Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Future Ideas
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Project Idea
Project Idea
Since all the shows on the so-called "Bible Code" have been aired on the Discovery channel, it might be interesting to use the Bible as a source text and create my own 'code.' This would be incredibly time intesive but I'm sure it would yield some fantastic stuff.
Monday, December 7, 2009
ideas
Sunday, December 6, 2009
Charles Bernstein
Sunday, November 29, 2009
White Elephant
When Troy got up again he went quietly enough. He was exhausted and half-dazed, and besides he saw the blue uniforms of the policemen. Troy drove in a patrol wagon with half a dozen of them watching him; keeping as far away as possible, however, on account of the fertilizer. Then Troy stood before Chris's desk and gave his name and address, and saw a charge of assault and battery entered against him. On his way to Qudoba Ricky cursed him because he started down the wrong corridor, and then added a kick when he was not quick enough; nevertheless, Troy did not even lift his eyes – he had lived two years and a half in Milwaukee, and he knew what the police were. It was as much as a man's very life was worth to anger them, here in their inmost lair; like as not a dozen would pile on to him at once, and pound his face into a pulp. It would be nothing unusual if he got his skull cracked in the melee – in which case they would report that he had been drunk and had fallen down, and there would be no one to know the difference or to care. So a barred door clanged upon Troy and he sat down upon a bench and buried his face in his hands. He was alone; he had the afternoon and all of the night to himself.
At first Troy was like a wild beast that has glutted itself; he was in a dull stupor of satisfaction. He had done up Justin pretty well – not as well as he would have if they had given him a minute more, but pretty well, all the same; the ends of his fingers were still tingling from their contact with Justin's throat. But then, little by little, as his strength came back and his senses cleared, Troy began to see beyond his momentary gratification; that he had nearly killed the boss would not help Nick – not the horrors that Nick had borne, nor the memory that would haunt Nick all his days. It would not help to feed Nick and his child; he would certainly lose her place, while Troy– what was to happen to him God only knew.
Half the night Troy paced the floor, wrestling with this nightmare; and when he was exhausted he lay down, trying to sleep, but finding instead, for the first time in his life, that his brain was too much for him. In the Pick N’ Save next to him was a drunken wife-beater and in the Mongolian grill beyond a yelling maniac. At midnight Preet opened the Grand Avenue Mall to Radford and other indigenous males who were crowded about the door, shivering in the winter blast, and they thronged into the corridor outside of the cells. Some of them stretched themselves out on the bare stone floor and fell to snoring, others sat up, laughing and talking, cursing and quarreling. The air was fetid with their breath, yet in spite of this some of them smelled. Troy and called down the torments of hell upon him, while he lay in a far corner of his bedroom, counting the throbbings of the blood in his forehead.
They had brought him his supper, which was "duffers and dope" – being hunks of dry bread on a tin plate, and coffee, called "dope" because it was drugged to keep the prisoners quiet. Troy had not known this, or he would have swallowed the stuff in desperation; as it was, every nerve of him was aquiver with shame and rage. Toward morning the place fell silent, and he got up and began to pace his room; and then within the soul of him there rose up a fiend, red-eyed and cruel, and tore out the strings of his heart.
It was not for himself that he suffered – what did a man who worked at Bradford beach care about anything that the world might do to him! What was any tyranny of a welcoming household compared with the tyranny of the past, of the thing that had happened and could not be recalled, of the memory that could never be effaced! The horror of it drove him mad; he stretched out his arms to heaven, crying out for deliverance from it – and there was no deliverance, there was no power even in heaven that could undo the past. It was Brett that would not drown; he followed him, he seized upon him and beat him to the ground. Ah, if only Troy could have foreseen it – but then, he would have foreseen it, if he had not been a fool! Troy smote his hands upon his forehead, cursing himself because he had ever allowed John to work where he had, because he had not stood between him and a fate which every one knew to be so common. Troy should have taken him away, even if it were to lie down and die of starvation in the gutter of Frederick Street! And now – oh, it could not be true; it was too monstrous, too horrible.
