Christmas Night, Tyler Street

The street went gray outside while we cooked
and then blue and black and purple and dark,
but around the edges, the ambiance cracked,
unfairly lit by Christmas trees
keeping vigil behind curtained windows
and each marking tense and pretending families,
so that the street lights looked sick
with forgotten love and near-dying faith.

And now the immobile urgency of a cat
sleeping in my lap - trapping me to my seat
with the tree and the tv glowing but silent,
with this pen and this crossword,
and the little white space aside
that for these marks must have been custom made -
unwinds the boredom and begins to lift
the gray fogs of an endless month.

Questions We Answered Next Week

1. A slow break-down,
hydro-fracturing deep
below us now.

2. A drumbeat goes
like thumbprints left on glass
white from soap-film.

These two odd ends
now shoe-boxed together
makes you wonder

about process and iteration,
doing the same things the same ways
as we've always done them
just like our mothers said to.

Only myself

From darkness, at the edge of hearing:

What might be voices
but is just leaky windows,
rubbing door jambs, a dog's sleeping belly-murmurs.

But I reach for the pistol under the pillow
or knife or bat.

Grip the handle
fingering, palming, tightening, tensing
white-knuckling, straining to listen, to hear
what isn't there.

I could get up and check the house.
Jiggle knobs and pad softly.
Peer around corners and squint at shadows.
Climb back into bed, assured.

But I lie still.
Now I am caught between
the terror of being murdered in my sleep and
the terror of looking foolish, if only to myself.

Dimming

in the dimming twilight of her twenties,
She turned from the outside in,
and gave nothing, and took nothing

her life had been a tragic series
the father left and somewhere died
her mother drunk or high, until a kind aunt
whisked the child up and fled

cancer killed the aunt, a car the other aunt
a foster family for a year, bounced twice,
distant cousins through junior high
her senior year on her own

so in the sadness of her teens,
She turned from the outside in,
and gave nothing, and took nothing

believing the up-from-down stories
of the successful she worked her way
through college, struggled, spent
her nights clearing tables of chinese food

a fight on some early playground
had left her nose an ugly bump, a broken flap
and she dated boys who didn't mind
a few months of being seen with her

in the lonely space between school and life
She fell without sound and did not rise again
but passionless and bored, she worked and nothing else,
She dimmed and turned from the outside in,
and gave nothing, and took nothing

-Friday, October Nineteenth 2007

Leaving New Mexico at Midnight

I saw

A snake sluicing
Wrapping up a dark hill
Under a moon piercing back down through
On to land shining in width
And fog like cats, so Carlos says,
Yawning up the blurry road

and I remembered
coming home this way before

Leaving Home

Blessings for the long road,
Blessings for the skies,
Blessings for the straight winds, for well-aimed thoughts,
Blessings for the dreams we will have in beds that are not our own.
Blessings for the going.
Yes, for the going.

Missing the Rain

I wish I
had known you in some time
many years from tonight; learned your name
just after I became so very uncertain.

And these nights,
I miss rain: or dances
in between the dark and the raw glass;
I miss sky unending, blue behind the deep blacks,
purple streaks of God's own grey-mist soul, cautious, unsteady hands

I wish I
knew to mark the second;
or had met you passing at the end
of all things and without you lived till my hundred,
to just then - before the final breath, or the crescendo raised,
just before the squeal and the answer, the crash of spirits, my soul unmade-
be in love again.

What Better?

My friend Haj Ross has been working on a problem that, in typical fashion, he has avoided giving a name to. It centers around sentences like the ones in (1) .

(1)
a. What better place than this to make a fire?
b. What better time than now to eat dinner?

Variations exist, as in (2), but the basic form of (1) consists of the elements in (3).

(2)
a. What better place to make a fire than this?
b. What better time to eat dinner than now?

(3)
What + better + [NP1] + than + [NP2] + [InfVP]

A moment ago I argued that the form of (3) was more basic than that used in (2)'s examples. On first intuition, this seems the most likely because [[NP1] + than + [Np2]] defends against a long infinitive phrase. (4) gives two examples. While (4a) is fine, (4b) is marked by a '?' because, though it is grammatical, it is simply too odd for my ear.

(4)
a. What better place than this to hold our own ground against the enemy and savagely find mastery of our own doom?
b. ?What better place to hold our own ground against the enemy and savagely find mastery of our own doom than this ?

While (3) does seem to be the most natural form, subjugating the InfVP to the end; there are certainly counter-examples, as those found in (5).

(5)
a. What better man to lead us than Caesar himself?
a'. ?What better man than Caesar himself to lead us?
b. What better form to take than that of a friend?
b'. ?What better form than that of a friend to take?

The use of [[NP1]+[InfVP]+than+[NP2]] in (5a) and (5b) proves substantially better, at least to my intuitions, than the form of (3) used in (5a') and (5b') - perhaps because of the possible confusion of the subject of the infinitive phrase.

There are many other issues that arise from this troublesome little quirk of English - many more when we begin to consider other [Wh-] words such as the last set of both good and bad examples in (6), which is where I leave it (for now) for Haj to decipher.

One last note to comment on the hopelessness of neat rules for this data: notice that the sentences in (6) contain only one NP and that those with "How" contain two infinitive phrases (and semantically REQUIRE what would be the only InfP in (6a) and (6b) to come first.

(6)
a. Who better than Caesar to lead us?
b. Where better than Chipotle to eat?
c. How better to travel than to take a train?

d. *?How better to take a train than to travel?
e. *How better than train to travel?
f. *Which better to drive than the Corvette?
g. *Why better to play than to win a prize?

On Her Wedding

I.
The night before, hushed at home
scotching, and remembering
the summers, the midnight air
when everyone was in love
with ev'ryone.

And also: this whole long line
of instants, tracking on from
meeting you in the widening
zoom out of adolescence
and a decade.

II.
The ranch in Paris, gone in flames,
and envelopes in airplanes.
Colorado. Newport Beach.
Lawn chairs instead of haybales.
The same albums, played again,
and then again.

III.
Three hundred million seconds ago I knew you just as you are tonight:
baptized to joy beyond all those years, beyond all seconds and all instants
where Love Himself is.

IV.
The second day of summer
and a good, warm night for brides
who steady on, so she goes
to a love she alone knows,
ready she goes.

for Elise

cummings' "i will wade out"

Until recently I've never been a fan of e.e. cummings. I had read some poems, been largely unimpressed, thought the weird capitalization use was merely gimmicky.

I have reconsidered my position.

His poem, "i will wade out" is, as I let it slow-cook in my mind, becoming more and more the sort of brilliance that humanity needs. Here is the text:

i will wade out
                  till my thighs are steeped in burning flowers
I will take the sun in my mouth
and leap into the ripe air
                                 Alive
                                           with closed eyes
to dash against darkness
                                 in the sleeping curves of my body
Shall enter fingers of smooth mastery
with chasteness of sea-girls
                                      Will i complete the mystery
                                      of my flesh
I will rise
         After a thousand years
lipping
flowers
       And set my teeth in the silver of the moon

I.
The first noticings should include its seventeen lines, the deliberate use of indentation to set off certain lines, and the use of capitalization. Taking each capital letter (and the beginning of the poem) as the start of a new sentence (as a syntactic item), we should see a total of eight sentences:

(a) "i will wade out / till my thighs are steeped in burning flowers"
(b) "I will take the sun in my mouth / and leap into the ripe air"
(c) "Alive / with closed eyes / to dash against darkness / in the sleeping curves of my body"
(d) "Shall enter fingers of smooth mastery / with chasteness of sea-girls"
(e) "Will i complete the mystery / of my flesh"
(f) "I will rise"
(g) "After a thousand years / lipping / flowers"
(h) "And set my teeth in the silver of the moon"

One problem with setting the sentences such is that we are left with stranded clauses. (c) and (g) lack a subject and a verb, where (d) has a verb screaming for a subject (or object, as we will see).

