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Saw this right at the corner of North and Wood. The overlapping lines fascinated me, and I wanted a picture
so I could remember the moment. Before I get my daily coffee, I'm weird like this.
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This is right by my workplace (the Merchandise Mart). I'd like to think there was a big wave of
jets, criss-crossing one another earlier in the morning.
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I just heard Tom Waits for the first time,
two days ago. I saw a thread on WH about him, and
realized I had never really heard his music.
I feel like I've fallen painfully behind my peers on this.
Thankfully, I happened to see Alex online and chatted with him briefly on IM. When I asked him which album
I should get, he suggested Rain Dogs as a good "middle ground." Moments after his suggestion, I was downloading
it. Gotta love iTunes.
So far, I really like Cemetary Polka, Jockey Full of Bourbon, and Anywhere I Lay My Head. I was
fearful that Waits would be less strictly musical (and he is, in some respects), but I'm surprised to find that I don't
really care. I like his voice, and I like how carefree he is about singing or speaking or moving easily between the two.
I've been playing this album a lot, ever since I got it. I take that as a good sign.
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Well, when I checked this from work I realized it wans't synched up at all. I was loading in the audio as a
.swf file (loaded into a level), and had it set to "stream." My understanding is that, on the "stream"
setting, Flash would drop frames to keep up with the audio. While this may be true when both the audio
and animation exist within the same file, it doesn't seem to hold true when the audio is loaded into a
level.
Instead of using the sound Object, I went lazy and simply embedded the audio instead. It's a bigger file, but
should be synched up now.
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Last Friday, on my way home from work, I happened to see this guy at the Clark and Lake Blue Line stop. I
was situated behind a pillar, and decided to sneak a picture (without explicitly asking his permission). Well,
as I was focusing, some guy ends up walking right between me and the person I wanted to photograph. I ended up
holding my camera still, waiting for him to move. By the time I snapped the shot, my train had arrived and
the guy was on the verge of standing up.
I had forgotten this was on my memory card until today. Despite its blurriness, I like how expectant he is. The
whole time I watched him, he held his flowers obsessively upright, as in the picture. As if they would somehow die
if he held them otherwise.
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Ahh, damn. I'm SO happy I picked up "The
Triggering Town" and opened it up again. I'm finding myself dog-earing every single page, it's so good. I'm realizing that, the lessons it's taken my years
to learn have been summarized by Hugo in these pages. They were there when I first picked up the book, but I simply wasn't paying enough attention.
I recall having this book recommended to me by writers who had been writing longer than me. I recall recommending this book to
my friends, to my students.
Consider this as my recommendation to you. Particularly if you're interested in writing. Richard Hugo is the fucking man.
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by Richard Hugo
The poet's relation to the triggering subject should never be as strong as (must be weaker
than) his relation to his words. The words should not serve the subject. The subject should serve the
words. This may mean violating the facts. For example, if the poem needs the word "black," at some point
and the grain elevator is yellow, the grain elevator may have to be black in the poem. You owe reality
nothing and the truth about your feelings everything. |
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