Nightscape #1

The corner of the attic
Is dark in the same way
As a river valley wood at dusk

These secret hours of serene silence
Keenly aware of the deep night below

I treat my boredom exploring
On a stage of lamplight
The forgotten overgrown places,
The wild patches

I look at the street lamps
Burning aside the houses row on row

Glowing dimly under long arches
Of walnut arms along the road

The dark has drawn up close to me
As I keep silent and watch

Mode Moderne

River to Me

Not the clear quick stream
Not the lazy brown river
A glacial river in the spring
A torrent rushing sediment along

After the melt will return
As blue and steady
Calm and confident

For the Performative Poet

Whispered in an undertone,
A subtext to the words spoken in italics
in brackets he muttered — to himself

(The small details will sadly be missed
In the rush of oratory
But, the pithy punch-line
Shouted with gatling gun alliteration
In an indulgent lilt
Will be remembered)

"A peasantry grown fey and mystic, and unimpeachably artistic."

Cornered in the darkest crevice, teeth bared shining in the starlight.

The Night is Alive

The night is alive in the wild patches, in forgotten overgrown places
Keep silent, and the wild parts of the grid will remind you they're there,
Lithely under warm pools of lamplight they run,
Balanced on wires darting across the lane to warm nests in house walls,
Dexterous paws sorting through bins
House cats treating their boredom exploring the night
This city would turn to rubble in a short time if we were all to leave from it at once.

untitled, 2009

lost in a moment from dennis wheatley on Vimeo.

Empty Vessels

It feels as if my life has shifted into a plotless prolonged waking dream. Friends and family have morphed into exaggerated parodies of themselves. Their words have become cryptic; ciphers to a world I no longer understand. I feel ignorant of something I'm not sure I can comprehend.

Everything I don't know has become mystery to me, I can no longer trust my perception, I now look at the world unquestioning, accepting what I see as true.

In time I've become habituated and found ways to cope with my place in this world. I've begun to mimic those around me, I cling to every phrase I can memorize, every action I can imitate, I dance around chanting the slogans I know, gesturing passionately to passersby desperately hoping for any connection.

We speak the same language, but the words seem to signify nothing. The meanings I know seem to have been forgotten, outdated, or washed away.

So, I'll go down into a dark basement away from family and friends, to muttering about the ways that used to be. Nostalgic for meaning and mystery I'll seek to fill the empty vessels, to plant seed that grows plurality.

"the blogosphere"

I feel like this medium has a chance at being an honest and useful forum for people to exchange stories. When bloggers are not just complaining or ranting about inane topics, interesting things come out. Whether a tedious hour by hour account of your day or minute observations of every social action and idiosyncrasy, or a meandering narratives populated with characters taken directly from the author's own life the blogosphere is rich in imagination, or at least information and inspiration.
Naturally none of these things that are written remain our intellectual property and anyone serious about making a go of writing can't blog without the danger of the invading "google bots" or "coolhunters" making off with their thoughts. The argument could be made that there exists the same dangers in the physical world of writing as the digital, and that the path set before an aspiring amateur isn't easy whichever way. The access to an audience or to readers offered through blogs is unprecedented, and although great works of literature are unlikely to made here great writers could. In such a fertile and liberated environment passionate writers have an oppertunity to make a name for themselves, and like the dream of most every blogger to make a deal with a real life physical publisher and write a real life paper book.

On the Lake

Undulating sheets of light
Cast shimmering ciphers on the hull

The memory of the lake was spoken,
In a language unknown to all

It told vividly a history,
Rich in meaning to decipher

Of every loon, stream, and current
Ever alive inside her

This beautiful representation of something so simple and true
Drew my gaze for hours and imprinted on me something new

A greater clarity of vision, one more the perspective of nature,
A complete historic view.

cldhnd

What Lies Ahead, Chaos?

Postmodernism (or more accurately our "current unnamed time") seems to be an age, making a clean break from history, it seems to hold the potential for something authentic.

History seems to move in circles, swirling convection currents propelled by our human character. For the first time we may be coming aware of this phenomenon en masse. If we interrupt this current what will happen? Will we see chaos, or a new way?

What will happen when our "postmodern" ideas are deployed in full force?

