huh?

and . . . this is not a door?

too much reading?

is there such a thing? no. however, i am reading a lot of books, one right after another, these days.

so i recommend Divisadero by Michael Ondaatje. it's a strangely plotted book that is beautifully, poetically written. the kind of book that i find myself marking passages in and coming back to later to re-read. then read them aloud to my husband. and then to my fellow english teachers. and then again to myself. there is a great line about Victor Hugo except i can't quote it because i have lent the book to a friend.

in a different vein, i am reading The Monsters, which is about Mary Shelley and Percy, and Lord Byron and Claire and Polidori who were all in Geneva together on a dark and stormy night which gave birth to Frankenstein. and lots of other stuff too. i have not read much (or anything) about the Romantics - a missed part of my education - so i am enthralled with these hedonists and free-thinkers and especially Byron as the first rock star/celebrity.

music recommendation: get on itunes and type in "even better than the real things." be sure to make "things" a plural. it turns out to be 3 albums that come out of an Irish radio station. they invite Irish folk-ish singers on the show to sing pop songs but in their own style. there is a britney spears song that is just an absolutely beautiful song when sung by Glen Hansard (currently become famous in the movie Once).

enough recommendations. back to reading!

two months later

it was in rainbows that did it to me! and teaching.....

did you listen to in rainbows? isn't it fabulous? the typical radiohead songs that sound good. then sound better. then sound great. they take a while to grow on you, but when they do, they are just stunning. i love Nude. i love Videotape. and Reckoner. and Faust Arp - oh i do love Faust Arp. and 15 step and Bodysnatchers. i'm leaving some out, wait.... oh yeah, i love Jigsaw and also All I Need. and House of Cards. and then Weird Fishes. i want to start a band and call it Weird Fishes.

so i will try to stop listening to music, and stop drowning in teacherly duties and come back here to rant some more....

(thanks, Tim, for the kick in the butt!)

japanese politeness

this photo? just a poor parking lot guy who has to sit in 100 degree heat and 100 percent humidity to make sure people park their cars in the appropriate place.

well, they are very polite. there is lots of bowing. the ladies in the department store bow as you walk past the different departments. the men who take tickets on the train bow everytime they leave the train car to go to the next one. at restaurants, everyone bows. the three of us had to refrain from bowing on our return to LA. that and saying, "Arrigato" and "Hi!" (not the hello kind of hi).

the police, i promised a story about police. we went to an art opening in a little gallery that was situated in a residential area (but all of Tokyo seems mixed together). about six of us were on the outside patio talking in regular voices. about 25 more people were inside the room talking in regular voices. the police showed up - three of them all on bikes. they chatted in very very quiet voices with the gallery owner. after they rode off (silently) the gallery owner asked us to come inside, and then she also closed the outer wooden doors over the glass doors, so that the noise inside would be contained. seems that a neighbor complained about the "noise." oh, and the important part of this story? this was at 7:30 in the evening. Not midnight, not 2 a.m. No, the opening was to run from 6 to 8, and we couldn't go that last half-hour without causing a disturbance.

okay, so that is a little TOO polite for a society i'd want to live in.

but really, we had a great time. more to come.

kyoto

Well, let me say that everyone told me how beautiful Kyoto is, and when i first got there, i thought what the hell are these people talking about? Kyoto's beauty actually takes some time to see because at first it just looks like a crowded city. However, once i got to Tokyo i REALLY realized why Kyoto is beautiful. It has trees!

