Briefly, just to keep my hand in, a blog post. by the way, I like reading my blog. I like watching the movements of my thoughts, which just flutter away if I don't write them down. so anyway, Beth worked late friday so Erin and I watched a movie. I deemed it necessary for the movie to be stupid, in some way. the winning selection was Krull. which was not abject, but it could have been a victim of Mystery Science Theatre 3000. Which I miss… Anyway, Krull was fantasy with un poco scifi. I have seen it before, actually, back in its day, which was the 80s, I believe. was Krull the hero’s name? I don’t think I caught anyone’s name. He was played by Ken Marshall. Who looks like someone I should know, but I can’t think of any other appearance of himself in something I have watched. Several others in the cast were like that. The director was Peter Yates, who I think is a noted director (you tell me, I’m merely an amateur cineaste). This movie would not be a highlight of his career. But let us consider the plot, shall we? It seems this Krull, if indeed Krull he is, is to wed the curly haired damsel in the flouncy princess suit. They are even performing the ceremony, which includes him sticking a flame in water, and she taking a flame out of the water, when a motley of evil doers called slayers invaded the proceedings. It brought to mind the wedding scene in M Python and Holy Grail. The slayers were maybe space creatures or something. When killed they screamed and a wiggly wormy thing would scurry off. The movie’s prologue I guess prepares one for such a fact, but not well. During the brawl, Krull’s lady love is whisked away, and even Krull is battered to unconscious. In the morning some guy exhorted Krull on his quest. I never got the back story on this guy. He knew about the prophecy and that’s enough for any sane fantasy hero. 1st step, for some reason, was to seek the doodad that was displayed in the credits, a 5-pointed thingie that resembles ninja throwing stars. this may be Krull, but if so, what is our hero’s name??? Krull finds the Krull in a river of lava. He pulls it out, unharmed, and it is clear that there could be psychedelic fun in future. Next step is to be cornered by a band of outlaws, who Krull enlists in his quest. And they go on. And on. There is a Cyclops, good guy, who helpfully divulges some key plot points. Other stuff certainly happens, I mean, Erin and I were watching an active television screen. At some point near the end Beth arrives and is immediately swept into the theory of dramatic excitement that founded (not foundered, please) this film. And MST sort of commentary began to spill from ourt mouths. I should mench that the slayers have the same zesty lack of response as Imperial Storm Troopers, and indeed, I thing P Yates spent a few moments studying Star Wars. To no avail. Periodically we would leave Krull’s quest to witness princess in her problematitude. She was stuck in some amateur theatre set for Alice in Wonderland, which is the plot of a Tom Petty video, as I just now realize. The evilest doer was a space creature, I wot, tho on the order of the Wizard of Oz. she had few wardrobe changes. The one I can think of, she was enwrapped by the evilest one in a gown made of aluminum foil, a quirk I cannot quite divine. the evil one appears to be a space alien. the effects are crappy, think Dr Who, tho they may have been considered hotcha in the day. EO looked like a blurry picture on a screen. So... Krull and his merry band quest on toward this flying mountain, sic, where trhe Evil One holes up. of course the band is whittled away thru various malfeasances. oh, Liam Neeson was in the cast, as a hearty lug who buy it near the denouement. the cyclops, who has prescience concerning the day he will die, excuses himself from the final assault on that mountain lair. so this handful of men attack the mountain, which is exactly what it looked like, and don't make headway until the cyclops comes running.he climbs up to0 the entrance and holds the door open for the rest, then is crushed as the door inexorably closes. sic transit gloria cyclops. Krull finds the princess and rather quickly dispatches EO with the krull, and that's that. quest quest quest. it had all the elements of entertainment but never quite committed to that principle. even tho the acting wasn't wooden or lame, nothing came together. nowadays you get bulkier heroes and better swordplay. we really were in the doldrums in the 80s.

I neglected to include the url for the Microsoft Office deal that I noted yesterday, so here it is. offer ends May 16.

for a few more days you can get Microsoft Office, complete, for 91% discount, totally legit, if you are a student with an edu email address. I eschewed MSOffice for OpenOffice, which is freeware and a great tool. however, MS products are default everywhere. tho OO can save to doc format, you have to tell it to, so there is this whole compatability thing that may make OO less useful for you. so I have turned back to MS, just to be well-armed. which leads me to mull the words processors I have used. Xywrite, back in the day, that long agone day. back in the day of command driven programs. Xywrite was brisk and efficient. as I understand, it was eventually swallowed up whole by IBM, tho it had been an industry standard for newspaper publishing. less so was my 1st shareware, PC-write, which just seemed clunky. I mean, I bought the thing, had the documentation, but never enjoyed the writing experience, which wasn't to my mind intuitive. I learned Word Perfect at work. I did graphics with it, which were a pain, defining EXACTLY where they would sit in the document and such, those triangulations were difficult. Word was much like WP, I just wanted a typewriter, mostly. but you can typeset books with Word, if you are careful. OpenOffice and Word give you a lot of power in producing documents. Word is clearly a clunky program. files are much larger in Word than OO, astonishingly so. in the days of gigabytes, that is not so important, but it remains telltale. I have only used Word 2007 a little, it is a symphony of bells and whistles. all of which work, after a fashion,, but it is more like a computer game than a program. not to go all MS-negative. if you make eligibility for the deal, and have the 60 bucks, I recommend that you strive for this deal, which ends May 16. the documentation for OO kinda sucks, tho there is a turmoil of dedicated explainers in the community. MS has a universe of vocal users. I think technical issues are under regarded in poetry world. I needed Erin's help, and angel Shanna Compton's generous (Photoshop issues) intervention, to get Days Poem, the manuscript, into proper fettle. brothers and sisters, it is a tech world. part of your poem's broadcast resides in making it computer feasible. yes, you can find an 18 year old to tech out, but you still must understand what the 18 year old is talking about. and you can work your own magic. so anyway, a slew of business-like, grownup up programs could be yours if you have that edu email address.

a friend's milestone birthday tomorrow, coinciding with Erin's mere 19th. we've already done something for Erin, the opposite of belatedly (be-earliedly). but there is a party for our friend. so we made a mall excursion for a present, namely a beach cover up, our friend being quite the swimmer/surfer. 1st off: it was as crowded as at Christmas time. everyone spending their economy boosters? mebbe so. speaking of Christmas, the mall's central area is decorated for Christmas, and has been so for the past 6-8 weeks. a movie is being filmed there. we were there a while back when filming was in process, with security preventing access to portions of the mall and extras being ushered into the scene, just like reg'lar folks. anyway, in search of beach wrap. Sears and its Lands End franchise: nothing suitably colourful. we targeted Chicos as a likely source, but Beth chose to stop in numerous shops along the way. one place was clearly for the young but looked like it might yield some swimwear options. $10 and $15 dresses, which Beth assured me wouldn't last a single washing. and many eager teenage girls. a few years back, if I may travel a tangent, I sorta got interested in an earring. inquired at a jewelry store where I might get my ear pierced. the guy there, suitably crisp and mature, pointed across the way to Claire's. and I'm like whoa!. a buzzing place full of jewelry-like gimcrack made for the teenaged female consumer. with actual teenage females not only consuming the gimcrack, but selling it. I felt out of place but, heigh ho, I was on a mission. a teenaged female doctor of ear-piercing performed the surgery, and now everyone can see that I'm rad. end of tangent. we actually entered Abercrombie and Fitch, the ambiance of which strikes me as grimly soulless. we actually exited A&F, before some young hipster gave us the boot. we tumbled into a place called Ruehl, which was quite an experience. its store design is much like A&F: a thumping beat to pull you in, dark doorway, dark rooms with moody lighting. it was a strange maze of discrete rooms that perhaps would be a wonder if the merchandise attracted me. the place looked like where you meet your cocaine source, or Liza Minelli and Andy Warhol, or some damn grunt. wait, just for a moment, imagine Louis Zukofsky at Studio 57, a big A on his forehead... well, transcendence exists: a large b&w photo of a male model with finger in mouth seemed to make a good representation of the store's, um, thrust. from there we went to Nordstrom. which is brand new to the mall and, for all I know, new to the area. Beth knows Nordstrom from Seattle. it was a wonderland. a vast expanse of store space, with exquisite lighting, shiningly polished floors, and a lovely palate of colours (the clothing displayed). it was the only store where the help helped, a charming business model. I couldn't quite hold my attention to the task at hand but luckily there was a large tv screen feeding videos to any eyes that have strayed from the merchandise. I imagine all videos are made by film school auteurs, who have studied 3 minute narrative larded with phony ass performance histrionics, and got better than B in their film project. hi, this is the state of poetry, by the way. ie, what is the opposite of essence, and how do you make a gang of it sell? Beth found a possible right answer but we reconned other sources, just to be sure. a few indistinct options and such, then we tramped to Chicos. Chicos aims for a more mature clientele. the colours are quite pleasing there, painterly, even. I was a bit outraged because there were 2 chairs there. in one sat a man, patiently bored. in the other, a young--teenaged, maybe--woman. chairs in stores like Chicos are for men to anchor themselves while the shopping experience reshapes time. this young woman was eating a sandwich and talking on the phone. she was using my chair. this is disorder. will the murder of Hillary by Obama or vice versa solve this??? winds blow, spring breaks upon us, and Beth found a just right item. oh, we stopped in J Crew, where slim is the password but at least the primary colours are happy. like I said, Nordstrom was the only place where staff made any connection with 'customer'. do you ever wonder if poetry is a living function, or just the crust of some past condition? do you ever think about packaging, as you read those poems, so many poems?

