It's probably a good thing I'm no longer a copy editor.

Some days I feel like my brain just doesn't have time for my crap, so it makes up its own shortcuts when I'm writing.  For instance, as I typed that last sentence it decided that combining the words "my" and "brain" would be easier, so I typed "I feel like by just doesn't have time." 

And sometimes my brain decides that the word "of" would look prettier with a "v" like this: ov.  It was funny the first few times in college, brain, but now not so much when I have to correct all my emails. 

What really concerns me are the days when my brain thinks with an accent.  Like when I had to write the word "wives" yesterday and it came out "woives."  That's not a typo.  I'm actually thinking "woives."  What is that, cockney?  I like England, too, brain, but no one understands your dialect.   

I get the idea of thinking phonetically when you're just learning a language, but words like "of" should not be tripping me up at this point in my life.  Is this some kind of latent disorder that's emerging or am I just really tired?


The Local Language

The way she puts her fingers to his chest when she greets him.

The way an old man quiets himself,

or that another man waits, and waits a long time, before speaking.

It’s in the gaze that steadies, a music

he grows into—something about

Mexico, I imagine, how he first learned about light there.

It’s in the blank face of every child,

a water that stands still amid the swirling current,

water breaking apart as it leaves the cliff and falls forever

through its own, magnificent window.

The way a young woman holds out a cupped hand, and doves come to her.

The way a man storms down the street as if to throw open every door.

And the word she mouths to herself as she looks up from her book—for

that word, as she repeats it,

repeats it.

 

- Ralph Angel

That'll teach me to avoid the whites.

Today I finally found the jeans I've been looking for!  And no, I wasn't shopping.  I had ordered 2 pairs of jeans off of a Groupon deal at the end of November.  I was pretty excited about them since they ended up being only $24 each, and I got in on the deal right before it expired.  The jeans took about a week to ship, but during that week we moved apartments and I went out of town.  My poor roommate was overwhelmed with everything going on, and, though she did tell me the jeans had arrived, she stashed them someplace so secure and secret that neither of us could figure out where they were once we started unpacking from the move.

Cut to: almost two months later.  Pretty much all the boxes have been unpacked.  The only ones left are the ones from the garage that are stacked in a storage closet.  I figured once I tackled those, surely I'd find the missing jeans package.  There was no where else to look!  So I thought.

Today I decided would be a good day to get some laundry done.  I was home when no one else in the building was, which meant no fighting over the one and only washer and dryer.  I was so optimistic about the amount of laundry I could do that I even tackled a load of whites.  I hate doing the whites because they're made up of a lot of little things like washcloths and socks and they're a pain to fold up and put away.  I'll usually do three loads of darks and towels before I'll get around to the dreaded whites.  Anyway, I schlepped my linen bag of white laundry out to the machine.  I unloaded everything into it and then I noticed a plastic bag at the bottom.  At first I thought it was a bag of dirty clothes that I had forgotten to unpack from a trip.  But then eureka!  It was the missing jeans!  So I guess sometimes adults still get rewards for doing chores?

This poem is not really related to any of the above, but it is kind of related to clothes, and I like it.

Old Coat

Dressed in an old coat I lumber
Down a street in the East Village, time itself

Whistling up my ass and looking to punish me
For all the undone business I have walked away from,

And I think I might have stayed
In that last tower by the ocean,

The one I built with my hands and furnished
Using funds which came to me at nightfall, in a windfall....

Just ahead of me, under the telephone wires
On this long lane of troubles, I notice a gathering

Of viciously insane criminals I'll have to pass
Getting to the end of this long block in eternity.

There's nothing between us. Good
I look so dangerous in this coat.

-Liam Rector

Yes, but what does it mean?

I am reading a book by Neil Gaiman called American Gods. It's a novel that deals with mythology and its place in America now that we are a society so immersed in technology and information. I'm enjoying the read so far, not least because it has confirmed two truths for me.

One, and I'm quoting Gaiman here, is that there is a phenomenon where "you only ever catch one episode of [TV] shows you don't watch, over and over, years apart." I had always suspected this was some kind of cosmic joke I was imagining, but now that he's writing about it, I realize that at least one other person has experienced this happening to him.  For me it's an episode of Wings where two of the characters get married. Although it's been a while since I've come across a network playing Wings reruns, chances are if I did it would be that episode.

