Cat's Cradle: The narrator is Jonah. Jonah plans to write a book about what all the important people in the world were doing when the bomb was dropping after Hiroshima. He starts to do research and gets in contact with the youngest child of Felix, the man that helped to create the weapon. Newt, this young son, was little when the bomb was dropped but can recall looking up to his father and idealizing him. Newt says his brother has been missing for many years and that his sister has information for Jonah as well. The information gets him no where and he cannot come into contact with the sister, Angela. JOnah ends up getting a freelance writting job in the same company Felix worked in and begins questioning locals in the area about the family. Most people said they were an odd bunch and didn't socialize much with others. Many said it was sad and almost 'inhuman' the way that Felix was obsessed with science. It got in the way of his life because it WAS his life. Science was the main pillar in his path and because of this he lacked basic human emotion.
Not long after being in Ilium, this writting company, Jonah gets an assignment to go to one of the poorest countries and write about his experience. While Jonah is here he finds out frank, another member of this family, is working to become a member of their government. The ruler of the island, "Papa" Monzano, has a beatiful daughter that Jonah falls for but soon after finds out that she is engaged to be married soon and his heart is crushed. Jonah starts to learn of the island's religion, Bokonoism, that was created by people to give the island hope. Jonah gets to his hotel and finds he is the only guest. Which surprises his because despite the island is beautiful in its own way. While there, the hotel owner explains bits and pieces of Bokonoism to Jonah so that he can grasp it better. I haven't finished it, but it's pretty good so far. one of those books where there doesn't seem to really be a climax, but well written.
Friday, May 18, 2012
Silence is so freaking loud
Halley is the main character and the Someone Like You starts out with her coming home from summer camp and finding out that her best friend lost her boyfriend in a motorcycle accident right before school starts. Once going back to school Halley find out that Scarlett, her best friend, is carrying her dead boyfriends child. On top of this news, Halley is involved with the school bad boy, Scarlett's dead boyfriend's best friend. Scarlett right away wants to get an abortion because she's so young but Halley and her bad boy man, Macon, talk her out of it saying it's what she has left of her boyfriend. Halley is almost killed in an accident because Macon is driving so fast and because of this she stops talking to him. Scarlett starts getting close to this nerdy boy with a good heart and they go to prom together. While at prom Scarlett goes into labor and a lot of the student population follows her to the hospital.
This book is such a sappy love story it's almost sickening. I am not into these chick-lit, pop-lit novels but I have to admit, this was a really good story. If you're into these types of books then I highly recommend it!
This book is such a sappy love story it's almost sickening. I am not into these chick-lit, pop-lit novels but I have to admit, this was a really good story. If you're into these types of books then I highly recommend it!
Thursday, May 17, 2012
The Wild Things
I bought this book in Chicago a year ago but never read it. I bought it because it was on sale and I thought it would be interesting. It's crazy how the author, Dave Eggers transforms a nine sentence, childrens' story by Maurice Sendak, into a 300 or so page book.
Max is a dangerous, rebellious boy and constantly finds himself in trouble. he doesn't like to be bossed around and he established that resentment for authority at a young age. His sister frustrates him and one day he snapped because she "left him to die" so he covered her whole room in water. Everything drenched in water, soaking wet. Max feels as though he doesn't belong in this place he calls home and doesn't feel as though anyone loves him anymore. He runs away, through the woods, over a creek, and finds a land where he can live among monsters. He fits in with them because he is a monster himself. He is crowned king and they look up to him. He does his best to make them happy but feels as though they will never be satisfied and he fears his fate.
Max is a dangerous, rebellious boy and constantly finds himself in trouble. he doesn't like to be bossed around and he established that resentment for authority at a young age. His sister frustrates him and one day he snapped because she "left him to die" so he covered her whole room in water. Everything drenched in water, soaking wet. Max feels as though he doesn't belong in this place he calls home and doesn't feel as though anyone loves him anymore. He runs away, through the woods, over a creek, and finds a land where he can live among monsters. He fits in with them because he is a monster himself. He is crowned king and they look up to him. He does his best to make them happy but feels as though they will never be satisfied and he fears his fate.
