The Piano Problem

There's only one solution: record record record. Otherwise, I'll sound bad forever.

Today's count:
--Prelude: 11
--Fugue: 6

Father's Day

TWO POEMS AND A REFLECTION**

I. "HE SPEAKS IN YOUR VOICE, AMERICAN"

I understand
my father
more
after reading DeLillo's account
of Bobby Thomson's 1951 homer
than I ever did
living in the same house
for 18 years

How could I have been
so blind?

II. "AND THERE'S A SHINE IN HIS EYE THAT'S HALFWAY HOPEFUL"

At my age,
23,
my father had already survived
the bug-infested
snake-swarmed
lonely
damp
dangerous
jungles
of Vietnam

What right have I
to give up?

--

**In the cool pallid summer dusk,
I saw my dad weep over his dad
and realized that someday
I'll be the one in the twilight,
weeping

(posted also on medusaskitchen.blogspot.com, June 16)

"He was thinking continually, but nothing clear resulted."

I don't know what to do. I can't concentrate on anything, not even my book when I was trying to read at a cafe this morning. I'm completely immobilized. What am I going to do?

"Readiness to answer all questions is the infallible sign of stupidity." - from Herzog

--

What they really think. From Dutch magazine Trouw, as posted on signandsight.com, European Feuilletons:

Trouw dedicates its culture section to "The power of the image." There's a excerpt from Al Gore's new book, "Assault on Reason" as well as a pointed critique of it by Henri Beunders, a history professor from Rotterdam. "An American book must naturally have an alarming beginning and an optimistic end, otherwise it won't sell. His understanding of 'the old media' is just as narrow as his grasp of the Internet is naive. He writes, 'Web democracy is arming itself. You can feel it. We, the people, are still the key to the survival of democracy in America.' What naivety! As if 'the people' always want what's best. In 1914, 1982 (the Falklands War) and 1991 (the Gulf War) 'the people' marched joyfully into war. In the thirties the Germans begged Hitler: 'Free us from freedom.'"

Poetic Reponses to "Riding Bitch"

(click to read)

Riding Bitch

Last night I dreamt
of slick black streets
reflecting the glittering fluorescents
of New York,
a flaming tar mirror
over which we motorcycle-burned,
pillion style,
my body melting into yours


(medusaskitchen.blogspot.com, June 9, with photograph)

Glenn Gould

Baby Steps

Setting: Cafe in East Berlin, 10:30am, morning after the bombshell
Me: drawing; Friend: writing

[Silence; ambient cafe noises]

Me: (turning suddenly to friend in outburst of despair) OH F#&%! What am I going to do?!?
Friend: (ponders for a moment) Well, in a little while you'll eat lunch. It's not much, and beyond that I don't know. But it's something.

---

Epiphany: What is any relationship - be it friendship, marriage, or anything in between - if not a promise, spoken or unspoken, to catch you when you fall?

A Day I'd Like to Erase

Today I practiced 7 hours straight. Then I had a not-lesson. Afterwards, I learned how to do a headstand, had a discussion about Snow White, and pondered my very vague future.

Basically, I'm f***ed. Totally, totally f***ed.

At least medusaskitchen.blogspot.com posted more poetry of mine today (along with a photo) - June 4.

Stress

You know something's wrong when:

- your jaw is so tight from clenching that you can barely open it
- your knuckles are sore, creaky even
- you feel shooting pain in your back as each new knot begins to form
- you pop pain killers in vain hopes they'll relax you
- your friend, out of pity and alarm, starts demonstrating stretching exercises in the middle of a restaurant, over brunch
- in spite of all your efforts, 8 hours just isn't enough

Self-Destruction

from Die Welt, 1 June 07, Feuilletons:

With German cyclists falling into disrepute, Uwe Wittstock puts them in noble company: "Writers and artists in particular are no strangers to the idea that total devotion to a passion, the struggle to fulfil a talent has very little to do with well-being but much more with self-destruction – and not uncommonly alleged or actual performance-enhancing drugs are involved. Novalis raved in his 'Hymns to the Night' about 'the brown juices of the poppy.' From absinth to opium, no hallucinogen was left un-sampled by Baudelaire and Verlaine. Georg Trakl followed suit and died from an overdose. Klaus Mann used to fire himself up with heroin and found it a hard habit to shake. Ernst Jünger experimented with mescalin and LSD, Walter Benjamin swore by hashish. 'The collapse of the ego, the sweetness, the deeply desired, all this you give me' Gottfried Benn wrote in praise of cocaine."

---

In other news:

CSVio: If I were there in person, I guarantee you'd be having a whole lot more fun than chatting on the internet
CSVio: It'd be the greatest ten minutes of your life....
CSVio: Or, at least, of mine