Parts of a Bell

Bad fortune

2008-10-06T17:01:00.002-05:00

"Now go to it!
It's ready to be pick!"

and on the back:

"Learn Chinese - Disease
(Bing)."

Fairy tale

2008-09-25T17:35:00.006-05:00

Once upon a time, our friends were rock stars. Everyone played in a band. They named their band Beatrice, Cordelia's Dad, The Hollywood Indians, or B*tch Magnet. They bought glam-rock electric guitars. They wrote their own songs -- "Chili dog with cheese;" "Freddie is a liar (and a f***ing cheater);" "Now there's a dentist in the mall." They thought too much. They had to drink a lot, to compensate for all the thinking. They smoked bidis and cloves, which were taken for joints by wandering beat cops. And then, one by one, they disappeared.

Remy's favorite flavor

2008-09-22T16:57:00.002-05:00

My poems Abundance and Grimes Grave are up in Blood Orange Review. Blood orange is Remy's favorite flavor of gelato. They didn't have it at Istria Cafe today, so he had lemon. Which is good, too.

6 degrees of humdrum

2008-09-16T18:35:00.007-05:00

So, I've been tagged by Sarah (I think). I have to list 6 unspectacular things about me. Here goes:

1. I'm an outie. This may or may not be related to the fact that I was born with a hole in my stomach wall. It was supposed to close up as I grew, but it never did.

2. When I was little, I was deathly afraid of the muppets. Especially the two men on the balcony. I think they were critics.

3. I could eat eggplant at every meal.

4. I have never been able to drink 8 glasses of water a day. Four, maybe. If it's hot out.

5. I am the only one of six sisters (and our mother) who can throw anything away. Their idea of getting rid of stuff is to pack it up and mail it to me. Seriously, I've gotten packaged food from them that expired in the 80s -- and don't get me started on the box full of shoulder pads.

6. I can move both my eyebrows independently. But I can't wiggle my ears.

Okay, so, the rules:
1. link the person who tagged you: Sarah
2. mention the rules on your blog
3. list 6 unspectacular things about you
4. tag 6 other bloggers by linking them.

Six? Really? How about 1: Valerie.

My mother's basket is full of straw

2008-09-12T16:27:00.005-05:00

I was reading about Kanga writings in a dictionary of Swahili proverbs, and came across this one:

Kikapu cha mama kimejaa ndago : My mother's basket is full of straw.

When I first read it, I assumed it meant "poverty" or "lack"-- "My family has nothing of value: no food, no money, no spun gold. Just straw." Actually, it means just the opposite. Straw is an important resource for many Swahili-speakers in Eastern Africa. Women use it to make a whole bunch of things, from floor mats to fans. So, a basket full of straw evokes a sense of plenitude, abundance, security. Your mother's basket is full of straw: what better fortune?

kaleidowhirl

2008-09-01T11:24:00.003-05:00

The new issue of kaleidowhirl is up, and it has my poems Chorale and Curtis Pond in it. Yay! An awesome way to end the summer.

The mountain we climbed

2008-08-19T20:24:00.003-05:00

They are the people of wings.*

2008-08-19T19:45:00.004-05:00

*Russell Edson, Dark Friends

"A gift, a love gift"

2008-08-04T07:12:00.004-05:00

I've come home to some lovely news in my inbox: my poem "Restless" is up at Juked, and Blood Orange Review is taking "Abundance" and "Grimes Grave."

Yay!

"There's just no accounting for happiness,

2008-08-02T10:24:00.001-05:00

or the way it turns up like a prodigal
who comes back to the dust at your feet
having squandered a fortune far away."

-- Jane Kenyon

Sunrise City by Samantha Meeker

2008-07-26T13:42:00.003-05:00

In the spring, we considered buying a flat, but I just couldn't do it. It had no Eastern exposure, and without mornings, I pretty much lose hope.

Irked

2008-07-24T19:33:00.006-05:00

I was stuck in a waiting room recently, and had the misfortune of reading a "Women's Day" magazine. The editorial blurb went something like this: "It's summer! Take some time for yourself. Make that fish recipe you've been wanting to try; take up knitting; buy some new closet fixtures." Good God.

So then I started thinking about all the things women's magazines never tell us to do. Here's my top 10 list:

10. It's summer! Time to join the FBI so you can spy on your neighbors without probable cause (Hurry, before the Patriot Act expires!)

9. Nothing to do? Why not illegally download an old Disney movie? (Seriously; those films should be in the public domain already).

8. Tired of the same old same old? Experiment with Lesbian sex (You won't know until you try it).

Okay, that's as far as I've gotten. But I'm going to keep adding to this. Did I mention I'm irked?

