Ten Terms for Thursday

1. The term "poor judgment." Mr. B would be a good example of one who uses poor judgment in his dealings.

2. White Privilege. I received an article about "white privilege" in the mail yesterday. How does this term manifest in everday life? At work, many of the privileged white kids have new clothes, new gadgets--cell phones, palm pilots, laptops. Of course, it isn't the white kids ONLY who have these things, but it's true that they are the majority.

Part of the reason they have these things is because their parents pay for their education so they have extra money to buy extra things. Their parents are able to pay for their kids' education because they probably have college degrees themselves, thus their earning potential is higher due to higher levels of education.

One might ask if it's a privilege to have all of these extra gadgets. To some people these gadgets might be considered necessities. I know that I use my cell phone every day and I'm very grateful for it because it's my primary means of communication, but is it a necessity? No, I must admit, it is not. Thank you, Dad, for that advantage.

3. Here is more of a thought than a term.
Surfaces, appearances, proper form, and the like, are perpetuated to reinforce certain structures within society. The people who stand to gain from those structures tend to want to protect their positions.

It sounds very serious, and it is because there's a lot at stake, but it's also important to remember, as a wise child once told me, they're just people.

4. If the ultimate goal is to propel humanity forward, why does so much genocide occur? Why are whole cultures, that have so much valuable knowledge to impart, wiped out?

5. Ooga-booga. That's what Shakey Jake said while I was heading to the office. He's right; I need to lighten up sometimes.

6. Attitude adjustment. I took my attitude to the shop;
it needed a realignment.

7. Organizational studies. These days, if you apply for secretarial positions, they want you to have a degree in organizational studies.

8. Leadership potential. See also Rosa Parks, Rita Dove, and Martin Luther King, Jr.

9. Koan. What is the sound of one hand clapping?

10. Bang the gong. (I'm built like a car and I've got
a hip cap daimond star halo.)

I am boiling water for my morning tea. I don't usually boil the water, but today I am.

There are so many letters from friends I need to address--
the one I am most concerned about is from Great Aunt Sister Jane in Ireland, who has suggested that if I ever have a question, I should ask god for guidance. This is an interesting suggestion on many levels.

I'm not sure I should even get into this--it's such a tricky subject. I mean it's even on our money--"In god we trust." I almost envy Emily Dickinson her puritan upbringing, in which there was almost assuredly never any question raised about god's existence, and his place in heaven. I could be wrong--Professor Blackhawk would be a good one to consult on that issue. It could be that Emily realized god in herself without ever actually having to reveal in an overt way what she was talking about when she said Him. It would be interesting to hear what a psychologist would have to say about that. I know that the ego is sometimes referred to in male terms regardless of whether it exists in a man or a woman.

And it's still interesting to think of god in terms of a person rather than a thing, like money. For example.

Hm. It doesn't have to be that way. We could make things god, and then barter our things, but then there is the question of how to put a value on things; ie, is that equal to this.

Rather than go somewhere to watch a basketball game today, which I didn't really want to do, I stayed home and read about Lorine Niedecker, a midwestern poet and miniaturist reminiscent of W.C.W. and Emily Dickinson.

I appreciate her quiet beauty and the feeling of home she transmits through her writing. There is something stable
and reliable and down-to-earth about her.

At the same time, the mischievious little elf inside of me wants to rebel against that kind of quaint, melancholic
mode of living. Where's the spontaneity? The break away from the mundanity of daily chores and so-called "woman's work."

I wonder what Lorine Niedecker would think of Patti Smith or Beth Gibbons of Portishead or PJ Harvey or Tori Amos or Bjork? She would probably like Bjork, but what in the world would she make of David Bowie in his Ziggy Stardust days?

Maybe she'd be more like Aunt Julia in New York--cool, yet reserved, with a touch of Diane Keaton from the Annie Hall days, and a touch of Glen Close from Dangerous Liasons, and a pinch of Annie Oakley, and a sprinkling of Mary Cassatt. If Lorine Niedecker had developed more of an appreciation for the wilder elements of society she might have had more fun. Though more danger, too.

It occurs to me that one way of retaining her innocence and "purity" was to hide in the woods away from the big cities. But that's lonely.

I wonder if she even liked the Beatles.

It is dusk in Ann Arbor as I write this and I have been drinking peach/ginger tea all day long. Soon I will go to the People's Food Market for some nice big oranges and
whichever Mazzy Star album they happen to be playing over the loudspeakers.


from Lorine Niedecker's Selected Poems:


Thomas Jefferson Inside


Winter when no flower

The Congress away from home

Love is the great good use
one person makes of another
(Daughter Polly of the strawberry
letter)

Frogs sing--then of a sudden
all their lights go out

The country moves toward violets
and aconites

No one is as nice as I am
are they.