If the constraint to have non-fragmented sentences is to be followed, one possible fix is to ignore (for the most part) the capital letters and attempt such a reading as this:

(a') "i will wade out / till my thighs are steeped in burning flowers"
(b') "I will take the sun in my mouth / and leap into the ripe air/ Alive / with closed eyes / to dash against darkness"
(c') in the sleeping curves of my body / Shall enter fingers of smooth mastery / with chasteness of sea-girls"
(d') "Will i complete the mystery / of my flesh"
(e') "I will rise / After a thousand years / lipping / flowers / And set my teeth in the silver of the moon"

One of the three central points presented in the new reading are whether "to dash against darkness" is superordinate to "with closed eyes" (the eyes are closed so as to dash against darkness) or does it stand with "shall enter fingers..." (i.e. in order to dash against darkness in the sleeping curves of my body, fingers of smooth mastery shall enter with the chasteness...).

Also present is a question of whether "fingers of smooth mastery" is the subject or object of whatever sentence it belongs to, that is: are the fingers entering or being entered?. In the previous paragraph, the provided paraphrase has the fingers as a subject. There are other options, as shown below.

The other wrench in the works is whether "with chasteness of sea-girls" modifies "Shall enter fingers..." or does it modify (d'). This is perhaps more important, because if the former is true, than (d') is a question. If the latter, than it is a statement.

I find this to be quite crucial to deciphering/decoding/unwinding/knowing the poem: is the author questioning or sure about the mystery of his flesh?

II.
Addressing the more technical issues of cummings poem, it is of interest to note that nine of the seventeen lines are not indented, whereas eight are. The non-indented form a pattern of one-space-two-space-space-one-space-two-space-space-one-space-two-space.

Of the eight indented, only two are on the same indentation: the line (e/d') that presents an enigma above. All others are slightly different than each other. An interesting reading can be achieved by rearranging the lines into two sections, the non-indented and indented:

(a+)
i will wade out
I will take the sun in my mouth
and leap into the ripe air
to dash against darkness
(I) Shall enter fingers of smooth mastery
with chasteness of sea-girls
I will rise
lipping
flowers

(b+)
till my thighs are steeped in burning flowers
Alive
with closed eyes
in the sleeping curves of my body
Will i complete the mystery
of my flesh
After a thousand years
And set my teeth in the silver of the moon

Now (a+) has four sentences: each one beginning with "i/I" except for "Shall enter" which, in the new construction, begs desperately for a subject. The parallel architecture of "i will wade," "I will take," and "I will rise" demand that the subject be "I" and that "fingers" be the object of "enter". This suggest that there is a missing "i" in line (d).

Nothing is done, however, to alleviate the issue of (d'). While (b+) suggest that it is indeed a statement (of method), the unique setting of those two lines and the fact that only (d') of all the lines in (b+) contains a "I" mandate that they be taken on their own terms.

III.
Further observation shows the poem to be exactly one hundred syllables. The fiftieth syllable is "shall," but would be the missing "I/i" of line (d), were that present. This would suggests a lovely symmetry of 101 syllables, the middle most being "I/i." The absence (and demanding context) of the word makes it all the more promising that we should consider it's impact on the poem.

There are also a total of twenty-three letter i's in the poem, four instances of the personal pronoun "i/I," five instances of "my," and five instances of "in." There is also a possible homonym in the word "eyes," as "eye'" is commonly used in a double meaning for the first person pronoun "I".

The plural nouns are thighs, flowers, eyes, curves, fingers, sea-girls, years, flowers (again), and teeth (though this is technically a non-count noun).

The singular and non-count nouns are sun, mouth, air, darkness, body, mastery, chasteness, mystery, flesh, silver, and moon.

The verbs are wade, take, leap, dash, enter, complete, rise, lipping, and set. Lipping is technically a gerund, though pragmatically it is used as a progressive verb without a {be} auxilary.

The adjectives are steeped, burning, ripe, alive, closed, sleeping, and smooth.

Besides "i/I" and various function words (which include the important auxilary verb "will), the only repeated words are flowers, which appear at the opposite ends of each other (the second and the second to last line; the end of the line and the begining). The notion of rising is present twice in "leap" and "rise."

Most lines end with a noun, the exceptions are out, alive, rise, and lipping.

IV.
cummings sets before us, in this poem, a mystery: the mystery of his/my/your flesh. As far I can see, the mystery and poem centers around a missing "i" in the center.




"i will wade out" by e. e. cummings
From Tulips and Chimneys
New York: Thomas Seltzer, 1923

Ride That Train

Good news if you happen to live in Dallas and like to get to Denton often - or vice versa. In two+ years that drive will be a ride: DART (Dallas Area Rapid Transit) will have finished their green line to Carrollton by early 2011 (they are opening it next year and should be finished by late 2010, but after all, a plan is just a list of things that don't happen).

From the other end, DART's counterpart, the DCTA (Denton County Transportation Authority) is planning on having its own train running from the Green Line's terminal station up to north Denton. We'll have to switch trains (at least until an interagency agreement to run on each other's lines is met) but its way cheaper than driving a car up there. The DCTA line, by the way, is also scheduled to be in service by 2010.

Also of note, DART's ridership has well increased (link opens a .PDF) in the last year and should continue to rise as they offer more service routes.

Get aboard the train of love!

Movement

There is movement in the corners
whispers from behind
glimpses in the rear view
The window frame shadows a cross on the back of these translucent blinds
and another day moves across my eyes
I maintain myself in little ways
and another day moves

Broomstick

I sometimes feel our past

laid out on a butchers table
a vast, meaty carcass
plump and runny, ready for carving
some bits for dinner
some for the alley cats
but massive and immovable
despite how we vivisect our lives
we remain who we are
and who we were
and I know that our foolishness
defined us.

But I also love those little seconds
in timeless escape from the carver's office
standing next to shores, or under umbrellas with tea
watching the skies do things to us
that I would never have known
had I kept at myself
and I believe that introspection
will probably kill me

So I can imagine you
standing there,
staring down a precipice
of yourself cast into the coming years ocean
unafraid for a' that
but eyeing the currents below
and ready;
having farewelled who you loved
having heard "You have my farewell"
and silence, awkward after;
tipping like a broom on my hand
plunged off into yourself.

You have my best wishes, for a' that.

-May Eighteenth, 2007

Folding

This weekend I had the great privilege to see my cousin, Case Dillard, preform at Austin's festival Big Range, showcasing a wide variety of dance and choreography. Case choreographed his own piece, which is based on three songs by Ben Folds: Brick, Evaporate, and the Luckiest- the second one is played and sung by Case (right after he busts some serious moves, controls his breathing, and sits down at the bench). You can watch a rehearsal of one section here - although it doesn't really do it justice.

I've never had enough exposure to dance to being able to talk about it in any other terms except "I know what I like...", but this weekend really made me wish I did. So I'd like to shamelessly promote him and the art he practices.

Drunkard

When first unstopped, swells a sweet air,
cracking ice as pours, filled a little way,
melting into mixing, rich and dark and woody
the first glass of whiskey always swears to be.

The first swallows light, each after soothes,
warmth up from the groin to lift the head
like helium balloons; the lift that
each whiskey swears to be.

and so the drinking goes and so the problems go,
and better than pills and company
each dram and draught swear to be.

Till there's no more ice and the bottle's last slosh
hardly seems the effort of a glass
so bottom goes above and whiskey goes straight
and lights worse than the first sip
ever swears to be.

and so the drinking goes and so the problems go
and better than pills and company
and never a liar has whiskey ever shown to be

- Sunday, April Twenty-ninth, 2007, 2:16 AM

Moins Langue, Plus Parole

I.
In many modern, mainstream linguistic models, much (what numerous m's in this sentence!) hinges on the duality of langue and parole (from Saussure) - which in more modern circles are called competence and performance (from Chomsky). Now the older (former) and newer (latter) sets of terms have some important distinctions between them as well - but what concerns me is the idea of accepting any linguistic dualism. So we will ignore the older set and concentrate on Chomsky's terms.

