Tuesday, October 27, 2009
I've been thinking
About what Dana Ward said about the "radical possibilities of friendship" and how both friendship and poetry could have the potential to be radically benevolent forces for good. How Dana should write a treatise outlining how this. The same Dana Ward's thing about "creating presence" with friends via the internet and how completely necessary it is do that sometimes when our closest loved ones are very far away. This makes me think about how much we dream our lives anyway and why not dream ourselves together? How strange and radical it can be to be really physically in someone's presence, to share space with someone, to be very very close, sharing eye contact and air, to allow them to affect you without mitigating mediums--how truly terrifying this can feel. Intimacy on a grand scale. Sex too. Parapraxes: forgetting, losing, misplacing, slipping, falling, dropping, typos, saying the "wrong" word, saying the wrong name, the wrong time, the wrong place. The way we know how to protect ourselves from the outside but we have no defenses from our own inner worlds. How the psyche kicks the inner "excitations" out to look at them straight and fight them off that way. My friends. My dad. Smoking. Cancer. My childhood. My dreams. Babies. Kids. The compulsion to repeat. Physical pain and how it is necessary to strengthen after mobilizing. How I should start leaving 15-30 minutes early for everything to compensate for Muni and for my inner world. All the the things I've left out. How I should've left that out and most of the other things.
Real Quick: I'm doing this
November 1st- Suzanne Stein and Brandon Brown reading from their novel @ 2nd Floor Projects (I'll be holding cue cards)
November 8th (Sunday)- Reading w/folks from Dodie Bellamy's prose workshop 4pm @ ATA on Valencia St. between 20th and 21st (Going to be so good. So Much good stuff.)
November 22nd (Sunday)- Reading w/John Sakkis @ Poetic Research Bureau in L.A.
December 6th (Sunday)- Reading at SPD Open House
November 8th (Sunday)- Reading w/folks from Dodie Bellamy's prose workshop 4pm @ ATA on Valencia St. between 20th and 21st (Going to be so good. So Much good stuff.)
November 22nd (Sunday)- Reading w/John Sakkis @ Poetic Research Bureau in L.A.
December 6th (Sunday)- Reading at SPD Open House
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Behavior Management Strategies
When speaking to a group, keep directions simple
Use the "When Before What" strategy: tell them when then tell them what.
Offer positive reinforcement to those participating and following directions ie: "I really like how so-and-so is doing such-and-such" or "Thank you so-and-so and so-and-so for doing such-and-such".
Stickers and other small prizes or gifts are a great way to show your appreciation and remember that a heartfelt "Thank you" goes a long way.
If it becomes necessary to offer criticism, do so using a compliment sandwich: one compliment--your criticism or problem--and a second compliment. Ilustrate for him/her/them a generally positive picture of the situation and allow the unwanted behavior to stand out.
Use the "When Before What" strategy: tell them when then tell them what.
Offer positive reinforcement to those participating and following directions ie: "I really like how so-and-so is doing such-and-such" or "Thank you so-and-so and so-and-so for doing such-and-such".
Stickers and other small prizes or gifts are a great way to show your appreciation and remember that a heartfelt "Thank you" goes a long way.
If it becomes necessary to offer criticism, do so using a compliment sandwich: one compliment--your criticism or problem--and a second compliment. Ilustrate for him/her/them a generally positive picture of the situation and allow the unwanted behavior to stand out.
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Projection and Conceptual Projects
Projection:
Can I just take a minute to talk about how conflicted I feel about most of things that I end up posting on this blog? For instance the post previous to this one titled "I'm in this". In that post I attempted to appear flippant about my publication in Vanitas when I do sincerely feel proud to be published in it. I hoped that by stating the fact of my publication in the most blatant way I could think of "I'm in this" my awareness of self-congratulatory and self-promotional acts like this would be apparent, that the irony of my doing so would be apparent, that you might chuckle and forgive me for wanting to: share my pride, make you aware of a publication that I respect and even convince you of my importance, that my goals would be met and none of my fears realized. I was afraid that you would think one or more of the following things: that I was bragging, that I was playing coy, that I wanted to show you that I've been published alongside names you might recognize, that this is a desperate attempt to establish my validity and necessity in a community that I have neglected, that it's a wonder that anyone takes me seriously, or nothing--that you wouldn't care.
