beauty

i remember that moment
when you forgot yourself
and smiled. like a light
winking on in full noon.
and it was the most beautiful
thing i had ever seen.

this is the preoccupation now
of a tired old man
to nurture the conditions
for that face, that smile,
to return once again.
the beauty of the world
to return once again.

***

frozen and burnt.
saved up and spent.
there is no lesson from this day learned
and tomorrow will only be left to repent.

***

so tired, can't sleep.
dead head and wake-filled heart.
dreams like watercolor creep
and blur my end and my start.

internal consistency

i will, in this moment, believe in what i write
circumscribed by a lack of light
and a paucity of will
i will believe i am right.
tomorrow's cruel morning
and the mocking words of jackdaws
will prove painstakingly the wrong in me
the offtune song in me
i know
i know too well.
and then, i will close my eyes
and close the circuit
and once again in blindness
make the gesture
an arc of invisible light
that joins me to the
me i believe must exist somewhere
a me in you
and the faith of bridgemakers.
i will believe, in that moment, in what i write.

why firesales are a bad idea

i just saw "live free or die hard" about a week ago, with my wife. mainly, i suppose i wanted to see maggie q, who grew up in mililani, and was both in the swim team and in cross country (my old coach and calculus teacher, mr. sawada, gave a brief interview regarding who she was). anyway, i generally liked the movie, despite a few suspend-the-reality moments (hitting a chopper with a car? or somehow surviving an attack by an air force jet while driving a semi?). one moment that really bugged me: at one point, bruce willis and the guy from the apple commercials (from here on: gfac) need to hotwire a car. so gfac pretends the car got into an accident, so that he can get onstar to perform a remote car ignition. trouble is: the movie is about "firesale" terrorism, in which, presumably, all systems, communications, utilities, everything, are down.

but what really bugged me was the whole premise of the movie. granted, terrorists supposedly have complex and at times apocalyptic motives. but apparently, the terrorists in this movie just wanted money (this seems to be an ongoing theme in the die hard movies). yet: if you have a firesale, and completely break down the entire system, how can you later insinuate that what you "stole" has any worth at all? this is the flaw in the logic. the economy, everything, is like a game. and everyone's trying to win by accumulating wealth, etc. but you can't cheat and cause a meltdown of the game, and then steal all the money. the worth of the money depends on the continuance of the game.

this is reminiscent of arguments against all those who attempt to "cheat the system." if the system is cheated too much, then it breaks down, and everything becomes worthless for everyone. case in point: our present financial crisis.

we bandy about the words "sustainable development," primarily with regards to the environment and real estate. but we should also consider those words with all endeavors, particularly those dealing with our relationships with others. we cannot abuse the system and others without somehow eventually reaping consequences later. and if our "sins" accumulate (much like our carbon dioxide), then eventually, we will be faced with wholesale threats to the system we depend upon. and then, what will our money be worth, where will our fancy automobiles (with empty gas tanks) carry us?

harmony, at some level, is necessary for civilization and its fruits. we must never forget that.

firesales might seem like a cool idea. but there's no way to cheat the system if there is no system.

i love macs

i'd like to take this opportunity to praise apple. yesterday, i bought a macbook pro from the apple store (they have this deal where college students can purchase a macbook and get a free ipod touch). i originally fell in love with the mac after i gradually commandeered the macbook i'd bought for my wife a few years ago. once i used the mac applications (particularly imovie and garageband), well, i was hooked. i'd heard that various professionals preferred macs. for example, a lot of photo enthusiasts utilize mac-based photo-editing software. and none other than thom yorke uses a mac on occasion to record his work (witness thom and jonny playing a cover of portishead's "the rip"; there's a white macbook sitting on the table before them). as soon as i started using some of these mac-based applications, i understood. there's something about presentation and style that goes a long way, and mac programs tend to have a lot of that. but it's more than that. mac software tends to be "well-thought out." it's as though a photographer, or a musician, or whatever, brainstormed the perfect software to assist in dream realization. contrast that with a lot of windows applications, which appear to have been put together piecemeal by programmers to fulfill a checklist of basic requirements. sure, these programs might "do the job," but oftentimes, it's a real pain to get it to even perform a partial realization of one's visions...

***

i think i'm running into a spate of bad luck. i won't mention specifics, but let me say that a really stubborn headache and my first real encounter with a courtroom haven't been the end of my woes... if i really allow it to get to me, then i might fall further into depression, and i can't afford to do this. people do depend on me, on occasion: my wife, my children, my patients, my students. and i can't let anyone down...

