Oscar’s Books And The Reverting To Ezra

I don’t want to canard the truth by swindling all over Thomas Wright’s new book Oscar’s Books but I’m outraged at the syntax. Too many “perhapses” and “probablies” make this subdued and uninterestingly speculated. We can’t delineate when Wilde dedicated himself to poetry, but it’s nice to think it had something to do with Kalevala, the Finnish epic. So the inkhorns say.

So Thomas Wright believes.

I pursued his work, Thomas Wright that is, because I read a precise picture of Oscar Wilde’s library:

“ranks of exquisite skinny volumes in Beardsleyan yellow, pressed between pairs of alabaster sphinxes, supported by shelves turned from the finest Japanese ebony.”

Matthew Sweet, of The Independent, coaxed that rather charmingly. Sometimes I can be a gull for trenchant description. To exemplify this, just know I read Ezra Pound daily. “In a Station of the Metro” is like my own minion, it follows me everywhere. Probably because it’s written in Japanese haiku style. I suppose Pound typifies Imagism so sagaciously and I’m victimized time after time by such vivid pictures. His poetry is profound, pictorial, philosophical. It’s better than gingerbread. Saying that is somewhat light-hearted of me, though. Sorry, Ezra.

It’s repetitious of me to revert to Mr. Pound again. For that I apologize. Not everyone is an aficionado of imagism or the 20th century modernists. That’s my area of proficiency. My expertness, which is actually, in truth, rudimentary knowledge and rather feeble. I’m learning, though. My blogs are full of waggish obsessions I can’t shake, so in this learning process I’m going to have to drone on about whatever until I find my knack.

Back to Oscar Wilde and Thomas Wright. I reccommend the book for Wright’s Appendix II, which is a list of the books Wilde asked for while in imprisonment. That’s more satisfying than anything else. Evidently Wilde was an avid reader of the French, enticing me to pick up some Balzac or Hugo. Reading habits are fun to indulge in and for that reason I checked out Oscar’s Books. Not greatly authored but indeed a great subject.

I’m In A Lull

“At 15 I stopped scowling
I desired my dust
to be mingled with yours
-forever and forever and forever.”

-Ezra Pound from The River Merchant’s Wife: A Letter (Rikhau)

Mr. Preoccupied

John McCain doesn’t want to debate tomorrow because of America’s economic crisis. How responsible of him. Does the Arizona Senator not recognize the pertinence of this debate? Perhaps Mr. McCain doesn’t even realize we’re nearing October and are less than forty days from the presidential election. To my own rancorous eye I see the Bush administration as the culprits to this financial contingency. In this sense, Senator McCain is in fact obligatory, and absolutely must address the problem. His parties foible in allowing the economy to become so depressing, by affiliation, makes him liable.

As I noted, though, I carry an enmity with me. Obama said in his press conference, the crisis is neither Republican or Democrat but American. I can concede to that. But there was an agreement made that John McCain splintered. We want to know the conditions of this bailout bill. We want to know what needs to be amended and effectuated.

Hendrick Hertzberg, in “Busy Day,” writes of Obama’s professionalism, Palin’s finnickines, and McCain’s unreliability. The ending line made me cackle loud enough to turn some heads.

A Foretaste of Andrew Bird

This snapshot, by Natalie Kardos, is of the unutterably idiosyncratic Andrew Bird at the Outside Lands Festival in San Fransisco. Though I’m not sure if he’s whistling or singing, I know, undoubtedly, it must have excited a somber response. When I went to see him perfom last year in Pittsburgh I left in awe. What was more marveling, the music or how his whistling resonated like a Japanese bird whistle? I don’t know.

His list of fall tour dates include a show at Baker Hall in Bethlehem. I still need to get tickets, and find some friends to go with, which apparently I haven’t emphasized enough. Should I post fliers? Christ. I find it essential that I attend, though. It’s like a prerequisite to his record. Getting some sample, such as this live show, allows me to mentally encapsulate what the record might sound like.

However, there’s still the picture-taking….

Photography has never been natural for me, thus I have to find someone more photo-savvy to contribute pictures for the blog. The write-up will be by me, though my words could never do his music justice.

Ah, and lastly, after much solicitous waiting, Mr. Bird has announced a tentative title for his new record, A Non-Animal, which could possibly hit record stores by January.

Rumor has it the album will be accompanied by an an all-instrumental piece as well. A live DVD is also in the making. Talk about anticipatory supplication.

