Banff w/Kat

Acquainted with the Night
by Robert Frost

I have been one acquainted with the night.
I have walked out in rain -- and back in rain.
I have outwalked the furthest city light.

I have looked down the saddest city lane.
I have passed by the watchman on his beat
And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.

I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet
When far away an interrupted cry
Came over houses from another street,

But not to call me back or say good-bye;
And further still at an unearthly height,
A luminary clock against the sky

Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right.
I have been one acquainted with the night.

Ginseng/ relief

to you, “these. Arms. of. Mine.”
represent so completely.
But everything that's personally wrong with me
. I'd argue
the same force is corresponding on these,
so the natural fault isn't my own,
it's terrafatalistic destiny:
the gentle, kiss crush sound of peeling skin
sticky and sick from green, vinyl-backed, wheel-chairs
Like the sweet poison smell of quadriplegic--
they're not plastic? stinking with dew.

By our shared fever-dream,
these same-soil forces formed you,
shape-o-the-pinkie-toes are gravitational
gloop and also saturating basal shapes
of ginger and ginseng roots, homogeneously: thusly:
imagine the daintiness,
very baby red potatoes, the same
cutesy congenital force is required to create
blind eyes in both starchy veg. and meaty fetus
and the merely statistically stunted growth
of this male's delicate, no,
frail & protruding, wrist bones.

All of them carved in fluid.
Cut in the ice near the jackfish and the starry plankton,
close to genetic juggernauts like grandpas come before,
by the wiggling heat
of the swimming comma
the pinpointed apex
of cream, and mitochondria,
of romantic, rain-hollowed mouths, untragically agape.
steaming breath pressed with teeth to your cheek
revealing a sort of secret conception of Night,
not based on the sun and it's discreet spin
or a deeper faith in sex
not devoted to mere ease of friction
but the challenge of being wholly immersed,
the cavity of concordance

Heaven. Vanity. Tinnitus.
They all compete with our
Who's behind
false-cock sense of
blame and motivation.

The Rolling Stones: Out of Time

(I try and ignore the images and just listen. headphoney.)

about as perfect as music gets for me...
eyes a'flutterin'
dreamy sighs

King Midas Sound: Waiting For You

I highly recommend this dark, mesmerizing album by "King Midas Sound" (the members are Kevin Martin (The Bug), poet Roger Robinson and singer Hitomi.) It's so cool and exciting to hear artful music that's on the cutting edge. I could only find it on iTunes but it's definitely worth $9.99

oh, here's on the tracks:



vocal's only teaser for the first track, "Cool Out":

Cool Out from Tomas Leach on Vimeo.

Winter

Winter

one sky generosity,

difficult at times,

seals the edge of riverbank

borders falling into long horizons

diffused, the snow as fabric

frozen fractals

perfect shadows, each unfolding,

her cotton lines that continually sink

and rise by quantum conditions

the hundred thousand

a million

more

reasons dense,

loose, entrenched

within the heart

the soft geometry

surrounding

unhurried by nobility

unconcerned with beauty

her gift of gentle hypocrisy

of an apparently ignorant grandeur.

Sculpture

So this is probably the only piece from my figurative sculpting class that I'm happy with. (The pics of the piece, I'm not so happy with.) As for the sculpture there are still some lines that are quite "off" and my sense of proportion certainly needs to be improved but overall I'm pleased with how it turned out.

There is an energy in pure concentration that makes participating in art-making worthwhile-- the results, much to my surprise, proved to be of a secondary importance. The state-of-mind I attained while creating-- that sustained level of singular focus and awareness, was so wholly rewarding.

Edm Winte (2010): Flickr Set

"God's greatest gift is a teacher...": Emerson

God's greatest gift is a teacher & when will he send me one, full of truth & boundless benevolence & heroic sentiments. I can describe the man, & have done so already in prose and verse. I know the idea well, but where is its real blood warm counterpart... I may as well set down what our stern experience replies with the tongue of all its days. Son of man, it saith, all giving & receiving is reciprocal; you entertain angels unawares, but they cannot impart more or higher things than you are in a state to receive. But every step of your progress affects the intercourse you hold with others; elevates its tone, deepens its meaning, sanctifies its spirit, and when time & suffering & self-denial shall have transformed and glorified this spotted self, you shall find your fellows also transformed & their faces shall shine upon you with the light of wisdom & the beauty of holiness.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson (Letters, 1, p.376)

thought to word, word to deed, deed to habit, habit to character

The thought manifests as the word;
The word manifests as the deed;
The deed develops into habit;
And habit hardens into character;
So watch the thought and its ways with care,
And let it spring from love
Born out of concern for all beings...

