Friday, December 17, 2010
plop
those who cling to the cultural touchstones of an orthodox education are frequently smug, lazy, and intellectually timid—after all, someone else has made all their cultural decisions for them
Friday, December 3, 2010
Light Bulb
I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.
- Thomas Alva Edison (1847-1931)
- Thomas Alva Edison (1847-1931)
Monday, November 29, 2010
Constellations
Hans Rey's "Find the Constellations"
"The Stars: A New Way to See Them"
"Secrets of the Night Sky"
NightWatch: A Practical Guide to Viewing the Universe [Spiral-Bound]
http://www.astro.wisc.edu/~dolan/constellations/java/Cassiopeia.html
"The Stars: A New Way to See Them"
"Secrets of the Night Sky"
NightWatch: A Practical Guide to Viewing the Universe [Spiral-Bound]
http://www.astro.wisc.edu/~dolan/constellations/java/Cassiopeia.html
Saturday, November 27, 2010
Not Good Enough
Constructing the perfect lover, she could almost touch his soft lips. She reached out and smacked the fuck out of his head. The jolting force made the fuck stumble around, knocked from his comfortable perch inside her mind. She resolved to leave him there for someone else to find.
All the Horses Named Casey Johnson
The stallions tip-toed down the hallway. A trail of unspoken whispers following closely. I once fell in love with a limp stallion. Limp in spirit. He should have been shot, put out of his misery. Instead I was shot out of my happiness.
"You'll do it again" she whispered. Often she sat in a daze of solemnity. After her solitary revery, she slipped off her chair, inspired to face the hazy crowd of silly laugh-heads and seedy stool pigeons. At the thought of the long walk ahead, she began to yearn for her crisp and lovely friend.
Blindly following them down the street—her thoughts wandered. Before long she had traipsed all the way to their destination, dirty glances, whispers and all. The gossip swirled around in her head—waiting to be retold or bottled up for a later dose of guilt. Her sordid love affairs would now be played out in her head—projected repeatedly and frequently.
"You'll do it again" she whispered. Often she sat in a daze of solemnity. After her solitary revery, she slipped off her chair, inspired to face the hazy crowd of silly laugh-heads and seedy stool pigeons. At the thought of the long walk ahead, she began to yearn for her crisp and lovely friend.
Blindly following them down the street—her thoughts wandered. Before long she had traipsed all the way to their destination, dirty glances, whispers and all. The gossip swirled around in her head—waiting to be retold or bottled up for a later dose of guilt. Her sordid love affairs would now be played out in her head—projected repeatedly and frequently.
Take What You Can Get
There once was a man from Kuwait,
who never had luck with a date.
Bush said with a sneer
"You're date's drawing near."
And the man said,
"If it's the same to you, I'll just wait."
who never had luck with a date.
Bush said with a sneer
"You're date's drawing near."
And the man said,
"If it's the same to you, I'll just wait."
His private office.
Recently Professor Klemmer had received a series of emails inquiring about his lectures on advanced mathematics and their application to gourmet cuisine. The premise was pure and utter bullshit, but his lonely global wandering had recently led to an asexual existence, and any chance to ogle young female college students he would never forsake.
Klemmer scanned the lecture hall looking for the "new one," but soon found himself looking for any one. Presented with a wealth of coeds, he was struck by a sense of speechlessness usually reserved for his bouts of stage fright. As the older head of some department briskly approached him, Klemmer's knees gave out. He was able to catch himself just before contacting the podium with his head. Unfortunately, the residual momentum from catching himself transferred into an energy that sent him whirling onto his back. A squirrelly TA ran to help him to his feet. Klemmer waved the boy off and closed his eyes to the bright stage lights.
A busty girl from the University of New Jersey was flouncing her way toward Klemmer. The sun lit her platinum locks and as the buxom coed collapsed onto his body, heaving with the torment of a lover's anxiety, a singular tress slipped onto Klemmer's forehead and tangled in his eyelashes. As Klemmer wound his hot palms around her back, unsnapping her bra, yet careful not to bring her attention to the wanton acts he was about to perform, he rolled onto his side. The softly perspiring coed slid onto a wet patch of grass, her nipple constricting from contact with the cold liquid. Inspired by this sensuous reaction, Klemmer followed a stream of drool flowing down his thigh to a heart-shaped pool collecting between his first two toes.