Song of the Sparrow
This book is generally a book of medieval love and war. The main character, Elaine, also known as the Lady of Shalott, is the only woman in a camp full of male warriors. Though she is female, she plays a very important role in the battles. She has learned the art of healing and is very useful in healing the warriors with herbal remedies. As the only girl in camp, she also plays a role in fixing the clothing if damaged. She has the knowledge to sow the cloths back together. She yearns for a female companion to connect to but she is content being with the men. Especially Lancelot whom she considers to be her hero.
Finally another female appears on camp named Guinevere. Elaine is ecstatic to have a female companion but Immediately find out she is rude and snobbish. Brought there to marry Arthur, Guinevere feels no need to help around the camp and this causes Elaine to resent this beautiful young girl.
The men go into battle and Elaine tags along as always but is captured. Guinevere tries to save her and the females must put their differences aside and fend for themselves and fight for their lives while helping each other.
This book was well written but isn't my type at all. I let a younger girl recommend it to me because that was one of my summer reading goals. The part I did like was the style of writing and the way the author made it seem as though it was a continuous poem. If you're into King Arthur-esque, poetic books, this is for you.
Finally another female appears on camp named Guinevere. Elaine is ecstatic to have a female companion but Immediately find out she is rude and snobbish. Brought there to marry Arthur, Guinevere feels no need to help around the camp and this causes Elaine to resent this beautiful young girl.
The men go into battle and Elaine tags along as always but is captured. Guinevere tries to save her and the females must put their differences aside and fend for themselves and fight for their lives while helping each other.
This book was well written but isn't my type at all. I let a younger girl recommend it to me because that was one of my summer reading goals. The part I did like was the style of writing and the way the author made it seem as though it was a continuous poem. If you're into King Arthur-esque, poetic books, this is for you.
Tuesday, April 24, 2012
Prose
“I felt like lying down by the side of the trail and remembering it all. The woods do that to you, they always look familiar, long lost, like the face of a long-dead relative, like an old dream, like a piece of forgotten song drifting across the water, most of all like golden eternities of past childhood or past manhood and all the living and the dying and the heartbreak that went on a million years ago and the clouds as they pass overhead seem to testify (by their own lonesome familiarity) to this feeling.”
― Jack Kerouac, Dharma Bums
― Jack Kerouac, Dharma Bums
Wednesday, April 18, 2012
The Virgin Suicides
I finished this book over spring break but I just keep forgetting to make a post about it.
The virgin suicides almost has a greek tragedy type feel. From everything you know about greek tragedies and just from the title alone, it'd be assumed that this book is depressing, but it's actually a bit enlightening. It's the 70's and an eclectic group of boys are highly affected by the are five Lisbon sisters. The girls live in a very strict household and no one understands how the highschool math teacher, and Mrs.Lisbon could've possibly made such beautiful girls. They have such grace and poise about them as they float down the school they've attended their whole short lives. The youngest one at age thirteen, first tries to kill herself by slitting her wrists in the bath but lives. She finally commits suicide by throwing herself out of the second story window onto their iron fence which pierces through her heart. Because of this the boys try to actually communicate with the girls whom they had always been intimidated by. The girls are up for no conversations and respecfully tell them "you don't have to talk to us." The highschool brings awareness of teen suicides and passes out green pamplets to the whole school and offers up an option to talk with a concilor, which the girls do. The school finds out the councilor actually has no schooling so she flees, being the only one that knows about the Lisbon girl's mysterious lives. Lux, the youngest child now, is chrismatic and is kind of the bad ass in the group. The msot popular guy in school, who is usually always chased by girls, tries to pursue Lux and after much convencing, the Lisbon parents allow the girls to go to the homecoming dance. After the dance the girls get home safely but Lux is no where so be found. She shows up in the wee hours of the morning, still a little tipsy from sharing drinks with her date. The house goes on crack down. The girls are taken out of school and Mr.Lisbon, going crazy from his youngest daughters death, is fired from his job since he is unable to teach well. The boys communicate to the Lisbon sisters with lights through their windows and little cards being passed back and forth. The girls call the boys on the phone and play music from their record player and the boys play rock and roll back to them (since rock and roll had been abolished in their establishment). The boys want to take the girls for a drive with their parents car and the girls agree. Lux invites them into the house telling them to be quiet since her parents are sleeping. She says they should take her parents car and that she'll be waiting for them in the garage. The boys go down into the basement and see a sister hanging by a rope around her neck from the cieling, they run up the stairs, scared to death, and trip over another sister dead from pills. The run out of the house and later find out the other sister stuck her head in the oven and Lux, waiting in the garage, killed herself with the carbon monoxide of the runing car. The boys, even 20 years later can't figure out the mystery of the girls saying they had all the pieces of the puzzle, but no way of going about putting it together. They take the photo albums out of the trash that the parents through out along with the rest od the house, leaving everything to be sold ina garage sale. Though the boys can never tell them, they love the girls. and miss them dearly.
