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| It's strange coming back here after being away for years... My only social outlet these days is Facebook, but I don't think you can be as frank real on there as you can on a blog like this. When you say that "so-and-so politician is a son of a bitch" everyone and your mother hears it. I don't think that's real -- it's stifling to honesty.
Maybe what I think about the world is just too bitter direct...I don't give a fuck. I don't see the point of social networking when everyone has to be polite and conversation is reduced to chatter about nonsense, with restrictions on the number of characters used. I've seriously considered leaving Facebook, I wouldn't be missing out on much.
For the first time I've been reading a lot of classic literature. This winter I've read "Moby-Dick," "Wuthering Heights," "A Tale of Two Cities," "Ethan Fromme," "Anna Karenina," "The Red Badge of Courage" and "Jane Eyre." ...in that order. I read a lot of short stories, Victorian era horror stories especially...anything 100~ years old and subtle. M. R. James, Arthur Machen, Lovecraft, E F Benson, British writers are my favorite. I use to like non-fiction, but reality is too drab, even compared to dark novels like "Anna Karenina." I read a novel every other week, and it's made winter very tolerable but I think I will keep doing this for the entire year -- I have enough classic novels to keep me occupied for years. Most cost me $1-4 used, online or at Goodwill. Books are the cheapest and most rewarding form of entertainment, and when they're good, they're quite addictive.
I've gotten back into classical music (20th century modern) after listening to jazz for a couple years straight. The thing that first hit me was how emotional it is -- almost "dangerously" so. It's almost terrifying how deep this music can be at times, but I love it. I feel like in some darker moments I'm more suited to jazz, but I want the complexity and emotional depth that classical of the last 100 years offers.
I ignore politics these days and I'm better for it, but sometimes it creeps back into my focus. I don't watch TV at all anymore, not even the weather usually. I think people watching TV is one of the biggest problems in society today. But I've decided not to expect too much from people -- we are just highly evolved, slightly domesticated animals. Knowing that is one of the advantages of being an atheist. People make more sense.
I work the door at a nightclub, it's OK work, one of the few jobs I've had that I didn't hate. I enjoy it most of the time, and it blends with my nocturnal nature. But I don't think your work is what defines you -- when people ask, "What do you do?" they mean work of course, which often says little about a person, and what it does say is usually uninteresting. I'd rather hear about a persons interests, hobbies, passions. We just go to work because we have to, nothing interesting there.
I still live in Atlanta and wish I was somewhere rural -- almost anywhere at times. I have a deep interest in the Tiny House movement I discovered about a year ago. People building houses around 100-300 square feet, I know I could exist in that size space, and I think I could afford to build it too.
Well, this is the most I've written like this in years -- Facebook just isn't the place for long, drawn-out thoughts and ideas. I think Facebook is for most people, for extroverts in particular who don't substituting surface noise in the place of detail and depth, and would rather just have a long list of friends that will comment on their LOL Cat pictures.
Currently Listening (because Xanga seems to have removed that feature):
Tubin's 8th symphony
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| A Fearful Season
When the wind blows, And
The night shows -- It knows
hidden fears, better than you suppose,
When shadow grows, And
Reaps what sowed -- The foes
of warmth, prepare world to be froze,
When leaves shed, And
Chilly is bed -- Less is said
Inward and weary, of what's ahead,
When brooding time alone, And
Life is postponed -- Stay home
By fireside, with sombre tomes,
When lanterns sway, And
Spirits un-lay -- Death's hurray
Creeping dread, stalks midday,
When folklore haunts talk, And
Skin turns chalk -- Don't balk
When you find magic, in cornstalks.
Just in time for Halloween, I wanted to post one of the poems I wrote some time ago that talks about ancient Halloween fears, the change of seasons and dread of winter. I've got another one that's Halloween-worthy that I will try to post this weekend. This one has an interesting rhyme pattern compared to the other stuff I've written. | | |
| To Live Beside a Mountain
To adore aging day gently set behind,
Instead of through a web of black powerlines,
And smog that thickly gives orange sun a rind,
Having intimate kinship with a giant above all,
Not boastful towers scowling "Be enthralled!,
I dare men passing to walk and not crawl!",
To wonder of secrets concealed other side,
Instead of flat plains where potential can't hide,
Imagination dies with vision so wide,
Sleeping cozy in nature's bosom darkly hushed,
No extraneous noise of a collective sickness in rush,
Nor knowing each time a neighbors' toilet is flushed,
Some may complain it limits their sight,
But just to feel huddled by a non-alien height,
Yes, living next to a mountain would be nice.
This was a poem I wrote early on in this "adventure into poetry" I've had lately. It's not one I rate too highly but I like what it tries to convey and I wanted to post a simple one, and have a break from the autumn poetry. I think the highest point on a landscape affects the people below; whether it's a smoke stack, a skyscraper or a mountain. A mountain doesn't try to intimidate or sell you anything. It's also a general denunciation of urban life I suppose. | | |
| I've had people ask why I collect books of supposedly "true" ghost stories even though I don't believe in the supernatural at all. I admit that the number of books on my shelf on southern ghost stories has grown large. Not that I feel I need to justify it, but I have a deep interest in folklore; and ghost stories seem to be the only things still published today that actually contain folklore -- oral accounts, storytelling, and it's always a-wash with quirky, local historic lore that gives us a picture of how life once was from the perspective of common people. How people lived, died, struggled, and what they believed; usually told in a pretty entertaining way.
Some storytellers do publish books of family stories, local legends and rural humor, but those are becoming few and far between as storytelling is now relegated to a quaint art. The Foxfire series is a great source but they might publish one book per decade, if you're lucky. Books on fairy tales and mythology are easy to find, but that's not folklore, much less American folklore.
You don't find collections of stories, tall tales, customs and superstitions anymore, like the massive compendiums published by folklorist B. A. Botkin, the folktale collections of Ozark folklorist Vance Randolph or encyclopedic superstition compilations of Wayland Hand. Those all went out of print decades ago, and nothing like them has been published since. But it seems that ghost stories continue to thrive in print and they're the closest thing to local lore and folklore that we have today. | | |
| Autumn's Ring of Woe
Under blazing boughs I've come to sit and hide,
Delicate paper globe seems lit from inside,
Shivery breeze rustles and my haven sheds,
Glancing brush of sun doth through darker hues glide,
Crouching on Mother's cold, sloppy bed,
A fire that crackly snaps wherever tread,
Squirrels rustle and dive for provisions to stow,
Before life hurriedly from earth is fled,
An ill omen alights, gurgled cry to us below,
Hearkens a far voice only the simple know,
Whispers of Herakleitos: "in change is rest",*
Eternal ring makes him sing an ageless song of woe,
Rejoice this watercolor as love to thy breast,
'Tis draining 'till wispy scene of charcoal is left,
Such beauty from thankless surrender to death,
Which speaks in a soft voice, "this change is a mere rest."
*Herakleitos was a pre-Socratic greek philosopher, one of his most famous axioms is that "in changing it is at rest" meaning that change is the constant and the normal state of things.
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I like this poem, it has imagery but also some depth, I've written several about autumn and this is perhaps the best or equal with one other that is very similar.
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