Night Creatures, Italian, and Low Energy

Alas, at Saxby’s, writing this, I feel languished, but airy and collected at the same time. Just knowing that I’m twenty-six assignments behind in my Italian lab kind of makes my body waterish, low on energy. It’s a bland sense of awareness, though, and time after time I fail to become motivated. It doesn’t matter how much electronic music I listen to. CSS and Hot Chip make me want to pop in an adderal to write a paper; however, the bands by themselves do nothing to stimulate an aggresive readiness.

I went to sleep around 5 AM, woke up at 10:20 and ran to class. Unfortunately for me it’s Wednesday, so there was a two hour Italian lab that I had to endure before lunch. Concentration seemed impossible. Normally I have an opportunity to grab a coffee before class, even when I’m hastened. There simply was not ample time to to take in a hot chicory drink. All in all, it was a meddlesome day.

This evening, though, I went outside to smoke when I caught eye of a group of Korean students loitering outside of the J&H cafeteria. I thought, there’s a solid possibility I’m Namsik’s only non-Korean friend, and perhaps the only non-Korean him and his raunchy friends associate with. Indeed I say raunchy with good reason. Some of the obscurities that I hear from them makes me wonder. I can’t entirely fault them, though, that’s America’s unromantic culture for you.

(Perhaps that’s my naivety kicking in, the immaturity of hedonistic college student who enjoys acknowledging his heretical identity. I’m really unsure of just about everything. That explains a proclivity to deny certain things, including God. Sorry, pops. Atheist, heathen, skeptic-call it what you will.)

I’m glad I found a friend as partial to the night as I, but still, I don’t want to bane any person’s positive tendencies when school is involved. Then I become terminally guilty as grades decline, and I feel I’m not providing joy and pleasure where it counts. Not that I carry these expectations on my shoulders. Because the most unsatisfactory part is that I’m not affected by it. If one falls victim to my own proclivities, such as late nights or smoking, I feel no remorse, no abjection. Although I think that is hardly the case. I don’t influence much, nor do I attempt to do so. I’m not one to impose my convictions.

Some nights I prefer to be alone with my thoughts. I fancy walks around campus to be delightful, despite the harshness of its location. Let’s face the facts, it’s common to be bummed off of in North Philadelphia. I’ve already had run-ins with dealers and down-at-hill beggars. But there’s something complacent about solitude. As Lord Byron said, it is “in solitude where we are least alone.” 

Thriving Langurs

Today I read an article in The New York Times about the developing Langur population. It’s comforting to know there are conservationists working arduously to rescue endangered species’. As an anthropology major I not only considerably care about the prosperity of humankind, but life on Earth, in it’s entirety. I am well-relieved to hear such blissful news.

When I was younger I possessed this childlike acumen that as human beings we ought to address the urgent needs of animals. I vehemently believed we had that inclination. Thus I wanted to enact genocide on poachers. I disliked them as much I disliked heights, perhaps more. Yes, I’d like to think I would have climbed a mountain in the Himalayas just to toss a pilfering poacher off the edge.

Ambitious Ones….

The blogger, Poet With a Day Job, posted new links to creative writing submissions. It’s a good opportunity to flaunt your material, make a splash in the mud. Don’t we all want to bewilder the world of our creative intuitive?

I will be foregoing most of these writing competitions to focus on my studies. How pleasant.

Politics As Usual

Dave Davies from the Philadelphia Daily News files a short piece on the financial cost of the Iraq War. An interview is conducted with Linda Bilmes, a professor at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and author of the book The Three Trillion Dollar War. Listen to the audio file.

This is the issue that won Obama the democratic nomination. I think, as we narrow in on the final month and a half before election day, this bugbear still is quite alive. It’s just overlooked. Of course, when the Sarah Palin hype began to surface all-things-political were put aside to focus on this flaky Republican idea of “change”. Yes, indeed I found it to be a farce of what the Obama campaign resided on. Honestly, though, Palin is just a piece of the allotment stained by unpractible sagacity. Why the hype? Well, a not so myopic look at Palin’s apparent confusion on the war and irresolution on nearly everything else can be read from The New Yorker online.

Sedaris On Smoking

If I were to guess how many cigarettes I’ve had in my life, 5500 seems like a reasonable estimate.

I’d be lying if I said I actually did the math. I’d also be lying if I said I didn’t consult with my fourteen year-old brother over the material in my Elementary Algebra course. I smoke Camel Lights. I’m a procrastinator. I deny that mathematics is a viable school subject. So what.

