dickinson

The Body grows without-
The more convenient way-
That if the Spirit-like to hide
Its Temple stands, alway,

Ajar-secure-inviting-
It never did betray
The Soul that asked its shelter
In solem honesty

scribble

things as they are

the man bent over his guitar,
a shearsman of sorts. The day was green.

They said, "You have a blue guitar,
You do not play things as they are."

The man replied, "Things as they are
Are changed upon the blue gitar."

And they said then, "But play, you must,
A tune beyond us, yet ourselves,

A tune upon the blue guitar
Of things exactly as they are."

Who is a Wallace Stevens fan out there in blogworld?

I just got back from berkeley, and saw some old friends. Props to Vince of Stratosphere 68, putting out psychedelic rock for the new world, and Matt Richards at braintan.com for helping to develop an organic hide tanning process and being such a great guy. It's nice to know old friends are doing well, and it tries to make up for the old friends who are no longer with us, ...but one has to continue and hope for the best.

walked around

and did a bunch of stuff today, none of which i can remember. The interzone was still there. Title of my new poem: "it's raining in my espreso".

One of Hades' gardeners, calles Ascalaphus, began to hoot with laughter. 'Taken no nourishment at all, you say? This very morning I saw her pick a pomegranate froom your underground orchard.'
-Greek Gods and Heroes, by Robert Graves, published 1960.

rita from china delight

This is a sketch I did yesterday of Rita from China Delight, who works Wed-Fri shift, and tends to wear orange. If I profit off this sketch I guess I should pay her some money...

on the invitation to the united states

My ardours for emprize nigh lost
Since Life has bared its bones to me,
I shrink to seek a modern coast
Whose riper times have yet to be;
Where the new regions claim them free
For that long drip of humna tears
-hardy

This is a video of Shotokan kata (form) being done by Kanazawa, one of the great instructors, who is still alive and teaching. I do this form of karate, under Reed Wilson, 3rd degree black belt, at his school. He currently teaches class 7-9pm at the Fingerboard Extension on 2nd street, across from Peak Sports, and there is an open training Saturday mornings, 8-10am, where we usually just work on kata, but there are no requirements and each person is free to work on what they want to work on, so if Jen or Corvallist wants to show up and check it out, Reed could use more students, and Keta would go ahead and show you the basic stuff. She's a shodan (1st degree black belt). I've been doing this for 23 years, and it means a lot to me, even though I can't seem to pass 2nd degree (but it's not about rank), at least that's what the regional instructor said to me. Of course that's easy to say when your 8th degree, which he is now.


Here's some pictures of karate in my style from the seventies and eighties.
http://shotokanpicturesblog.blogspot.com/index.html


In fact, I'm going to do some kata right now, because I can't relax and need to calm down a bit. Luckily I have a house and my own karate room, basically just an empty room with a floor. (most rooms have floors).

rain

This rain is great. I'm really liking it. Who else likes rain? Oregonians are known for their love of rain. Otherwise they'd move somewhere else.

smoke

at four o'clock in the afternoonof Aguat 10, 1862 very many people were assembled outside the famous Konversationshous in Baden-Baden. The weather was beautiful; the trees in their leafy green, the ligh-tinted houses of the cozy little town, the undulating hills-all things were festively arrayed with an overflowing munificence beneath the rays of the benignanat sun;all things wore a blind, trustful, and plasant smile; and the same vague but happy smile rover over the human facces, whether old or young, ugly or handsome. Even the figures of the Parisian or young, ugly or handsome. Even the figurs of the Parisisan lorettes, with their blackened eyebrows and pwdered ffaces, did not mar the general impression of obvious complacency and exultation; and the variolored ribbons,the feather, the golden and steely sparkles on hats and veils, involuntarily called to mind the vivacious shimmer and gentle place of spring flowers and iridescent wings. Though, truly, the dry, guttural rattle of the Franch patois, which was to be heard everywhere, could neither replace the twittering of birds nor compare with it.
Everything followed its appointed course, hoever. The orchestra in the pavilion playe a potpourri from Traviata, a Strauss waltz,or the Russian ballad Tell Her, whichthe obliging conductor had given an instrumental arrangement. The same well-known figures were crowded round the green baize tables in the Casino, and they all wore the stupid and avaricious, half-amazed, half-indignant, but esentlially rapacious....etc...-by ivan turgenev

