Beardscapes (I, II, III)

Beardscapes

I.

There are landscapes and seascapes, yes

but are there mindscapes, gutscapes?

smellscapes for the dog's wondrous nose?

are there beardscapes?

Scapes of stubble and skin?

II.

My hand checks the imperfection of my shave

It feels the slight variances, rough spots

Moving with and against the grain

Better even than my imperfect eye

III.

The blade is sharp

Though encased in a mechanism to ensure "safety"

I scrape it against my face

In the shower, without a mirror

An exercise in proprioception

Or stupidity

On the stove

The Water is boiling

Variation on a Theme By Jonathan Mayhew

"On the Stove / The Water is boiling"

i.

"On the stove
the water is boiling"

Where else did you expect it to boil?

ii.

"The water is boiling"

"The blackbird must be flying"


iii.

The water is boiling

Not much else is going on

iv.

I understand why the kettle whistles

I grasp that mechanism

But not why the bacon sizzles

v.

The kettle is whistling

Why are we symmetrical?

February Notes

Scolds hate beauty.

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"A Buddha by Billy Strayhorn" (Coolidge) ??

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My epic poem "Beardscapes"

Grows by small increments.

What to do with a poem once you have memorized it

You can recite it in public or private situations, of course.  You can study it in your head and think about it, cite from it from memory when the subject comes up in conversation (which tends to be rarely). Waking up with some Keats in your head is a good thing. I like speaking it in the shower. If I wake up at night I can have a poem to recite to myself, or as I am trying to fall asleep.  Some phrase of it might resonate through a poem you are writing, or even in a translation from another language.

How to Memorize a Poem

First, read the poem out loud carefully to yourself.

Now, read a line, keep it in your mind, close your eyes, and repeat it to yourself three times.  Repeat with every line of the poem.

Now, do the same again, but this time keep in mind the first phrase of the subsequent line for each line.

So you would be saying: "But when the melancholy fit shall fall / Sudden from heaven..." You also know the line is "Sudden from heaven like a weeping cloud," but you are concentrating now on the transition from line to line.

Now you want to look at chunks of the poem, look at them, close your eyes, and repeat them three times.

Now you will want to begin at the first line and see how far you get. Do that a few times.  Then start at another point in the poem and do the same thing.  You don't want to always start at the beginning because then you'll know the beginning really well and always get stuck later on. Practice the end of the poem more than any other part.  

Now you'll want to wait a day or so and try to recite the poem from memory. Re-learn the parts the you've forgotten.  Do this several days in a row.  For example, I forgot one line of Keats's "Ode to Melancholy" completely.  Another was missing several words.

twelfth sense

4. Describe a sense that is not currently defined as part of humanity's repertoire of sense perceptions, or part of the repertoire of "psychic" senses like ESP. It must be a plausible possibility. We know that human have smell, touch, hearing, sight, and taste; that in addition we have proprioception, an ability to feel our internal organs, balance, and the ability to feel pain, heat, and cold.  What is missing from this list?

ish

I got an issue of Bon Appetit that promised to talk about "healthy-ish" food. That's great, in a way.  Even unhealthy food can by healthy-ish, right?

Yet when I evaluate my own capabilities, I find them mostly either strongish or weakish. Nothing is an absolute strength or weakness, but everything is on a continuum.  You have to work on things that are weakish, but also on things that are strongish.  It's just some arbitrary level where you think a particular dimension becomes an asset rather than a liability.

So 49% vs. 51%.

You are also free to define anything you want as strongish or weakish.  It is amazing that we accept other people's definitions about things in our own lives.