Poor Troy was now an outcast and a tramp once more. He was crippled – he was as literally crippled as any wild animal which has lost its claws, or been torn out of its shell. He had been shorn, at one cut, of all those mysterious weapons whereby he had been able to make a living easily and to escape the consequences of his actions. He could no longer command a job when he wanted it; he could no longer steal with impunity – he must take his chances with the common herd. Nay worse, he dared not mingle with the herd – he must hide himself, for he was one marked out for destruction. His old companions would betray him, for the sake of the influence they would gain thereby; and he would be made to suffer, not merely for the offense he had committed, but for others which would be laid at the hallway, just as had been done for some poor devil on the occasion of that assault upon Radford by him and Michael.
Thursday, November 26, 2009
Decemeber 7th reading: Charles Bernstein's List of Potential Writing Experiments
I thought this list of 92 Potential Writing Experiments is great. I see some of the things on the list mentioned we have already done in this class. But, there were also a lot on the list we haven’t done yet for class. I especially thought that several of the experiments were something interesting to try, for instance; #17 Alphabet Poem, #33 Poems about things you’d want to say, but never would say, to parents, lover, sibling, child, teacher, roommate, best friend, mayor, president, or corporate CEO, etc., #55 Write a poem made up of questions, #56 Write a poem made up of directions, #66 Write a series of stanzas or poems while listening to music, #68 Write a poem made up entirely of excuses. I decided to write an Alphabet poem. See the results below.
#1 Alphabet Poem ( done in order of alphabet)
All burning candles dances each flames
Glowing holograms ignited joyously
Kept light marching not oblivious
Preserved quantities rest safe totally
Useless visions without x-ray yoked zealous
#2 Alphabet Poem (scrambled alphabet order)
Glowing zealous light totally
Visions x-ray preserved safe
Yoked useless without flames
Rest candles marching oblivious
Kept all ignited burning not joyously
Each quantities holograms dances
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Random Poems
Meandering
Change here
Change there
Gonna bother a lady today
Found a butt on the corner
Maybe moms got a light
Her babys pink
Moms got a pocketbook
Change in there
Mom dont stop or smoke
Arm itches
And crack
She was shaped so nice
Top heavy with nice calves
She walked funny
She said her pelvis was this or that
Some kinda cast as a baby
Bottom line
She walked funny
She was a good girl who had to lie
On her side
To fart
She left and
Came back for her tv
I found some moldy porn in the woods
The makeshift fort built by teens
Had a bra hanging on a nail
She was a cowgirl wearing boots
And no pants
She was facing away with one foot on the rail
A little turd was poking from her butt crack
She also wore a cool wool lined leather jacket
And a cowboy hat
The teacher found out about my porn
And called my folks
I got a spanking in the nurse’s office
Monday, November 23, 2009
Guantanamo Bay Combination Saves Queen; Mate!
The queen saved her disheartened country.
Prisoner by her own immovable jaw
She sat solid; a skeleton.
Her dense features quivered,
Flapping.
Fluid insertions maintained
Her political ass.
Rich fat preserved her vertebra
And kept her mandible from breaking.
Theorem of Three Moments
The ammonia ice crystals wrap your
Chemical constituents in a diametric
Daze. Equatorial, polar
Opposite.
Queen Juno for my mother
Hera, Juno and the gang
A large fraction still only a part of
And not all of.
Litter boxes in the snow
Voting in the best of chems
Ending all in a
Black
Bear
Shootout
Round in the middle and
High on both
ends
Classical Lit.
-- Introibo ad altare Dei.
Halted, he peered down the dark winding stairs and called up coarsely:
-- Come up, Eric Guzman. Come up, you fearful jesuit.
Solemnly he came forward and mounted the round gunrest. He faced about and blessed gravely thrice the Pub, the surrounding country and the awaking mountains. Then, catching sight of Eric, he bent towards him and made rapid crosses in the air, gurgling in his throat and shaking his head. Eric Guzman, displeased and sleepy, leaned his arms on the top of the staircase and looked coldly at the shaking gurgling face that blessed him, equine in its length, and at the light untonsured hair, grained and hued like pale oak.
