Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Fringe

I've been super busy. I took the GRE subject test in English last week, finished up a UCB improv comedy class, dropped lil Winston off at the doggy hotel (that has to be a euphemism for something) and flew out to Utah for extended Thanksgiving/business.  I've still been writing for Jazzbots.com, though its been a bit hectic. There is no posting schedule for us bloggers, so usually after a game or something interesting happens there is a cuddle-puddle full of blogs and the administrators stretch them out over 3-4 days.  

In other news, how good is the TV show Fringe? very good, though I found the last episode kindof disturbing.  One of the characters is named Joseph Smith, and in the episode (spoiler alert) he is surrounded in his house by an "angry mob" of swat-team FBI agents, jumps out a window, and then is shot in the head when he hits the ground.  I'm Mormon, and anyone familiar with the history of the LDS church had to feel a little disturbed because that is pretty much exactly how Joseph Smith, LDS prophet, was murdered in 1844.  I'm sure its just exec. producer JJ Abrahms trying to work his magic again and build up a quasi-mythology about his fictional TV series backstory, but one has to wonder if such a thinly veiled allusion is actually a anti-Mormon message. I mean, in the show Joseph Smith comes off as a very bad guy.  

Now I said I was disturbed, not angry or self-righteous. I'm willing to see how it plays out, and maybe the martyrdom of the Prophet Joseph Smith has now reached the sort of cultural relevance that it is subject to parody. That can only be a good thing. When it comes to knowledge of his life's mission I firmly believe any publicity is good publicity. 

What do you think? Should I be angry? 

Monday, October 20, 2008

Second Jazz article up on Jazzbots, plus news.

Second article is up and it is awesome.  It's a little bit of TGIF, as I compare Balki and Cousin Larry from Perfect Strangers to two Jazz players.   Why not, huh?  check it out: www.Jazzbots.com

In other news, I just learned my cousin has a web hosting service. Yup, he's got servers and everthing. So I'll be moving over there soon with a blog name that doesn't contain .blogspot.com
The name is going to change, and I've got some good ideas for it. Stay tuned. Yaay WordPress. 

-aaron 

Saturday, October 11, 2008

First Blog is up over on Jazzbots.com

I'm officially blogging for Jazzbots.com. Hit the link to the left and take a gander. I am excited to be blogging, though I admit  that it's a strange set up. All posts are reviewed, as it is an "official" Utah Jazz blog. Titles are changed and my intended formatting tends to end up skewed.  But, chances are high they have more experience than I do, so I'm just going to roll with it. 

My first article at Jazzbots is about how die hard fans (like myself) tend to focus on the speculative peripheries of our teams and therefore lose the immediate experience of basketball. Sounds cerebral, but I don't think the article comes across like that. Or maybe it does. Check it out and leave a comment.  

Saturday, September 13, 2008

I dont like Ike. At all.

I cant sleep. It's like 330 saturday morning. I think the eye of Ike is passing over Galveston right about now, and I can't help but feel sick inside for the people who chose not to evacuate. I served my LDS mission in Houston, and spent a lot of time in Galveston itself, as it was part of my zone. I actually had knee surgery in Galveston while on my mission. I spent even more time (8 months) in smaller, lower-lying communities to the north and west of Galveston. Places like Port LaVaca and Palacios. Places right on the gulf, where people live in trailers. I truly fear for those places, especially because there are so many people still there who I love deeply. I feel so disconnected from them, and truly don't feel like there is anything I can do. I wish I was there to help them. In Clearlake, where NASA is, I hear the mayor is urging people even now to evacuate low lying areas. I know those areas. One apartment complex in clearlake called Harbor Tree used to flood with even the mildest of summer rainstorms. We would walk through it wet to our knees after a storm. Every stairway was rusted up to the third or fourth step. I feel sick for what they must be going through now.

For those of you who have never lived or seen that area of Texas, it is truly beautiful. Palacios is a tiny shrimping village, flat land, baptist churches, mostly gravel roads. The kind of place that hasn't changed in fifty years. Some of the happiest moments of my life were spent there teaching and serving people. We would drive our car out to the most remote of places, tiny colonies of trailers twenty miles away from anywhere, huddled around a small water tower. I remember one time we were on a drive like that, looking for a country road address and we came across a historical site/marker. It said that there had once been a city on that spot, settled before houston, that rivaled it in size and commerce, but that hurricanes had leveled it twice and the settlers had just given up. I stood at that marker and realized without nostalgia just how extreme Texas can be. I only pray now that destruction escapes most, but especially the ones I love and have left behind.

Thursday, September 11, 2008

We beat all the families reunions (and their laptops)

So I got the position as an official blogger for the Utah Jazz.  Thanks for all of you who went and voted. You guys are off the hook.  


I don't post about sports on this blog, but a few sports are a really interesting part of my life. Tivo makes watching sports easier on the schedule, and there are always fascinating/hilarious parallels to be drawn between athletic competition and life in general.  Hopefully I can start sharing some of those parallels when the Basketball season starts up. Again, the website is Jazzbots.com. It is in its second year as the official community site affiliated with  the Jazz. Lets see how this works. 


Monday, September 1, 2008

Seminal Geography

The major periods of my life have all been begun by a move eastward. Growth in High School was interrupted by a move east to Provo for College and eventually graduate school, then that period closed by a move east to New York City. In terms of personal development, I can trace myself maturing eastward across the continent. As I write this I am in San Diego, and I realized last night as I drove home from the wedding of a close high school friend, that my vacation this year has retraced the steps of my eastward migration, and in doing so helped me revisit lost versions of myself.