The virgin suicides almost has a greek tragedy type feel. From everything you know about greek tragedies and just from the title alone, it'd be assumed that this book is depressing, but it's actually a bit enlightening. It's the 70's and an eclectic group of boys are highly affected by the are five Lisbon sisters. The girls live in a very strict household and no one understands how the highschool math teacher, and Mrs.Lisbon could've possibly made such beautiful girls. They have such grace and poise about them as they float down the school they've attended their whole short lives. The youngest one at age thirteen, first tries to kill herself by slitting her wrists in the bath but lives. She finally commits suicide by throwing herself out of the second story window onto their iron fence which pierces through her heart. Because of this the boys try to actually communicate with the girls whom they had always been intimidated by. The girls are up for no conversations and respecfully tell them "you don't have to talk to us." The highschool brings awareness of teen suicides and passes out green pamplets to the whole school and offers up an option to talk with a concilor, which the girls do. The school finds out the councilor actually has no schooling so she flees, being the only one that knows about the Lisbon girl's mysterious lives. Lux, the youngest child now, is chrismatic and is kind of the bad ass in the group. The msot popular guy in school, who is usually always chased by girls, tries to pursue Lux and after much convencing, the Lisbon parents allow the girls to go to the homecoming dance. After the dance the girls get home safely but Lux is no where so be found. She shows up in the wee hours of the morning, still a little tipsy from sharing drinks with her date. The house goes on crack down. The girls are taken out of school and Mr.Lisbon, going crazy from his youngest daughters death, is fired from his job since he is unable to teach well. The boys communicate to the Lisbon sisters with lights through their windows and little cards being passed back and forth. The girls call the boys on the phone and play music from their record player and the boys play rock and roll back to them (since rock and roll had been abolished in their establishment). The boys want to take the girls for a drive with their parents car and the girls agree. Lux invites them into the house telling them to be quiet since her parents are sleeping. She says they should take her parents car and that she'll be waiting for them in the garage. The boys go down into the basement and see a sister hanging by a rope around her neck from the cieling, they run up the stairs, scared to death, and trip over another sister dead from pills. The run out of the house and later find out the other sister stuck her head in the oven and Lux, waiting in the garage, killed herself with the carbon monoxide of the runing car. The boys, even 20 years later can't figure out the mystery of the girls saying they had all the pieces of the puzzle, but no way of going about putting it together. They take the photo albums out of the trash that the parents through out along with the rest od the house, leaving everything to be sold ina garage sale. Though the boys can never tell them, they love the girls. and miss them dearly.
After Work
The shack and a few trees
float in the blowing fog
I pull out your blouse,
warm my cold hands
on your breasts.
you laugh and shudder
peeling garlic by the
hot iron stove.
bring in the axe, the rake,
the wood
we'll lean on the wall
against each other
stew simmering on the fire
as it grows dark
drinking wine.
-Gary Snyder
Gary Snyder longs to get home to his wife. He needs to feel her skin on his and taste the sweet tang of the wine they share, along with their unrequitted love. He's working, working but not having his whole mind in it. Gary is day dreaming and is in nostalgia, hoping that when he gets home, all will be well. He is invisioning his happy wife 'laugh and shudder, peeling garlic by the hot iron stove" and this makes him hungry. His wife's cooking is such a good ending to the day. Even being with her is better than the work he has to get through to be home.