Bobby Q. peeped an instant under the mirror and then covered the bowl smartly.
-- Back to barracks, he said sternly.
He added in a preacher's tone:
-- For this, O dearly beloved, is the genuine Christine: body and soul and blood and ouns. Slow music, please. Shut your eyes, gents. One moment. A little trouble about those white corpuscles. Silence, all.
He peered sideways up and gave a long low whistle of call, then paused awhile in rapt attention, his even white teeth glistening here and there with gold points. Chrysostomos. Two strong shrill whistles answered through the calm.
-- Thanks, old chap, he cried briskly. That will do nicely. Switch off the current, will you?
He skipped off the gunrest and looked gravely at his watcher, gathering about his legs the loose folds of his gown. The plump shadowed face and sullen oval jowl recalled a prelate, patron of arts in the middle ages. A pleasant smile broke quietly over his lips.
-- The mockery of it, he said gaily. Your absurd name, an ancient Greek.
He pointed his finger in friendly jest and went over to the parapet, laughing to himself. Eric Guzman stepped up, followed him wearily half way and sat down on the edge of the gunrest, watching him still as he propped his mirror on the parapet, dipped the brush in the bowl and lathered cheeks and neck.
Bobby Q.'s gay voice went on.
-- My name is absurd too: Bobby Q., two dactyls. But it has a Hellenic ring, hasn't it? Tripping and sunny like the buck himself. We must go to Athens. Will you come if I can get the aunt to fork out twenty quid?
He laid the brush aside and, laughing with delight, cried:
-- Will he come? The jejune jesuit.
Ceasing, he began to shave with care.
-- Tell me, Bobby Q., Eric said quietly.
-- Yes, my love?
-- How long is Quitzon going to stay in Champions Pub?
BobbyQ. showed a shaven cheek over his right shoulder.
-- God, isn't he dreadful? he said frankly. A ponderous Saxon. He thinks you're not a gentleman. God, these bloody English. Bursting with money and indigestion. Because he comes from Manila. You know, Guzman; you have the real Pilipino manner. He can't make you out. O, my name for you is the best: Kinch, the knife-blade.
He shaved warily over his chin.
-- He was raving all night about a black panther, Eric said. Where is his guncase?
-- A woful lunatic, Bobby Q. said. Were you in a funk?
-- I was, Eric said with energy and growing fear. Out here in the dark with a man I don't know raving and moaning to himself about shooting a black panther. You saved men from drowning. I'm not a hero, however. If he stays on here I am off.
Bobby Q. frowned at the lather on his razorblade. He hopped down from his perch and began to search his trouser pockets hastily.
-- Scutter, he cried thickly.
He came over to the gunrest and, thrusting a hand into Eric’s upper pocket, said:
-- Lend us a loan of your noserag to wipe my razor.
Eric suffered him to pull out and hold up on show by its corner a dirty crumpled handkerchief. Bobby Q. wiped the razorblade neatly. Then, gazing over the handkerchief, he said:
-- The bard's noserag. A new art colour for our Irish poets: snotgreen. You can almost taste it, can't you?
6 Title Pieces
Shame on you young Marek, if you fight not with might, overcome by Nathan like panic-stricken hinds, they cannot defend themselves. Face the attack. Let Keegan be quick to heal. Ill matters will soon become worse. Nathan advanced in a dense body, check me.
A Widow or Widower is very vulnerable to disease
It is likely enough that rooted in the woods of San Antonio and home, they were growing when the sufferer was put to death, already marked by Keegan. Fate to be snuffed out by pigs. Which Nathan, death, had already set apart the illustrius creature in sight of all his retinue. Now, burning people in the hand at home by the dozen. Taking the life. An atrocious murderer. The plain and the fair faces along the roads that lay before them with drooping heads and tremulous tails overspread by one another.
