for the record.

I like really good poetry. one could say I only like the best poetry.

I have, on occasion, tried to like some so-so poetry. but, since I only like really good poetry, I found it difficult.

The only poetry I do not like is really bad poetry. Bad poetry is easy to dislike & I do.

things we did this weekend:

• had an extended photo shoot with wigs & beards.
• went to Pegasus to hear Chris Vitiello & Mary Burger read. (Yay).
  
• saw many lovely friends at the reading.
• found out Neil is going to Yale. (Boo).
• Mina put herself to sleep for the first time.
• watched the season premiere of BSG ("rulez 4-eva") 2x.
• watched crazy strippers fight over who loves Bret Michaels more.
• watched most of the Karate Kid. ("Sweep the leg!")
• talked about anxiety, depression & OCD.
  
• stayed up to 3am.
• watched an episode of Flight of the Conchords.
• stayed in our pajamas all day.
• took a nap.
• did laundry.
• posted photos to the flickr blog.
  
• looked at photos of my friends' babies.
  
• tried to teach Mina to say "Obama."
• discussed wedding decor.
• read The Very Busy Spider 3x.
• read Brown Bear, Brown Bear 2x.
• read Moo, Baa, La La La 4x.
• read a few poems online.
• meant to call people haven't talked to in a while.
• played ball with Mina. She throws it from over her head.
• talked to my parents.
  
• asked Iris what her favorite part of visiting SF was & she said hanging out with us.
  
• went to dinner with Mary, Chris & Iris. Mina made a mess at the restaurant.
• said goodbye to Chris & Iris. (Boo).
  
• made hotel reservations at the Hyatt for our trip to TN. ooh la la.
  
• had brunch with Shonni. Again, Mina-->mess.
• talked about Mina Loy.
• gossiped.
• talked about relationships.
• asked a few people to read for Artifact.
• made a playlist.
• listened to the A's game on tv.
• went to Laura's birthday party.
• chatted with poets I barely know.
• spied some semi-famous poets I did not talk to.
• gossiped with friends in the kitchen.
• planned to shun &/or firebomb certain people who shall remain nameless.
• agreed with people who said Mina was very "advanced" & "such a good baby."
• listened to Brent mourn the A's loss (Boo). ("That is tragic.")

half life

Okay. I had this idea that a preface stating that all of this started because of an article on CNN would somehow not make me look like a total geek (even though I am). In any case, so this afternoon I was reading through the NYT or CNN or something & there was a mention of the first congress hearing in Second Life.

I'll admit that since the episode of The Office where Jim creates a Second Life character to mess with Dwight's Second Life character, I've always been curious to see what the hubbub was all about. So, I had some time at work to spare & I tried it.

I created my avatar (cybergoth, of course!) & started. At first I just stupidly stood there, while a couple other characters walked aimlessly around the orientation island. Then I figured out I could fly. Now, if you can fly, why would you walk? Silly. I rode a segue scooter. Which is hilarious, really. I find them totally hysterical. I would only ride one ironically, though. But is there irony in cyberspace? Is it all irony?

To be honest, it quickly became sort of boring. I've had a similar experience after realizing that I was lucid dreaming & could do anything. Suddenly it all seemed a bit uninteresting.

I did have a strange reaction to the other characters in the game--I DID NOT want to talk to them. They kind of made me nervous, like at a party with drunk strangers, who at any moment might accost you & closetalk you into the corner. But then again, I've never been interested in this kind of online transaction--I don't even like IMing. I know almost all of my MySpace friends. I've never online dated. The only thing that is close to this kind of thing is being on the Indiebride message boards. But, actually I'm not trying to be friends with the IBs IRL ("in real life") so it doesn't bring up that same feeling.

I never left orientation island, so I can't say I saw or did much more than fly & ride the segue. There are "events" like parties & shows & clubs & I guess congressional hearings. I did have the fleeting thought we should try to get a SL reading together. At least once. BC has already made fun of me for this thought. But wouldn't it be great--we could all sit at home in our pajamas? Maybe we should just wear our pajamas to readings & be done with it.

I am not sure when I became suddenly interested in all this geeky stuff. Can I blame it on Lost? It did become sort of large in my mind after watching Darkon, a doc about a live-action role-playing club in Baltimore. They seem so INTO their alter-egos that I'll bet some of those live-action role-playing peeps have SL characters, which would mean that their 2nd lives have 2nd lives. It could get really confusing.