dull town

Corvallis is a really dull town. Nothing happens here, it seems like. There are probably more parties and stuff in the bay area. Maybe I should go to college there. Actually, that's what I thought at age 18 and that's what I still think. Corvallis is a quiet little town, but the trees are nice and the river, etc. I frankly like the place, and the interzone is a cool place to get coffee and hang out. I've been doing a few sketches there, mainly of coffee cups and plants, and taken a few photos of various objects there. So anyway, for those of you that are newcomers to the town, I would recommend the interzone as a place to meet people, chill out, study, drink good coffee, and just generally have a good old time.

this ray is the running sun,
this circle is the East-
tangles the wind made
on its most limpid errands,
and noon is high and upright,
a mast supporting the sky,
while the clear arrows fly
from silence to silence till they are
the slim birds of the air,
the lines that luck takes.
-pablo neruda

I was the slightest in the house
I took the smallest room
at night, my little lamp, and book
and one geranium

So stationed I could catch the Mint
that never ceased to fall
and just my basket
let me think-I'm sure
that this was all

I never spoke, unless addressed
and then, twas brief and low
I could not bear to live-aloud
the racket shamed me so

and if ait had not been so far
and any one I knew
were going-i had often thought
how noteless-i could die
-dickinson

The Idiot's Song

They don't bother me. They let me go my way.
They say that nothing can happen.
How nice.
Nothing can happen. Everything comes and circles
forever around the Holy Ghost,
around that certain ghost (you know)—,
how nice.

No, one truly mustn't think that there's
anything dangerous in this.
Of course, that's the blood.
The blood is the heaviest thing. The blood is heavy.
Sometimes I think I can't go on any more—,
(How nice.)

Ah, what is this a pretty ball;
red and round like an overall.
Nice, that you made it.
Will it come when one calls?

How all of this names itself rare,
driven together, flowing apart:
friendly, a little bit uncertain.
How nice.

corvallis!

land of liquid and slumbering trees!
fleet of foot and sound of mind!
eating all manner of pizza slices and oysters!
sweet fish-shaped, corvallis, a song of songs...
to ramble through the infinite groves
the rambling length of days
and the little ants in their holes
and the quintillions ripen'd, the quintillions green'd
land of the weavers and the tillers!
of long-winded professors and peripatetic students!
land of the wind and the rain!
laid to rest and feeling kind of silly, given to writing long ideas in lengthy verse, nonsensical and demonstrably ridiculous, understated and crazy without saying, gripping eidolons in the key west of the mind, flying through the marvelous colors and salmon colored papers of the sinking moments.

Sometimes I get the feeling that I was born in a pretty how town, with up so many floating bells down, and danced my didn't and went the same, sun moon stars rain, and wish at some point that the creative forces would come together to the point that I could get paid for just sitting down and typing. I feel the motivation to do nothing much of anything aspiration in a convention job sort of sense, beyond the required washing of the dishes, but there is an idea, an inspiration that comes from the works of the great thinkers and poets of the past, that continues to draw me back to the written word: perhaps coming up with a reflection of reality that is more real in some way: or at least more real in an "I will pay you to write that" kind of way.

Visions of Cody:
Cody spend time in his room, sweating out the twisted psychedelic chords that came out of his electric guitar, when the light was gone and the ice cream had all been eaten. A thumping bass heavy sound came out of his strumming, and he managed to play chords and bend all the strings at the same time, which I'd never seen anybody be able to do. He played bluesy chords in an interesting style and was into some strange new age literature, but a thinker and a real person, of course, is anyone not real? Still, it just doesn't seem like the guitarists I hear around this town measure up at all. Still, that was Berkeley in 1990 and this is Corvallis, ....so there would be a difference, but live music is generally pretty tiresome for me anyway, at my advanced age, but that's another story.

