The Exquisite Corpse

27.

2008-07-25T14:30:00.007-05:00

Icarus fell to earth immediately following what was probably the most terrifying & rapturous moment of his life--his body alight, suspended by handmade wings his father made, fleeing Minos's mounting rage, the waters deep & swimming below. He'd disregarded his father's warning not to fly too high or close to the sun, but the exhileration proved too much for him. What the contemporary version of the myth doesn't tell us is that after his son's death, Daedalus, in a jealous frisson, killed his nephew & apprentice, Perdix, by pushing him off of a high cliff into the sea. In a single act, Daedalus punishes himself as both a failed inventor & father, removes the would-be replacement son & would-be inventor from the scene, & ironically reenacts his son's death, perhaps as catharsis, all at once. Luckily for the boy, Athena changed him into a bird as he fell. Perdix is the Greek word for partridge, a bird that has trouble flying & builds its nest on or close to the ground. For a uniquely side door approach to the Icarus/Daedalus myth, see Alison Bechdel's graphic novel Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic.

26.

2008-07-24T08:32:00.003-05:00

A good book seduces you while simultaneously socking you in the gut--not a good formula for personal relationships, at least not on the literal level, but with books it seems to work quite well. The etymology of seduce brings us back to the Latin for 'to lead away,' & while it's true that a good book will always complicate things, maybe lead you astray from what you thought was true, it also leads you toward new ways of looking at & approaching the world. Jane Hirschfield writes in Nine Gates, 'What we regard must seduce us, and we it, if we are to continue looking.' What she doesn't say is that the spell must be broken, if only for a moment, in order for it to truly work.

25.

2008-07-22T11:30:00.010-05:00

With fiction, because it's called just that, a fiction, we're reminded that a story's narrator isn't necessarily the author, that she's representative of the author's sensibilities somehow but that there's ample distance setting the two apart. At least that's the general assumption. With poetry, since it's called poetry & not a word with a dual meaning like fiction, we don't have that reminder, &, right or wrong, we often assume that the speaker of a poem is the poet himself. With fiction there are characters; poetry often has none, though in a far less obvious way it can & does. And there's a tradition of writing the lyric poem, as opposed to the epic, a poem usually written in the first or second person which attempts to map out the terrain of an individual or group's take, often their emotional take, on their world within a specified context. Because I'm not interested in composing a master-narrative starring heros & villains as such, I suppose I tend to fall into the lyric poetry camp. Am I, therefore, generally more exposed than a fiction writer? Or, maybe more importantly, does everything we say or don't say, everything we do or don't do, as newly appointed queer Poet Laureate Kay Ryan, proponent of few words used well, said in a recent article in The New York Times, render us 'utterly exposed'?

24.

2008-07-21T08:20:00.008-05:00

This weekend, Stranger & I took a road trip to see Ani Difranco & Natalia Zukerman at the Capitol Theater in Davenport, IA. Davenport's a river town, which means there's still a lot of flooding there, too, tiny lakes where no lakes should be. We ran into two old friends at the concert & one new one, & just before we got there, we stopped by to see a good friend who'd just started going into labor with her second child. She offered us ginger ale & told us stories that are hard to forget, made us laugh so hard we cried. Ani pretty much got Stranger & I through college. She's sassy, articulate, & says important things, & she knows how to rock out. Natalia Zukerman opened up for Melissa Ferrick a few years back in Chicago & we've been smitten with her honesty & pedal steel skills ever since. No one knows who the Capitol Theater was built by or what year it was born. It's currently an Art Deco non-profit that's well-worn & has an almost human quality to it, the kind of space you trust without even thinking about it.

23.

2008-07-19T00:12:00.004-05:00

Stranger & I found this canvas in the middle of the road on the way to the library one day last year. When we spotted it, she drove around the block & leaped out of the car to rescue it, dodging a bit of traffic, while I played the lookout & watched for oncoming cars & stray dogs. It's what you do for love. The blue beauty now holds an enviable spot in our moon room just above my bookcases. I wonder if the person who lost it misses it.