The nurse on call had jarred him out of his un-consciousness. Klemmer blinked a few times his vision obscured, first by the bleariness of his welcome back to the conscious world, then by a sterile cloth 3 inches from his nose, and wielded by a life-worn yet graceful woman. She was wiping the last bits of sleeping drool from his chin. A celebratory air filled the amonia-ed room as he was spoon-fed the hospital's required dinner meal. As a bit of applesauce made its escape through his lips, Klemmer drifted asleep caressing his thighs.
Klemmer scanned the lecture hall looking for the "new one," but soon found himself looking for any one. Presented with a wealth of coeds, he was struck by a sense of speechlessness usually reserved for his bouts of stage fright. As the older head of some department briskly approached him, Klemmer's knees gave out. He was able to catch himself just before contacting the podium with his head. Unfortunately, the residual momentum from catching himself transferred into an energy that sent him whirling onto his back. A squirrelly TA ran to help him to his feet. Klemmer waved the boy off and closed his eyes to the bright stage lights.
A busty girl from the University of New Jersey was flouncing her way toward Klemmer. The sun lit her platinum locks and as the buxom coed collapsed onto his body, heaving with the torment of a lover's anxiety, a singular tress slipped onto Klemmer's forehead and tangled in his eyelashes. As Klemmer wound his hot palms around her back, unsnapping her bra, yet careful not to bring her attention to the wanton acts he was about to perform, he rolled onto his side. The softly perspiring coed slid onto a wet patch of grass, her nipple constricting from contact with the cold liquid. Inspired by this sensuous reaction, Klemmer followed a stream of drool flowing down his thigh to a heart-shaped pool collecting between his first two toes.
The nurse on call had jarred him out of his un-consciousness. Klemmer blinked a few times his vision obscured, first by the bleariness of his welcome back to the conscious world, then by a sterile cloth 3 inches from his nose, and wielded by a life-worn yet graceful woman. She was wiping the last bits of sleeping drool from his chin. A celebratory air filled the amonia-ed room as he was spoon-fed the hospital's required dinner meal. As a bit of applesauce made its escape through his lips, Klemmer drifted asleep caressing his thighs.
Preemptive Critique
the strange contrast between an inner life to which nothing outward corresponds, and an outward existence unrelated to what is within
Monday, November 22, 2010
Life
Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass, it's about learning to dance in the rain.
-Vivian Greene
-Vivian Greene
Sunday, November 21, 2010
The 13 Postures and 13 Principles in Tai Chi Chuan
The 13 Postures of Tai Chi:
The 13 Postures is the foundation of Tai Chi Chuan. Without the 13 Postures there is neither the Chuan (form) nor the push-hands. These 13 postures were derived from the Eight Trigrams (the first 8 postures - energies) and the Five Elements (the last 5 postures - steps). The 13 postures are:
1. Peng (ward-off)
2. Lu (roll-back)
3. Chi (press)
4. An (push)
5. Tsai (pull-down)
6. Lieh (split)
7. Chou (elbow strike)
8. Kao (shoulder strike)
9. Chin (advance)
10. Tui (retreat)
11. Ku (look left)
12. Pan (look right)
13. Ting (center)
The 13 Principles of Tai Chi:
The 13 principles must execute the mind, chi, and physical movement in one unit. This means that when the mind is focused on a specific area of the body, the chi will flow into that area. When the chi flows into an area, power will follow.
1. Sinking of Shoulders and Dropping of Elbows
2. Relaxing of Chest and Rounding of Back
3. Sinking Chi down to Dan Tien
4. Lightly Pointing Up the Head
5. Relaxation of Waist and Hip
6. Differentiate Between Empty and Full: Yin and Yang
7. Coordination of Upper and Lower Parts of the Body
8. Using the Mind Instead of Force
9. Harmony Between Internal and External
10. Connecting the Mind and the Chi
11. Find Stillness Within Movement
12. Movement and Stillness Present at Once
13. Continuity and Evenness Throughout the Form
The 13 Postures is the foundation of Tai Chi Chuan. Without the 13 Postures there is neither the Chuan (form) nor the push-hands. These 13 postures were derived from the Eight Trigrams (the first 8 postures - energies) and the Five Elements (the last 5 postures - steps). The 13 postures are:
1. Peng (ward-off)
2. Lu (roll-back)
3. Chi (press)
4. An (push)
5. Tsai (pull-down)
6. Lieh (split)
7. Chou (elbow strike)
8. Kao (shoulder strike)
9. Chin (advance)
10. Tui (retreat)
11. Ku (look left)
12. Pan (look right)
13. Ting (center)
The 13 Principles of Tai Chi:
The 13 principles must execute the mind, chi, and physical movement in one unit. This means that when the mind is focused on a specific area of the body, the chi will flow into that area. When the chi flows into an area, power will follow.
