What the

Because I

Wasn’t watching

However you

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It's cooled down for the moment.  Music just shuffled to Keith Richards and the Winos.

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My wife has a fractured foot.

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Just finished making some revisions to the Limits sequence.  Still don't have the energy for a return to Appearances at this point.  Need some steeping time I think.

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What I

Because the

Wasn't you

However watching

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I'm not learning guitar how "I'm supposed to be learning."  I'm learning how I feel capable of learning.  I'm learning in pieces, trying to think about patterns and how they can be enlarged (in ways that make sense to me).

Today I was obsessively playing backwards and forwards the E minor pentatonic scale and mixing in a few things--just to see what I could find out.  Simple discoveries which I can remember are very important to me in this context.  

I'm looking for an alternative way to think and feel art.  It's taken me around 40 years to become a marginally competent poet.  I'm not going to have 40 years to pursue the guitar; and, anyway, poetry comes first as far as I'm concerned.

But...I'm locked in on the guitar to a degree that surprises me.  I practice most days.  Sometimes I have 2 or 3 practice sessions a day.  

*

What watching

I you

Wasn't because

However the

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Haven't gotten any real work done on Appearances this month.  Too many distractions.  Maybe it's a blessing in disguise.  Maybe I'll come back to the thing with fresher eyes.  I don't know.  I do know that I'm going to have to take on a critical rereading of the whole thing in order to get it back into my head.  All 236 parts written so far.  It feels a little daunting at the moment.  What if?  What if?

*

My sister has not, through the course of her life, been lucky in terms of her health.  Within the last week she passed out in her kitchen and fractured her spine.  She has been through some shit.  Organ transplants among other things.  She's two years younger than me.  I'm the oldest of four.

*

Thought we'd be travelling  for a family reunion this summer.  My sister was hoping to come.  Now it looks like my parents will be travelling to Colorado to care for her for some indefinite period of time.  We might travel east and visit with my brothers and their families.  It's all a little up in the air though.

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The spouse has been away for a couple of days housesitting for our youngest daughter who is visiting her sister in Maryland.

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My two main goals right now are to stick with and finish Appearances and to write and be able to play at least one blues song before I die.  I fully realize how difficult these things will be.

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A couple of days ago I rewatched the documentary Beware of Mr. Baker (it was on Showtime on Demand), the terrific film about Ginger Baker.  Baker, for all of his real musical genius, is a real piece of work.  There's some priceless footage and interview material.  Johnny Rotten, Jack Bruce, Eric Clapton, Steve Winwood, Charlie Watts and a number of other luminaries have revelatory comments.

*

Still talking baby  talk on my beautiful Strat (wah-wah).  Left arm tired from last attempts.

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The stars were aligned in such a way that I was rendered helpless: my 60th birthday tomorrow, the arrival of the first half of my cash award from Marsh Hawk, and the nearby Woodsy's Music in downtown Kent.  I bought a beautiful Fender Stratocaster this morning. If not now, when?  It is a lovely instrument.  I'm a little in awe of it, know I'm not worthy of it yet.  But...but...but...it makes me happy.  And I'm really excited by the tremolo bar (tremolo though something of a misnomer since it makes a vibrato).

*

I'm not feeling well.  The animal allergies have taken hold of me.  I spent too much time around daughter Claire's menagerie without medication.  If I can get it together might walk downtown tonight to hear some blues.  If not tonight, then tomorrow.

*

I've been making slow progress musically since I first started trying to teach myself.  But looking to my right at my various music books and notes I see well thumbed sheets, rips in pages and even a few blood stains.  I'm slow, but persistent (stubborn).

*

We had the exterior of the house power washed today, and the roof treated for moss, etc.  I sweltered, bouncing out occasionally to check on progress and ask questions.  Damn. It's hot.

*

I'm obsessing over that Buzzy Linhart CD to the point where the songs have invaded my dreams.

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Received the first half of the Marsh Hawk prize money. Don't tell anybody but I'm probably going to act on a fantasy and buy this beautiful electric guitar I've been eyeing in a window downtown (it has a Wang Bar!).
For some reason this reminds me of a comment Jessica Grim once made.  We were schmoozing and I asked  her why she supposed Bruce Andrews and me seem to get along so well when we're together.  She replied: because you're both adolescents.  I love that about Jessica--her ability to, with humor and accuracy, cut to the heart of things.

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I'm reading Eric Fischl's Bad Boy.  I always enjoy artist and writer memoirs/ biographies.  I love discovering how an individual discovers what it is it can do.  It being the operative word.

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Yesterday at my early morning doctor's appointment I was advised to think of the flat mole along my jaw line as a "barnacle on the boat of life."

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Writing's been taking a back seat to summer chores and various household distractions these last two weeks.

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Saturday I turn 60 (OK, I'm sorry, I know I've mentioned this before) and it's messing with my head a little. I've been in a retrospective mood even while wanting to kick out the jambs and get back to Appearances.