Simply put, competence is what an individual speaker functionally (f-) knows about language (mostly unconsciously) and performance is what a speaker does with it. For instance, a child, talking about his father, might say, "I gave the shovel to he" and it is a fine sentence because the child hasn't developed a competence that includes "him" and the appropriate usage rules. Most adults uttering the same sentence would catch themselves and correct, because adult (for most) competence does include "him" and restricts the use of "he" in the example above. So competence is what we know, performance is what we do. The two don't always have to match - and many, many instances (in a single day) can be found where they don't.

This is important for models of language because it is much easier to specify rules (that can allow a speaker to generate a sentence) when you can throw out all the counter-examples as mistakes.

And I think, for the most part, that this is quite useful. We certainly would want to restrict the described grammar of a language (the lists of rules that explain how a speaker makes a sentence) from generating a lot of gibberish and nonsense.

Except that we should. Because language doesn't exist outside of individual speakers, we (meaning linguists and other interested parties) should be studying how a person (a real, live, individual) comes up with all the verbal diarrhea that they do. Because no one obeys the grammar rules we have. No one. Not even for a day, or even an hour.

We've passed the point of getting to shuffle off all the loops and quirks and mis-speaks and stammers as being mere "performance" - if we can't explain performance, we can't explain language. Language exists because speakers make it. Let's study that.


II.
As an example, 1a and 1b below represent "good" (meaning grammatical) and "bad" (meaning ungrammatical) sentences.

1a. I took the cookie off his plate when he wasn't looking.
1b. I took the cookie off his plate who he wasn't looking.

I think most speakers would agree about the goodness and badness of those two sentences. Although I made it up, I have very strong intuitions that the second sentence is representative of an actual mistake that an adult, native speaker might make, when actually going about the daily business of speaking (ignoring second language learner and children).

(Which brings up a point that must be made before going on. This sort of work, studying mistakes, really ought to be done with real people and real people's mistakes. The armchair must be vacated.)

Now traditionally, a syntactician would develop a grammar that explains the first sentence and ignore the second. A linguist who is interested in miscues and errors might want to explain where the second one went wrong, how if differs, what rule (I speak of rules not in a top-down sense, but in a specifically linguistic one, the way programmers speak of rules: X->Y) was modified and how. A neurolinguist might even be interested in what went wrong in the brain that led to the production of the bad sentence - which is the main thrust of my argument.

Whatever mental/neural processes (and structures) were responsible first sentence were also responsible for the second sentence. Syntax must go neural, by which I mean we can no longer study language away from the individual brain. The misapplication of a f-mental syntax ought to be as interesting and significant as the proper application.

Demise

what lush, what green,
such absolute gray between
the red fence and the branch

and not a hint of shine
on any inch of electric line
down down the telephone pole

such hope dwindles in that heart,
seeing nothing but a ruined world,
outwards-in bent, and cries for a safer universe
the dwindled soul

Indiana Jones and the Linguistics of Doom

With all the fanfare and, dare I say it: buzz, surrounding the new Indiana Jones movie, I was confounded by a few facts after I started talking with friends about the series.

My friends and I (and I suspect most fans) refer to the IJ movies thusly:

Raiders of the Lost Ark: "Raiders"
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom: "Temple"
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: "Crusade"

Up until recently, we called the new film (Indiana Jones and Kingdom of the Crystal Skull) Indy 4. We will likely refer to as "Kingdom" from now on.

This presents an interesting question - how do people choose short reference names for books and films (and art?)?

My intuition would generate the sentences in 1 (with weird/bad sentences being marked by ?/*, as in the usual method in my field) for talking about Raiders of the Lost Ark.

1.
I rewatched "Raiders" last night for the tenth time.
?I rewatched "Ark" last night for the tenth time.
*I rewatched "Lost" last night for the tenth time.


It is apparent to me that "Raiders" works much better than "Ark", and "Lost" doesn't work at all. I try the same technique in 2, 3, and 4 for the respective second, third, and fourth film. As a side note, it would probably be fine to refer to any of the films as "Indiana Jones" but such a use invariably leads to the question: "Which one?"

2.
I rewatched "Temple" last night for the tenth time.
?I rewatched "Doom" last night for the tenth time.
**I rewatched "of" last night for the tenth time.

3.
I rewatched "Crusade" last night for the tenth time.
*?I rewatched "Last" last night for the tenth time.
**I rewatched "and the last" last night for the tenth time.

4.
My family is going to see "Kingdom" tomorrow, do you want to come?
*??My family is going to see "Crystal" tomorrow, do you want to come?
?My family is going to see "Skulls" tomorrow, do you want to come?
My family is going to see "Crystal Skulls" tomorrow, do you want to come?


Of course these are only my intuitions, others may be much more accepting of "Doom" or "Skulls" than I am. What intrigues me is that it seems, at first glance, that all the nicknames must be noun phrases (NPs). Stranded articles and adjectives (even nouns acting as adjectives such as "Crystal") don't work.

This is born out by how people reference the second and third movies in the original Star Wars trilogy:

The Empire Strikes Back: "Empire"
The Return of the Jedi: "Return/Jedi"

In the second case, I personally prefer "Jedi" to "Return" but given a declared context, I am fine with it. 5 and 6 provide some examples but also raise interesting points themselves.

5.
My favorite Star Wars movie is "Empire."
*My favorite Star Wars movie is "Strikes."
*My favorite Star Wars movie is "Back."
?My favorite Star Wars movie is "Strikes Back"

6.
I prefer "Jedi."
*?I prefer "the Jedi."
I prefer "Return."
*?I prefer "the Return."
**I prefer "the Return of the."
**I prefer "of the Jedi."


The last entry in 5, "Strikes Back", is weird for me, but not grossly unacceptable. What is very interesting is oddity of including the article in the NP. This suggests a further restriction on film nicknames.

I could also hypothesize a general rule of economy (shorter is better) and what could be called an obligatory semantic context (frame?): using the nicknames for the films without having established the context lends itself to confusion, as per the conversation in 7.

7.
What are you doing tonight?
Gonna watch "crusade."
Is that a new movie? I don't think I've heard of it.
No, Indiana Jones.
Oh, that "crusade."


This idea of contextual framing is something I've very interested in. John Lawler and Charles J. Fillmore have both done tremendous work in the field. It seems clear to me that there exists a tremendous number of frames that are required in order to understand most of daily conversation. Being able to discuss a particular entertainment form (or set of entries in the form) requires particular frames.

The use nicknames for films (and books and art and who knows what else) seems to follow some basic rules; nouns are preferred, articles and prepositions are dispreferred, and adjectives (if used) must be attached to a noun. Verbs are a little harder to pin down. As a last exercise, consider the examples in 8 and see what you would choose as a one or two word nickname for the piece/film/song. My choices are provided in 9.

8.
Nude Descending A Staircase.
Who Framed Roger Rabbit?
I Know What You Did Last Summer
All Things Must Pass
Carry That Weight
Do You Want to Know A Secret?

9.
Staircase
Roger Rabbit
Last Summer
All Things
Weight
Secret

As a final point, none of these piece/films/songs have nicknames for me. I don't talk about any of them enough to warrant them. Nor do I think a normal conversation between average people would include the use of nicknames for these. The use of any of the entries in 9 would require a specific frame, respectively: best Duchamp piece, famous movies that mix real life and animation, silly camp horror movies from the 1990's, or Beatles songs. Once one of these frames is established, then (given an understanding between the speakers as to the reference of the nickname) the nicknames in 9 can be used.

Maybe.