The funny thing about old friends is that they have a way of treating you as the person you once were, and this makes it easier to fall into the attitudes, even the mannerisms, that defined you in those times. When I went back to Provo this summer, I did so without a real purpose. It’s not the first time I’ve revisited Provo and it won’t be the last, but the days without a clear goal gave me time to reflect on the place. One day I was up on BYU campus doing some random errand and in Ten minutes I ran into four people who were relatively close friends around 2004 but who I haven’t kept in close contact with. I chatted with all of them and by the tenor of their questions I was able to see some of the ways I have changed from the person I was in 2004. That day put me in a reflective mood, and I spent the rest of my time in Provo noticing emotionally important places as I drove or walked past them. Apartments where I had lived, street corners where I had had meaningful discussions, places I had taken girls on dates, Streets I had run down in happiness, and others I had walked down in insecurity and pain. It seemed everything in that small town was a landmark and it especially struck me how certain landmarks from my earliest memories of Provo were right next to landmarks from my last few months there. There was an aspect to their closeness that reinforced the length and roundness of human experience, and the pattern that God forms out of every discordance. Above all I was filled with deep gratitude for the experiences and the people that helped shape me in Provo.
Then I drove west to San Diego, to attend the wedding of the friend who was most responsible for the first steps of my adult maturity. At the wedding I ran into another large group of old friends. It was amazing where their lives have taken them in 8 years. Some that I worried about are doing just fine, like stylist for a Conde Nast magazine fine, while others were still floating around the same bar scene and still others were absent, lost to drugs. The way they interacted with me, how they treated me with consistent goodwill, helped me remember the person I was in high school, and just how much I have changed. I’ll keep those personal observations to myself, which perhaps is the greatest indicator of how New York has changed me, but I again felt the deep gratitude of having a place to go back to, and having people in that place that treat you like not a day has passed.

Saturday, August 30, 2008

Ron is "off the hook"

His name was Ron. He was the assistant sales manager of a Utah Big and Tall men’s store. He was not big or tall. He wore oversized black pants with suspenders and a hunter green polo shirt. His face and neck seemed shrunken, tight , with a scraggly beard that clung to his bone structure so he looked like the pale animated corpse of some shallow-buried, perma-frosted 19th century polar explorer. He had thick black glasses and bad teeth and must have been in his early forties. The Big and Tall store was going out of business. I was picking over the remains of their liquidation sale.

He approached me, “Today our prices are off the hook”
“I can see that” I replied, smiling. The phrase seemed so common to him, and it was so incongruous with his nature that I laughed out loud. “Why are you going out of business?” I asked, trying to contain myself.
“Oh we got bought out by Casual Male. They’re going to close this store to consolidate”
“That’s too bad, where are all we big and tall people going to go to get our clothes?”
“Huh, huh. That’s off the Chain!” he evidently thought I had made a hilarious joke. I smiled again and asked if I could use the dressing room. He nodded and pointed it out, still laughing to himself, stuck in the internal reverie of the joke. He shuffled back to the counter, chuckling. I took my selection of 2XB polo shirts with me into the dressing room.

I made the command decision in the dressing room that I had never before heard someone utter a phrase so opposite their external appearance. I could not feel sorry for Ron, he seemed innocent and totally oblivious, but I felt a great deal of pity for the phrases “off the hook” and “off the chain”. Born in the rap nineties as succinct expressions of urban excitement and astonishment they had made, like twin salmons, the long journey up the stream of cultural consciousness only to die in the air outside a discount rack in a Utah big and tall store that was going out of business. The death of their last authenticity was the great tragedy out of which joy and comedy must inevitably spring. I mourned them while a smile.

When I came out of the dressing room Ron was on the phone:
“I tell you hon, it can get real frustrating. Our prices are already off the hook but people still ask me if I can take a bit more off. Don’t they realize its marked down 70 percent. I tell you hon, it makes we want to just fly off the chain. Huh, huh, how are the kids? Good. Good. Gotta go, talk to you later.” Apparently Ron had a wife and this is how he talked to her. He approached me again. “If you like those, you’re going to need some pants with them.”
“I imagine I am”, I replied, more intent now on observing Ron than shopping.
“Well, these flat fronts here are off the hook.” This time, for emphasis he made a circle with the thumb and middle finger of his right hand and brought the hand up then down past his face as he said the phrase. I looked at him in the face for a good two seconds, then picked out a pair in black and shuffled back to the dressing room.

In the dressing room I decided that the strangest thing about it was that “off the hook” and “off the chain” were the only two phrases Ron felt the need to martyr. The rest of his dialogue was culturally befitting a forty-something, perma-frosted, big and tall store assistant sales manager. No “homie” or “tight” or “Oh! Snap!” or other 90's phrases he could have killed if they haven’t been already (they have). No, Ron’s choice, the outlier on his cultural vocabulary curve, was confined wholly to “off the hook” and “off the chain”. I deduced, because of the lack of other phrases, that Ron was no secret BET watcher, but had instead picked his pet phrases seemingly from the ether. Did his press “Scan” on his car radio in 1999 and, in that tuner space between easy listening and classic rock, hear “off the hook” from a DJ? Did his twelve-year-old son return home one day from 6th grade spouting the tired urban phrase in the way that so many white twelve-year-olds are prone to do? Did he pick it up from a previously idolized assistant sales manager? Was it his attempt to win friends and influence people? Did he consider it cool and current? Did his wife find it edgy and sexual? Did it put her in the mood? I decided in the dressing room that I was fascinated by Ron, that he was an oblivious marvel, and I suddenly wanted to shake his hand. And, if I shook his hand, would he betray more outdated cultural influences by trying to give me a dap? I hoped not. Ron was perfect the way he was.