But more than that. We saw the golden temple which is gold-leafed, three stories and sits in a small lake which reflects it beautifully. We saw several other temples, all beautiful in their own ways. But my fave part of Kyoto was this long narrow - very narrow - street that runs along the riverside. there is a tumultuous mix of restaurants piled one on top of the other, with narrow doorways and dark wood and curtains and signs with no english at all, and even narrower alleys leading off to other restaurants and every so often a woman in geisha-wear appears. the "street" is crowded with people. and from what i understand, some (many) of the restaurants don't want english-speakers to come in. they just want japanese speakers and so that's why there is no english in their signage.

from this street we crossed a bridge and trudged through a prostitute section (not sleazy, rather high class actually, but definitely prostitutes). we left that bright and gaudy area and went down a hushed, dark street that paralleled a canal. on the opposite side of the canal were three-story buildings and they were lit up, so we could see in every room. it was wonderful, like a multi-level play. in each room were two to six people sitting and eating and being waited on by geishas (in some of them, anyway). like watching a movie - very lovely.

we were sad to leave kyoto after five days there, but tokyo awaited. and it scared us - the big city loomed like an impenetrable miasma of haphazard buildings and streets.

new license plate

disney?

i'll start in the middle - with our trip to disneysea adventures. not that there's much to tell. let me clarify: tokyo disneyLAND is just like anaheim's disneyland, so we didn't go there. we went to disneysea, which is an odd and startlingly beautiful conglomeration of "sea" countries. so there was an exuisite recreation of venice italy; a fanciful area of sinbad and all the minarets of the middle east; the sci-fi strangeness of jules verne's world, and the oddly familiar cape cod seacoast of the US at the turn of last century.

observations:

very few white people at disneysea (indeed, anywhere we went in japan); i kept seeing the same five white people over and over again.

we ARE indeed taller than most japanese people, as evidenced by the water show, in which the crowds pushed toward a railing so they could watch . . . and we just stood behind them and could see just fine.

disneysea was the only day we had a spot of rain and cool weather, so we were very lucky. also the crowd was small and the lines short.

all japanese people make the peace sign when getting their pictures taken. hence the white kids above, making peace signs. the blonde boy is my son Rylan, the goofball in the center is his friend, Matt, with whom we traveled (Matt, your shorts look like a skirt!) and Gabby, the girl on the left, is the daughter of a friend who joined us for the day at disneysea.

japanese version of mexican food in their 'el cantina' was mostly ground beef in tomato sauce.

japanese adults may be relatively quiet and polite in public, but their little children are just as noisy and fussy and screamy and run-around wild as any other child. i must state here that i really really enjoyed the quiet politeness of the japanese people and felt shocked and appalled when i got back to the states and there were loud, obnoxious people right away in the baggage claim area. culture shock. i prefer japan's sense of public behavior.

except for the night of the art opening when the police showed up .... that's another installment.

oh and, by the way

this video merges two of my favorite things: flight of the conchords and lord of the rings.

Japan, oh my!

okay it was a great trip but it's going to take me a while to process it all....it's very strange and new (to me) to be in a country where i cannot comprehend the language at all - signs or spoken language. however, it was wonderful and there's lots to tell, which i will tell in small bits with pix.

for now, this is a picture of a geisha in kyoto. if you go to the geisha district around 5 to 6 p.m., they are coming out of wherever they come from, and head to the geisha houses to entertain. and they are very nice to stop and let tourists take pictures of them.

my favorite store name: chocolate milk mama -- for a childrens clothing store.

japan!

two more days and we take off for japan. i am soooo excited. got tickets, yen, rail passes, hotels, a long list of places to go shopping in tokyo.... now i just have to endure the 11 hour flight and all will be wild and fascinating.

if i have internet access, i hope to blog from japan and if i am tech savvy enough, even post some photos.

we shall see.....

flight of the conchords

my new favorite wierd band.....

singing the same song

i was going to write about avril lavigne's problems with writing a song that turns out to have already been written. however, i need to think about this a little longer, since a blogger i very much admire has already written on the same subject.

http://culturalsnow.blogspot.com/

no matter. a few hours of cogitating and i'll be back.

and here i am.

so this is what i think. we listen to LOTS and LOTS of songs over our lifetime. I know this is true because an obscure song from the 60's can come on the radio, a song i didn't even like, and i will start singing along, and know every word. if i were a song writer, how would i know what came from my own creativity and what came from the vast well of songs i have heard? some might be obvious, but others could be so obscure that, if pointed out to the songwriter, she or he might be completely surprised. and of course defiant. or defensive.

