What a year. I managed to find a new job that was even closer than Borders--in fact, working at Cook is even a bit closer than walking to Linthicum Hall to teach. I now can walk to work in about three minutes! Aside from that, I can't think of any big changes--more mayhem, more distruction, more hateful politics.
And yet I feel hopeful and well. Could be the week off at Xmas, could be the warm weather. Whence this unaccountable optimism I awoke to this morning? Maybe the fact I won't be teaching in the Spring? Perhaps the great novel I read yesterday
Most excellent! A father feeds his infant daughter and we follow the unrolling of his thoughts into the tiniest most intimate details. I challenge you to not discover several dozen things in this short work you've also noted and thought about but never articulated--and Baker presents his musings in magnificent prose (sections about pooping and nose-picking and sucking on Bic pens--exquisite, sharp, detailed, and funny).
Also revisiting
because I bought myself for Xmas
and wanted to check in on old faves before tackling the big one. I gave my other Rex collections to Pork Heaven for Xmas--I think he's ready, given his love for the Beats.
I see the unwritten books, the unrecorded experiments,
The unpainted pictures, the interrupted lives,
Lowered into the graves with the red flags over them.
Lowered each in its own darkness, useless in the earth.
Alone on a hilltop in San Francisco suddenly
I am caught in a nightmare, the dead flesh
Mounting over half the world presses against me.
Kenneth Rexroth, Requiem for the Spanish Dead
Somehow this seems to sum up '04.
Cha is in the mood to dance tonight--I'm more of a mind to do what we've done the last four New Year's Eves, which is nothing, or next-to-nothing (we did drive to the fireworks a couple times at the last minute). Funny, New Year's used to be all about the grand party plans--now I like to sit around and read. But I bend to her will. She's trying to get some childless others together for a blow-out at some new club near the Meyerhoff.
Go see the MOMA if you haven't yet. Love the new space, even tho it was packed with herds of midwesterners when we visited on Sunday--we saw the entire museum in about four hours.
And yet I feel hopeful and well. Could be the week off at Xmas, could be the warm weather. Whence this unaccountable optimism I awoke to this morning? Maybe the fact I won't be teaching in the Spring? Perhaps the great novel I read yesterday
Most excellent! A father feeds his infant daughter and we follow the unrolling of his thoughts into the tiniest most intimate details. I challenge you to not discover several dozen things in this short work you've also noted and thought about but never articulated--and Baker presents his musings in magnificent prose (sections about pooping and nose-picking and sucking on Bic pens--exquisite, sharp, detailed, and funny).
Also revisiting
because I bought myself for Xmas
and wanted to check in on old faves before tackling the big one. I gave my other Rex collections to Pork Heaven for Xmas--I think he's ready, given his love for the Beats.
I see the unwritten books, the unrecorded experiments,
The unpainted pictures, the interrupted lives,
Lowered into the graves with the red flags over them.
Lowered each in its own darkness, useless in the earth.
Alone on a hilltop in San Francisco suddenly
I am caught in a nightmare, the dead flesh
Mounting over half the world presses against me.
Kenneth Rexroth, Requiem for the Spanish Dead
Somehow this seems to sum up '04.
Cha is in the mood to dance tonight--I'm more of a mind to do what we've done the last four New Year's Eves, which is nothing, or next-to-nothing (we did drive to the fireworks a couple times at the last minute). Funny, New Year's used to be all about the grand party plans--now I like to sit around and read. But I bend to her will. She's trying to get some childless others together for a blow-out at some new club near the Meyerhoff.
Go see the MOMA if you haven't yet. Love the new space, even tho it was packed with herds of midwesterners when we visited on Sunday--we saw the entire museum in about four hours.
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