“I like the pants a lot, but they are a bit big” I said when I left the dressing room.
“No problem, the most off the hook thing about these pants is that they aren’t pre-shrunk, so they will tighten up just a bit” It was as if Ron structured all his sentences just to fit the phrases in.
“Great” I said, “looks like I’m good to go.” Ron rang me up and began to bag the polo shirt and black pants. I watched him closely the whole time. “Man, when you guys shut down where are all we big and tall people going to go to get our clothes?” I repeated the joke only because I knew it would make him smile.
“Huh. Huh. Off. The. Chain. Huh. Huh. Don’t worry, you’ll find another store.” He said as he handed me my receipt. I put the receipt in my pocket and reached out to shake his hand.
“Incidentally”, I said as I shook his hand, (no dap) “what’s going to happen to you? Are they transferring you to a different store? Maybe one in the area?

Monday, August 25, 2008

Marvin Gaye.

So I read Esquire.com a lot and have a nerd crush on one of their book blogger. Super strange that she was in Waterton while I was there last week. Alas me and my travelin' crew didn't run into her. Here is a related blog, from esquire, of the 5 best performances of our National Anthem.

I must say Marvin Gaye takes the cake. I love that the entire crowd is clapping and just groovin' out by the end of it. So very sad that the man is no longer with us. Here is the link. Please enjoy.

http://www.esquire.com/blogs/lists/5-best-spar-spangled-banner?src=rss

Thursday, August 21, 2008

My Grandpa and his traveling crew.

So, I am up at a relatively remote cabin in Waterton, Alberta Canada. I've been coming up here my whole life, usually with my family, but for the last few years I've been flying solo. It's a great way to decompress and truly my favorite place on earth. I always invite people, but the relative remoteness makes casual visitors difficult. This year, however, I invited my WWII vet 86 year old grandfather, who is far too sick to still be kicking but far too stubborn to die. He has a live in nurse named Daniela who helps manage his diabetes and who increasingly has taken over his caretaking as his health has deteriorated. She is Philipino, sassy, and I love her.

They accepted my invitation and said they were driving up from Oakland. Grandpa said this land is "God's true country" and that he wanted to see it again before he died. Mostly I think he wanted to relive his spartan childhood on a ranch in Wyoming. I prepared myself mentally for my two visitors, a crowd considering how comfortable I have become with solitude.

Imagine my surprise when their called pulled up not with two people in it but six. Daniela brought her son and grandkids and also a random girfriend/neighbor. The cabin is pretty small and I was pretty surprised and even a bit put off that the whole traveling crew would show up without warning. It was definitely not my expectation. But, as a day has passed I have come to really really enjoy thier company (all of it). Daniela and her friend Rose are both nurses who chat in tagolog and hang their underwear from the shower rack to dry. They cook for all of us and pat me on the back when they pass by. And they love my dog Winston and take him on long walks without even asking me. Daniela's son is a mean chess player and his son is awed by my ability to lift heavy suitcases.

It's as if they brought instant "home" with them in a bustling and obtrusive package. I just love to watch it. It makes me happy. Most of all they treat my Grandfather with great respect and handle his (ahem) racial biases with patience and laughter. Now that I see their care for him I understand a bit better why he has lasted so long. Best of all, we are rained in, so it just heightens the craziness. I don't know if this is what he was expecting, but I certainly think my Grandfather is getting a good look at "God's country".

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Canadians and the Olympics

So, I’m in Canada, and Canadians are strange. Not in the stereotypical ways. There is one channel covering the Olympics here and here are some of the things they do that strike me as very very odd
.
-No objective coverage of the Games: Nope, its all Canadians all the time. They will show you the heats of an event, watch the Canadians finish 8th and not advance to the event finals, and then fail to show the event finals because they are busy showing more Canadians lose in preliminary heats of other events. Also, when they show results of events they will only list Canadian results, always failing to mention who won the event.

-Extreme competitive anxiety: Canada didn’t win a medal for the first 8 days, and all the coverage took on this anxious and vindictive tone towards the Government and their supposed lack of funding for Olympic sports. I mean, they gave low level protesters national airtime to whine about the lack of funding as the reason why Canada’s athletes were performing poorly. Ironically, this exact same process played out four years ago in Athens. Its always “our poor underfunded athletes doing their best”

-Exaggerated focus on “personal bests” and “Canadian national records”: I guess when your country sucks at most Olympic sports you have to find positive reinforcement wherever you can get it.

-Joyous complacency with silver and bronze: Not once in the endless interviews with the few Canadian medal winners has one come close to mentioning that they were disappointed their medal wasn’t gold. All of them, especially the announcers, seem overjoyed to lose to the Chinese as long as they get a bronze. Very much a lucky to be there mentality.

