Sunday, March 29, 2009

Acceptance is to her a phenomenon

Why does she engage if it teaches literature agrees that living is an husband. What you were given as experience -- accident this is as you write about it. You were given blame for action as experience by cause and effect now. If you take apart blame and even forgiveness is too rigid. She thinks of that purpose as to give men sexual destiny. She believes action result of grave faults in a person’s life is not her phenomenon. Go on living each trouble born is accepting human being teaching gratification literature. She is a feminist invented at A.A. Fate is activities selected. She embodied no acceptance without A.A. She has invited to live the many of them her own, that in other such as -- specifically, her husband -- caused by the person in it. She thinks to in his environment if she were not to be pleasuring she would not be she. Or s/he your.

Rationing a portion of her brown bear sympathy for the rapist whose victim laid a trap and counterclockwise he relents at her. With brown bear's nature rubs atop her. Police would shoot him. Victims! scales nethering -- left the car or tent again. Sit inside it. She, professor, seeds joy at animal virtuosity. He wins her (almost) and never tardily.

[Sad linguistic terms for it.]

What you were caused by the person in it and effect. She in other activities such as teaching believes each she thinks going on living forgiveness is to live A.A. She has give men -- she is a feminist. Not to be she is embodied. She thinks of her grave faults invented at A.A. She believes no teaches literature given as an experience -- this is as you believes action in a person’s life is human being is to blame for action in rigid. Acceptance is a phenomenon accepting that she was born specifically, her now husband -- sexual her husband she would not be in of them her own. Why does she if it agrees that living is an accident by cause environment. If you take apart she her destiny. She believes fate is and even about it. You were given as without literature purpose that is to is the result of if she were.

Sympathy for the rapist left the house again with brown bear's nature what animal virtuosity. Wins (almost) and never tardily relents at her. Brown bear rationing a portion of her. Victims! scales nethering -- sit inside it. She, professor goes joy at whose victim laid a trap for him climbing on her professor and counterclockwise. Police would shoot him.

Saturday, March 28, 2009

Journey of Man

An internet friend, Seamus, writes:

When I was 14, I hoped that one day I would have a girlfriend.

When I was 16 I got a girlfriend, but there was no passion, so I decided I needed a passionate girl with a zest for life.

In college I dated a passionate girl, but she was too emotional. Everything was an emergency; she was a drama queen, cried all the time and threatened suicide. So I decided I needed a girl with stability.

When I was 25, I found a very stable girl but she was boring. She was totally predictable and never got excited about anything. Life became so dull that I decided that I needed a girl with some excitement.

When I was 28 I found an exciting girl, but I couldn't keep up with her. She rushed from one thing to another, never settling on anything. She did mad impetuous things and made me miserable as often as happy. She was great fun initially and very energetic, but directionless. So I decided to find a girl with some real ambition.

When I turned 30, I found a smart ambitious girl with her feet planted firmly on the ground, so I married her. She was so ambitious that she divorced me and took everything I owned. I am older and wiser now, and am looking for a girl with big tits.

Monday, March 23, 2009

Citizens: a fragment

B: Write an essay about war for the checklist.
A: Did it, only it was a short story.
B: Write a poem with synecdoche.
A: I confuse it with metonymy.
B: Write a poem about the economy.
A: I did that, but it's a cut-up.
B: Write a short story about men for the gym teacher. Write a candle for the century.
A: How do I end it?
B: Write a synopsis.
A: I wrote a synopsis for the regional agent. They were unimpressed.
B: Write about sex. Write a negligee.
A: I wrote about sex. My friend wrote a negligee. Agents were unimpressed.
B: Write for your friends.
A: I lost my friends.
B: What if men are your friends?
A: Start over.
B: Forget the past.
A: Cry.
B: Die.
A: Sing.
B: A useful talent.
A: I need the past for writing purposes.
B: The moment is all.
A: For artists, not for writers.
B: Write a long joke.
A: Various items -- puddles, frogs, fog, flag stripes.
B: Term litmus.
A: Self-leadership.
B: Encourage, enlighten, and entertain.
A: Be loyal, frank, and merry.
B: Marry for love.
A: Substitute Swiss for German.
B: Buy now.
A: Do nothing.