The leaves around this town are very nice. The weather is different every day, and the bean is a quiet place and the peppermind tea is good. I remain as I am, contain'd between my hat and boots, one hand pointed out in one direction, the other adjusting the volume on the music, strolling around campus and libraries, enjoying the trees, visualizing characters, travelling around somewhat metaphorically like a cloud in the sky, but given to the idea of travel and the beauty of nature and it's myriad manifestos, denizen of the strolling walking and natural bounce and detailed element, the form of the physical demonstration, the idea of the four directions and returning, the floor and the air, and the idea that beyond the simple, there is no idea, or no idea in any region that applies to the principles of the wasting of signals, the strolling of the fish-shaped, the cradle, endlessly rocking, the fish and the form and the grain that's been scattered on the rocky ground, the last stone, forgotten, that becomes the chief cornerstone, and ...
if you had a rock, would you give him a fish?
if you had a stone, would you give him a diamond?
Despite all technological advancement and complexity, the resides on last question: what is tha nature of reality and consciousness and the mere existence of anything that can be perceived? Is reality screened through categories or is there some sort of absolute squirrel across the way from the peacock?

haiku rambling

Two haiku and a coffee cup

life is suffering

Things are miserable.
Why does my appearance
seem to have a somber tone?
I wear the black for the poor and beaten down
living in the hopeless side of town
I wear it for the prisoner
that has long paid for his crime
but is there as a victim of his time
-johnny cash, "man in black"

That song kind of helps me out a little this day and yesterday, to help me to go from just feeling hopeless and tied and depressed to the point where I can go out and keep being able to sympathize with people experience other problems, perhaps more severe than mine, although they don't feel like it at this point. I guess that's the difference between problems that affect you directly and problems that other people have or that happen to other people.

As a dishwasher, I could easily lose my self-respect, but heck, why the heck should I do that? At this advanced age I'm more sure than i ever have been of who I am and what is important. Still, it is a scary world. I'm not sure I can trust my own mind, or necessarily be able to read the signs I need to read.

卯の花をかざしに関の晴れ着かな
Springs of verbena
thrust in my cap- such will be
my fancy attire
-basho

This reminds me of the dickinson poem that ends "perhaps I'll put a trinket on" which just goes to show, you can make a slight change and make note of the sun and life goes on.

poem written a while ago

when the television continues to emit
when I have had quite enough coffee
when I have toasted and eaten the bread
when I sit with a soft eye wondering
wandering over the frame of the contemplative room
wandering out the window and back
that seems the whole world within itself
containing worlds, contradictions, dogeared cowtails
framings in their infinite weaving
-chris farrell

part of a story
One day we decided we would set out for Oregon. My dad said, "sure, come on up" so we packed up a few things, and took the bus down to the freeway. We got out a sign and stood there waiting for a ride, while the cars came whizzing by. Finally someone picked us up. He was a guy who looked closet to forty, with a dark mustache, who said that he graduated from Berkeley in "chemical engineering". I got in the front seat, and was in charge of the conversation. He was working in toxic waste disposal, where it was certainly possible to make a lot of money, so we didn't bother to help him with the toll going over the bridge. He turned off somewhere up outside of the immediate East Bay Area, and we got to wait some more. The sun was till high in the sky, and it was warm, with the ozone dustiness of the California heat. A thing guy in a truck stopped for us, with a thing little mustache. He started telling us about all of the hitchhikers that he had to take out, because they tried to attack him.
"He pulled a gun on me, and I turned and grabbed it, and then the door came open and we both fell down out of the truck, rolling over and over, but I was on top in the last and took his gun away from him.
"Yeah, a lot of hitchhikers are dishonest." When I said that, an uneasy silence followed. He was wondering if we were dishonest and there was no way to dispel the tension. When he first stopped for us, he had glared at us and asked if either of us had any weapons or guns, making us feel like Bonnie and Clyde ever though we didn't think of ourselves as anything like that, until when he began to talk of it.
He mentioned that his wife was form the Philippines and talked about how they had met and what she had meant to him and his trip to the Philippines, and what it all had ...He was quite a guy, but wasn't going far so he let us off soon and wished us luck with a friendly smile.

sat down and wrote this poem recently at my local coffee area.


Poem #2

i was evolving out through the park
grass frolicking on the lawns
housing woody and square
the wrinkles round my thought
age and the way of sight
going out through the evening
striding through the twilight
seeing the suns flood
across the sky
unstopp'd
early in the current
walking on through space and time


I think it's pretty good, just pondering the lyric "there's wrinkles round my baby's eyes" from the bruce dude who always goes on about fixin' cars and such.

