The Dredge Cycle

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.

They Told Us Their Names

Oh, Gen­e­sis. You’re kinda ridicu­lous, but so embed­ded in our cul­tural DNA, you make an odd, dis­turb­ing kind of sense. At least you did, until last Feb­ru­ary, when Daniel Quinn (white dude) made quick work of you, and last week­end, when Dan Long­boat (Mohawk) fin­ished the job.

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.

Settling

Heavy read­ing lately is mak­ing me lose some of my taste for pon­tif­i­cat­ing. So today, I’m going to point at these two (pos­si­bly) unre­lated moments from late in Roots of Sur­vival. The first on Indi­ans and Chris­tian­ity, the lat­ter on time, two top­ics you know I’m kinda pas­sion­ate about.

To Answer an Old Question

In 12^th grade, my girl­friend asked every­one why we sing along to our favorite songs. It’s taken me about ten years to come up with a respectable answer. Given that this com­ing week­end hosts, coin­ci­den­tally, my 10-​​year high school reunion, I fig­ure now’s a fit­ting time. Erin Feeney, if you’re out there, this one’s for you.

The Purpose of Stories, 3

Let’s take this dis­cus­sion back to the book. I’ve thought a lot about porta­bil­ity lately, and even about own­er­ship of words. Maybe the only way the story I’m writ­ing will sur­vive its book­ness is for me to release it entirely. My ver­sion of the story is just one. Yours will be next.

The Purpose of Stories, 2

I’ve had an amal­gam of texts at a rolling boil in the back of my head lately. They all deal with a spe­cial cul­tural dis­tinc­tion between between Taker (colo­nial) and Leaver (indige­nous) cul­tures: the strange insis­tance on his­tory over stories.