After we watched Darkon, we had David Brazil to dinner & discussed live-action role-playing games. Turns out he was really into them when he was younger. He described a vampire one they'd hold in a hotel, after one of the players had rented a room. Then he told us about the best thing ever: in the game, if you cross your arms across your chest, it signals that you are invisible ("to obfuscate") & all the other players have to go along as if they didn't see you. I really wish this worked IRL. [Side note: in the terrible, terrible Jane Austen Book Club one of the characters tries to talk to a punky goth girl whose arms are crossed in a hotel elevator. The girl ignores her & she's told by her future love interest that the girl is playing a Buffy game & that she's invisible!] So, of course we started talking about D&D, which I never played & never knew anyone who did. My parents are born-again Christians & believed it was satanic, so I wouldn't have been allowed near it anyway. Anyway, BC had played some as a kid & DB had been a dungeon master (I think) when he was younger. To demonstrate what it was like they played it out a bit--it seemed like a very detailed, live choose your own adventure story. Then they admitted that the most fun was in the beginning when you get to go shopping for weapons & supplies. I found that pretty funny.

I am going to reserve judgment towards the SL thing, though I can't say that I find it normal. I mean, why have a 2nd life when you could just have a 1st one. You know, walk out your door without the use of arrow buttons & get yourself a coffee with real moolah. Maybe if you were bed-ridden? I am sure there are much deeper levels to it, delving into identity, community, & so on. I was interested to see that you can change the avatar's body shape from hotty slim, and maybe somewhere out there are some chubby avatars. But that would require more investigation & I'm not sure I'm up to that challenge.

In any case, towards the end of my little SL stint, I found there was a quick way to take off all your clothes. Unfortunately, I couldn't figure out how to get the clothes back on, which explains why my avatar is naked...

hummingbirds are birds but birds are not necessarily hummingbirds.

Yesterday, Iris Vitiello was showing me Will it Blend videos & we saw a ruby-throated hummingbird outside the window.

I said "Hummingbird!"
Iris said "Oh, it's a ruby-throated one."
Oh yes, of course (it is the duty of 8 1/2 year olds to know these kinds of things).
Which brings me to the subject of specificity.

While at Naropa studying poetry, some of my teachers like Andrew Shelling or Anne Waldman (yes, I dared to write their names next to each other) always liked to harp on the necessity of SPECIFICITY in poetry. It seemed that it was a crime in poetry to not name the particular type of tree or flower. That somehow their Linnaean taxonomic names created depth or maybe helped the audience see more exactly what you were seeing, making it more successful, interesting etc.

However, as someone who does not know the difference between say a dahlia & a gladioli, a maple & an elm, a lhasa apso & a bijon frise, I find these things completely annoying, and frankly, kind of alienating, when I am reading a poem.

Of course, I do have a tendency to avoid specificity entirely in my own work. Someone reading would (& should not) know anything exactly when reading a poem of mine. If they did, that would be creepy. BC says I have a fear of nouns. And it's true, but why? To me, they are too nouny. And by that I mean, they have a cloying feeling. They feel too particular. Too particular to themselves or to my experience, I am not sure. I just know I get a sickening kind of feeling like when I read something that is overly sentimental. Of course, for many years I wrote very, very ridiculous, sentimental, overly poetic lyrical poetry, which makes me cringe just thinking of it. Ick.

But I wonder if this lack of interest in the particularness of the world's objects is weird. I remember a conversation I had with Tim who was amazed that I couldn't immediately tell you what was a Chrysler & what was a Buick (god, I almost want to check to make sure they are not the same thing) or a Toyota, etc. He had worked for a car dealership, so he could tell the car & model by the shape of the headlight & sometimes the sound of the motor. He could not get over the fact that when I had a dream with a car in it, it was just a "car" not a Ford Taurus or whatever. I remember him telling the story of getting rear-ended by a SUV & seeing it coming in the rear-view mirror he thought "Oh no! This red Jeep Grand Cherokee is going to hit me!" I don't know what kind it actually was, & I actually had to look that one up, because the only kind of SUV I could think of was an Escalade.

Anyway, which is weirder? To see the world in alarming detail, to be able to name everything down to its particular variety ("Oh, that's a cirrocumulus stratiformis undulatus cloud.") or as less differentiated ("That bird landed on a tree.")? Is one better? More engaged in the world?

duchampoo