Well kids, yesterday did not pan out. Had I taken drugs the night before I wrote that I was feeling the onset of creativity? Are premonitions not to be trusted?
The car which I was told did not need brake work now needs brakes. And a starter. And there is something going on that I didn't know that they need to figure out. I am without my car for a third day.
I got back two rolls of color film. I will not shoot color film again except maybe in larger format cameras. It just isn't worth it. Twenty-six dollars (plus the cost of the film) and the pictures suck. I can do as much with my digital cameras. I can make nice black and white photos with my Leica Monochrom, too. Still, I might shoot black and white as I can develop it myself and there is a thrill running the film through my beautiful Leica M.
Here are a couple photos from the rolls. I came across this on a walk. I haven't a clue as to what this shrine commemorates, but it was spooky enough to suggest ju-ju. I hope being in the broken mirror didn't presage bad luck. I've had enough of that.
I got my second Shingrex shot yesterday. "You might have a slight fever tonight," the pharmacist said. "It is nothing to worry about." Sure. Fevers aren't a bad thing. By nightfall, I was feeling really punky. I had a difficult time sitting up and watching the NCAA Tournament on t.v. I took two Tylenol and half a nerve pill before bed, but even then, I could not sleep. I took the other half. Still didn't work. I tossed and turned all the live-long night. I remember what passed for dreams. They were not fun. I took two more Tylenol. I stayed in bed as long as I could. The ticking of the clock. The empty house. A nightlight in a distant room. The hum of the air filter. The cold comfort of an extra pillow. Thoughts of my approaching mortality. That is what I have to counter the night terrors. Sometimes I am swallowed by it.
Jesus. Last night I told myself I would begin to write more seriously. I would let Hemingway and Salter be my influences. That was the last thing I thought before the giant lizards started eating me. I will have to practice some today. Maybe a cafe, some tea, something heard or seen.
I will try. I will try to do much better.
ReplyDeleteThe Mower to the Glow-Worms
BY ANDREW MARVELL
Ye living lamps, by whose dear light
The nightingale does sit so late,
And studying all the summer night,
Her matchless songs does meditate;
Ye country comets, that portend
No war nor prince’s funeral,
Shining unto no higher end
Than to presage the grass’s fall;
Ye glow-worms, whose officious flame
To wand’ring mowers shows the way,
That in the night have lost their aim,
And after foolish fires do stray;
Your courteous lights in vain you waste,
Since Juliana here is come,
For she my mind hath so displac’d
That I shall never find my home.
Note from the Editor
Today is the 400th birthday Of Marvell
There is a quote in the book I am reading that I want to post here. I will later. In the meantime, let us begin my celebrating Mr Marvell’s 400 birthday.
Chin chin Buddy Boy. 🦇
ReplyDeleteI dunno you don't look hideous.
Driving to pick up his son, Bennie alternated between the Sleepers and the Dead Kennedy's, San Francisco bands he'd grown up with. He listened for muddiness, the sense of actual musicians playing actual instruments in an actual room. Nowadays that quality (if it existed at all) was usually an effect of analogue signaling rather than bona fide tape -- everything as an effect in the bloodless constructions Bennie and his peers were churning out. He worked tirelessly, feverishly, to get things right, stay on top, make songs that people would love and buy and download as ring tones (and steal, of course) -- above all to satisfy the multinational crude-oil extractors he'd sold his label to five years ago. But Bennie knew that what he was bringing into the world was shit. Too clear, too clean. The problem was precision, perfection; the problem was digitization, which sucked the life out of everything that got smeared through its microscopic mesh. Film, photography, music: dead. An aesthetic holocaust! Bennie knew better than to say this stuff aloud.
- excerpted from "A Visit to the Goon Squad, Chapter 2, The Gold Cure.
My night was polar opposite in almost every way except for the fact that I did not sleep either. The gummies I had previously mentioned are quite something taken in the right situation.
Never made it to a mattress, rather, let the not full but still big and bright moon shine through the bay windows in the living room - my perch (aka the linen sofa from my old friend and client Burt) pushed into the angles of the windows with my lime tree and parsley and lemon verbena on a sofa table behind the couch falling over me.
I lay there. Buzzing with art thoughts, creativity thoughts. Things that are probably really just garbage thoughts today but seemed stupendous,there, ticking and flipping through my brain in a gentle flowing succession.
The moon moved from the eastern sky to the west. It's bulb - radiant white - I was cognizant but buzzing as I watched the light travel over my body - my legs, torso, arms, finally my face. I thought to take a picture of the bars of light that at one time decorated pieces of me. I did with my mind. It was a really good, zen-ish THC trip.
I fell asleep briefly about 5. And was up by 6 ish. Not exhausted - not even tired. Feeling a sense of incredible peace.
Strange shit.
I was released early from the Gulag. I am a bit ready for a nap now. Hope it doesn't screw me up tonight.
Tomorrow is April 1. I begin my foraging for Poems.
I know what the title for Number 1 is - Invocation.
I shall attempt to invoke the Muse, the gods & goddesses of all things poetry, the Ancient ones from Sappho to the recently departed Mr. Ferlinghetti.
Here's to it ..
whatever will be will.
I am a vessel, open and ready. Waiting on the Magic to flow through me.
There is no magic. It is all hard work, and the more the better.
ReplyDelete