A Notebook – Since 2007
Place root note of chord on selected fret and use the number system to play triads moveable along the fretboard as indicated. Raise 5 to augment. Flat 3 for minor. Flat 3 and 5 to diminish.
| string | ||||||||||||
| 1st | R | 3 | 5 | |||||||||
| 2nd | 5 | R | 3 | |||||||||
| 3rd | 3 | 5 | R | |||||||||
| 2nd | R | 3 | 5 | |||||||||
| 3rd | 5 | R | 3 | |||||||||
| 4th | 3 | 5 | R | |||||||||
| 3rd | R | 3 | 5 | |||||||||
| 4th | 5 | R | 3 | |||||||||
| 5th | 3 | 5 | R | |||||||||
| 4th | R | 3 | 5 | |||||||||
| 5th | 5 | R | 3 | |||||||||
| 6th | 3 | 5 | R |
How does one create a sense of intimacy with a blog? The very word, blog, heavy and lugubrious, suggests something one may not want to get too close to. Does intimacy imply a kind of secrecy, like the sharing of handwritten letters over time between two persons who have never met in propria persona? The Latin mass seemed intimate, and when, following Vatican II, local masses were said in the vernacular, I felt a loss of intimacy. The words in English had lost their secrecy. The mystery of the mass was no longer much of a mystery, no longer a magic show. The priest talked just like everybody else. This should have led to a greater degree of intimacy, but it did not.
One characteristic of the Internet is its ubiquitous presence, McLuhan’s “global village” realized, but for anyone who’s ever lived in a small town, the Internet might seem its opposite, an absurdly large, strange village, more like something Kafka might have dreamed rather than Sherwood Anderson’s “Winesburg, Ohio.” But the paradox of “Winesburg” is found in the irony that one feels intimacy most when one feels most lonely. It is the loss of intimacy when one feels the value of the familiar, of something made known especially for you. But “over the Internet” intimacy is spread as thin as Emily’s gossamer gown.
One blog I follow that seems to have created a sense of intimacy for or with its readers is Spitafields Life. Does follow suggest intimacy? But what if one is followed by a multitude? That would seem hardly the suggestion of intimacy. Yet the Spitafields blog is written by “The Gentle Author,” whose actual name we don’t know. Note the note of secrecy that seems to draw the normally distant intimacy near. The Gentle Author offers a course on how to write a blog. The next one is advertised at Spitafields for May. Maybe I should cross the pond and attend, buy a copy of one of The Gentle Author’s signed books, find out if The Gentle Author is male or female, not that it matters – would that knowledge increase or diminish a sense of intimacy?
Blogs come in many disguises and intents, purposes vary. The lifespan of the average blog is probably not very long, could be as short as a day or two, indeed, an hour or two. One might quickly discover the blogger’s life contains the secret of a crushing intimacy, more sad and forlorn than a single tweet could ever hope for. The sound of the whippoorwill.
So it came as some surprise to see the comment of one distant but familiar reader who found the new format I’m working on for The Coming of the Toads, “less intimate.” The folks who started the Internet, huddled over their code, as anonymous as a telephone pole on a country road, surely must have been among the least intimate of the ones to whom one might want to write. Or I just might have that backwards. IDK. The bloggers among us who prefer writing with words rather than with CSM must rely on canned templates to fulfill our visions! Admittedly though, I’m not even sure what CSM is, but I think it has something to do with the difference between visual and HTML. And so I leave you, no doubt, gentle reader, about as far from intimacy as I can get in this particular post.
This is another table poem – the words and lines formatted within the rectangles of a table inserted into a document. The table consists of 5 columns and 21 rows. A kind of counterpoint is created when the poem is read horizontally, vertically, diagonally. Formatting widgets (spacing, alignments left or right, cuts, etc.) have been added as musical accent marks.
|
counter |
point | part s | po sh | not |
| again st |
co nter |
culture |
priv ate |
lake |
|
mass |
shore |
ount |
deck |
effect |
| ass ump tion | sit sting | out |
cou |
entry |
| un der |
|
|
pile green |
noucter |
|
prick |
pluck |
plectrum |
finger |
nails |
| percussive | fingerling |
apron |
strings | hooks |
|
count |
1 |
Two |
3 |
Four |
| syncopate |
|
c u t | ||
| how | l o n g | |||
|
jay sus |
||||
| woh |
how here |
owh | ||
| nogl |
l o n g |
on | ||
| ow | ||||
| un clear | im precise | lack s | clar ity | cri tic |
|
pun |
c |
a hack’s ear |
||
| ∀ | u ate | shun | too smpl | not |
| 4 | ||||
| yes |
re |
me | m ber | us |
|
cross |
together |
prable |
back | when |
| whole point |
told |
aft | you |
cave out |
I had answered my ringing house phone to a recording. I put the phone on speaker, set it down on the counter, and waited for the caller to come on live. The recording continued, as if with indefinite intent. I opened Garage Band on my laptop and recorded the message, later adding the other tracks with instruments and vocals.
