Eliot Cheap Zen

Those were the search terms someone plugged into Yahoo to arrive at this blog. Hmmmm.

Got my train tickets for Vancouver! Whoo Hoo! I'm taking the 7:45 train up Wednesday morning, and plan to visit the museum close to the Fairmont; they're supposed to have a really wonderful Emily Carr exhibit. I'd like to get out to the Museum of Anthropology on the UBC campus, too, but not sure how the transport will work. I adore taking the train, but it does leave one somewhat dependent on public transport (an unknown quantity), cabs ($ouch), or the kindness of semi-strangers with cars. We'll see.

Cool new plant: Saruma henryi, a fairly recent woodland introduction from China with heart-shaped fuzzy leaves and small yellow tripartite flowers. It's related to the wild gingers (asarum), as one can tell from the name (saruma), an anagram (hey, Peter, I thought of you) of asarum.

This is a cool list for word junkies or plant junkies or (especially) both.

From CNN: a memory specialist states that more information is contained in a single Sunday issue of the New York Times than the average 17th century person was exposed to over their entire lifespan. I'm not sure I needed to know that.

I also could have lived without the commericial for Fidelity Investments -- the music was Der Kommissar. Is nothing sacred?

Someone Has Beaten A Giant

What better way to spend a rainy Saturday than with The Princess Bride? Scott, feeling like death warmed over (verbatim) is sleeping off the fever, the bird is sleeping, and the cat. Thanks to everyone who did the rain dance; it feels like home again. Gutters overflow; a small, harmless intimation that nature can frustrate all our works. This cheers me up, for some reason. If something's going to wipe me off the surface of the planet ever, I'd rather that impartial force than some malign or careless machination of man. This is probably a good attitude for someone who lives more or less on top of the Seattle fault.

Is this a kissing book?

A.D. hates the word "juxtaposition" and takes issue with the ridiculous American method of punctuation as regards quotation marks. I realize I've been using whatever punctuation made sense at the time around quotation marks for years. Join the revolution! On the other hand, I rather like "juxtaposition". It's "proactive" (not really a word) that ruffles my feathers. Gotta love that corporate newspeak. A guaranteed way to drive a former co-worker into a frenzy was to say "Kris, you've got to think outside the box".

You rush a miracle man, you get rotten miracles.

Charles got to see a wonderful dance. One of the most beautiful things I ever saw was an impromptu dance between two dance instructors after the lesson was over. It was in a old schoolhouse refurbished into a community center; high ceiling, wood floor, late afternoon sun. They did a slow waltz to Cirque du Soleil's Il sogno di volare. Totally spontaneous, in jeans. Just one of those moments when the planets align, you know?

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

Kelli has this marvelous tidbit. I love the Krylon Sub-Lieutenant, or whatever. Aside from the unfortunate damage to the painted surface of the museum wall, what a wonderfully benign subversion.

Truly, you have a dizzying intellect.

Peter offered this, about quality vs. quantity in artistic endeavor. If you make a thing enough times, a few of them will be brilliant. Is this practice, or luck, or tapping in to something beyond yourself? All of the above? Does it just work with concrete objects, or also with writing, where the medium is symbol/representation, not "reality"? What about music? I don't know any answers. We were watching "Chihuly Over Venice" the other night. I think it was in Sweden, they were blowing component parts for one of the chandeliers, and Dale wanted each piece done within the four-minute window before the glass cooled too much to be worked ... no reheating. So there wasn't much time for finesse -- just get it done. If it breaks, do another. I wonder if this produced more interesting shapes than would have resulted from a more deliberate, intentional process. And I wonder again, can this be applied to writing.

But you must have known I was not a great fool; you would have counted on it, so I can clearly not choose the wine in front of me.


Note to self: Let C. Dale choose the wine at AWP.

No more rhymes, now! I mean it!
Anybody want a peanut?

And Rebecca is posting good poems and talking about bowling.

Have fun stormin’ the castle.

Roadside, not far north of Phoenix

And now for something completely different...

Succulent House

More

Desert Botanical Garden

We Now Return You To Your Scheduled Poet

And that, ladies and gentlemen, was a down cycle. I'm feeling slightly more human now, although still inclined to ramble, so forgive. As Charles pointed out, we did have some lovely (albeit varied) weather in Arizona.

First entries of a compressed travelogue:

Phoenix -- upper eighties (too hot for me); the highlight was the Desert Botanical Garden. Some prickly pear cactus blush purple as they age -- really handsome. Saguaros are constructed like humans; water-dense flesh over a woody "bone" structure, waxy "skin" over everything. Unfamiliar birds: mourning doves and cactus wrens. Night fragrance of orange blossom. I'd never want to live in Phoenix (climate), but there's a lot to be said for visiting to sit in the shade by my sister-in-law's pool surrounded by bouganvillia, or eating her gourmet breakfasts on the verandah.