22.

2008-07-17T08:55:00.006-05:00

These are the Twelve Apostoles, as seen from Camp's Bay, on a typical Cape Town day, the incorrectly named 18 or so buttress peaks behind or in front of famed Table Mountain, depending on which way you look at it. Table Mountain is flanked by Signal Hill & Lion's Head on one side, Lion's Rump & Devil's Peak on the other. Private beaches don't exist here. Rumor has it that years ago, a wealthy Capetonian with a lot of influence got drunk one night & gave the peaks their name because he saw Christ's twelve apostles, respectively, in each of their faces. Stranger things have happened. Camp's Bay is home to some of the oddest trees, trees that look like a combover on account of winter's brutal Norwesterly winds sweeping across the Atlantic. It's an Alice in Wonderland-esque sight. The only thing I can compare it to are the stripped bare pines in Washington flattened en masse like a confused haircut every which way by the 1980 eruption of Mt. St. Helens. We tried to get to the top of Table Mountain twice, via the funicular, but it was closed due to high winds both times. You can see the plankton blooms from space here, which feed the marine life, everything from sardines to sharks.

21.

2008-07-16T08:32:00.013-05:00

The bird life in South Africa is decidedly different from that in the U.S., though there are some similarities. For example, where we have crows, they have white-breasted crows. But where we have sparrows, they have butcher birds, & for our herons, they have sacred ibis. We both have graffiti, though. I found this bird one rainy day on a tunnel wall at the University of Cape Town. I recently read that swallows are rumored to visit only the homes of those who are happy. My dad says crows have been known to follow people.

20.

2008-07-15T09:45:00.003-05:00

The subjunctive mood is the mood of possibility, desire, doubt, & imagination. It's a romantic mood, strange & compelling, at times fiercely beautiful, & maybe even a little unsettling, like this little girl pondering something I'll never know while she noshes on a pink popsicle. I took this photo in Oudtshoorn, South Africa, after hiking to the Rust n Vrede Waterfall, just before we drove down the road a bit to a farm where I rode an ostrich for the first & last time. Whatever its intent, the subjunctive mood sets the tone for wonder.

19.

2008-07-15T09:44:00.001-05:00

The Cape of Good Hope is where the tempestuous, chilly Atlantic & the calmer, warmer Indian Oceans meet. It used to be called the Cape of Storms, but a 15th century Portuguese king with a superstitious streak changed it to the Cape of Good Hope. Hiking that day, I have never been more thankful for a rain jacket & a good pair of shoes. Two Nigerians shook Stranger's & my hand on this beach just a few minutes before this photo was taken. When asked, we'd told them we were voting for Obama.

Hiatus (Rainbow Nation).

2008-06-21T00:25:00.001-05:00

Adventures are always in our future, some grander than others. But never nothing, never nothing. Three weeks with Stranger & my folks. Nearly two days on a plane. A visit or two with my engineering brother. Transatlantic postcards & a healthy dose of sobering history. Dumpies & sore feet, ljinja if I'm lucky. The Cape. Innumerable maps & a clean journal ready for some sullying. 1,800 types of native flora: living stones, fever trees. Open-water whale watching. Table Mountain. Dassie everywhere. Mangroves lining the coast. And the birds: ostrich, jackass penguins, albatross. I've been breaking in my hiking shoes these past few weeks like a little kid with a brand new toy.

18.

2008-06-20T13:51:00.006-05:00

At the window, a woman. A woman at the window, spying on wasted space. Or, space with no overarching purpose but to serve as relief for plenty, an overabundance of life, growth from all sides. She walks out along the crow's wing highway, takes in a sky damned to repeat itself. Flanking the highway is a desert field riddled with rock & nettle, & nearby a white cactus flower grows ringed by a patch of wild sage. Summer solstice is a stone's kick away. The requisite cloud of dust. Everything can change.

