Good News for Godiva

For Kelli, myself, and anyone else suffering from this disgusting illness who has entered the coughing phase ... there is a study out suggesting that theobromine, a compound found in chocolate, may be even more effective than codeine at ameliorating persistent coughs. Now, that's the chemical, not the candy bar; who knows how many ounces are required for a therapeutic dose? I'm willing to make that experiment, in the interests of science ... bring on the Trader Joe's truffles.

Voiceless in Seattle

So I've been sick for a week, and that philosophical attitude you have at the beginning of an illness (this too shall pass; it happens to everyone; I haven't been sick in awhile) is fraying around the edges. It's your ordinary sinus infection, with the coughing and the fever and the fluids, but there's an interesting wrinkle ... I've never lost my voice before. It's quite extraordinary, to open your mouth with the usual expectations only to have nothing issue forth but an occasional high-pitched squeaking. I didn't realize how much I loved to sing until, suddenly, I couldn't. There's a silver lining, though ... this is an unprecedented opportunity for Scott, who keeps saying solicitously, "Don't talk, dear ... save your voice." I'm not buying this for a minute; I see the unholy gleam in his eyes. After 14 years, finally he has a good reason to tell me to shut up.

*****

It's easier to actually write than to talk about writing. Steve Mueske, editor of the excellent "Three Candles", wants submitting writers to include a short "mission statement" about what making poetry means to them. This is a good idea -- the unexamined life, etc. -- but I find it difficult. Anyhow, the matter was bouncing around in my subconscious when I read "Ringtime" a sci-fi short by Thomas Disch. It addresses a concept which has been explored a fair bit in the genre: the recording of one person's experience (gustatory, erotic, criminal, etc) in every sensory and emotional detail, for the purpose of then allowing others to enjoy the "recording" -- the ultimate virtual reality.

This is, I think, at least part of what we try to do as poets: encapsulate an incident in a relationship, an environment, or an emotion with the sensory details intact and fine-tuned -- hopefully in a novel way that will confound the reader's preconceptions -- so they can experience it, too. Or, I suppose, so we ourselves can experience it again, as time passes. Sort of like this Eliot quote I happened across recently: "With a poem you can say, 'I got my feeling into words for myself. I now have the equivalent in words for that much of what I have felt.'"

Of course, in that same interview, he said, "No honest poet can ever feel quite sure of the permanent value of what he has written. He may have wasted his time and messed up his life for nothing." But that's a matter for another day.

Absinthe

I have a new companion these days ... a female Anna's hummingbird has been hanging around a lot this week, alternating between the drinking from the feeder and sitting in the maple. Buff breast, shimmering green back/wings, and a metallic red flash at her throat (sometimes you see it, sometimes you don't). I haven't even tried to get a picture--she just doesn't stay still long enough. Here is a decent shot.

I tend to name those of my regulars I can tell apart -- the squirrel with 1/3 of a tail is Stubby; the starlings are Larry, Moe, or Curly. This little lady is Absinthe -- a dangerous green fairy. Hummers may be small, but they're aggressive. She doesn't seem to mind the chickadees, but she's run off a Stellar's Jay already. Here (first picture) is an even more suicidal hummingbird.

Interesting tidbits about hummingbirds and spiders -- not only do the birds use spiderweb as a major component of their nests, they steal insects from webs to satisfy their protein requirements. I'm not sure what the spiders get out of this, but hey, I'm not a big arachnid fan, so it's cool with me.

Sample Poem

In case anyone has actually found their way here, and is curious about what I write, here's one that appeared earlier this year in Octavo:

Searching For Graves On San Juan Island

A west wind is lashing
the regal lilies back and forth
and scratching through the thistles

as usual, but since last summer the innkeepers
have lost two cats, our favorites.
We listened to their stories:

the old male fell asleep
in January next to the iron dragons
of the woodstove; a tumor, not much pain.

He is buried in this field beside his sister, who was taken
by a fox. We prowl over the wild ground, follow
their paths through marmalade grass,

not finding any monuments
except for the lichened stones,
and they have always rested here.

Umbels of queen anne's lace stretch over
this field, marking out their territory
with a nursery of spiral galaxies.

All the plants have sprung up stronger
this year. Blooming then subsiding finally
to seed, every inflorescence curls itself up

into a nest, a basket-clutch of fragile claws,
a secret cave, the slow blinking
of a green eye.

Adventures In RFID

Am I the only one who thinks this is really scary?

New York Times Article by Matt Richtel

For those of you who don't have Times access, I'll excerpt the pertinent bits (italics mine):

"Hoping to prevent the loss of a child through kidnapping or more innocent circumstances, a few schools have begun monitoring student arrivals and departures using technology similar to that used to track livestock and pallets of retail shipments.

Here in a growing middle- and working-class suburb just north of Houston, the effort is undergoing its most ambitious test. The Spring Independent School District is equipping 28,000 students with ID badges containing computer chips that are read when the students get on and off school buses. The information is fed automatically by wireless phone to the police and school administrators.

In a variation on the concept, a Phoenix school district in November is starting a project using fingerprint technology to track when and where students get on and off buses. Last year, a charter school in Buffalo began automating attendance counts with computerized ID badges - one of the earliest examples of what educators said could become a widespread trend.

But there are critics, including some older students and privacy groups like the American Civil Liberties Union, who argue that the system is security paranoia.

The decades-old technology, called radio frequency identification, or RFID, is growing less expensive and developing vast new capabilities. It is based on a computer chip that has a unique number programmed into it and contains a tiny antenna that sends information to a reader.

