First it was the freshman fifteen

Now it’s the sophomore slump

Why must alliteration control my life the way it does?

Milford Album (Milford Memories)

1. Central Park
2. Highland
3. According to Wikipedia, The Elves of Milford
   
4. East Street, and Commerce
   
5. Maybe She Died, our first Milford Highschool Reuinion
   
6. Too Cool, to Coyly, or Romance at Milford High
7. J.S.M. or Milford Memories
8. Oak Grove
9. Central Park Part 2
10. Milford Historical Society
11. The Ice Festival
    
12. The Old Church (Hypnotist Clinic)
    
13. The Inventor Weeps for his Mills and power plants (secret track: Where the Helium Goes From Milford Memory Balloons)
14. Farewell to our Friend who left Milford (Claire Song).
    

Here's a poem I wrote, which received mixed reviews, about the Wakoskiness transcribed in my last post, doublespaced for your editing pleasure:

Ringed

say the Californian Desert has a

snake even you don’t yet know about.

stretched out,

it’s shorter than a one-dollar bill;

coiled up,

it’s rounder than a quarter—

yeah, a quarter—

with guess-who hissing silver, well, mostly copper,

excuses for his leftmost finger.

this snake’s bitten me there,

at my finger’s root,

and it didn’t unbite me,

even as my pinky,

(which quickly became my bluey,

then my purpley,)

began to die—now,

I’m afraid I’m drinking tea politely,

with my blacky finger extended, and

adorned, you could say,

with my fierce, little companion,

whom luckily,

is venomous enough for

only one small finger, that I never really used

for much. Though,

it was helpful for some guitar chords,

scratching an itchy ear,

the shocker, (of course),

and making promises with left-handed friends.

and sometimes, it talks to me,

but I can’t understand it.

conversation’d be tough enough without

its face stubborn in death-flesh, still,

I ask, can it feel around in there,

with its forked-tongue,

for what nation’s moniker is carved into

my piano-key bones?

and sometimes, when I think I notice a change in color,

I think it must be reminding

me what mood I’m in, but then

I remember how mood-snakes work—

cold-bloods can’t tell a bad or nice temper!

it’s never green and yellow—it’s

always, always chartreuse!

that desert sense of temperature must be off

in Midwest sands.

and sometimes, on late dune walks, or

in quiet, white, museums,

I think I hear it thinking

through my finger to my palm,

elbow, armpit, throat,

and brain: “take me off, you phony!

pry me off, for your sake!,

you look ridiculous!”

But, I know what happens when you do. The

black-moon boy—

he became poet too, but only sort of:

no more “pinky-ring shit.”

We assumed

his would evaporate by midday,

anyway.

But, my ring and I must,

hold fast in our judgments,

like a toupee-wearing gentleman

that’s been laughed at and by his coworkers—

you know, back in Washington’s day,

even wigs were cool.

But my chance to wear it and

not be embarrassed, in my

pinky of pinkies, I know

is gone with the 60s—

you’ll see the decline marked in history-book timelines someday.

oh, I hope you don’t hate me for being obstinate,

it’s just that now the snake ring is rebellious, but

when next it sheds its skin,

I’ll let you have it, if you like.

Transcript of rings on little fingers:

I think that once of things that’s actually gotten me well through life so that I don’t have to get angry about things like our current political situation is that I’ve always had these very strong black and white views of things and I think of them as my prejudices and I live with them because I think they show me how to live in a good way. One of my prejudices, and don’t ask me where it came from because, truly, I do not know and I doubt a psychiatrist could figure it out either, but I have always thought, that people, but particularly men, that where rings on their little fingers are fakes and phonies, they’re superficial, they’re amateurs—they don’t know what they’re doing, they’re pretending to be something they’re not.--*laughter*--And, well, it’s useful to have these, so I don’t need to talk to a man with a ring on his little finger--*laughter*--whatever, or that’s why he doesn’t love me: he has a ring on his little finger. Um, and you’ll notice, that I really always have been ringless. Twice in my life, I’ve had rings and they’ve always been disasters and fortunately haven’t lasted very long, but rings of course are traditionally symbols of power. I wrote this poem in the late 60s and I had gone to the Guggenheim Museum to hear poetry reading by a poem by a poet who I loved then and I love now, Gary Snyder, and of course, those of you who know Gary Snyder and his work, know that there’s no way you could call this guy who lives without plumbing and electricity, you know, phony or superficial—he’s a person who has always involved with all the things are genuine sincere—all the things that the 60s were about. So, I was backstage talking to someone and imagine what I felt when I looked over and saw that Gary was wearing a ring on his little finger—*laughter*--Oh I knew I’d have to do something with that.

