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.

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.

Continua

I make it no secret that my book is pow­ered by con­tinua. Though as a pos­ses­sor of opin­ions, and a left-​​of-​​leftist when pol­i­tics come up, I’m invested in con­clu­sions – when I’m work­ing with process, I’m much more inter­ested in ques­tions. And con­tinua – gra­di­ents – turn ques­tions into lit­er­ary mechanics.

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.

The Twilight Zone

After all my grip­ing about the Amer­i­can fear of dream­ing, I’m watch­ing sea­sons 1 – 4 of The Twi­light Zone on Net­flix. Man, did Rod Ser­ling change the game. But for all its suc­cesses, I think one essen­tial ele­ment of the show lets us down. It’s too bad; one of the greats could have been a true titan.

Dredge Poetics (Full Text)

Well, it’s been deliv­ered. The mighty Bren­dan Con­stan­tine also deliv­ered a deli­cious lit­tle lec­ture, and it was an honor to open this new com­mu­nity series with him. Here’s the full text. If you like or if you don’t, please say so!

Time Capsules

An orphan from the lec­ture I’ll deliver Sun­day at 3:00: We devel­oped our need and knack for sto­ry­telling by pass­ing sto­ries over gen­er­a­tions. Over time, a story gets stripped to its nec­es­sary ele­ments. It becomes portable. I’ve started won­der­ing lately if the sto­ries we write, includ­ing mine, are too com­plex for their own good. Too com­plex for portability.

More on Ishmael

As the book relaxes on its haunches a lit­tle, sev­eral things are still bend­ing my head back: Quinn’s a prod­uct of colo­nial cul­ture, dis­cussing con­quered cul­tures. His take on Gen­e­sis and the Gar­den is heal­ing my child­hood. And his nar­ra­tive pow­ers are prob­a­bly the most impor­tant craft I could study right now.