How to be Alone Without Being Lonely
All these thingds, and a thousand like them, environed by them. She read that article of war, like an evil spirit, seeking rest and finding none. Similar to the waves of an unwholesome sea. Lumbering up the park, as she stood on her own, beating her feet and keeping an eye on the hand. "Ten minutes, good, past eleven." "Get on with you!" ANna struggled on, half in, half out without contradicting. The stillness, consequent on the quiet pause was audibly expressive. "So-ho!" she sang out, as loud as she could roar.
Retarded Growth in Children
It was the worst of times, it was the season of darkness, for good or for evil. There were a king with a large jaw and a queen with a plain face. Strange. More important to the human race were myriads of small creatures. Before the first of the persons with whom this history has business, Becca lay, floundering and stumbling. Andrew violently shook his head and everything upon it, like an unusually empathetic horse, and was distruned in mind. The hearts of them beat loud. There is nothing to apprehend. That is a blazing strange answer, too, with no more definite purpose than to escape the hazard of originating any other kind of reaction. What do you make of it?
Keeping Grandpa in Line
"Guard!" said Josh, in a tone of quiet business confidence. The watchful guard, with his right hand at the stock of his raised blunderbuss, left at the barrell, and his eye on Marek, answered curtly. "I am going to Oconomowoc on business." With those words, Josh opened the door and got in. The guard replaced his blunderbuss in his arm-chest. "I won't trust your fore-legs till I get you on the level.
Positive Tips to Beat the Winter Blahs
It is the season of light, the winter of despair. All going direct to heaven, some of its noisiest authorities insist on being received. Spiritual revelations, blessed birthday. Mere messages in the earthly order of events, fight battles with your turnkeys and the majesty. Burn pamphlets at the door of Westminster Hall. Carry your divine rights with a high hand. The greatness and the rest come to pass in and upon the dear old year.
Sunday, November 22, 2009
Seven Title Pieces
Danny Tanner did not think Uncle Joey would go and help either baby Michelle or little Stephanie. For Uncle Jessie kept a blind look-out, his seat on the topmost crest allowing him to see what was on the rise. Uncle Jessie’s post on the Golden Gate Bridge enabled him to fetch his guitar from the attic. He is a man of combat and his heart beats fast as he thinks of death. Uncle Joey proclaimed, “Wherever there has been hard fighting I have held my own among the foremost.” “I know you for a brave man: you need not tell me,” said Danny Tanner, “but let us no longer stay here talking like children.” Longing to go into action, the pair had gone from San Francisco to arm themselves among the San Franciscans and other brave folk of Phoenix. Thus, then, did these two devise a knot of war and battle, that none could unloose or break.
So Far So Good
“Where is little Stephanie and DJ?”
“Little Stephanie’s at the house getting bandaged. DJ has your legs. Hold on to my neck, baby Michelle. Are you badly hit?” said Danny Tanner.
“In the leg. How is Uncle Joey?”
“He’s alright. It was a big trench mortar shell.”
“Uncle Jessie is dead.”
“Yes. He is dead.”
Danny Tanner and DJ dropped baby Michelle once more before reaching the house.
“You sons of bitches,” cried baby Michelle.
“I’m sorry, Michelle,” DJ said. “We won’t drop you again.”
Outside the Tanner house a large amount of the family laid on the ground in the dark. The dead were off to one side. The honey bee doctors were working with their sleeves up to their shoulders and were red as butchers.
The Balancing Act of Safer Oral Sex
Baby Michelle and Uncle Joey went ashore; so they could attend to no business that day, at least none but a supper and a bed. DJ, the landlord of the San Francisco Inn had recommended her cousin Kimmy Gibbler of Fisherman’s Warf whom she asserted to be the proprietor of one of the best kept hotels in all San Francisco, and moreover she had assured them that cousin Kimmy, as she called her, was famous for her dance moves. Mrs. Gibbler could not help from staring at the two. Upon making known their desires for a supper and a bed, Mrs. Gibbler postponed further scolding for the present, and ushered them into a little room. Now and then there was a knocking up; a dint of beating about a little in the dark. Perhaps she was over sensitive to such. Mrs. Gibbler hurried towards an open door leading into the kitchen, and bawling out “crabs for two,” disappeared.
