POEM at 82 I find everything erotic– that’s the stomping ground of all intelligence– the intellect picks it up from the ground xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxand gives language as a kind of music to dance around See also Michael McClure on Blaser. Axé.
I must finish losing the “home identity” I acquired in Reeducation. With this identity I am abusable at home and at my home institution. This makes it really hard to concentrate in the places I spend most of my time because I am always looking over my shoulder for the next blow. I am loath … More An Anti-Fear Yoga. More Notes for That Anti-Procrastination Piece.
I am flying today from Amsterdam to Madrid, where I have not been in thirty years. Longer ago than that, I studied at the Liceo Serrano. It was on Serrano then but has now changed as an institution and moved out of town. I lived on a street whose name was changed after Franco died. … More Puerta de Acalá
It was also the recrimination, which I had resisted so far but which Reeducation finally drummed into my pores, that made it so hard to work. A year or two later a friend mentioned that he was trying to stop “yelling at himself” and I realized it was what Reeducation had taught me to do. … More On Recrimination
They will never give permission to say this, but I do. It is not about “codependency” or about “seeking difficult situations.” It is about having been trained to accept sadistic behavior as one’s lot, relinquishing one’s rights as man and citizen, and not having the tools to name and resist emotional bullying. And for me … More Reminder
Are they willing to integrate themselves into all facets of American society? Do they share core American values? Why do they keep to themselves so much? Why do they insist so upon maintaining their own cultural traditions? * Jennifer adds some concerns about white men: Are they willing to put aside their emotions (especially sexual) … More Some Concerns About White People
Update in real time: This post, like most in this blog, was written days or weeks ahead of time and is thus chronometrically fictional but these words are written in real time. The dream in reality was a dream about riding on the Deutsche Bahn which had superimposed upon it the Santa Ana Freeway and … More Peeling Away
…At the end of the novel, Lev creates his masterpiece. He paints his mother as crucified between himself, her son, the artist and his father, her husband, the activist. The entire novel has been about his own struggle, being torn between his love for his parents and community and his love and need for art. … More Reading for Pleasure Wednesday: Asher Lev
Also in Reeducation, it was important to suffer so as to prove one could feel pain (pain being the only actually admissible feeling). One could not feel pain and do something about it — that would be “impulsive.” One had to feel pain and “grieve” it, lament and suffer. I had always found that to … More Sur la souffrance
I had a realization about how Reeducation worked and what it killed via a comments thread on a different post. I could write a coherent post about that if I had time, and the comment is really just a pre-note, the thoughts in it are not well worked out at all. For now I am … More On Transference
coldhearted scientist وداد 