Saturday, December 25, 2010

Poem from the Shinkokinshu-1200A.D.


The Kokinshu was earlier. Large increase in travel and travelling monks. Saigyo was important in this collection. Focus on the poet looking at nature...laments, seasonal,...Fujiwara Teika: the compiler. These poems are knows as Waka: Japanese poetry. Haiku came later.

Thursday, December 23, 2010

poem and karate info

some strange guy
typing punctuating the silences
severe silence and papers in the late night
some kind of loud darkness
suffused with energy
designed toward cross purposes
ticking through the artifice
watered down into the energies


Okay,
done with that.
Now, for those of you who didn't get the message, I'm teaching a one day a week karate class. Here's some paragraphs about that:
Traditional Shotokan Karate is Japanese martial art. It is a lifetime activity that improves all aspects of physical fitness and promotes cognitive ability and emotional stability. Karate improves self-image and self-control while teaching the values of discipline and personal defense strategies.

Unlike many martial arts, Karate's foundation is in self-defense, not dueling or military engagement. Through training, students become more in tune with or aware of their immediate surroundings. This awareness allows the student to assess and avoid dangerous situations before physical confrontation takes place. The successful Karate-Ka never has a fight.

The object of Karate is to improve the participant in both mind and body. The structure of the class promotes organized thinking patterns, critical evaluation, problem-solving and listening skills along with robust physical training.

Chris Farrell has done Shotokan Karate for 28 years and received his black belt in 1986. This class will focus on the forms, applications of the forms, and going through the basic exercises. Chris is associated with the International Traditional Karate Federation and the Amateur American Karate Federation. He follows the standards for Shotokan Karate allowed by those groups.

Wednesdays, 7:15 - 8:45 p.m.
Cost: $5 per class or $20 per month.

And the link to the Corvallis Dance Center:
Dance Center

Monday, December 06, 2010

Faded Flowers

The flowers I saw in the wildwood
Have since dropped their beautiful leaves
And the many dear friends of my childhood
Have slumbered many years in their graves

But the bloom of the flowers I remember
Though their smiles I may never more see
For the cold chilly winds of December
Stole my flowers' companions from me

It's no wonder that I'm broken hearted
And stricken with sorrow should be
For we have met we have loved we have parted
My flowers companions and me

How dark looks this world and how dreary
When we part from the ones that we love
There is rest for the faint and the weary
And friends to meet with loved ones above

For in heaven I can but remember
When from earth my soul shall be free
There no cold chilly winds of December
Shall steal my companions from me
-Carter Family, Faded Flowers

Monday, November 08, 2010

sketchin'





I did some sketches recently. Here they are

Thursday, October 28, 2010

From drawings

Friday, July 16, 2010

Meet me in the Green Glen

Love meet me in the green glen
Beside the tall Elm tree
Where the Sweet briar smells so sweet agen
There come wi me

Meet me at the sunset
Down in the green glen
Where we've often met
By hawthorn tree and foxes den

Meet me by the sheep pen
Where briers smell at een
Meet me i the green glen
Where white thorn shades are green

Meet me in the green glen
By sweet briar bushes there
Meet me by your own sen
Where the wild thyme blossoms fair

Meet me by the sweet briar
By the mole hill swelling there
When the west glows like a fire
-John Clare

Thursday, May 13, 2010

wrote this a while ago

this morning in the heat
around the cats and wood
i said i'll not be around long
i'll soon be going beneath the ground
cracks on a pavement gray
take tears of pain upon my bones
in all things in the wear
the oldness, sadness, and decay
an old man came up to me
his beard a white and shiny bright
he never said a word
and yet i hear his voice a-shake.

A good karate class can completely obliterate any pointless line of reasoning you may have been going down, and reorient you toward a completely pointless and yet perfectly coherent and inwardly unambiguous system.

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

The World is not Conclusion

This World is not Conclusion

A Species stands beyond-
Invisible, as Music-
But positive, as Sound-
It beckons, and it baffles-
Philosophy-don't know-
And through a Riddle, at the last-
Sagacity, must go-
To guess it, puzzles scholars-
To gain it, Men have borne
Contempt of Generations
And Crucifixion, shown...