i don't know. i think these cases need to find an actual conscious attempt by one songwriter to steal the work of another songwriter. if the chord progressions are the same (duh, how hard is that?) and the lyrics have similarities, that doesn't prove intent. okay, that's the word i want - intent. did George Harrison intend to steal and did Avril intend to steal? did they sit in a little room, the door closed tight against the world and said, "oh i love this riff/chord progression/lyric and i will use it my song and no one will ever know." if they did, sue them. if they just used the forces of deep and rich memory, then thank them for bringing some old song to the fore, and go on your way.

one last point - when Dani California came out (RHCP) everyone pointed out how very much like Tom Petty's Mary Jane's Last Dance it was. do you know what happened? tons of people downloaded the Petty song (as did i) and so Tom made a few bucks off the renewed interest in an old song. and, as far as i know, he hasn't sued anybody.

there, there

I cannot even read the front page of the LA Times anymore. Libby gets a pardon, Cheney is a rogue politician, our mayor has an affair (which i don't care about, but the moralizing public does and so he's ruined), and there are more contractors working in Iraq than soldiers. I didn't even read that last article, but then I find I can't read anything about Iraq. It's all too painful and quite reminds me of the Vietnam war. Look, I'm even using upper-case letters in this post, so obviously, I'm upset.

And if I turn to the California section, I get what I call the "dead baby" news. One story after another about kids dying in car accidents, at the hands of family members, in swimming pools, in hot cars. Also too depressing.

So I read the Calendar and then I feel remiss, because those asshole owners of the Times have decided that people in LA don't need foreign news, that they just need entertainment news. And here I am, proving them right.

But it's not that I want entertainment news and don't want foreign news. I just can't take the feeling of helplessness whenever I have to confront more of the ineptness and evilness of this administration, and the horrors of the Iraq war. There's always that tendency to say, "somebody needs to do something." I just don't know who that somebody is, and I don't know what I can do (besides the money I send to organizations). So I will read Calendar, and the comics, and do the sudoku until 2008 when hopefully a new president will rise from the ashes of this current administration and offer hope.

on itunes right now: incongruously, the white stripes, "hotel yorba"

the iphone madness

"I haven't been successful in getting one for her," the publicist said, adding that she might have to stand in line for Cher or find a fan to do so. "Doesn't winning Oscars, Grammys and Emmys entitle her to move to the front of the line?"

i love this. why should Cher, or her publicist, have to stand in line with mere mortals when she should be entitled to be first? this is the fun part of living in Los Angeles, where stars get preferential treatment and goodie bags worth tens of thousands of dollars.

Thank you, Steve Jobs and Apple, for not kowtowing to someone just because she has a few gold statutes.

meanwhile, i await the second generation of iphone (and my cingular contract to come up for renewal) before i make the plunge.

what we need is a good place to donate old ipods, for other, less privileged people to enjoy. is there anyone left in the US without an ipod, i wonder??

an elusive heroine

check out this blog, IF you have seen this modern day robin hood. (hoodette??)

http://lolailluminada.blogspot.com

van gogh or thom yorke?

just

just need to post this....

back to save the universe

blogger is working again. i panicked, the thought of losing my blog!

okay summer has started and i have been supremely lazy. long games of solitare and mahjong on the computer. a total and complete waste of time. my mind needs to kick into gear starting today. or maybe tomorrow. really.

and i have so many ideas for stories to write, plus a pile of great books to read. any ideas for breaking the internet addiction? the message board fascination? the radiohead message board in particular? or how to stop playing stupid games?

last night was uncle funky's final performance, and while a new band will grow from the ashes, it was a terrific band for the last three years and will be very much missed. we did a three-song radiohead suite in the middle of the set last night: creep, high and dry, and karma police. very nice.

