Home
Endzone
 
 [Most Recent Entries] [Calendar View] [Friends]

Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in tomsdisch's LiveJournal:

    [ << Previous 20 ]
    Friday, May 9th, 2008
    4:12 pm
    Advice from On High III/ link for Word of God
    Stop the presses. I am going out of town for the weekend for the first time in months. So don't post here till I'm back. Monday or after. And don't post to the two On High sites just below. Just ponder them and think: Is this the one thing I want to learn from the Lord My God.

    Then, for a link to information about The Book yous can go to
    http://www.tinyurl.com/6gagpv
    Thursday, May 8th, 2008
    12:09 pm
    Advice from On High II
    The first set of questions and prayers of thanks and lamentation has grown to such a length that it was been suggested by one worshiper that I open a second set here. So check out what the faithful has already written but ask any further questions here. Thanks. God
    Wednesday, May 7th, 2008
    5:19 pm
    Advice from On High.
    Hi. I'm On High. Matt, the publicist for Tachyon, has thought I should answer any question you may have wanted to ask God, both here and on the Tachyone site. They can deal with whatever you think God may have a good handle on. If I am stumped I'll say so. But Elsa, in case you are still wondering where those keys went to, try the bottom of the laundry hamper. Then go through all the pockets of all th jeans. I know they are there!
    12:55 pm
    Climb All the Steeples! Ring All Their Bells!
    'Cause The Word of God has got its first reviews in both PW and Kirkus, and they are all any god could wish for. My cut-and-paste capabilities are no better than a 4-year-old's but my publisher, Tachyon, has promised to post the reviews or links to them as comments here. So be patient, here is where they will appear, as well as, a short interview that PW ran with the review. So go slaughter a lamb as a sacrifice fitting and proper, but be sure you've got fresh rosemary for when you roast it.
    9:21 am
    Ach du lieber Augusten!
    I have been advised to lay off the embattled writer A.B. (not his real initials) lest his feelings be hurt or his dander made to rise or he sues me for libel, but surely it is permissible to note two interesting pieces that may either be accounted attacks on the poor fellow or innocent light-highted fun. At least the second may be accounted that: "Bad Dog" in the current New Yorker--a model of economy, wit, and creative malice. Then there is an account in New York Magazine of an interview that reads like an annotated transcript of a seance. But read it at your peril, for you may be infected with the same soul-murdering spirit of skepticism and cruel mirth. On second thought, avoid both pieces altogether.
    Tuesday, May 6th, 2008
    8:48 am
    A Tribute to Deborah Palfrey
    First, a simple hats off and a moment of silence for the D.C. Madam who stuck to her guns, didn't snitch on her clients, and chose to be a noble Roman. I've always supposed (or hoped) I would have the same strength of mind if I were ever facing a long stretch of time with no light at the end of the tunnel but penury and disgrace. (Her situation, as she explained in her suicide note.) Political prisoners like Saddam (or Madame P.) can look forward to expecially bleak and painful incarcerations. Saddam feared AIDS, not unreasonably; so might she.

    But looking ahead, what a great movie it will be, and then, having proven itself sturdy there, what an even better musical. Prostitution has always fared well on the musical stage, esp. with a three-handkerchief ending like this one. Then imagine the set pieces: a trio of randy Senators singing the praises of Debby's bordello; a tango while a Supreme Court justice falls in love with a kind of "Pirate Jenny" whore (Lotte Lenya's role in 3Penny Opera); a Scarpia like Song of Villainy from the Chief Prosecutor, whose interest in the Madame consists in her possible utility in nailing a gay Democratic Senator (caught having hanky-panky in a Mpls. airport, and a comic scene for said Senator who has been brought in by the three Randy Sens. to be "cured" of his perversion by Pirate Jenny. The Madame's conviction rests on her not snitching on him, the wimp.