1. Sinking of Shoulders and Dropping of Elbows
2. Relaxing of Chest and Rounding of Back
3. Sinking Chi down to Dan Tien
4. Lightly Pointing Up the Head
5. Relaxation of Waist and Hip
6. Differentiate Between Empty and Full: Yin and Yang
7. Coordination of Upper and Lower Parts of the Body
8. Using the Mind Instead of Force
9. Harmony Between Internal and External
10. Connecting the Mind and the Chi
11. Find Stillness Within Movement
12. Movement and Stillness Present at Once
13. Continuity and Evenness Throughout the Form
Saturday, November 20, 2010
End of the Century, 1984
Death
Synthetic winds have blown away
Material dust, but this one room
Rebukes the constant violet ray
And dustless sheds a dusty gloom.
Wrecked on the outmoded past
Lie North and Hillard, Virgil, Horace,
Shakespeare's bones are quiet at last,
Dead as Yeats or William Morris.
Have not the inmates earned their rest?
A hundred circles traversed they
Complaining of the classic quest
And, each inevitable day,
Illogically trying to place
A ball within an empty space.
Birth
Every loss is now a gain
For every chance must follow reason.
A crystal palace meets the rain
That falls at its appointed season.
No book disturbs the lucid line
For sun-bronzed scholars tune their thought
To Telepathic Station 9
From which they know just what they ought:
The useful sciences; the arts
Of telesalesmanship and Spanish
As registered in Western parts;
Mental cremation that shall banish
Relics, philosophies and colds --
Manana-minded ten-year-olds.
The Phoenix
Worlds have died that they may live,
May plume again their fairest feathers
And in their clearest songs may give
Welcome to all spontaneous weathers.
Bacon's colleague is called Einstein,
Huxley shares Platonic food,
Violet rays are only sunshine
Christened in the modern mood,
In this house if in no other
Past and future may agree,
Each herself, but each the other
In a curious harmony,
Finding both a proper place
In the silken gown's embrace.
(1934)
-Eileen O'Shaughnessy
Orwell's "Why I Write"
Synthetic winds have blown away
Material dust, but this one room
Rebukes the constant violet ray
And dustless sheds a dusty gloom.
Wrecked on the outmoded past
Lie North and Hillard, Virgil, Horace,
Shakespeare's bones are quiet at last,
Dead as Yeats or William Morris.
Have not the inmates earned their rest?
A hundred circles traversed they
Complaining of the classic quest
And, each inevitable day,
Illogically trying to place
A ball within an empty space.
Birth
Every loss is now a gain
For every chance must follow reason.
A crystal palace meets the rain
That falls at its appointed season.
No book disturbs the lucid line
For sun-bronzed scholars tune their thought
To Telepathic Station 9
From which they know just what they ought:
The useful sciences; the arts
Of telesalesmanship and Spanish
As registered in Western parts;
Mental cremation that shall banish
Relics, philosophies and colds --
Manana-minded ten-year-olds.
The Phoenix
Worlds have died that they may live,
May plume again their fairest feathers
And in their clearest songs may give
Welcome to all spontaneous weathers.
Bacon's colleague is called Einstein,
Huxley shares Platonic food,
Violet rays are only sunshine
Christened in the modern mood,
In this house if in no other
Past and future may agree,
Each herself, but each the other
In a curious harmony,
Finding both a proper place
In the silken gown's embrace.
(1934)
-Eileen O'Shaughnessy
Orwell's "Why I Write"
If
IF you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
' Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,
if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!
-Rudyard Kipling
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
' Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,
if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!
-Rudyard Kipling
Friday, November 5, 2010
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
One whole day.
Wherever you are are, whatever you're doing
I stroked my own forehead, just to feel what you were feeling.