I was just telling John Sakkis on Monday how being published in magazines like this doesn't have the same satisfying impact on my personal sense of self-worth as a poet that it used to but then the very next day I get on Facebook, see that Vanitas #4 is out and that I've been published in the same issue as, I'll be honest, some names, and I felt reassured. I felt like maybe someone out there who didn't take me seriously before mightl take me more seriously now. I wish I didn't care but I do. One poem in one magazine and that is where my mind goes.
Let's take the piece that's been published in that magazine too. It's problematic. I translated the traditional Vietnamese folk song, The Ca Dao, homophonically from a recording by John Balaban on Ubuweb. The results are very sexual and scatalogical. Questions follow, right? a) what's this white girl up to translating a Vietnamese folk song? b) is she making fun of the Vietnamese language? c) does she just have a super puerile mind? d) would I hear the same thing? homophonic translations, who cares (that's SO been done)?
What am I doing here with this post? Why do I feel the need to expose myself? I should save it for therapy. I should save it for a real piece instead of barfing it out half digested onto the internet. I should consider my audience. I should stop considering my audience so much. I should stop considering myself a blogger with an audience (I mean, really). I think of specific people as I write, knowing to some extent who might read it and drop a line or two in for them. Maybe one will like me more because I've exposed my neuroses, maybe one will like me more because I am being vulnerable, maybe one will be reminded that I do think about these things--that I am not a ditz, maybe one will like me more because I remind me of her/him, maybe one will respect me more because, maybe one will like me less because I am being vulnerable, maybe one will respect me less for second guessing myself, maybe one will like me less because I am not like her/him.
I want to be the person you want to see and that is a problem. Thankfully, I want you to mirror me too. I'm not so totally screwed.
I was going to post some conceptual projects below but this post has got long enough, I think, and I don't think anyone would read them if they were all the way down here. I want you to read about my conceptual projects. I want you to think that they are smart and in turn me.
Can I just take a minute to talk about how conflicted I feel about most of things that I end up posting on this blog? For instance the post previous to this one titled "I'm in this". In that post I attempted to appear flippant about my publication in Vanitas when I do sincerely feel proud to be published in it. I hoped that by stating the fact of my publication in the most blatant way I could think of "I'm in this" my awareness of self-congratulatory and self-promotional acts like this would be apparent, that the irony of my doing so would be apparent, that you might chuckle and forgive me for wanting to: share my pride, make you aware of a publication that I respect and even convince you of my importance, that my goals would be met and none of my fears realized. I was afraid that you would think one or more of the following things: that I was bragging, that I was playing coy, that I wanted to show you that I've been published alongside names you might recognize, that this is a desperate attempt to establish my validity and necessity in a community that I have neglected, that it's a wonder that anyone takes me seriously, or nothing--that you wouldn't care.
I was just telling John Sakkis on Monday how being published in magazines like this doesn't have the same satisfying impact on my personal sense of self-worth as a poet that it used to but then the very next day I get on Facebook, see that Vanitas #4 is out and that I've been published in the same issue as, I'll be honest, some names, and I felt reassured. I felt like maybe someone out there who didn't take me seriously before mightl take me more seriously now. I wish I didn't care but I do. One poem in one magazine and that is where my mind goes.
Let's take the piece that's been published in that magazine too. It's problematic. I translated the traditional Vietnamese folk song, The Ca Dao, homophonically from a recording by John Balaban on Ubuweb. The results are very sexual and scatalogical. Questions follow, right? a) what's this white girl up to translating a Vietnamese folk song? b) is she making fun of the Vietnamese language? c) does she just have a super puerile mind? d) would I hear the same thing? homophonic translations, who cares (that's SO been done)?