Revolution 25

Please take a moment to celebrate/enjoy/mourn/regret/thank God for/curse the fates for/ponder the glory of me.

Bits

switch the laundry, check my limitations,
follow the plot using pre-intuition.
listen for steps, dream up my daughters first name,
imagine the future moon peopled and tamed.
sit in shops and sip at what I'm given,
forget that I've eaten and I eat again.
I watch the show, and I watch the show.

what language does not do

We measured the distance
from the front
to the back of the house, looking for a means
to compare ourselves with not ourselves.
We found nothing out.

Jason Ross's voice was a strangled scream
the man alive
an insane lion shot through the gut
a slave freed after forty years.
Just as she and I left, our souls suddenly rang.

A thousand dollars on an impossible trifecta, and then the dead horse.
Electric lights full of mercury, two in a pack, two packs please.
I do not know the future, or the past, or what language does not do.

It makes
men of mammals,
Christs of Buddhas,
and defines itself by silence.

Jason Ross scars his throat like that -
over the sound of the train
punching out the silence, in words bared,
Buddha gone, Christ here. God sings for us
proving himself in note after note
and note after note
and so
on on on...
Holy Holy Holy...

The place was packed
when we left
I was absolutely sober.

We went home
to find the length of floor
between the back door and the front
but the dear dog
kept stomping on the tape
and we at last surrendered to her and sat down.

We found nothing out but that God sings for us.

Cloudwatching Socio-historical Processes

I, back down, laying on the stone to
Watch what grey chilly skies would
Reflect from shiny black streets of
Rainy froth.

The overcast looked like thick stew or
Molding clay ready for a finger to
Plow a deep furrow and prepare for the
Planting season.

So I traced my index finger through the
Fields in perfectly straight lines of
Half inch wide canals, each ready for
Seed and Agriculture in this brand new
Sort of Farm.

Perhaps the farm will multiply and
Divide, pass from one generation of
Sky-dwellers to the next, each new set of
Sons learning the ancestral trade of
Atmospharming.

Until the class system develops, and some
Farmers work and some become the
Managers: a tenant-cloud contract, with
Feudal lords of the winds demanding
Frequent Taxes.

And all shall be shadowed by the
Greed of the kings, until the war and the
Upstarts declare themselves to be
Independent and form new countries of
Yeoman Farmers.

It will progress until ruin comes and
Armageddon sweeps their lands from every
Farm to every castle, and then the
World they knew disappears into a the void of a
Sunny Day.

- Sunday, April Fifteenth, 2007

Into The West

I just read Fareed Zakaria's incredible piece, here, via The Drudge Report, on "The Rise of The Rest" or how America Exceptionalism is on its way out. A few points to make:

1. What makes America great is not its power. Nor its money. Nor it's sciences, engineers, companies, institutions, culture, or people. What makes America great is Freedom.

So despite the loss of our multiple "top" rankings in so many areas; what we must always consider is this: does globalization lead to increased Freedom or not? If yes, then we should embrace it - even as it means that we're not "Number 1."

2. The glory of our nation has not declined, but (has been/is being) outdone. It's an important distinction; because adults, emotional/spiritual adults, of whom there are too few, do not worry about the Jones. Adults look to their own house, compare themselves with themselves; the increase of other stars does not mean we shine any less. And if we are serious about caring for the world, and by the world I mean the people in it, then that greater light of all these stars is a blessing and not a curse.

3. "I will diminish, and go into the West, and remain Galadriel." In Tolkien's Fellowship of the Ring, Galadriel passed her test to choose between supreme power and maintaining herself.

We face a similar choice: are we to remain the global supreme power, holding on, clutching, shrieking, biting and gnawing at our top spot, bitter and xenophobic, looking over our shoulders, attacking what we do not understand, always afraid, psychotically competitive, shrinking into ourselves, giving nothing and taking nothing?

Or shall we pursue the cause of Freedom, not just in ourselves but for all, each and every, across the wide wide world?

"But all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well." - Lewis

"And news will come to you of wars and talk of wars: do not be troubled, for these things have to be; but it is still not the end." - Matthew 24:6

It is not the end.

Cinco de Gato

Happy Cinco de Gato: The Fifth of Cat!

In addition to that other Mexican holiday, it is also my two cats' birthday. To celebrate, some common phrases about cats, with their Spanish translation, as provided by WordReference.com:


When the cat's away, the mice will play, cuando el gato no está, los ratones bailan

Curiosity killed the cat, la curiosidad mató al gato

He thinks he's the cat's whiskers, se cree el ombligo del mundo

You look like something the cat's dragged in, tienes un aspecto horrible

You haven't got a cat in hell's chance, no tienes la más mínima posibilidad

It's raining cats and dogs, está lloviendo a cántaros

She set the cat among the pigeons, causó un gran revuelo

There's no room to swing a cat in here, aquí no cabe un alfiler

To let the cat out of the bag, levantar la liebre



and last, some pictures of the darlings:

Internetting

A couple of interesting sites, from the depths of the tubes:

Looking for someone to do your coal mining? Click here.

Wanna watch the show Southpark, every season, for free? Click here.

Amazing music with video here and here and here. And a little something old school.

UPDATE: Here is one incredible '81 video from the Replacements, via UnfairPark.

And you must check out Jonathon Coulton.

Lastly, here is a page from web comic Penny Arcade where I got a nod for a ten word story I wrote regarding WoW. My name is in the middle of the post.

Leaving the Trotternish by Bus

Waiting just off the main way where one bend gives and submits to the next falling slide of road, the Fisherman broke stride in time to turn and see us (all scarves and cameras with a little thermos) pass in our bus (which itself was all rumble and diesel) as we bladed through the open country and into a rare track of trees, trembling and skidding on that narrow patch of path before joining the New Road to bounce up a hill just tall enough to see through the wet-weighted boughs to where we'd been married the week before; or we would have seen that stark, black cliff against the distant sea if the Native hadn't paused in the gap to adjust his Mac and blocked the view of where we had stood, then had knelt, and then had stood again to go back inside to where the fire and tea were waiting.


- 7:23pm Tuesday, March Twentieth, 2007

A Better Place

I found this site, Project Better Place, which details an effort to free automobiles from the need for oil.

The first project is to help the State of Israel convert to electric cars. The goal is for Israel to free itself from Middle Eastern oil - that is, the oil produced by its neighbors, many of whom are an anathema to it.

One interesting challenge on the site is how much money is spent on gas versus the cost of the car. So I pulled up my handy Windows calculator and ran my own numbers.

1995 Honda Del Sol 1.5L SOHC, manual transmission - $3200
Average repairs each year - $500-600
Average miles driven each year: 16000
Average MPG: 28 (32+ HW, 25 City)

Based on this, I have to buy 571 gallons of gasoline per year. If we assume that the average of last year and the next few years to be $3.5 per gallon, after three years I will have spent around $5k on the car itself (purchase price plus repairs and maintenance), and nearly $6k in gas.

Even with a high MPG rating, electric starts to make sense after a few years.

Run your numbers. See how long it will be (or was) before you spend (or spent) more on the fuel then on the vehicle.

Obama VS. NASA

Everyone interested in both presidential politics and our government's space program, specifically the manned portion, I would like to refer them to this article. It details Democratic candidate Obama's plan to defund, for five years, NASA's next generation of manned space exploration vehicles: the Constellation Launch System, which is designed to take us back to the moon and eventually to Mars. The savings will provide a portion of the cost of his proposed Zero to Five pre-kindergarten education program, designed to begin educating children as soon as they burst the womb. I'll leave what I think of government run education for another topic.

I consider myself a boomer for space exploration. So I disagree with the Senator on this. Canceling Constellation will not just set back our ability to explore the Universe outside our atmosphere, it will also cost thousands of high-tech jobs - many of which will leave the country to work for China's, India's, and Pakistan's growing space industry. I, therefore, firmly reject his stance and hope that our federal legislature, in the next decade, continues to insist, in strong terms, that NASA is fully funded for all current projects.