Antic View resumes after all my fault hiatus, episode 135, don't miss it if you can. 4 years ago I wrote out of the blue to Jeff Harrison, denizen of Wryting-L list. I guess I determined some simpatico (reference to Mr Kite), and queried the possibility of collaboration. which ensued for over the years, a poem (we agree) called (we agree) Monster, with again all my fault hiatuses. and then, a sucker for endlessness, I approached Jeff, who I have triangulated as 2000 miles away, miles we have yet to shrink, concerning this interview that I bethought me. it continues to ride. I could, in my Ethan Frome way, advert my own star qualities in poetry universe, but I will leave that chatter to another time. I think Jeff is a distinct wonder, and there are enough bolts of evidence online (Antic View offers links to same). Ron Silliman follows in the steps of Robert Duncan, in awarding Aram Saroyan... I am not about to fight the equation, just want to note that the equation exists. well and good, but a writer of consummate, like Jeff, remains in this still not very. listen, the cheese is in the trap. just to haul up a memory: I remember Robert Grenier showing me a book by Saroyan, The Beatles. Each of its 4 pages with a different Beatles' name. I liked the idea of that, but the thought of owning such a book seemed extraneous. I could here refer to Ed Sander's wonderful Love and Fame in New York, with its myriad art concepts on display. and Saroyan's book was topped by some NY poet, in an anthology (where I saw it), a poem called "The Rolling Stones", which consisted of 5 lines, 3 Rolling Stones, and 2 players (pitchers I think) for the Philadelphia Phillies. so, bottom line, Jeff Harrison is a wonderful poet, I am honoured to work with him, he should be honoured to work with me, and you Dear Reader, if you are up to the charge...

I have all 6 of these, the 6 recent chapbook releases from Faux Press. reading them would be the next step. I will keep you updated.

quick mench of seeing Midsummers Night Dream yestreen, traditional day of Shakespeare's death. by way of the homeschool co-op that Erin no longer attends. he initially signed up for the play but he is taking courses at the community college and could not accommodate the play schedule. I have not seen many amateur play productions but it seems like these Shakespeare productions, of which I have seen all five, boast pretty high standards. costumes and scenery are particularly well done. a prologue was included, strictly to satisfy a need for swordplay among the participants. it represented the battle between Theseus and the Amazons. a bit of a gallimaufry but fun to watch. one fellow, after being smited, did a cartwheel. the particular stand outs in the play were the girl--ALMOST 13, as she states in the notes--who played Puck, and the boy, 15, who played Bottom. she enunciated very well, did these great sidelong glances (which were accentuated by makeup) and otherwise fulfilled the role nicely. Bottom, is the troupe founder/director's son. he capably played Romeo last year but Bottom is totally in his wheelhouse. he's a big loud bumptious kid, completely happy to ham it up. all the rude mechanicals were up to the task. the 9 year old girl who played the wall was at least a foot and a half shorter than Bottom/Paramus, which made for good visual humour. a backdrop tumbled toward the audience but the prompter caught it. later, during the performance of Thisby and Paramus, another chunk of the set fell, but the mechanicals caught it, and Bottom said, 'we're not trying to destroy your house'. Bottom's brother, 10, played Thisby, and used a ridiculously effective falsetto. I do not know if the mechanicals could be made any funnier. I think the director wanted Erin to play Thisby, which would have been another effective sight gag. we've never seen the alternate production, but it would be interesting. stars in one production get minor roles in the other. interesting to compare. the young son of friends of ours, with the sterling name of Kempton, played the Indian boy. someone held his hand thru out, elsewise, no doubt, he'd wander off, or something. he and his family were at the halloween party we attended last year, at the home of the play's director. this little fellow spent the evening wandering around. he wore a pirate outfit and carried a sword and a flashlight, indoors and out. at one point, people had gathered around the tv, because the Red Sox were playing the Rockies in maybe the last game of the World Series. Kempton sat all piratey on a hassock up close to the tv, fully rapt. wonderful picture.

learning xml, reading Creeley, and today listened to my first White Stripes. I used to take interest in latestness, but perhaps that is a young person's sport. at any rate, I don't keep up, admitted, tho I'm still a pretty good cultural sponge without trying. so I'm late to the WS party but must weigh in. I like the sense of sound in WS, weird sounds, precise ones. that's a poetic sensibility behind the music. I am utterly taken with the drums. Meg maintains a solid beat with a clattery ambiance. and the drums are kept forward, to secure visceral lift. Phish is great but their sound balance leans heavily towards guitar, tho drums, bass, and piano are just as solid as Trey's feature. "We Are Going to be Friends" is an oddly sweet, folkie song. Jack has a voice of character. the strangled effects of his full-throated rock singing is not to my taste, less interesting, but it is his, at least. for shouty rock singers I'll take Steve Marriott (Small Faces, Humble Pie) who is really good (supposedly Jimmy Page saw Marriott as model for the singer Page wanted for Zep) or, heaven help me, one of the singers for AC/DC. my favourite song, of what I have met, is "My Doorbell". lush piano chords, heavy handed drumming, and splashing cymbals. I've played it at least 20 times today. so what are we going to do about poetry? is the game up or what??? I don't need to be saved tho my blood's in the water. I have voiced my persistence, independent of fair reader. this music here is light, and I think of Creeley's earnest interest, that transcended all that politically-inspired commitment to metered process. he was not quite a garage band, but he kept his instrumentation pretty austere, maybe moreso than Zukofsky, say, who wielded some plump classicism amidst his paring down. Lorine Niedecker. I'm a 1000 page poem guy, yet these practiced essentials are learning nodes for me. I wrote something at work... two things, actually, that I have not looked at. nor have you. poetry is not a social context for me. if you take Creeley free from his connections, well, it is an experiment in essence.

That's Where Dr Bedford Ended Up

died young
is just
a thing
local theatre
production
Bob was not
much better
prepared

I am learning XML. XML stands for X-Men Language and... Okay, it stands for eXtensible Markup Language. I mention this because XML demands firm accuracy. If you open a tag, you have to close it (unlike html, which is a similar mark up language, but much more loose about rules), and all statements must follow a rigid logic. Heaven forfend that you should commit a typo. Please do not fall asleep yet, I am bringing this to thoughts on poetic practice. The rigid demands of xml are challenging to work within, at least when you first start out with it. Think of Oulipo, or simply a defined rhyme and rhythm scheme. Those defined parametres can actually open possibilities for a writer. Oh look, I am beginning sentences with capitals! This, for me, is a stricture. When I first began typing, on a typewriter, I found that the less I used the shift key, the better, one less thing to deal with. A lot of poetry is written at odds with its structure. How many poets make a craft of rhyme and rhythm? Few do, by my reading. Especially in the current day (Henry Gould is an exception, from what I have seen). Metre and rhyme are more like burdens for many poets, as they follow rules they feel they must adopt. One of the keen things about Emily Dickinson is how she subverts the rules. The missteps in her metre and the off rhymes are canny realignment of old virtues. On the other hand, Whitman + rhyme/metre = botched Tennyson, he kowtowed to that structure till he had the good sense to blow it all up. Creeley, who really is the point of this ramble, follows from Dickinson. I cannot think off hand if he ever spoke of her or her influence. His early career was plangently poised in rhyme and metre. Plangently, because he was not smooth or comfortable with the stricture. But he was dogged. In that doggedness, he was able to greet words profoundly Yes, an early volume of his work was Words, followed by Pieces. I did not cotton to Creeley ay tall, when I first met his work. All I could witness then was the clunkiness in For Love and Words. That and the persistent attention in and of words. Which I regard as a virtue, but to read at a time when I didn't know poetry or its possibilities, all I saw was a grey bind. Creeley is not a colourful poet, which is to say, he gave me no toehold. Not until Pieces, which I discovered with the help of Robert Grenier and his class, did I decide that Creeley was great, with writing of a trippy focus.

The Bird
flies. She
flies.

Pretty sure Mr C was at least stoned if not tripping during the composition of these pieces, slightly post-psychedelic age (past the early giddiness, that is). I got Pieces where I didn't get For Love (my copy of that book is loaded with griping marginalia). I got one or two Creeley tomes after P, then moved on (oops, not counting his prose, especially his criticism)). I felt that I had the use of him. Creeley has always been there for me, tho. I want to read deeper now. I think I saw Creeley as Heading 2 to Olson's Heading 1. But that conversation between them, Creeley 16 years younger, was a matter of equals. This downright constancy of Creeley's sense of word and relationship was a structuring influence on the broadcasting intensity of Olson. Olson was a lifelong scholar, but he was a sloppy, crazy ass one. He was an adventure in the act. And that is what I love about him. But not to be fooled that he was clear, organized, or orderly. Creeley had the metre. Olson had this poignant energy that remains a worthy exercise. Olson made arabesque, Creeley found the words. What is wonderful is that they found each other, and combined (to some extent). Olson's local is mapped, whereas Creeley's is personal. We do not need to choose. Creeley took the unit as word, tho that unit had dimensions or aspects within. That breath that Olson talks of, and Ginsberg likewise, sounds nice, locus for their energy (Olson has always been an energy transfer for me), but it is more like a story. Olson's breath is a nervous New England accent, which I imagine I have I am stuck with my heritage). The commanding momentum of Olson is not his breath, but his crazy exuberance. Creeley was never exuberant, he was too tranced by the most local and plain. I am admitting thru out this piece that I fought Creeley. I have had to learn the simplest things last. Olson is all unbound complexity. Creeley is about the words that people us. I hope some of this makes sense. In xml, when you say something, you say it very precisely. Your xml editor will tell you that you have erred. It will not validate what you wrote, it will not tell you that your xml is well-formed (both italicized terms are official xml distinctions). Try thinking of poetry that way, which I think Creeley did. Try thinking of poetry, in general.