-Emily Dickinson

Monday, April 19, 2010

"Eagle and Sky" by Ibuse Masuji.

Vocabulary from the last story I was trying to read, "Eagle and Sky" by Ibuse Masuji.

峠   とうげ       peak
尾根  おね       mountain ridge
鷲   わし       eagle
栂   つが      hemlock
猛ぎん  もう     bird of prey
獲物   えもの     game
うっとり          entranced
恍惚  こうこつ     ecstasy
撮影  さつえい     photographing
崖   がけ      cliff
吠える   ほ     bark
膳    ぜん     small table
邸   やしき      mansion
譲る  ゆず       turn over, assion
長兄   ちょうけい    eldest brother
勝手   かって     one's own way
遣る瀬無い   やるせない  cheerless
塀     へい     wall
容貌   ようぼう     looks
車掌   しゃしょう    conductor
猛禽   もうきん    bird of prey
後援   こうえん    support, backing

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

plate



Friday, March 05, 2010

Patsy's life history

Some words on Patsy

Patsy Todd was born in Compton, California, on August
3, 1929. She moved to Oregon in ’37 during the
depression, picked fruit, and her father bought a farm
and sold it in ’47, moved to the coast, built a motel,
called the “Miles Motel”, went to Chemeketa, learned
to weld, worked at Wade’s manufacturing plant. Mother
did rations, worked for a millionaire, the father
building fences, mothing taking something, moved
father out to St. Helens and rioting started. Worked
at Smokecraft in the ‘70’s, linen mills in Jefferson,
talked about Burt Reynolds. Smacked her because she
liked Bob Hope, not Burt Reynolds. Joined the union
and quit, kind of fraudulent run in Salem, bring my
grandchildren. Can’t see after wreck, living with man,
worked in restaurant “Chilibowl”, early shift, met
guy, snow started, guy came over, started the affair,
died of a heartache. Clarence came home smelling of
gasoline, left, after six years

-Chris Farrell

Wednesday, March 03, 2010

Kerouac had some real talents.


Homeless eat
banana cake
coffee gone.

Sean Penn
big arms
Mystic River.

Trill ass
candy paint.
UGK.

Brown rice
with cheese.
Tired.

Yeah I'm not
gardening.
So What?

I got hot
water,
good.

Why is
that guy
staring at me?

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Is there a sign over every bookstore that I am not seeing that says "Cell phone talking area"? Where do people get the idea that it is okay to go into a bookstore and chatter away on their cell phones? I know it is cold outside or noisy or whatever, but that doesn't mean we want your inconsiderate self in here where we are actually trying to read and look at books, not listen to how your colonoscopy went or which movie you need from the video store. Go back outside and freeze, or just hang up the phone.

Saturday, January 30, 2010

moebius k at the beanery

These guys are finally starting to play as well as the quality of their instruments. I remember them playing a completely pathetic version of "Southern Man", but practice seems to be getting them into a kind of cool rocking zone.

That is always fun to see.
Apparently I am a "turbo" dishwasher. At the free meal this morning the head cook said that we may as well use my help because with my "turbo dishwashing" capabilities, they would be out of there earlier. It is true that I am an incredibly fast dishwasher, but that is not really something to brag about, for the most part. It is just a matter of prioritizing and getting the feel of using the standard industrial size dishwashing machine. I had eight years of on-the-job experience. It is not rocket science.

Friday, January 29, 2010

reading

John Cheever is an amazing writer.  Check his stuff out.  I was surfing through all the back issues of the New Yorker that are available to subscribers yesterday, because they were nice enough to provide links to all of the stories that J.D. Salinger published over the years.  It was interesting to read through them in their original typeface, with the original advertisements, everything exactly as it was in the original magazine when it came out.  I realized that Cheever was also probably in there somewhere, so I did a search and read one of his stories.  He has a distinct and gripping style, but not overstated or even loud in any way.