-Lack of commercial variation: There is a loop of about 10 commercials (NO JOKE) that runs during all Olympic coverage (basically all day). They must have sold all the airtime to the 5 companies and then the companies made two commercials each. The commercials have not changed the entire Olympics. I have now memorized all these commercials and made solemn promises to NEVER buy anything from any of these companies. The companies are McDonalds, Chevy, HBC bank, Bombadier Airlines (truly the creepiest commercials ever), and very corny Visa ads. Worst of all are the Chevy ads. Worst worst of all. Because at the same time they are running John “Cougar” Mellonncamp go America ads in the states they are running ads in Canada with the Maple leaf and “lets go canada” logo. Did you know Chevy is the official vehicle of the Canadian Olympic team? They’re just wrapping themselves in the flag of any nation that buys cars from them. It’s a strange mixture of marketing and political propaganda. They should rig their company cars with microphones and megaphones. They should have retinues of factory employees march in military parades. Their new motto should be “Chevy: trying to attract the lowest common denominator of all nations”

And Finally,

Extreme (hilarious) passive aggressive coverage of the U.S. and U.S. athletes:
I was talking to a distant uncle the other day, who was raised in the states but has lived his whole married life in Canada. And he said “the majority of Canadians express their nationalism through competition with the US.” This is so very true.
First off, when CBC condenses its coverage of a non-live event, it will only show the Canadians fail, then it will show the three medal winners. So as you watch it you can pretty much tell that every routine you see will either be a medal or a Canadian achieving some obscure personal best….UNLESS, and this is the one exception, a US athlete fails to achieve a medal. They will always show U.S. failures, especially if the athlete is a favorite. Then the commentators will gloat silently or in thinly veiled statements like “oh, that’s too bad” and “shocker there. She was hoping to do better”

Secondly, all the Canadian announcers are total homers for the American’s main rivals, especially China and Jamaica. They will always point out where China won against the US but never the other way around. But, never is this more apparent than in the Michael Phelps Vs. Usain Bolt debate for “hero of the games”. Yup, up here they actually think it’s a debate. Most announcers will list Usain Bolt, then the Russian Pole Vaulter/Actress, THEN Michael Phelps in a discussion of most heroic at the games. C'MON! Bolt could shatter 19.30 in the 200 and it still wouldn’t even be a close call. 8 gold medals. 7 world records. Their homerism against Phelps is just way beyond ridiculous. Their announcers were practically screaming with joy when it looked like Phelps would lose the 100m butterfly. As for the Jamaicans, you have to remember that Canadians get all excited about Jamaicans because their only Olympic sprint champion ever (Donovan Bailey) was born and raised (and trained) in Jamaica before becoming a Canadian. They’re like the sister–city pen pals that you would write letters to in 5th grade.
But I’ve ranted enough. I’m going to stop and see if I can watch some track and field finals…oh wait, they’re not showing that. Instead its another interview with the Canadian bronze medalist in women’s equestrian dressage.

Saturday, August 16, 2008

Roadtrip Poetry

I always tend to write out loud when I take solo road trips. I write and revise in my head until its too long to remember, then I pull over and write it down. I do that a lot, and somehow manage to leapfrog my way across the country. The first poem I ever had published was a roadtrip poem, as others have been. This one is a fiction, but was inspired by the trees of the canyons between Helena and Great Falls. So enjoy and forgive me if its a downer (it was a stormy day). And so help me Zeus if blogger messes up the spacing. -Aaron

I.
Hungry metaphors,
Asian bark beetles are killing the forests of
southern Alberta. The dead trees
are similes stripped of needles. On
any mountain you can see them blighted,
thin and grey, random against the evergreens,
stark victims of a ravenous chance.

II.
It was cancer that thinned her
thumb and forefinger
picked her from my side.
No salve for the sap of her body,
no graft for the blight in her limbs,
no cure for the beetles mating in her
breasts.

III.
Tragedies of chance.
An Asian beetle in Canada?
Why God do you misplace our maladies?

updates, contest. Van Blows UP.

I'm back. let's get up to date. I am on vacation. The right ankle turned out to be just a bad sprain. It is healing. Life is good. Oh, and an Access-a-ride Handicapped Van blew up in front of my apartment building today in Brooklyn. Here is the link: http://www.brownstoner.com/brownstoner/archives/2008/08/accessaride_van.php

Awesome. Apparently my house is fine, which is nice because I am on vacation and it would have sucked to come home to a blown up apartment.

In other news, I recently made the final cuts to become an official blogger for the Utah Jazz basketball team. So if you like me go vote for my entry at Jazzbots.com. I'm entry #8.

In other news I have a poem to post but will post in a separate post.

best,

Aaron (currently very badly sunburned)

Friday, July 11, 2008

Somebody's trying to tell me something.

Those that know me know I had arthroscopic ankle surgery on my left ankle two weeks ago. My recovery has been rapid and I'm amazed at how strong that ankle is already. It's strength will be needed sadly, as I stepped in a pothole yesterday and absolutely destroyed my right ankle. It was extremely painful, with all the requisite popping noises that I have become all too familiar with in my short lifetime. I feel like I should get a medal for making it home from Brooklyn Heights (on the F-train) while hopping on the recovering left ankle. Someone please give me a medal. Let's hope for some miracle that I didn't tear ligaments and that it's not going to require surgery. In the meantime I'm laid up again trying to sort it all out. Luckily, my current livelihood is of the desk job variety so I can still function in society, but being injured does tend to make you question your direction, and I did some soul searching and managed to put a positive spin on things already. I'm not one of the "why God, why me" types, though that's a tempting emotion to succumb to sometimes. I like G.M. Hopkins rejection of that pity from "carrion comfort" the best: "Not, I'll not, despair, not feast on thee;"

So no pity please, just a medal, and maybe some more Vicodin.

aa

Friday, July 4, 2008

Fourth of July!

