Feb

18

I got my ass kicked by a poet

Filed Under Writing | 2 Comments

I like poetry. I like things written in verse in general. I have come to realize in the last week or so, however, that I am not destined to be a poet. With most prose, even if I’m not totally getting everything, I do have an intuitive sense of which way is up. I completely lack this sense with poetry the more abstract it gets.
I’m currently trying to figure out a way into the poetry of what I guess you’d call a language poet, but it’s fucking hard. I just don’t have a sense of what’s going on most of the time, and the words feel flat and the poems feel meaningless. They’re not, and from time to time I get a little hit of meaning or emotion, but most of the time it’s struggle. She’s a renowned poet. People get her. People write nice things about what she’s trying to do (and accomplishing), and I barely understand what they’re saying about her poetry, let alone the poetry itself. I’ll sit down for a couple of hours and struggle with it, read it, write about it, try to mimic it…and nothing…I just end up feeling like a complete idiot.

I think, in general, my grad school honeymoon days are over. All the days of skipping through the fields with rainbows, unicorns and beautiful prose flowing out of my ass like sweet smelling flowers are gone. I’ve run into the wall of struggle! Bristling with huge spikes of insecurity! And coated in a briny film of despair!

At least I’m not these people:

glumbert - Spoiled Pageant Queen?

Feb

12

Our political system sucks (duh)

Filed Under News and Politics | Leave a Comment

I know no one is going to care about this, but the Senate today passed a bill that modifies the FISA law to, essentially, make legal the illegal, unethical, and downright scary spying the Bush administration, AT&T, Verizon, etc. was conducting on Americans. This was not a Republican bill, it was a Democratic bill.

Regarding the closing of “loopholes” (i.e. allowing the monitoring of communications within the United States on anyone with no judicial oversight whatsoever), I’m no security expert, so lets just assume that for a minute it’s a valid concern. Maybe my roommate is an Islamofascist Commie America hater who eats babies, wants to turn me gay, and kidnaps women and forces them to have abortions. Maybe giving our trustworthy government the right to monitor her calls to her mom in Napa, or her friends overseas will help bring her terrible activities to a halt. Who knows.

The problem is that when the NYT broke the story that the Bush administration monitored communications within the United States on anyone with no judicial oversight (i.e. warrantless wiretapping) everyone (Democrats in congress) was up in arms about it, talking about how terrible it was and how the Republicans were nasty, nasty people. The telecom companies threw their hands up and said “what could we do? the big bad Bush steamroller was bearing down on us?” And they collected huge gobs of money for it. The one company who refused until the government got a warrant? Denied federal government contracts and their people prosecuted (although the CEO wouldn’t be the first to be accused of insider trading, so his prosecution might be coincidental).

The Democratic response to this horrible crime? Make it legal and give amnesty to anyone who did it before it was legal, of course. So where is the leadership in congress to help us out with this? Obama can save us right? No, but he did make a statement how he didn’t support it. Clinton didn’t vote on it. Great. Thanks. That really helps. I’m really excited about change now.

I mean…come on…I’m not talking about Diane Feinnstein kicking down the Oval Office door and spraying the room with holy water and watching Cheney and Bush shrivel into beef jerky. How about starting with maybe not completely giving them exactly what they want when they want it? Huh. That might send a message.

Kudos to Chris Dodd, Russ Feingold, and Arlen Specter (the Republican) for having the chutzpah to actually try to do something about this. Everyone else can talk about change, things getting better, blah, blah, blah, but until they can actually take leadership in areas like this, they’re just part of the problem.

How are these people going to extricate the world from this mess:

glumbert - Inside the Surge

Feb

9

Persepolis is amazing

Filed Under Movies | Leave a Comment

Go see it. Amazing story. Amazing animation. Takes incredibly heavy subject matter and makes it intimate and accessible…no hitting over the head. So little in mainstream culture in the US seems to just tell the small stories about what is happening/has happened in Iran. This was a refreshing change, and a fun, fun movie.

Sun is shining, and I’m going to eat pancakes now.

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