17.

2008-06-19T00:10:00.005-05:00

The phoenix is a remarkably optimistic creature, perhaps out of bald optimism, perhaps out of desperation. Either way, it builds a pyre of cinnamon & twigs on which it sacrifices its body that it might become a better version of itself. What better method of self-empowerment than one that's aromatic? It does this however often is needed. According to Jewish folklore, the phoenix is the only animal that didn't flee the Garden of Eden with Adam when he was banished. Not surprisingly, the phoenix is also a symbol for Christ, though more broadly for resurrection from the ash of the world. The phoenix isn't known for being a very skilled nest maker, though. I have one on my arm.

16.

2008-06-18T11:55:00.004-05:00

A mantra is a sacred, mystical incantation that's repeated during meditation as a means toward higher consciousness. For example, Bring calm, Life is a vivid screen, or My hands are spinning plates. The word mantra derives from Sanskrit & Latin roots meaning sacred counsel, guiding principle, watchword, formula, to deliver, & to free the mind. According to ancient Indian Vedic philosophy, the soul is asleep. Just as sometimes we need an adventure, cold water splashed on our face, or a new haircut to wake us up from our routines, the soul needs to be awakened, too. A soul that's awake & alert is fully alive, & opens us up to meaningful connections. We don't need to fully understand our mantra. In fact, it can be complete gibberish, because the vibrations created by sound transcend our physical & mental levels of consciousness (think the seven chakras, each with its own unique tone). A mantra, therefore, is a conduit by which we can get in touch with the spiritual level of our consciousness &, as a result, form sturdier bonds with our conception of god, nature, others, & ourselves. In poetry, repetition harnessed in the form of anaphora, or the repetition of a word of phrase at the beginning of subsequent lines can be highly intoxicating & hypnotic. I read somewhere years ago that repetition deadens awareness. I guess it depends on how you use it.

15.

2008-06-17T08:27:00.006-05:00

The word passion comes from the Latin meaning 'to suffer.' Which means that if you have an expansive heart, an especially big & capable one, a creature beating & beating away in your chest as if it would never tire, there's a good chance you feel it all, from sorrow to joy & all rest stops in between. Rilke says as much in his Duino Elegies: 'Our heart survives between / hammers, just as the tongue between / the teeth is still able to praise.' (Trans. A. Poulin, Jr., Ninth Elegy)

14.

2008-06-16T08:15:00.004-05:00

Before becoming an international, delightfuly quirky chef success, & a female one at that, Julia Child worked for the Office of Strategic Services Emergency Sea Rescue Equipment Section in both Washington, D.C. & Sri Lanka (then Ceylon) during WWII, developing shark repellant, as sharks were notorious for accidentally setting off underwater bombs targeting German U-boats.

13.

2008-06-13T07:56:00.012-05:00

We all know most high-rises in the U.S. don't have a 13th floor. Well, of course they do, but, by way of a now common collective denial, we call it the 14th floor. This goes back to the centuries old superstition that the number 13 is not only unlucky & associated with witchcraft, but dissociated from God. In one manifestation of Paganism, the number 13 is an especially preferred number, much like the number 3 is to Christianity; Friday is also considered a particularly favored day, akin to Christianity's reverence for Sunday. Hence Friday the 13th's traditionally unlucky, painted black reputation. Plus, Friday the 13ths only come around once in a blue moon, which only makes them further susceptible to criticism. Take the B-film horror series by the same name. The films have pushed the Friday the 13th superstition so far as to prey relentlessly on largely unfounded, religio-centric fears. Consider it, then, just another day. Or better yet, a day rife with portent.

12.

2008-06-12T08:49:00.006-05:00

An elegy is 1) a musical composition in which a theme, or themes, is repeated, varied perhaps, by layering voices, & contrapuntally developed by a braiding of these voices; 2) a disturbed state in which a person seems to be fully conscious of their actions, but after returning to their so-called normal state, they can't remember what it is they've done; & 3) a poem which remembers the dead or lost, via lament, praise or self-reflection, & consolation, respectively. Each of these definitions, read in light of the others, is eerily reminiscent of the ad-hoc musical groups who were forced to play in gulags & concentration camps while other prisoners stood in line awaiting their death.

