Sunday Sundown

In the end the sun triumphed yesterday late in the day and then today all day. But an icy breeze! BRR.

Hatha Yoga this morning finished the cure of my tortured neck. Just different enough in its flow from the Ashtanga class that I am always just a little lost. Though last night's Ashtanga class was full of Spring with a light almost ticklish air.

A mostly domestic day waiting for the much delayed R to return from his latest trip. Cleaned windows even! (And managed to not drop anything on the church goers below...).

Just finished a gay manga, "Yellow." Read just like anime shows. Delightful! Bought but have not yet read Jocelyn Saidenberg's "Negatvity." From 2006 I think but I have been very lax in keeping up with much of the writing scene that that is new for me. It is all part of my imaging that time does not pass and my feeling that all of experience and time is a flat level surface upon which I exist outside of linearity. Despite the persistence of that belief (too strong?) or feeling, I am again like any good self reformer determined again to engage. I am intrigued by the Non Site Collective. And despite having managed to not get to any of the events yet, I think it will be an opportunity to re-connect. (I just have to read a lot to get caught up and appear learned enough to not feel or appear excessively ignorant).

A San Francisco Saturday

A cloudy day turning almost sunny in the afternoon din of Cafe Flore. Still a threat of cold and an idea of rain (but only if you're unprepared and followed the forecast).

A pretty boy or two but nothing to match the promises of the past and the future. A more serious crowd today engaged in urgent conversations about pressing nothings, re-reading homework for exams to qualify them for a future in something full of opportunity and adventure.

A million directions and distractions pulling me from my writing projects. Do I really like my new Valentino blazer or do I want to return it and buy something else? (Or do I really just want to buy more and more fun clothes to fill our magically re-done closet with fun fabulous expensive clothes I never find occasion to wear like those magnificent Jean Paul Gautier pants?) Should I start with a call for my would be Next Narrative project or prepare a lengthy treatise on it? What about making another little book? I am long overdue with that project (as am I on the updating of my little online projects). And then there is the whole job anxiety. So fraught and full of complex tensions and concerns (much more difficult than shopping where the questions are only does it look good and can I afford it). But no more writing of that with the devil being in the details and the hounds in full cry the game will go until it ends fur flying.

My cricked neck ( a consequence of tension and unchecked allergies) is slowly undoing itself. This afternoons Ashtanga will either advance the healing or leave me crawling home from Club One, I suspect.

My first comment on a recent post from a French blog on a digital video camera. Still unwrapping the connections and perhaps the mystery will never reveal itself to me.

I wonder sometimes if my not every day posting is a failure in this space. It appears to often be the discipline that others demand of their blogs but not one I can imagine managing. I find a certain solace in having a larger gap between posts present the immediate opportunity to do better next time.

Sun still struggling, clouds winning. Off to the writing I am still writing about.

St. Patrick's Day in Connecticut

No green just the leftover grays of winter. Melted snow and ice and lots of sunshine. Just at freezing here in Norfolk making for an icy walk through our fields.

At last amidst my job hunt and R's frequent trips to the various odd corners of the continental US we are enjoying a break together. A few house plans (hanging curtains in the living room, some trim painting) but mostly just down time away from the fray.

All is well in the house except for ever present invading lady bugs who have an abiding affection for R, buzzing him with puppy like passion.

Another gorgeous San Francisco Spring day...it almost made daylight savings not a trauma. Definitely an energy in the air and the city full of folks crawling out of their winter caves in search of something. Castro was abuzz with familiar and fresh faces at Flore. In the familiar, Aaron Shurin and a slightly tipsy Long Wu and in the fresh faces...well if a good story comes on any of it I will of course include it something written and available to the select few.

Am a bit dreading the week ahead and completely excited about the next week back in Connecticut. Still dealing with the work chaos and find a new something to pay for this fabulous bi-coastal literary clubbing lifestyle of mine.

Getting clearer on the New Narrative project/s I am proposing. I think David C. is right about the need for a history but I think first is a New Narrative reader that focuses the conversation. And if the synergy is right then that creates a foundation for my Next Narrative project. I think my first step is to propose the contents of the reader and vette it by the survivors.

This one is really from today live from the corner of California and Davis. The sunshine is almost too intense. That time of year when the light and dark contrasts in these downtown corridors turns the streets into crazy caves without the revelation of truths Plato might portray.