Response to "Hipster: The Dead End of Western Civilization"

First of all the term "hipster" is as about a descriptive word as is "postmodernism,"
the term "hipster" throws a blanket over the whole movement. The only thing that this movement really successfully rebels against is a neat and tidy name that wraps up what it is. If this essay really did define the "hipster" I would buy the thesis, but the fact is there's more to it, which makes it hard for me to believe the end of our civilization is nigh. It seems to me that this is a movement in need of a direction.

If the "hipster" readers of Adbusters were to be given some sort of motto or manifesto, if the critical voice of Adbusters were used to rally a movement to stroke some ideas into action, we might just see an authentic counterculture movement like this essay pines for.

Also counter to what this essay suggests, history will continue, new ideas will take root, new movements will march forward, this movement marked "hipster" could be the seed of something authentic, or at the very least the fertile soil for a future seed.

this is the original essay im responding to

http://www.adbusters.org/magazine/79/hipster.html#comment-1136

Thursday night at the GAM

I walked to Torino's Contempory Art Gallery called GAM this evening. I understood that on Thursdays the gallery was open until 11pm. It wasn't. Instead I found myself walking straight into a lecture entitled "I Viaggi di Maurizio Levi." I asked one of the staff if it was open to the public, she said "yes."
After I sat down I noticed I was almost certainly the youngest one there, in fact every head for three rows ahead of me was grey. So I waited, feeling totally out of place, expecting to hear a lecture in a language still foreign to me on an unknown subject.
Even though I only understood a few words, I was able to surmise that it was about the travels of Maurizio Levi. Whether the speaker was Maurizio Levi or this was someone recapping the journeys or "viaggi" of the ancient explorer? I wasn't sure. The lecture consisted of a narration of photographs taken in India, China, and Kashmir of their people, their everyday lives, and the geography. It took about 45 minutes for the speaker to cover China, India, and Kashmir, and as I noticed there were still approximately 20 countries listed on the program and as it was already about 10:15pm I decided to call it a night, and walked home.
Although, I didn't actually learn anything about the subject the speaker was talking about I wouldn't call it a waste of time. I was able to understand more Italian than I have before, and it got me out of my apartment to someplace else than the market or the internet cafŽ. I hope next time I go I see some contemporary art.

First week in Italy

I landed on Friday night with my mom. Unfortunately almost everything shuts down on the weekend in Italy, so we couldn't really get down to business on anything until Monday. So we just wandered the streets and ate amazing meals at night and drank cheap but amazing wine. By the time Monday came we were starting to adjust to the timezone. We had only a few things to do before my mom left on Wednesday morning, but they were big ones. Primarily we had to find an apartment for me (something that ought to take a few weeks in most cases) but for us only

we only had two days. Fortunately we had a guide to help us on Tuesday, after we decided that we could not make it happen so quickly by ourselves with out speaking any Italian. Our guide Luisa our new best friend found me a place in only half a day. We went to the notice board at the city University and she pulled a fist full of numbers to call about apartments for rent. After about twenty minutes on a payphone and about 5€ later we had a lead. It was a newly renovated one room apartment in the best neighbourhood in town (zona crocetta) at exactly the price we wanted (very cheap). Our guide Luisa told us once we saw it that it was perfect and
that we couldn't have hoped for anything better. So we took it, we ran down onto the street to a


Bancomat to withdraw enough for a deposit on the place, we then went over to the landlords house to sign the contract. Anyways to make a long story short, a few trips to Ikea and the local market and its almost home.
-=joseph

thoughts on Andrea Zittel

I went back to the art gallery again today. I managed to catch a tour on Andrea Zittel. She is really amazing, I would call her neo-contructivist. She redesigns life. She tries to question every way we organize it, in a way that seems to transcend social commentary and speak to a more basic human nature not yet discovered. Is the eight hour work day reasonable or is it just arbitrary? Where we work and where we live why do they have to be separate? Why do we wear something different every day? I like the way she thinks, as it seems that she is not compelled by a social or political agenda but only her own curiosity. I am also very fond of the directness of her works, nothing seems to be a metaphor, but instead a very direct simile. Each piece amounts to a statement or an essay.