to make up for saturday's wretched dragon movie, which I believe was called Dragon Lance (there was yet another dragon flick, as well), Erin and I watched Beowulf. at least it made a modicum of sense, tho it certainly was a sloppy thing. it was done in that live action animation, like 300. it seemed more cartoony than 300. everyone looked made of plastic, and the backgrounds weren't so floridly thrilling as in 300. still, it evoked a sense of Beowulf and that world. I am not saying accurately, just that it all kinda worked. the merrymaking in the mead hall had a stilted quality but you could imagine a real place from that suggestion. by stilted I mean that the animation was of the quality of video games (quality and video games should not, I wot, be associated in the same sentence), especially those bits that delineate the 'plot', before gamester does all that mindless jumping and exploding. then Grendel. he looked misdrawn, or like Gumby after the steamroller hits him. I had the same feeling with the dwarf in 300, the grotesqueness went too gaga. in action, Grendel looked 2-dimensional. his actions were brutal, tearing limbs and biting heads off. these atrocities weren't quite focused on, as if good taste were trying to peek thru. which is silly. I actually think that it should have been more gory, because it came across as Wile E Coyote, especially given that the physics of tossed human bodies didn't seem exactly Newtonian as they floated and revolved serenely. Beowulf was played by a beefy guy unknown to me. I detected Anthony Hopkins behind a beard and big belly, and John Malkovich. Beowulf was kinda like Cuchulain plus super hero. when he fought Grendel, he earnestly did so nude. the naughtiest bits were kept discreetly obscured. again, I think they might as well show them, as a kind of integrity. because there was at least a touch of the priapic in the way Beowulf was presented. his fight with Grendel was fairly stupid. Grendel seemed to change in scale in various shots, Beowulf looked plastic, and movements of both were nothing close to lifelike. okay, so then Grendel dies, and Grendel's mom... Beowulf must deal with her. and she's... it's Angelina Jolie! she's in a gold plastic (opaque Saran Wrap, I'm thinking) body suit, or it is a department store mannekin playing body double. she wears heels, sic, and a long tail. now if this isn't Beowulf with a Hollywood aesthetic then I know not what is. at least it is Angelina Jolie, who can reasonably be cited as iconic hottie of the present day (and she roosts with the male counterpart of that). (!!!). she seduces Beowulf basically by being Angelina Jolie. it doesn't quite work. I mean I acknowledge that in cultural terms there's an uh huh attached to her name, at least if my reading of People magazine is correct. natheless, it is a bit too easy for grand Beowulf to go wobbly. so Anthony Hopkins understands that Beowulf fell for Angelina, as he had earlier. he kills himself. Beowulf is king. blah blah until elderly Beowulf battles the dragon (was it her? I got confused). this is cinematic silliness, enthralling to the degree that people would actually offer such cartoonitude to an intelligent audience. what captivated me was the nihilism that is so intrinsic to Norse myth. Beowulf, the character, was deep in that. which is why gore and John Thomas desrve to be featured. trust me, I am not overweighting this movie. after all, Robert Zemeckis is involved, and the junk that he's done does not impress me. I HAVE read Beowulf, tho it has been decades, and I DO want to read it again. I love the sound of English that way, and the whole framework is compelling. I shall, when I can, return to the written Beowulf. this is the biggest plus of the movie.

a spring day in the full range of that possibility. Beth left before 8:00 to visit her mother in NJ. I had an html project to work on. it was pretty rainy when Beth left. it is Pole Capping Day in this burg, but with the rain that ceremonial event looked unlikely. around 9:30, tho, a clamour began to develop on the green across the street. sun was out, sky was clear. I roused Erin, who normally spends most saturdays in bed, zzzzzzz, but he was excited to see what up. it was a muster of Minuteman companies. which is to say, cosplay, American colonial style. a gallimaufry of fife&drums, and muskets, and the buzz of people. I could at this point explain that Polecapping is a re-enactment of a Sons of Liberty demonstration lo these 233 years agone. we met our friend from the Billerica (that's 3 syllables, s'il vous plait: drop the 'e') Minutemen. we were interrupted by a call to parade. this parade is all of 200 yards, to where the polecapping occurs. one of the few times the town rouses itself from its mundane torpour. the ceremony itself occurs in this traffic island at the edge of the centre. obnoxious speechifying, crap about freedom. a state rep, a town somebody, prattling about what they know not. we listened to this a couple of years ago, and left before the pole was capped. Erin and I waited it out this year, and won the spectacle of... okay, it's like this. back in the day, the Sons of Liberty placed a red cap in an oak tree, signifying defiance. that tree is gone, so the minutemen (women as well) erect a pole there. then a stalwart climbs up, aided by a rope. cap tops the pole. one of the silly myths that speakers tried to promulgate was a sense of unanimity. it is never like that, come on. I've read that the colonies were split roughly in 3rds: against the crown, for it, and neutral. but it was all treated like Thanksgiving rivalry, with no sense of the human complexity. bleah. Erin and I then got hamburgers and sat on the porch and ate. a while later we went on an errand: Erin needed a watch. we biked down to T J Maxx, where you get the max for the minimum. no go. it was spitting rain when we left. coming back, that spitting became torrential. and there was thunder. we pit-stopped at CVS, consumer value store, just to get under cover. I stood at the doorway watching a tremendous downpour. a man in a vehicle parked in the handicap space called me over. he sat in a wheelchair inside the vehicle and asked me to lift the ramp in. I did so but the door would not close. I was soaked before he asked my help, but the rain was even more intense than before, I felt like I was inside a blur. finally he decided that his door control had shorted out, so he had me lower the ramp. Erin had, by this time, come out to help. the man went in in search of screwdriver, where's my Swiss Army knife when needed? back in the store I noticed a selection of watches, and Erin was able to find one both inexpensive and duly high in gizmo rating. I think the man got batteries, and both the clerk and store manager were suitably concerned and helpful. we purchased the watch, then stood in the doorway again, watching a tremendous downpour. the man in the chair solved his problem and drive off. I don't mind the rain but it bothers me to subject my bike to it. but I was now quite cold and we were not far from home. so we cycled off. inches of water were in the road, once more a blur. we both dried and oiled our bikes and changed into dry clothes. by which time the rain had ceased and the sun was out. after dinner the boys settled in for a movie. the choice was between Beowulf and some dragon movie. dragon movie won. we lost. a very long, confused set up supposedly readied us for present day action. it did not. suffice to say that the stiff, male model lead meets with the blonde, bland starlet, and dragons and overlords screech about LA, or whatever city it was. plotwise, it was like taking a text thru various Babelfish excursions before arriving back to English. or what passes for. movies like this are coded, you use the shorthand to get over the need to explain. this movie thrust explanations at us at the beginning, then just unleashed the pyrotechnics. that I dozed off periodically (I am wickedly weary lately) should not suggest that I missed anything. basically, if there is anything basic at all here, Godzilla, and Nazghul, and Transformers, and Power Rangers, and Star Wars, and Lord of the Ring all conspired to inspire this movie. every time I woke up, the pair was elsewhere and more explosions and screeching beasties. I thought there would be deconstructable material in this flick, but there doesn't seem to be any material in it at all, just motion. which relates right back to that stupid ceremony, in which tar and feathering was actually presented in a positive light as part of the Sons of Liberty's actions. sounds like terrorism to me. as too, if you've ever read Nelson Mandela's autobio, his youthful exuberance. a friend brought up Creeley today, a writer I greatly respect and acknowledge debt to, but who I don't entirely enjoy. I think the strength and value of Creeley lies in his dogged attention to the veriest of mundane speech and act. neither the movie or the ceremony evinced any such thing. words and acts are shams, and shameful in that condition. Creeley could not see things that way. I have to return to the texts, Creeley's, because the bullshit is politically and morally not viable. at all.

two not so related things before work. 1st, Days Poem, the book, sits near the top of Ron Silliman's most recent Recently Received. the 1st book on the list is The Journey to Kailish by Mark Allen. hm. down the list a ways, Daniel Abdal-Hayy Moore has 16 books, which total may (or may not) best Days Poem in page count. it's an odd satisfaction seeing my name listed (Ron, read my book first!!!!!), and I am suddenly reminded of WCW's poem El Hombre. except that that poem suggests more modestly than I am willing to claim. god knows if Ron will ever read Days Poem, or many of the books on the list without an Armantrout as author. which is not to doubt his willingness, if only to 'keep up'. but it still feels like being present, my book there in that list. the world is so crowded! knowing that Ron Silliman possesses a certain book, and may thus read it someday, mayhap will tempt you to get said book. duly note that he provides links, which is going the extra mile:

the other thing with which I mean to ramble concerns Facebook. some while ago, I unexpectantly received an invitation to be a Friend. which meant, for me, joining Facebook. and so I went all facebooky for a while. I haven't really given it much time lately, and it does seem to take a bit of time to proceed well with Facebook. so I have a short list of Friends. it's a neat list of people tho I cannot claim them all as homeys. I've met or even know a handful, the rest I have had at least some correspondence with. it is kind of like Silliman's recently Received, or his comments box (to which I do not (well, I think I have once or twice) contribute). I remember seeing a valuation of Facebook as being around 15 billion. which probably is inflated but still. I do not know how Facebook revenues itself, but sure enough people are interested in its service (it seems less overwhelming than Myspace, where florid web design reigns). I just think of the correspondences of which we have record, how that dynamically worked. can Facebook rattle up the same courage of writers. the letters of Olson and Corman (I have always been juiced by Letters To Origin) was never in display mode until the letters were long writ. so that differs from the Facebook practice of public encounter. Facebook distinguishes from listserv, where confrontation is the only distinction. and blogs remain personal territory in the main, with corrals where comments can sun themselves. Facebook may just be a game, but we all must acknowledge how tempting it is to see our names dance out there, all 6 degrees of connection, as if poetry were a power... please meet me on Parnassus top, and bring your Facebook Friends... salut a tous!

