The Gods Did Give Us Orgasms

Last month I ploughed through Sid­dhartha, for the first time since tenth grade. Then I fin­ished The Eth­i­cal Slut (only took me a year). This isn’t the first time I’ve tried to bracket sex and spir­i­tu­al­ity, and I’m, like, the last per­son on the planet to argue they’re not, pos­si­bly, the same thing.

Indeterminacy

The last few weeks I’ve been going to see some Clas­si­cal on Sun­day morn­ings. Sort of. The group who puts it on, Sun­day Chat­ter, fea­tures a poet, and at the start of the month, my boy J.W. Basillo fea­tured. And wouldn’t you know it: they’re doing a Steve Reich cel­e­bra­tion. I love Steve Reich; I’ve been jam­ming to “Proverb” and “Piano Phase” for years. “Marimba Phase” live was sick. So what an awe­some sur­prise last Sun­day to see a hand­ful of John Cage pieces in the mix. If you know any­thing about Cage, it’s prob­a­bly that he’s the lov­able ass­hole who gave us 4’33″. If you’re not famil­iar, the piece was first per­formed like this: pianist…

X-Men: The Anim… oh, nevermind

I’ve been indulging the hell out of my mostly-​​quiet inner 9-​​year-​​old with a 2-​​week marathon of that clas­sic 90s Sat­ur­day morn­ing toon. This is only sort of like my Star Trek: TNG Obses­sion of 2010; I watched TNG reli­giously, with my fam­ily, every Sat­ur­day night. For seven years. But X-​​Men was mine and mine alone.

One eye on the road

If I’ve been elu­sive here, it’s not because I don’t care. Tra­di­tion­ally, I’ve used this space to talk about (and some­times process) the ques­tions that emerge writ­ing this end­less book. Some­how I’ve painted myself into an academic-​​colored cor­ner. That’s chang­ing. In fact, a lot of things are gonna change round these parts.

More Sifting

Seems a lot of us Mil­lenial artists are reach­ing the end of a failed exper­i­ment in mak­ing a liv­ing in part from our art. I’m hatch­ing a small solu­tion, for myself, and I want your thinkin’ all over it.

Something We Can Get Behind

My friend Jamie’s a remark­able clas­si­cal gui­tarist. He’s in two-​​man band, in fact, called Duo Orfeo. Not a self-​​professed lover of clas­si­cal, I lis­ten to their first album all the time. And they’re try­ing to do some­thing that may never have been done before, if you can look past that Ralph Macchio/​Ry Cooder thing in the 80s.

Baiting the Chase

Most of 2011, I’ve been rolling a stone up a hill, and it’s soon to hit the top. Which means no more push­ing – but also no brakes. I sense this is hap­pen­ing all over – not only in my phys­i­cal, eco­nomic, inter­per­sonal day-​​to-​​day, but in poems, in dreams. If you wanna know the happs, here it is.

Developments

In which my design/​writing port­fo­lio goes live, my strange fea­ture in Man­ches­ter leaves me burned out on poetry, my research has gone off the rails – and two very sig­nif­i­cant forces are poised to haul it back on track.

Stylized Speak

After three weeks of Bill Comp­ton stammer-​​blathering about lady­like pro­pri­ety, I’m some­how still inter­ested in styl­ized speech. Rather, how prob­lem­atic it is in the his­tory books. This isn’t exactly a com­plaint – more a lament. And one with­out a tidy answer.

Crafty Thoughts on True Blood

Stay­ing in your father’s house is hard on a grown man. It’s fun to adven­ture your way through – say hi, catch up, eat a few meals, and be on your way – but as a six-​​month sojourn, it’s a threat to my iden­tity. I’m los­ing my days to campy, vampy, mediocre TV.