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I was a Cold War baby.  I can't dissociate that from my history.  That I evaded the draft into the Vietnam War was an accident of my health history--I'd a history of seizures as a child and was still medicated for same (but being weaned from the medication) at the time of my low lottery pick.

I had to go for a draft physical and, prior to the physical, had to fill out forms which asked for a brief essay about how I felt about serving.  I was still writing after everyone else had filled in their forms and the official time for composition had passed.

 I walked up to the officer at the desk and handed the papers in late with all eyes in the hall on me.  It was a creepy moment.

*

"During a dream and even long after we have woken up, words occurring in the dream can strike us as having the greatest significance.  Can't we be subject to the same illusion when awake?  I have the impression that I am sometimes liable to this nowadays.  The insane often seem to be like this."

Ludwig Wittgenstein, Culture and Value (University of Chicago, 1980)

Writing is, if not a disease, obsession or ramped up processing mechanism whereby any given human attempts to overtake what it has always already been overtaken by, something like an alien abduction.

Words as talismans.  Words as probes. The mother ship might be full of grammarians.

Yesterday there was a ton of rain and tornadoes circulating in the area.  The storm sirens were going and my favorite weather person, Betsy Kling, said we should repair to the basement.  So, repair to the basement we did.  Our musty 113 year old basement.  We played Scrabble (I lost by one point, damn it), listened to our crank radio (an NPR fundraiser premium), and reminisced about years ago taking our daughters into the basement during a similar weather event and staging a Pretty Ponies Beauty Pageant to pass the time.  We all acted out the parts of different contestants and laughed hysterically.

*

I'm listening to Buzzy Linhart.  I love Buzzy Linhart.  And, if I can judge by the title of his "best of" CD, he loves me.

I had all of Buzzy's LPs back in the day and saw him play live a few times.  He's an under appreciated treasure.

*

Stacks of books to read: Alan Davies latest, Burt Kimmelman's Gradually the World , and much more.

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Writing has gone fallow for the moment.  Too many summer time distractions.

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numbers band

Can't seem to find my way back to Appearances at the moment.  Doesn't matter how long I stare at the screen.

*

Listening to Robert Cray:  "The forecast calls for pain."

Thinking about guitar chords.  Thinking about singing and playing at the same time.  Thinking about singing off the beat while playing an instrument.  Thinking I need to be become more fearless in my old age.

*

This past Saturday went downtown to the Heritage Fest to hear the Numbers Band.  Alex, you'll appreciate this--after listening to their set I stood in line to buy a CD from Bob Kidney.  We hadn't seen one another for a long time.  He said to me, "What the fuck, how is it you look so good?"  I said something about yeah but looking in the mirror and seeing my Dad lately.  He replied:  "Dad, what you doing there.  You're dead."  Oh my that was a memorable exchange.  My Dad is not dead btw, but a lot telescoped there in that brief exchange.

*

I picked a little more than a pint of raspberries in the back yard this afternoon.  They're the only rubies I need.  They won't be around too much longer.

*

Damn vacuum cleaner.  I hate my fucking Hoover vacuum cleaner.  It sucks through the wand but not the sweeper part.  I battle with the god damn thing all the time.  If I had a shot gun I would take that vacuum into the back yard and shoot it.  Of course, I wouldn't point the gun in the direction of the raspberries.  I'm just saying, inferior tools make life maddening.

*

The Limits (last bits)

(4^th take)

The limits of my contagion are the limits of my world.

The limits of my metaphysics are the limits of my world.

The limits of my decision making skills are the limits of my world.

The limits of my zealotry are the limits of my world.

The limits of my hilarity are the limits of my world.

The limits of my participatory impulses are the limits of my world.

The limits of my transgendering are the limits of my world.

The limits of my ironies are the limits of my world.

The limits of my unconscious mind are the limits of my world.

The limits of my economic status are the limits of my world.

The limits of my naughty nature are the limits of my world.

The limits of my absolution are the limits of my world.

The limits of my speech acts are the limits of my world.

The limits of my fictions are the limits of my world.

The limits of my outrage are the limits of my world.

The limits of my likability are the limits of my world.

The limits of my rebellions are the limits of my world.

The limits of my videography are the limits of my world.

The limits of my wishes are the limits of my world.

The limits of my exaggerations are the limits of my world.

The limits of my gestalt are the limits of my world.

The limits of my borrowings are the limits of my world.

The limits of my justifications are the limits of my world.

The limits of my querulousness are the limits of my world.

The limits of my yacketyyak are the limits of my world.

The limits of my keening are the limits of my world.

(final take)

The limits of my actions are the limits of my world.

The limits of my bathos are the limits of my world.

The limits of my contractual obligations are the limits of my world.

The limits of my deliberations are the limits of my world.

The limits of my epistemology are the limits of my world.

The limits of my fixations are the limits of my world.

The limits of my gradations are the limits of my world.

The limits of my hysteria are the limits of my world.

The limits of my illusions are the limits of my world.

The limits of my jam sessions are the limits of my world.

The limits of my killer instincts are the limits of my world.

The limits of my laughter are the limits of my world.

The limits of my masturbatory inclinations are the limits of my world.