Some salt with that

2008-07-16T09:10:00.005-05:00

So I was thinking about pretzels, how they're really just a salt delivery system. Pretzels are salt licks for people. And then I started thinking about salt. Salt is huge. I'm thinking of the salt trade in North Africa; the role of salt in the Indian Independence Movement; the scene in The Crucible, where John Proctor tastes his wife's stew and, grimacing, adds a pinch of salt. And then I come across this.

See? Salt is huge.

I am remembering my father.

2008-07-07T18:52:00.004-05:00

He died in 1989, on the fourth of July. All of the siblings - all 8 of us - were standing around his hospital bed. And there were fireworks going off outside. We could see them through the window.

I am thinking about my mother.

2008-07-05T21:23:00.004-05:00

She's in the hospital. That's her, in the front row; the one with the skate key.

This Time

2008-07-01T21:35:00.005-05:00

by Gerald Stern was overdue. I took a quick break and sat in an armchair by a window so I could read just one poem before I dropped it in the return slot. I opened to "The Dancing." I read it once. Again. Again. I took off my sandals. I looked out the window. I was so grateful, I walked off without my shoes.

I, too, shall arrange my books by color

2008-06-19T21:54:00.001-05:00

Uljhan

2008-06-11T19:06:00.002-05:00

This is a great Hindi/Urdu word that perfectly describes the day I had yesterday:

الجهن उलझन uljhan :

Entanglement. complication, intricacy, involution; perplexity, anxiety, uneasiness; twist, ply, turn, windings and turnings, maze; doubling (as of a hare); confusion, disorder, derangement, disturbance; embroilment, imbroglio; difficulty, embarrassment; discord.

Yup. That was my day.

Crisis averted

2008-06-05T15:35:00.000-05:00

Better isn't always, um, better

2008-06-03T16:57:00.008-05:00

I read a fascinating interview with Developmental Psychologist Gary Marcus, about his work on the mind as kluge. A kluge is a clumsy or inelegant solution to a problem - something cobbled together with the materials at hand (and frankly, that's how evolution works; it doesn't get to start from scratch. It can only select from available forms/mutations).

Anyway, one of Marcus's examples of the kluge-like nature of the mind is memory. Unlike a computer, which stores memory in logical and easily accessible places, our memories are stored all over the place. This makes memory recall wildly unreliable. "We pull things out of our memory using context, or clues, that hint at what we're looking for." When the interviewer suggested this form of memory may be key to creativity, Marcus replied that "a lot of what we think of as creative comes from the free association between our memories, and it's not clear that we would enjoy that if we didn't have the kind of memory that we have."

I find this concept absolutely fascinating. The associative, webbed, multivalent character of our memories could be said to underpin human creativity. So to extrapolate, it is thanks to the very inefficiency of our minds that we write - and enjoy - poetry.

There's a kind of poetry to that, isn't there? That we can be sublime in our imperfection.

"There is a crying for wine in the streets;

2008-05-30T15:54:00.003-05:00

all joy is darkened, the mirth of the land is gone."

I had so much fun this weekend

2008-05-28T16:25:00.004-05:00

I forgot to feel guilty about not writing. Sunday night, we took the boys to see Nosferatu, with live piano accompaniment. What a blast. I wondered if it would be too scary for Remy, who is only nine, but I needn't have worried. We laughed more than anything. Being a silent film, everything rested on facial expressions, so the joy with which the main character does everything (in the first half of the film, that is) is just hilarious, tactile, 3-D. Knock, the Renfield character, is deliciously grotesque (oh, those eyebrows!) and the scene where Nosferatu carries his own coffin through the town is, well, about as bizarre as it sounds.

Other fun things we did this weekend:
1. Filled our window boxes with flowers
2. Made maple walnut ice cream (Faizan did that)
3. Framed an old transit map of Chicago
4. Stocked up on library books

"Funny,

2008-05-25T17:50:00.001-05:00

I sometimes feel like a motherless child (trad)
too, unknown
black voice"

Franz Wright, Planes

Getting better

2008-05-23T16:49:00.002-05:00

I feel six-feet tall in my new brown shoes -- like one of Helmut Newton's broads.
Still angry about the Brazil Nut Effect, but mollified by the addition of dried cherries.
It's a three-day weekend.
We are not going to Detroit.
We are not going to the Dunes.
We have no barbecue plans.
We don't even own a set of tongs.

Shikayat

2008-05-22T16:34:00.005-05:00

I coughed all night.
This morning I spent 10 minutes looking for socks without holes.
Lowered my expectations and looked for socks with minimally-annoying holes.
It's May and I'm still wearing corduroys.
I was helping Remy tame his crazy hair and in a fit of pique, I picked up the shears.
I saw a picture of my mother from 5 years ago; something changes in the eyes.
I saw chicken bones on the street and wondered about Santeria.
What is it about numb extremities?
I think I have a tapeworm 'cause I'm still hungry.