The shack and a few trees
float in the blowing fog
I pull out your blouse,
warm my cold hands
on your breasts.
you laugh and shudder
peeling garlic by the
hot iron stove.
bring in the axe, the rake,
the wood
we'll lean on the wall
against each other
stew simmering on the fire
as it grows dark
drinking wine.
-Gary Snyder
Gary Snyder longs to get home to his wife. He needs to feel her skin on his and taste the sweet tang of the wine they share, along with their unrequitted love. He's working, working but not having his whole mind in it. Gary is day dreaming and is in nostalgia, hoping that when he gets home, all will be well. He is invisioning his happy wife 'laugh and shudder, peeling garlic by the hot iron stove" and this makes him hungry. His wife's cooking is such a good ending to the day. Even being with her is better than the work he has to get through to be home.
Monday, April 16, 2012
Thursday, April 12, 2012
Notes 2 & 3.
I've decided nostalgia is my topic. Simply because 'remembrance' was too hard to fulfill. A YouTube video that matches my topic is The Tree of Life-You Spoke To Me. click on the link to watch.The second artifact I decided to use was a song by Iron & wine:
"Give this stone to my brother
Cuz we found it playing in the barnyard
Many years agoHe'll remember hunting in the hills
When I was 10 years old
I lost it in myself and buried it too long
Now that I come to fall
Please say it's not too late
Now that I'm dead and gone
It pulled the baby teeth she keeps inside the drawer
Give this ring to my lover
I was scared and stupid not to ask
For her hand long before
I lost it in myself and buried it too long
Now that I come to fall
Please say it's not too late
Now that I'm dead and gone"
Each different verse makes separate people look back on their lives. This dying man makes sure that these people will remember old memories and he dies. Though death is near "please don't say it's too late now that I'm dead and gone." It gives a peaceful feeling to death saying that you don't have to say goodbye, you can live again in someones thoughts.
Friday, March 23, 2012
The Electric Kool-Aid Acid test and graduation.
Mountain Girl returns home because she's pregnant, probably with Kesey's child, and another member has neautological problems from his intense drug use. Kesey spends the night in a graveyard and comes up with the idea for the acid test. The test will be about energy and even though it doesn't reach out to the whole world, it has a good start. The begin advertising their acid test at a rolling stones concert. Kesey talks to the man from before who is in the Grateful Dead and the band agrees to play at this acid test party the pranksters are throwing. They throw it on a beach, after changing locations once, and reveal their new toy, STROBE LIGHTS. Everyone has taken LSD including Owlsey, the man in the band, whom no body has every seen trip. Owlsey has one of the most remembered, bad trips nad will be talked about for years to come. Kesey puts on the biggest acid test ever at a stadium but of course, the cops shut it down. The police try to arrest all of the pranksters but their attorneys bail them out. Kesey gets three years porbation and a little service work but he is off the radar. When someone calls the cops on the group for being rowdy they come into Kesey's home and find that he had merijuana in his possesion and this begins most of Kesy's legal troubles all over again. He is not supposed to go to the Trips Festival they've been planning and he is not supposed to hang out with the Merry Pranksters anymore but of course, he can't bail on this. The Festival lasts three days and begins to be a weekly thing. Wolfe says 'the Haight-Ashbury era began that weekend'.
Kesey is forced to move and has a warrant out for his arrest so he moves in with Babb's to his home. The Pranksters help fake his suicide while they smuggle him into mexico where he'll become an outlaw.
I'm not going to spoil the ending of the book, and a lot of things happen, but if this interests you at all, I highly reccommend reading it! Just be sure you have no distractions because it's a bit hard to follow.
Kesey is forced to move and has a warrant out for his arrest so he moves in with Babb's to his home. The Pranksters help fake his suicide while they smuggle him into mexico where he'll become an outlaw.