As the shadow follows the body, as we think, so we become.

(from The Dhammapada)

---
One of my favourite teachings from my favourite Buddhist scripture. And yet another example of incredible wisdom within the doctrine of 'dependent arising.'

awake enough...: Henry David Thoreau

 

"The millions are awake enough for physical labor; but only one in a million is awake enough for effective intellectual exertion, only one in a hundred million to a poetic or divine life. To be awake is to be alive. I have never yet met a man who was quite awake. How could I have looked him in the face? We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical means, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn, which does not forsake us is our soundest sleep. I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by a conscious endeavor."

- Henry David Thoreau (Walden, page 81)

Avatar: Movie Review

So Felix was excited about seeing James Cameron's new movie, Avatar. I wasn't interested. He told me that I had to see it with him and that he'd pay. We went to the midnight showing last night. Super-nerds. I was kind of reluctant to go to a midnight showing because, a) I don't particularly like James Cameron movies, b) I was afraid of being shown in line to a midnight movie should CityTV send one of their city-beat reporters to do a story on Super-nerds/cultural phenomenon, and c) I didn't think there should be any urgency to see this movie, I mean, I could easily wait 3-4 weeks and download it for free and watch it on my TV if I wanted. But nope Felix pressed on. We had to see the midnight show.

Anyway, long story long, the movie's story is about what I expected. The good guys are essentially pure-hearted, connected-to-the-spirit-of-the-land, native indians and the bad guys are heartless, in-it-for-the-money-and-the-power, conquistadors. All of them, “cartoon characters”, or probably more accurately, in this age of Marvel movies, “comic-book characters.” SO, I guess I'm claiming: the story ain't much. Seemed like Disney, full of obvious foreshadowing and the standard, supposed-to-be heart-tugging tricks.

But if you're anything like me you turn down your inner-cynic/movie critic the minute you voluntarily view a “blockbuster”, you understand their purpose: money-spending, money-getting through the usual means of unapologetic escapism. So with that in mind I put on the 3-D glasses and witnessed what I think marks a necessary leap forward in CGI. I'm not sure how to explain it but I think that we're probably now, with the advent of this movie, only a few steps away(prob still a decade though) from the point in cinematic history where computer generated images and graphics become indistinguishable from “real” images. I mean, we're still obviously not there yet; every time I saw an Avatar-character's eyes the falsity of the image was clear--- and not just the eyes, there are many points where you can say, “nope” if you choose to, but I doubt that'll happen because you'll probably be too absorbed in the flood of exotic images properly created; those that push the envelope, that so clearly represent cinematic advancement.

If you can suspend you disbelief and get past the regurgitation of “Hoo-ah” marine-speak, or “let's go get some”-isms you'll be treating yourself to a genuine spectacle, the importance of which doesn't really lie in the manifestation of technological imagery today, but instead lies in the promise of a cinematic future where fantasy and reality blend seamlessly, thereby emboldening the craft of movie making and perhaps more significantly, lending itself to higher-concepts of the now freshly provoked futurists.

Run-on sentences aside--- purposely or not, Hollywood helped out art in a pretty compelling way this week with the release of Avatar.

8.14338/10 (I was gonna put a disclaimer stating that without the visuals this movie would be a 6.76633 at best but I think it's probably wise to take it as a whole so the 8-ish rating will have to stand. I guess I did disclaim, oops.)

(also the rating might be a lil higher because I saw the movie with Felix who was right into it and his gaiety paired with genuine, Ooh-ing and Aah-ing, added excitement to the whole affair.)

The bath after

'Seated Bather Drying Herself' by Edgar Degas, 1899


The bath after

She drains the tub it sounds like thunder
like gargle like gurgle.
My ears ranging in two dimensional
reorient and training
face subtle to the directio
of scraping heels made loud
as the blanket of water balances & disappears
her skin sips and the hair a female form
she with the pair the female forms now
bathed in the air
grey mirror adorned
with reflection
reflection reflection

Christmasy already. Comfort and Joy.

Oh I'm feeling it. The momentum of Christmas isn't sickening this year, I'm not sure why but I feel swept up in it and I'm happy with every facet. The old 'tidings of comfort and joy' really workin'. Even this vibrant, living cold adds something.

Some Dylan crooning Christmas classics never hurts either. This is probably the second best version of "Little Drummer Boy" that I've heard. #1 Bowie and Crosby's version. Anyway, this one will leave you soothed if you make it all the way through. And by 'you', I mean 'me'. Me and the Ghosts of Christmas past, present and future---but mostly present since I've gone all contextually Buddhist. And I mustn't be inappropriate.