But does it really matter? If Humankind is truly destined to be a multi-planet species, then it won't be governments that make that happen. The loss of Constellation would be a blow and setback, but the private space industry is brinked on coming into it's own. Here's some companies to watch: Virgin Galactic, SpaceX, Armadillo Space, XCOR, and RocketPlane.

Already, five people have entered space as "tourists" - that is, private citizens paying for a ticket. Within the next ten years, that number will at least triple; and far more if we count the suborbital thrill rides that Virgin Galactic and RocketPlane are nearly ready to offer.

For fiction involving humans in space, I suggest Robert Heinlein, Isaac Asimov, Ben Bova, and the lately departed Arthur C. Clarke.

Wholly Other

from the east: our hope. in the west: our dreams
as suns hunt shadows; hopes chase western dreams.

sing the angels there; dance the old ones there
just beyond the sea; past the outer air,

Here I sing my only; Here lonely love - unheard of Prophet, unsought Priest -

talks of the beauteous and wondrous
essential inner colors,
the people luminous
archidealic and subdimensional,
and the sacred, the magic, the numinous.

And the greatest of these

George Will has a column here that breaks down a new book, by Arthur C. Brooks, asserting that conservatives give more to charity than liberals.

I resist putting people in boxes, but let's assume the data is essentially correct (Will does not say whether or not conservative giving includes giving to churches, which shouldn't be considered full charity - churches do a lot of good, but a lot of that money goes to pay people's salaries that often aren't directly related with helping others).

If forced to categorize people, I'd rather use a two-dimensional plane than a one-dimensional continuum. The two axises are personal (or social) freedom and economic freedom.

A classic "liberal" view is that government should stay out of people's personal lives but strictly regulate the economy. If people don't have health insurance, it's government's job to provide it.

A classic "conservative" view is that government should stay out of the economy (free markets) but regulate people's behavior. This is why many conservatives are in favor of marriage amendments, against the legalization of drugs, for a strong FCC, ect.

NOTE: In using the word classic, I mean the mainstream, in contemporary America, of either side. I don't, for instance, mean classical liberalism - which is much closer to libertarianism, which I discuss below. Again, I resist labels and categories that sweep so broadly over a population. Real people are far more complex.

The so-called neo-con movement has, unfortunately, failed to maintain an economic conservative approach. Many conservatives who support the President on social issues (and military ones) are aghast at the spending increases over the last 7 years.

Fascists take the conservative view to an extreme, communists take the liberal view to an extreme. My own opinion is that fascism and communism eventually lead to totalitarianism: government control of everything (i.e. restrictions on speech in the former soviet empire).

My leanings are that of a libertarian, who thinks freedom should abound on both axises. Government should have minimal interference. Extremism on my end would be called anarchy.

To wit, this article certainly makes a lot of sense, but shouldn't be ammo for anyone. If one group of people think government should take care of others, and one group thinks its their own responsibility, then of course the latter is going to give more to private charity.

Let me be clear: This should not be taken as reflection of the kindness or empathy of either group. Instead, its just a natural result of two philosophies about philanthropy.

My feelings are thus: It is society's job to take care of society. Those who have lots should help those who do not. But the help should not be dragged out of people at gunpoint, which is what social programs funded by the tax role does. Society IS NOT Government. We have responsibility to love others, but taking money from someone else, on the threat of jail, to provide charity is outside the measures of good government.

For further reading, I'd suggest this wonderful parable (I don't know if its true) about Davy Crockett.

Also, Frederick Bastiat's The Law, available here.

The Steady Pace

For me, the best future I can imagine for myself is a Heinleinesque take on what Jefferson always wanted: yeoman farmers. Independent freeholders whose government consisted of mutual defense, perhaps some roads or schools (administered at the local level) and little interference. The sad fact is that most of us are not independent. We currently need big, "evil" organizations, like Exxon-Mobil, Public Utilities, the Federal Government, AT&T and the Pharmaceuticals. We really do. I can't defend myself against an army, or drill for oil, or build giant communication networks, or make drugs to fight disease. I need those companies. For now.

I used to need big, old media - or I would have, had I not been born into the information age. I don't know anyone in Iraq, I don't know any of the presidential candidates, I don't know anyone at the UN. Thirty years ago the only way to get information was to drink from the big well: 3 major networks, 2 local papers (Dallas Morning News and the now defunct Dallas Times Herald), and perhaps a few nationals like the NYT. These "dinosaurs" still have a place, but the monopoly is over. And rightly so.

Anyone can find tremendously more information than they can possibly digest - and I couldn't be happier. The proliferation of online databases and sites like Google Scholar have made my life as a language scientist tremendously more productive.

I mentioned a moment ago that there was, essentially, too much information. It's certainly worth considering whether all this data has a downside. My answer? Yes, it does. Put thine lips to the firehose and try to slurp what you can.

But my point is this: it is now the individual's responsibility to decide what to believe, what to learn, what to watch, ect. We can be intellectual freeholders, if we choose so.

***

So big media is now not so big. What about the other mega-corps that we currently depend on? Here's a few suggestions how technology could reduce them to the status of mere "option".


1. Oil. See my post here and a cool video from switched.com about electric and high MPG cars. One point, I think from Elon Musk of Tesla Motors, about hybrids that I consider very important is that a gasoline/electric car, like the Toyota Prius or Honda Insight, is still 100% addicted to oil.
Again, I'm not against oil. I'm against the addiction to it - which, like many addictions, keeps us impoverished and under control. I like gasoline. It's smelly and dirty and combustion engines are a pain in the ass to work on - nothing better for men who enjoy ripping things apart and putting them back together again.

***

2. Energy. So what if the electric car makes it this time (as opposed to the myriad of other attempts to go electric)? We still need a source of reliable, cheap energy to plug into. Well, nuclear fusion is one option. The start-up costs just to prove it works, however, means an international approach is needed to finance and test it - and that means international politics. Might be a while.

Nuclear fission is another possibility, but the clean-up and long term storage of radioactive materials raises some significant problems.

The above, along with coal and natural gas (for most people), all require a large, organization - either corporate or government - to operate: which destroys the whole possibility of independent freeholders.

Wind and water power might work for some, since a relatively small company can install the powermill and transmission system into your home - but unless you're in West Texas or own a river you can dam, neither would provide enough to live off.

Which leaves us with solar. Right now, my suburban 1000 sqft house (with corresponding roof size) could get me about 50-60% of the electric power I need if I installed solar panels, like those from Solar City. We barely use 600KWH (kilowatt hours) a month during the winter and just about 1100KWH during the summer. We do use natural gas for heating (and water heating), so if we wanted to be energy independent we've have to covert to all electric and be able to produce 900-1500 KWH, per month from solar panels.

We'd also have to invest in some sort of massive battery system to store energy for night use.

Right now, along with the $10-15K price tag( just for the solar panels and installation, never mind the batteries), these problems mean that being an EI freeholder is outside the scope of reality for most people. I would need a tremendous amount of extra money and most of my back yard to make it work. People that live in smaller houses don't stand a chance.

But here are a few reasons I might in another decade.

a. See MIT's work on batteries and energy storage here. The clever engineers are also working on retrieving electricity from thermal loss, as seen here. The former means that we are going to see energy storage increase dramatically. The latter suggests that appliances and devices will use less and less power. We've already seen this happen over the last few decades (look for the energy star label on home appliances).

b. Solar panel costs are going to be coming down because of advances in the, as this article suggests, and because of increases in production as demand for them climbs.

c. The numbers above about how much electricity I could get for my home were based on solar cells that operated around 10% efficiency. New cells have climbed to 20%, and it's been shown, as prototypes, that cells can convert 40% of the sun's energy to electricity.