Today I've been struggling with something I can't put my finger on. It has been a difficult struggle and perhaps the tv is right, which now randomly spouts:

"You are a survivor, woman." (One of my housemates is watching Sigourney Weaver in Alien).

I've been reading the Anne Waldman interview in the latest Poetry Project Newsletter and thinking about the war in Iraq and my relationship to it.
She says war has some interesting passive support from women and that we're under a blinding habitual pattern of destiny that we don't see our way out of.
There are other versions of the world we could be living, but we choose this one instead. Why?

I don't feel that I'm being passive about the war, so much as, well, as Anne Waldman states in one of her songs from "In the Room of Never Grieve,"
I was never one of the major players. It's boggling to think about the kind of aggressiveness involved in war compared to my own struggle for ego consciousness. I've also been thinking about Oprah, who said recently in her magazine, "Never hand over your power to ANYONE."

Anne Waldman:
"Say I won't/get shuttled or shoved by fear again."

There is the feeling that everything I struggle with in my mind is part of the struggle of the outside world. For some, it is easy. For others, it is struggle.

"It's easy if you try," said John Lennon.

One of my friends from work is now enrolled in NYU's art school for painting. She's a very beautiful girl, but I wouldn't say she's particularly intellectual. When I asked her how she does it, how she maintains her inner equilibrium despite the craziness of the outside world, she said, "I just work." She doesn't allow herself to brood, she stays active and cheerful. She's right. It's important to keep a positive mental outlook. Don't worry, be happy, as they say.

Someone in control has been
"manipulating the utensils" again.

Megan says I deserve it
for dealing with low-lifes.

So I've begun a poem that's
a take-off on Wallace Steven's "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird."

In the meantime, Shakespeare:

They who have the power to hurt and will do none,
That do not do the thing they most do show,
Who moving others are themselves as stone,
Unmoved, cold, and to temptation slow--
They rightly do inherit heaven's graces,
And husband nature's riches from expense;
They are the lords and owners of their faces,
Others but stewards of their excellence.
The summer's flower is to the summer sweet
Though to itself it only live and die,
But if that flower with base infection meet
The basest weed outbraves his dignity;
For sweetest things turn sourest by their deeds:
Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds.

The girl from my high school who wrote the line, “What will we do
when we have forgotten how to dance?”
went to Harvard for law school.

She was what you would call
“a smart cookie.”
*

M. Moore:


No Swan So Fine


"No water so still as the

dead fountains of Versailles." No swan,

with swart blind look askance

and gondoliering legs, so fine

as chintz china one with fawn-

brown eyes and toothed gold

collar on to show whose bird it was.

Lodged in the Louis Fifteenth

candelabrum-tree of cockscomb-

tinted buttons, dahlias,

sea-urchins, and everlastings,

it perches on the branching foam

of polished sculptured

flowers–at ease and tall. The king is dead.


*

What about the lovable Bill Gates?
He made the company who made Microsoft Office 2000.
You can take an exciting tour of Microsoft Access if you follow this link:

http://www.microsoft.com/office/access/prodinfo/tour/information.mspx

*

Since I have quit smoking (it’s been almost a month), I have become interested in
Ayurvedic methods to reduce toxins in the body.

Ayurveda is an alternate form of health care for me, and according to
the Ayurvedic Institute in Albuquerque, New Mexico
Ayurveda is Sanskrit for “the science of life.”
It originated in India and is known as
“the mother of all healing.”

I’m not going into the whole spiel now, but the principles
of many natural healing systems, such as Homeopathy
and Polarity Therapy have their roots in Ayurveda.

As I said, I’ve become interested in Ayurveda
to reduce the side effects of quitting smoking, which means
irritability, irrationality, vindictiveness, and other malicious traits
that can also derive from the excess consumption of alcohol, coffee,
or bad food.

These traits are obviously bad because
they do not contribute to the bliss of existence
as my friend Robyn would say.

(Stay with me, guys, I know this is a challenge to your cynicism).

Here is what I have discovered:

When you eliminate toxins from your body
you restore your constitutional balance
strengthen immune system
become resistant to illness
reverse negative effects of stress
and slow the aging process.

You also
enhance self-reliance, strength, energy, vitality and mental clarity
and bring about deep relaxation and a sense of well-being.

And how is it that you eliminate toxins?

Water, friends, water…
(amongst other things.)