Ringless:

I cannot stand (this is one of my angry poems, right).I can not stand the man who wears a ring on his little finger.A white peacock walking on the moon,Splinters of silver dust his body. But the Greek man George Washington, cracked in half in my living room one day and I saw that he was made of marble with black veins. It does not justify the ring to say someone gave it to you and the little finger is the only one it would fit. It does not justify to say Cocteau wore one. And still made the man burst silently through the mirror. Many beautiful poems have been made with rings worn on the little finger *laughter* That isn’t the point! Flaubert had jasper, Lorca had jade, Dante had amber, and browning had carnelian, George Washington had solid gold, Even Kelly once wore a scarab there, but I am telling you I can not stand a man who wears a ring on his little finger. He may indeed run the world--that does not make him any better in my needle point eyes *laughter* walleye? is a storm, there were heaps of fish lying shimmering in the sun with red gashes still heaving and the mounds were knee-deep with lovers they were gold and green with glass balls bobbing in their nets on the wave. there were black-eyed men with hair all over their bodies. there were black-skirted women baking break and there were gallons and gallons of red wine. the girl spilled one drop of hot wax on her lover’s neck as she glanced at his white teeth and *loud cough* thick?hands? there were red and silver snakes coiling around the legs of the dancers there was hot sun and there was no torrent?? How do I reconcile these images with our cool president George Washington walking the street, Every bone in my body is Ivory and has the word “America” carved on it, but my head takes me away from furniture and pewter to the sun tugging at my nipples and trying to squeeze under my toes. The sun appeared in the shape of a man and he had a ring made of sun around his glittered finger, “it will burn up your hand,” I said. But he made motions in the air and passed by. The moon appeared the shape of a young negro boy and he had a ring made of dew around his little finger, “you’ll lose it” I said. But he touched my face not losing a drop and passed through. Then I saw Alexander Hamilton whom I loved and he had a ring on his little finger but he wouldn’t touch me and Lorca had rings around both his little fingers and suddenly everyone I knew appeared and they all had ring around their little fingers and I was the only one in the world left without any rings on any of my fingers whatsoever, and worst of all there was George Washington walking down the senate aisles with a ring on his little finger, managing the world. Managing my world. That’s what I mean. You wear a ring a ring on your little finger and you manage my world. And I am ringless--Ringless; I cannot stand the man who wears a ring on his little finger. Not even if it is you.

Job huntin'!

Ok so there's this band that I sorta like despite the fact that it sounds like one big inside joke and that it only came out with one album, and that I can only really listen to 3 or 4 songs without cringing. It's called Major Organ and the Adding Machine and it's an early collaboration of Elephant Six members, but the names of the members have never been released. However, you can hear Jeff Mangum, Kevin Barnes, and Julian Koster's voice on the album. And, I found on the elf power website, in a listing of their shows, a concert that they had with Major Organ--the members present were listed:

Jill Carnes, Julian Koster, Jeff Mangum, Corin Tucker.

Also elephant 6 related:

I really, really want to see this movie (there's more information on it here). It's all made by people in bands I really like--it's probably very weird.

Man, Lucero.

Also, I have a title for poem coming up: The Anti-Semitic Vehicular Defenestration of an Anne Frank/Holocaust Documentary. It's about this kid in my 8th grade class that threw a movie out of a bus window. Later, in my senior year of highschool, I would see him knocking out/killing some rolly pollies with "FlyNap" which would trigger my memory of the time in 8th grade.

--deep outside, the sirens wailing far from me on this still night--

We were feeding ducks at midnight because we had some left over pizza crust from seth's pizza and we wanted an adventure. One of the ducks was named limpy and we gave him the most bread.

This was the night after we entered the abandoned building that used to be a bank that used to be a movie theater next to sushi-ya. After feeling this rush, we decided to look around campus for other places to be entered. Almost as soon as we got to the aud, we found a place to get in (that was open), but we dared not to enter because of some constantly flickering red lights, some tapping and some voices--or did we dare after all?

We decided to come back, but after first walking over to kresge where Natalie saw a cat-raccoon. Her calls were unsuccessful so we wandered around until we came to an entrance into a garage-type structure full of ovens and kilns and clay. It was cool looking, but we didn't explore further into the building due to odd hooks and a work-in-progress, a hat and a coat, and an open water bottle at a desk.

Then, we went back to the aud and entered at the place we found before. The clicking was just a blown out exit sign and the voices were echos mixed with loose imaginations. The first room we entered was a storage room where we found a ye olde mountain dew jug that I want to take a picture with some time, a guitar case, many trunks and knick-knacks, a violin and case, and many other stage props for the theater down there in the basement. Upon further exploration, we, Natalie, saw a mannequin room which in the dark was as creepy as you can imagine, and a bathroom where Seth could wash out his finger-cut from first coming in the building. We gave eachother 'lifts' out of place.

The places that we went into this weekend have more to be discovered, so we'll have to go back.

doo digadoo--dig--dig--dig--dooo= A--G#--F#--E--A

"Stupid fucking horse anatomy!" is being yelled in my room by the studying kind! "Oh Clam anatomy!"

I was reading about this one tree that Charlemagne took time to burn down. A pagan idol, it was supposed to be invinsible. Somehow I doubt there were too many converts out of that transaction though.

Here's the state news story on the battle of the bands--it's an interest story told from Bad Mamma Jamma's perspective. It explains why the journalist seemed upset when she came by to interview Matt.

This has been a very Frontier Ruckus weekend:

First,We played at battle of the bands.
Then, we did well. And many a wonderful friend and fan came to root us on.
Third, we all celebrated.
Fourth, we recorded in the Landon basement for most of the next day.
Then, we recorded in the com. arts building, until late.
Finally, we recapped the weekend with a delightful breakfast at IHOP (thank you Eli and Matt).