Friday, March 20, 2009

One-word Q & A

excel? hid
hair? lighter
father? beloved
treasured? boxes
dream? book
drink? fruit
goal? partner
room? leather
fear? steady
future? land
bakery? German
wish? country
roots? Scandinavian
action? stretch
wearing? leggings
TV? off
pets? memorial
computer? HP
life? sentences
mood? glad
missing? group
car? styling
store? Target
summer? warm
color? roygbiv
laughed? morning
cried? huh?
email? writers
foods? fruits
place? Duluth
friends? meditating

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

W'assup with Edward Albee?

I have never liked it that Edward Albee's title, "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" could stand in for Woolf's works themselves and even for his own. That title is all that many supposedly literate people know about her, even if they didn't read or see his play. Invoking it suggests a general audience, one not convinced of Woolf's achievement. It awakens a boyish disregard for "crazy ladies." "Madness" may define it generically, but much, much is known about manic-depression that was not known when Woolf died in 1941. In our day, m-d is treatable -- it is as if she had killed herself for having contracted TB -- something no one might need to do today. [See the fascinating article about Dr. Alice W. Flaherty in The New York Times, March 17, 2009.]

I read all of Virginia Woolf's works in college and immediately afterward before going to graduate school -- her essays, novels, short stories, letters, and diaries. I read an occasional biography. I studied Sylvia Plath's poetry in detail, too, and later her journals. I read into these works as a young woman writer but not as a writer with mental illness. I believed then that Woolf had ended her life at 59 because of air raids over London. She was a pacifist. Her age at death is important because she was not young but died at the same age as Donald Barthelme, for example, whom we regard as just slightly prematurely concluded -- and who never stopped drinking and smoking prior to having throat cancer.

While it is possible that Virginia Woolf feared institutionalization -- as many, many older people do, including people who are not writers or artists -- is there proof of it to replace my long-standing belief that she had again become morbidly ill due to war? Louise de Salvo argued that Woolf had lifelong intermittent mental illness due to sexual predation by her half-brothers when she was young. The film, Tom & Viv, suggests that V. Woolf had to do w/ the lifelong confinement of T. S. Eliot's wife, Viv. At least one researcher has suggested that Woolf killed herself to ensure her legacy when she considered her work completed, but does suicide succeed in doing that and for whom?

Early reports of David Foster Wallace's death were met with derision and foggy accounts on the internet. Then in a letter to the NYTimes his father wrote that Wallace had exhausted over decades all available treatments for his depression -- medications (with troubling side effects) and shock treatments. I realized that his early genius -- documented by his works -- could not compensate for the severity of his depressions. It needed to be understood sympathetically if possible. More recently, an article about him in The New Yorker reveals that Wallace wanted to be "drug free" after having been treated for marijuana dependency at a 12-step program. He had, in short, stopped taking medication and ended his life. He wrote in diaries and letters that he could no longer write fiction. It will be up to critics -- and he has their attention -- to evaluate his last novel. Wallace's significance and contribution as a younger-generation writer fit him into a hierarchy of important American men writers whose final values have yet to be determined -- perhaps, he, too, was hoping to sweeten his own legacy by his death.

What does "confession" have to do with it?

I've been rereading John Berryman's novel, Recovery, an amazing book, a book, like Barthelme's stories, to make a woman laugh like a man, and thinking about his legacy, especially in MN where there are many "wholesome" writers who reject his importance while emphasizing their own -- in eclipsing Berryman's position in MN and in literature they are proposing that "health" produces more important works. Believe me, most of the "wholesome" writers who reject Berryman's legacy are destined to have importance in their writing communities and in their own lives, which is not to say more. I wonder how Robert Bly views Berryman in light of these questions.

Notes toward theater with apologies ... notes toward apology with theater ... for momentarily turning on academic procedures in my previous letter -- my group see ourselves as hardworking gov't employees. Our products are not-for-profit, and the taxpayer doesn't want to pay anyone's sustenance.

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

On greatness

There once was a man from Rochester
whose poetry marched with a feather (1)
I'd ask the man flat
(if I still had a hat)
whose spines would be covered in leather


(1) Compete

one entry found
Main Entry:
com·pete           Listen to the pronunciation of compete
Pronunciation:
\kəm-ˈpēt\
Function:
intransitive verb
Inflected Form(s):
com·pet·ed; com·pet·ing
Etymology:
Late Latin competere to seek together, from Latin, to come together, agree, be suitable, from com- + petere to go to, seek — more at feather
Date:
1620
: to strive consciously or unconsciously for an objective (as position, profit, or a prize) : be in a state of rivalry <competing teams> competing for customers>