I fully expect that the next decade will provide relatively cheap, high efficiency solar cells, along with incredible battery technology - perhaps enough for individuals, with a enough investment, to become their own energy providers.

***

3. Water. Even when you can supply you're own energy, recharge your own car, you still need water. Water, however, is the world's most abundant resource - if you can drink it. Which brings us to some exciting news, as seen here. Essentially, the man who invented the Segway, Dean Kamen, has developed a device that produces clean water from mud. From saltwater. From urine. All you need is a plug. He's currently trying to distribute them to Africa and, as he says, save 50 million lives who would otherwise face death from drought or diseased drinking water.

***

4. Communication. The internet started with a basic premise: surfers and servers and ISPs. Servers serve information, surfers enjoy it, and the ISPs (Internet Service Providers) paid for and ran the wires and switches to connect everyone together. While the backbone of the internet is likely to remain the massive fiber network stretched across America, wireless technology is increasing in speed and range so quickly, I'm not entirely sure that we'll need the wires forever. I can envision a P2P (peer to peer) wi-fi cloud that does away with the need for ISPs. I pay for a cable internet connection now, but free wireless is so prevalent now that I could certainly remain quite connected without Time-Warner Cable, Comcast, AT&T, or any of the others. Throw in a VOIP, wi-fi phone, and the wires creep back a little further.

***

I don't want to suggest that we all need to hop off the grid. I'm not calling for revolution - just the recognition that the future before us need not be a mere continuation of the now: a faster, sharper, higher rez version of the present.

The industrial revolution lashed us together economically.

But for all the great accomplishments of the last two centuries, we've lost a great deal of self-reliance; and, as I see it, enslaved ourselves to increasingly large, increasingly impersonal, and increasingly inefficient corporations and government.

Conservatives have been traditionally wary of big government - progressives have long feared and fought against fascism. What progressives need to remember is that it is far better for people to take care of themselves than it is for government to - and conservatives need to remember that big corporations can be as bad as a giant, leering federal bureaucracy.

Let's let individual liberty, empowered by technology, be the defining characteristic of the next age.

The Star Child Goes Nova: Arthur C. Clarke going up at 90

Another passing, shooting, flaming soul goes rocketing (into the heavens/to Heaven). Interesting set of phrases there. Arthur C. Clarke, author of 2001, A Space Odyssey; and the subsequent 2010, 2061, 3001. My favorite, I think, was 2010 - it seemed the most mythic.

Clarke's work was always hopeful: for the wonders that technology could unfold to us, for the exploration of space, and most of all for the future of the human spirit, no matter the form.


For more, see his foundation's website here and a news story about his going up here.

Here is a subversive website that illegally hosts some of his works. Don't go to it and read his novels and stories for free.

UPDATE: Here is a farewall video from Clarke on the occasion of his 90th birthday.

Count

One breath gives us pause,
but two sets a pace,
and three is a regular beat;
and all the gasps from meeting to knowing
is a meter of urgency.

Or the heart beats in half-notes,
afraid for itself,
till the strings waltz us home;
and setting the tempo at zero and zero,
we keep the restless count.

She's better each hour,
like seeing in color,
radio songs at night
When each little joy's like falling in love
for the very, very first time.

- Wednesday, January Seventeenth, 2007

Dallas

For those not in the know - I live near Dallas. Not quite in Dallas, but enough that when I go to another state, I assert "Dallas" as my home.

And I like the city, for all its problems. I've spent the last six months reading Unfair Park on a daily basis; and I never fail to catch Jim Schutze's column in the Observer. I also enjoy Angela Hunt's blog.

Unfair Park posted a link to The Urban Fabric's impressive photo, which really is quite beautiful, and I think everyone should see it.

Prowling

What rains wash tonight feels cold, brought up to shiver and freeze:
all shiny roads, rattling windows, shaking knees, pink ears.

What rains wash tonight are hours, from midnight till O-dark thirty,
when bed calls, sheets rumple, blankets stacked, kittens a'prowl.

What rains wash is me, tense and undetermined,
restless and wide-eyed, all jitters and thoughts:

a rocket without flaps, a penny tossed over a tower's edge,
a blunted apple peeler, a misbehaving auto-focus lens,
an analog clock ticking away on a stuck second mark,
a blinking orange traffic light, a declawed lion,
a dented tuning fork a'hum, a list of foolish metaphors,
a counterfeit bottle of whiskey, a stubbed toe in the dark blue-light,
a passing car going home, a tornado siren silence.

What rains wash tonight is me, unsleeping, a'prowl.

- 2:19am, Saturday, January Thirteenth, 2007

Going Electric

First off, let me say that I like gasoline. I'm addicted, like everyone else; but I genuinely like it. Even if the best of all I hope for comes to bear and the world begins to shelve the combustion engine, I'll be that dude in 50 years paying ten dollars a gallon for it, for my "classic" 1990's tuned Honda that I'll tinker with and jet around through my retirement. I see these old-timers in Model A Ford customized roadsters and I know that is one of my possible futures: a relic of an unsustainable past - a crazy old-timer. Gasoline as a hobby, a weekend sport.

But before we bankrupt ourselves, financially and perhaps morally, on a gas addiction, I hope the commuters and families and daily drivers will go electric sooner rather than later.

*

To that end, congratulations to Elon Musk and the team at Tesla Motors, who yesterday started line production of the Tesla Electric Roadster. See more here.

A quick overview:
Tesla Roadster
$100,000
0-60mph in 3.9 seconds - and no torque curve: acceleration remains constant.
4+ hours to fully charge
200+ miles per charge
$.02 - $.05 per mile (depending on how much you pay for electricity)
Motor and batteries are designed to go to 100,000 miles.
TARGA (removable) top, looks like a Lotus because Lotus engineers helped design it.

The company has already stated that this high end sports car is an entry into the market: profit from selling these will fund R&D for a $50K sport sedan model, and then a $30K commuter.

Also, the batteries are non-toxic and can be safely thrown away - or recycled for cash to help offset the price of new batteries.

*

This car will not save the world. Electric cars will not save the world. But its the damn fastest and damn sexiest methadone for oil addiction that I've seen. Send in the electrics!

You're The Only One Who Knows

I was searching my computer for the Billy Joel song So It Goes, just because I need to hear it every few weeks, when I realized that it was on my other computer, and rather than boot that one up, I punched "so it goes" into youtube, assuming that a music video would come up and I could hear the song.

While that page was loading, I began talking to my friend Austin on a instant message chat. He asked how my students were doing, and I said "some are passing, some aren't...but so it goes" just thinking of the song. But that made him think of Vonnegut, who he's been reading intensely for several months now, and the line from "Slaughter-House Five."

So, interesting, yes. But when I turn back to youtube to see what my search brought up, it was this video, which is a lovely tribute to Vonnegut, but uses Billy Joel's song. I had seen it a year or so ago when Vonnegut had just died, so it goes.

I think this sort of idea that "there are no accidents" is probably something that Vonnegut would have disagreed with - most of his writing suggests to me that life is essentially random and that we might as well go along with it: embracing what is rather than imposing a make-believe order. I disagree with him (if I am accurately reporting his stance), but enjoy his writing nonetheless.

Kurt Vonnegut died on April 11, 2007, so it goes.

Haircut Photos

A little belated, but this was the process. I documented my attitude towards the whole shebang here.

Defining our Terms

Joy defines
the metaphor of truth
tromping down a path of winning
over evil.

Joy is my heart in love.
Joy is my soul in song.
Joy is my mind freed.
Joy is me in love.

Met

I first met Albert Swift
crying on the side of the street,
where he knelt, tearing at what
he held in his shallow palm,
for what he had done
in the sticky darkness of midnight.
But it was not him
who had grasped that
white
throat
I knew, I, I knew it was not him.

