Friday, July 31, 2009

visit with dermatologist positive

My legs are improving. Dermatologist has reduced my need for four daily applications of Triamcinolone to two daily. For that I am thankful as the routine I must use is time-consuming and somewhat difficult. Will be on the antibiotic medicine for another week. Am to visit him again next Friday. rho00366

Wednesday, July 29, 2009

autobio notes

Yesterday I searched through my Seminary poems and determined every poem there was trash. Without a doubt I was grievously askew spiritually during my year-and-a-half at that Jesuit school. Conflicts in my soul I should have come to terms with while I was in high school intensified my misguided fervor and most of the poems I wrote were ruined by it, to say nothing of my technical inadequacies. - My local sister bought a pair of jeans shorts, and when I tried them on today I found I needed to roll them up some, but I also found I no longer needed to use the towel I was using over my legs so that my keyboard would be high enough for its right end to rest on the mouse pad on the stool to my right. Thus, I now have that towel on top of the towel I have been using on the table between where I sit and where my monitor is atop the desk. Surely my feet are now elevated high enough. I may not get to heaven but my feet will. rho00365

Sunday, July 26, 2009

Have been feeling oddly empty

recently. Am unable to determine why, but have some guesses; however, let's just say my psyche is in the horse latitudes and/or the horse latitudes are in it. Here is a little something I wrote two days ago: Others There are a million voices out there, and they all keep changing: clippity, clippity, chug, chug, bitter as butterflies. ---------------------------------------- Received another prize-winning book from the Academy of American Poets. Am reading it. That is, I was reading it. Perhaps I'm totally out-of-sync with the variant new ways of writing even though some of those ways I have used in my writing. In any case, next to nothing is exciting me, not even Fanny Howe or Franz Wright. There's an old song I one day tried to track down, something about "and the days go by" is in its chorus. Have it in my head it's a song by Devo; so am going to try a Devo songs search. Have grown tired of my minimal song lyrics, but an autobio project which is not yet ready to continue posting awaits/ and poems to be added to Scatterings which are in nearby folders. It's just hard these days. rho00364

Friday, July 24, 2009

Thinking Lizard revisited

As I remember it, I invented Thinking Lizard (the icon and the press) and the pen name of Alden St. Cloud in 1979. In 1980 I published in the cassette medium and registered with The Library of Congress 1976 (the 366 sonnets and 12 reflections version), Postures, and Fond du Lac; and in 1981, I believe, Rooted Sky. I no longer have saleable copies of these. In 1982 in Austin, Texas, I published as a paperback, First Pick, a selection which included some poems that were previously unpublished. I also registered it with The Library of Congress. I have a mockup of it, but I have dismantled this book. Soon thereafter I let Alden St. Cloud die. Thinking Lizard remains a viable press, but I would need to update its ISBN system. The point of this rehash is that I self-published books of my poems. Those events are precursors to what I have since done online, especially at Sprintedon Migrasaurus (thinkinglizard.b---), and to what I hope to do in the future: make all my books of poems available for free in PDF. As it is, I am not selling any of my poems. You are welcome to browse through, and if you encounter one you like, link to it or display it on your web site. Heck, you can even do that with one you think is horrid. rho00363

Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Metarealism Hyperrealism and Transcendence

On May 30, 2009, Seth Abramson, having read Mikhail Epstein on Russian Metarealism and Conceptualism, realized to his surprise and chagrin that he was an American Metarealist. On that same date J J Gallaher commented beneath Seth's post and made a post on his own blog wherein that for him Conceptualism would be more fun. He had been interested in Hyperrealism in painting. Epstein saw the two he wrote about as opposites with all others somewhere between them. In painting, metarealism involves depicting a mood while hyperrealism's goal is to equal the level of perfection reached by digital photography. If you allow a broad secular definition of transcendence, all artists ((musicians, painters, sculptors, architects, dancers, poets, and similar others) of whatever persuasion and in whatever medium)) strive for transcendence, a reaching beyond. Among the results of a Google metarealism search are: Wikipedia introduction - Tendreams introduction - a Google Books result - Abramson's post - Gallaher's post --- One result a Google hyperrealism search garners is: Wikipedia introduction rho00362

Monday, July 20, 2009

Body challenges have taken over

with some being temporary. Trying to keep my legs elevated is permanent and I have been innovating toward that end. Fortuitously, the furnishings I have for my computer equipment are nearly perfect aids: the 30-inches tall desk my monitor is now on, the 22-inches tall table partially under that desk on which are my modem and a towel folded so it is two inches high for the heels of my feet, the stool which is 23-inches tall and is being used for my mouse and the right end of my keyboard, the folding chair I am seated on with a cushion beneath my rear and a cushion behind my back, the glasses I wear which are set for viewing my monitor which I have for some years had three feet from where I type. My keyboard is on a towel I've folded which is over my upper legs. Am having to use a yard stick to turn my computer and monitor on. Will try to improve on this, but for now it will have to do. rho00361