    Ah, Debby , name your charity and you can have half of the royalties!
    Monday, May 5th, 2008
    7:44 am
    Let's Hear It for Herod!
    This continues yesterday's thread. I write early in the day, after reading G. Eekhout's comment. So I suggest you read that string to catch every nuance of my child-murdering cruelty. Why have I got it in for the Christ Child my subjects often ask me. Is it an early form of concern for the environment and overpopulation? No, it is from a reverence for Good Manners, which seem to me, both as a King and a Writer, to be essential to good government and good prose. The Young Intruder whom the virtual mothers among us, including Crowleycrow, are solicitous to protect, had the flaw of all bad-mannered louts: they are not aware that other people exist except as a source of support. He wants my assistance in vetting (and admiring) his work while blithely admitting he hasn't read a word of it. Has he thought how that might make a strange elderly writer feel? Of course not, and experienced parents are accustomed to sucha lack of reciprocity between young and old. That's why the young must be sent to schools and military academies to learn how to suck up. As Crowleycrow points out, we lose our laurels and younger Prize Winners like Augusten Burroughs (not his real name) pick them up out of the gutter and wear them as their own. They get the cash prizes too, so we unread elders are left with no prospect but to teach the young the secret of our unsuccess, either for pay or for the priceless pleasure of Helping Out. I've given my pints of blood to the Young Pelicans, but in my sullen moments, as I await execution, my inclination is to say to those who tear open the wounds as they feed, Fuck Off! and to offer what assistance I can to Herod's soldiers. No, that's not the way to disembowel a baby, boys. You do it like this!
    Sunday, May 4th, 2008
    8:13 am
    Why Teachers Have to Be Paid
    Today I got a Message from an anonymous and clueless ninny who tells me he really really likes Phil Dick and that he saw me on a tv doc about Dick and got a feeling that I would be just the right person to teach him to be an SF writer (Phil being dead). He hasn't actually read anything of mine, but I am a bit more real than other SF writers he hasn't read (having been before a camera), plus I could be contacted through my blog. Arggh! So could he send me some stuff he's written, presumably so I could praise it and detect its promise and offer him a free writing course just because he's so promising (and has seen me on tv.) Tell me: how should I reply?
    Saturday, May 3rd, 2008
    3:41 pm
    A Question Hard to Google
    Or maybe there are those for whom it would be a cinch. The question, what book titles have a snippet of Walt Whitman's poetry as their source I can think of Bradbury's "I Sing the Body Electric." But surely there are others. Not just a glancing reference, but a for-sure quote. Thanks in advance for helping me out.
    Thursday, May 1st, 2008
    4:13 am
    Buffalo
    He knew how he would die. We all know that.
    Some day the same as any other he'd be chewing his cud
    And ruminating about the larger weather patterns
    The clouds spoke of when Whump! like the trump of Doom
    He would be stampeding to his death
    With the whole country around him, their pounding
    Hooves sounding like the drums you sometimes
    Heard when the herds of horsemen camped
    In some canyon close by, the very canyon it might be
    In which he was destined to die.
    Aiee! they would cry, or words to that effect,
    As they sat by their fires beating on the stretched skin
    Of one's relatives, which was their way
    Of saying We won! We won! They were
    An intolerable presence and he prayed
    That someday someone would come, someone
    Even nastier, someone even worse than the wolves,
    And kill them, level their smelly villages
    And cover them with rocks, like the rocks
    He would lie on and rot when it came
    His time to join the great stampede and die.
    Tuesday, April 29th, 2008
    10:39 am
    Write in Wright--Right or Wrong!
    Why? Because he's a better stand-up comic than most of the others on tv. If we have to look at a politician mumbling platitudes as the Ship of State sinks into history and millions die, here and abroad, let's at least have a good laugh while it's happening. The man can "do" a military band to a turn. There isn't a president he can't mimic. His body is loose as Plastic Man's: can that be said of any other President? Hillary and McCain are zombies out of George Romero by comparison, and Obama's got a stick up his ass. And slow? Look how long it took him to realize he was Wright's sacrificial victim. Under the bus with him--again!
    Tuesday, April 22nd, 2008
    9:27 am
    Leaves of Our Time
    Leaves blown across the lawns of foreclosed homes; leaves on forest floors, moldering delectably; leaves pressed between the pages of a book, which so have learned, a little, to think; leaves still shocked by the summer's departure, still clinging to their high aeries and in denial; leaves that had promised themselves to take up yoga or ballroom dancing when they had the chance, and now they have the chance; leaves that fell young, half-eaten by caterpillars, and vain about the holes they have to show for that ordeal; leaves in Missouri so unlike the leaves in Illinois but not ashamed; leaves that were never seen by any human, having been hidden, as though in a harem, by other leaves; leaves gathered in the burrows of chipmunks and witness to their love; leaves dissolving into mulch by the margin of the road. Number them all and remember them.
    9:21 am
    "Harpooned Again!"
    We whales have a song,
    ancient but still popular,
    which we sing not to other whales
    but to our whalers.
    Aim for the heart
    (the song bids them)
    and aim true!

    Death is just a species' way
    of saying, I love you,
    to some other species.
    We in return will try
    to capsize your ship
    and extirpate its crew.