What am I doing here with this post? Why do I feel the need to expose myself? I should save it for therapy. I should save it for a real piece instead of barfing it out half digested onto the internet. I should consider my audience. I should stop considering my audience so much. I should stop considering myself a blogger with an audience (I mean, really). I think of specific people as I write, knowing to some extent who might read it and drop a line or two in for them. Maybe one will like me more because I've exposed my neuroses, maybe one will like me more because I am being vulnerable, maybe one will be reminded that I do think about these things--that I am not a ditz, maybe one will like me more because I remind me of her/him, maybe one will respect me more because, maybe one will like me less because I am being vulnerable, maybe one will respect me less for second guessing myself, maybe one will like me less because I am not like her/him.
I want to be the person you want to see and that is a problem. Thankfully, I want you to mirror me too. I'm not so totally screwed.
I was going to post some conceptual projects below but this post has got long enough, I think, and I don't think anyone would read them if they were all the way down here. I want you to read about my conceptual projects. I want you to think that they are smart and in turn me.
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
I'm in this
Vanitas #4 : Translation
Magazine. Poetry. Art. The fourth issue of VANITAS embarks on the large topic of translation. At the current moment of mutual suspicion and intolerance, translation seems to have taken on a new vitality in the worlds of poetry and poetics. Translations, versions, adaptations, homophonics, riffs, fragments, experiments by Tim Atkins, Mary Jo Bang, Lindsey Boldt, Charles Borkhuis, Ted Berrigan, Brandon Downing, Kenneth Goldsmith, Jack Hirschman, Jen Hofer, Ron Padgett, Charles A. Perrone, Ed Sanders, Monica de la Torre, John Tranter, Stephen Vincent, Paul Violi, Anne Waldman, Laura Wright, Bill Zavatsky, and many others. Critical texts are provided by Charles Bernstein, Michael Lally, Jonathan Mayhew, Mary Maxwell, Luiza Franco Moreira, Yuko Otomo, Kit Robinson, Raphael Rubinstein, Michael Schorsch, Eileen R. Tabios, and Lewis Warsh. Cover by Francesco Clemente.
Magazine. Poetry. Art. The fourth issue of VANITAS embarks on the large topic of translation. At the current moment of mutual suspicion and intolerance, translation seems to have taken on a new vitality in the worlds of poetry and poetics. Translations, versions, adaptations, homophonics, riffs, fragments, experiments by Tim Atkins, Mary Jo Bang, Lindsey Boldt, Charles Borkhuis, Ted Berrigan, Brandon Downing, Kenneth Goldsmith, Jack Hirschman, Jen Hofer, Ron Padgett, Charles A. Perrone, Ed Sanders, Monica de la Torre, John Tranter, Stephen Vincent, Paul Violi, Anne Waldman, Laura Wright, Bill Zavatsky, and many others. Critical texts are provided by Charles Bernstein, Michael Lally, Jonathan Mayhew, Mary Maxwell, Luiza Franco Moreira, Yuko Otomo, Kit Robinson, Raphael Rubinstein, Michael Schorsch, Eileen R. Tabios, and Lewis Warsh. Cover by Francesco Clemente.
Friday, October 9, 2009
I Do Me Right
I found a mix cd with the words "For My Love: Pop Music for Cruising" scrawled on it in my handwriting in green sharpie. I'm pretty sure I made it for myself.
I recommend doing this for yourself. Make a mix cd of all of your favorite songs of the moment and stash it somewhere or just happen to lose it like I did (easy for me). Then find it again at least 3 months, preferably 6 months later. You'll feel like you've found your one true love. How could anyone know me so well? you'll wonder. Somehow you've managed to make yourself swoon, laugh, beam, hit the nostalgia button and dance solo-kitchen-sexytime-danceparty-style.