One of my friends approached me and said he liked this blog specifically for the absence of pictures. I realized I just spelled out "fourth" in this title. Probably a good indication of how verbose I can be. Moving on,

Happy 4th. Thanks people/person for your comments on the elizabeth story. and thanks for the cookies. I have rewritten the ending of the story and will repost it soon. I still feel kinda weird about the McCarthy passages.

Last fourth of July I wandered to Coney Island for the hot dog eating contest. I was a witness to the gastronomic ghastliness of Joey Chesnut setting the world record. Its a spectacle, but inside it make you feel a little bit like a spectator to the microcosm of American excess. Today is significant for me on a lot of levels though, as last Fourth of July is the first real event I associate with moving to Brooklyn. Somewhere last month I passed the year mark here, but this kind of symbolically marks that anniversary for me. and all the retrospection that goes with it. Its been a hard year in some areas and a great one in others. As a celebration of the holiday, here are some good bands I have been listening to over the last couple of weeks. when I learn how to embed mp3's I'll be really cool, but until then, look em up on myspace or something.

JaneVain and the Dark Matter
Oxford Collapse
The weight (kindof alt country. I really dig)
Jay Reatard
Death Vessel

-aa

Monday, June 30, 2008

Miss Elizabeth

Here is a short story that I have been working on. I'll post it first then I'll write a little of my thoughts about it after. I don't want to influence or cloud your initial reading...though technically I think I just did. In an editors note, the formatting doesnt allow me to indent. This sucks. New speakers and qoutations are indicated with a -dash.

Miss Elizabeth

I read:
"When she reached him he held out his hand and she took it. She was so pale in the lake she seemed to be burning. Like foxfire in a darkened wood. That burned cold. Like the moon that burned cold. Her black hair floating on the water about her, falling and floating on the water. She put her other arm about his shoulder and looked toward the moon in the west…"
-What are you reading?
I looked up, startled.
-A book. I mean, its by McCarthy.
-That's nice. I used to read so many books.
-Yeah? I love books, just getting into this one though. Its beautiful.
-What's your name young man?
-John. My name is John. Whats your name?
-Excuse me?
-What's your name?
-Now why would you ask a thing like that first off?

She was white, purple blouse with white jeans and white hair that was once auburn and she had a long café cane with a blunt handle, stubby hammer of wood and we were the only two people sitting in the radiology waiting room. She was classy old. She looked away and I, unsure if the conversation had ended with double glance to her looking away went back to my book. I read:
"…do not speak to her do not call and then she turned her face up to him. Sweeter for the larceny of time and flesh, sweeter for the betrayal…"

-Young man? and the courteous wait for my reply.
-Yes?
-Have you seen my pocket book? I always tend to misplace it.Or maybe Elsa has it? Maybe I gave it to Elsa.

And into the room a Hispanic woman on cue,

-Miss Elizabeth, they need to know what year you born.
-You expect me to just blurt out my age right here in front of the whole world?

She looked at me. I smiled, put my hands over my ears and hummed some hymn.
When I took my hands away, Elsa was assuring the safety of the pocketbook and Elizabeth was smiling at me.

-You remind me of my grandson. Well, he's really my grand-nephew, but he is tall and he has this gorgeous red hair. Lives in Boston. My sister's hair. She was the only one to get it too, this gorgeous red hair, like the color of bricks. That red.
-I don't really have red hair.
-No. No it's brown. But not the hair, the smile. You remind me of my grandson, the whole world in front of him.

She moved her cane in her hands, brought the handle to her face, smelled it, touched it to her lips. The older the elderly the more easily they see potential, the more loosely they define youth. The more whismy nostalgia they ascribe to all ages under their own. Backseat love and moon reaching. I am in my thirties. This conversation takes place in a hospital.

-Young man
-Yes Miss Elizabeth
-That is my name. When I was a young girl my grandfather owned a bottle factory in Brooklyn, and we would bring free soda and tonic to all the kids in the neighborhood. We were very popular.
-Do you still live in Brooklyn? Have you been there all your life?
-All my life, with a few detours.

She caressed her café cane again. A minute passed.

-That's a thick book young man, you must enjoy reading.
-Very much so
-Who is it by? I used to read very much.
-Its actually three books bound in one hardcover, its by Cormack McCarthy.
-That's nice. By chance have you seen my pocketbook? I seem to be always losing it. Maybe I gave it to Elsa. Did you see me give it to Elsa?
-As a matter of fact I did.

I smiled again.

-You’re a very nice young man. I have this grandson with the world in front of him, and he has your smile. But he has this thick red hair. God its amazing. Red like a sunset. You could go a long way in this world with a head of hair like his. He moved to Boston last year.
-I've never been to Boston.
-It's lovely. My grandson lives there.

She looked across the room, empty but for chairs. She looked away from me and twisted the cane once around like a baton. She smelled the blunt worn wood handle. I looked at her until I knew her attention was gone. The elderly have a way of looking outward but traveling inside. They pull their fears back inside their memories. They turtle. As if by looking back they could make future time stop and past time begin again. I know the feeling. This conversation takes place in the Oncology ward of a Hosptial. I looked back down at my book. I read:

"Nesting cranes that stood singlefooted among the cane on the south shore had pulled their slender beaks from their wingpits to watch. Me quieres? She said. Yes, he said. He said her name. God yes, he said."