on itunes: No Surprises. I love this, an ode to "a job that slowly kills you" and "a handshake of carbon monoxide." office drone seeks suicide..... what a rock song! and all wrapped in the most beautiful melody.

a note on the illustration - the kodamas from "princess mononoke" - forest spirits. and little imps that inspire creativity.

more, everyday, really.....the mind will recover!

a mystery

i can create a post, but my mac won't open any blogspot blog, including my own. so whatever i write her, i can't see! unless i go to school and use the computer there. so hi, to anyone reading this. kinda like shouting into a black hole.....

last day of school

today is graduation. that makes it really really the last day of school. the fact that i have to grade finals and write student assessments and pack up my room . . . those things don't count. graduation, that's it. the students go away and for a few days i am happy and then i miss them.

planning, already, for next year's class in asian literature. haven't taught that before. india china japan. see i'm reading rushdie right now and he doesn't always use commas so already i am influenced by him.

and once the tasks for school are over, i will write. yes. definitely. gotta get back to loralie and finish her story. gotta work on poor gawain. and there is the new idea that pushes at the edges, a story set in the near future, something i have not attempted before, but it is haunting me so i have to try.

but today, graduation.

and on itunes right now: the gloaming - one of the spooky radiohead songs.

oh, yes, the tourist.

watch all the way to the end - watch thom cry - watch thom make jonny take a bow.

just watch this

yeah it's not radiohead. but this youtuber is fantastic.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRAVoyUCxz8

if the link doesn't work, because my blogger isn't cooperating - cut and paste it. IT IS WORTH IT!

or not. come back and tell me what you think.

best title ever for a book: "raw shark texts"

just read "raw shark texts" by steven hall. a wild and crazy book. i can't even explain it, but to whet your appetite, here is a shot at it: a man wakes up having no memory. his former self leaves letters and information for him to follow because he has to be careful; he is being targeted by a conceptual shark who feeds on memory and thought. so if he doesn't want to get completely consumed and lost forever, he must evade the shark. a complication is that a girlfriend, who he doesn't remember, died when he was with her in greece. he wants to remember her and he wants to escape the shark. so he goes on a quest.

a reviewer said "matrix, jaws and da vinci code all in one book." i'm not sure i like that description because i think it's smarter than those movies/books (except maybe the matrix). but anyway, IF you like really weird books, read this one. if you don't like really weird books, absolutely don't read it!

on itunes right now: "starlight" by muse. i'm taking a radiohead break. for about an hour.

a novel idea, or two

"this is what you get" - girl falls in love with rock star who barely notices her. (status: complete - an agent is looking at this)

"everything is perfect" - girl punk rocker and guy heavy metaller fall in love and make strange and new music. also, she unearths deep secrets from her family's past. (status: first draft complete, it is resting so i can look at it again with new eyes)

"not named yet" - girl singer-songwriter with difficult family past yet upbeat fortitude meets guy singer-songwriter with death obsession. (status: about 50 pages, a little of each story, new and just developing)

one day, maybe i'll consider novels without rock music in them. i guess this all has to get out of my system. the best part of this is picking the soundtrack to each scene as i write. i discovered that in 1996 there was a secret radiohead show at the troubadour. the set list is online, and so i created a playlist from it, and was able to play that over and over as i wrote a scene of my heroine attending this secret show and discovering real music finally (she moves from the spice girls to radiohead in the course of one summer).

on itunes right now: "how to disappear completely" so fucking beautiful ..... "i'm not here, this isn't happening."

always read a good book

and this is one i particularly enjoyed.

radiohead. welcome to the machine. ok computer and the death of the classic album. by tim footman.

i finished it recently. i think i will read it again.

web withdrawal

oh wow! i just went 4 days without internet access at my house. i had actual withdrawal symptoms, like i was kicking coffee or heroin. well, coffee anyway. it's a long story - suffice it to say i thought i would change phone services for a better deal, only to find that the new and old phone service companies took their sweet time about making the change, but only AFTER disconnecting my phone line.

