While John has been watching Godzilla 2000, I've been reading the new edition of Ariel by Sylvia Plath. Here are some wonderful lines from the foreward, which was written by Frieda Hughes (daughter of Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes).

"I think my mother was extraordinary in her work, and valiant in her efforts to fight the depression that dogged her throughout her life. She used every emotional experience as if it were a scrap of material that could be pieced together to make a wonderful dress; she wasted nothing of what she felt, and when in control of those tumultuous feelings she was able to focus and direct her incredible poetic energy to great effect. And here was Ariel, her extraordinary achievement, poised as she was between her volatile emotional state and the edge of the precipice. The art was not to fall."

Regardless of whether or not her defense of Ted Hughes is deserved (a subject I will not even pretend to be smart or educated enough to comment on), the whole foreward seems to come from this strange place--in between art and reality, legend and consequences, molded by images pasted together from half-memories and childhood stories and an inevitable (perhaps even inborn) yet obviously well-studied appreciation of the art--that fascinates me.

I'm soon to be on the hunt for an essay I wrote the semester I studied Plath... I feel the need to be reminded.

Labels: books., school.

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We're watching Huff with the fancy-pants "on demand" feature that somehow managed to come bundled in with our cable plan. Which means that I'm more than a little distracted as I write this. I've always had a thing for Hank Azaria, but the show would still be awesome even if he wasn't in it.

I'm going through some sort of weird phase. All anxious and...like I need a good, long stretch.

I blame school.

For (how many?) years, I went along getting a good dose of work, then break, then different work, then break again. And. As stupid as this sounds, I can pretty much break up my life since graduation into semesters...all of which correspond with a major U.S. city: Atlanta, New York, Los Angeles. Only, this latest semester has lasted since September. And what is the second week of January if it isn't the beginning of a new semester?

I'll tell you what it is...

It's freaky.

There's something about my life lately that's eerily similar to swimming. Well, swimming like I do it...which basically amounts to flailing around in the water and not moving forward (nor backward) one damn inch. My sister once told me she'd never seen anyone swim so hard and not move.

When did this website turn into a diary? Was it ever anything else?

Labels: school., tv.

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The metaphor is almost,
no--
is too obvious.
This man who sounds like my father,
over the popping and crackle of a phone that's needed replacing for years,
tells me he feels fine.
The biopsy revealed
he has silica in his lungs.

Silica, in little paper packages:

in the toes of patent leather church shoes
with "little bitty buckles" his heavy hands could barely fasten
(as I brushed my cheek on his stiff collar--
Old Spice is almost,
no--
is too obvious now);

in molds, I think;

in countless nooks, crannies, and doll boxes;

to remove moisture?

The disease is shaped like honeycomb,
as though, somehow,
it thought we need

a reminder.

We already know these things.

Sylvia Plath was given a beekeeper.
I close my eyes
and see the man on stage,
spinning plates on sticks depend on his encouragement.

Honeycomb lungs for the man
who went to work on the morning of my wedding day.
He occupies my words as
wrenches and lathes:

Metaphor becomes useless with only the thing.

--October 30, 2004, sitting on the ground in Tomorrowland.

As I was shuffling around the entire section of tv/movie star biographies at work today, a man came up and started making polite conversation with me:

Wouldn't it be great if you could just internalize all the material in books just by touching them?

I nodded.

I'd just shelve books all day long.

Of course, I didn't have anything terribly interesting to say in response, so I just agreed and kept working. And then he asked how I got the job. Did I have a background in English? Was I from Kentucky originally? Why didn't I have an accent? What did I study? Rita Dove? Oh, yes, National Poet Laureate. Mhmm. Had I read much Wallace Stevens?

He had done graduate work at NYU. He was talking to me because he was in the store...selling his books. Because he has no job and needs money.

Selling your books because you need the money...

How does it go? Go to grad school and make yourself even more unemployable?

I want to keep the plates spinning, Dad. And I want to add more.

If I could only realize in "real life" the excitement I feel over being able to bring up in casual conversation that Ted Kooser is from Nebraska... Or even that I know who he is.

I don't know. Maybe I'm asking for too much.

I just keep going back to that image of the homeless man in Boyle Heights pushing a shopping cart full of books. Hold out. Hold out 'til the bitter end.

Labels: books., family., school., work.

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