First off. I am toying around with this idea of using snippets, randomly pulled (though this example is not random)fragments of other peoples work placed newly in new creations. The idea is that the pulled pieces take on new and entirely different connotations in altered settings. Like found photography. Does it work here with the McCarthy pieces? Does it irk you as a reader that I do this? It kindof irks me.

Second. The ending. I wrote a few different ones. The one here where I just leave it at the beautiful McCarthy quote. One where I tell her I am God and that she should be at peace with her past. One where she just stares at me and then I walk away, and one where I see her later in the hospital hallway, half naked in a hospital gown and I greet her for to bypass the awkwardness of her nakedness and she wonders at me all down the hallway walking away. Does the current ending work. Is there any emotional payout?


Lemme know what you think. Especially lemme know what pieces were unclear. I tend to have experiences/pictures in my head when I write and sometimes I leave things unsaid.

-Aaron

Sunday, June 29, 2008

hodgepodge-mishmash-brickabrack

Some goings on on my goings on.

I had minor ankle surgery thursday and have been laid up in my fourth floor walk-up apartment since then. I am healing way too fast to continue to wallow sleepily in your sympathy. Darn. I haven't even been in enough pain to justify painkillers. Double darn. You'd think someone who claims to be a writer would revel in this type of enforced solitude, but its not that way. Without movement, the outside, people, this writer becomes more of a thinker, which always creates difficulty. You ever noticed how following any thought, no matter how worthy, down diligently into its rabbit hole always leads to problems? Thoughts on the past lead to what ifs, or regrets, or at best half sad half recollections of some sweet memory. Thoughts on the future, though they sometimes lead to awesome daydreams, usually just remind us of all the things we are told to worry about. And there are so many things to worry about for a young American these days. Generally, we have Global Warming, Taxes, the Economy, the War, Honeybees, the end of the American Century. Thank goodness for Obama. He'll fix everything.

Before I get too cynical let me stop myself. You see, this is what happens when I think too much. Its tough though, because to write you have to think deeply about things, look for new angles. This is true especially of poetry. So for me, I have to walk a fine line in my own mind.

in other news (this is a hodgepodge entry) I am reading books about professional blogging. That's right, I am really interested in doing this thing more seriously, so I bought some books on niche blogging and one on WordPress and I'm really getting into it. One thing I have loved is the breakdown of blogging "benefits" into indirect and direct categories. Let me explain: Direct benefits of professional blogging usually come in the form of income from ads on your blog, or affiliate links on your blog. Basically you write to attract a large, loyal readership and your main goal as a blogger is to provide them with information/entertainment so their continued presence on your site provides you with income. Indirect benefits of pro blogging include things like increasing your profile as an expert, or a writer, which hopefully leads to other, more lucrative opportunities, like writing jobs. I would have to say I'm definitely more interested in the indirect benefits of blogging, and I am excited to develop some new blogs with that in mind.

in other news, how great is the TV show 'the Soup'. Just painfully awesome.

And with that, I'll depart. Maybe go injure myself some more so I can justify these painkillers.

Tuesday, June 3, 2008

Omega Man

On saturday last there was a series of really powerful rainstorms. A particularly strong one hit at about 11am and lasted for at least an hour. Hard sheets of warm rain. Winston (my small jack russel/poodle mix) gets intent when there is rain. He sits constantly at the window. I put on an old t-shirt, shorts and old shoes and we went off to prospect park in the last of the squall. By the time we got to the park the storm had passed in favor of muggy sunshine. The hard rain had scared away the normally thick weekend crowds. I took Winny off his leash, even though thats illegal where we were, and we ran around the long meadow. For half an hour I didn't see another soul. Just Winny and I jumping around like we were the last two gentlemen on earth. I don't think I've ever seen Winny happier. He likes to run around me in strange orbits, and at times he'll shoot off like a comet to investigate a group of orioles in a puddle or a particularly interesting stick. He does everything full speed. Later I slid down the wet hills like a slip and slide, with Winny speeding along next to me. It was quite the fun time. Then we saw a group of people and they gave us a nasty glance calculated to make us feel stupid. And I laughed in their general direction and slid down the hill again. It was a good day at the park.

Songs I am listening to lately:

M Ward: I'll be Yr Bird, Deep dark well
Modest Mouse: Gravity rides everything, The View
Coldplay: Viva La Vida, Violet Hill
Seawolf: Middle distance Runner
Asobi Seksu: Thursday
Frank Black: St. Francis Dam Disaster, Speedy Marie.

Also on first listen I am very disappointed in the new Death Cab for Cutie album. But stay tuned cause my opinions of albums usually change with time.


-aaron

Monday, May 19, 2008

dissection of a Day

Activities I did today:
Stretched
Ate Breakfast
Drove to provo
Worked on Thesis layout at Provo City Library
Went to Lunch with Dan
Printed out two color copies of the Thesis at Kinkos
Went to Borders and bought "9 stories" by JD Salinger(sp).
Went to the canyon and shot shotguns with Joel
Went back to the library and wrote a poem about a deer, but really about patriarchy
Drove Back up Provo Canyon to midway.
Watched a Basketball game
wrote this Blog

Human Beings I talked to today:
Nathan
Joel
Dan
Telly
James
Overbearing waiter at lunch
My dad (his 60th birthday)
My mom
my brother
Internet lady at Provo Library
Kinkos lady
Katharine
Borders Sales Clerk
Random shopper in borders who wanted my advice.