I may not have made it clear that I like and respect Jonathan Williams' work, both as poet and as publisher. as a poet, he was adventurous and fun, rollicking even. such playfulness did not deter the seriousness of his work, it informed it. Davenport must have inspired me to read Williams deeper, and I am glad that I did. as publisher, JW brought forth some classics. all honour to him.

the death of Jonathan Williams got me thinking. I never really studied him, in that sense of literary imperative. I met his work in the early 70s, when I read New American Poetry. I enjoyed Elite/Elate, and a couple of short later books. I'm not trying to place him in the poetry pantheon, just indicating my acquaintance. when artists die, exquisite documents of effect appear. those documents tend to work from template and are not, finally, useful. not having met JW, I cannot count coup on his memory in that way, either. it occurred to me that I have no iconic heroes left alive. I think the possibility of iconic hero has burnt off, in fact. Charles Olson affected me as a writer perhaps more than any other, tho I will say that the 1st writer that I emulated was probably Robert Benchley, he also of Worcester, Mass). I did not hear about Olson until as much as a year after his death, so he could hardly fulfill the role for me that Pound and Dahlberg did for O. but I did follow his indications. I read much of those writers associated, however accurately, with Black Mountain. sought out the historians that he touted, Sauer and Harrison, and the ancients. etc. it made sense to me, following this course, and still does. having said that, I recognize that Olson was nuts. Guy Davenport has a terrific essay in which he tries to find someone, among Olson's partisans and peers, who actually got what the Big O was talking about. good luck on that. nothing wrong with that bizarre sort of murk. I would say Jung, for instance, was pretty arcane as well. the caution is simply not to take it all too gullibly or systematically. the Olson Now conference that I attended last year couldn't quite shake free from slavish respect, tho Ben Friedlander for one posed some useful and sharp questions regarding Olson (an unvoiced anti-Semitism). Olson's body has lain mould'ring in the grave for nearly 40 years so the common grief of knowing him should have worn off. for that matter, the equal and opposite re-evaluation should have toned down too, but I do not think it has. I'm reading The Poem of a Life by Mark Scroggins, about Zukofsky. I may not finish it any time soon, my time is focused elsewhere, but it is a fine book about a fascinating character (don't miss the picture of Zukofsky posing on a motorcycle with a couple of friends). there's an urge to study these people that seems both useful and damaging. I have not yet read Scroggins' account of the relationship of the 3 Zukofskys with Lorine Niedecker but know enough that it was muddled and probably not quite as everyone may have said it was. I mean, this sort of thing is context, but also distraction. I learned a lot from Robert Creeley but I essentially stopped reading him 30 years ago. my attention turned elsewhere, which should not be taken as final judgment. I had a dynamic response to the LANGUAGE poets--I should be more specific and not use the damning lump module: Silliman, Bernstein, Hejinian, Perelman, Susan Howe--but they never were larger than life. Kenner identifying a Pound Era is reasonable, but the poetic landscape that I see (in the direction that I am looking) might be called post-LANGUAGE, but only in a dispirited way. CAConrad eulogizes Jonathan Williams with a hail to the positive energy that JW supplied to the poetry world. Conrad kinda deflates that by mentioning the cat and bat in JW's home, personal attributes that I the reader never partook of. Conrad had the opportunity to meet JW but poetry cannot be contingent on such meetings. such personal assertions are distracting, tho I understand the loss. we can look at Olson and see his Dahlberg daddy, his Pound daddy, even his Creeley daddy, as well as his Creeley son. truth is there, but it also follows a literary line to insist too strongly on these dimensions. we have got to keep our eye on the work itself. I guess that's the bottom line I was heading towards when I began this ramble.

just a quick mench of a kitty Kodak moment. said kitty passed thru the house with imperative. upon investigation (an imperative on our part) we discovered that he had a mouse in his mouth. he seemed rather proud of his catch but suddenly, he dropped it. the cat and the 3 of us studied under the furniture for the escapee till finally mousie scampered forth. our cat, Mowgli, put up a good effort in chasing the mouse till the mouse got wise and climbed a bookcase. Mowgli did not think vertically. the mouse remained there so I easily placed a handy mug over it, a piece of cardboard slipped under that, then I transported it to the porch. I placed the mug on the table, and lifted it. mouse took a moment to get its bearings then hopped onto the bannister then leapt a full 6' horizontally while also dropping 6'. and scampered off. Mowgli has finished off mice but admittedly he isn't a great hunter. when he was still kittenish he chased a mouse into a corner. I wanted to capture the mouse so I got close, with glass in hand. well that mouse had some fight in him, he lunged forward and both Mowgli and I lurched back, and mouse escaped. and one more hunting adventure: I saw that a previous cat, who was an effective hunter, caught a chipmunk. I went out and put my hand on the cat to convince him to release the chipmunk. he did. before skipping off, the chipmunk actually swatted the cat on the nose. it was a Chip 'n Dale moment that really pissed the cat off.

a few notes before I do other things with the day. as an early birthday present we gave Erin a hotel room for last night, so that he could spend more time at Anime Boston. he took the bus in early yesterday. we went in in the afternoon with his bag and because the hotel needed to see the credit card personally. his room was on the 28th floor, with a view of the Charles, upon which sailboats darted like tropical fish. and the Prudential Building looming above. it actually gave me vertigo to approach the window. we spent a little while in the lobby, which of course was busy, with a fair share of anime fans in costume. Erin was dressed simply, with furry ears and a long tail, representing I dunno what. the ears match his hair colour, and with his Olsonian proportions, he makes quite a spectacle. which he likes. people really get into the cosplay stuff. many clearly have practiced their poses, wielding their weapon, wand or whatever prop just so. it is fun to watch. I saw an older guy, in the mall outside the convention centre, wolfishly approach a small group of costumed teens. he looked pervy in his rush towards them. I didn't notice him wearing a convention tag, and he didn't look like someone who would attend. just hanging around looking for photo ops. creepy. there are some nice costumes, that took a lot of effort, and money, to make. sometimes it seems some of the kids are overly committed to the dress up, seemingly too earnest in the statement, but mostly it is just fun. when we got home we watched Balls of Fury. I'll say right off, it was pretty decent. it belongs in that widening genre of flicks ruled by Jack Black and will Ferrell. in fact, the star, whose name I just this moment forgot (never heard of him before) could easily replace Black in Black's movies. same slobby appeal, tho I find him sweeter than JB, whose humour is pretty passive-aggressive. which wears on me. the movie was written and produced by Thomas Lennon, who is behind Reno 911, and some sketch comedies that I've seen. the plot concerns a ping pong wunderkind whose career crumbles when his father is killed. then, as an adult, is coaxed back into the game so that he can get access to this criminal overlord, the same one who killed his father. etc, that sort of plot. in the Ferrell movies that I've seen, and in Nacho Libre, the plot got in the way, but didn't seem to with Balls of Fury. there's a truism, comedies need less plot, not more. having said that, I was taken aback when the female lead suddenly becomes love interest. I didn't notice the turning point when her initial antipathy towards him melted. I guess you need to connect a few of the dots. I think the star's name is Dan Fogler, and maybe if I would have kept up with reading People or Rolling Stone, I'd know more about him. the best thing about the movie was James Hong and Christopher Walken. Hong has been in zillions of movies, Hollywood's go to Asian. within that imposed limit, he's a terrific character actor. in B of F, he has the Mr Miyagi role, and has lots of fun with it. Walken is simply a weirdo. in this movie he gets to ham it up, but there's always something twisty in his characters. and he has that same way of giving odd readings to his lines that Brando had. the movie sustained its pace, which is something the other entries in the genre have failed to do. so anyway, I guess I should check to see if there's anything behind this big rock over here.

things are not scheduling real nifty for me. this saturday has a Vincent Ferrini memorial in Gloucester. in the evening is this:

Saturday, March 22, 8 pm
John Mercuri Dooley, Derek Fenner, John Mulrooney, and Ryan Gallagher
So-and-So Series
The Distillery
516 East 2nd Street
South Boston

the Johns supply woozy ole metro Boston with 2 solid reading series (life! there is life in this burg!), and Derek and Ryan (Bootstrap Press) provide local publishing zest. I support their efforts.

Gary Sullivan is, like, totally talking poetry book covers, and it is an interesting ramble. I have 3 book covers in my cv. Simple Theory. which Beth designed. b&w, a small photo of a nest with 3 eggs, that she twiddled with. I must've added the typography. the image is lovely, more clear than I could have done. simple... theory... works for me.

Days Poem (in 2 doorstopping volumes). 2 pictures by moi-meme. a favourite, scribbly picture done with watercolour pencil, trees, volume 1. trees and stuff, in acrylic, for volume 2. check it out. in both cases, the pictures wrap around to the back.

I'm thinking: the rightness of a cover is defined by the reading. one might just eschew thinking that the work is slagged because of scruffy cover, s'il vous plait. when the poetry lights up, the cover will too. but not vice versa.

Gary's right, it would be nice to have covers, me just standing there a la Three Poems Ashbery. because that photo seems to have a full moment involved, rather than a stiff, thoughtfully implicative image pressed hard on consuming eye. hey, when I met JA, he looked like that.

