Random Thoughts between Exams

Updating has not been a priority. Family, school, and trying to find some time to be creative (which has been sorely lacking) have all taken precedence, as they should. But even writing a blog post I can justify as working on what I'm supposed to be doing in graduate school, so here it goes:

One comp exam is done. I've been preparing for the poetry genre test since my first English course at Allegheny, so I shouldn't have been that worried about it. Yes, it took up a big chunk of my weekend writing it, but the questions helped my clarify a lot about what I want poems to do, mine or someone else's. I'll never break down a poem's argument very clearly, or at least use the terminology that's expected of someone who's studying for a Ph.D. Between this exam and the final I took for my last class last spring, I can't tell how many times I used the word "connection." That's what I want, what I need from poems: to get me in the gut, the core, more than in my head. Yes, I can break down the poet's tricks, but I want to avoid that for as long as possible. Is that anti-intellectual to not want to force rhetoric into the discussion? Maybe I talk about these issues in a different lanaguage that works just as well. Most times I feel like I'm faking my way through this degree, that I'm not here for the same reasons others are, for the "right" reasons. Does that go away, ever?

I have a week until my second exam, which is going to be the hardest of the three exams I need to pass this year. I've read plenty of the novels and plays, but the contemporary theory... not so much. That'll be much more difficult to fake, I'm sorry to say. We'll see how it goes next week.

*

Atticus is bigger every day. He laughs deeper and in ways that make it clear he knows what's going on. He headbutts ferociously. He eats clementines and grapes with abandon. Same with turkey of all forms and slushes, which makes me know he's mine and wasn't mixed up at the hospital. He fights his naps like he's one big coil ready to release all that energy into action. When I ask him for a kiss, he purses his lips or opens his mouth and tries to swallow my nose until I redirect and instead get a sloppy kiss. He obliges again and again. I don't know how long that will last, but maybe a while longer. Maybe. He is a sweet boy. He's my boy.

*

Great to see two poems in the latest Crab Orchard Review. I've always wanted to be in there, and I was ecstatic when I found out I would be. Such a well put together journal. I got proofs from Harpur Palate for a poem from my second project, which should be out soon. Can't wait for that. I also saw proofs from Third Coast's Midwest symposium. I was asked to write an essay about what it means to be a Midwestern writer, and I'm happy with the results. It's not just that I used to work there, but it's such a beautiful, professional journal.

I need to get the ms. out more. I was a semifinalist in a recent contest, and I hope this lights a fire under me to actually get it out in the world. Molly and I have an agreement that I can send out to one contest a month, and I hope that's enough to at least start getting some more semi- and even finalist nods. The ms. doesn't feel as put together as it could be, but it's pretty solid, I think. Maybe needs a new title. I don't know. I'm stuck on that one. Hmm.

*

I'm listening to my music, not the little man's, for the first time in a long time. Boy, does this feel right? Music always seems to get me back on track with feeling like a writer.

Catching Up

Coursework: finished.

Reading for comps: barely started.

I'm not sure how I'm going to adequately prepare for my exams in September; I've a lot of reading to do for my Contemporary test, in particular. It's funny. You think you've been responsible in your reading habits, and then you're confronted by a list of 120 books/names that proves you've wasted a lot of time on what you want to get out of books, not what you're supposed to know to get a graduate degree. I've finished four books since getting back to town from the extended trip north, though. I need to keep this pace, but with summer teaching beginning on Thursday, I don't know how I will. Let's hope.

*

I neglected to thank the editors at The Pinch and Nimrod for taking poems of mine. They've done great work putting the issues together. I had to wait a while for the latter, but it was well worth it. Congrats to my friend Keith for also having a poem in Nimrod. I hope it's the start of a trend to see our work in the same journals.

*

I've been thinking a lot about poems that I want to find good homes. Right before M., A., and I left to visit family, I put together several dozen submissions. Reading Sexing the Cherry, I was struck by this passage, which perfectly defines the anxiety we feel as we wait for poems, stories, essays to get picked up:

"After that our task was much easier. Indeed I was sorry to see the love-sighs of young girls swept away. My companion, though she told me it was strictly forbidden, caught a sonnet in a wooden box and gave it to me as a memento. If I open the box by the tiniest amount I may hear it, repeating itself endlessly as it is destined to do until someone sets it free."

