28 February 2011

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.

24 February 2011

flashes of a wildcat pack.

Ossifer! I swear my mustache is real and no, I'm not wearing my cat sweater ironically.
It's just that I hear Sisyphus has a millisecond of triumph before his boulder comes tumbling--
I hear that magic-dust makes hair grow quickly; mine'll be long again soon. And Ossifer! I swear to drunk that time is a sing-song, that my manic ramblings are sing-songs. And mid-winter, warm-air, misting is a sing-song, like the kale I sautéd on my stove-top. Bandit! Throw on your spectacles 'cause it's a damn good day. Let your hair grow long with mine. We can memorize each other's favorites (first we can pretend we actually have favorites), and flash--
we can pretend we know each other, and flash--
we can wear mustache guises, and, Oh!
Our Manifesto of subversion.
We're just a wildcat pack. Too wild for our own goods. Too 'fraid to truly be lone.
(or maybe too wise) and flash--
togetherness is kinda beautiful, huh?

23 February 2011

And I plan to be forgotten when I'm gone

[when I die]
can it be in the midwinter springtime?
(but not this midwinter springtime)
and will you let me burn before I'm buried?
before I'm scattered?
and will you celebrate my life?
(because funerals are morbid, and--, oh, and--)
will you play "Rollin' Back" by My Morning Jacket?
and will you laugh at my earnestness?
and will you laugh at my awkwardness?
and what will you remember?

(because I am sometimes land//sometimes ocean//sometimes land//sometimes ocean//sometimes land// sometimes--)

Østers i Vest from Sebastian Schuster-Rossel on Vimeo.

Oysters have pearls inside, you know.
(and our bodies do, too).

22 February 2011

My prospective reading lists

are getting out of control.

to read academic:
  1. Borderlands (La Frontera): The New Mestiza; Gloria Andaldúa
  2. Strangers to Ourselves; Julia Kristeva
  3. Of Hospitality; Jacques Derrida
  4. Dialogue and Difference: Feminisms Challenge Globalization; ed. Margerite Waller and Sylvia Marcos
  5. Just Advocacy?: Women's Human Rights, Transnational Feminisms, and the Politics of Representation; ed. Wendy S. Hesford, Wendy Kozol
  6. Out Of Egypt: A Memoir; Andre Aicman
  7. El fuego y la palabra: una historia del movimiento Zapatista; Gloria Muñoz Ramíre
  8. Arrow of Chaos: Romanticism and Postmodernity; Ira Livingston
  9. A People's History of the United States; Howard Zinn (I've read excerpts, but the entirety deserves my attention)
  10. Democracy Matters; Cornel West
  11. Race Matters; Cornel West
  12. The American Evasion of Philosophy; Cornel West
  13. Where We Stand: Class Matters; Bell Hooks
  14. Yearning: Race, Gender, and Cultural Politics; Bell Hooks
  15. The Ticklish Subject: The Absent Centre of Political Ontology; Slavoj Zizek
  16. The History of a Literary Radical and Other Essays; Randolph Bourne
  17. War and the Intellectuals, essays 1915-1919; Randolph Bourne
  18. The Radical Will; Randolph Bourne (esp. the essay "The Undergraduate")

to read for fun (not that academic isn't fun; I actually put many texts on the academic list myself, for fun; but oh, you know-- this is still a different list)
  1. Breath Eyes Memory; Edwidge Danticat
  2. Krik? Krak!; Edwidge Danticat
  3. Crescent; Diana Abu-Jaber
  4. Arabian Jazz; Diana Abu-Jaber (I started but never finished)
  5. The Unaccustomed Earth; Jumpa Lahiri (ditto)
  6. Drown; Junot Díaz
  7. Negocios; Junot Díaz
  8. Marina; Carlos Ruiz Zafón (Gary- if you're reading; I promise to get it back to you soon!)
  9. ¡Ya Basta!; Subcomandante Marcos
  10. Off The Map
  11. The Spell of the Sensuous; David Abram
  12. The Botany of Desire: A Plant's-Eye View of the World; Michael Pollan
  13. The Three Sisters; Anton Chekhov
  14. Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business; Neil Postman
  15. An Unnatural Order: The Roots of our Destruction of Nature; Jim Mason
  16. The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat; Oliver Sacks
  17. Awakenings; Oliver Sacks
  18. The Mind's Eye; Oliver Sacks
  19. The Color Purple; Alice Walker
  20. Picture of Dorian Gray; Oscar Wilde
  21. War and Peace; Leo Tolstoy
  22. Thoughts in Solitude; Thomas Merton
  23. The Seven Story Mountain; Thomas Merton
  24. Sula; Toni Morrison
-----
(I'd still welcome all your suggestions).

And Corporations own our Languages--

Mars Co. (via Snickers) is making up words, and pasting them on packages:

NOUGATOCITY- n.
A heightened yet fleeting state of accomplishment that makes you realize how unbelievably unmotivated you usually are.
.

Laughable//laughably pathetic.

(at least it didn't say 'unproductive,' because the world seems so far away from my capitalism-critiquing soapbox).

do your waters run deep, my darlin

where they don't run wide?


I used to feel lonely amongst the root systems, but now I see that even (some) root systems feel lonely amongst the (other) root systems.

...And what good are isolating mental matrices when this is what's happening in the world?
(How am I supposed to concentrate on school, or on my internal wheels when The Global makes me feel so sad/small?)
why am I here? why am I here? what am I doing?