take *that,* stack attack
Wednesday 23 April 2008 | 6 cookies in the jar
White-girl problems, begone! Watch as I slay evanescent 21st-century dragons without batting a seasonally affective eyelash.
1. The Brujo lent me $40; no more overdraft. I get paid on Friday and can pay all the bills then. BAM.
2. I’ll get my dang Korean car running eventually. In the meantime I have a sexy baby-blue German bike. And it’s SPRINGTIME. BAM.
3. Environmental pest control guy will come spray again May 6. BAM.
4. Fragile Hispanic Student agreed to try to write paper #4 tout seule, and may still pass class. BAM.
5. Same student probably plagiarized unintentionally, and I’ve explained problem and asked to see every shred of research for paper #4. BAM.
6. I see Aunt Freud on Friday and will just give her all patient assistance documents then. BAM.
7. And will simply suck it up and pay out-of-pocket and through the nose for drugs, for ineffective psychiatry, for overdraft fees and for stupid credit non-monitoring. BAM. Who cares. Whatever. It’s the price of doing business, and it’s not really that important, compared to….
Oh, to the existence of TEAL JEANS for example. (entr’acte)
8. The Duende has abruptly, but with a delicate and precise sense of timing, dropped his charming-gallant-diminutive-nonthreatening-Latin-man act and, with a great deal of characteristic vibrancy and warmth, is now putting wonderful ruthless steely inflexible pressure on us all. In revision yesterday, he raked a gleeful me over the coals for almost an hour, bringing us right to the precipice of the terrible poem I am afraid to write and must write next. Waved my masterful two-page effort in the air.
“This is wonderful writing, don’t get me wrong. I like it. That’s the problem, right?” I agreed. “But there are some great lines in it!” protested a colleague.
I sprawled boneless with relief across the seminar table. “I know; but I know how to do that, and I don’t want to do it no more.” My vernacular showing. Will that be in the terrible poem?
The Duende again: “I’m not saying to regress, or to forget how to write, which wouldn’t be possible anyway. But next for you is to stop writing poems. Stop writing everything you think of as good in a poem. You’ll still use language to do it, but instead of writing a poem you’re going to write to the moment. To the Thing.” Rilke, I thought, and nodded in mingled terror and gratitude.
This is WHY I am HERE.
9. Re-signed lease with the Slumlord, who looks pale and dishevelled, as if the devil has come early for his soul; rent only goes up only $25/month; we don’t have to move for another year; and we know roughly where our next paychecks are coming from. BAM.
10. Slumlord’s ancient rental house’s loo magically mended itself again. BAM.
11. No one seems to have a life-threatening illness. No one’s even sick. The Brujo has dental problems but he’ll have insurance in August. And I’m crazy but I’m all in one piece. As the Monk and I used to say to one another in our more phlegmatic moments, referencing Maman’s brutal struggle: Well, no one threw up. And as Ms. Librarian has wisely said: At least a portable toilet didn’t fall on me today. [From an appallingly true story.]
12. And we have a house, and food, and no one’s shooting at us (though they do shoot at other people, regularly, and in our neighborhood: BAM!).
13. And after conferences Thursday, and presentations next Tuesday, and a reasonably horrifying amount of grading, I don’t teach comp again until 2009.
6 cookies in the jar
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Let’s crank it up a notch!
But next for you is to stop writing poems. Stop writing everything you think of as good in a poem.
This is really fascinating, and in some ways reminiscent of my Laban training where we were regularly told “You learn technique in order to forget it”. In my own little way, I think I came to a small choreographic epiphany when I stopped trying to make dances that looked like dances, and instead find movement that is more authentic, more directly communicates experience.
Now, there are still a lot of people out there that do this a lot better; and what I’ve ended up with is a form that other dancers say they like a lot but my boyfriend hates and my students regularly reject (bless ‘em). But I still think I’ve come further in my own way than a number of well-known choreographers who tour the UK regularly with their Arts Council funding, and make dances that are very pretty and whatever but look to me like fundamentally dull, superficial pieces of dance. And I don’t wanna be doin’ with that anymore.
That’s why we go to Laban. To un-dance.
Well, someone’s throwing up, but that’s because she’s pregnant!
EDITORIAL NOTE: !!!!!!?!?!?!?!??????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :oD :oD :oD
Ha HA! Fantastic. Infant palmetto bugs and shriveled landlords be gone! Blue Deutsche bicycles for all!
And Oh Z! Many Congratulations! (’Here we go Darlings! Here we go!’)
bam!
(i just wanted to emphasize that)
… and Portishead are releasing a new album next week? BAM
EDITORIAL NOTE: And how bad will I feel if I confess that this may be RIGHT UP THERE with perhaps becoming a godaunt? ;o)