"I have always derived great comfort from William Shakespeare. After a depressing visit to the mirror or an unkind word from a girlfriend or an incredulous stare in the street, I say to myself: 'Well. Shakespeare looked like shit.' It works wonders."

That quote is from Martin Amis' book "Money." If you like dry, dark humor, that book's for you. If you do not enjoy dry, dark humor, but instead like boring things about boring people (say, professors doing research to piece together the lives of 19th century poets), then A.S. Byatt's "Possession" is right down your alley. 555 pages of dull, boring, pointless pain, that's what it is. Out of the 555 pages, there's one line (15 words) that I find worthwhile. And that line is this: "We are defined by the lines we choose to cross or to be confined by." Good stuff. Too bad the rest of the book isn't as good.

I feel like I'm doing the recommended book thing at the end of an episode of Reading Rainbow. I remember watching that show in second grade. Man, those were the days. Back when all the work I had to do was write out some definitions for vocabulary words, do a few subtraction problems, and maybe practice my cursive. In second grade I also remember laughing very hard at a kid who had to give the plural of "foot" and proudly proclaimed "foots!"

I want to write prose again. I think taking a semester of creative writing poetry makes me realize I can't really write poetry all that well. I mean, I can do it okay, but not consistently great. It's hard. So I think short stories is the route for me. Or dialogue. Dialogue is also really hard to write, but when it's done well it is one of the most impressive things I can think of... Yeah, no one cares about the varying difficulties of different forms of writing, but whatever. This is what I think about.

Speaking of poetry, I guess I'll share the best poem I've written in that class all semester. I've got a couple assignments left, but I doubt I'll be able to top this. Comments/criticism are welcome, as I'd like to make it as polished as I can before I turn it in at the end of the semester. Ok, here goes:

Disclaimer

"Poetry is oral; it is not words, but words performed the real poem is not the scratches on the paper, but the sounds those scratches stand for." - Judson Jerome

I don't do sound.
So if you think you've found
a deep-sea treasure trove of trinkets made sweeter
by lyrical yearning or genius in meter,
scratch that mindset with some matches,
trace the ink until it catches
and, burning, sinks the following pages.
Also: I don't make up words,
(no matter what you've heard)
or have the five stages of dying entwound in lines 22-24.
So hydratize that puerile idea
until it drowns. It's senile.
And you won't find me using
ostentatious or erudite language.
The bind of my thesaurus isn't losing
its trite, unbroken, and languid spine.
Not every word is planned out,
picked to fit the perfect (or imperfect) rhyme,
because I won't sacrifice message for sound.
I've never done it before, and I won't this time
(like the unyielding yells of trains in this town).
And I'd be in denial if I filed these statements under "anger."
Because I love bargaining depression for a feeling from strangers
that borderlines acceptance.
It's worth sorting through the whine and grime of
allusions to the ocean,
a simile entangled with personification,
or clumsy syntax mixed with the max of self-deprecation.
So consider this your final warning:
I'm no good at anything but free verse.
I won't sacrifice message for sound -- you'll see.
Just watch me.

Ta da. So I'm proud of that one. I also spent a lot of time on it, getting all the sounds to work, so it was nice when the whole thing finally came together like that. I'm sure there's something behind that formula (working hard on something = a good product), but I choose to not acknowledge it.

You know what I love? Listening to an old CD you haven't listened to in a long time and discovering that it's just as good as you remembered it. That's such a nice feeling. And also reminded me that I haven't done a Top 10 list of CDs in a while, so why don't I take a stab at that again. So, as of 11/20/04, here is my list of...

Top 10 Punk/Indie CDs
1. Bad Astronaut - Houston, We Have A Drinking Problem
2. The Weakerthans - Left and Leaving
3. Lagwagon - Let's Talk About Feelings
4. Rise Against - Revolutions Per Minute
5. Elliott Smith - XO
6. Osker - Idle Will Kill
7. The Lawrence Arms - Apathy and Exhaustion
8. Junction 18 - This Vicious Cycle
9. Alkaline Trio - Maybe I'll Catch Fire
10. Millencolin - Pennybridge Pioneers

The top 5 are solid, the bottom 5 you can shuffle around however you like. But the bottom line is: if you don't have those 10 records, you should.

Peanut butter crackers are my new snack of choice. Not the cheese crackers with peanut, just normal crackers with peanut butter. Yeah, it's probably got partially hydrogenated whatever in it, but, honestly, what doesn't these days? Besides, it's not like that's going to be the one thing that kills me. Sure, if I continue to eat huge doses of partially hydrogenated junk, then that's no good, but for now, I think I'll be okay. I'm much more concerned with the sexism, racism, and homophobia that seems to preoccupy the moral elite in the south and midwest. Since they're the experts on the subject, right? That reminds me: Go here and laugh.