I discovered that i "can" pay $6 an hour at starbucks for internet access (to verizon) or $24 an hour at kinko's! I could not find free wi-fi. you know why? because i didn't have internet access to look for it!! suddenly, i found out how much i use internet for, beyond blogging, buying music and checking on the radiohead messageboard.

i also worried, during my 4 days, that radiohead would not only announce the release of LP7, but also tour dates, and sell tickets and be all sold out before i could even get online. i'm paranoid. a paranoid humanoid.

phew. for a minute there, i lost myself. i'm okay now. internet is up and running, radiohead didn't make any announcements (and just when will they??) and i managed to keep my email under control with a couple of trips to starbucks ($12 worth of email).

on itunes right now: Trickster. one of my all-time favorite radiohead songs cuz i love coyotes and ravens, and coyotes and ravens are tricksters and there you go.

so i had this idea.....

people write all kinds of things. books, editorials, funny articles. i often feel like i have nothing to write about (except fiction - i can make stuff up just like that!), because i just look at the internet all day.

then i thought, i could write an article about all the radiohead fans on the internet who are so anxiously awaiting the new album. a lot of these fans are quite funny. sarcastic. emotional. and interesting. so could i make an article out of this? i could at least try.

on itunes right now: ooops! not radiohead! it's muse with "starlight."

planning the summer -- got tickets to lollapalooza in chicago - three days of great music! and then japan in late august... august will be a travelin' month.

the boringest post of all time.

hmmm, wow. missed my birthday and the first days of april and everything! and for no good reason. i'm being lazy. i'm always lazy in the spring. energetic in the fall. sigh.

going to see MUSE tonight. i hear they are really really great in concert, but i don't know that much about them or that many of their songs, so .....

why am i here today? i should be writing. i have so many good ideas. but no spirit to actually do them. so this is a dull post, a nothing post. don't read it. it will numb your brain.

thinking. or not.

so i was sick all week, which somehow gave me time to think. and i thought a lot about music and creativity and life and the big ideas. but it was probably all as useless as those deep thoughts i once had under the influence. magnificent at the time, but inane when things were back to normal.

the useful thing i did was make a playlist and cd of the newest radiohead songs, the ones people THINK will be on the 7th album. even if they are not, i'm having a great time listening to the "new" radiohead album.

and liars. ever heard of liars? i don't know anything about them. didn't read up on them. but i listen to their album, "drum's not dead" a lot. it's vaguely tecno, good drums, strange lyrics. a nice departure from anything else.

on itunes right now: it was "a visit from drum" from the aforementioned album, but now it's "ocean breathes salty" from modest mouse.

what would life be without music? not life. that's what.

radiohead overload

okay, i have photos on my walls, photos on my computer desktop, nearly every known radiohead cd and ep and single, a lot of vinyl, and almost every book. I just got a new one today - Welcome To The Machine: OK Computer And The Death Of The Classic Album. It's so cool! The author, Tim Footman, basically goes through every single track on OK Computer and talks about it from all different angles. Musically, how it was recorded, the lyrics . . . and then the larger picture: references, influences, and things that can be connected (like movies and poetry) even if they weren't the intent of radiohead.

what a treat to read it this afternoon when i should have been grading papers. all the more work for me at school tomorrow, but tonight, i am going back to the book to read about "Let Down."

yaaay for the obsessions of other radiohead fans!

when you were here before

creep is playing. the most maligned radiohead song. too bad, it really is a cool song. and it has only 4 chords, all the way through, or really three, cuz one is a minor. so okay, it's early stuff and doesn't compare to how to disappear completely or 2+2=5 or a long list of other songs. but it is beautiful in its own way and taken out of the context of how it almost made them one-hit wonders.