A lovely birthday yesterday: skipped off work early, went for a walk with Ralph, ate caviar and drank champagne. Apart from the getting older faster I think a birthday everyday is an idea whose time has come.

Curious about Dodie's opening/chapbook show but Saturday night...and where is somewhere out on a 23 (street or avenue). Requires reading a map. When I claim to only inhabit the 49 square I exaggerate. My miles are fewer and my excursions to the true limits few.

Soon I will fully articulate my Next Narrative project and make it something in the world but for now off to a pretend play day working but not at work. :-)

Blog Notes

Writing small bits of verse as a kind of careful construction of language to build a composition on.

Lots of little and large projects flying through my mind, all in various states of undone ness. A brief break from the manic job search has reawakened my compositional self. A welcome return to a flow of energy that had been stopped but also the unleashing again of the mania, the unstoppable and dangerous energy of urgency and panic. A good leash held by my own hand might yet contain me. And now again back to the job hunt push. A marathon with few favorable landmarks and no clear indication of a finish line in sight.

Oh, the finish, the surface, the fine polish of it all. And again I am yes and yes and...

More notes to come in this slight system of writing and then not writing in the way that I can and cannot see the keys as I am typing.

I believe that the future is in the doing and undoing of it all. There is not more to say than what has already been said but still I cannot imagine a better way of doing this than the way I am doing it now looking at the windows cut out of the other walls and then the stone made into to towers of hope and cages for the offices of workers going to and fro along the streets of this idle urbs this might forty nine square mile of manic more. A law becomes an observation when its truth is undone by the undoing of its truth by the poets pretense of becoming more than a scribe for the beings above that do not tell the truth but only invent it again from the sounds of something more than silence.

Friday February 29th --- again tech limbo

Another effort to bog today to regain that mad manic feeling of creative happiness. A conflict with the Bruce Boone talk tonight (just adjacent but not enough time to get there).

It will work out...Got resume paper to bring a hard copy to the event tomorrow. Picked my shirt and tie. A little polishing and ironing when I get home tonight.

Dinner with David last night. His boyfriend's bought a Chestnut Street clothing store and David is duly decked out in March Jacob looking a less plump and more prosperous self. And in good generous spirits which are contagious. Wonderful divvy Ethiopian food at Club Waziema, some literary gossip about the folks we know/knew in the SF experimental and/or gay writing scene.

I told David about my Next Narrative idea sprung out of writing about Steve Abbott. He suggested a book about New Narrative, perhaps an oral history.

I too have thought of this but manage to talk myself down out of infinite concerns including my ability to execute and the sheer time commitment of such an undertaking. And yet it gnaws at me. I imagine this is how Kevin got started with Spicer. Perhaps it might begin by writing what I know or think I know of the period and then identify the places where I can discoverer more information (people & archives) I think.

David is right when he says no matter how small it may have been or ephemeral the idea and the influence is still strongly felt and continues to reverberate through the writing scene.

I will begin with some notes on what I know and some inquiries to the people I know. And then this thing will or will not have a life of its own.

Really from Feb 23rd but stuck in tech limbo...

More Oscar Blog-

A quick role call: Kevin & Dodie of course. The always delightful Anne Mcguire, our very own porn star Stephen Boyer (performing under another name or names I think), Maize our Oscar expert without watching any of the films, Masha aka Georgette (who knew!), Emile W. impersonating his female self the artist still known as Emily Wilson, the late arriving dlightfully disruptive Minnette Lehrman and yours truly Drew angry hair and all.

During: lots of off and on screen dialogue mostly unrelated. More conversation even than during a movie at the AMC 1000 on Van Ness. A little distracting from the central premise but then it was almost the incidental excuse for a gathering. A few heated exchanges over politics and agenda. The balance perhaps not quite right with the impervious Oscars at the center of things and group not quite complete but no explosions or irreparable damages done amazingly just some reinforcements of ideas of each other I think.

Kevin's postmortem for fanzine was a nice archiving of it all in a flattering but true light.

Other post mortems suggest the show was a bit flat and not so much fun which affirms my remaining feeling that this peculiar engagement with this year's bloody bunch of Oscars was the best way to be with them.