***

i think i have a generally dim view of people in general. it's not that i dislike people, because i don't. it's just that i don't trust people will help me, and in fact, are more apt to hold me in disdain, or actively work against me. i have been ignored or humiliated in the past, and thus don't expect people to react favorably to me, or to my requests for assistance.

i try to get beyond the "small talk" and "drama" and "politics" that people exude, and get at their "heart" (which itself could be a construct). i try to help people in the most effective and hidden ways i know. this is the manner in which i communicate myself to the world...

the problem with my reluctance/inability to trust that others could or would be kind to me is this. there's a kind of myopia in a person who fails to trust the world. such a person can only "see" others in proximity, and definitely cannot extend vision to encompass a wide horizon full of free and easy relations. i, quite frankly, don't believe in such a "world vision"; never have and never will... and yet, i can't deny that i feel a certain jealousy towards people who can walk in the world with such ease and confidence, voicing their own feelings with such verve and strength, firm in the faith that others will receive and understand and sympathize and cheer on their every whim and sentiment...

for me, there is and has always been a great distance between myself and the world.

my concern is this: if i don't believe in the kindness of the world, am i doing it (and myself) a disservice? not sure, and even less certain that i could change myself if it were. in my experience, people don't give a carp about people... you just do what is right, and by accident, sometimes people will realize/recognize you. other than that, though, you walk alone.

jeez, i am getting progressively darker and gloomier... but that's me right now. won't hide it.

why pennies in wells part two

from wikipedia:

This may be a left over from ancient mythology such as Mímir's Well from Nordic myths, also known as the ¨Well of Wisdom¨, a Well that could grant you infinite wisdom provided you sacrificed something you held dear. Odin was asked to sacrifice his right eye which he threw into the well to receive not only the wisdom of seeing the future but the understanding of why things must be. Mímir is the Nordic god of wisdom, and his well sits at the roots of Yggdrasil, the World Tree which draws its water from the well.

[edit]

why do people throw pennies into wells?

here's a blog entry on pennies that i found. it is interesting, particularly the 4 theories posited as to why people throw pennies...

this if from:
http://www.jazzydoc.com/CommunityServer/blogs/heretotheretour/archive/2006/11/07/44.aspx

Pennies

Updated mileage: Bike 239 miles Hike 138 miles Run 141 miles Drive 19020

Pennies

The sign on the railing above Plymouth Rock said "Do Not Throw Pennies Onto Plymouth Rock". It would not have occurred to me that a prohibition against penny-throwing was necessary, but as I looked over the railing I saw at least a dozen coins scattered around this national landmark.

First a word about Plymouth Rock. The storied landing place of the Mayflower Pilgrims was less than impressive. The Rock itself was smaller than a parlour loveseat and sits half-buried in the sand at the harbour in Plymouth, Massachussets. On the surface of this otherwise nondescript rock was the date "1620". Expecting a boulder of mythic proportions, its physical size was disappointing. The Rock’s history was even more sorry. Apparently nobody had worried about where Capt. John Smith's boot first touched earth in his new home until 120 years later, when some citizen pointed to this lump of stone and proclaimed that it was the very spot where the Mayflower passengers disembarked. After another 100 years they decided to move it to a safer spot downtown, but the rock broke in half when they tried to pull it out of the sand. Leaving one half stuck in the sand, they took the other half down to city hall where it languished for another 50 years. Then it was moved to a different location in town. Sometime in the 1900s the town decided to take it back to the beach, where they glued it back onto the half that was still buried in the sand, surrounding it with a fence and a stern admonition against the throwing of currency,

On our travels, we have seen pennies thrown onto and into a variety of public memorials. Nearly every fountain in a city park or civic plaza has coins sparkling under the water. The grand semicircular pools with arching water jets that flank the entrance to the Clinton Presidential Center in Little Rock have an impressive collection of pennies in them. On the Battle Green in Lexington, Kentucky stands a marble monument commemorating the British attack on the Minutemen. The 12 foot spire of marble was placed in 1790 and is somewhat worse for wear, so a wrought-iron fence now surrounds it for protection. Pennies are strewn everywhere around the base of the stone memorial, and several pennies sit perched on the narrow rim of the monument's pedestal. Paul Revere's grave in Boston was surrounded with an iron fence and a small fortune in pocket change. Paul was a master metalsmith and might have wondered "who took the copper out of the penny?" In Philadelphia we had to pay a couple of dollars to enter the graveyard where Benjamin Franklin was buried. His grave was also covered in pennies, and you could almost hear the Poor Richard warning that "a penny saved is a penny earned"; he would certainly frown on the waste of a good coin. In Mystic, Connecticut we walked thru an historical replica of the old whaling town. You could walk into most of the old shops, but the bank had iron bars across the open door. Inside, just a penny's throw away, sat the bank's vault, door invitingly open. Hundreds of pennies had been tossed into and around the vault, where they looked perfectly at home.