- Jeanette Winterson

Missed Opportunities

While I haven't heard back from all the journals, I've gotten enough responses to know I need to start submitting again. I had one picked up from the latest round of submissions and received five or six "we debated poem X a lot, but we wound up deciding against it" notices, all from journals I would love to be in. Not a clunker in the lot. Hopefully it's a sign that a steady stream of acceptances is near, but I should know better than that. Keep writing, keep (e)mailing, and keep writing more. When news comes, it'll come.

Because of an unfortunate scheduling conflict, I'm missing out on giving a reading, too. If it wasn't for the distance to the site and the foreign language translation exam I have to take that day, I'd be there in a heartbeat. It's going to be a lot of fun, I'm guessing. Hmph.

*

I need to be reading more poetry, but I just can't seem to get beyond the teaching grind to get the energy to do so. That, and I don't know what I should be reading right now. I want something that'll blow me away. Desperately.

I'm behind on new music, too. We're not in the position to spend much of late, but even so, I'm not hearing much on my favorite XM channels that's exciting. I hate being in poetry and music ruts. There's a lot out there, but I can't seem to find the right avenue to find them. I'm open to suggestions if you have any.

*

Though I'm not a fan of most of what I've been reading for my lit course, it has given me the chance to read Frank O'Hara again. I forgot how much I like his work. Here's one conclusion that stood out to me in prepping for class:

the beauty of America, neither cool jazz nor devoured Egyption heroes, lies in
lives in the darkness I inhabit in the midst of sterile millions

the only truth is face to face, the poem whose words become your mouth
and dying in black and white we fight for what we love, not are

Frank O'Hara, from "Ode: Salute to the French Negro Poets"

The Road

I have been derelict in many things, but what's been at me most is how to respond to The Road, both book and movie. The praises for the novel-in-prose-poems don't need to be rehashed. The prose is sparse and stunning, grand and intimate. But what's more telling, at least for me, is how I read the book.

For much of it, A. slept on top of me. He'd stir some as I turned the pages or propped the book lightly on his back when I had too hard a time holding it above his sleeping body, yes, but he remained asleep long enough for the man to cook his son breakfast, to salvage supplies from the boat, to keep coughing through the misery in hope of what could be.

My survival skills are next to nothing, and on too many days, my capacity to get from morning to sleep with a hopeful outlook is even less. I don't require an apocalypse to happen so that I can know for sure whether I have it in me to do for mine what the Man does for his. He gives each day like it's a gift, which is a terrible example for a father, post- or pre-apocalyptic, to have to live up to, especially one who has the faults mentioned previously.

Literature is full of fathers and sons, and it's a trope I could always look at with the short-sightedness of a son who has no idea what it was to be a man, a father. Now, there is so much more to be taught and given, even if I don't always have the desire or patience to spend the effort doing so. He's a sponge. He's a person all his own. He's my son, and I have the responsibility to be as selfless as I can. I don't always know what that means for me. I don't know if gradually my needs and goals will fall farther away because it's damn hard to consistently find a balance every day.

I love him, and he loves me, but wondering whether I've done all I was meant to by having a child, whether my goal is not to be great myself but to teach someone else how he can change the world, keeps me awake some nights. Being a writer, I've made peace with the second part some. Poems and essays, stories and novels, may not be able to change the world, but they can shape the minds of those who can alter what we do to each other. And biologically speaking, I know the answer, but there must be something else I'm supposed to accomplish, some other way to keep my family and me feeling fulfilled. I trust something will help show me what needs to be done, how I can make certain I set a good example.

I love him and don't want to fail him, though of course I will sometimes because no one is perfect, which is not something someone who fears failure wants to type. Please be proud of me, A., even though I may not always earn it.

*

"They slept huddled together in the rank quilts in the dark and the cold. He held the boy close to him. So thin. My heart, he said. My heart. But he knew that if he were a good father still it might well be as she had said. That the boy was all that stood between him and death."

- Cormac McCarthy

Rejection, The Illiterate

Rejections for the marathon submission session I put together at the beginning of the month are already coming in. I appreciate the speed, but these six journals could have strung me along a little longer, let me get my hopes up a little more. Though to be fair, several of the no's were warranted, considering my writing doesn't match the journals' aesthetics. I'm terrible at picking the places I should send to; I'm much better at finding beautiful journals who don't publish anything like what I write and believing I can change all that. A waste of postage, yes, but my naivete is a little bit charming, too. At least I like to think so.

We'll see how the other 26 poetry and 2 nonfiction submissions turn out soon enough. I hope this is the breakthrough time I've been waiting for.