Hell's Angels and the frozen jug band
The group decided to invite the Hell's angels, A well known gang, to party with them in La Honda. They plan a big party at Kesey's place and all the 'Angels' show up on their defening, loud harleys. The pranksters has the trees all ready and painted with day glo with speakers booming from the trees. Hell's Angels didn't know what to expect or how to react but once the Pranksters gave them LSD everyone had a good time. The cops are watching but as of now, they aren't breaking any rules besides for public nudity so the cops stay at a distance. The cops still don't break up the party even after two days, and a gang rape. Members of a church had become curious with what the Pranksters were up to so they invited the group to join them during a serman. Kesey is getting caught up in the fact that he can easily manipulate people and the power is all going to his head. He starts to turn the young people of the church againt the older priests and such and with this Kesey realizes he can control more people than who's just in the Merry Pranksters. Kesey is overwhelmed with this new found power and while having a bad trip, believes he can control anything, including cars rushing past him.
The Pranksters hear word that the Beatles are coming to play in San Francisco. Kesey gets 30 tickets to the sold out show from his acid dealer so they are set and ready to go. They all trip acid and play popular Beatles songs as they're on their way to the concerts in costumes and everything.On the way while tripping on acid, they all begin to experience a 'transcendental experience'. Wolfe describes it as: "no one even has to look at another because they not only know that everyone else is seeing it at once, they feel, they feel it flowing through one brain, Atman and Brahman, all one on the bus and all one with the writhing mass sun reflector ripple sun bomb prisms." Wolfe describes this feeling of complete intersubjectivity and transcendence as "CLOUD," when they could "draw the whole universe into...the movie." The venue is an old cattle herding/ slaughter house converted into a place for a concert and their trip starts going terribly bad. Mountain Girl says it looks like a concentration camp and they all soon feel lost in the crowd of people. When the show is over they all feel as though they're getting trampled and someone spred false word about the Beatles coming to La honda. On the way home they try and find their 'Cloud' of a trip but everyone is still too down and all they care about is getting home. Once the get there they are welcomed by a crowd of hundreds of people and Kesey storms into the house. One of the guys in the crowd, however, catches Kesey's eye and Wolfe starts to give background information. This man was the biggest acid dealer in the states and was well known for his quality of drugs. He and his friend had started the band Grateful Dead and began the wave of acid rock. The Beatles 'come up with' the idea for the Magical Mystery Tour where they all dress up and take acid on a bus but of course, thie was the Merry Pranksters idea first.
Kesey gets asked to be a keyspeaker for a rally against the war but instead of speaking, they decide to do a prank. Instead of protesting they decide to play music which confuses the crowd but they eventually die down. Someone throws teargas into the group of people and everyone dispurses.
The Pranksters hear word that the Beatles are coming to play in San Francisco. Kesey gets 30 tickets to the sold out show from his acid dealer so they are set and ready to go. They all trip acid and play popular Beatles songs as they're on their way to the concerts in costumes and everything.On the way while tripping on acid, they all begin to experience a 'transcendental experience'. Wolfe describes it as: "no one even has to look at another because they not only know that everyone else is seeing it at once, they feel, they feel it flowing through one brain, Atman and Brahman, all one on the bus and all one with the writhing mass sun reflector ripple sun bomb prisms." Wolfe describes this feeling of complete intersubjectivity and transcendence as "CLOUD," when they could "draw the whole universe into...the movie." The venue is an old cattle herding/ slaughter house converted into a place for a concert and their trip starts going terribly bad. Mountain Girl says it looks like a concentration camp and they all soon feel lost in the crowd of people. When the show is over they all feel as though they're getting trampled and someone spred false word about the Beatles coming to La honda. On the way home they try and find their 'Cloud' of a trip but everyone is still too down and all they care about is getting home. Once the get there they are welcomed by a crowd of hundreds of people and Kesey storms into the house. One of the guys in the crowd, however, catches Kesey's eye and Wolfe starts to give background information. This man was the biggest acid dealer in the states and was well known for his quality of drugs. He and his friend had started the band Grateful Dead and began the wave of acid rock. The Beatles 'come up with' the idea for the Magical Mystery Tour where they all dress up and take acid on a bus but of course, thie was the Merry Pranksters idea first.
