Wednesday, November 23, 2005

black sheep boy translation

I bite the cellophane off a new cd with your sleeping teeth. my fingernails are busy with non-belief, lacking precedent, or consequence. shall ensue. as if rain without clouds. it’s not a care. it’s not seen a mirror since your bathroom, since the sounds went swimming out the side window, a liberty flight from your throat. quiet, but it cracked out my head. added music, a confident reader, a chase down your arm to the hand on the back of my neck, liked the floor better than the bed. it was a band we refused to tell anyone else about, another radio song, the vocal organs of men and animals gone past a small town on a river in missouri. the name forgotten in the death of things we were tired of saying, piece of grassy land, field thoughts, a steadfast withdrawal in leaps and bounds, friar lawrence, benvolio, mercurtio. the sea in the water. shakes in the mooder. cliff notes. home in your stereo. the last song on the cd that you burned on into conflagration as you made your way off the top of the tall building. you do accidents toward my passage. yes, common wood has common defects. I know this because I’m a professional who eats once a day like the intermissions during epics. a foretaste of a leg brush. vapor. without articles comes flutter. matter in the milk-house, cast metals and graves both are founded. early tools and maps with the names of countries that no longer exist. one of them spread across the floor now. latitude inflexion. something said late upon waking in the dark. unborn cedar. this is my quiet argument with the world.

edwards drive-in

ugetsu, directed by kenji mizoguchi was made in black and white, 1953. it reminds me of the korean film spring, summer, fall, winter…and spring which came out in 2004. both movies seem to function as parables and in that they seem simple at first.

ugetsu is one of those movies that gets better and better the farther you get away from it. the music sounds japanese but it has a rhythm I’ve never heard in a japanese film. the camera is showing very traditional scenes at times but it’s always moving and low to the ground. the story alternates somewhere between reality and fantasy and somehow works precisely on that level. there is no way you could not describe this movie as a fable and yet when it’s over you feel like you’ve watched a story of real events that happened to real characters.

Monday, November 14, 2005

i-pod wars

two headed boy

Two headed boy
All floating in glass
The sun it has passed
Now it's blacker than black
I can hear as you tap on your jar
I am listening to hear where you are
I am listening to hear where you are

Two headed boy
Put on sunday shoes
And dance round the room to accordion keys
With the needle that sings in your heart
Catching signals that sound in the dark
Catching signals that sound in the dark
We will take off our clothes
And they'll be placing fingers through the notches in your spine
And when all is breaking everything that you could keep inside
Now your eyes ain't moving now
They just lay there in their climb

Two headed boy
With pulleys and weights
Creating a radio played just for two
In the parlor with a moon across her face
And through the music he sweetly displays
Silver speakers that sparkle all day
Made for his lover who's floating and choking with her hands across her face
And in the dark we will take off our clothes
And they'll be placing fingers through the notches in your spine
And when all is breaking everything that you could keep inside
Now your eyes ain't moving now
They just lay there in their climb

Two headed boy
There is no reason to grieve
The world that you need is wrapped in gold silver sleeves
Left beneath Christmas trees in the snow
And I will take you and leave you alone
Watching spirals of white softly flow
Over your eyelids and all you did
Will wait until the point when you let go

--neutral milk hotel

Monday, November 07, 2005

OED Definitions

whatever--

DRAFT ADDITIONS SEPTEMBER 2001

whatever, pron. and a.

int. colloq. (orig. U.S.). Usually as a response, suggesting the speaker's reluctance to engage or argue, and hence often implying passive acceptance or tacit acquiescence; also used more pointedly to express indifference, indecision, impatience, scepticism, etc.: ‘as you wish’; ‘if you say so’; ‘it makes no difference to me’; ‘have it your own way’; ‘fine’.