&

I'm not typically comfortable in classes, which limits my motivation to speak, but tonight's class was easier than a lot of others have been of late. I was familiar with a number of the poems we talked about, but I had new takes on several of them and was at ease enough to mention as much.

One poet and poem that struck me (again, though I can't remember where I first read it, but I must have since the book has been in my Amazon Wish List for two years) tonight was William Meredith's "The Illiterate." An amazingly simple (word choice-wise, but by no means technically so) and profound sonnet. So much to say about poetry and poets and what writing can give and take away from us.

"The Illiterate"

Touching your goodness, I am like a man
Who turns a letter over in his hand
And you might think this was because the hand
Was unfamiliar but, truth is, the man
Has never had a letter from anyone;
And now he is both afraid of what it means
And ashamed because he has no other means
To find out what it says than to ask someone.

His uncle could have left the farm to him,
Or his parents died before he sent them word,
Or the dark girl changed and want him for beloved.
Afraid and letter-proud, he keeps it with him.
What would you call his feeling for the words
That keep him rich and orphaned and beloved?

- William Meredith, from Effort at Speech: New and Selected Poems

Wright, Births, Ohio, Dithyrambs

I had read this poem a long while ago, but it didn't hit me nearly as much as it did when it came up in class last night as we discussed dithyrambs, getting out of ourselves and receving a moment of perspective.

Well, What Are You Going to Do?

I took a nap one afternoon in Ohio
At the end of a pasture,
Just at the good moment when Pet our poor lovely
Lay moaning and gave birth to Marian my calf.

What was I going to do? All I could do
Was wake and stand there.
I don't know anything about the problem
Of beautiful women.
I was afraid to run two hundred yards
To call my mother
And ask her what to do
With a beautiful woman.
Besides, she wouldn't know either.

Two hours,
Two whole hours.
While Pet lay mumbling among the Grimes Golden apples
That fell from time to time.
I ate two or three, maybe.
What was I supposed to do there
But eat the apples while Marian's face
Peeked out slowly?

I ate the apples,
And when Marian was born
I helped her come out.
I had been in love with a lot of girls, but that was my first time
To clasp the woman beneath her chin
And whisper, Come out to me,
Come on, come on, and you can be Marian.

I led Marian out of her mother's belly
Down in the cold
Autumn thorns,
And there was a pile of horse manure
I couldn't evade, and so by God
I did not even try.
All I could do was fall
From time to time.
Marian's face was all right, speckled with rust
And more white than snow.
The one I was the more in love with
Was Pet, the exhausted.

I lay down besides her, she snuffled, she smelled like a Grimes
Golden apple.
Then I carried Marian two hundred yards down the pasture.
She delicately sprayed the insides of her beginning body
All over my work shirt.

I don't know that I belonged
In that beautiful place. But
What are you going to do? Be kind? Kill?
Die?

- James Wright, from Above the River

Two Books Down, One that Had Its Moments

Having finished another book for my Southern Lit class (it was no Faulkner, that's for sure), I was able to also read Tryfon Tolides's An Almost Pure Empty Walking. I was not blown away by it, but there were several poems I liked a great deal. When he's on, he has that mysterious, knowing European style that stays with me, like a Zagajewski or Milosz or Cavafy (to take the Greek thing too far). When he's off, there's a too-Jack-Gilbert-for-my-liking quality. Not that the poems are bad, but they just don't speak to me as much as I would like. I'll need to read it again to verify my first impressions, but those five, six, or seven poems that grabbed me are still hanging around. (As Bill said during my thesis meetings and other times: "A good first book needs five or six very good poems to be successful." I'm not entirely sure about that math, not these days with the glut of manuscripts coming from all these MFAs and PhDs, but so it goes.) And here's one poem I've come back to several times the past couple days.

*

Not for a Reason

Tonight at the train station

with the red metal seats

in Syracuse. We walked up the ramp,

then beyond the few people

on the platform. I wasn't looking

at her legs, though I've taken the shape

of her knees into my palms before,

followed from heel to calf, up and up,

she being my future wife, maybe,

though we keep saying yes,

and I should say yes here, not maybe,

because she and I both believe

strongly, but people have believed before

and still it has stopped being.

The train came, left.

I walked from beyond the few

people on the platform (who had gone

by then) where we had been,

holding. Legs can't look off into a distance

somewhere, as eyes can,

filled with thinking something unthought.