I want to touch you and love you and be touched and loved.
I feel the warm and gritty sand.
The grit between and betwixt us.
I could never get close enough to satisfy our souls.
I want you inside, and around, and beside me.
This want is insufficient.
When I look at you or think of you, I see your smile
in my memory.
But you're already there, loving me and embracing me,
reflecting the best qualities right back at me.
I never even asked or said or whispered as much,
and you were already there.
One step.
A dance anticipating my love.
What I have to give and accept.
A dance, a dance card full and yet, a dance.
Every available atom of my being longs for yours.
I stroked my own forehead, just to feel what you were feeling.
I want to touch you and love you and be touched and loved.
I feel the warm and gritty sand.
The grit between and betwixt us.
I could never get close enough to satisfy our souls.
I want you inside, and around, and beside me.
This want is insufficient.
When I look at you or think of you, I see your smile
in my memory.
But you're already there, loving me and embracing me,
reflecting the best qualities right back at me.
I never even asked or said or whispered as much,
and you were already there.
One step.
A dance anticipating my love.
What I have to give and accept.
A dance, a dance card full and yet, a dance.
Every available atom of my being longs for yours.
Sunday, October 10, 2010
Little Evident Effort
a sexually bold, violent exorcism, intensely seductive, visually audacious, astutely observed
Friday, October 1, 2010
Limer-dick
there once was a really large cock
whose size the ladies daren't mock
but when they reached in
expecting to sin
all they grabbed was a rolled up tube sock
whose size the ladies daren't mock
but when they reached in
expecting to sin
all they grabbed was a rolled up tube sock
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
A Lifetime of Stopped Hearts
Open up. They'll open him up. A daughter. A deer in the headlights. Breathing. Catching breath. Manly tasks. PAIN. Manly tasks. Bending, hammering, shoveling. Scratching obedience from the earth with his bare protective hands.
Thursday, August 5, 2010
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
Friday, July 30, 2010
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Monday, July 19, 2010
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Chang and Eng Bunker
On a beautiful day in Cancun, he leaned in to me and whispered in my ear, "You look good today." I thanked him, trying with futility to shrug off the flattery. Emboldened he confessed, "I'd bet you're wild in bed."
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Saturday, June 12, 2010
Times Article
ur-text
twee
negative externalities
effluent fee
"command and control"
cap and trade
Waxman-Markey Bill
twee
negative externalities
effluent fee
"command and control"
cap and trade
Waxman-Markey Bill
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
Raymond Chandler will get you everywhere.
She's the kind of dame with a hard beak, with the sympathetic
expression of wet stones.
From 30 feet away she looked like a lot of class. From 10 feet
away she looked like something made up to be seen from 30 feet away.
expression of wet stones.
From 30 feet away she looked like a lot of class. From 10 feet
away she looked like something made up to be seen from 30 feet away.
Thursday, June 3, 2010
Saturday, May 29, 2010
Friday, May 28, 2010
Friday, May 14, 2010
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Essays
The Souls of Black Folk, W. E. B. DuBois (Of the Coming of John)
*Poetic epigraph followed by a bar from a negro spiritual*
The Education of Henry Adams, Henry Adams (A Law of Acceleration)
Stickeen, John Muir
The Moral Equivalent of War, William James
The Handicapped, Randolph Bourne
Coatesville, John Jay Chapman
The Devil-Baby at Hull House, Jane Addam
The Sacred Wood, T. S. Eliot (Tradition and the Individual Talent)
Pamplona in July, Ernest Hemingway
The Hills of Zion, H. L. Mencken
How It Feels to Be Colored Me, Zora Neale Hurston
The Old Stone House, Edmund Wilson
What Are Master-Pieces and Why Are There So Few Of Them, Gertrude Stein
The Crack-Up, F. Scott Fitzzgerald
Sex Ex Machina, James Thurber
The Ethics of Living Jim Crow, Richard Wright
Knoxville: Summer of 1915, James Agee
The Figure a Poem Makes, Robert Frost
Once More to the Lake, E. B. White
Insert Flap “A” And Throw Away, S. J. Perlman
Bop, Langston Hughes
The Future is Now, Kathrine Anne Porter
Artists in Uniform, Mary McCarthy
The Marginal World, Rachel Carson
Notes of a Native Son, James Baldwin
The Brown Wasps, Loren Eiseley
A Sweet Devouring, Eudora Welty
A Hundred Thousand Straightened Nails, Donald Hall
Letter from Birmingham Jail, Martin Luther Kind, Jr.
