Don DeLillo Documentary

It's good and it's here (via Synthetic Zero).  I recommend it.

Acquired a new acoustic guitar today.  The one I started with has a wide neck and I came to feel, after a lot of deliberation, that it is too hard to play. Particularly at the bottom of the neck.

Of course all changes introduce new challenges.  The new guitar's action is different.  One has to press down a bit harder with the left hand ahead of the frets.  The guy I bought it from told me that it's not about the number of years you play, it's about the number of hours.  I guess that's heartening.  Maybe sometime in the next year I'll feel better about it all.

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I made some solid progress with Appearances today.  Wrote two new sections and have a sense of how to proceed in the next couple of parts.  It's a good feeling.  Even knowing that the next couple sections will be among the most difficult of the book.

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Trying to adjust to the cold and snow.  It gets harder every year.

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I felt today like I made some guitar progress.  I was hitting the notes pretty well.  I don't have speed but I have desire and stubbornness.  Worked on the single note riff from Howling Wolf's "Killing Floor."  Believe me, it doesn't sound great when I play it.  But there's hope. I'm tired of beating myself up over what I can't do.  THERE IS SHIT I CAN DO.  I can feel it really slow.  So that's how I roll.

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As a poet I often create structures which I improvise within.  I hope I live long enough to do that a little with music and to see how that might feed back into the poetry.  That's my goal.

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Haven't felt much like blogging lately.  Too busy with family matters, house, yard, reading, guitar, attempts to write, etc.  Yesterday I spent a couple hours proof reading Dipstick(Diptych) which Marsh Hawk Press will be publishing in the Spring.

I'm having a love-hate relationship with the guitar at the moment.  I haven't played yet today, but my hands still hurt a little from the amount of playing I've done over the last few days.  Sunday alone I got around three hours of playing in.

I'm working on the single note riff from "Rock Me Baby."  It's kicking my ass. Here's a much embellished version which I really love from one of Eric Clapton's Crossroad Guitar Festivals.

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"Even mirrors are what they are, no matter what they reflect."
(35)
--Timothy Morton, Hyperobjects: Philosophy and Ecology after the End of the World (University of Minnesota, 2013)

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Recommended: TAKEAWAY, a beautiful chapbook of poetic collaborations by Kit Robinson and Ted Greenwald.  For more info contact James Yeary here:  juniorvarsityyardsale@gmail.com

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There are times when I think my best friends are either imaginary or really existing characters in books, movies, TV shows, songs.

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Tonight the Robert Cray Band's going to play at the Kent Stage.  I'm gonna be there.  Check this out.

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Catch you later...

Guitar Poem #5

Got
turned around

by
the turnaround.

Forgot
the changes.

Snow and golden
maple leaves falling.  Beautiful but weird
chance of thunder snow later today.
That's always disturbing.

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My guitar teacher keeps pushing me to play faster.  He says it's actually easier to play fast than slow.  I have not found that to be the case so far.  His playing faster than me while I was trying to copy what he was playing gave me an insight though.  I said: I think I'm having trouble correctly (I almost typed "colorectally") remembering the pattern you're playing  because of your speed, because the overtones make me think you're playing notes that you're not playing.  I am gradually learning to hear music differently.  Some days I can't listen to anything because it makes my brain hurt.  Other days I'm capable of doing little else.

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Chromatic scales.  Minor blues
scale.  Single note riff.
Chance of thunder snow.

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Appearances is creeping forward.  Wrote fragment 265 this morning.  Only 100 fragments to go.

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Guitar work creeping forward and backward at the same time.  I'm going to become somewhat proficient around the time I enter the nursing home.  Perhaps I'll serenade my fellow residents at tea time.

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Reading, lots of reading.

Leaf raking, lots of leaf raking.

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Stanley Jordan

This is an insanely beautiful performance of "Stairway to Heaven."

New Interview with Rebecca Loudon at Htmlgiant

It's a good one: here.  But then I love most everything Rebecca does.

Former Sestinas, an e-chapbook co-authored by myself and Thomas Fink, is up at Beard of Bees.  And you can read it here.  Tom and I had a lot of fun collaborating on these pieces.  I hope you enjoy reading them.  My thanks to Eric Elshtain, editor of Beard of Bees, for making this publication happen.

Guitar Poem #4

Trust me
I must

be my
pinky's bitch.

Guitar Poem #3

Strangeness
of finger
pivoting to
string backwards
from how
learned before.

Guitar Poem #2

1, 4
1, 2, 3
1, 3
1, 3, 4
1, 4
1, 4
4, 1
4, 1
4, 3, 1
3, 1
3, 2, 1
4, 1

Guitar Poem #1

I've got the
 don't know
where my fingers
are supposed to
go blues.