Legs can do that, too, walking

in cemeteries, back to the car, through fog,

even when there is no distance.

- Tryfon Tolides, An Almost Pure Empty Walking

Reading, or What I Do to Avoid It as Much as Possible

Knowing how much life was going to change this summer, I had every intention of doing as much prep work for my fall semester classes and for next year's Comps. This has been a largely fruitless endeavor. I've yet to start the longest novel I have to read for my Southern Lit course, but that's coming after getting through Absalom! Absalom! I think it shot my attention span, though, because I can't sit down and do the reading I need to get done or what to get done. Maybe I just needed a summer break more than I realized, but I also don't want to feel like I'm cheating myself, my degrees, and the seriousness with which I'm supposed to meet my art.

After the 100+ chapbooks for the spring's chapbook manuscript workshop (poems from that forthcoming, hopefully, maybe?), I'm more frustrated with poetry collections than should be possible. There are a lot of terrible ones being published, and it certainly made me "on-ree" about reading more than a few pages from a book unless it was truly remarkable. Either that, or I can't find what I need to be reading right now.

I haven't gotten out of this reading funk yet, but thanks to Keith, I bought Herbert Morris's What Was Lost from the terrible used bookstore Knoxvillians claim to be the best around. (Sorry, but Denton spoiled me. I miss you, Recycled Books.) It took much longer than it should have (re: poor attention span; thanks Faulkner), but after reading these expansive, relentless, finely tuned poems I'm starting to get excited about poetry books again.

I had to have encountered Morris's work somewhere, sometime, but getting involved in eight-, ten-, thirteen-page poems was taxing and educational and, ultimately, rewarding to see someone find home in the long poem, especially since I dabble in the "form." (Do I need the quotation marks? I don't know. I suppose I can/should make the argument it is its own entity.) His book is the combination of so many ideas about poetry that I hold close. The more elevated, later Levis-esque style. The voice and tone in the monologues. The ability to hold a sentence grammatical for an entire page. So many strategies to steal, if only I could sit still and write something.

*

"It is now I must write this, Mr. Hopper,
now I need to begin, before it fades,
dissipates, vanishes, drifts off to smoke
(a fitting image, as becomes apparent),
before whatever sense one shall have made
lies too scattered, too late, at least, to make
what Mrs. Carmody suggests I put down
even if nly for that sense of self
unique to each of us, no more, just that,
on behalf of what clarity, what light,
it may lend to one's own—her word—"perspective,"
though, of course, it shall not enlarge your own,
you whom these words shall leave just as you were,
unchanged, unmoved, perhaps not moved enough,
at a time you were unaware a student,
changed by your painting, moved more than he knew,
would write to you from ignorance, from need,
from that unholy ground where the two meet."

- Herbert Morris, "Approaching a City," What Was Lost

Waiting

Compared to last year, this summer has been un-hectic. No wedding planning this year. No wedding classes to drive 45 minutes to and be lectured at for another two hours. No moving from Kalamazoo to Grand Rapids for ten days before heading 700 miles three days after the wedding. No getting used to a new program, new people, and a new city. I should be grateful that life is less complicated of late, though big change is two or so weeks away. But I feel as prepared as I can be for the little person and, with M. in control of much of the day-to-day preparations, have the luxury of the stability of knowing we have a home together. There will be adjustments, sure, but a swirl of other matters aren't getting in the way of my peace of mind.

But I do wish I didn't have to wait for so much else on the professional end. I hate that feeling where something good is maybe in the works, though I have no control over it or have the slightest idea of when it may arrive in my inbox or mailbox. It's a game I'm tired of playing right now. I want to be proud of some accomplishment that feels like a, you know, real accomplishment. Yes, I've made it through the first year of the Ph.D. Yes, I've written a fair amount this year that I'm proud of. Yes, I have a good idea of what my last year of coursework ever will look like. These are all good things, but considering I'm in a six-month acceptance slump, I'd like some validation. I don't search it out very often, and I hate to be that guy who complains about not receiving any, but some sign I'm on the right track would be helpful and keep me from whining instead of being properly patient with the workings of the literary journal world.

*

On a more positive note, I was skimming Poetry Daily tonight and saw that as part of his "American Life in Poetry" series Ted Kooser introduced a poem by Alexandra Teague, who we published at Third Coast when I was poetry editor. After clicking on the link, I was happy to see that Mr. Kooser had actually referred to "Language Lessons," the poem Shannon and I took for the Fall '08 issue. There's something to be said for the pride an editor has in seeing a poem he/she accepted going on to be noticed on an even grander scale. Wherever you are, Alexandra, congrats on having your work put up in such a grand forum. And even more good tidings for getting your manuscript picked up. Great news, indeed.