My first contact with this phenomenon of throwing pennies into inaccessible public receptacles was when I was an impressionable five-year-old. Children's Hospital had a "Wishing Well" where children could make a wish and throw a penny into the well. I was always a little confused about this: Clearly the money went to the hospital, helping needy children get well. What I couldn't figure out was whether you had to use your wish for the unfortunate sick children, or whether they could have your money but you could wish for something for yourself, sort of a win-win situation. And what if you threw in a nickel? Did you get five wishes, or one really big wish? These are the ethical dilemmas that trouble a kindergartener. But I loved to throw that little copper coin into the well.

Why do people have this desire to throw pennies into fountains, ponds, and small fenced enclosures of all sorts? I have a number of possible theories:

1. People like to donate to the public institutions represented by the fountain or monument. Certainly the caretakers rake up the coins regularly, and in some small way this might help with the upkeep of public areas.

2. People are fascinated by inaccessibility. You can see the bottom of the pool or the fenced-off gravestone, but you can't get to it. Adding small change enhances this effect--the money is there, just out of reach, Like real life.

3. Children and men enjoy the challenge of target practice. In many cases the pennies are clearly aimed for the smallest, most difficult areas, reminiscent of the old game of pitching pennies. In this child's gambling game, each player tosses a penny as near the wall as possible without actually hitting the wall, If the next player can get his penny closer, he gets to keep his opponent’s money. Some people just can't resist a challenge.

4. My own favorite theory is that throwing pennies is a way of making contact with a person, event, or object of beauty that is otherwise out of reach. Tossing a penny onto Paul Revere's gravestone somehow transports the person back 230 years to the year of the glorious ride, a way of participating in a tiny way with history.



This last theory leads me to relate an interesting twist on the penny theme. At Walden Pond near Concord, Massachusetts visitors can walk a mile along the lake to the spot where Henry David Thoreau lived in a rough cabin in the woods for two years as an experiment in living as simply as possible. This experience is chronicled in his famous book, Walden. This book has had a profound philosophical and spiritual effect on many generations, but particularly those children of the 1960s who questioned the values of our materialistic society. Next to the site where Henry's cabin had been there is a large pile of small stones. For over 100 years visitors to the cabin site have added their own rocks to the pile, as a way of "touching" the life and ideas of Henry David Thoreau. Pennies would not have seemed an appropriate remembrance for this man who cared little for money but cared a lot for nature. I have added my own stone to this collection on three separate occasions, including our recent visit last month. At the nearby Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, where Henry is buried near his friends Emerson, Alcott, and Hawthorne, a 10 inch tall headstone simply says "Henry". When we visited his grave, a row of 5 pebbles sat on top of his grave marker; some kindred spirit just wanted to say "hi".

Finally, our travels took us to the Civil Rights Institute in Birmingham, Alabama. The park across the street was the scene of the notorious incident where police released attack dogs on a march of black children, and on the next corner stands the 16th Street Baptist Church, which still bears the scars of the bombing that killed 4 little girls during Sunday School. In the Civil Rights Institute was an excellent and very detailed exhibit that tells the story of the civil rights movement. Near the end of the series of exhibits is a re-creation of Martin Luther King’s jail cell. You stand on the outside of the bars looking into the prison cell, a very realistic and chilling view. The stark cot in the room is made up with clean white sheets. On the bed is a scattering of pennies, along with dozens of nickels and dimes, and at least a hundred quarters. Visitors clearly wanted to reach thru the bars to touch this difficult part of our history, but pennies were not enough to reflect the terrible price paid by the courageous heroes of the struggle for civil rights.

for some, words don't come easy. they struggle out of the amorphous depths, without clear purpose, only wanting out. and yet, after their impossible struggle to slowly inch their way up a larynx, and shape themselves through the boxing of the voice and the curl of the tongue and the gate of the teeth, for some, the words come out tired or even dead on arrival. like cane toads emerging from the underground in the swollen rains, only to be quashed thoughtlessly the moment they step out on the roads of common communication.

in the light of day, under the heat of scrutiny, those who live abovegrounds, comfortable with superficial and idle chatter, they note the stink, they comment on the way the toad-words look as though they were made to be crushed, pink tongue sticking out as though to participate in some cosmic joke... but no one thinks much of them, or the message that they may have inchoately attempted to give the world. like marathon, the first runner to give that race a name, with a message no one cared to receive; even if someone died in the process.