Phoenix to Williams -- We were a bit early for cactus bloom, but lots of other things were blooming ... yellow daisies, Texas bluebonnets, indian paintbrush, evening primrose, and a really gorgeous coral-flowered shrub that I haven't identified yet. Green hills. It feels like we drove through 3 or 4 different ecological zones, judging by the flora. And then we started to see snow at the side of the road ... a proper blizzard about 10 miles east of Williams, but it wasn't sticking to the road, thankfully. We found out later that we just missed the worst of it, and (long story short) could have gotten really stuck if we had kept to our original route plans. Whew! Hotel and restaurant in Williams (we were there to catch the Grand Canyon train) clean but hardly inspiring. Ravens everywhere, making the most appealing noises.

Postcard To The Devil's Kitchen

home is japanese maple, unbearably
tender and green

I am sending us back to sedona
where rocks are an honest color

a blossoming tree
full of fingernails

afraid to turn on the window
to see what the crows are up to

in fields (there still
are some) in this one

horses are waiting
to bite out my throat

there is much to be said for a hole
that everyone can see

There Is No Arizona

Actually, I can now verify that there is. I'm back from the Sonoran desert, where Scott fell in love with saguaros, and I fell in love with sycamores. Three days into my vacation, I got really sick and lost 50 IQ points. At least. They're still missing, I'm still miserable, but it's nice to be home. Although I'm feeling very doubtful about AWP right now. Hope everyone is well. Photos and points of interest to follow when I achieve coherence. There were ravens everywhere.

Washed the same window
until crows brought a new moon
to cherry blossom.

10 Poems of Introduction (as of today, in no particular order)

1. On Hearing A New Escalation -- Richard Hugo
2. Making The Scene -- Kenneth O. Hanson
3. The Love Song Of J. Alfred Prufrock -- T.S. Eliot
4. The Second Coming -- W.B. Yeats
5. Ararat -- Mark Doty
6. The Kingfisher -- Mary Oliver
7. Exhibition -- James Masao Mitsui
8. Field Guide To Dungeness Spit -- David Wagoner
9. Latitude -- Linda Bierds
10. The Song Of The Onion -- Miguel Hernandez
(that's "Lullaby of the Onion"; oops)

Dreaming of AWP

This is one of those tedious dream re-tellings (don't say you weren't warned). Myself, I find anybody's dreams fascinating. This started out as the standard "plane's leaving in less than an hour and I haven't packed a thing" dream. Soon, however, AWP was being held in Paris, and I was back in high school. They bussed our class to a building with an immature bald eagle warbling in a tree outside. Within, we each had a locker with the names of all our poems on the front, containing things we needed to take to AWP. Mine had (1) a hand-written note from two "America's Next Top Model" contestants, (2) an original watercolor design for a wine label by someone named Cumbert, featuring a horse with no neck and a lot of blue sky, and (3) a home-made travel game challenging the passenger to identify phenomena associated with the end of the world, as seen from the air. Explosions, green whirlpools, etc. Frightfully jolly.

"Poems are ongoing improvisations toward goals we identify when we arrive at them." -- Donald Hall

Shortlist, Serpentine Streets, and Schadenfreude

So my poem for the Guardian Poetry Workshop made the shortlist, here (scroll way down). It plays in London, apparently. Whoo hoo! Sadly, they messed up the transition between S4 & 5, which also derailed the form (each successive stanza was meant to start with the english translation of one of the list of spanish words/phrases in S1), but we won't quibble.

There's a wonderful road in Issaquah, which I figure is a little-known shortcut. Maybe it's just little-used. There are two very sharp hairpin turns, and my friend, you'd better drive the recommended 10 MPH, or you'll be off the edge into the void. But it's gorgeous, especially in the middle of all that gangrenous suburbia. When you get to the top of the hill, it makes a hard right, then goes gently swooping up and down for about a mile. At the end, before it disappears into a main road, there is an incredible amount of new construction. Huge houses. Expensive tile roofs. There was a lovely little valley along there; nothing fancy, just grass sloping away from the road, an old fence and a shed, some apple trees. All gone and filling in. They've put a concrete retaining wall along the road sporting metal silhouettes of cougars in various poses (the area's called Cougar Mountain). I guess it's better than unrelieved cement, but it just serves to emphasize the point that no self-respecting cougar would go anywhere near there now. I know people need places to live, but those huge, ostentatious houses with no yards ... it seems like such a waste.

Which brings me to the Monster of Lake Washington. There have been several reports of a creature which appears to be either a caiman or an alligator, probably some idiot's escaped or released pet. I'm finding this amusing because (a) nobody's been hurt, and (b) the area is Medina/Hunt's Point -- probably the poshest neighborhoods on the Eastside; Bill Gates has his compound there. So it pleases me to see the high priests of luxury get their cage rattled, a little. Lock up your lapdogs, ladies, and be sure to warn the gardener; it's so difficult to find good help these days.