*

A poem excerpt for the day:

Call us childish, call us to our teachers:
a cop with a clipboard calls me over, to ask me what of blood I heard.
He knows in his blood better than to say it that way.
He puts it neutrally, may his heart feel adjudged by restraint,
may the differently abled be restrained for their own good,
and when I say his "heart" may I mean mine and may my mouth feel antique—
what he asks me is if I heard any cries—no, not even that, just... "anything."
Let's get this right.
Does a dying self make up a face as it goes, will any face do?
Right there on the concrete a bloodstain the children will pass, to touch it:
what's to touch once blood stops doing its cartwheels?
Someons has stepped out from under our thumbs and heels?
Can anyone ever make blood do anything? Can clouds be pushed around?
On and on till the questions are all open coffins.

- Bill Olsen, "Blood," from Avenue of Vanishing

More Encouraged Reading

Here's a link to Cimarron Review #167, and because she's much too humble to recommend reading her poem, I'm going to tell you to check out Beth Marzoni's "Blasphemy Song." It even has Kalamazoo in it. What could be better than that?

Wordled

My chapbook manuscript, Lost Film, Wordled:

Encouraged Reading

Buy it here.

I'm a Grown Up

from Frost at Midnight

Therefore all seasons shall be sweet to thee,
Whether the summer clothe the general earth
With greenness, or the redbreast sit and sing
Betwixt the tufts of snow on the bare branch
Of mossy apple-tree, while the night thatch
Smokes in the sun-thaw; whether the eave-drops fall
Heard only in the trances of the blast,
Or if the secret ministry of frost
Shall hang them up in silent icicles,
Quietly shining to the quiet Moon.

- Coleridge

Scenes from a Pig Roast

Turning to Fall / "The Whitsun Weddings" - Larkin

In short bursts:

I had expected to be much more frequent and thorough in my posting, but that clearly has not happened. I blame the past two and a half months. Learning a new city, trying to develop friendships, staying on top of all that's demanded of a Ph.D. student, and especially taking care of M. as best I can. I don't think I've been successful at any of these, which sometimes doesn't make sleep come as easily as I'd hope. I want this admission to compel me to do better, to enable me to benefit from what I've learned and move forward, but I'm not necessarily wired that way. I hold on to what needs forgetting.

*

I worked on my ms. tonight, which is the first time I've looked at it since I had meetings with Bill, Nancy, and Beth B. last April. This has been long overdue, but at least I've written a poem a week for workshop, which should (maybe) help flesh out what I've spent the last three degrees working toward. I don't know how close it is to being polished, but I'll send it some people whose opinion I trust and get some constructive feedback. I've been keeping up with Keith Montesano's First Book Interviews at http://firstbookinterviews.blogspot.com/ and the perserverance we writers need to have is frightening. I seem to be able to block out the horror stories about how long it takes to get a book published, how much effort is put into shaping a ms. It'd be great if Paul Zimmer, who's visiting next semester, could tap me on the head and magically get me a book, but stranger things have not happened. So it goes.

*

Mad Men finished Season Two tonight, and that makes me sad. M. and I disagree about how Matthew Weiner seems to approach his storytelling: I'm fine with threads from early in the season being brought back five or six episodes later, while she needs the writers to keep spinning the plates. (In some ways, she is a protege of some faculty members, whether he's conscious of it or not, which I stress is not a bad thing. Really. I got a lot from my two semesters taking nf workshops.) I'm never insulted watching MM, which I can't say about most television. I don't need everything recapped for me, nor do I want to have all the answers for who did what why neatly laid out for me. More often than not, I'd rather work for my entertainment, though I concede there's time and place for the mindless. Sometimes, I'd rather not be inside my head.

*

Two Browns wins the past three weeks. My self-worth shouldn't change so much after a win, but it does. I didn't want to go to school the day after The Fumble. I had a hard time walking campus when the Steelers beat the Browns, though I didn't really know anyone enough to give me a hard time about being in Meadville following a team that's been owned by their biggest rival of late. I am a Clevelander, and that'll always define me. Expecting failure is in my blood, and I'm not sure how that plays into what I wrote two paragraphs up. It could be good or bad. I just don't know.