Cutting My Hair

After the first few cuts
I stole a look in the handheld mirror
and saw the Unibomber staring back
saw a mad face, shocked rags of brown
clumps, a shredded styling

where before there was a hippie
now an asylum escapee
but snip snip we went
keeping my head down
until the electrics kicked in

after the last few buzzes
I posed for a picture
and wondered about Samson
who lost his strength when he was seduced by Delilah
and post-coitus had his shave

here was me, and my friend
snapping a photo in the front yard
sweeping the clumps into a bag,
I'd seduced myself to the scissors,
and I went inside to wash.

Playing with Air

Undone and redone
Re-run, de-run, un-run
son sun of a gon' gun,

creeks, cricks, crickets, critics
mix affixes and clitics
in the sense strictest

depend and defend
lean loan lent leaned lend
trean, trent, trend

trip trap troop, drip drop droop
trop drap trape

wotch at far dongerous folling racks

how would you pronounce eckshmplodth?
-Monday, January Fourteenth, 2008

Joy in Learning

I want to return to this idea of joyful learning and to dispel misunderstandings - like shadows from the corners, or abandoned spiderwebs in forgotten cellars.

Joy in the classroom is not smiles, although those are excellent symptoms of joy. Having fun is an important part of joy: a day of class that has no jokes, stories, or mischief is a sad day. Exam days are like this - and they should be done away because assessment should not mean tying students to a chair and flogging out how much they know. Fun is important, not the core of joy.

The foundation (an old metaphor that says IDEAS ARE BUILDINGS) of joy in learning, as I see it, is a far more serious thing. It relates to what joy is in everyday life. In everyday life, joy requires three attitudes:

1. That Life, as opposed to non-life is worth it. Living is worth the ache, the "slings and arrows."
2. The present is more important than the past or future. The present is where we live.
3. Creating balance between your soul and the outside world is mandatory. Another way of saying this is contentment with what you have and what you are, even as you improve your world and yourself. You can want more, or less; joy, however, does not depend on what you have or are, but on the relationship that you create between the what you have and what you want.. Another way of saying this how the Rolling Stones put it: "You can't always get what you want, but...you get what you need." Another way is what C. S. N. & Y. sang, "If you can't be with the X you love, love the X you're with."
This maps quite nicely onto learning with joy:

1. Joyous learning takes hard work.

2. Joyous learning happens right now.

3. Joyous learning is about responding to yourself, not adding to/fixing/correcting yourself.

Its important to realize that teachers create or destroy an environment for joy; they don't create/destroy it directly for their students. Some people refuse joy even when it is there for the taking; others relish it despite the void in which they learn.

Joy is the satisfaction of solving a hard problem, discovering something new, writing a really good sentence, building a solid house, turning over the key on an engine you rebuilt yourself and listening to those turbos wind up.

Joy is also defiance in the face of failure, what others have called dignity in defeat.

When Job had everything, he continually said "Blessed be the name of the Lord," and when he lost everything, he said "Blessed be the name of the Lord." Having the same, optimistic and life-embracing response to every situation is what joy is about.

Joy is how we choose to live, not merely react to stimulus. It can be that way in the classroom too, given encouragement and room.

Redemption:

what words and suffering cannot accomplish:
40 years,
desert baking,
pressure hardening:
a heart set to trickle charge;

and then at once the flashing moment:
the small motions of a woman's left hand
inciting sudden involvement in truly human matters,
in the one heroic act of a life:

not that children were conceived or reared but sufficient that love was made,
not that a sword was ever raised but enough, oh my heart, that it was unsheathed.

All You Need.

Listening to the Beatles classic "All You Need Is Love" again, since its Vday, I'm struck not by the dropping, easy/lazy vocals, or the slightly circus organ rythym (especially as it breaks into the outro, recalling the lyrics to their earlier hit with its "Love you...yeah yeah yeah") of the trumpets; no, what I'm most in tune with is the violins. After the first chorus, there is a moment where the wittle down the essence of the melody to a bare draw, a perfect squiggle in time. And a minute later the tempo opens up and we get the circus act.

Is that like love? The Take it Easy slow build, the moment of truth, and then the fun drops from the sky and the party begins and carries you into forever.

Clearance

A little cliff beside the sea, full of spiked waves dropping, is the focal point at the length from then to now, a distance of years, and from there to here, between seas and nations, and from me to her, the space in which we breathe and sleep.

And never back to that little cliff can the clearance be crossed or the direction be determined.

Yet hope renews itself and is bright each morning for the blue and indigo midnight-wedding of our earnest youth; though what is lost is dear (that moment itself of love blending into love) the future we bought and the present glories we gained are worthy enough.

Let us say that this, too, is love.

-Monday, January Eighth, 2007

The Disembody

Ay won'ever unforget
The darkly even ning
Whin throo the brash we proshed
und came up awn the disembody
floeting owt a cross the crack
und noo the whurled wus changd

Knowing without knowing

My soul is that bit
back
from
above
behind
below
central
inside
mapped
blended
that bit that can't be measured
but for what I know of it,
knowing without knowing

Differences in Hearts

When I was young I had a strong heart and the affections
it pumped were thick sheets of rain
or hail driven at sloped angles across the sky;
like clouds all clustered together so that
a few square miles are a hurricane-on-land as pounds
of ice are flying with a crushing determinism
down in the valley.

Then it was all tears and cries and wails and rage,
or a cosmic experiment in suffering,
or an endurance test for the human, my very own, soul.

Now my heart is full grown and hungry,
unbounded into itself and what my soul demands,
answering with quiet, fireside words
that do not inflame
but smolder and smile and still the embers
into a fine orange and pink
to last us until the morning comes.

The difference, I think, is love.

-Saturday, December Thirtieth, 2006

Without

untended, unminded
we crept through woods
on hands and knees
unsafe, unsure

the best nights are spent
out and without
adult supervision

An Oven Timer Beeping

The world is static charged, windy, wild, forlorn and mired, enlarged in theory but shrunk in motive force.

The world is tipped in orbit, spanned, spun, backwards run, uneven to God yet quite level to us.

The world is an oven timer, a Christmas light, a chipped knife, a leaky bucket, a stuck trapdoor, a rotting floor, a coaster stuck to the bottom of a glass.

The world is an old tree stump, a road bump, a Coke and Rum.
The world is a waiting room patient whose time has come.

-Saturday, December Twenty-third, 2006

Nothing Secret

On the last Friday, while writing paragraphs on the topic "(An/The most) important person in my life", one of my students asked for spelling confirmation on the word 'secret'.

I teach English as Second Language, mostly writing and grammar, to fourteen students at Richland Community College in Dallas, Texas. One of my goals in teaching is to share joy. This can be accomplished in many ways: by having lots of parties, by celebrating each other and each other's culture, by telling jokes, and by doing most of the boring work in groups. My mantra in this is something that my teacher, Haj Ross, said to me. He was explaining his take on the above ideas when he said that "it's easier to learn with friends." This may seem to be a simple or obvious point, or a silly one, but it really is quite foundational to co-creating a classroom that has joy in it.

I don't know if "It's easier to learn with friends" is Haj's mantra; I suspect that for him it is merely an everyday truth that needs no trumpet - something he said once and may say again, but bares no sacred meaning. I want to (trumpet/*saxophone/*trombone) it here.


Creating and Sharing Joy with your Students in the Classroom:
I. Teaching is easier when learning is easier.
II. Learning is easier with friends.
III. Joy in the classroom is derived from the success of friendship, not the success of the individual.


So what does this all have to do with writing paragraphs on something as deadening boring as "The most important person in my life" or the word 'secret'? The sentence that my student discovered, that she needed to make sure was spelled right, was this:

There is nothing secret between her and me.

The 'her and me' refers to my student and her mother, who was the most important person in her life. What amazed me was that I had given her such a lame prompt and drew up out of English, her second language, such an amazing sentence.