The limits of my nonsense are the limits of my world.

The limits of my ordinariness are the limits of my world.

The limits of my proprioception are the limits of my world.

The limits of my quivering hand are the limits of my world.

The limits of my revelations are limits of my world.

The limits of my systemic beliefs are the limits of my world.

The limits of my television program guide are the limits of my world.

The limits of my unfolding are the limits of my world.

The limits of my vast (fill in the blank) are the limits of my world.

The limits of my whatchamacallit are the limits of my world.

The limits of my extraordinary renditions are the limits of my world.

The limits of my yesterdays are the limits of my world.

The limits of my zombification are the limits of my world.

The Limits

(3^rd take)

The limits of my zaniness are the limits of my world.

The limits of my yeast infection are the limits of my world.

The limits of my excitement are the limits of my world.

The limits of my world view are the limits of my world.

The limits of my vas deferens are the limits of my world.

The limits of my urban legend are the limits of my world.

The limits of my thingamajig are the limits of my world.

The limits of my sensuality are the limits of my world.

The limits of my rewrites are the limits of my world.

The limits of my quietude are the limits of my world.

The limits of my poetry are the limits of my world.

The limits of my overtures are the limits of my world.

The limits of my neighborhood are the limits of my world.

The limits of my mouthpiece are the limits of my world.

The limits of my lyricism are the limits of my world.

The limits of my keyhole are the limits of my world.

The limits of my jigsaw puzzles are the limits of my world.

The limits of my invective are the limits of my world.

The limits of my household are the limits of my world.

The limits of my grasp are the limits of my world.

The limits of my future are the limits of my world.

The limits of my excessiveness are the limits of my world.

The limits of my duplicity are the limits of my world.

The limits of my candor are the limits of my world.

The limits of my biological clock are the limits of my world.

The limits of my ardor are the limits of my world.

List / Catalog Poems

List or catalog poems get me going.  If I were  to put together an anthology or themed issue of a magazine now, list/catalog poems would be the terrain I'd want to explore.

It's all about parataxis, about how gaps matter.

The Limits (2nd take)

(2^nd take)

The limits of my refrigerator are the limits of my world.

The limits of my personal Jesus are the limits of my world.

The limits of my ego are the limits of my world.

The limits of my sentience are the limits of my world.

The limits of my anxieties are the limits of my world.

The limits of my body are the limits of my world.

The limits of my computer skills are the limits of my world.

The limits of my Utilitarianism are the limits of my world.

The limits of my televangelistic inclinations are the limits of my world.

The limits of my data are the limits of my world.

The limits of my gravitas are the limits of my world.

The limits of my health are the limits of my world.

The limits of my image are the limits of my world.

The limits of my lover are the limits of my world.

The limits of my expostulations are the limits of my world.

The limits of my failures are the limits of my world.

The limits of my wealth are the limits of my world.

The limits of my qualia are the limits of my world.

The limits of my vicarious experience are the limits of my world.

The limits of my yearning to get beyond limits is the limit of my world.

The limits of my jargon are the limits of my world.

The limits of my mantra are the limits of my world.

The limits of my oncologist are the limits of my world.

The limits of my zodiacal sign are the limits of my world.

The limits of my knowledge are the limits of my world.

The limits of my name are the limits of my world.

Today

Today I've been swamped with chores--yard work, house work.  I'm pretty tired.

*

Listening to a Nirvana boxed set which I picked up cheap at a local used book store last night.  Really wish Cobain could have kept his shit together.  He was such a fabulous, luminous musician.

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Have been mulling over the Marsh Hawk manuscript.  And am determined to find my way back to working on Appearances.

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(first take)

The limits of my ass are the limits of my world.

The limits of my baronial estate are the limits of my world.

The limits of my carapace are the limits of my world.

The limits of my davenport are the limits of my world.

The limits of my emerging reputation are the limits of my world.

The limits of my finesse are the limits of my world.

The limits of my grandiosity are the limits of my world.

The limits of my hallucinations are the limits of my world.

The limits of my interests are the limits of my world.

The limits of my jouissance are the limits of my world.

The limits of my kindness are the limits of my world.

The limits of my loveliness are the limits of my world.

The limits of my manliness are the limits of my world.

The limits of my notoriety are the limits of my world.

The limits of my openness are the limits of my world.

The limits of my penitence are the limits of my world

The limits of my questioning are the limits of my world.

The limits of my reason are the limits of my world.

The limits of my sexuality are the limits of my world.

The limits of my treachery are the limits of my world.

The limits of my understanding are the limits of my world.

The limits of my vision are the limits of my world.

The limits of my will are the limits of my world.

The limits of my expression are the limits of my world.

The limits of my youth are the limits of my world.

The limits of my zip code are the limits of my world.

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Later agitators.

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Back Home

Got back home yestereve after a fun but tiring too short visit with family in Maryland.  It was good to get away and it is nice to be back.

While I was away Eileen Tabios posted about a couple of my zombies and their adventures in Denmark.  What a hoot, eh?

More later after some recovery time.