*

I think a lot about Larkin's "The Whitsun Weddings." I had read it a number of times, but it wasn't until I went to a lecture by Rachel Hadas that I needed to memorize the conclusion. Taking a cue from a friend (http://againstoblivion.blogspot.com/) I'd like to include a poem somewhere in all of my future posts. I thought it'd be good to start with the last stanza I committed to myself years ago. Here it is:

from The Whitsun Weddings


There we were aimed. And as we raced across
Bright knots of rail
Past standing Pullmans, walls of blackened moss
Came close, and it was nearly done, this frail
Traveling coincidence; and what it held
Stood ready to be loosed with all the power
That being changed can give. We slowed again,
And as the tightened brakes took hold, there swelled
A sense of falling, like an arrow-shower
Sent out of sight, somewhere becoming rain.


Be well.

What I'm Not

I'm not a helpful packer. I'm not hungry, though a strawberry sundae does sound good. I'm not underwhelmed by Adam Zagajewski's Eternal Enemies. I'm not at all disinterested in reading Ander's Other Electricities, but it's on the side table yet. I'm still not reading as much as I should be, especially when I need to spend the next three years studying for exams. I'm not surprised very often, really. I'm not a bad detective, or at least I'm not unaware of my surroundings, how the little things which motivate people's actions are linked. I'm not at all prepared to send a syllabus to the Comp Director at UT. I'm not going to play a bad round of golf on Friday morning with my friends, my relatives, my soon-to-be relatives. I'm not comfortable typing on a laptop, and I don't think I ever will be. I'm not not looking forward to Saturday. I'm not wearing socks at the moment. I'm not going to mark "Single" on my taxes in January. I'm not sure how to find what books I need to buy for my classes. I'm not not thirsty. I'm not sure Mid-American Review will ever get back to me about whether they accepted a poem of mine or not, a process that started when I mailed a submission last October and was made worse when an editor told me she "thought they had, but [she]'d have to check [her] records when [she] get back to the office from [her] vacation," found in an email from early June. I'm not at ease with the fact M. and I haven't signed a lease for the house we'll be renting yet. I'm not a fan of ceiling fans, no matter how fast they revolve, because they will always be trumped by air conditioning, even if the A/C is provided by one of those obnoxiously loud, old-school units that weigh five hundred pounds, leak on the hardwood floor/carpet, and aren't capable of being controlled by a remote control. I'm not sure which is the best smile to use for all the pictures I'll be in this weekend. I'm not as physically close to as many friends as I'd like to be, which makes the RSVP process less exciting. I'm not as knowledgeable about clouds as I wished I was when I was eight. I'm not a novice in fixing leaks in Aero-beds anymore. I'm not sure M.'s gift is going to arrive in time. I'm not as unsentimental with my belongings as I should be, which is troublesome when moving. I'm not looking forward to loading a truck next Monday. I'm not not a fan of linear posts, but I'm not against ones that end where they began, either, even if it's a trite way to create unity.

Creatively Lazy

It's not been a productive summer as far as writing goes. I can't seem to sit down and concentrate on a new poem. And even when I do manage to, I write a few terrible lines, get frustrated, and go do something else much more unhealthy to my writing life (see: Scrabulous, Scramble, and/or TV). A lot of this has to do with not reading as much as I should be. I've gotten better of late, finishing Dorothea Laskey's Awe, Graham Foust's Necessary Stranger, Joshua Marie Wilkinson's Suspension of a Secret in Abandoned Rooms, and for the second time, my friend Adam Clay's The Wash, to name a few. I'm trying my damnedest to read more prose, too, though that's not been working quite as well. I just don't seem to have enough of an attention span at the moment, which I guess makes sense because of all the changes coming my way (see: wedding, moving to a new state, and/or starting a Ph.D. program in August). But I can't use any of this as an excuse. If I'm a truly serious writer, I should be devoting my free time to my craft, even if the end result for that first draft is crap. That's something I need to tell myself more. Maybe I should even get a rubber band for around my wrist. I've heard that works. Hmph.