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Why Am I Online

is a question I have asked and answered often. The Internet is my house of learning. That is my common response. And while I'll never even scratch the surface of what I would learn, no further response is needed. However, there are deeper reasons. I used to be out and about easily, but that ended in mid-January of 2003. It doesn't matter that by current standards I am still a young man. So I am a hermit, but not a true hermit. It isn't in me. Yet, even if I made no contacts with other humans, being online would suffice because I think it would be enough to alleviate my loneliness. An early post of what was my last AOL journal is a note about Frederick Seidel. Due to a recent comment by Michael Robbins beneath a Harriet post, I have been learning more about this American poet. If you do a Frederick Seidel 2009 search via Google and choose the Google books result, you can potentially read many of his poems. I read, among others, "The War of the Worlds" and found I liked it mainly because of his straight- on yet imaginative way of engaging a difficult topic. Three reviews worth reading are Sarah Crown's "Chronicle of excess", Adam Kirsch's "The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance", and this one by Wyatt Mason in which he writes ". . .the cultural definition of what a poem is: a thing that wakes us, shakes us, moves us, and pays equal attention to the details of living and the art of poetry." Therefore, God willing, I intend to be an online human in spite of the varying technical challenges. rh00360

Thursday, July 9, 2009

It is my life

and I can live it destructively and I can live it constructively and anywhere inbetween, and I have. For a long time my opinion of myself has been: I am not right. As much as I do not want to--though sometimes (as the evidence shows) it seems I must want to, I too consistently have made poor choices. Had I had the vision, I would have lived both as I chose and as I did not choose. Have been a Brian and an anti-Brian. Examples: 1. As a writer I would have been both reclusive and highly visible. 2. As a purchaser of stocks, I would have traded aggressively and invested judiciously in growth stocks. 3. As a general consumer I would have allowed myself some excesses but would have found a residence I intended to remain in. 4. As a mind/body being I would not have favored my mind over my body. There's a current body story I am tempted to share but a voice within says: Don't. Share it with your doctors. As some of you know, my life here in Missouri is one of greater isolation than it was in Florida. This is not to say I can't make it less so, but I am more limited. Other blogger's write about books and journals they are purchasing or have received and about what they're reading out of their extensive libraries. I have a library, but little in it is contemporary, and presently my days are heavy with other concerns. Actually, I maybe shouldn't have a blog. Does it seem I'm confused? I am. However, it isn't just isolation, it's my lack of pertinent knowledge. It's my inability to keep up. So much of my time is spent visiting blogs and making my often difficult-to- compose comments. Besides, that I do not have a defined agenda to push as do certain bloggers in that I do not belong to a coterie and am not bound to a specific style makes me less interesting on the face of it. --- Am at the second chapter on Imagination and Fancy in Owen Barfield's What Coleridge Thought, and at the end of the first chapter Barfield presented the passage in which Coleridge defined the Primary and Secondary Imaginations. Barfield had stated Coleridge was at odds with most thinkers--oriented as they were toward scientific rationality--of his time. Thus, as I suspected, Coleridge assigned the Primary Imagination to the ". . . infinite I Am." This puts me in line with Coleridge. --- Events of late have been signalling to me I am in my last days. Yet there's no way of knowing. I could concentrate my weakened energies. Fanny Howe and Franz Wright? St. John of the Cross? The Age of Pisces is in its last days. Even so, it may be more than 300 years before the Age of Aquarius fully takes over, which some say St. Germain will rule. Others are expecting a new reign of Jesus and 1000 years of peace. Barring more miracles, I'm expecting to be dead. The Dow had a lackluster day. Read that President Obama said the government won't get into healthcare insuring unless Congress can figure out how to pay for it. GM is getting a second chance. They ought to help revitalize the railroads. For me tomorrow means another trip to my GP's office. Just remember: a good poem is one you like, even if you don't know why. rh00359

Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Acacia

is an ingredient in the Unna's Boot product I purchased yesterday at a medical supply business within walking distance of where I live should I ever be determined enough to walk there. According to the massive entry at Wikipedia there are 1300 Acacia species. bl00358

Thursday, July 2, 2009

2000-03-17

was the date I became an AOL member. Today, after spending days clearing out and moving and/or deleting what was being held at my Thinking lizard email location at AOL, I deleted t l. Later I submitted a completed formal electronic AOL membership cancellation. bl00357