Inspiration from the grid

While biking to the "Poetry Fest" at the Harold Washington Library I saw a small moving shadow in the pavement below me. I looked back in time to see the handle of plastic "THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU" bag snag a tree branch.

The poetry fest was kinda boring, so I went to the Art Institute and spent a lot of time in the Judith Neisser Collection exhibition.

Julia Fish - Study for Living Rooms (correction tape on graph paper) 2001

This show (especially the middle gallery; with Julia Fish, Sol LeWitt, Fred Sandback, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Carl Andre, Eva Hesse, and others) has been a good place for generating work for me. For me, the rigid structure (often a grid) in these works are productive models of organizing my own ideas. Within these often rigid organizations I feel that I am able to be more creative - to really push myself, and to have something to push against.

Felix Gonzalez-Torres - Untitled (t-Cell Count) (graphite, colored pencil, and gouache on paper) 1990

Today, in this space, I was struck with many poetic forms; which later led me consider whether language itself is a rigid structure. My initial thought was no, it is ever-changing, but I think this is a good question to keep around. Visiting Fischli and Wiess's 15-channel slide installation, Questions (1981/2002–03), also helped me along this path.

Peter Fischli and David Weiss - Questions (15-channel slide installation) 1981/2002–03

Ball Lightning, an account

&nbsp
GLB-048       A FIRE-BALL

Hunneman, Mary E. ; Science, 86:244, September 10, 1937

&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp The electrical phenomenon know as a "fire-ball" is rather a rare occurrence. Therefore one that I saw at Fitzwilliam, New Hampshire, at 5 p.m. on August 10 may be worthy of record. I was seated on a second story porch enclosed with glass watching the storm. A radio aerial extends from a distant tree to a point on the side of the house some distance from the porch. Coincident with a crash of thunder, a fire-ball appeared. I cannot say that it followed the wire or came from the sky. It just came out of space and seemed to move directly toward the window and then fell as though to enter the cellar of the house. It was a round, bronze, glistening ball with gleaming rays shooting from the top and sides; by its beauty and brilliance reminding one of an ornament at the top of a Christmas tree. Such was my fleeting sight of a fire-ball. Probably at the same instant, all electrical fuses in the house blew out with unusual violence.

-from Strange Phenomena: A Sourcebook of Unusual Natural Phenomena, compiled by William R. Corliss, 1973

# # # (three noises)

a note (poem) found in Aaron Siskind: Pleasures and Terrors, in Milner Library, Illinois State University, Normal, IL on August 31, 2004

# # #

three noises

on three hamburger stands

the lord jesus

brad and angelica
led their children
to the edge of the
cauldron and tossed
them in the inferno
completely engulfed
their little bodies

Books from the USF Library

Abscessed Tooth

4/19/11

• tooth #18
• crying all morning
• shaky hands and arms
• "This one?" (she pushes on my tooth)
• yelp-sink into the chair, hiding from her finger-big alligator tears
• 3 fast acting shots to my gum
• she placed her hand on my quivering cheek and said, "You were so pale - you look better already"
• explanation of extraction, and reasons to get an implant
• "I don't have any insurance"
• sympathetic eyes
• she takes her mask off to show that she is smiling

[6 of the worst sounds pressed into my deadened jaw]


*written in situ, and yes I did bring my moleskin to the dental chair with me

"Infinite Jest" & "Eat, Pray Love"

"we will prepare ourselves to search for the sacred possibilities still alive in the modern world."
-from "All Things Shining" (Chapter 2: David Foster Wallace's Nihilism), by Hubert Dreyfus and Sean Dorrance Kelly

poems from the past week

Civilian Camo

Mike - Yankee
Bravo - Oscar - Lima - Oscar - Golf - November - Alfa
Hotel - Alfa - Sierra
Alfa
Foxtrot - India - Romeo - Sierra - Tango
November - Alfa - Mike - Echo
India - Tango - Sierra
Oscar
Sierra
Charlie
Alfa
Romeo

Mike - Yankee
Bravo - Oscar - Lima - Oscar - Golf - November - Alfa
Hotel - Alfa - Sierra
Alfa
Sierra - Echo - Charlie - Oscar - November - Delta
India - Tango - Sierra
Mike
Alfa
Yankee
Echo
Romeo

Oscar - Hotel
India
Lima - Oscar - Victor - Echo
Tango - Oscar
Echo - Alfa - Tango
India - Tango
Echo - Victor - Echo - Yankee - Delta - Alfa - Yankee

Alfa - November - Delta
India - Foxtrot
Alfa - Sierra - Kilo
Mike - Echo
Whiskey - Hotel - Yankee
India - Lima - Lima
Sierra - Alfa - Yankee

Charlie - Uniform - Zulu
Oscar - Sierra - Charlie - Alfa - Romeo
Mike - Alfa - Yankee - Echo - Romeo
Hotel - Alfa - Sierra
Alfa
Whiskey - Alfa - Yankee

Whiskey - India - Tango - Hotel
Bravo
Oscar
Lima
Oscar
Golf
November
Alfa

*****

This is Just to Say (from Count Grishnackh)

I have burned
the churches
that were in
Norway

and which
you were probably
using
for worship

Forgive me
they were tempting
so strict
and so old