Along with reading, I need music for inspiration or at least to use as a way to calm myself. I'd say it's amazing just how many (good) writers flock to music, but that's not really a new or exciting realization. It's a necessity for most of us and how I justify spending so much of my paycheck on music that's been recommended to me or that I've heard on my favorite XM station. (Sorry, Herm who owns Vertigo in Grand Rapids, this will come to an end in a few weeks with the move. But that's a sidenote.) I honestly believe, and I told my beginning creative writing students this this past spring, you should be very skeptical of any writer who says he/she doesn't love music. I'm sure there are many examples to refute this, which is why I changed my original sentence from "you should never trust any writer who says he/she doesn't love music." But the sentiment remains the same. Who's to say you can't find inspiration in indie-rock? Not me or Mr. Wilkinson for that matter (see Rachel's Music for Egon Schiele and how Suspension was written to it, for example).

Lately, I've been listening to my 17+ day-filled iPod more than just at the gym during workouts. It's been helping some, and I've taken it upon myself to come up with a few mixes, one for a friend leaving for Austin that chronicles her stay in the north and the other for Ander's Jesus birthday, complete with notes on the various degrees of Freemasonry. (Jesus = 33 and Freemasonry has 33 degrees, you know, so it all works.) I broke the rule about ending two mixes with the same song, but oh well. It works so perfectly on both of them. Here are the track listings:

Cindy Goes to Austin: Wherein We Not Only Remember
the Exploits of One CSJ, But Also Guide Her From the
Uppermost Reaches to the Southwesternmost Depths

1. The Wedding Present – I’m From Further North Than You
2. Sufjan Stevens – The Upper Peninsula
3. Ambulance Ltd – Michigan
4. Deerhoof – Lemon & Little Lemon
5. Sea Wolf – Winter Windows
6. Rogue Wave – Lake Michigan
7. Hockey Night – Tubin’
8. Mojave 3 – All Your Tears
9. The Decemberists – Song for Myla Goldberg
10. Muddy Waters – Baby, Please Don’t Go
11. The Delgados – Everything Goes Around the Water
12. Eddie Fisher – Cindy, Oh Cindy
13. Feist – 1 2 3 4
14. Ravens & Chimes – St. Jude in the Village Voice
15. Memphis – Incredibly Drunk on Whiskey
16. Bedhead – Left Behind
17. Okkervil River – A Girl in Port
18. Pavement – Texas Never Whispers
19. Spoon – The Way We Get By
20. Patrick Wolf – The Magic Position

And the next compilation:

The Thirty-Three Degrees of FreeMonsonery Disc 1:

1º Entered Apprentice: The Decemberists – California One/Youth & Beauty Brigade
2º Fellow Craft: Beirut – Nantes
3º Master Mason: Built to Spill – Conventional Wisdom
4º Secret Master: Doves – The Cedar Room
5º Perfect Master: Lou Reed – Perfect Day
6º Intimate Secretary: A.C. Newman - Secretarial
7º Provost and Judge: Robert Johnson – If I Had Possession Over Judgment Day
8º Intendant of the Building: Tom Waits – What’s He Building?
9º Elected Knight of the Nine: Depeche Mode – Policy of Truth
10º Illustrious Elect of the Twelve: Iron & Wine – Freedom Hangs Like Heaven
11º Sublime Knight Elect of the Twelve: The Flaming Lips – One More Robot/Sympathy 3000-21

1º This degree begins a man’s journey into freemasonry and represents youth.
2º This symbolizes man in adulthood and represents work.
3º This degree represents man in old age and relates to wisdom.
4º One’s first steps into our sanctuary are duty, reflection and study.
5º Honesty and trustworthiness are the cornerstones of Masonic honor.
6º In this degree we should learn duty, charity and toleration.
7º We are taught to judge with patience and impartially.
8º We should strive for perfection by building on the great principles God has given us.
9º Truth, candor, and generosity are at the very heart of this degree.
10º This degree teaches toleration of others.
11º We should be sympathetic to our brother masons and to all mankind as well.


The Thirty-Three Degrees of FreeMonsonery Disc 2:

12º Master Architect: The Besnard Lakes – On Bedford and Grand
13º Royal Arch of Solomon: Echo and The Bunnymen – The Cutter
14º Grand Elect, Perfect and Sublime Mason: Calexico – Black Heart
15º Knight of the East (or Sword): New Order – True Faith – 94
16º Prince of Jerusalem: Dean & Britta – Crystal Blue
17º Knight of the East and West: Sufjan Stevens – The Lord God Bird
18º Knight of the Rose Croix: Sea Wolf – The Rose Captain
19º Grand Pontiff: The Shins – The Past and Pending
20º Master of the Symbolic Lodge: Elvis Costello & The Attractions – (What’s So Funny ‘Bout) Peace, Love, and Understanding
21º Noachite: Modest Mouse – Bukowski
22º Prince of Libanus: Norfolk & Western – The New Rise of Labor