Click "HERE" for the Official Video for "Little Drummer Boy" by Bob Dylan

"As long as the dark foundation" : V. Solovyov

"As long as the dark foundation of our nature, grim in its all-encompassing egoism, mad in its drive to make that egoism into reality, to devour everything and to define everything by itself, as long as that foundation is visible, as long as this truly original sin exists within us, we have no business here and there is no logical answer to our existence. Imagine a group of people who are all blind, deaf and slightly demented and suddenly someone in the crowd asks, 'What are we to do?'... The only possible answer is, 'Look for a cure.' Until you are cured, there is nothing you can do. And since you don't believe you are sick, there can be no cure."
-Vladimir Solovyov

Mind as Deer Leaping

(photograph "Deer Leaping" by George Shiras, National Geographic, July 1906)

Understand subjective delusions: the illusion of regression; equally false: the illusion of progress. The news that makes one happy is the news that makes another sad. Neither understands the news. My eyeballs feel slightly deflated, I doubt they are--- maybe they are. Or one is. Just a feeling, I guess. “I guess” is right, I mean, not correct but properly recognized (in the most general sense possible). There we have it, my borrowed philosophy. Basically “Fleeting.” Fleetingly told. Needs an "-ism.” And something 'bout love and compassion. O! Buddha.

Two Poems by Sassoon on Rememberance Day

Survivors

by Siegfried Sassoon

No doubt they'll soon get well; the shock and strain

Have caused their stammering, disconnected talk.

Of course they're "longing to go out again,"--

These boys with old, scared faces, learning to walk,

They'll soon forget their haunted nights; their cowed

Subjection to the ghosts of friends who died,--

Their dreams that drip with murder; and they'll be proud

Of glorious war that shatter'd all their pride ...

Men who went out to battle, grim and glad;

Children, with eyes that hate you, broken and mad.

(Craiglockart, October 1917.)

---

The Rear-guard

by Siegfried Sassoon

Groping along the tunnel, step by step,

He winked his prying torch with patching glare

From side to side, and sniffed the unwholesome air.

Tins, boxes, bottles, shapes too vague to know,

A mirror smashed, the mattress from a bed;

And he, exploring fifty feet below

The rosy gloom of battle overhead.

Tripping, he grabbed the wall; saw some one lie

Humped at his feet, half-hidden by a rug,

And stooped to give the sleeper's arm a tug.

"I'm looking for headquarters." No reply.

"God blast your neck!" (For days he'd had no sleep.)

"Get up and guide me through this stinking place."

Savage, he kicked a soft, unanswering heap,

And flashed his beam across the livid face

Terribly glaring up, whose eyes yet wore

Agony dying hard ten days before;

And fists of fingers clutched a blackening wound.

Alone he staggered on until he found

Dawn's ghost that filtered down a shafted stair

To the dazed, muttering creatures underground

Who hear the boom of shells in muffled sound.

At last, with sweat of horror in his hair,

He climbed through darkness to the twilight air,

Unloading hell behind him step by step.

(Hindenburg Line, April 1917.)

Poetry Of Departures

by Philip Larkin

Sometimes you hear, fifth-hand,

As epitaph:

He chucked up everything

And just cleared off,

And always the voice will sound

Certain you approve

This audacious, purifying,

Elemental move.

And they are right, I think.

We all hate home

And having to be there:

I detest my room,

It's specially-chosen junk,

The good books, the good bed,

And my life, in perfect order:

So to hear it said

He walked out on the whole crowd

Leaves me flushed and stirred,

Like Then she undid her dress

Or Take that you bastard;

Surely I can, if he did?

And that helps me to stay

Sober and industrious.

But I'd go today,

Yes, swagger the nut-strewn roads,

Crouch in the fo'c'sle

Stubbly with goodness, if

It weren't so artificial,

Such a deliberate step backwards

To create an object:

Books; china; a life

Reprehensibly perfect.

Leonard Cohen at The Isle of Wight Festival 1970

Story goes that the 'Isle of Wight Festival' was supposed to be an English music fest in 1970 for 100000 paying concert goers. Instead 600000 people attended, 500000 of'em crashers --- so, rather quickly, the scene turned chaotic. On the last night of the tumultuous festival, after Jimmie Hendrix performed and a part of the stage was burned down. A dowdy looking Cohen took the stage at 2:00am wearing an overcoat and some dirty jeans over his pj's. The video above is an excerpt from the concert.

Even though, I must admit, his voice and performance aren't really the strongest here and the transition from mayhem to peace isn't obvious, I like to imagine that the kindness of his artistry; the essential genius of Cohen, radiated outward towards the audience and doused their flames, drew them in, captured them entirely... Really Love this guy.

Night Shoot: Fog & No Fog