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| 1957 |
Saturday, August 4, 2012
oh no!...
If that bubble triple-gun turret is also magic, then there is no solution -- no offense, no defense, no hope. Only acquiescence in the inevitable, followed by utter despondency.
raise your hand...
...if you think this Italo Calvino thing is swell:
"The Flash"
I first came across this thing at Biblioklept, but I prefer the format linked above.
"The Flash"
I first came across this thing at Biblioklept, but I prefer the format linked above.
this is just wrong
Bunnies are not like that at all. No way.
This is warped and visually slanderous!
it's remarkable
In other words, I find it worth remarking on. It's a kind of mystery. I don't know what it means.
Almost all the poems I encounter on Facebook and on personal blogs range from not very good to astonishingly bad. Some instantly alter my brain chemistry, filling the space between my synapses with sulfur dioxide, making my eyes sweat and burn.
Almost all the poems I read by people who get published in journals and in small presses range from not very good to astonishingly bad.
Almost all the poems I read by prize winners and laureates range from not very good to astonishingly bad.
A great poem is a rare thing. Even a really good one is unusually hard to come upon.
What's going on?
Why write poems if those poems are not on the aesthetic level of Keats's To Autumn or something by Pavese or Tranströmer?
I don't buy the argument that it's all a matter of subjective taste. That those poems I deem sucking can still be good or great poems if someone else thinks they don't suck. I may not have amounted to much, but I have, gradually, become this (more so recently, for some reason): hyper sensitive to what is on the highest level of aesthetic creation. That will just have to suffice as my counter argument.
I do realize that writing can have an experiential meaning, regardless of the quality of work. Falling into the trance of words while making a poem can bring a sense of adventure, fantasia, and color to a consciousness. But after writing the poem, a certain aesthetic judgment should kick in to prevent inferior work from entering public space.
I wish I had thought of this two or three years ago. I would not have sent my own poems into the public arena. But what's done is done. And I'm way too lazy to withdraw my poem collections.
The mystery persists: why are so many people writing so many poems that aren't great or even good poems? It almost seems like a mass contagion of poetic hysteria. Or a tsunami of lines and stanzas coming ashore with unflappable, unrevised determination.
Only the most well-crafted and aesthetically astounding poems should be written. Or at least only those should be publicly offered. Otherwise, I don't understand what's happening at all.
Almost all the poems I encounter on Facebook and on personal blogs range from not very good to astonishingly bad. Some instantly alter my brain chemistry, filling the space between my synapses with sulfur dioxide, making my eyes sweat and burn.
Almost all the poems I read by people who get published in journals and in small presses range from not very good to astonishingly bad.
Almost all the poems I read by prize winners and laureates range from not very good to astonishingly bad.
A great poem is a rare thing. Even a really good one is unusually hard to come upon.
What's going on?
Why write poems if those poems are not on the aesthetic level of Keats's To Autumn or something by Pavese or Tranströmer?
I don't buy the argument that it's all a matter of subjective taste. That those poems I deem sucking can still be good or great poems if someone else thinks they don't suck. I may not have amounted to much, but I have, gradually, become this (more so recently, for some reason): hyper sensitive to what is on the highest level of aesthetic creation. That will just have to suffice as my counter argument.
I do realize that writing can have an experiential meaning, regardless of the quality of work. Falling into the trance of words while making a poem can bring a sense of adventure, fantasia, and color to a consciousness. But after writing the poem, a certain aesthetic judgment should kick in to prevent inferior work from entering public space.
I wish I had thought of this two or three years ago. I would not have sent my own poems into the public arena. But what's done is done. And I'm way too lazy to withdraw my poem collections.
The mystery persists: why are so many people writing so many poems that aren't great or even good poems? It almost seems like a mass contagion of poetic hysteria. Or a tsunami of lines and stanzas coming ashore with unflappable, unrevised determination.
Only the most well-crafted and aesthetically astounding poems should be written. Or at least only those should be publicly offered. Otherwise, I don't understand what's happening at all.
Friday, August 3, 2012
my brain nicely twinging
Over the years, I have made certain things my own -- a private relishing and treasuring. Then my brain would palpitate pleasurably to later discover that certain remarkable writers had made those same things their own, in a deep way. Even though I'm not a remarkable writer, I feel remarkably connected. In a kind of redemptive way that is hard to explain.
So I was pleased yesterday to come across this quote by Thomas Bernhard about Demons, which has for a long time been my favorite of Dostoevsky's novels:
Never in my whole life have I read a more engrossing and elemental work, and at the time I had never read such a long one. It had the effect of a powerful drug, and for a time I was totally absorbed by it. For some time after my return home I refused to read another book, fearing that I might be plunged headlong into the deepest disappointment. For weeks I refused to read anything at all. The monstrous quality of The Demons had made me strong; it had shown me a path that I could follow and told me that I was on the right one, the one that led out. I had felt the impact of a work that was both wild and great, and I emerged from the experience like a hero. Seldom has literature produced such an overwhelming effect on me.
Thursday, August 2, 2012
a cynical rant
About all those law office commercials on TV. Ostensibly to represent you and Help You Out, if you have mesothelioma or are growing alien tentacles or whatever horrible thing some industry has infected you with.
I have no idea what I'm talking about. I'm just ranting based on an intuition.
I suspect that those law offices have no intention of targeting a corporate-industrial villain. Those law offices are there strictly to target you. To Rip You Off.
Whatever the large or fine print on any contract might seem to suggest. Whatever kind of smooth talk you are met with. That fine print will be an artful, semantically flexible text. That smooth talk will have been honed via psychological black-ops criteria.
Those law offices, I suspect, will not pursue any legal recourse on your behalf. You will be met with months of obfuscation. And disconcerting smiles with hyper-gleaming teeth.You will end up paying for services and stuff (subsidiary filings, tangential research) that you are, on the front end, led to believe you would not have to pay for.
The whole thing is a construct to Rip You Off.
Nothing is for your benefit. It's all set up to hoodwink you. To drain you. Nothing is what it seems. Things are afoot to suck out your juices and leave you a quivering husk.
The whole mesothelioma deal just smells. I smell it straight through the TV screen.
I have no idea what I'm talking about. I'm just ranting based on an intuition.
I suspect that those law offices have no intention of targeting a corporate-industrial villain. Those law offices are there strictly to target you. To Rip You Off.
Whatever the large or fine print on any contract might seem to suggest. Whatever kind of smooth talk you are met with. That fine print will be an artful, semantically flexible text. That smooth talk will have been honed via psychological black-ops criteria.
Those law offices, I suspect, will not pursue any legal recourse on your behalf. You will be met with months of obfuscation. And disconcerting smiles with hyper-gleaming teeth.You will end up paying for services and stuff (subsidiary filings, tangential research) that you are, on the front end, led to believe you would not have to pay for.
The whole thing is a construct to Rip You Off.
Nothing is for your benefit. It's all set up to hoodwink you. To drain you. Nothing is what it seems. Things are afoot to suck out your juices and leave you a quivering husk.
The whole mesothelioma deal just smells. I smell it straight through the TV screen.
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