In Poetry’s Defense
Letter of Philip Sidney, New Year’s Day, 1578
Thu, December 23 2010 » Poetry » No Comments
Notes on Kanye West and…Fleetwood Mac
What Kanye West’s new set of songs remind me most of–and this might be highly idiosyncratic on my part–is Fleetwood Mac’s 1979 classic album, Tusk. Easily their best in my opinion. It blends together the manicness of Lindsey Buckingham’s jangling pace and spooling intricacies with the serene, ethereal harmonies of Christie and Stevie. For Kanye, [...]
Sat, December 11 2010 » Music » No Comments
free story: Taiga, Taiga, Burning Bright
In the spirit of the season–well, kind of–I’ve put up on my site the closest thing that I’ve ever written to a Christmas story. Well, sort of. “Taiga, Taiga, Burning Bright” originally appeared in the great anthology Bandersnatch. Enjoy.
Tue, December 7 2010 » Fiction » No Comments
MMORPG Eschatology
What happens when a shared world dies? Witness the quiet, strange, unsettling end of The Matrix MMORPG. A grand finale was planned where all online players were to be crushed, however due to a server glitch, most players were disconnected before the final blow came. What had been envisioned as a last hurrah transpired as [...]
Thu, December 2 2010 » Games » No Comments
Quintet (1979) review (and a n.b. on THX1138)
This movie is ready for a reassessment. Take the film on its own terms–if you are expecting high science fiction Mannerism you are going to be sorely disappointed. People have talked about the one-dimensionality of the characters–but the whole POINT of the film is that humanity, at this decrepit, terminal stage of their existence, has [...]
Tue, November 30 2010 » Movies/TV » No Comments
Trust Them
I’m sure many in the Democratic Establishment are wondering why support and enthusiasm–which had surged in 2008–is now flagging for Democratic candidates. Why the money is drying up. Why the activists are out in lesser numbers. I might be wrong, but stories like these might be part of the issue: The American Civil Liberties Union [...]
Sat, October 16 2010 » Polis » No Comments
The First Apps
A great article on 18th century almanacs as ur-iPhones: By now, I hope you’ll forgive the ahistorical slip that led me to enlist the iPhone as a way of imagining just how resourceful an early almanac could be. It was so much more than a book. Comparing it to the iPhone helps expand our vision [...]
Thu, October 14 2010 » ?!?!?, Computers/Tech » No Comments
Version 2
(But wait there’s more. I’m writing prose as well, I swear. This is from a form known as a ballade, not to be confused with a power ballad.) Version 2 What does it add? pearls, moon rob Sounds; There calling forward my cousin… forgiveness for all human mobs!! (rapt>> apart in common muslin) Garden resistant [...]
Wed, October 13 2010 » Poetry » No Comments
The Whippoorwills (poem draft)
These poems, in between prose bouts, are helping me work through things that I don’t discern yet. The different yearnings couple with the disparate styles. One mood is not like the other. Quatrains between poems can be unalike as well. There are inside-out narratives that aren’t secrets. The Whippoorwills *first baptist air The trees of [...]
Tue, October 12 2010 » Poetry » No Comments
The Men (poem draft)
The Men The men came out of the woods And we were children And didn’t know what to do to them We watched them from the window How would they die In the cold We thought They were walking toward us We closed the blinds We are not here The farmhouse is not here The [...]
Tue, October 5 2010 » Poetry » 1 Comment
Metroid: The Other M; or, the Girl with a Cannon for a Hand
When I look at various forms of criticism and reviewing–literary, music, etc.–and consider how moribund they can be at times, I take solace in the fact that it will never reach the nadir that gaming journalism seems to dwell in. As a whole. I am talking about the various organs that are there to ceaselessly [...]
Tue, September 21 2010 » Games » 4 Comments
Later that year…
I’ve been a bad blogger but I’ve been busy! Very busy. Things have been germinating, things have been transcribed. It’s also been a month of soul searching and some measure of tranquility, which can’t be attributed (either way) from writing, from a good or ill perspective. But I still am writing, hither and tither. In [...]
Tue, September 14 2010 » Life Studies » No Comments
Readercon sked
I’ll be at Readercon this weekend–if you are as well, say hello. Here is the one panel I’ll be on…really looking forward to this one, noon on Friday. “In Search of Lost Time: History and Memory in Historical and Speculative Fiction. Alan DeNiro, David Anthony Durham (L), Lila Garrott, Andrea Hairston, Howard Waldrop. “[I]n places [...]
Tue, July 6 2010 » Fiction » No Comments
Simone Weil and Social Media
My computer has been in the shop for, like, about a month because of a virus. I haven’t really had a backup computer suitable for blogging. UNTIL NOW. OK, so it’s time to blog about the sorcery of social media. This essay by Jim Grote adroitly puts together a case for Simone Weil‘s theory of [...]
Mon, June 21 2010 » Fiction, Polis, Religion/Logos » No Comments
St. Louis reading tomorrow!
Hey folks, if you happen to be from St. Louis and reading this, I’ll be reading there tomorrow at 7pm with some other folks as part of the Exploding Swan reading series. It will be at a farm. In the city. Precisely, Slow Rocket Farm on 1944 Cherokee St. So I do hope you can [...]
Fri, May 21 2010 » Total Oblivion » No Comments
liontoothseed & blackberrytattoo
The dandelion is a noble flower, mimicking the tooth of a lion. It is not its fault that there are far too many of them, populating my lawn in their multitudes. A commonality doesn’t have to destroy beauty. It’s also a shame that on de-weeding chemicals, on the labels, blackberries are considered “weeds.”
Thu, May 13 2010 » Life Studies » 2 Comments
The Caged Tulip
While gardening yesterday, I came across a vegetational oddity that was both grotesque and poignant. I was weeding the lower tier of our terraced garden, where our radiant tulips are in full apotheosis. However, near one of them, a suet feeder (i.e., a small rectangular cage) somehow had fallen into the garden thickets. Lost in [...]
Sun, April 18 2010 » Fiction, Life Studies, Poetry » 3 Comments
Sat, April 10 2010 » Poetry » No Comments
Takeaways (2)
It’s important to remember that, in the modernist mode of being a writer, publishing is publishing and writing is writing. The “making public” of writing can happen at a later, compositional (and typographical) phase–type needs to be set in place. In this instance, writing is a direct conduit from thought, and publishing is one step [...]
Fri, April 2 2010 » Fiction » No Comments
Absence and Dreams, Roots and Branches (poem)
(these poems are just drafts, but in some nether-space of feeling they are both complete and incomplete) Absence and Dreams, Roots and Branches Here’s a chalice. I’m in Dixie. Alchemy is much scarier than “alchemists” say. It doesn’t ever happen. Electrical cords happen. A screen-saver comes over the eyes: clouds mangy cover the mountains. They [...]
Sun, March 28 2010 » Poetry » No Comments