Tribe: isn't that a good name for a cool, hip, handsome guy? that's the new guy in my novel, my main character's ex-husband. i like him so much, i almost had her get back together with him.

it's march and about halfway through, and then there is april, then may. june - for school - almost doesn't count since we get out so early. so 2 months + until summer. i can't wait. i really want it this year. my summer will be driving rylan to summer school, waiting for a radiohead concert that we hope will take place this summer and going to japan in late august. and lots of reading and lots of writing.

damn. i want to be there now!

but as they say (whoever they are): be HERE now. see how neatly that ties in with the title?: when you were here before.......

the anticipation is ridiculous

radiohead have (has?) drastically revamped their website, which leads one to believe that an announcement about LP7 and a tour is imminent. i have to believe that this is so! the pundits at Mortigi Tempo (radiohead experts all) have suggested this is true.

on itunes: Pop is Dead. Funny old radiohead song. i have a playlist of 35 radiohead b-sides and i play it over and over, loving every song, even Pop is Dead with its goofy metallic bells and whistles and Thom's ironic voice - okay, more ironic than usual.

poetry is needed and is below. as far as my novel goes, an agent liked it but wanted more work, so i did more work - i am going to re-read it with the extra stuff put in, then send it back to the agent. maybe .... someday .... my novel will be published: This Is What You Get. how cool would that be!

Charles Simic again, one of my fave modern poets:

It wasn't even snowing! Everyone I met
Wore a part of my destiny like a carnival mask.
"I'm Bartleby the Scrivener," I told the Italian waiter,
"Me, too," he replied.
And I could see nothing but overflowing ashtrays
The human-faced flies were busy examining.

last stanza of St Thomas Aquinas

arcade fire

yes, i know they are not radiohead. i do listen to other music. sometimes. i just downloaded a live show of theirs, off the npr website. i would love to see them live, i've heard they are very compelling - it becomes a religious experience.

other music -- went to see Silversun Pickups (good, fun, noisy), OK Go (beatle-esque, fun and did a great cover of ELO's "don't bring me down") and Snow Patrol .... who i had pegged as lightweight crooners based on the one song i knew - chasing cars. a good song, but it turns out they rock a little harder than that song implies. i didn't know any of their other songs (well, i sort of knew one other), but i had a great time. they were enthusiastic and loud and strong. their real drummer was off with a broken arm and their substitute was an incredible pounder of the skins. great drumming!

a music extravaganza for me in these couple of weeks: this show above, a trip to the house of blues for an educational experience with some students (not as great as it sounded like it would be), and next week is My Chemical Romance. we have floor tickets, so i'm hoping to watch the MCR fans go crazy to those anthemic songs. should be a kick to watch. oh, and Muse, later in April. IF ONLY RADIOHEAD would release a tour schedule. and an album. aaargh.....

poetry another time.

banana

because that's the song in my head right now, "banana co." an early song, but a beautiful one.

on sunday, our band decided to add "high and dry" and "karma police" to our set list. ohmigod, what a brilliant feeling to PLAY these songs, to be INSIDE them and inhabit them and let them fill me up with sound and words. i loved it. we all loved it. great songs and really cool to play.

otherwise a slow weekend, lazy and unfocused. i wrote a bit but not as much as i should have. must overcome laziness.....

poetry, too, is needed here. next time. i will recover from my stupor and get back into blogging action.

nice dream

"Radiohead have denied their album will be released on August 6 despite an internet retailer listing that release date. According to the listing on Amazon.co.uk, it was claimed that the record, described as 'New Album - TBC' would be released via EMI Records. However a spokesperson for Radiohead has denied that this is the case. As previously reported, the band fulfilled its contract with the label with their last album, 'Hail To The Thief' in 2003, and a new deal or label has not yet been announced."

oh, okay. it was all just a dream.

a date, a date!

according to amazon (and who are they to know?) LP7 will be released in the UK on August 6, 2007. Also rylan's birthday....

we can only hope.

and, pre-order our copy, too......


yaaaaaaaaay!