Harold Evans, an editor of the London Times and other papers, just came out with a memoir called My Paper Chase.  According to him, he definitely did a lot of work to uncover corruption of various kinds, pollution, to get the story on tyrants and maniacs in political power, and generally did the job an editor should be doing.  He was eventually forced out by Rupert Murdoch.  No surprise there.

Murdoch actually in some ways was kind of an admirable businessman.  At the time he took over the London Times, the printers' union had excessive power and was continually making demands and shutting things down.  Murdoch build an entirely new printing facility out of town on the ruse that he was starting up a new paper.  He shut down the presses and staffed the new presses with non-union people, managing to break the power of the unions.  It was quite an audacious move, and according to Harold Evans, something that needed to be done.

But the most important thing about Murdoch is that he owns Fox news.  That is unforgivable.

Thursday, January 21, 2010

murdering the silence

"the band was not so much playing music as murdering the silence with a vulgar, ferocious energy." LOL. -from Victory, by Joseph Conrad.


What a terrific couple of days. NOT. Some idiot Republican with a truck gets elected in Massachusetts, and the spineless Democrats wuss out on passing what would have been a major major piece of legislation.
Then the Supreme Court overrules the law to decide that corporations can spend unlimited funds to get whoever they want elected.
Talk about a bad day.

If that health plan doesn't pass I don't know what I am going to do. Maybe move to the Brooks Range and make my living by spearing fish.


Tuesday, January 19, 2010

karate

There is a set way to do every kata. Of course there can be variations, but the kata has to work with the application that you have in mind. At the same time, there are certain principles that remain more or less the same. For example, the tension, inside and outside, in the stances works the same way in every case. There is a certain coordination that will allow maximum speed through stepping techniques, coordinated with their upper body movements. If one always strives to move in that way, then in a real world fighting situation, things may not be so perfect, but your technique will be stronger and faster and will have less extraneous and unnecessary motion than it would otherwise. Shotokan karate as taught by Nishiyama was optimized for speed and for maximum impact for each technique, combined with the greatest possible stability. It is an amazing system and a genuinely new invention in the way the body can coordinate through technique.

Shotokan also has the aspect of kata (forms) which is a similarity to the forms of something like Tai Chi. So karate is not all about fighting, but is also about relaxation and going through movements that may also have a meditative aspect.

Friday, January 15, 2010

fixin' cars.

life is a jaded path and a soporific meandering....


I spent about five hours trying to change an alternator, and almost broke down crying at several different points. The thing to know about alternators is a)have the tools for the job, and b)buy a headlamp so you can see what you are doing. I think I got it in there okay. If I break down somewhere in the pouring rain, probably on the freeway late at night, then I will know that I didn't install it right.

Friday, January 01, 2010

weird-ass ice cream

Here's a bizarre fragment of a story. Completely fictional.



I walked up over the tracks and came to the railroad crossing sign. It looked and felt satanic in the predawn cold, and I felt an evil sort of energy. Down the street, past some trailer parks of the wrecked variety, and the "King Kone", weird-ass fast food shack, I came upon an old and twisted white church. A cat was sitting in front of it, as if waiting for me. I stopped, and then passed by. The street felt more and more threatening, and a strange looking fat guy came out of a wrecked trailer. There was evil looking detritus strewn out all over the front of that trailer. He said "I can't see who it is!", maybe at me, or maybe at someone else. Trucks were rushing by, all the same make and model all in perfect condition, all zooming their engines. I started thinking I was going being watched, but there was a girl my age looking at me. We talked, and she gave me a brownie and some chocolate milk, and blew her whistle at the trucks, called them weak, and said she was just waiting to go to church with her aunt. She said we are all sons and daughters of hippies, and she was getting nervous. I was too. There was a white truck just down the way, revving its engine. I thought I was trapped at that point by some demonic force that was completely foreign to me. We sat down next to a building, and a long-haired type guy came by on a strange long bicycle that looked as if it was custom made and then covered in dirt and grime. He sat down. He said he was going to get propane.

long beard waving in the wind
strange long and silent bicycle
down the dark streets
going across town
looking for some propane.