Two, that you can go your whole life never knowing something or someone existed, but as soon as you learn about it, it becomes immediately ubiquitous. For example, I had never heard of Louise Brooks until a week ago. She had always existed, but I was never aware of her. Now, as soon as I read her name in this American Gods book, she's all over the place.  Is it just that I'm more aware of her name being mentioned?  Possibly.  But it's pretty strange that a friend of mine brought her up in conversation, randomly, at this particular time.  On the other hand, my friend was saying that her face is up on a mural on the outside wall of a school in Los Angeles that I've probably driven by at some point.  But while watching TCM the other night, Robert Osborne referred to Louise Brooks in connection to another film that was airing.  So yes, you could probably come up with a solid argument against it, but I'm convinced that this is a real thing.

I'm close to finishing American Gods, so I'll let you know if anything else is illuminated.  I just hope it's not another In the Woods-ian epic disappointment at the end.  You'll be getting a full rant from me on that one one of these days. 

French Movie

-David Lehman

I was in a French movie
and had only nine hours to live
and I knew it
not because I planned to take my life
or swallowed a lethal but slow-working
potion meant for a juror
in a mob-related murder trial,
nor did I expect to be assassinated
like a chemical engineer mistaken
for someone important in Milan
or a Jew journalist kidnapped in Pakistan;
no, none of that; no grounds for
suspicion, no murderous plots
centering on me with cryptic phone
messages and clues like a scarf or
lipstick left in the front seat of a car;
and yet I knew I would die
by the end of that day
and I knew it with a dreadful certainty,
and when I walked in the street
and looked in the eyes of the woman
walking toward me I knew that
she knew it, too,
and though I had never seen her before,
I knew she would spend the rest of that day
with me, those nine hours walking,
searching, going into a bookstore in Rome,
smoking a Gitane, and walking,
walking in London, taking the train
to Oxford from Paddington or Cambridge
from Liverpool Street and walking
along the river and across the bridges,
walking, talking, until my nine hours
were up and the black-and-white movie
ended with the single word FIN
in big white letters on a bare black screen.

"I gave you love, you gave me asthma."

That is what a sign said as I drove by a bus stop today.  Amazed, I quickly tried to capture a photo with my phone, but it came out all grainy:

You're just going to have to trust me when I tell you that some genius marketing person decided that a picture of a baby with an inhaler and the caption "I gave you love, you gave me asthma" was something that would really get people riled up about this issue.  It wouldn't make them laugh.  Not at all. 

Man, I love this so much that I have to let it stand on its own.  No poem today- unless you can come up with one.  It might help their campaign.

Tradition or laziness?

Ever notice how advertisers get a little lax around the holidays and rerun the same ads year after year?  I can think of three commercials off the top of my head that have been repeated for maybe five to ten years.  Penny pinching?  Do they think if they play them enough it's tradition?  Are these really classics and I'm just a Scrooge?  You decide.

Exhibit A, the fainting M&M:



Exhibit B, the carol of the kisses:



And finally, this kid must be in college by now:



Winter-Time

Late lies the wintry sun a-bed,
A frosty, fiery sleepy-head;
Blinks but an hour or two; and then,
A blood-red orange, sets again.

Before the stars have left the skies,
At morning in the dark I rise;
And shivering in my nakedness,
By the cold candle, bathe and dress.

Close by the jolly fire I sit
To warm my frozen bones a bit;
Or with a reindeer-sled, explore
The colder countries round the door.

When to go out, my nurse doth wrap
Me in my comforter and cap;
The cold wind burns my face, and blows
Its frosty pepper up my nose.

Black are my steps on silver sod;
Thick blows my frosty breath abroad;
And tree and house, and hill and lake,
Are frosted like a wedding-cake.

- Robert Louis Stevenson

Blueblack and cracked

Tonight there is going to be a low of 39 degrees, and I am sitting here in my puffy jacket because there is no heat in my apartment.  We're in the process of moving, so it's only a temporary arrangement.  But in the mean time, I am so grateful for a little invention called the hot water bottle.  The hot water bottle is ingenious in its simplicity.  It's even better if you have an electric kettle to boil up hot water in a jiffy.  You know how when you get into bed, it takes a few minutes for the chill to wear off the sheets?  Not so with the hot water bottle!  Just tuck it in while you change into your pajamas, brush your teeth, and then snuggle up beside it.  Not only will you have the warmth from the bottle itself but the spot where it was sitting will remain cozy and hot.  It's all you can do to not say, "Ahhhh," I promise you.