For you distressed I carry yr clothes
hamper downstairs taste every word
prior to yr ears like mosquito
static in yr hair I sit on yr head
snatch one with my tongue
smell yr salty skin yr cheeks
freckled read as shame burr
sounds around yr funny ear fickle
bone bowls.
Still you don’t care all that mulch
for words can’t help the ear aches
worse for wear and tears fall
fill the worn clothes washer
I don’t bother separating solids
from colors under from outer
and all that rhyme
fill the tub and ounce of salt
wort scrub-a-dub-dub
rinse the soapy nest.
Pin all to these lines
in the sun of daily
breezes off the water
spinning and tumbling
little white terns fly off
as you dry off in dry
bamboo grass we learn
we two live in a slip
and fall place as you slip
a link and fall into the abyss
of this lonely ableness.
I’m letting my hair grow.
It’s starting to snow.
Nothing to be done,
Estragon fond.
“Now I’m a donor,” I told Susan,
“on the recent license renewal.”
“They’ll take your anatomical
hair,” she said, the young one
at the Department of Motor
Vehicles: “On your license,
be a donor?” she asked me.
“Sure, and why not.”
“It’s not like you’re going
to be needing it,” she laughed.
I don’t need it now,
I thought to myself,
she in Santa Claus costume
red and white furry thick
and outside snow falling
and her hair black maroon
hanging tussled out
the Santa red cap rimmed
white and the big white
ball at the end bouncing
about as she whirled around
to grab the form
for me to be
an anatomical donor.
My papers in order –
DD214, Birth Cert.,
proof of address – but,
“We don’t need them
this time,” she said.
“You’re in the system.
You showed us all that
last time. You only
have to prove it once.”
(On this I did not
correct her.)
“But let me see
that discharge sheet.
Why don’t you have
VETERAN
on your license?”
She read down my DD214,
taking her time.
I was number 106,
the DMV not crowded,
middle of day middle of
week middle of month.
Not any, any, any.
Middle, middle, middle.
“There it is,” she said.
“Other than dishonorable,”
she happily smiled,
as if given a gift,
or handing me one,
the white ball again
twirling as she turned
and grabbed hold
another rubber stamp.
I was 18, number 16,
that first drawing,
I might have told her.
I looked good a few
of the squad said
of my shaved head
coming from the barber
at Fort Bliss, zero week.
I went in full curled
long and wild just out
of the surf at El Porto.
“OK,” she said. “Take
this to the photographer,
end of the counter.
Merry Christmas!”
And I said it back
to her. It’s best
when at the DMV
to remain calm
and try to relax
and let your hair grow.
“Number 107? 107?”
| break shoe tongue twist |
flying |
intestinal fracking |
| from roof of mouth | to eye bird nest prow brow |
|
| head to head crown noggin fisticuffs fracus |
||
| best foot forward tripped up from behind |
nose to nose dried honey crystals hundred years old |
|
| rub a dub dub | elbow grease | |
| unfair to the fare | thick skinned | |
| heartless calloused |
body out of tune with mind says |
|
| without a punch thrown | “you go your way and I’ll go mine” |
|
| Genet tolls neon tubes afterglow |
||
| mouse muscular green scapular |
easy way out chest |
prayer ov er drawers |
|
tasseling hair |
offer cauliflower ears |
ago |
| loose lips hips tip flip |
banana trunk carrot leg zucchini toe |
feet flap tongue roll slip slap |
Hair is home
host to vermin
both lowlife
and high fliers
little lady bugs
after aphids
and crickets
around the neck
head is open
for business
enter up
escalator nose
bay lips open
for winnow
shopping
the ears parking
garages for
diverse scads
take elevator eyes
to the penthouse
sweet
down now
to the fruit and nuts
the walnut shaped
butt rarely sees
up as down it sits
a-squish in fat
the thighs arise
down to deal knees
legs akimbo down
to ankle gears
pulleys the feet
monkey wrenches
between toes
grease growing
mushroom nails
this being husk
breath munching
crunching
masquerade
and inside the body
marching things
really grow
interesting .
Chairs off course know search ring a stiff lilly
Cheers off corset nill touch ping a short rally
Chilly fur coarse none such amongst the still
Thesis natch nought loopy stock still hush
Thus ditzy dippy bee causal dingus thrill
Thoughtless remiss trunk full tree bananas
There is rash such art as false tranquility
Of pass age there is nothing prack test
Charts no excerptions pair of phones snail
Espresso café square corner tables
Seats side walked there there now close
Call this way where begins such still life
Naturally there is no such thing as a still life
Docile no stiff necked bowl of animus
Afternoon walk close in and find a cafe with sidewalk tables to sit out with an espresso, on watch and wait.
Wait for some light that might soon start to seep through a cracked world.