Non-humans I talked with today:
Good sir Winston (my dog, interior monologue)

Music I listened to today:
Bon Iver (skinny love, flume, stacks)
Lonely, dear (I am john)
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
Eckhart Tolle (background for my ride home)

Main themes of my thoughts today:
Thesis
Shotguns
Patriarchy
How much i miss certain parts of utah
what I've learned from NYC
continuing education/PHD programs
basketball
this blog
what the perfect day would be for me

Things I felt strongly about today:
shotgun safety procedures
gratitude for Dan and his kindness
working the system
How much I love the feel of a short lyric novel
one day having a home that is comfortable (a haven) in all the little ways
Deer
reciprocal kindness/love

One overarching message delivered to me by the day:
I am a good (kind) human.

Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Utah Poems Project

Here is the intro to a chapbook of poems I am writing about Utah. The idea has been ruminating for a while but I started collecting/finishing pieces this week. I'm already well along and quite pleased.


"This small book about Utah was written the year after I left Utah for New York City (get the rope!). Most of the poems are drastic rewrites of material I first wrote during my seven years (one mission, two degrees) as a student at BYU. This book is, among other things, a love song, an indictment, and a valediction. Please enjoy"


One of the degrees I mention is obviously still pending, so we'll see. In the meantime, please enjoy this new poem I wrote today for the Utah project:


Hill Fire

We climbed out bedroom windows
to the roof slope of the Avenues
and watched the hill fire burn down Y mountain
alive with danger from both inclines.

Andrew was in town playing minor league baseball
with the Missoula Osprey
a water bird.
He sat on the roof crown and made jokes
about his root beer.
all the Dominicans were on steroids and the groupies
were loose.
my poor roommates, he was one hell of an ember.

The wind changed and took away one danger
my careful angled footsteps
hand on the roof at the level of my hip
carried me from another.
Andrew stayed up with his root beer alone.

That day's dual fear has seared the memory
whereas others have flown the field
like a water bird
rusted like aluminum, lonely
gone dark like the charred sage of a mountain.


Aaron Allen

Common Bloggin'

Blogs are awesome and I have a lot of thoughts on them, here are some humorous thoughts on the blogs of twentysomething americans.

Top common indicators that the blog belongs to a twentysomething american. I am guilty of all of these.

-It will change its name almost more frequently than it changes posts.

-50% of all post titles will include random ellipses... (Oh the depth of our thoughts...)

-It's always a blogspot blog. Far be it from us to figure out how to use wordpress. We are too concerned with the drama behind...ellipses...

-The author will never identify him/herself but will come tantalizingly close. Ways to accomplish the cat and mouse game of identity revelation include: Close cropped photos of everything but the author's face. Links to friend's blogs where the author of the original blog is conspicuously revealed in posted photographs. Photos of yourself on your own blog that are so thumbnail small that sometimes gender isnt even determinable. and, my all time favorite, posted photos of direct family members (often holding babies). I just love how its so heartstoppingly important to protect blog author identity but we have no problem exposing the identities of our immediate family. Awesome.

-If it's a guys blog he will have a black (brooding) background and if its a ladies blog there will be much patterned wallpaper background. seems sexist but you'd be surprised how often this is true.

-they will link to their blog on their facebook page.

-the actual content arc of a twentysomething blog is also predictable. The very first post usually starts out with an incredibly ambitious description of the solar conditions on the day the blogger was born. the blogger then tries to tell a condensed life story to lead up to the day the blog was created, but runs out of steam and resorts to...ellipses...to fill in whole decades. Here's a condensed Example:

"It was a cold and lonely Wednesday in San Mateo CA when my mother's water broke...i arrived in a house already stocked with two older brothers...and now I'm Blogging!

The whole purpose of the initial blog post of a twentysomething blog is something I like to call "Puttin' the world on notice". Its one small step for a blogger and one giant step for the internet. Oh how I love the "puttin the world on notice post"

After the 'puttin the world on notice' post a twentysomething blog usually goes one of 3 directions...you ready for this?...

1) Blog as diet. The blogger posts a bunch at the beginning and then slowly peters out. the periodic blogs that do appear always have introductory sentences that reflect the guilt of the now absentee blogger: "Ok, Ok i know its time for me to write this" or "I've been so busy but its about time I got around to telling you about my Tomatoes!" The guilt in these blogs is made even more painful by the fact that the "blog as diet" is rarely ever a well read blog. this means that your statements of guilt are usually floating around cyberspace unanswered and uncared for. My favorite part of the Blog as Diet is that it will stop for months on end, no activity at all, followed by a post that is basically a rephrasing of the original "puttin the world on notice" post but with an added element of self doubt. Awesome! This cycle will repeat itself until the Blog morphs into one of the two other blog forms.

2) Blog as Therapy. Simply put, this is anyone who knows how to blog from their mobile device. The Blog as Diet becomes a Blog as addiction, and everything is blogged about. A new guilt emerges: The guilt about not blogging interesting things. Its like the author realizes the blog is a free form of therapy but is too hooked to stop. The first sentence of a blog post (in general) is always the key. Blog as therapy guilt posts also usually use parenthesis to slip their in their insecure statements. Heres an example of a first sentence: "(Note to the world) I'm losing that fingernail I slammed in the door (like you even care)." Awesome. These are my favorite kind of blogs.