It's funny how it's not really necessary to improve upon some things.  The guy who invented this rubber incarnation of the hot water bottle at the turn of the last century got it right.  I had to look him up.  His name is Slavoljub Eduard Penkala.  Apparently he is the same guy who invented the mechanical pencil and the first solid-ink fountain pen. He had over 70 patents!  Well done, Slavoljub.  My chilly old bones thank you.

Speaking of cold, does anyone remember the following poem from high school English class?  Right now I'm finding the "blueblack cold" easy to identify with- it's such a great description.  It's taken for granted, but the simple act of getting up and facing that cold, starting the fire so his family can be warm, is a tremendous act of love by the father.  It makes your heart ache as you realize along with the speaker what love is truly made of.

Those Winter Sundays

by Robert Hayden

Sundays too my father got up early
and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold,
then with cracked hands that ached
from labor in the weekday weather made
banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.

I’d wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking. 
When the rooms were warm, he’d call,
and slowly I would rise and dress,
fearing the chronic angers of that house,

Speaking indifferently to him,
who had who had driven out the cold
and polished my good shoes as well.
What did I know, what did I know
of love’s austere and lonely offices?

Blankety-blank-blank

I get so aggravated when I see an ad for a movie that has a generic title.  If it's vague and tells me nothing specific about the plot, then I don't want to see it.  Examples that immediately come to mind are The Core, The Happening, The Fighter, You Again, Everybody's Fine, Life as We Know It, and pretty much every Harrison Ford movie ever.  Even Inception's title was enough to put me off seeing it until I heard the positive reviews and felt assured that it was worth my $14. 

As a kid, I took issue with restaurants that were named after the owner or some cultural representative of the type of cuisine.  I was incensed at the lack of imagination displayed by Mario's, Molly's or Don Jose's.  Maybe this resentment of lazy movie titles is residual of that, but come on, people.  You're writers!  I know titles are tricky, but unless you're adapting a board game you have no excuse. 
Now I'm going to step down off this soap box, and let you Analyze That.  If I catch you doing That Thing You Do again, I'll have the G-Force on you in 88 Minutes.  Trust me, It Could Happen to You.


so you want to be a writer?

-Charles Bukowski

if it doesn't come bursting out of you
in spite of everything,
don't do it.
unless it comes unasked out of your
heart and your mind and your mouth
and your gut,
don't do it.
if you have to sit for hours
staring at your computer screen
or hunched over your
typewriter
searching for words,
don't do it.
if you're doing it for money or
fame,
don't do it.
if you're doing it because you want
women in your bed,
don't do it.
if you have to sit there and
rewrite it again and again,
don't do it.
if it's hard work just thinking about doing it,
don't do it.
if you're trying to write like somebody
else,
forget about it.


if you have to wait for it to roar out of
you,
then wait patiently.
if it never does roar out of you,
do something else.

if you first have to read it to your wife
or your girlfriend or your boyfriend
or your parents or to anybody at all,
you're not ready.

don't be like so many writers,
don't be like so many thousands of
people who call themselves writers,
don't be dull and boring and
pretentious, don't be consumed with self-
love.
the libraries of the world have
yawned themselves to
sleep
over your kind.
don't add to that.
don't do it.
unless it comes out of
your soul like a rocket,
unless being still would
drive you to madness or
suicide or murder,
don't do it.
unless the sun inside you is
burning your gut,
don't do it.

when it is truly time,
and if you have been chosen,
it will do it by
itself and it will keep on doing it
until you die or it dies in you.

there is no other way.

and there never was.

I'm just saying.

When you live in an apartment building, it's not uncommon for you to get other people's mail.  Sometimes your neighbor's mail finds its way into your box, sometimes it's an envelope addressed to a previous resident, and now there's apparently a third scenario in which you start receiving a subscription to Entertainment Weekly under someone else's name.  This is my current situation.  The magazine is addressed to my apartment, but there is no one in the building who has the name on the subscription.  To my knowledge, there's never been anyone called Marcus Mungiole in our apartment, and we've been here for 3 1/2 years, so it's a little strange that these magazines just started coming a few weeks ago. 

I'm not complaining.  If anyone can appreciate a free subscription to an entertainment magazine, it's us, but it does seem highly suspect coming straight out of the blue like this.  Somewhere there have to be strings attached.  It doesn't seem like it could be a mistake because we have a very distinct address and the building only has 4 units. 

Who are you, Marcus Mungiole?  Reveal yourself and I will turn over back issues of the magazine you ordered.  Also, maybe look into getting a facebook page because a google search of your name revealed nothing.

This Is Just To Say

by William Carlos Williams

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold