Cat Stevens' "Trouble"

Is still the saddest, most heart-wrenching thing I've ever felt/heard.
And I can't take it off repeat.

on Libraries, Cayle Adams, and Neil Young.

One of These Days
from Neil Young's Harvest Moon.

One of these days,
I'm gonna sit down and write a long letter
To all the good friends I've known
And I'm gonna try
And thank them all for the good times together.
Though so apart we've grown.

One of these days,
I'm gonna sit down and write a long letter
To all the good friends I've known
One of these days, one of these days, one of these days,
And it won't be long, it won't be long.

And I'm gonna thank,
That old country fiddler
And all those rough boys
Who play that rock 'n' roll
I never tried to burn any bridges
Though I know I let some good things go.

One of these days,
I'm gonna sit down and write a long letter
To all the good friends I've known

One of these days, one of these days, one of these days,
And it won't be long, it won't be long.

From down in L.A.
All the way to Nashville,
From New York City
To my Canadian prairie home
My friends are scattered
Like leaves from an old maple.
Some are weak, some are strong.

One of these days,
I'm gonna sit down and write a long letter
To all the good friends I've known
One of these days, one of these days, one of these days,
And it won't be long, it won't be long.

One of these days, one of these days, one of these days,
And it won't be long, it won't be long.

And another thing.

"The poet and the dreamer are distinct. Diverse, sheer opposite, antipodes. One pours out a balm upon the world, the other vexes it."

FROM John Keats' "The Fall of Hyperion"

----

In his dream, the speaker visits Moneta, the goddess of memory. He swears he's a poet. Oh, and she swears he's wrong.

(I will never be a poet).

----

There are two kinds of chaos: commotion, yes, but also the void. Today concluded with a sinking feeling of the latter. And I know this sadness is temporary, but the realization doesn't seem to be helping, because it's temporary-ness that's making me sad in the first place.

How am I supposed to 'vex' it when my agency's conditional--out of (my) control?

suspended (in the visceral).

"In Speak, Memory, Mabokov makes the poetic, or the playful speculation that Russian children before the Revolution--and his exile--were blessed with a surfeit of sensual impressions to compensate them for what was to come. Of course, fate doesn't play such premonitory games, but memory can perform retrospective maneuvers to compensate for fate. Loss is a magical preservative" (emphasis mine).

FROM Lost In Translation: A life in a New Language (1989)

via: Hoffman, Eva. "The New Nomads." Letters of Transit: Reflections on Exile, Identity, Language, and Loss. ed. André Aciman. New York: The New Press, 1999.

Lost and Found

I thought I lost my mother's loon hat.
She had had it since I was an infant.
It was also the warmest, most comfortable, most quirky hat I had ever seen.
Not to mention, the most clever: "I'm loony on the head!"
I was so sad.
So sad I was about to settle for something like this:


But heya, hat--we've been through a lot together. And I'm glad you're back. Though the gender subversion might have been fun.

xo

loon hat photo by Leslie Albanese is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. other photos from here.

vibrations.

Am I going manic?
Have I been manic?

Flip-book flashes:
Exile, liminal suspension, permanent transience.
And I'm hanging to André Aciman's "compulsive retrospection" like it's: involuntary, irregular, inevitable (?), and BODILY.
Signifying lack of agency, even in memory.

And I wish I spoke French, just so I could read Michel Foucault, untranslated. Because I'm self-surveiling and contemplating madness.
And I wish I could channel all these whirling thoughts.
(I swear, I'm on the brink again//oh, have I gone backwards?//oh to be on the brink, on the brink, on the brink again--)
Flash: the-absent-I, Flash: language is laughing, Flash: corporations as "generational voices" and ah, postmodern-disenchantment Flashing like: having answers is the wrong answer.

Been drinking dark roast, straight and black, for the past week. And I swear a collection of recent situational occurrences have some undecipherable interconnection. Like the world is screaming, but the words are mute, and all I sense are vibrations.
vibrations.
vibrations.

(What the hell is up with me?)

vibrations. by Leslie Albanese is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

"if I could go back-ways" get you no-ways fast.

Sometimes, funny things haunt me--like shoe strings; sometimes shoe strings haunt me. Like Cat Steven's Trouble haunts me. Like Gumby and putt-putt golfing haunt me.

Sometimes, I am afraid of losing faces. Other people's faces. I can always recognize them. I never forget. But I can't close my eyes and create the isolated image. And somehow I feel like this is losing. This is losing faces.

Sometimes I remember belonging to the Communion of Saints. Before my experience of agency complicated my understanding of fatalism. Before the two became incongruous. I remember when doubt was more consolable. When faith was easier. And sometimes I swear I still do belong. Sometimes, when I think or feel or love strongly enough, I swear I hear echos from all around that are not my own. And I know. I know it's the Community of Saints.

Sometimes poetry is laughable. And sometimes poetry is laughing at me. (For not believing in masks// For self sacrifice// For causes).

Sometimes I laugh at myself.

Sometimes oatmeal makes everything better.

But most of the time it takes more. More than oatmeal. More than peppermint and honey. More than immersion in a safe place with safe things-- until contentment and discontentment become simultaneously and increasingly necessary; the former at an immediate, personal level; the latter at a macro-political level.

"No amount of 'if-I-could-go-back-ways' gets you back-ways," they say.
And I say: Oh, God, where are my boxes?



no-ways fast. by Leslie Albanese is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

my heart and Ohio

[12/07/10] Leslie Albanese: Ohio is such an important place
[12/07/10] Eddie Barnes: it's everything
[12/07/10] Leslie Albanese: a lot of ppl who live here do not value it the way they should, I think
[12/07/10] Leslie Albanese: also- unrelated- but aesthetically i think it has the coolest outline
[12/07/10] Leslie Albanese: of all the states
[12/07/10] Eddie Barnes: yes! haha
[12/07/10] Eddie Barnes: i think we may be a little biased
[12/07/10] Eddie Barnes: but it is a nice shape.
[12/07/10] Leslie Albanese: haha
[12/07/10] Leslie Albanese: ok maybe a little
[12/07/10] Leslie Albanese: but we are not a box
[12/07/10] Leslie Albanese: so many states are shaped like boxes
[12/07/10] Eddie Barnes: indeed
[12/07/10] Eddie Barnes: that's true. This is my heart and Ohio.

I've been wearing an old (basement-retired/retrieved) hat of my mother's for the past week. It's wool and has loons on it. I like it because it's warm and makes me feel safe. And maybe also because it allows me to make bad puns about being loony.

But it's not just the silly hat. It's everything. Oh, Ohio! [My friends, my habits, my family, they mean so much to me/ but I'm (not) just a box just a box in a cage (no I'm not) just a box just a box in a cage].

It's not that I don't love you, all musty.

my heart and Ohio by Leslie Albanese is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.