In October, the Food and Drug Administration approved use of an RFID chip that could be implanted under a patient's skin and would carry a number that linked to the patient's medical records.

"It's too Big Brother for me," said Kenneth Haines, a 15-year-old ninth grader who is on the football and debate teams. "Something about the school wanting to know the exact place and time makes me feel kind of like an animal."

Kenneth's opinion is echoed by organizations like the A.C.L.U. and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a nonprofit group that promotes "digital rights."

It is "naïve to believe all this data will only be used to track children in the extremely unlikely event of the rare kidnapping by a stranger," said Barry Steinhardt, director of the technology and liberty program at the A.C.L.U.

Mr. Steinhardt said schools, once they had invested in the technology, could feel compelled to get a greater return on investment by putting it to other uses, like tracking where students go after school.

Advocates of the technology said they did not plan to go that far. But, they said, they do see broader possibilities, such as implanting RFID tags under the skin of children to avoid problems with lost or forgotten tags. More immediately, they said, they could see using the technology to track whether students attend individual classes. "

I am well sure that this technology has some positive applications, and in some ways this is an innocuous use. But it feels like the thin edge of the wedge ... start by tracking children, who don't have the clout to do much about it, and see how that goes (for instance, some of the article I don't quote above talks about technical problems with the system.) Next, who know? And however you slice it, that "injecting under the skin" thing is just CREEPY.

2004 ..... 1984 ..... some days, it's hard to see a difference.

"Engage panic mode. Panic mode engaged. Aargh!"

The panic ensued in Bartell's, when I looked down and realized that, while I entered the store with a book and my journal, I now had only the book. The journal, with, oh, parts of 10-15 poems was AWOL. That terrible sinking feeling .... but I retraced my steps to it fairly quickly, so all is well. Portability is good, but the loss potential is frightening. Better the hard drive you know. I tend to start poems with these chicken-scratchings -- some phrases or key words, a couple of lines, a title -- in my journal or on scrap paper (backs of junk mail envelopes, often). But when I sit down to produce a serious draft, it's almost always on the computer. How about you?

Strange observation ... I had picked up a large orange leaf, and was examining the back when I realized that the pattern of the veins looked EXACTLY like the plan for a huge subdivision, bird's eye view. All the main streets and culdesacs, all the individual building lots neatly divided off. I say "realized", but really it was a sort of weird pattern-recognition brain slip ... like I wasn't sure what I was seeing, for a moment, as my mind tried to map two totally dissimilar environments together. Spooky.

"That gives you some idea of how truly exciting some days can be around here."

25 Geek Credits for anyone who can correctly source the above quote (you have been given a clue.)

Hello, Everyone ....

Hi, everyone. This blog is apt to be a very mixed bag indeed; I hope what interests me interests some of you.

"Box of Birds", in case anyone is curious, is New Zealand slang for "happy, joyous", as in "Happy as a box of birds". We'll try for that, most days.

Something Wendy Wisner said about rain reminded me of this; it seems the appropriate time of year. It's part of an essay by Tom Robbins titled "Why I Live In Northwestern Washington", from "Edge Walking On The Western Rim", edited by Mayumi Tsutakawa:

"Our sky can go from lapis to tin in the blink of an eye. Blink again and your latte's diluted. And that's just fine with me. I thrive here on the certainty that no matter how parched my glands, how anhydrous the creek beds, how withered the weeds in the lawn, it's only a matter of time before the rains come home.

The rains will steal down from the Sasquatch slopes. They will rise with the geese from the marshes and sloughs. Rain will fall in sweeps, it will fall in drones, it will fall in cascades of cheap Zen jewelry.

And it will rain a fever. And it will rain a sacrifice. And it will rain sorceries and saturnine eyes of the totem.

Rain will primitivize the cities, slowing every wheel, animating every gutter, diffusing commercial neon into smeary blooms of esoteric calligraphy. Rain will dramatize the countryside, sewing pearls into every web, winding silk around every stump, redrawing the horizon line with a badly frayed brush dipped in tea.

And it will rain an omen. And it will rain a trance. And it will rain a seizure. And it will rain dangers and pale eggs of the beast.

Rain will pour down for days unceasing. Flooding will occur. Wells will fill with drowned ants, basements with fossils. Mossy-haired lunatics will roam the dripping peninsulas. Moisture will gleam on the beak of the Raven. Ancient shamans, rained from their rest in dead tree trunks, will clack their clamshell teeth in the submerged doorways of video parlors. Rivers will swell, sloughs will ferment. Vapors will billow from the troll-infested ditches, challenging windshield wipers, disguising telephone booths. Water will stream off eaves and umbrellas. It will take on the colors of the beer signs and headlamps. It will glisten on the claws of nighttime animals.

And it will rain a screaming. And it will rain a rawness. And it will rain a disorder, and hair-raising hisses from the oldest snake in the world.

Rain will hiss on the freeways. It will hiss around the prows of fishing boats. It will hiss in electrical substations, on the tips of lit cigarettes, and in the trash fires of the dispossessed. Legends will wash from the desecrated burial grounds, graffiti will run down alley walls. Rain will eat the old warpaths, spill the huckleberries, cause toadstools to rise like loaves. It will make poets drunk and winos sober, and polish the horns of the slugs.

And it will rain a miracle. And it will rain a comfort. And it will rain a sense of salvation from the philistinic graspings of the world.

Yes, I'm here for the weather. And when I'm lowered at last into a pit of marvelous mud, a pillow of fern and skunk cabbage beneath my skull, I want my epitaph to read, 'It rained on his parade. And he was glad!' "



Yep, that's where I live. A poster child for the saying, "Washingtonians don't tan; they rust."