12º “Life is what each man makes of it; the optimist turns a trial into a blessing.”
13º Motivated by duty and honor, liberty should be in our mind and our hearts.
14º We learn to reflect and look into ourselves. We should strive to be true to ourselves
and our God.
15º We learn fidelity to obligations and perseverance of purpose under difficulties and
discouragement.
16º This degree deals with charity, fidelity and brotherhood. (see lyrics “I looked up and saw
you / reach down to touch the sky / felt so far below you / but I’m satisfied.”)
17º Loyalty to God is man's primary allegiance; the temporal governments not founded
upon God and His righteousness will inevitably fall.
18º Life and its strengths come from God; we are tolerant of others’ errors and faults.
The rose signifies dawn.
19º We learn from the past and how it affects the present and the way we live in the future.
20º The degree shows us Liberty, Fraternity and Equality. We are taught moral, religious
and philosophical understanding in hope of comprehending the Deity, forces
of nature, good and evil.
21º The degree stresses humility, modesty, and courtesy, which are the true virtues of
Masons/Monsons; arrogance, defamation, and cowardice are not.
22º By doing good work we improve character and become better citizens.


The Thirty-Three Degrees of FreeMonsonery Disc 3:

23º Chief of the Tabernacle: Portishead – Glory Box (Live @ Roseland)
24º Prince of the Tabernacle: Nirvana – Serve the Servants
25º Knight of the Brazen Serpent: Sebadoh – Too Pure
26º Prince of Mercy: Billy Bragg & Wilco – Hesitating Beauty
27º Knight Commander of the Temple: The Futureheads – Help Us Out
28º Knight of the Sun: The Perceptionists – Breathe In the Sun
29º Scottish Knight of Saint Andrew: Stephen Malkmus – Freeze the Saints
30º Knight of the White and Black Eagle: British Sea Power – No Lucifer
31º Inspector Inquisitor: Afghan Whigs – Brother Woodrow/Closing Prayer
32º Master of the Royal Secret: The Arcade Fire – Crown of Love
33º Inspector General: Patrick Wolf – The Magic Position

23º This degree’s apron is white, bordered with red, blue, and purple ribbons. These colors,
from the curtains of the Tabernacle, represent earth, fire, air, and sea, respectively,
as well as the Lord's beneficence, glory, wisdom, and power.
24º We believe in serving humanity through brotherhood.
25º This degree tackles the concept of pure, celestial, eternal soul of man. He looks within
his faith, life, and God and to get a clear look at his inner self.
26º In this degree we search for "the rewards of the trinity of God’s attributes - wisdom
or intelligence, force or strength, harmony or beauty."
27º We should always assist the poor, helpless, and infirm.
28º Our love for God manifests itself in our love for Truth, Justice and Nobility of Soul.
The jewel is a golden sun on the obverse, and a hemisphere, showing the northern
half of the ecliptic and zodiac.
29º The virtues of this degree are “Love of God, loyalty to superiors, faithful adherence to
promise and active resistance to unfair judgment.”
30º We should be true to ourselves, stand for what is right and just in our lives today, and
believe in God, country and ourselves.
31º This degree teaches prayerful self-examination. The mistakes today should not be
committed tomorrow. Simply, the daily look at ones self to learn to live with
the future. An instrumental track feels perfect for this degree.
32º The lessons of this degree are that "genuine brotherhood requires mutual regard,
opinion, esteem, and charity." We always look for the good in all, make
allowances for other's short comings. We trust the Supreme Architect to lead us
to friendship, morality and brotherly love.
33º The Thirty-third Degree is conferred by the Supreme Council upon members of the
Rite in recognition of outstanding work in the Rite or in public life.

For references to the Scottish Rite Degrees (Northern Jurisdiction):
http://www.scottishritecalifornia.org/scottish_rite_degrees.htm

I suppose making a mix is a matter of creativity as well as precision, especially since I typically demand that transitions between songs work. Putting a song to some of those was damn hard. I had to twist some of the explanations into a track and lead to some less interesting choices, at least when compared to the great pride I take in matching "Bukowski" to the twenty-first degree. There's something to all this mix-making. My friend C. tried to write an essay about this, and I might follow her lead and keep thinking about it, keep at finding a way to justify my writerly-laziness by saying I'm doing research. I think I can get away with that. I hope.