March 2010
34 posts
Last Email My Mother Sent Me While I Was Studying...
SUBJECT: Goat
From: [ mom ]
Sent: Sat 5/13/06 8:32 PM
To: [ her four sons ]
Hey Guys,
Something got our last goat the other night. Dad came home and parked in the barn and the dogs had their hair standing up and were real skittish. dad thought he heard something, but never saw anything. Our last goat is dead and half eaten in the barn.
Thought you might want to know.
Sorry
Mom
“More ornate and elaborate forms of verse are rarely present in societies without...”
– Robert Bringhurst, “Everywhere Being Is Dancing, Knowing Is Known”
“People cringe when showing something that’s most precious to them.”
– Viktor Shklovsky, from his preface to Energy of Delusion. (If you haven’t picked up this man’s criticism, and it is inexpensive, so there is no reason not to, his preface alone is worth the price of admission. And the book as a whole, published Dalkey Archive Press, is translated...
“Lev Nikolaevich grew up during the time before railroads, and he didn’t...”
– Viktor Shklovsky, from his preface to Energy of Delusion
Basic Training for What: Conclusion
THE NEW LITERATI
At the end of the day Jeremy chose those possessions to take with him to Fort Jackson. He had to be on the bus very early the next morning, and had to occupy himself somehow for the ten hour ride. “You could sleep,” recommended his father, “you probably will sleep!” His mother had brought baseball caps and polo shirts, pairs of pants and shoes. His grandmother had brought bags of...
Basic Training for What: Part Two
DIVERSIONARY TACTICS
Though the graduation program required attendees to stand up several times for the different songs, I attempted to maintain my poor reader’s stoop, hunched over a book that I nonetheless kept closed. When prayer was offered, I never bowed. My back and shoulders ached.
Jeremy’s mother and father, brother, grandmother and I had left Union County for Louisville late...
3 tags
Basic Training for What: Part One
OVERWHELMING COMPLEXITY
Was it heartrending to see my friend-since-boyhood graduate basic training for the armed forces? I don’t know yet. First, however, I did feel awe. Perhaps what I felt the most was a keen absence of the inevitable; a placelessness. I simply do not know why we are put on this earth, what we are to become, and what large forces we must embrace in order to function with...
I regret to inform you?
Miley Cyrus, an up-and-coming singer/songwriter, just tore it apart on “American Idol,” a little-known program your local public access may provide.
Watch
a professional courtesy
My swarthy older gay general manager asked me for a “very gay favor” yesterday afternoon; he wants me to take photographs of him (in various states of undress?), photos that will flatter his figure, and capture his youth and charm. This project will also showcase the romance of his beautiful apartment (located on the top floor of a renovated fire station), and briefly but not...
“Roethke said that a country can really sustain only fifteen poets at a time,...”
– from The Anthologist by Nicholson Baker
fantasy wedding!
The groomsmen will have their photo taken in the little nook.
Guests will receive brass buckles on behalf of the grooms.
This is on Thanksgiving.
A real turkey will attend the proceedings, and attendees should celebrate alongside it, respectfully.
Math Expert Wins Wealth, if He Accepts →
Seven years ago, a reclusive Russian mathematician, Grigori Perelman, startled the scientific world by claiming to solve one of the most famous and intractable problems in mathematics, called the Poincaré conjecture, and then disappearing back into St. Petersburg.
Susan in Chicago
Early Tuesday morning I drove into Oxford, having planned the night before to arrive at the bookstore sober and judicious, meaning to purchase the first of Susan Sontag’s collected journals and notebooks, Reborn, edited by her son David Rieff. Meaning to buy that book and only that book! For Cody. (In fact I accomplished this goal and did not, though I was tempted, purchase a small book...
the possibilities aren't endless
Maybe I lack something essential, again.
“Emotions, in my experience, aren’t covered by single words. I don’t believe in...”
– Jeffrey Eugenides, Middlesex (via taylorsmultitudes)
Great novel.
Also, taylorsmultitudes’ hair looks really great in her tumblr icon.
a crushing blow
My brother and I were recalling our sentimental educations today. Happily, these educations took place far overseas, in European cities, and as the Atlantic kept us apart during this stretch (2005-2006), we have a rich email correspondence documenting our developing world views. Excerpts forthcoming!
I checked my old email account to see if I still had this trove (that is, A.J.’s side)...
Insoluable Farber →
Sometimes you gotta read an A. S. Hamrah article that doesn’t savor so strongly of bitterness. Hey, that’s from Jane Austen!
the damage has been done
With two lovely ladies coming over and using my bedroom as the guest room for a night, it’s time to buy a new book shelf, or two new book shelves. I may be able to sleep amongst stacks of books but I can see how the random selection and the random placement of the stacks could induce stomach cramps or vertigo, especially in other book-lovers, who need order, or at least a warning, before...
Purely of ghost sorts
It could be said that one difference between a ghost story and a work of pure horror is that the former puts atmosphere over raw shock. I’d expected a slow-moving, ratcheting-up of tension, but given the single-act, 80-minute running time, the writers had clearly decided to hedge their bets and create something fast-paced and thrilling, more akin to a ghost train ride where the stage is on...
The Varieties of Religious Experience
Two days ago Debbie returned to the cafe. She wore black boots, black slacks, a black cardigan with large black buttons beneath two black coats, with a white mock-turtleneck, topped by a black beret. A long silver chain with a cross dangled down her front. She looked like a spy for the French resistance who happened also to be a nun. I told her that she reminded me of Sandy from “The Prime...
Also, on a Great Clips experience
I got a haircut at Great Clips tonight and the lady, Skeletor, told me that in Columbus she was in a hair competition where the girl was upside down and hairdryers were blowing her hair, and still she managed to “cut a bob” in record time. I said, “That sounds like gonzo hairstyling.” She said, “No, never did have to use a 0, just had my scissors out,” not...
informal conspiracy notice
Tumblr has its own mysteries. Maybe most blogging platforms do. I have two conspiracy theories running:
One, that fairest is totally a Miami of Ohio graduate? For undergrad?
Two, bareneece is totally a current student at my alma mater, and definitely takes her time there as seriously as one should!
The only reason this is so personally invigorating/engrossing is because fairest posted a...