You know what? You're a damn good listener. You're sensitive to your needs, considerate of your feelings, fun to hang out with, great in bed and really, really attractive. You're a catch!
Tonight, I made myself dinner, served myself some crappy merlot and ate some chocolate cookies and listened to the mix cd. It's Friday, I'm not even on my period and I have a darling, angelic, doll-faced gentleman friend in my life and I still know how to show myself a good time. Things are good.
Do yourself right, friends. It's important.
p.s. I was really especially pleased when "Waterfalls" by TLC came on.
I recommend doing this for yourself. Make a mix cd of all of your favorite songs of the moment and stash it somewhere or just happen to lose it like I did (easy for me). Then find it again at least 3 months, preferably 6 months later. You'll feel like you've found your one true love. How could anyone know me so well? you'll wonder. Somehow you've managed to make yourself swoon, laugh, beam, hit the nostalgia button and dance solo-kitchen-sexytime-danceparty-style.
You know what? You're a damn good listener. You're sensitive to your needs, considerate of your feelings, fun to hang out with, great in bed and really, really attractive. You're a catch!
Tonight, I made myself dinner, served myself some crappy merlot and ate some chocolate cookies and listened to the mix cd. It's Friday, I'm not even on my period and I have a darling, angelic, doll-faced gentleman friend in my life and I still know how to show myself a good time. Things are good.
Do yourself right, friends. It's important.
p.s. I was really especially pleased when "Waterfalls" by TLC came on.
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
Blog, I don't know what to say to you right now so...
Best/Worst Insults (used to describe a person or his/her work):
1. Ubiquitous
2. Utilitarian
3. Hella MFA
4. Benign
5. Redundant
Musical Collaborations With Which I Would Like to Have Been Involved:
1. The Breeders
2. ABBA
3. The Ronettes (only if I could sing Ronnie's parts)
4. Cocteau Twins
5. The Cranberries
6. The Bee gees (early not disco)
7. The Beach Boys
8. The Tight Bro's From Way Back When
9. Wutang Clan
What Should/Might Happen to/with this Blog:
1. More lists
2. More lack of direction
3. More thinly veiled poems about my emotional life
4. More self-depricatory remarks
5. More jokes
6. More thoughtful and articulate remarks on the state of poetry/music/art/life/fashion/psychology/our modern world
7. More references to the outside world and its goings-on
8. More interior burblings
9. More stuff about Ponies and Cats
10. More blog posts from my mom
11. More links to your blog
12. More short poems on the subject of boobs
13. More poems that use people's names that you recognize
14. More weekend reports
15. More google image searches
16. More poetry by children
17. More announcements about your upcoming reading/party/gallery show/show/benshi performance/screening/wedding
18. More posts about how brilliant my friends are
19. More YouTube videos
20. Less of the above
1. Ubiquitous
2. Utilitarian
3. Hella MFA
4. Benign
5. Redundant
Musical Collaborations With Which I Would Like to Have Been Involved:
1. The Breeders
2. ABBA
3. The Ronettes (only if I could sing Ronnie's parts)
4. Cocteau Twins
5. The Cranberries
6. The Bee gees (early not disco)
7. The Beach Boys
8. The Tight Bro's From Way Back When
9. Wutang Clan
What Should/Might Happen to/with this Blog:
1. More lists
2. More lack of direction
3. More thinly veiled poems about my emotional life
4. More self-depricatory remarks
5. More jokes
6. More thoughtful and articulate remarks on the state of poetry/music/art/life/fashion/psychology/our modern world
7. More references to the outside world and its goings-on
8. More interior burblings
9. More stuff about Ponies and Cats
10. More blog posts from my mom
11. More links to your blog
12. More short poems on the subject of boobs
13. More poems that use people's names that you recognize
14. More weekend reports
15. More google image searches
16. More poetry by children
17. More announcements about your upcoming reading/party/gallery show/show/benshi performance/screening/wedding
18. More posts about how brilliant my friends are
19. More YouTube videos
20. Less of the above
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