22+ years with Microsoft
3+ years with Linux
0 years with Apple
…yet this fills me with boundless desire.
Archive for April, 2005
Introduction to Poetry
Billy CollinsI ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light
like a color slideor press an ear against its hive.
I say drop a mouse into a poem
and watch him probe his way out,or walk inside the poem’s room
and feel the walls for a light switch.I want them to waterski
across the surface of a poem
waving at the author’s name on the shore.But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with rope
and torture a confession out of it.They begin beating it with a hose
to find out what it really means.
There is something to be said for letting words be words, the same holds true for music and it seems that it is easier to let music just flow, to cascade across our senses. Poetry, however, is often taught as a hostile exercise. As students, we are trained to be critical; to demand answers to our questions and to have the work submit to our collective wills. Simply put, sometimes a poem is just that, nothing more than a musical string of words to enjoy.
Great piece about Bukowski’s poetry. While not for everyone, his work is visceral and easily speaks to the everyman, the one who struggles each and every day. Reminds me I really ought to unpack my books and re-read some Bukowski for personal clarity.
Style is a difference, a way of doing, a way of being done.
Six herons standing quietly in a pool of water, or you, walking naked
out of the bathroom without seeing me.
–Charles Bukowski
Let’s face the facts, most if not all the news you will consume in a given year will be generated by PR groups either private or government operated. News is not empirical facts, news is made. This article closes by pointing to the increased efforts by PR agencies to feed info to bloggers (not that I would consider the blogoshpere to be an unbiased place known for stringent ethical standards in reporting). My thought is that it is less likely that PR agencies will rely on existing bloggers to disseminate pieces rather they will find viral methods better suited to getting the message heard over the noise. If you have any doubt look to the success of Bungie’s ilovebees campaign and the less thinly veiled Our Colony effort by Microsoft.
This is the object of my desire. When my eyes are closed I see its sleek black outline rotating sensually. If my hands are clasped tightly together I can feel its heft and when my ears are covered I can hear the faint click of a shutter closing and opening.
Realistically, what are the odds of me obtaining this? Well, if we are talking the current year my odds are looking like 1:20 but moving out into the next it becomes quite a bit more reasonable coming in at around 1:6.
- Why the lust?
- Good question. At the moment, I’m telling my wife that I want it so that I can take nice pictures of the family we are planning. Now, before I’m condemned let me say there is an element of truth in that statement but probably the real impetus for the lust is an overall desire to do something creative.
- Why not go draw or paint?
- Another good question and one that is easily answered. First, I don’t have the luxury of hanging out in the park all weekend long working on my pointillist technique; as much as I wish I lived off a trust fund I am still a wage slave. Second, I have more hard drive space than square footage. At the end of the day it is easier to store and manipulate digital images than it is to fiddle with analog media.
- So your basically just lazy.
- Yes, but I’ll be a lazy person with a really cool camera.
