I was playing the Strat with my 50 cent pvc slide this afternoon until my left arm felt like hell (and that felt good).  I've come to the conclusion that it might be better for me to be swampy than suave.  Savvy?

I've always been a poet who values concision.  Still, it has been a goal  to work in longer forms.  If you have been following my work at all, you'll be familiar with  some of those attempts.  Longer forms to this point have been poems of 10, 20, 30 pages.

Appearances is the longest project I've attempted to date. Around 100 pages completed so far.  Maybe 50 left to go.  The manuscript is crawling along at this point.  I'm very frustrated, but I'm learning a surprising number of things along the way.  One virtually never knows what one knows until one tries to do something that seems impossible.

Here's the thing: I'm 60 years old and I'm trying to make this one big (for me) book that doesn't do many of things that a book is conventionally supposed to do, but a book that might...

This summer my grandson Andrew (7) got his first pair of glasses.  Before the first day of school his mom, our daughter Claire, sat him down and said "Some kids might make fun of you for wearing glasses. Let's talk about what to do if that happens."

Sure enough, on the first day of school, a kid said Andy's glasses looked stupid.  Andy's reply: "The girls seem to like them!"

It's hot and muggy.  I'm listening to John Mayer's new CD (Paradise Valley) when I'm not listening to the new Tedeschi/Trucks or new Buddy Guy.  Mayer's CD has a really nice version of J.J. Cale's "Call Me the Breeze."

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I'm bedeviled by the Appearances manuscript.  I have all these different possible next moves in my head that aren't resolving into anything concrete.  Staring at a screen unproductively for hours gets old.

Yesterday's "Seven Things" post was, in some ways, a little break to see if I can still make a few little poems.
Ambitious writing isn't a bad thing, but it's a tightrope act sometimes.  There are moments when I wonder if Appearances is an insane project.

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Trying to learn guitar and trying to write my crazy ass excuse for a novel at the same time (and at my advanced age) seem to be reinforcing all of my doubts about myself.  Ah, well... it's the course I've chosen and I'm sticking to it.

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Seven Things

for Rebecca Loudon

1.     A few bars of air guitar.

2.     A large carton of figs.

3.     Speech balloons.

4.     Yet to be named moons.

5.     Pools full of salmon.

6.     Yards of tulle.

7.     Tom Cruise.

Seven Things

for Richard Lopez

1.     Never ending horror movie trailers.

2.     Amplifier buzz.

3.     Dried pumpkin seeds.

4.     McCrary emerging from a cloud of pungent smoke.

5.     The ultimate mix tape.

6.     A funhouse mirror.

7.     Our road trip mirages.

Seven Things

for Mark Young

1.     Barre chords against a matte sky.

2.     Whatever floats your bowler hat.

3.     A pipe that is a pipe.

4.     A pipe that is altogether something else.

5.     Feedback loops.

6.     Internests.

7.     Nostrums for the monsters.

Seven Things

for Jessica Grim

1.     La A.

2.     La B.

3.     La C.

4.     La D.

5.     La E.

6.     La F.

7.     La Gee.

Seven Things

for Eileen Tabios

1.     Wedding dress made of poetry.

2.     Informercial for entropy.

3.     Chiaroscuro obbligatos.

4.     Unlimited sex changes.

5.     Musical chairs.

6.     Chain of custody.

7.     Odor of sanctity.

          

Seven Things

for Thomas Fink

1.     A coloratura for your thoughts.

2.     The uneasy agency of shadows.

3.     Vowels out the yazoo.

4.     Voices .

5.     Pentatonic scales.

6.     Bent notes.

7.     Waking with the fishes.

.

Seven Things

for Noone

1.     White noise.

2.     Black magic.

3.     Garage bands.

4.     Homemade remedies.

5.     Forgotten seizures.

6.     Misbegotten dreams.

7.     Madrigals

Added 50 words to Appearances today.  May not sound like much, but it seems momentous to me.  The book is getting harder and harder to write as it shifts gears into its last third.

Is all writing haunted? I've come to think so.