Anyway, with the price of cigarettes around six dollars, I’ve been thinking about leaving the country. I would not object to taking extensive classes in Italian over the summer, just to be more fluent. There are several online language courses, one of which ran by BBC, that are viable enough to consider as well. I idolize this small municipality in the Swiss canton of Ticino called “the Pearl of Ceresio”, where one is enamored by Patrician homes, architectural monuments, and a lakefront view. I would apply my time reading afront the curving lake, on terraced hills, or listening to Jens Lekman. Perhaps I’ll get a story published. Even if it’s on the second to last page of Morcote’s tiny township newspaper.

Granted, I don’t have a job. I’m a smidgen of a number in a large university. In all actuality, I’m well-aware I won’t be living as an expatriate any time soon. I do, however, rever those who engage in their dreams and start a three-year love affair with a sexy, vulpine European. I do want to roll in the hay. I do want to knock boots in a Paris backalley. So what.

When I read David Sedaris’ reflection, Letting Go, in the New Yorker today I realized I’m not the only one who has these thoughts. It’s mere coincidental that he called Camel smokers procrastinators, and furthermore ironic, considering I’m not all that fond of Sedaris, that he moved to Paris when cigarettes mounted a seven dollar charge.

I caught myself snickering as I read of his smoking endeavors. Maybe I’ll re-read some of his grist. Me Talk Pretty One Day wasn’t unbearable. Yes. I will make an amendment to my “Buy Or Borrow” list.

As I lasting note, and mind you I’m not always this extroverted, if you’re in Philadelphia, e-mail me so we can schedule a warm get-together to smoke and rant about politics, books, music, or whatever. There are some sultry, easeful cafes in the city that I’m learning about. Ventures into South Philly seem to be favorable among non-Philadelphia natives.

I Write When Philadelphia Sleeps

OK, by now, I can fully acknowledge, piteous as it may be, that I have a sleeping disorder. For years I’ve told folks who may have questioned me that it was more like a refusal to sleep when the moon’s out. I enjoyed the moon’s company more than I did sleep. Also I was quite partial to a tall glass of Lambrusco at night, under my parents’ unknowing of course. High school psychology class was most revealing; I guess, according to my former classmates, my reference to Li Po’s poem about the nighttime was an outlandish remark, laughable, even aberrant. But it was one of the first poems I memorized, outside of the countless learned verses of Langston Hughes. Li Po’s “Drinking Alone Under the Moon”:

A cup of wine, under the flowering trees;
I drink alone, for no friend is near.
Raising my cup I beckon the bright moon,
For he, with my shadow, will make three men.
The moon, alas, is no drinker of wine;
Listless, my shadow creeps about at my side.
Yet with the moon as friend and the shadow as slave
I must make merry before the Spring is spent.
To the songs I sing the moon flickers her beams;
In the dance I weave my shadow tangles and breaks.
While we were sober, three shared the fun;
Now we are drunk, each goes his way.
May we long share our odd, inanimate feast,
And meet at last on the Cloudy River of the sky.

That’s a distant memory, that psych class, but I remember, following that discussion, I fervidly attempted, night after night, to fall asleep by a reasonable hour. When the three AM bell chimed on my family’s old-fashioned grandfather clock, I accepted the inability. Though, thinking back, there were many times when I crept downstairs to salvage some of my mom’s wine, in the wee hours, when the sun was rising. Whether that had positive or detrimental effects, I do not know. In my first two years of high school, though, I went to bed with an alcohol buzz several times a month. Perhaps everyone was right, I was a wayward, awkward, grass-smoking bookish knobstick. I tend not to reflect on these memories, and especially not dwell on them. It’s kind of a dejecting self-realization.

I’m not so ignorant any more, and I truly have persevered beyond my high school years. By the end of my junior year, if I received anything less than a B+ I condescended into a surly state of denial. My grades improved dramatically, and I was not being a captious wisecrack anymore. Thus when I failed to get an A I felt I let myself down, morally and academically. For whatever strange reason I was remarkably motivated in my latter years of high school.

I try not to be a flowery asshole, y’know, the pretentious kind. I may be soothingly tight-lipped, or annoying tight-lipped, whatever one’s perception, but my head is full of crazy ideas. The type of ideas that one understands will never mount to anything. It’s not like we’re living in a literary renaissance (Although NPR’s Gregory Feifer reports an interesting story from Russia). My steadfast career options as an English and Anthropolgy major are limited unless I enroll in graduate school. Like my new friend Michelle says, living in a box seems more and more likely every day. In some bizarre, chimerical way, living in a box might cure my sleeping illness.