Lost

are they in the tv show, "Lost" or?

what i do know is that they are in the studio working on LP7. right now. as we speak. they better be. we're all waiting for it. and i want them to tour this summer, or else i want to fly to england and watch them perform there. how cool would that be?

doesn't matter

doesn't matter if the cars go past
doesn't take a lot to see it's not easy
when you want to make it all last

go to sleep and if the sky goes blue
just remember to unlock the door
all the monsters want to get to you

it doesn't matter when it's all right
doesn't matter if the cars go past
you talk and talk into the night

your dreams go bad and you can't stop
doesn't take a lot to see it's not easy
let the monsters have what they want

tell me what you have to say
no one listens anyway

thom and ed together at last

thom and ed doing station ids for mtv, a few years back. thom's quirky personality on display.....

the only song to play on itunes right now: "pop is dead"

music and angels

a new cd in the mail, high and dry, the single. and on itunes right now -

maquiladora with its cool guitar stuff going on.

and part of another charles simic poem today:

“in the library”

there’s a book called
“a dictionary of angels.”
no one has opened it in fifty ears,
i know, because when I did,
the covers creaked, the pages
crumbled. there I discovered

the angels were once as plentiful
as species of flies.
the sky at dusk
used to be thick with them.
you had to wave both arms
just to keep them away.

an early performance, on MTV, of "you"

and below, a later performance on BBC of "fake plastic trees"

like a strange dream

sometimes i think i am an information junkie. the internet, jeez. i can spend hours, days, my entire life just clicking every link to every other bit of information and photo and video. and when i am not on the computer, then i am pulled to bookstores and magazine stands, cuz it's not like i have enough books or magazines to read! i could open a bookstore, i have so many books. i can rationalize that i like all this info because it feeds my fiction writing. and it does. but mostly it just feeds my curiosity. there is no good reason to gather as MUCH information as i do.

am i going to do anything about it? no. except, after this, i will probably log on to amazon and order a couple of books i've had on my wish list.....

meanwhile: on itunes now - "remyxomatosis" from a radiohead japanese cd, "com lag"

and some poetry:

charles simic from a poem "evening talk"

everything you didn't understand
made you what you are. strangers
whose eye you caught on the street
studying you. perhaps they were the all-seeing
illuminati? they knew what you didn't,
and left you troubled like a strange dream.

the blackbird is involved

one novel is out being looked at by an agent. another novel is in my hands.

loralie.

it is instructive to edit this now that i've been through the ok computer novel so thoroughly. i have a better idea of what this needs (more dialogue!) and how to improve it.

loralie is my punk-rock musician with the secret family past - she doesn't know the secret, but it is affecting her life. she meets and marries this cool musician, an armenian guy in glendale (shades of "system of a down") which is a good thing. but she has to face her demons which is very nearly a very bad thing.

on itunes right now: fake plastic trees (acoustic)

and poetry - has been escaping me lately. so here's wallace stevens. #8 in 13 ways of looking at a blackbird:

I know noble accents
and lucid, inescapable rhythms;
but i know, too,
that the blackbird is involved
in what i know.

nada

it's finals week. i don't teach. i sit and watch students struggle to write a three page essay in two hours. i feel like a torturer. except .... i read their essays after they are all done, and the essays are damn good. they are such perceptive students! they found themes and ideas in the books that i hadn't noticed. they seriously attempted to analyze the book they read and it is so damn cool. i'm proud of them. especially the class that read "our ecstatic days" because that's a hard book to comprehend. look it up. it's way post-modern. but they did a terrific job of analyzing it. great, great students. i feel like i just led them to these good books and they used their own brains to make something out of the them. i love it when i actually don't feel like a teacher and instead feel like a facilitator.

that said.

on itunes right now: banana co, acoustic version. lovely

cozy

this photo is from the Q awards in, i think, 2002 or something....

on itunes right now: street spirit, acoustic version.

sigh - live performance

thom yorke
how to disappear completely

and .... i finally learned to embed video here!

all i want to do.....

feeling young today, so why not a young picture of thom?

