I've been trying to find an excuse to post this Annie Lennox video, besides the fact that it's just awesome. Starring Hugh Laurie and John Malkovich in amazing period costume, the video showcases how bizarre and extravagant the early 90s were for pop culture. Or just how bizarre and extravagant Annie Lennox was.
At any rate, I've slowly been catching up on episodes of House over the past few weeks, since I enjoy finding out what the crotchety medical miracle-worker will say next. In "Known Unknown," House tags along to a medical conference just for the chance of finally making it with Cuddy. What do you know, but there's an 80s party at the conference? House shows up, dressed almost exactly like his fop character from "Walking on Broken Glass." And I would show you a picture, except NBC has their fists wrapped tightly around copyright.
The only thing is, everyone on the internets seems to have missed this tongue-in-cheek throwback! Including the L.A. Times and the House wiki.
So, I implore you, watch this Annie Lennox video. The next time Hugh Laurie doffs a powdered wig, you'll be able to giggle a little harder.
24 February 2010
13 February 2010
Accidental Poems, Grumpy Librarians, and Other Observations
1. Familiar story: writerly intention--whatever that means--thwarted by some secret brain initiative. That first novel, your collection of poems, is really about your mother. Or your divorce. Or whatever.
Surprise! So's the second one.
But I love that, too. I love that we're thinking about other things than we claim to be, even when thinking to ourselves. What a marvelous and human capacity.
I spent yesterday revising some recent poems and, lo! Welcome, Accidental Hamlet Poem, welcome Accidental Daughter Poem. I didn't expect you to show up.
In other news, hearing the cashier ring up the total of my remaining course books--$58--was not a happy accident. This morning, the receipt clearly says $85.
2.
Dear Librarians Who Work In A Particular Public Library In A Particular Place Where I May Or May Not Actually Live At This Moment In Time,
I love you. And I love libraries indiscriminately. Anytime I move to a new place, the first thing I do after unpacking my boxes and buying coffee is start memorizing the library floor plan.
Do you not sense my fierce love and admiration each time I hand you my library card? Even if you are having a bad library day, are you so immune to my charm, to my cheerful demeanor?
I don't understand you, Librarians. I don't ask for much. A smile. A friendly overture. Anything but coldness. Anything but that.
Yours, in agony,
KE
(The RadCam in Oxford. Not The Library In Question. But A Favorite.)
05 February 2010
The Specimen Box Project
I accidentally drank too much beer, and instead of acting like any other normal person--soporific, sprawled in bed--I'm most seriously awake. And I have this idea.
For the last few months, I've been trying to write a series of "Specimen Box" poems, mostly in an effort to move beyond the interior spaces of the poems I'd been writing--my speakers were always naming things, were existing in these conditional spaces or relationships to other subjects, and these elements defined the parameters of the poem. My aim with the "Specimen Box" series was to force myself to make my speakers look out at the world, even a very tiny portion of it, and to report back.
At the same time I began this project, Vintage issued new covers for Nabokov's work, all featuring--yes, you know it--a specimen box on the cover. (This isn't, to be honest, prescience on my part. I probably stole the idea from them in the first place. In fact, I'm sure now that's what happened.) They're beautifully designed and because I am a sucker for a cleverly designed book, I want them. All 21 of them. (Funny how a spin-off of Nabokov's naturalist habit inspires the collector in me, too. Too bad books cost money and dead butterflies don't.)
Because I'm woefully under-read in terms of Nabokov and because I'm told it's good to set realistic goals, I am challenging myself to read one Nabokov novel every month until I've collected all of the nifty new issues. I'm not reading them in any chronological order or order of importance to the literary community or whathaveyou. I'm just picking whichever book strikes my fancy when I go to the book store.
I suppose if I were any kind of respectable writer, I'd challenge myself to write a "Specimen Box" poem after I read each novel, but I think my responses will come out in their own time. And will, in all likelihood, have very little to do with Nabokov at all. Or, everything to do with him. Poems are capricious creatures.
First up:
For the last few months, I've been trying to write a series of "Specimen Box" poems, mostly in an effort to move beyond the interior spaces of the poems I'd been writing--my speakers were always naming things, were existing in these conditional spaces or relationships to other subjects, and these elements defined the parameters of the poem. My aim with the "Specimen Box" series was to force myself to make my speakers look out at the world, even a very tiny portion of it, and to report back.
At the same time I began this project, Vintage issued new covers for Nabokov's work, all featuring--yes, you know it--a specimen box on the cover. (This isn't, to be honest, prescience on my part. I probably stole the idea from them in the first place. In fact, I'm sure now that's what happened.) They're beautifully designed and because I am a sucker for a cleverly designed book, I want them. All 21 of them. (Funny how a spin-off of Nabokov's naturalist habit inspires the collector in me, too. Too bad books cost money and dead butterflies don't.)
Because I'm woefully under-read in terms of Nabokov and because I'm told it's good to set realistic goals, I am challenging myself to read one Nabokov novel every month until I've collected all of the nifty new issues. I'm not reading them in any chronological order or order of importance to the literary community or whathaveyou. I'm just picking whichever book strikes my fancy when I go to the book store.
I suppose if I were any kind of respectable writer, I'd challenge myself to write a "Specimen Box" poem after I read each novel, but I think my responses will come out in their own time. And will, in all likelihood, have very little to do with Nabokov at all. Or, everything to do with him. Poems are capricious creatures.
First up:
Detectives. Death. Yes.
More to come on this (two-year, holy cow) adventure...
[For more on specimen boxes, or a version of them, see also this guy. Every so often I'm reminded of him, and it's exciting all over again. This time, someone threw out a reference in class, and I wrote down his name as one of three notes to myself. Surprise! You knew about him already! (So, I'm never getting hired by an English Department. Ha.) Probably as close to a poem as you're going to get in a physical form, these things.]
01 February 2010
Dispatches From The Black Sheep
1. On break, a barista regales his friend with theories about philosophy in Ender's Game. Passages are read aloud.
2. Outside the large picture window, a man walks by. He has the best mustache EVER.
3. There is a delicious confection called a Budie Bar with perhaps five different kinds of sweetness, from coconut to M&Ms. It's gone now.
4. A German and an American argue politics. The German is right about everything.
5. In the small park across the street, a toddler makes a snow angel. Her mother (?) leans down to show her the outline in the snow, how it makes wings, a skirt. The little girl runs through the snow, trampling the image, laughing.
2. Outside the large picture window, a man walks by. He has the best mustache EVER.
3. There is a delicious confection called a Budie Bar with perhaps five different kinds of sweetness, from coconut to M&Ms. It's gone now.
4. A German and an American argue politics. The German is right about everything.
5. In the small park across the street, a toddler makes a snow angel. Her mother (?) leans down to show her the outline in the snow, how it makes wings, a skirt. The little girl runs through the snow, trampling the image, laughing.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)