1973 To our Returned Prisoners of War (U.S. Secretary of Defense, Public Affairs) 10 Whatever, equivalent to ‘that's what I meant’. Usually implies boredom with topic or lack of concern for a precise definition of meaning. 1982 San Francisco Examiner 7 May A3 When someone responds ‘whatever’, he or she seems to be saying ‘I'm amenable to anything. I'll defer to you.’ But in my experience, when a person says ‘whatever’, he or she is really saying, ‘I don't want to take any responsibility. You do all of the deciding and then I'll pass judgment.’ 1986 D. A. DYE Platoon (1987) iii. 21 Feed any of these guys a full-scale briefing..and you'd get the same response: ‘Yeah, right. Whatever, man, whatever’. 1990 G. G. LIDDY Monkey Handlers iv. 53 Levin gave a mirthless smile. ‘The Heads from Hell. They wear embroidered signs on the back of vests.’.. ‘Colors,’ Stone interjected. ‘Whatever,’ said Levin. ‘You'll be able to tell them by it.’ 1995 New Yorker 16 Oct. 131/2 You get to the point where it would be foolish to be surprised at anything. A sports bar opens. Then it closes. Whatever. 1998 Village Voice (N.Y.) 21 July 28/1 If someone came running to say he'd just seen Jesus preaching on the steps of the 72nd Street subway stop, most New Yorkers would reply, ‘Whatever’. 2000 D. WAUGH in J. Adams et al. Girls' Night In 529 The secretary admitted that the list had been ‘temporarily mislaid’. Whatever.

notes from a waking

the new disease down the hall. the wall professor and his student. heavy shoes three doors below. misspelled words from wrongful fingers. volume control. the lower electricity of a song itself ready for a fight. the future stresses like hair relaxers. tension deficits. trading places with god for a few minutes. still, there is only so much you can handle. less of it that you’re willing to long for.

these all day events will mean nothing later.

a cigarette between her fingers comes trailing smoke although she is not a smoker. she says I know you love me. you hand some flame to the spot where blood meets air. you hiss at notions. pinprick your left arm. this is what it was like to be made. some watched blood leaving. needles are for going in and out.

when did you get old.

a slip then. a sleight of hand. blood runs down your arm as if it were someone else. you smell distance closing. a ventilation product. blood is a singular word and it’s out for a walk. you’ve got a crush on your own reds.

no, leave it there, I like the way it looks against my skin.

Thursday, November 03, 2005

OED definitions

Hipster--

One who is ‘hip’; a hip- (or hep-)cat. Also attrib. Hence hipsterism, the condition or fact of being a hipster; the characteristics of hipsters. Cf. HEPSTER.
1941 J. SMILEY Hash House Lingo 31 Hipster, a know-it-all. 1946 MEZZROW & WOLFE Really Blues 374 Hipster, man who's in the know, grasps everything, is alert. 1948 Partisan Rev. XV. 722 Carrying his language and his new philosophy like concealed weapons, the hipster set out to conquer the world. 1956 Observer 23 Sept. 2/5 ‘Hipster’ is modern jazz parlance for ‘hep-cat’. 1958 Listener 3 July 16/1 This whole vexed question of hipsterism, anger, French new realism, and so forth. 1958 New Statesman 6 Sept. 292/3 The anthology is valuable for a speculative essay by Norman Mailer on ‘beat’ or hipster culture. 1959 ‘F. NEWTON’ Jazz Scene 291 Jive~talk or hipster-talk is..an argot or cant designed to set the group apart from outsiders. 1959 N. MAILER Advts. for Myself (1961) 303 The exchange was called ‘Reflections on Hipsterism’, when it appeared in Dissent. I did not choose the title, and so I have altered the name of the piece. 1967 Lancet 15 July 150/2 The ‘hipster’ movement in California..seemed to be an outright rejection of accepted standards and values.

Used esp. attrib. of, or pertaining to, a garment, e.g. a skirt or trousers, that extends from the hips rather than the waist. In pl., such a pair of trousers.
1962 Sunday Express 30 Dec. 16/4 Top girls are buying camel-hair hipsters with long matching braces. 1967 Spectator 14 July 53/3 A shop in the Chelsea Antique Market has neatly solved the male sartorial problem at a price level to fit any hipster pocket. 1968 J. IRONSIDE Fashion Alphabet 45 Hipster, a skirt which sits on the hips instead of the waist.

Wednesday, November 02, 2005

black bird

mary standing 1934-40 circa alabama, circa california, made in ireland
“I am a soldier in the baptist of the lord”
what does that mean
shouted din better off tired a rattle of chains and jewelry

“the devil roll like thunder”
he sings, the devil that is, “is this love”
that was 1935
all footstep and rhythm
voices crack for age words sung for a beautiful annoyance
white paint marking the speakers bound a disaster
coming

“the wind blows east” in the absence of unifying sound
a beat offbeat off ears hear a jumping song a children’s song, little sally saucer
that guy sounds drunk his piano sounds drunk, it rattles early, late, un momento while I get my spelling straight