Days Poem included the work of Erin, who photoshops better than me. and Shanna Compton, whose knowledge exceeded my confusion, which confusion sent Erin astray. do you see things here? the input streams and hopefulness, for something to enclose and advert or suggest the words within. who knows how to do it, except budding Goebbels. choices were made by enthusiasms, a pretty good calculus.

y'know, yesterday was Lloyd "Little Poison" Waner's birthday (104th?). one month later will be Paul "Big Poison" Waner's birthday. but nemmind that. Henry Gould informs me of a reading next month with hisself and Anny Ballardini, to wit:

Brown University's John Hay Library will host a bilingual poetry reading, in English and Italian, by Anny Ballardini, a visiting poet, editor and translator from Bolzano, Italy; Henry Gould, of the Brown Library staff; and Peter S. Thompson, Assistant Professor in Comparative Literature at Roger Williams University, on Wednesday, April 23rd, from 3 to 5 p.m., in the Lownes Room. The reading is free and open to the public, and will include a discussion with the poets afterward, and refreshments. (Please note : the Lownes Room, on the 2nd floor, is fully accessible; if you require assistance, please call the Library at 863-3723 a few hours beforehand.)

what better way to celebrate Shakepeare's birthday? if it proves impossible for me to attend, make sure you take good notes. remember: keyword: refreshments.

bulbs that I planted last fall, a bit late, started peeking thru the soil last week or so. I also noticed that elsewhere in the yard was evidence of more bulbs, planted by previous residents. since friday was springy and verging on mild, I thought saturday would be a likely day to rake out the beds. saturday was the day that snow and rain fell, at least during the morning. ne'ertheless in the afternoon I took rake in hand. I speak of this because it is a ritual, one that I haven't celebrated in a couple of years. I love bulbs. my 1st bit of gardening came about when I got a bulb catalogue some time in early summer. I decided to order. this entailed waiting 3-4 months for the bulbs to arrive at planting time. then it was another 6 months before I got to see what I had planted. it was worth it. I never begrudged raking in the fall, because I can mulch the garden with the leaves, and replenish the compost pile. and in the spring, digging those leaves out to let the yellow tops of bulbs feel the sun. one winter when we'd had a lot of snow, I had to chop away at the residue of snow, now impacted ice, that I'd shoveled there earlier in the season, because bulbs were under there. I did this on Good Friday, and wouldn't you know that on Easter, the blooms showed. righteous. it's early for bulbs here, by a week or 2. one of the 1st listservs that I subscribed to was a gardening one (which was a surprisingly snarly gathering of cranks: more flame wars and such kind of moronic crap there than on any other list I've been on). folks in California and elsewhere were trumpeting the arrival of their daffodils in January. aint you people got no winter? daffodils are my favourite, especially when I'm wandering lonely as a cloud. bright and brilliant, and disinclined to be bothered by pests, not even deer. I like that a bulb carries the entire plant to come within it. I extend that image of renewal to Geof Huth, and wish him the recovery that spring brings to us all.

money up for poets, that is, thoughts on Jessica Smith charging for the right to read parts of her blog, I see that Lanny Quarles has made a varied offering. he takes a somewhat different approach in that he is releasing selected archives of his blog in printed form. his blog may be more suited for print pub than JS's, because it is mostly poetry rather than commentary and personal reflection, which I take JS's blog to be. so the situations are not comparable. in both cases, tho, you likely must know the person's work some to roll the dice with your own moolah. that would be the difficulty of online purchase. I will assert that Lanny produces an adventurous range of textual and visual work, if you would care to do that supportive monetary thing.

the documentation by Geof Huth (rhymes with Booth) of his open heart surgery has been spectacular, in many ways (here is the link). literally a spectacle, but also the way he manages to present the experience thru its many scary developments. his patient critical factor never wavers, which to me takes courage. he reveals equanimity and focus of a Buddhist sort. there is a position where one could merely be whiny, or one might overwhelm the experience with drama, but Geof doesn't do that. he reluctantly offers an unsatisfying photo of himself because later versions would not properly show the actuality of the surgical wounds at their most raw. I'm impressed that he writes as much as he does. hospitals are stultifying, and it must be worse for one surgically ravaged. I'm reminded of the story attributed to St Francis Assisi. while working in his garden, he is asked what he would do if told that he would die the next day. he responded by saying that he would continue doing what he was doing. not bewail his fate, not party like it was 1999. Geof chose a similar option. we should all think healing thoughts and hope Geof's recovery continues well.

reading Tom Beckett's What Speaks brings back--urgently, I might say--his reading in Cambridge last fall. the words that he writes, and the words that he spoke, are/were tightly wound conveyances. his reading was an event because his commitment to its impetus (the writing) was so palpable and physically felt. in the writing here, Tom accepts the physical insistence, that demand, along with the intellectual, metaphysical space inhabited in the working of the poem. there was zero showmanship in Tom's reading, his poetic commitment is much too saturated to lay in that field. the same goes for the writing here, which comes down to a dynamic sort of physically intense thinking. I do not know how to put it better. I mean, I keep using the word physical, to suggest. Tom possesses a Rimbaudian sort of vision. when Tom finished his reading he was soaked in sweat. there was an effort involved. Tom's modesty does him disservice, because he writes masterpieces. no shit!

I am pleased to point to a review of Days Poem by Anny Ballardini. Days Poem, is, of course, by ME, but the review is by Anny. find the review here , at Galatea Resurrects. certainly I am avid about all things Bramhall, but really, the writing is lovely, as well as percipient. public thanks to Anny for this great gift, and to Eileen for the ever useful review blog that she captains.

a click on the following link brings you to a previous review of Days Poem by Jeff Harrison. my two reviews: I'm very honoured.

If really pressed you might allude to a Worcester source passing secret files under cover of night. Expecting noo thanks - you're really transforming the bits so, they become incidentals. I'm rarely of such use. . . .

a discussion at DIY comment field about Jessica Smith putting a price on some of her blog postings. I don't know why I am drawn to this debate but I wrote some unfocused thoughts earlier (but luckily avoided the PUBLISH POST button) and here I am again. it is odd that people are discussing it, maybe. I do not see JS losing anything here, there's no financial outlay. so if she gets one subscriber, she is ahead. the market decides. it would be nice if she opened the books, give an idea what the venture is doing (just as Eileen Tabios has brought out Meritage Press' tax info). maybe this is the future. I'm trying to think if I have a larger issue in sight here. I do not think this is a breakthru idea, it's a simple trade of goods (intellectual) for money. I don't mean that snipingly, just observing that the internet has a strange economy. it seems to bubble with money transfers, yet indirection is the key. I mean, look at Google, and how it offers goods and services to you, but you are not that aware of how it makes its money. that all occurs beneath the white expanse of the Google pages. so how does a poet gain in that environment? gosh, I don't know. it is worth speculating, tho. certes, writers get their word, and name, out on the internet. that's worth something. it doesn't sully one's work to sell it, but the number of hoops you are willing to jump thru may add an unwanted impression. or who cares about that, really? I think I have bought a literal ton of poetry books and mags. some I bought with avid interest, some I bought dutiful, to learn, and some I bought without knowing the writer but simply to support the press. that seems like the poetry economy. it probably needs some work.

the day made a radical change by mid sunday morning. a friend called and asked if we could use 3 tickets to the ballet. for sunday. Beth already had plans with a friend, but Erin and I were free. he and I were going to work with The Gimp (the open source graphics program). that is, he was going to show me the ropes of the program. but ballet trumps that. I mean, you know how it goes. what better way for male bonding than an afternoon at the ballet? I'm not knowledgeable about dance but it's a spectacle at the very least. Erin has the added interest of having played Tybalt last year in a production of the play. so in to Boston's theatre district went we. the trip included a bus barreling harrowingly close behind us on the Mass turnpike. tra la. Erin and I had a smackerel beforehand, which proved an event. I know Erin will blog about it. the last time we did ballet, we ate at a pleasant Vietnamese restaurant. I couldn't quickly recollect exactly where that was, so we chose a nearby Chinese one. Erin noticed that the place had 3 different names prominently displayed out front: Emperor's Palace, Empire Palace, and Imperial Palace. they knew it was a palace, for sure, and something to do with Emperors. I wonder if the place wasn't originally a theatre, that would account for its vastness. we went up a large curving stairway to get to the restaurant. someone there asked how many, then led us to a very large open room. I thought it was hopelessly crowded, but he waved and someone in the distance waved back, and we were instructed to go to that person. that person gestured toward the table, and tossed a ticket written in Chinese on it. we were then treated to a flow of servers pushing steam tables, who offered different items. this was a new method to me, tho surely it is common enough. I got a little spooked, that we were piling up a credible bill for the meal. some friends were in Italy once, and were offered tartuffe--white truffles--for the meal. they did not realize that each slice added significantly to the cost of the meal. the hall was noisy and communication a little fuzzy, so we got a number of items without knowing exactly what they were. several different dumplings with, you know, stuff inside. egg roll type things, likewise filled with ingredients. it was decent enough. the meal ended up about 14 bucks each. could've gotten a cheaper meal if not overwhelmed by it all. there was no clue as to the cost (in English, at least) of each item. well, that was an experience. at the ballet, we worked our way thru the crowd in the lobby and found our seats. sort of. I should mench that we were dressed in suit coats and I wore a tie. there's no requirement for that, but it seems a propos, just as I wouldn't, being my father's son, go to church without dressing up. Erin in a suit, standing 6'6", is impressive. and me, well, I'm awesome. an usher led us to our seat, even saying, right next to that man. eventually, tho, it proved that that was not our proper seats. we moved to the centre of the balcony, better seats. specifically, we were 4 rows up from the front of the balcony, excellent view. visually, the ballet was 1st class. sets and costumes were treats of colour. I liked that I could see the marks on the floor of the stage. I mean, that sense of the geometry of the dance, the dancers as atomic particles bouncing precisely. I also tried to compare dancers that were doing the same step. my eye is not practiced in this but I could see differences. Prokofief's score is brassy, at times bombastic, and a lot of fun. what I have seen of West Side Story looks silly, the prancing gang members lack any real sense of threat, or touch with reality, for that matter. combined with some crunching moments in the score, the antagonism of the Caps and Mons was portrayed forcefully and effectively in the ballet. the frolicsome moments were perhaps the best, tho, the choreographer (John Cranko ring a bell?) clearly connected with these points in the ballet. Mercutio's death was rather comical. he kept flopping around after he was skewered, springing up and otherwise belabouring the point that he dead. shades of Marlon Brando in Mutiny on the Bounty. the people who gave us the tickets (their children are sick) were particularly excited about seeing this ballet because it was the 1st ballet they had seen together. I overheard the elderly couple next to me say the same thing, that R&J was the 1st ballet they had seen together. I felt some guilt, that our friends couldn't go, and that Beth couldn't. I even teared up thinking that Beth missed out, she has a greater dance aesthetic than do I, not that her day out with her friend was onerous. ah me, the complications.

if it's all right with you, I point to Youtube, aka Cultural Millstone (but natheless), for a look at Duane Allman. something visceral for me as he gets down to the lowest part of the guitar's neck. sometimes, I feel like my poetry does that. but I cannot tell you that.

sometimes, as Shanna does, you just gotta explain things. in her case, to divert the impression that For Girls is flarf. as a former flarf list denizen, I saw Shanna's flarfistic expressions, hot off the grill. as she notes, flarf isn't a technique but an attitude. and part of the attitude, I wot, is the stolen moment, perhaps-at-work-goof-off of/with language, often reactive and timely. Shanna's contributions were always good, or let's just be honest to say, mine weren't. not in the quick fun roisterous way that signals flarf. I always laboured at flarfy expressions, which is wholly out of key, both to flarf qua flarf, and to my own speed mode. I'm saying that those skittering expressions that Shanna wrote presumably quickly at work are not the same as in her book, tho that is not to deny the writerliness of either faction of her enterprise. and I think the distinction, or the sense of wider palette, if that's a legit image to offer, is useful, or worth considering. the play of single poems versus the pathfinding program of a book. Girls is a book, written, in its way, as a whole, or gathered as a larger installation. I like that Shanna steps to the fore of the proscenium to indicate her own conception, and not just leave it to the reader's assumptions. not to say that any of this can't be argued and such. I have my apparently daunting 1000 page Days Poem, which I view as an inviting variety but I think readership (thou minusculeness) sees as a resistant block. it is not. it is not too many words, it is words, living values, in moments. how many words does each moment contain? or, what's the right number of words for each moment? I want to defend Days Poem as a reading experience, and that the parametre of page count is merely descriptive, not essential. having read For Girls, I know that it is not flarf, tho the flarfy influence can be safely spoken of. anyway, For Girls lives in its own distinction.

oh, hello. haply you will notice that there are now 22 new made poems at Simple Theories and 134 installments to the Harrison/Bramhall set to concerning the practice and thought of poetry at Antic View. have at it.

Wobbling POETRY WORLD

I’ve certainly been somewhere, between ten and twenty times in the last two weeks.

Actually I’ve never been partly, because I’ve been a dozen times

Among those wobbling frameworks going to POETRY WORLD, and among those not going, there turn out to be many concerns about POETRY WORLD.

Some wobbling frameworks are concerned about the standards of POETRY WORLD.

Some wobbling frameworks are concerned about the official of POETRY WORLD.

Some wobbling frameworks are ideology of POETRY WORLD.

Some wobbling frameworks are concerned about how problem POETRY WORLD changes what wobbling frameworks are.

Some wobbling frameworks are concerned about the relationship between “experimental” wobbling frameworks and POETRY WORLD.

Some wobbling frameworks are concerned about who’s more “inside outside” at POETRY WORLD and they’re concerned about what “inside outside” means.

Some wobbling frameworks are concerned about who gets POETRY WORLD and who does not.

Some wobbling frameworks are concerned about the relationship of the wobbling frameworks at POETRY WORLD to the wobbling frameworks concerned about the relationship between POETRY WORLD and larger U.S. institutional powers of system.

Some wobbling frameworks are concerned about whether their friends will be POETRY WORLD fun.

Some wobbling frameworks are concerned about whether there will be enough interesting wobbling frameworks there to balance out the dull, pompous shirts who are POETRY WORLD.

Some wobbling frameworks are concerned about the importance of being POETRY WORLD.

Some wobbling frameworks, if they are also concerned about getting word, are available at POETRY WORLD.

Some wobbling frameworks are concerned about letting others read schedules at POETRY WORLD.

Some wobbling frameworks are concerned about letting others know that they have no POETRY WORLD but in the proximity of POETRY WORLD.

Some wobbling frameworks are concerned about the distinction between POETRY WORLD and New York.

Some wobbling frameworks are concerned that other wobbling frameworks care about too much.

Some wobbling frameworks are concerned that other wobbling frameworks don’t understand all of these, in greater or lesser degree perhaps

Coda
Are you concerned?
about POETRY WORLD?
and those are concerns?
I mean so many wobbling frameworks?
we are concerned about it anyway?
might we as well discuss what we’re concerned about?

the 1st issue of Critphoria has a poemic collaboration by my self and Tim Peterson's self. interesting presentation of it, as you will note if you follow the link. in addition, a nice collection of work by people who aren't named Bramhall.

I'm glad Jack Kimball made it to the Demolicious reading with Peter Inman and Tina Darragh since we weren't able to attend. 2 of the early, puzzling LANGUAGE poets, from when that aegis kinda meant something.

Tom Beckett is bowing out of EXCHANGE VALUES: no more new ones. but what a resource, both online and in print. I especially like the interview with Mary Rising Higgins, a curiously iconoclastic writer. Beth visited Mary when Mary came east to stay at an artist colony in the shadow of Mt Monadnock in southern NH. Mary was a grade school teacher, and had family responsibilities, so her writing was something she had to squeeze in. you look at her work, her oeuvre, and see how doggedly she worked. the weight of each word, and the lines, is a matter of her effort as a poet. we are lucky to know about her work, she didn't have the sense to hang out in NY bars. the best buzz, I suppose, is what one finds in her books.


I also like (of the more recent interviews), Sheila Murphy's interview with Tom Mandel. particularly because of the discussion of Mandel's collaboration with Daniel Davidson, Absence Sensorium. somewhere on the net, Gary Sullivan writes about Davidson, and there is/was a pdf of some of Davidson's work. it's fascinating work, and made more so, as with MRH, by death.

finally, or, more impressively, finalement, Ron Silliman, linkmeister, gives a good review of Geoff Young's Riot Act. WHICH the percipient few 1st heard about here. good review = I agree, of course, but I will say that Ron uses the right adjective
for the book: delicious. Young's work as publisher has overshadowed just how wonderful he is as a poet, just as Tom Beckett's editing work has taken attention from his own eminent work. may Ron's imprimatur bring more eyes to Young's work.

2 movies. I watched The Last Samurai in sort of mode last week, abed and sick. I efeffed (fast forwarded) thru the boring parts, and was somewhat brain-wonky thru out. which is perfect, it's a Tom Cruise movie. I don't get the TC appeal. the young TC looked like 2nd rate high school jock/jerk, a flinch of recognition that stays with him even now. the scientological silliness that surrounds him now doesn't help. as an actor, he's overly conscious. this was evident in the 1st scene. he's supposed to be drunk, and a renegade, and what all. the great Viggo plays just about the same scene in Hidalgo, which comes across with more resonance than TC manages. whatever. the reason I, a person of consummate taste, would watch this flick is the samurai milieu. I saw the last part of the movie last year when Erin was hospitalized. so okay, plotwise, Tom's a vet of Gettysburg and was a member of the 7th Cavalry, except he did not seem to have been at Little Big Horn, lucky him. now's he's hired to train Japanese troops, to fight the reactionary samurai rebels. at this point the movie steals wholesale from the movie Glory. the green troops are not up to snuff, as TC trains them. in their 1st action, they look into a foggy woods to see wild-looking samurai on horseback, yipes. slaughter slaughter slaughter, all die except for killing machine Tom. the samurai rebels take Tom and, in a way that I didn't comprehend, Tom joins them. the usual scenes ensue. cue Cool Hand Luke, Tom's a rebel himself, and he won't quit. lots of fun looking sword play, with the emotional content of a video game. Tom = implausible, for those keeping score. the big battle scene comes straight from Braveheart. the plucky samurai face off against imperial forces. historically, the imperial forces had something like 6000 troops, and the samurai rebels 300. the samurai rig the battlefield for a devastating surprise for the imperial troops. I wonder if that really happened, just as I wonder if the Scots set up the battlefield like in Braveheart. the samurai really did rout the imperial troops for a while, but then they chose a charge of the light brigade assault, swords versus cannon, that done nothing good for the rebels. only TC survived. oh, don't forget the sensual intercourse scene. TC, prior to this battle, becomes best friends with a female that was, you know, there. the camera scans his iconic Hollywood skin and disinterest as the female person basks in that. I guess you can call that sex. it is, at least, if you are worrying about Xenu and the Galactic Confederacy. the movie looked quite grand, sweeping vistas of Japan, etc, but Tom Cruise is a vortex of dull.

movie 2. Harry Potter and whatever, the 5th movie. I haven't read the Pothead books, only seen the 1st movie. the 5th looked good enough, they keep the scale fantastic. it feels like the story line is straining to stay on topic. you go the larger story, with Harry inexorably moving towards a showdown with the evil Mallomar. the private school hijinx is tired. I wonder how the books go. I'm not agin reading them, just am not in a novel mode currently.

pretty good review of Mark Scroggins book on Zukofsky. I'd already read the review but didn't take note of the whizzer photo of Z till I saw it at Silliman's collective. the Buddy Holly glasses and Z's piercing orbs make for a strong effect. come the Revolution...John Latta has also done a reading of Scroggins' book. I'd like to read it, but I don't think it will happen anytime soon. maybe you could, and give me the gist...

since S Compton and J Kimball popped comments on my recent little rumination on blogs, which (really) makes it seem like this blog is a definable space and not just my romantic thrill of thinking myself, I shall ruminate further... pass me the cud, podner... in the previous, I thought of the word anthology as applying to the blogosphere. I think my articulation did gang a-gley a bit then so I want to embolden the idea more clearly. a blog is not bookish, in the sense of being a detached module of literature. instead, a blog situates with other blogs, in a way that books and mags do not. many blogs are obviously conversations, but even those that aren't involve themselves in a wider conception. so I think that considerations such as Jack is given to do, critiques of the blog machine, are not just useful as critical activity but as reminders of the greater theme. it is not a matter of rules but an embrace of the procedure. content is almost not the point, tho that's too pointedly post-modern for my shoes. I would prefer a tensile construct to the pix of babies and dogs, and the Youtube excavations as well, if we're talking content. but I could write of the Christmas tree coming down today. Erin was off at a Magic card tournament whilst Beth and I removed ornaments from the tree. then mid afternoon it was the Patriots vs the Chargers, and once more the Pats pulled away in the 2nd half. about 3 years ago my father went hospital for the final act. it seems so yesterday. last sunday, Beth and I visited a couple who we lost track of the past year or so. they now live in a rehab center, tho nursing home might draw a better picture. sadly, because of differing condition, they live in separate wings. we found one, the less restricted one, at a concert in the facility's auditorium. a small band earnestly played show tunes and standards. it took a while to find our friend, who we finally located up front, and longer to work our way to her. many sunday afternoon visitations were in progress, and the concert itself was apparently part of an extra effort to get patients involved with the outside world. brownies and punch were being served, either staff or volunteers were making stark effort to look like fun (dancing theatrically and such), and kids were overloading on sugar and creep out. before we made contact with our friend, we waited in the hallway outside the auditorium. several children were playing violently, a kind of desperate articulation of youth. a woman was wheeled from the festivities and immediately began scolding the children. I'm sure she scolded everything in her purview. our friend was pretty lucid tho with serious memory issues, which she was aware of. she was pretty calm about the memory loss, at least at the time. I remember my father's distress at times, a boat slipping from shore. she was always intellectually involved, still retained interest but her memory was an issue. we had a nice visit with her then brought her, she was comfortably peripatetic, to her room. she had an expectation that her husband would be along soon, and was fuzzy why he wasn't. she said she needed time alone to put things together in her head. we went to the other wing to visit her husband. that wing was closed off because the flu was present. they let us in with a caution. his condition was more tenuous. he made an effort to stay present and lucid. people there would be surprised to know that he was a dynamic, very accomplished person with a type A+ personality. and yet. I didn't mean to speak of specifics but it was all so sad. we are, culturally, I guess, so stupid concerning children and elders. our schools are full of adult concepts of situated success rather than progressive sense of learning procedure. our elders are captivated in the dullest gloom. my mild anointing of blogs (including my own) only remarks on the connected position of our assertions. I say that hopefully. I assert that Tributary is a Poetry blog tho you can weigh the actual references to the P-word and its productions as being mightily partial, all in all. but poetry is language with an asserted necessity. just speaking for myself, the shopping tours and what not, the contexts of this blog radiate from how language moves around a subject. the subject is not the point, the language is. returning to the beginning, the pets, the Youtube, if this is just filler or markers, it shows. when the connection to the underlying process asserts its present drive, then it lives, not just as content but as process. so I am ok with whatever, so long as something happens...

there's an industrial machine called Jukka-Pekka Kervinen who creates a lot (roughly Mucho to the 7th) of digital work that doesn't keep to boundaries all too well. in addition, he makes the work of other artists available in various publishing ways. to wit, Forward/Text. this is a culling of the Wryting-L list. it shames me that I haven't made note of this earlier. Sheila Murphy, John M Bennett, Lanny Quarles, me... etc...

Jack Kimball encourages a critical eye towards the blogs here. it is good to remember that blogging is a public enterprise. and we're all in this together, in some way. taking Jack's points:

1) obits. if you haven't written about the deceased previously, then I'm not interested now. obituaries are bad writing, almost by you definition. haven't you ever noticed?

2) youtube. I don't even follow Youtube links unless a compelling case is made. I can do my own time-wasters there, if that's all it is about.

3) snaps of infants and pets. I kind of get the sense of Facebooky sharing that must inspire these offerings, and indeed my quadrapedic friends have appeared here. maybe they should remain in the wallet, unless they have the gumption of (some sort of) weirdness.

4) reminiscences. memory as authority, good point. I like when memory springs to the instant, the tangled thing brought to light once more, so I don't mind letting these things appear even here. for me, at least, that's the opposite of authority, it's the spectacularly random invoking some radical of process. as in, why this now?

I don't mean to make rules, but for sure a causal sense of the blog you write should be endemic to the process. Jack's periodic critiques of blogging are good reminders of the larger enterprise. that the solo-est of bloggers still commits to a greater world. if this anthology is to continue to fly, an awareness needs to remain, of the intersections and rebounds, conversations and interruptions, and variously charged particles...

Eileen Tabios is willing to review wines, to which I add: hey! send me a bottle, too!!! seriously, tho, I worked a long time for a wine store and can honestly say that tasting wines in a formal way enhanced my critical faculty. when I began there, I was in my early 20s with no interest in wine. bottles were always open for sampling in the tasting room (with sinks, mind you: we all spat what we sampled), and I took the opportunity. in formally tasting wines, one methodically assesses colour, aroma, and (finally) taste. I like the idea of this methodical approach. it is a way of staying on topic. Pound's ABCs of Reading similarly offered procedures of assessment, based on one's actual experience of the work. blind tastings are often great levelers of the playing field. lacking the bolstering effect of a wine's reputation, one must rely on one's senses. which is as it should be. I came to respect the critical process. customers would ask about wines and even ask, quite frequently, for recommendations. I learned to speak of each wine as accurately as possible, bringing forth the wine's qualities, not my taste. the Boolean like/dislike function is pretty boring, after all. the excitement of a poem is not simply a tripping of the I like sensor in my brain, but the experience of its whatness, if I can use such a Heideggerian sort of term. I have what I think is a reasonable resistance to Robert Bly's poetry. to speak of the clunky way he fakes his way thru a poem is not quite a pleasure, but it is still a poetic experience in which I (the Reader) enter language's potentialities. he doesn't write what I consider good poems, but his so called bad ones demarcate, in their way, what I do like. in the wine store, I found that each wine had a raison d'etre. someone could be found to like any wine, and what's wrong about that? I definitely had my preferences, and I certainly wouldn't spend the asking price for a great many wines, but I reached a point where I respected every wine for their specific qualities. the lacuna evident in (or not in...?) crummy poems expresses something dynamic even as I, maybe, figuratively fling the book aside. of course we all have our taste, which is to say our boundaries. to leave our taste in the uncomplex world of like/dislike is lazy and unfulfilling. the idea that any poem is all bad or all good is also pretty weak. the yes/no world is flat and prosy. the poetic world is an utter engagement of all salients and dimensions of language, even if it ruffles your truculent feathers.

Tom Beckett dips into the new book by Jean Vengua, Prau, here. he apologizes for being fragmentary, but I think that the fragmentary approach is genuine, consistent with how we read. it is interesting to see the process of reception, rather than just the resolution of a formal essay. with time, the formal essay is the right thing, an exercise in pulling the pieces together, but a new book deserves to the darting interest of the first excited reading. to read poems is a constant revelation not a culminated static state. what bounces off Tom's receptors is by definition of interest. and Jean Vengua is a poet whose work I wish to read. I look forward to reading Prau, and Tom's ongoing divagations.

what is poetry, and how does it define itself from other writing? oh, like I can answer that. I am not consumed by the reading of poetry as I used to be. much of that was a dutiful consumption, as I scouted out the territory and possibility of this manner of writing. it may be that I've always looked at poetry as and all else. poetry is what other writing is not. I fell to poetry because of this indefinition. I'm reading a book on the Gettysburg campaign (not just the battle but what led up to and followed), and it seems a correct energy for me at this time. I think defining poetry's world as different from that one we live in is a poor dalliance. there's a social construct of poetry, which is fine as a social construct, just as church is fine as a social construct. social construct is not the essence, tho. my modest peregrinations and musings, as reported on this blog, strike me as essential in some way that I feel obliged to defend. that the poetry life is not just reading poetry and attending readings. but I shall defend no further. saturday, Beth and I went to Barnes and Noble. almost didn't go in, it was tremendously crowded. we followed a family just leaving the store, in hopes of snaring their parking space. it was like we would rob them once we got to the back of the building. this B&N is a stand alone castle, and next door, essentially the same parking lot, is Chili's, also buzzing. across the street, the mall was more congested than we saw before Christmas. I know there are sales and gift cards to get people out on a surprisingly foggy afternoon. furthermore, the Patriots were to play the Giants, going for 16-0 for the season. the game surely kept a few people home saturday night. among them, me. much as I like watching football, this was only the 2nd game that I watched this season. I watched the 1st half of a blow out earlier. saturday's game was fought in high dudgeon, with the Pats going for a record. I like that Brady and Moss set NFL records on the same pass. and they came up with a Solomonic solution: Moss said cut the ball in two, Brady said keep it. funny, the year my father died, both the Sox and Pats won championships. this (past) year my dog died, which somehow in my mind tied to my father's death. my previous dog died 8 years after my mother died. I looked into the dog's eyes as she passed, could see the light go out, but also, I saw/sensed my mother. one doesn't realize how much one grieves, that the loss burns on. my father's last years were difficult as he grew more distant, ans as his care became more demanding. so that it was a relief that he died. similarly with Brownie. that would be the selfish part of me talking, I guess. when the Red Sox won in 04, it felt like some rare confluence. car horns sounded and church bells rang. my father showed only mild interest, which itself was a pain for me, for him to be that distant, finally. what I write of here is deep pool stuff, twined to the idea of writing that I carry. writing is not just about making these things that people may read. it is a participation and examination. the production of poetry as a manufacturing of things becomes a distraction from the real task. those written events and the living effort that go into them announce a process that exceeds ambition. none of us are beyond ambition, of course, but spiritual implication exists in the process, which strains and gathers thru life. Ron Silliman's grim tally of poet death's for 2007, complete with death head atop the blog post, tastes obnoxious to me. these people that did something then stopped. I don't want to collect that kind of stuff, statistics. the poet's life is written in words not numbers. quantification is a dismal exercise. so we had a quiet New Year's Eve at home. the church across the street rang, more than 12 strokes. hail the new year, lads and lasses.