Kesey gets asked to be a keyspeaker for a rally against the war but instead of speaking, they decide to do a prank. Instead of protesting they decide to play music which confuses the crowd but they eventually die down. Someone throws teargas into the group of people and everyone dispurses.
We Are Hunted.
(I found this in my drafts section and realized I never published it. I'll keep it short)
We are hunted is a music site that has a sense of an underground, hole-in-the-wall kind of feel which everyone thrives on. Using the word 'underground' very loosely meaning they have artists whom are not huge, lady gaga or chris brown kind of famous. More like just below the surface. A few of the people on the site are famous, but still fit in with underground crowd. If you're looking for new music, I reccomend it.
We are hunted is a music site that has a sense of an underground, hole-in-the-wall kind of feel which everyone thrives on. Using the word 'underground' very loosely meaning they have artists whom are not huge, lady gaga or chris brown kind of famous. More like just below the surface. A few of the people on the site are famous, but still fit in with underground crowd. If you're looking for new music, I reccomend it.
Note 1
'I sit down and say, and I run all my friends and relatives and enemies one by one in this, without entertaining any angers or gratitudes or anything, and I say, like 'Japhy Ryder, equally empty, equally to be loved, equally a coming Buddha,' then I run on, say to 'David O. Selznick, equally empty, equally to be loved, equally a coming Buddha' though I don't use names like David O. Selznick, just people I know because when I say the words 'equally a coming Buddha' I want to be thinking of their eyes, like you take Morley, his blue eyes behind those glasses, when you think 'equally a coming Buddha' you think of those eyes and you really do suddenly see the true secret serenity and the truth of his coming Buddhahood. Then you think of your enemy's eyes.'
In this excerpt From The Dharma Bums, Jack is remembering the things Japhy said and he's realizing he wants to be like him. Jack says everyone is 'equally a becoming Buddha' but you have to really see the 'true secret serenity and the truth' of Buddhahood. This recollects remembrence because he's reflecting on things and living by them. He can't and won't forget those things that were said because he's based his life around it.
In this excerpt From The Dharma Bums, Jack is remembering the things Japhy said and he's realizing he wants to be like him. Jack says everyone is 'equally a becoming Buddha' but you have to really see the 'true secret serenity and the truth' of Buddhahood. This recollects remembrence because he's reflecting on things and living by them. He can't and won't forget those things that were said because he's based his life around it.
Thursday, March 22, 2012
The crypt trip, dream wars, the unspoken thing and the bust.
The merry pranksters head to upstate new york on a journey of discovery. They expect to meet up with a group of friends, Leary's posse, but it's the opposite and they are greeted very cold. Babb's, frustrasted by the fact that the group didn't greet them as well as he felt they should, began to make fun of the way the group trips. Leary's group merged acid trips and buddhism together which wasn't anything the Merry Pranksters did. Leary's group attempted to meditate while tripping and had specific rooms for it which Babb's called Crypt Trips.
The group ends up heading back home because Leary and his friends refuse to have fun with them. Timothy Leary himself won't even meet with the group becuase he's on a very serious three day trip. The group finds themselves in Canada where one of the members comes back with a young girl who is a run-away.
Wolfe explains why the pranksters are so interesting to him. He explains it's all in the experience he has with them, the feelings he has while being in their presence.Wolfe says it's the fact that they can make up their own words and meanings and symbols for things, which all seems weird to other but is extraordinary for the group.
Wolfe gets back to the story and begins talking about how this run away, now known as mountain girl, is an official part of their group. Originally very educated and upper-middle class, she begins talking about her views on things and fits right in. Along with another boy whom had ran away from school, because of being an outcast, and began to live in the woods where he stumble upon the pranksters. He's known as the hermit.
The pranksters spent most of their year editing their film. Going through countless hours of footage of their trip and trying to determine what will fit into the final clips. They hope to release it world wide and gain lots of money just as Kesey had on his One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest broadway act.
The group starts trying even new things with their LSD. They have an idea to paint all of the trees with Day-Glo colours and listening to 'space noises' through their televisions. The towns people of La Honda are getting fed up with the group and the fact that they think they're exempt from all restrictions in the world. The pranksters think they're immune to the police but when someone tips a cop, they realize their no different than anyone else. The group's home gets raided and Kesey gets arrested after hitting a cop.
