<br />And those esteemed who processed <br />Down the only allylanes where the sun would reach<br />Creek beds change form over silent, wise<br />Durations of time which never begin or end<br />And once there were terrific birds on the cliffs<br />With spans of wings like boughs of trees <br />And they never flew<br />Off of and in to the crag and draft<br />Many of us continue to leap with uttering and songs<br />Knowing not of flight but of gravity<br />And all that defies it<br /><br />Sweep up to this height; I have made a place<br />In the sand where I might wait and seek you out<br />In a city of its own lines in the craze of night<br />Bend now, and bury<br />Meet the horizon line and with frail twins of feet, run.Patrickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17920662390713764053noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5580110.post-79491387816055836522007-07-11T03:28:00.000-07:002007-07-11T03:45:07.449-07:00On Light<span style="font-weight:bold;">Excerpts from Annie Dillard's</span> <span style="font-style:italic;">Pilgrim at Tinker Creek</span><br /><br />"'The Greenland fjords are peculiar for the spells of completely quiet weather, when there is not enough wind to blow out a match and the water is like a sheet of glass. The kayak hunter must sit in his boat without stirring a finger so as not to scare the shy seals away...The sun, low in the sky, sends a glare into his eyes, and the landscape around moves into the realm of the unreal. The reflex from the mirror-like water hypnotizes him, he seems to be unable to move, and all of a sudden it is as if he were floating in a bottomless void, sinking, sinking, and sinking....Horror-stricken, he tries to stir, to cry out, but he cannot, he is completely paralyzed, he just falls and falls.' Some hunters are especially cursed with this panic, and bring ruin and sometimes starvation to their families."<br /><br /><br />"I cannot cause light; the most I can do is try to put myself in the path of its beam. It is possible, in deep space, to sail on solar wind. Light, be it particle or wave, has force: you rig a giant sail and go. The secret of seeing is to sail on solar wind. Hone and spread your spirit till you yourself are a sail, whetted, translucent, broadside to the merest puff."<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Referring to Marius von Sendens's</span> Space and Sight:<br /><br />"On the other hand, many newly sighted people speak well of the world, and teach us how dull is our own vision. To one patient, a human hand, unrecognized, is 'something bright and then holes.' Shown a bunch of grapes, a boy calls out, 'It is dark, blue, and shiny...It isn't smooth, it has bumps and hollows.' A little girl visits a garden. 'She is greatly astonished, and can scarcely be persuaded to answer, stands speechless in front of the tree, which she only names on taking hold of it, and then as "the tree with the lights in it."'<br /> "Of a patient just after her bandages were removed, her doctor writes, 'The first things to attract her attention were her own hands; she looked at them very closely, moved them repeatedly to and fro, bent and stretched the fingers, and seemed greatly astonished at the sight.' One girl was eager to tell her blind friend that 'men do not really look like trees at all,' and astounded to discover that her every visitor had an utterly different face. Finally, a twenty-two-old girl was dazzled by the world's brightness and kept her eyes shut for two weeks. When at the end of that time she opened her eyes again, she did not recognize any objects, but, 'the more she now directed her gaze upon everything about her, the more it could be seen how an expression of gratification and astonishment overspread her features; she repeatedly exclaimed, "Oh God! How beautiful!"'"Patrickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17920662390713764053noreply@blogger.com0