World War II and the Nazi army advances on Paris. You can hear artillery fluster the banlieues. Do you try for a train or run the roads south with distraught families or take a table on the sidewalk of some tree hidden rue (for you are on the streets where all is rue) and order an espresso and write a poem on a napkin:
And the poem on the paper tablecloth is perhaps as typical of the way Prevert got around in France in the min-Forties as it is of his poetry itself – a poetry (his worst critics will tell you) which is perfectly suited to paper tablecloths, and existing always on as fine a line between sentiment and sentimentality as any that Charlie Chaplin ever teetered on.¹
When I was inducted into my Guard unit, the 140th Engineer Company, in 1969, they were still packing the M1 Garand rifle. Before firing, we learned to disassemble and reassemble the eleven part trigger housing group. The M1 was a fine weapon, as Woody Allen’s Hemingway character in “Midnight in Paris” might have said, but of course didn’t – that was Paris of the 1920s. The M1 was heavier than its successor the M14, which I was introduced to at Fort Bliss, but you fired them both like rifles, sighting in and taking aim, adjusting elevation and windage. The M16 seemed a light, plastic toy in comparison; you pointed it and sprayed. Even as a kid I was attentive and sensitive to words, but it wasn’t until Basic Combat Training that I realized the unique place nomenclature played from certain perspectives – the naming of things, the naming of parts, in particular, and how, in certain circumstances, you couldn’t simply go to a thesaurus for synonyms as variable substitutes. You had to find the real right word.
Henry Reed’s poem “The Naming of Parts,” from “Lessons of the War,” illustrates the uses of proper nomenclature, and of paying attention:
Today we have naming of parts. Yesterday,
We had daily cleaning. And tomorrow morning,
We shall have what to do after firing. But today,
Today we have naming of parts. Japonica
Glistens like coral in all of the neighboring gardens,
And today we have naming of parts.This is the lower sling swivel. And this
Is the upper sling swivel, whose use you will see,
When you are given your slings. And this is the piling swivel,
Which in your case you have not got. The branches
Hold in the gardens their silent, eloquent gestures,
Which in our case we have not got.This is the safety-catch, which is always released
With an easy flick of the thumb. And please do not let me
See anyone using his finger. You can do it quite easy
If you have any strength in your thumb. The blossoms
Are fragile and motionless, never letting anyone see
Any of them using their finger.And this you can see is the bolt. The purpose of this
Is to open the breech, as you see. We can slide it
Rapidly backwards and forwards: we call this
Easing the spring. And rapidly backwards and forwards
The early bees are assaulting and fumbling the flowers
They call it easing the Spring.They call it easing the Spring: it is perfectly easy
If you have any strength in your thumb: like the bolt,
And the breech, and the cocking-piece, and the point of balance,
Which in our case we have not got; and the almond-blossom
Silent in all of the gardens and the bees going backwards and forwards,
For today we have naming of parts.²
Whatever you happened to be holding at Fort Bliss in the fall of that year, M1, M14, M16, the proper nomenclature called for but one word: weapon. Call it a gun, and you got down with it for 20 or 30 pushups, kissing its butt and calling out, “One, Drill Sergeant; Two, Drill Sergeant”; etc. If you dropped it, you got down with it again. If you set it aside or missed-placed it, you were accused of having a taste for self-abuse, and got down with it again.
In his November 14, 2016 Financial Page article for The New Yorker, “What’s in a Brand Name?,” a one-page gem, James Surowiecki anecdotally mentions the time Ford asked the poet Marianne Moore to come up with a name for one of its new cars. She came up with a bunch, all rejected. Sometimes, the key to naming something successfully is found in the action word sublimate. But it is called advertising. Advertisements are arguments in which attempts are made to persuade us to do something that probably won’t be good for us. So we might, for example, get Arthur Godfrey telling us what kind of cigarette is best for us. Borrowing someone’s credibility to pitch your argument is a tricky business. Scholars describe it as a means of persuasion called ethos; others may call it a slang profanity, remain unpersuaded, and know it’s best to choose your own cigarette.
“They are playing a game,” R. D. Laing opens the first knot of his Knots:
They are playing at not
playing a game. If I show them I see they are, I
shall break the rules and they will punish me.
I must play their game, of not seeing I see the game.³
It’s fall, and soon winter will come in, and most of the cafes locally will move their sidewalk tables and chairs indoors, and it will be harder walking and wandering to find a place to sit out with an espresso in what might remain of the afternoon light (in the Northwest, the world is also cracked, but in winter, that’s how the water gets in). A certain discomfort is a necessary good for some kinds of writing.
Over the past week or so we visited several cafes for an afternoon espresso at a sidewalk table in the waning light of fall, hoping for some inspiration from the general rue for a paper napkin poem. Alas, we got no paper napkin poems. But we got some sidewalk espresso music, and enjoyed a few clean, well-lit places, and took a few pics we offer here in lieu of napkin poems.
¹ From “Translator’s Note” (1964) Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s introduction to City Lights Books The Pocket Poets Series: Number Nine, “Selections from Paroles,” by Jacques Prevert, San Francisco, July 1958, Sixth Printing February 1968.
² Reed, Henry. “Naming of Parts.” New Statesman and Nation 24, no. 598 (8 August 1942): 92 (.pdf).
³ “Knots,” by R. D. Laing, Vintage Books edition, April 1972, page 1. Originally published by Pantheon Books in 1971.
The Coming of the Toads 