The group ends up heading back home because Leary and his friends refuse to have fun with them. Timothy Leary himself won't even meet with the group becuase he's on a very serious three day trip. The group finds themselves in Canada where one of the members comes back with a young girl who is a run-away.
Wolfe explains why the pranksters are so interesting to him. He explains it's all in the experience he has with them, the feelings he has while being in their presence.Wolfe says it's the fact that they can make up their own words and meanings and symbols for things, which all seems weird to other but is extraordinary for the group.
Wolfe gets back to the story and begins talking about how this run away, now known as mountain girl, is an official part of their group. Originally very educated and upper-middle class, she begins talking about her views on things and fits right in. Along with another boy whom had ran away from school, because of being an outcast, and began to live in the woods where he stumble upon the pranksters. He's known as the hermit.
The pranksters spent most of their year editing their film. Going through countless hours of footage of their trip and trying to determine what will fit into the final clips. They hope to release it world wide and gain lots of money just as Kesey had on his One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest broadway act.
The group starts trying even new things with their LSD. They have an idea to paint all of the trees with Day-Glo colours and listening to 'space noises' through their televisions. The towns people of La Honda are getting fed up with the group and the fact that they think they're exempt from all restrictions in the world. The pranksters think they're immune to the police but when someone tips a cop, they realize their no different than anyone else. The group's home gets raided and Kesey gets arrested after hitting a cop.
No White Stone: "Hello," Benjamin Peret
No White Stone: "Hello," Benjamin Peret: "Hello" My airplane in flames my castle flooded with Rhenish wine my black iris ghetto my crystal ear my rock hurtling down the cliff ...
Wednesday, March 21, 2012
Having a Coke With You -Frank O'Hara
Having a Coke with You
is even more fun than going to San Sebastian, Irún, Hendaye, Biarritz, Bayonne
or being sick to my stomach on the Travesera de Gracia in Barcelona
partly because in your orange shirt you look like a better happier St. Sebastian
partly because of my love for you, partly because of your love for yoghurt
partly because of the fluorescent orange tulips around the birches
partly because of the secrecy our smiles take on before people and statuary
it is hard to believe when I’m with you that there can be anything as still
as solemn as unpleasantly definitive as statuary when right in front of it
in the warm New York 4 o’clock light we are drifting back and forth
between each other like a tree breathing through its spectacles
you suddenly wonder why in the world anyone ever did them
at you and I would rather look at you than all the portraits in the world
except possibly for the Polish Rider occasionally and anyway it’s in the Frick
which thank heavens you haven’t gone to yet so we can go together the first time
and the fact that you move so beautifully more or less takes care of Futurism
just as at home I never think of the Nude Descending a Staircase or
at a rehearsal a single drawing of Leonardo or Michelangelo that used to wow me
and what good does all the research of the Impressionists do them
when they never got the right person to stand near the tree when the sun sank
or for that matter Marino Marini when he didn’t pick the rider as carefully
as the horse
which is not going to go wasted on me which is why I am telling you about it
and the portrait show seems to have no faces in it at all, just paint
I look
it seems they were all cheated of some marvelous experience
Monday, March 19, 2012
ANIMALS
Have you forgotten what we were like then
when we were still first rate
and the day came fat with an apple in its mouth
It's no use worrying about Time
but we did have a few tricks up out sleeves
and turned some sharp corners
the whole pasture looked like our meal
we didn't need speedometers
we could manage cocktails out of ice and water
I wouldn't want to be faster
or greener than now if you were with me O you
were the best of all my days
-Frank O'Hara [1950]
Thursday, March 15, 2012
Personal Reading Goals
-read a book with a title of each letter of my name.
-get through a chapter on every surface in my house.
-have one reading afternoon every week with a friend.
-read to my friend's soon to be born baby.
-read a book I would never want to read.
-let a girl recommend a book to me.
-read a book from a movie I've seen
-read a book from a movie I've seen
(I'll add more on as I think of them)
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