the biggest and best advantage of working with high school students is that they keep me young. they don't wear me down or tire me out or make me feel old. where else in my life can i get into a deep discussion about which radiohead b-side is the most interesting? where can i share my enthusiasm for something as simple as fall out boy's newest song? where else can i get teased for having sheryl crow on my ipod? speaking of which ....

on itunes right now: all i want to do is have some fun - sheryl crow.

the novel progresses. and it's nearing the end. i have had 4 people read it. very similar comments from each one, a few scenes added here and there to eliminate confusion or weak areas. i think it is strong, and i think it is very nearly ready (one more pass!). i have a list of 30 agents. surely one of them will like it!

thinking young, thinking positive.....

the good the bad and the queen

want a mix of radiohead, blur and gorillaz?



ths is the good, the bad and the queen - damon albarn's newest incarnation. check them out on thegoodthebadandthequeen.com

this is what you get

and that's the new name of my OK novel. a better name for a novel.

nothing on itunes cuz it's bedtime but i had to put something on my blog first. something. anything.

my students read "13 ways of looking at a blackbird" today and then they all had to write their own 13 ways of looking at something - except that they passed their papers around so they wrote one stanza on each other's idea.

they came up with great little stanzas! over the next few days i will post some of them here - like little haikus or zen koans. i just love my students when they do that.

can't you see what love has done?

on itunes now: the new U2 song - Window in the Skies.

i tried to embed the video, but it didn't work; a great video, well worth searching for in aol videos.

back to school! yikes and yuck. actually it was fine, and i like the students so much that it is quite entertaining, but it's hard to give up all that unstructured time. and sleeping late.

maggie may is back on my desk with comments from other readers. i need to add a scene or two, i need to weave her own creative endeavors throughout, but otherwise, it seems to hang together well. people like it! they like reading it and have told me that they get caught up in the story and forget that they are reading for critique. cool. way cool.

a line of poetry:

and you yourself, how could you know what primordial time you stirred in your lover. what passions welled up inside him from departed beings.

rilke, the duino elegies

as far as forever

on itunes: thom yorke doing neil young's "cinnamon girl"

a windy day in L.A. and blue sky and sun and it's cold for L.A. winter break is almost over and of course now i want to write. wasted all that time, as usual. so my new year's resolution is "willpower." applies to everything: losing ten pounds, writing every day, being a more organized teacher.

to celebrate the new year (a bit late, yes) with a poem, here is william stafford's poem "our story" in its entirety:

remind me again - together we
trace our strange journey, find
each other, come on laughing.
some time we'll cross where life
ends. we'll both look back
as far as forever, that first day.
i'll touch you - a new world then.
stars will move a different way.
we'll both end. we'll both begin.
remind me again.

everything in its right place

on itunes right now: "everything in its right place" from the boston concert last summer (thanks to ryan's smashing life - see my links list)

writing: getting inside the head of a young man. his friend is easy, his friend's all like "dude, what's up?" but gawain doesn't talk like that, not as much. he's more complex. and so troubled. it's hard and interesting to be inside the head of someone so messed up. i like doing it. but it's not easy.

but, then, it shouldn't be, should it?

radiohead chat: um, i love thom yorke's voice. what else is there to say?

(hoping for a) happy new year

First, we must get out of iraq. 3000 young americans have died there, and many more iraqi men, women and children. it's just insane. we have to leave.

second, every individual needs to step up and do something about the environment: use biodiesel, buy a hybrid car, purchase carbon credits to help reduce corporations' pollution. small and big things. everyone needs to help.

now on the positive side:

a year for great music?! radiohead's new cd?? maybe. green day? probably not until 2008. red hot chili peppers making another sweep through l.a. so i can see them again? i hope so. and lots of new bands to listen to and enjoy.

for me? an agent perhaps. one novel nearly done, two others in process. dare i say it .... maybe i'll get published in 2007. or soon after.

on itunes right now, speaking of new music: "the fuzz" by silversun pickups.

have a happy new year!