***

i have come to the conclusion that my words are dark and call to mind some ugliness within or beneath that people don't want to think about. or, my words are like crushed toads that people idly comment on and ignore.

i have been thinking about what people like to hear. i have tried to read works that have been more "well-received." i can appreciate the writings of others, but not always, and i think that in some cases, what is "well-received" has just been "well-packaged" or "well-promoted." in any case, i don't resonate with everything...

and i guess that's the point.

as a writer (or would be, or wanna be writer), there is a tension between a need to create a unique expression of one's inner self, and the need to reach others. if you rely too much on the former need, then you run the risk of solipsism, or at the very least, a myopic view of your world. if you rely too much on the latter, then you're commercial, you're superficial, you aren't yourself any longer.

i have tried to use my writing as a bridge. i have always relied on the basic hope that what i express from within is true, and, if received by the properly shaped emptiness in others, will find resonance. that was my dream, in any case. and, it seems, a few friends did find some degree of resonance; they appreciated what i was trying to do. they discovered the humanity within me, which i had been trying to communicate. and for that, i am grateful.

i suppose i should be happy with that. and i am. i suppose that, like many writers, i was getting greedy, and had this hidden seed planted within my head that my work would be accessible and interesting to many people. but i think i should have been more realistic. i think i should have known myself, and my writing, as other REAL people would see it.

i am thoroughly uninteresting and depressing. i struggle with art because, like the toad stuck in the well, something within wants out. there is no question of its ugliness or relevance for me (although i do try to "dress things up" to fit the conventions of literature). there is only the need to "out" myself, to "ex" plain myself.

people turn away. people are silent.

and why not? the world above is a competition for attention. it is a veritable cacophany. and this is as it should be. it is what keeps the world unstable and stable at the same time, this continual partiality of voice and partiality of listening. no one can contain the voice of the world. we pretend to, with this globalism, with this internet. but there is no voice, there is no one voice, there is not even a nexus or center. each speaks his own suffering and his own hope. we are all just empty boxes, and sometimes something in the world moves us. there is no pattern to this. there is no catching the wind.

it is my personal predilection, but i am always turning away from other people. inevitably unreliable. as i am. the only truth is the feeling and intuition that drives words and acts. and the only confirmation of truth is the occasional nod that you have made a difference, that you have helped to solve a problem, that you have expressed a feeling that someone else had. all nearly accidental, really... but although i turn away from others to hear myself, i live for that confirmation. it is the hope of the writer to be heard by a worthy ear.

***

the "nu'n honey" (my nickname for the h1n1) may have struck my wife. she has been suffering from a lot of intestinal issues this week. i stay up with her from about 2 in the morning. the daytime is kind of hard; it is hard to stay at full strength. somehow, i haven't caught what she has, or at least, i haven't been symptomatic...

last "night" we ate at hy's (using a gift certificate, and calling in a favor to babysit). it was nice. i had the "delmonico" (?), which was perhaps the best 14 oz. steak i have ever had. for me, the most important thing about steak is the "juiciness" and the tenderness. one thing i cannot stand is a dry piece of meat. and last night's was awesome. my wife had filet mignon, which was also pretty decent.

afterwards, lynn and i walked about waikiki. mildly interesting. i thought once more of the strange juxtaposition between these tourists who are here to relax, and these poor homeless-looking street performers or these people who have to hand out flyers to passers by, these people who you can tell are pretty desperate, and have to eke out their living doing crap... most of the street performers have something cute to offer... there is one guy who looks really creepy; he just stands there with this white gunk on his face, a blond wig, dirty clothes and an umbrella. he looks vaguely like the puppet doll from saw. and he just stands there. i don't know if people are supposed to feel sorry for him, or scared, or what. but he doesn't seem to get any money, no one wants to stop for him. and yet, he was there the last time i was in waikiki, a few weeks ago...

we went to the apple store. i might buy lynn a new macbook, especially because they have a deal where college students can get a new ipod touch with their purchase... it would be a small thing for my wife, who does so much for me.

***

well, the birds are all singing now, saying their good mornings to the world. i am feeling burnt from the inside from staying up with lynn. i should rest, at least for a half hour or so, before the demands of the day call me.