11.

2008-06-11T12:47:00.002-05:00

Each of us was given a set of hands. A pair of hands to do with as we please. And yet it'll never be enough that one is always there, poised to cradle the other. If touch is divinity, we will do anything just to bang our fists against the temple doors.

10.

2008-06-10T12:14:00.004-05:00

Travelogue collage. Sketches. Words in ink on paper, on bark, on napkins, on skin. Mix CDs. Color photos. Black & white. The washed-out comfort of sepia. An urge to document out of fear that, if a thing disappears, people will say it never existed.

9.

2008-06-08T15:13:00.019-05:00

According to some literature available at a local cathedral, the Roman Catholic church deems five social issues morally reprehensible: euthanasia, same-sex marriage, embryonic stem cell research, human cloning, & abortion. The cathedral's stunning, literally, mostly for its extensive mosaic work tiling the entire ceiling & many of its walls (the mosaics comprise some 42 million colored glass tiles, & took 20 artists 76 years to complete). While visiting, let's say I pay $1 to light a candle at a candle altar for a friend who could use some extra energy, a sort of holy gesture. Does this mean that I support the Roman Catholic church & its five immoral pillars? In a way, yes, at first glance. And, of course not, not necessarily. It is possible to support an architecturally & artistically astounding building without entirely supporting the religious tenets of the church that built it. Isn't it? Otherwise, I shouldn't light a candle for my friend?

8.

2008-06-07T13:10:00.006-05:00

To fall in love with someone or something (book, lover, place, etc.) is to fall in love with yourself. Beware. Love makes you do silly things, lets you see with your eyes closed, & otherwise compells you toward kindness. Love spilleth over.

7.

2008-06-06T08:46:00.002-05:00

A finely crafted contraption, bulky but not overweight. A little tug & some pressure, & voila! A simple, plaintive melody. Or, a single, giant, wearable lung, born of mid-19th century hands. Or, she moves through the world like an accordion, bellows humming the surrounding air. Her eyes a pair of round, colorful buttons you want to touch to see if they make noise.

6.

2008-06-05T08:12:00.003-05:00

Given the rate at which skin cells replace one another, you are always partially your former self.

5.

2008-06-04T08:31:00.003-05:00

The word mascot comes from the French 'mascotte,' a sorcerer's amulet or charm, a mesmerist's talisman. Thanks to an immensely popular French Victorian opera called La Mascotte, about a good witch who brings luck to a poor farmer so long as she doesn't sleep with him, 'mascotte' became 'mascot,' then any kind of good luck charm, now an animal or funny archetype used to rally fans & team members of a particular sports team. The people dressed as mascots wear a costume or a disguise, sometimes involving a mask. The French 'mascotte' is cousin to the Occitan 'masco,' meaning 'witch;' Medieval Latin gives us 'masca,' meaning 'mask, witch, or nightmare;' Arabic gives us 'maskhara,' 'clown, laughingstock;' Italian gives us 'maschera' & Spanish gives us 'mascara,' both meaning 'mask.' There's a good chance that if you wear too much mascara, you're bound to look either foolish, like you're wearing a mask, or both. It's no surprise, then, that the ancient Egyptians wore mascara to ward off evil spirits.

4.

2008-06-03T13:22:00.003-05:00

Jeanne d'Arc (Joan of Arc) wasn't put to death by the English in 1431 in the marketplace near Rouen cathedral on account of suspicion that she was a witch; the charge of witchcraft was dropped on the grounds that she was a virgin. She was given a mock trial, convicted of heresy, & burned at the stake for perpetuating so-called crimes against God by wearing men's clothes. She was nineteen. Now she's the patron saint of France.