Putting Daddy On, Tom Wolfe
Notes on “Camp”, Susan Sontag
Perfect Past, Vladimir Nabakov
The Way to Rainy Mountain, M. Scott Momaday
The Apotheosis of Martin Luther King, Elizabeth Hardwick
Illumination Rounds, Michael Herr
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Maya Angelou
The Lives of a Cell, Lewis Thomas
The Search for Marvin Gardens, John McPhee
The Doomed in Their Sinking, William H. Gass
No Name Woman, Maxine Hong Kingston
Looking for Zora, Alice Walker
Women and Honor: Some Notes on Lying, Adrienne Rich
The White Album, Joan Didion
Aria: A Memoir of a Bilingual Childhood, Richard Rodriguez
The Solace of Open Spaces, Gretel Ehrlich
Total Eclipse, Annie Dillard
A Drugstore Winter, Cynthia Ozick
Okinawa: The Bloodiest Battle of All, William Manchester
Heaven and Nature, Edward Hoagland
The Creation Myths of Cooperstown, Stephen Jay Gould
Life With Daughters: Watching the Miss America Pageant, Gerald Early
The Disposable Rocket, John Updike
They All Just Went Away, Joyve Carol Oates
Graven Images, Saul Bellow
*Poetic epigraph followed by a bar from a negro spiritual*
The Education of Henry Adams, Henry Adams (A Law of Acceleration)
Stickeen, John Muir
The Moral Equivalent of War, William James
The Handicapped, Randolph Bourne
Coatesville, John Jay Chapman
The Devil-Baby at Hull House, Jane Addam
The Sacred Wood, T. S. Eliot (Tradition and the Individual Talent)
Pamplona in July, Ernest Hemingway
The Hills of Zion, H. L. Mencken
How It Feels to Be Colored Me, Zora Neale Hurston
The Old Stone House, Edmund Wilson
What Are Master-Pieces and Why Are There So Few Of Them, Gertrude Stein
The Crack-Up, F. Scott Fitzzgerald
Sex Ex Machina, James Thurber
The Ethics of Living Jim Crow, Richard Wright
Knoxville: Summer of 1915, James Agee
The Figure a Poem Makes, Robert Frost
Once More to the Lake, E. B. White
Insert Flap “A” And Throw Away, S. J. Perlman
Bop, Langston Hughes
The Future is Now, Kathrine Anne Porter
Artists in Uniform, Mary McCarthy
The Marginal World, Rachel Carson
Notes of a Native Son, James Baldwin
The Brown Wasps, Loren Eiseley
A Sweet Devouring, Eudora Welty
A Hundred Thousand Straightened Nails, Donald Hall
Letter from Birmingham Jail, Martin Luther Kind, Jr.
Putting Daddy On, Tom Wolfe
Notes on “Camp”, Susan Sontag
Perfect Past, Vladimir Nabakov
The Way to Rainy Mountain, M. Scott Momaday
The Apotheosis of Martin Luther King, Elizabeth Hardwick
Illumination Rounds, Michael Herr
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Maya Angelou
The Lives of a Cell, Lewis Thomas
The Search for Marvin Gardens, John McPhee
The Doomed in Their Sinking, William H. Gass
No Name Woman, Maxine Hong Kingston
Looking for Zora, Alice Walker
Women and Honor: Some Notes on Lying, Adrienne Rich
The White Album, Joan Didion
Aria: A Memoir of a Bilingual Childhood, Richard Rodriguez
The Solace of Open Spaces, Gretel Ehrlich
Total Eclipse, Annie Dillard
A Drugstore Winter, Cynthia Ozick
Okinawa: The Bloodiest Battle of All, William Manchester
Heaven and Nature, Edward Hoagland
The Creation Myths of Cooperstown, Stephen Jay Gould
Life With Daughters: Watching the Miss America Pageant, Gerald Early
The Disposable Rocket, John Updike
They All Just Went Away, Joyve Carol Oates
Graven Images, Saul Bellow
Monday, May 3, 2010
Thursday, April 29, 2010
Monday, April 19, 2010
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