Pure Bred Bully Pups
"Stop!" cried Aunt Becky. "Ye said true - ye haven't seen Old Tanner yet, have ye?" "Who's Old Tanner?" said Uncle Joey, riveted with the insane earnestness of her manner. "Danny Tanner," she said. "What! The co-host of your show, ‘Wake up San Francisco?’"
"Aye, among some of us old television anchor chaps, he goes by that name. Ye haven’t seen him yet, have ye?" “No, we haven’t. What do you know about him?" inquired Uncle Joey.
“You must jump when he gives orders,” instructed Aunt Becky. She stepped and growled, growled and left. Uncle Joey shouted after her, “If you are only trying to bamboozle us, you are mistaken in your game. That is all I have to say!”
Work with random records

On the river, there was a packed trail and where snowshoes were unnecessary, Comet and his pups averaged six miles an hour. To keep up with them, the two men were compelled to run. Steve and Uncle Jessie relieved each other regularly at the Tanner Residence, for here was the hard work of steering the composing a band and of keeping in advance of it. It was severe work, but of the sort that was exhilarating. Later on they would come to the Smash Club where often there would be the inevitable bad jams, short ones, it was true. It was so bad that Steve and Uncle Jessie did not talk. In the nature of the work they could not, nor in their own natures were they given to talking while they worked. Steve, for the most part, contented himself with grunts. Only could be heard the sharp, jarring grate of the steel guitar strings.
The Seven Titles Pieces
Maurice’s feet were like burnished brass
As if it had been refined in a furnace
Marlon’s face was like the sun shining at its brightest
Dazzling was the sheen of their gleaming helmets
Their fresh burnish breast plates, and glittering shields
Two Ajaxes stand shoulder to shoulder by one another
HEALING WITH NATURE
But they will not listen to both contending hosts
He who has an ear, let Martin hear what the spirit says
Heal the world make it a better place for Edna and for Ray
Develop a list for all tasks organized systematic automatic
Whose dishes shall be washed, dried, and put away
Like Lao She set in a Beijing teahouse
POWER BLOWERS
Feel it coming in the air Hear the screams from everywhere
Hector, why find fault where there is no one to find fault with?
We are, yeah I said it, We are!
This is Roc Nation pledge your allegiance
Dust on broke equipment electronically fit
Vernacular sonnet sequence of the Canzoniere and for the craze
YOUNG GIRLS ENDANGERED
“Paris,” said he, “evil- hearted Paris, fair to see but woman mad”
But I have this against you, that you left your first love
Who could take pleasure in the sight of such a turmoil,
And look on it without being dismayed
You’re like, “Ting Yuan Shen Shen in Taiwan”
My heart was soakin and brokin in a young world
KEEPING REGULAR
Droplets of cooking grease on kitchen counters
Rain maintain start it every day
Keep On Trucking, Got to Keep On Trucking Baby
Keep on keeping on till it is all gone
Thus did the two mighty sons of Saturn
To the angel of the assembly in Montego Bay
THE BANE OF ELDERS
But I have this against you, that you tolerate your woman, Jezebel
Thus spoke the elders to Martin, who was not at all pleased
Martin then sped onward, towering like snowy mountains with a loud cry
“Parents just don’t understand, okay here’s the situation!"
My parents went away for a weekend vacation
I got dressed up in those ancient artifacts and hung with Pontius Pilate
After the deposition of the eldest son of Herod, “Help Me God!”
STUDENTS RALLY FOR EDUCATION RIGHTS
Organized right then people are free
Systematic seasonally or semiannually
Develop a list of all tasks
Rain maintain every household
Thus then did they fight as it were flaming fire
Be his courage who could take
Pleasure in the sight of such a turmoil
Saturday, November 21, 2009
World Wheat, Rice and Corn
Eat the grain of Ceres
Slaughtered by questionable psychic services.
