stephen caspar at archmere academy; delaware, 1968.

Charles Simic: The World Doesn't End

My friend Patrick Sanchez recently lent this book of prose/poetry (prose poetry?) by Charles Simic. I need to return the copy, but I'm caught in the middle of my third re-read. Buy/borrow/steal it for yourself. It's a good little book to have.

Excerpts:

"Ghost stories written as algebraic equations. Little Emily at the blackboard is very frightened. The X's look like a graveyard at night. The teacher wants her to poke among them with a piece of chalk. All the children hold their breath. The white chalk squeaks once among the plus and minus signs, and then it's quiet again. pg. 13

"A poem about sitting on a New York rooftop on a chill autumn evening, drinking red wine, surrounded by tall buildings, the little kids running dangerously to the edge, the beautiful girl everyone's secretly in love with sitting by herself. She will die young but we don't know that yet. she has a hole in her black stocking, big toe showing, toe painted red...And the skyscrapers...in the failing light...like new Chaldeans, pythonesses, Cassandras...because of their many blind windows." pg. 32

moviebarcode.tumblr.com

Once Upon a Time in America (1984)

El Laberinto del Fauno (Pan's Labyrinth) (2006)

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007)

Go follow them on Tumblr. Go watch these movies.

"on the misery of the human condition"

I am required to take a class called History of Ideas. It is what it sounds like. I'm not particularly dedicated (the material is far too general), but I was going through a set of old notes and found this. I'm not sure what I was doing - I think I droned out - but, it may be of some interest. Nothing's been changed with the exception of spacing in the fourth line.

“On the Misery of the Human Condition”

            Humanity is, on it’s own, lost

            Trapped in matter

            Corrupted by lust and greed

            Defined by sin or

                                        by sun

People are ani-mals! Everyone is covered in parasites! Everyone is scratchy! Everyone is dirty! We have one thing going for us: JESUS CHRIST. CHURCH, CHURCH, CHURCH, CASA JESUS. What a world! What an incalculable tragedy.

Human perfectibility

diet coke jerky: a project statement

1. Production of material; non-stop, 24/7, available year-round.
2. Mentions of literature and jar creatures.
3. Critical/psychosexual self-deprivation.
4. Hyperventilation.
5. Railroads, though I've never been.
6. An impregnable penchant towards ineluctable doom.
7. Theory.
8. Form, process, form, process, form, commas, process.
9. Mistrust, skepticism (the erotic vision).
10. Cursive, typewriters, scans.

You've the idea.