Initially, I read the sentence, confirmed her spelling, and moved on. As I circulated the room, helping students with this and that, little problems, the phrase was inside my mouth. Up and down my throat, behind my teeth, slavering across my tongue.

There is nothing secret between her and me. What brilliance of language, my own language in the mouth of a learner. We don't know how people learn their first language, we don't really know how they learn a second language. But here was this newbie flashing forth with a bit of my domain and it struck me a mighty blow.


So I wrote it on the board and together we explored some ways the thought might unfold:

1a. There is nothing secret between her and me.
1b. There is nothing secret between me and her.
1c. There is nothing secret between us.

2a. Nothing is secret between her and me.
2b. Nothing is secret between me and her.
2c. Nothing is secret between us.

3a. Between her and me, nothing is secret.
3b. Between me and her, nothing is secret.
3c. Between us, nothing is secret.

4a. Between her and me, there is nothing secret.
4b. Between me and her, there is nothing is secret.
4c. Between us, there is nothing secret.

Between a and b of every subset, the difference seems to be primarily in focus; c, however, collapses the difference of 'her' and 'me' and seems much better. The point of the sentence, after all, is to demonstrate the smallness of the gap between two humans, using a plural pronoun categorizes them much closer than two singular ones do.

I particularly like the sets in 1 and 4 with the phrase 'there is nothing secret' rather than 2 and 3's 'nothing is secret'. While they both seem to say the same thing, I think 'there is' emphasizes that a relationship exists and the sentence is therefore categorizing the relationship. 2 and 3 both seem to offer mere negation.

For instance, I could say "Nothing is secret between me and Genghis Khan" because there is nothing at all, secret or otherwise, between us. I could also say "Nothing is special..." or "Nothing is..."

To say "There is nothing secret..." feels much more like a positive statement of the kind of relationship, rather than just negating secrets.


I'm not entirely sure the students knew how important this all was to me. We talked about the focus issues between a, b, and c; I explained my preference for 1c and 4c as above. The reason I submit this to the outside world is that this sort of honest exploration makes for much better learning, I think, than the exercises one finds in a book. There is joy and authenticity in it; even when there is failure, I feel as though we weren't drinking from the drip bottle but from a wild stream. And that is certainly a better gulp.

One important factor to note: you have to make yourself open to these sort of experiences ( events, happenings, occurrences, rabbit trails, tangents, vectors, ect.) for it to be authentic. If I had planned a few sentences the week before to try this with, I think it would have been far less joyful - unless my sentences happened to spark someone else's fire. The point is that you can't force it.

Another mantra, one I learned from my teacher Dr. Armstrong, at Stephen F. Austin State, goes thus:

Teach to the Teachable Moment.

Some Nights Are and Some Nights Aren't

A dark room, windowless and howling
eating alive each damned soul
who abandoned hope, who forsook the Word of God, and who took for granted the luminous shadow of cracking, misplaced love

This too is love.

And best of all, the worse has passed
and all ahead is green and good
and eyelids fall, and mouths close fast
to each own bed each sleeper would

- Wednesday, December Twentieth, 2006

Bull Elephants

We didn't know what to do with bull elephants, but here was this crazy barbarian, hands dusted white, telling us to sidle up from the back and from the left, until we could touch the cold skin of his flank. Just approach, he said, and get a feel for him. Try to notice the way he moves. As if something so massive had anything to offer but bulk and grandeur. There was nothing cached or hidden in his eyes, no small wonders in the crevices. Nothing secret to be shared between us - awe and mystery, but impenetrable.

Of course, back in the camp we had seen many of these creatures, shot between the eyes and carved. Laid out in neat blocks on the table for the anatomist, the vivisectionist. Here an eye, labeled an eye; there a tusk, labeled a tusk. Tail, intestine, stomach, heart, liver, kidneys, lung left, lung right, cranium, skull cap, trunk sections, ears, feet, paws, tanned hide, teeth arranged in rows, spinal vertebrae, womb in one jar, phallus in another. Tidy Latin text on little sticky notes detailing the whole structure of an elephant.

The Scientists were perfect. Dispassionate, rigorous. Not just with the anatomy, but everything. Everything you ever wanted to know about elephants but didn't want to ask. A book of answers on every shelf. Grant money poured into whitewashed little huts with gasoline generators. Perfect.

We Tourists, we Safarists, we trembling explorers with six pairs of socks in ziplock bags, we watched the whole process of bull elephant disassembly with an appropriate mix of shock and appreciation. Look, dear! Look how he handles the knife, knows just where to cut. I wonder where he learned to do that. For we Tourists, the Scientists too were beyond our ken. Alien. Gods. Themselves impenetrable.

The Natives had little opinion in the matter. Elephantry was outside the scope of their survival, their everyday, their life, their ontology. The Scientists held magic to net and kill and dissect the monsters in the jungle - the Scientists were sorcerers and could do as they please; the Natives had no interest in letting the expedition intersect their lives.

So we Tourists and the Natives were not so different - except that the Natives didn't understand elephants and didn't want to; while we pretended to understand the Science that explained the elephants. But it was a lie. We didn't understand the Science or the elephants or even the Scientists themselves. Awe and mystery, impenetrable.

But here we were, tourists, now outside the camp and in that jungle with the monsters; and here was this madman, our guide, neither scientist nor native, showing us elephants directly. The scientists only came out to watch or capture, never approached the animals. Detect, observe, note, net, shoot, carve, label. But our friend the barbarian loved them. He watched and noticed without notepad, without recorder, without malice. He wanted elephants dangerous and in the wild, not pinned down and safe. And now it was my turn to sidle up and run my fingers along the biggest living thing I have ever touched. I approached, unsure. A little drunk (in my fear I had nipped at a bottle), I heard every crack and crunkle of twig and leaf beneath my boots.

Two yards. The madman behind me whispering, go on go on, it's no use living if you never touch life. This is big life, this is abundant life.

One yard. I think of how much blood must be running through those veins; veins the size of garden hoses. The toes are huge. All I can see is the toes. The little cracks in the toes. And I'm there, reaching out beyond my center of gravity so that I don't have to step closer; just get one little touch and I can be done with this and go back to the camp.

And he moves away, leaving my fingers brushing air. The mass of him just shifts and he takes a step. He's really not heavy on his feet but he's so big it seems like the earth is moving. I think of Moses' ten spies, terrified. There are giants in the land.

The world, the giant, takes another step away and I can't follow. Our insane guide grabs me by the shoulder, friendly, but white chalk from his hands clouds around my face and I try not to cough - still terrified of the size of the elephant.

Not the size. The impenetrability. That's really what I was afraid of, I think. It wasn't the possible injury or possible death or the strangeness of such a creature or really even my own ineptitude in dealing with it. I wasn't afraid of being the fool. There was just no approach to that sort a thing. I know now why the scientists had to shoot and carve to understand - it's easier to dissect than to love. But love is knowing life, dissection just shows us the bits after life.

My guide smiles at me, his own bulk showing through his sweater. Let's try a smaller one, he says, and leads our group to another herd. This one, he says, may look like a baby, but he has so much to offer - I've been making friends with him for years and I can't imagine how little I really know.

This time I go first, and though just as unsure and clumsy, I manage to touch it. Him. I feel that cold skin, and yes its cold - but with life underneath. Big Life, Life abundant. And this bull elephant, whose name is Digging, I myself have come back to again and again to notice and to make friends. To penetrate, not with bullets or scalpels or academia or dissertation proposals, but with love. Not to pierce the skin, but the heart of the thing.

Digging goes,

Between my finger and my thumb...

Retrieval

It never snows much these Decembers and
Driving without destinations has lost all appeal
Since the Christmas when everything dropped into
A place we can't fit through to retrieve
Ourselves and who we wanted to grow up to be.

But this too is love: retrieval.

- Monday, December Eighteenth, 2006