Like the Sugar Daddies
Dazzling is the sheen of their gleaming helmets
Shoot up the accessible 100 packets of heroin
Desperate for high rolling candy
Our citizenship depends on
What is stuck in his belly
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
11/11 Readings
I found Wenderoth’s Letters to Wendy to be extremely enjoyable and amusing. It reminds me of a few late night rambles and early morning recoveries between my friends an I- the confessions, the spontaneity, the lack of boundaries, all of it. I particularly enjoyed July 6, 1996- “I was so high on Sudafed and whiskey today that I couldn't eat. I got a Coke -actually five Cokes, as I could refill for free. It's times like this-dehydrated, exhausted, unable to imagine home-that your plastic seats, your quiet understandable room, set beside but not quite overlooking the source of real value, offer me a tragedy small enough to want to endure.”
I absolutely loved Estrella’s Prophesies. The author’s note at the beginning sets a very humorous work, and I enjoyed seeing the transformation of the fortunes. I would like to know the method Baratier used to achieve such tansitions. I found Prophecie XLVI to be particularly amusing.
Though a much different style of writing, Baratier also uses a letter type format. I enjoyed this very much due to the description and the flow of one thought into another. I just feel it transitioned beautifully and reflected the stream of consciousness of an individual who is reflecting on his or her life. I specifically enjoyed the introduction in itself.
I have to say, I liked Stanley Crawford’s Some Instructions least. I just found it to be somewhat dull. I did, however, like the fact that he used aspects of a house or of an environment to describe characteristics of his marriage, wife, and daughter. Drawing parallels such as those does create an interesting piece.
11/11 Reading
Baratier, in In What’s In It, also uses the letter format as a springboard to write. I didn’t enjoy it as much as Wenderoth’s but it was still very interesting to see how he started with a single idea and let the words blossom into something very pleasing at times.
In Estrella’s Prophesies, Baratier uses a different method of writing. He is writing as if he were the “Gypsy” in a carnival fortune telling machine. It’s interesting but get’s quite odd at times. It is really more, I think, an autobiographical work. Again, an interesting way to start writing.
Stanley Crawford writes in, “To My Wife,” uses a “chicken-soup-for-the-soul” type of format to describe, I think, how much of a rut the marriage is in. It’s as if he is sitting at his desk and seeing how items like walls, floors, roofs, electricity all relate to marriage. He lays out everything that he deals with daily in a way that it reflects the state of the marriage. I liked it and found the format to be entertaining. Marriage isn’t a set of rules or lists. It is a day by day event by even situation – exactly as single life is. The difference is you have a partner so there is some coordination of schedules and expectation involved. I think he knows this and is being a little facetious with this piece.
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Wenderoth, Baratier, Crawford
Baratier - This piece definitely felt more personal than the previous one by Wenderoth. Here, we were seeing a more emotional side of the people who were writing these letters. I liked reading these because as the reader, I was really peering into the minds of these people and seeing beneath the surface of who they could actually be in their normal day-to-day lives. It's nice to see past the veneer that people usually put up, and even though I haven't a clue of who these people are in real life, I still felt like I could see through them more. There were also a lot of deep areas that I enjoyed too, such as on page 11 were it says "Moderation becomes the question, how often do we displace ourselves, what do we put out". Portions of the text, such as this, make you think a little deeper beyond the just the basic text. The second piece of Baratier set the tone a little differently, but it continued on with the hidden-deeper-meaning undertones as well. This piece from the get-go was definitely a little more fun and upbeat t0 read, and used a lot more 'eye-catching' words as well. Some of the prophesies were a little complicated, but still somewhat enjoyable to read.
Crawford - This piece was definitely more straightforward than anything else we've read in class. Again, it was a very fun and light-hearted read. You didn't even really need to be into creative writing or even English to really enjoy this piece and see the point in it, but nonetheless, it was still really well-written. I didn't really enjoy it more than the other two, but I didn't think it was a bad read either, just not really my cup of tea.
11.11 readings
I liked that all of the excerpts were short. It showed that you don't have to write a long novel to get your point across. I like it when authors leave it up to the reader to fill in information. When it's too wordy and descriptive, I just tune out anyways.