To be where you are, just as you are, have you ever considered that? -what it would be to be "just as you are"?
It seemed to me again that any circumstance could be seen in any variety of ways.

idiot's song

They don't bother me. They let me go my way.
They say that nothing can happen.
How nice.
Nothing can happen. Everything comes and circles
forever around the Holy Ghost,
around that certain ghost (you know)-,
how nice.

No, one truly mustn't think that there's
anything dangerous in this.
Of course, that's the blood.
The blood is the heaviest thing. The blood is heavy.
Sometimes I think I can't go on any more-,
(How nice.)

Ah, what is this a pretty ball;
red and round like an overall,
Nice, that you made it.
Will it come when one calls?

How all of this names itself rare,
driven together, flowing apart:
friendly, a bit uncertain.
How nice.
-rilke

I am too alone in the world, and yet not alone enough
to make every hour holy.
I am too small in the world, and yet not tiny enough
just to stand before you like a thing,
just as it is.
I want my will, and I want to be with my will
as it moves toward deed;
and in those quiet, somehow hesitating times
when something is approaching,
I want to be with those who are wise,
or else alone.
I want always to be a mirror that reflects your whole being,
and never to be too blind or too old
to hold your heavy swaying image.
I want to unfold
Nowhere do I want to remain
because where I am bend .....

this is a lousy translation, maybe done by a computer. No use copying in the rest of it. It's from Rilke's Book of Hours.

It was a nice day and we worked on Tekki Sandan, which is one of the trickier forms.

slang

Bad slang words to use on an airplane:
"the bomb". Never refer to anything as being "the bomb". As in, "man, that movie was the bomb!" Or some federal air marshalls will probably be pinning you to the floor with your arm in an armlock.

I'm kind of ill today and feel weird. Maybe it's the change in the weather.

in the fridge:
pears
guacamole
fruit salad
tofu
old stir-fry w/ rice
yogurt

good movies to see:
tokyo story: ozu
the devil and daniel johnston
office space

walked to the circle k

and thought to myself, what does all of this matter? Things change, stuff happens, the clouds roll along over the sky, the rivers flow to the sea, the waters roll by, but they are not the original waters, thoughts pass through the mind, dishes get washed, buses roll around, people make whooping sounds,
working all day in my daddy's garage
driving all night, chasing some mirage.


John Yoo has got to be one of my least favorite people, the talking-head lawyer that tries to justify Bush trying to hog all the power. How does he live with himself? How can he really believe that the constitution says anything about the president getting all the power, when it clearly says nothing like that? How does he sleep nights? Good job on trying to destroy the fundamental basis of our democracy, John. I'll give you a pat on the back---not. And to make matters worse, UC Berkeley gave you a job, my alma mater, so Berkeley gets slimed too.

248

There is a pain-so utter-
It swallows substance up-
Then covers the Abyss with Trance-
So Memory can step
Around-across-upon it-
As one within a Swoon-
Goes safely-were an open eye-
Would drop Him-Bone by Bone
-Dickinson

I felt

I felt the hour rising up
and stillness reigned
steam rising from my cup
light coming down in train
if only it could fill me
water to a thirsty man
take away the folded leaves
questions of can't and can
I felt the hour rising up
and the sun was setting low
i put the Moon into a cup
and sighed to see it go

-chris farrell


That's a poem I wrote like ten years ago, when I was young and foolish, or at least ten years younger than I am now. The biography on me is going to be called "The Price of Genius". Not bad, right?

Composed upon Westminster Bridge

Earth has not anything to show more fair:
Dull would he be of soul who could pass by
A sight so touching in its majesty:
This City now doth like a garment, wear
The beauty of the morning; silent, bare,
Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie
Open unto the fields, and to the sky;
All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.
Never did sun more beautifully steep
In his first splendour, valley, rock, or hill;
Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!
The river glideth at his own sweet will:
Dear God! the very houses seem asleep;
And all that mighty heart is lying still!

If the above poem seems wordsworthian, that's because it is by wordsworth.