3) Blog as Hopeful monoliths of validation. Check that, these are my favorite kind of blogs, probably cause I've been guilty of this so many times. What happens is that a blog as diet blogger realizes that no one is reading and stops writing... except for maybe once every couple of months when they will post some random and awkwardly personal creative poem or photo or story. They know no one is reading but harbor a secret hope that someone will read that particular piece and recognize their blogging genius. Often, after they write this blog they will drop strange cryptic hints to X-boyfriends and X-girlfriends along the line of "Hey, I finally blogged again..." or "Did you know I'm blogging again...you should check it out...same blogspot address..."
hints like this will use...ellipses...like its going out of style. The ENTIRE purpose of a Blog as hopeful monolith of validation is to recieve reader comments. Comments are the fuel that feeds the fire and they will often use pity laced guilt trips to solicit them, ending posts like "and thats what i have to say about that...what? does no one else disagree?" The final act of a Blog as HMOV blogger is to reveal his/her identity in a cathartic draw back of the cyber-curtain, then to start another anonymous blog. Ah the cirle of Blog. Awesome.

Please enjoy (if anyone cares) and look out for (if you want to) more blogs from me (wouldnt you like to know) in the future (if you're lucky).

Aaron Allen (real name)

Intro to Common Bloggin'

So I just finished a pretty extensive draft of my MA thesis and its time to come up for air. Here is what my schedule has been over the last few months:

545AM: wake up (on weekdays) to teach an early morning seminary class for my church

730AM: come back and nap.

10AM: wake up (again) and take the subway or walk to one of 3 rotating libraries and write all day. the three libraries (in case you want to map it) are the Park slope branch of the NYPL, which is the closest and smallest--the main brooklyn branch of the NYPL, which is in walking distance but isnt very electronics friendly--and the 5th avenue (think ghostbusters) branch of the NYPL in Manhattan. I prefer the Manhattan one in every respect. The huge reading room in incredible, it allows me time to
marinate (get my thoughts ready for writing) on the F-train, it has plugs for my laptop, and it doesnt have wireless internet, which makes me 100% more efficient. I'm becoming a regular.

After the libraries close I usually come home and watch some tivoed sporting event from the day before or go to a movie or something with friends. I actually read a lot.
I have a bunch of friends in writing programs and I've realized that I am missing out on not being in direct contact with continuing education. I have to push myself a lot cause stasis is regression when it comes to my writing education...so I read a lot..mostly authors I admire or would like to emulate. books read in the last month include:

'the road' by Mcarthy
'some ether' poems by nick flynn
'halls of fame" essays by john D'gata (again)
'X' poems by James Galvin (again)
'Survivor" by chuck Palahaunik(sp)

Yes, I am painfully aware that they are all men. Other odds and ends include an amazing 80's instruction book called "PLAY SQUASH", which is all about playing squash. The book is so enthusiastic and so few people actually play squash...i love it. I've been reading Flannery O'connor (a woman!) and Sherwood anderson stories from anthologies. I also read from the LDS Journal of Discourses, mostly Brigham Young discourses (I've graduated from my Joseph Smith kick onto brother Brigham). Finally i read a TON of blogs through Google reader, mostly sports related
stuff, but also a lot of blogs of friends and former classmates.

Monday, February 25, 2008

Portrait of a Friend (name witheld/female) 3 Feb 2008

(note, I cant get the spacing in the text to work the way I'd like.)

That white flutter chancing just above the roiling water is a Brazilian Swallow crossing the Rio Negro in a rainstorm.
Between each wing thrust the bird dips towards a wet oblivion;
Her hard grey tongue shape shouts her life forwards
into the
crosswind.

Hesitant, she is half-way across the wide channel.

Her tail, the most delicate thing, forks
and tapers to points like the Christmas time candy cane that you sharpened to a white spike between your teeth and the rolling lathe of your teenage tongue.

You held it there, suspended in your mouth
hesitant to try on your hands the sharp point
that your young tongue had fashioned
from such sweetness.

Aaron Allen

Self Portrait 23 Feb 2008

We were waiting for the sharpened tramp
To rumble from the lumber camps
His purpose in his arm like a two sided axe.

Here, where there is timber, we have been expecting him
to come sing songing across a meadow or at night
like a specter to tap on our misted windows.

We even spotted a plume of white smoke
Twisting on the mountain side and rejoiced
There he must be, one last campfire on the long journey
From the east.

Jinney marked the trees, cleared the debris from the
Woodshed, said she’d made the perfect hat for him
White enough to keep him seen and tight enough not to
Spin with a swing or an impact.

We’d waited for the TIMBER shout, the winter’s warmth,
An icon man. When we’d waited far too long
The old men, creaky shouldered, did the job.

He hasn’t come.

Aaron Allen

Portrait Project

I realize its easier for me to compartmentalize my writing into projects. Right now the Thesis project is dominating my writing time, but there are 4 or 5 other projects that really have me excited. One is a series of portraits of my friends/acquaintances here in Brooklyn. Not painted portraits but "word portraits" as a friend suggested I call them. The idea is to have the subject physically in front of me while I write, and for the genesis of the poem to come out of some insight into or energy recieved from the sitting subject. I'm shooting for minimal revision and a sense of "capturing" the moment of the sitting, the interplay of themes and psyches that would create the nexus for art in that moment. The sitter then gets a chance to interact with the poem in some way I havent thought up yet, maybe colors on a printed copy, or something of that nature. I am very enthused by it, and although i haven't had the chance to physically sit people down (thesis), i have completed some preliminaries, or "studies" of a few people (with their permission of course). I will post them here.