Walden, again

, originally uploaded by allen_bramhall.

unusual Christmasiness this year: we watched a lot of movies. okay, 1st, the solstice, Beth and I celebrated our 7th anniversary. we ate at the Colonial Inn, which belonged to the Thoreau family back in the day. a festive 19th century New England atmosphere to the dining room. afterwards we sought out the solstice drum circle by the river. it was too cold, dressed (nicely) as we were, so we passed on. saturday following, our Christmas party. Beth loves to cook for crowds. I help but Beth does the heavy lifting. essentially every dish in the house gets used, and that's what I did sunday, cleaning them, that is. on the 24th, we did a little food shopping, then visited a nearby gallery that we like. and so on, Christmas. a roast with Yorkshire pudding. I've had 3 versions of Yorkshire pudding: my mother's mine, and Beth's, all derived from Fannie Farmer, whatever edition current when my parents married in 1944. eggs, flour, water, and salt. usually throw it in the pan with the roast and potatoes. this time, more like a popover, baked in a cast iron pan. our nucular Christmas tradition. so anyway, the things we watched:

Hogsfather, presumably a BBC production, of one of Terry Pratchett's books. I read the 1st 20 Disc World novels pretty much as they came out, now I'm way behind. I turned Beth onto them, and she has read every one, most of them multiple times. now Erin has begun reading them. the production had the usual low rent special effects typical of British tv, but also the solid acting. Death, who has temporarily replaced Hogsfather (read Santa Claus), is a wonderful character. most adjustments from the book made sense, like the absence of the Death of Mice, a little rodent Reaper. surely the cgi for that would have killed the budget, as would making Death's jaws move.

Pirates of the Caribbean--seen it maybe 4 times and still love it. Depp and Rush have great fun with their roles, scenery is great, special effects, swordplay, etc. all lost in the ensuing crap. the 3rd one both put me to sleep and angered me. surely a 4th is due, whether they can scrouge up Depp for it or not. it can be the Keira Knightly show.

Fellowship of the Ring/The Two Towers. lots of issues with this but it still holds up okay. the stalwartly heroic Aragorn was a linchpin in the books and Viggo (who I want to be, someday) does the same for the movies. when he sends Frodo off, so that he can meet the oncoming orcs, you think, poor orcs. it's not that I have anything against Liv Tyler but any scene with her in it was bereft of energy. absolutely useless plot addition. Cate Blanchett was ridiculous, too, as the hey look at me Elf. so went all the Elves, really, except Orlando Hottie and, perhaps, Mr Smith. Jackson just didn't have a way to deal with these timeless creatures. Merry and Pippin were too Bowery Boys for my taste. the homoerotic theme certainly filled the book but it becomes oppressive in the movie, all that male weeping and hugging. it's funny to think that this movie may be what people know of LOTR. not that it aint being read (when the new Harry Potter is finished), but that Elijah Woods IS Frodo, etc. New Zealand looks like home to me.

several recent additions to Antic View here. the conversation that Jeff Harrison and I have here is Poet Work.

strange emanations from the paranormal world continue to be documented at Amazement Stuff. my approach to the paranormal is, of course, rigorously scientific, but don't think my discoveries cannot scare the bejesus out of you.

we've gone to the mall numerous times this Christmas season. we go without the shopping imperative, for the most part. instead, we go and look. I'm very fond of this. I don't know what sort of business season it is but it seems more lively than last year. one time, we went to the Apple Store because Erin's new iPod had a problem. they were fine with replacing it, but tried to make him wait 3 days for a new one to ship in. I gather the point of that was to prevent merchandise leaving the premise at this special time of the year for free when a crazed holiday shopper could be carting away the selfsame. after some dialogue Erin got his Pod. which just shows to go you, but while awaiting the final judgment I noted 20, that's TWENTY, people working at Apple. and a Motley Crue, too, older humans as well as young ones. and pretty darn busy. I love my 4 gig Nano dearly, with a love that's true, but it is all I can do not to yearn for... but I'll cut it off there. I notice that Sony has a store that looks to be modeled similarly. less well lit, but offered as a spacious meeting place between people and their potential new electronic toys. a more refined experience than the noisy intensity of Best Buy and Circuit City. for ambience, J Crew took the cake. the store is new to the mall. whoever designed its look deserves a gold star. the rich colours were beautiful and eye catching, the place was open and inviting. both Abercrombie & Ef and Hollister opt for dark stores and barriers to prevent anyone seeing in/out. obviously a segregation, filtering out parental units and other duds. plus the imperative dance beat to set the hormonal climate. we had a couple of pretty wonky episodes with disinterested store help. given current economic trends, you'd think stores would labour to brighten up the help. we were at the local package store where we noticed a giftie item labeled Abacus. it was in the display of specialty bottlings, in a fancy box, your basic winery sucker punch. I knew it had to be a wine but there was no telling further. Beth remarked on the box and the cashier enthusiastically said, oh yes!. I inferred she knew something about it so I asked for details. she didn't really know, but she enquired of someone of apparent greater responsibility. he said it was a wine, and that was all he was willing to divulge. earlier, at Whole Foods, I happened to notice that one of the items at the prepared foods counter listed trisodium phosphate as an ingredient. my guess was that it was a preservative, which I didn't see the need for. and I didn't see how well it might fit the all natural spectrum that Whole Foods boasts. I asked of the person at the counter, who said she didn't know. I found that perplexing. when we got home, I applied my questions to Google. Abacus is a lardy dardy bottling from ZD Wines. I always detested the fake clamour of such bottlings (in my days working in a wine store, that is). a fancy, uesless box to dazzle thee, and the wine is what? that a winery reserves certain lots of wine for their special bottlings means, literally, that their other wine is 2nd rate. it's a bullshit marketing scam that shouldn't be acceptable. but you know, iPhones and Wiis with their instrumental rarity, playing you and me to a fare-thee-well. oh well. regarding trisodium phosphate, it is indeed a preservative. it also has the feature of softening acidity. I still don't get it in terms of Whole Foods, all natural, and what not. NOR do I get that horrid song, "Santa Baby". I gather that Marilyn Monroe 1st sang it. I've heard it several times in stores. this must stop. it is a stupid song. and speaking of stupid: those inflatable outdoor decorations. they creep me out. Santa on a Harley, hahaha.

let me engulf you with my new blog, The River's View. I will endeavour to write serious, formal reviews and whatnot on this blog. introductory remarks are here.

a review of Shanna Compton's book For Girls & Others is here.

watched Anaconda 2, the sequel to the award-winning documentary starring J-Lo, Ice Cube and Jon Voight. I am a veteran of the original, from which I learned so much about the athletic and distinctly mean-spirited ways of the anaconda, and yet I still needed to learn more about this gigantic reptile that leaps thru the trees like a lumberjack. the movie begins in a conference room, where the CEO of a pharmaceutical threatens to deep six a non-moneymaking project. the project's team manages to convince him, using a Powerpoint graph (no greater argument can be made than a Powerpoint graph), that the project is a winner. and so it obviously is. as you well know, there is a flower called the blood orchid (which name appears in the movie's subtitle, which I forget). it only blooms, you know, once every 7 years. the flower has a component that prolongs life. well, that's what Big Pharma is looking for, you bet. the team is forthwith sent to Borneo, to fetch the flower, which reportedly is in bloom. why didn't the person who reported this bring a bouquet home? only a few weeks of bloom remain. okay, switch to the wilds of Borneo. I should mention that the previous movie was set in the Amazon, I'm pretty sure. I should also note that I recognize the names of none of the actors but they all were chosen for reminding the audience of... somebody... at one point, a character tells another that he read a news report about an expedition that had anaconda trouble, namely the original movie, a nice way to make it seem there was some narrative consistency going on. because of flooding, no captain wants to go upriver. none, that is, except a certain rough-hewn, unshaven someone. and they start upriver, and the viewer can start guessing which character buys it. I'll tell you right now: the J-Lo-ish big business type, the blonde research assistant, the tech guy who screamed all the time (he could've been replaced by the actor/comedian, can't recall his name, who was in the 5th Element, had the movie the budget for such spendiness), and of course Captain Heroical, were the only survivours. the captain's monkey also survives. the movie put a lot, I would even say undue, pressure on the little guy. several times we are led to believe that the little guy, Kong, is mouldering in the belly of an anaconda. okay, well, not one but two roguish sciency types on the team, who were overly interested in the females, get et quickly by anaconda. the 1st mate of the boat gets lunched. the screaming guy inexplicably misses out, much as relief from his yelling would have been nice. oh, the leader of the team decided to call the mission off after numerous misadventures, so the greedy guy on the team paralyzes him with a spider and the poor guy gets to watch as an anaconda slowly slithers into position for a gulp. I think the anaconda ate a village but I may have been repairing my brain cells with a modest doze during this sequence. I am concerned about my own home town, I don't think we are prepared for anaconda onslaught. I'll bet today's snow would just piss them off further. after much to do, the greedy guy gets his, as do all extant anaconda, except I think the one called Darth Vader. the remaining 4 characters, not counting Kong, pair up on the raft heading for home. the snakes were somewhere between 40 and 800 feet long, heads the size of T-Rex. they weren't above barfing up victims so that they could get more. tho they could constrict in a pinch, so to speak, they were more apt to lunge lightning quick and swallow their victim in a gulp. malevolent? for sure! I love hard science.

 

watched Transformers yestreen. I'd seen the trailers and was sure that it would lack gumption, but then it just cried out to me. the trailer had it right. the movie consisted of constant robotic transformation and explosions. the stuff in between the transformations owed to Gremlins and Short Circuit. the movie at least brought the viewpoint down to a mildly likable character, the boy meets girl guy. boy meets robot, as well. the plot spun around autistically while the special effects confused the show. the transformations consisted of flashing movement that never clarified into anything the brain could hold steadily. and the action was a blur. I found myself checking my email and adding content to my new paranormal blog. I believe the door is open for a remake.