    They're a trip,
    those convocations of our two
    unlike families, but
    they are the source,
    are they not,
    of all the great chansons?
    Monday, April 21st, 2008
    10:17 am
    All the Walts in the World
    In other lands or eras they have gone by
    other names. Sometimes tags as universal
    as the country-western "Darlink,"
    sometimes epithets specific to poetry
    (one hears of Rimbauds, Rilkes, Chickamatsus).
    Or when a Grant Request is made to a great Endowment
    and Dearsir replies with a large dream-check
    made out to Bear. The original Walt
    was himself a Bear in the contemporary sense
    of a played-out, half-closeted homosexual
    who gets disagreeably cozy
    after a single bottle of cheap bourbon.
    What shall we do with such? That's not to say
    any Walt was ever an able-bodied seaman.
    The best of them these days are to be found
    in those hinterlands, after-hours clubs
    and English departments, where a genteel repression
    still can act as a pressure cooker
    to transform the gristle of ordinary
    eroticism into the fork-tender brisket
    of Romance, into loves a true Walt
    will be willing to go to the chair for,
    for was it not a Walt who told us
    You must change your life?
    Saturday, April 19th, 2008
    8:31 am
    Welcome to Our Church
    [This is one you can finish yourself. Tetrameter couplets are easy. The hard part is finding the right Pentecostal tone. Last night was a humdinger. The three below tumbled out at about midnight after waking from a dream, and I also had a good idea for an article, which I will take to market (and not post here until it's proven fairy gold).]

    Lift your arms and spread them wide
    So you can be crucified.
    Only boys can pound in nails.
    One girl's in charge of teeshirt sales.
    The rest sing in our Angel Choir,
    Or tend the Pentecostal Fire,
    Spreading it from door to door.
    Kindergarten through Grade Four
    Have a service all their own . . .

    Your turn.
    8:25 am
    Invitation to the Walt
    Now he's safely dead it's possible
    for even the most uptight among us
    to respond to the invitation he extends:
    Come, lads, let's have ourselves some fun.
    A drag race! Or we could ski! Or go
    to sea and feel the wind behind us.
    Fill your lungs to their capacity and then
    let loose that air in a song like some huge
    pipe organ. Now say with me, I love you,
    Walt, and when I see you in the mirror
    I just can't help it, I go ape.
    8:16 am
    Another for Heath
    Sometimes I wonder if he ever gets to read
    these poems I write to him. One doesn't know
    what they do up there. Eternity seems
    like a lot of time to get things done in,
    but they may lose track, as I do often,
    of their merely human purposes. They may become,
    literally, stars, great balls of burning gas,
    billions of them, for whom we count as little more
    than worms. Maybe the heavenly Beatrice
    was never aware of Dante's existence!
    As Heath may never have heard of me!
    8:11 am
    A Reverie by the Shore
    We all respect you, Sir, for the violence
    of your death. Who'd ever heard of a stingray
    turning its tail into a spear
    and thrusting it in someone's heart?
    What can one say but Wow, way to go!
    I walked once alongside a ray, at dawn,
    drawn from the shore step by step, entranced.
    Could it have done the same with me?
    The sea has so many ways to kill a person.
    But your death was as though Ocean himself
    had crushed you with a single kiss.
    Friday, April 11th, 2008
    9:29 am
    A Xinglao Province Eclogue
    [Scene: a toy factory somewhere in the north of Xinglao Province. Boughs of cherry blossom in vases trembling on the throbbing machinery.]

    Li Poo

    Sing-Ling, do you not often think, as we craft these poison playthings
    for the children of our enemies, that it might be a harder task
    if we could see, in some visionary way, the fruit of our malevolence--
    the warped and flailing limbs, the infants screaming in their cribs,
    the mothers stricken dumb with grief? Might such sights
    not provoke something like regret for the mercury
    we introduce into the paint that little tongues will lick
    from this wooden train engine marketed at Wal-Mart as "Thomas"?


    Sing-Ling

    No, Li Poo, such thoughts do not impede my purpose,
    which is to kill all the enemies of our great Fatherland,
    and their infant offspring, especially those who, thanks to our sly labor,
    will never live to bear arms against the might of China.


    Li Poo

    What then, comrade, of the ancillary harm we wreak
    upon our own offspring, into whose clothes and bed linens,
    all inadvertently, we introduce the same toxins
    that will kill the wee Americans?


    Sing-Ling

    As little should we allow ourselves to feel for them
    as for ourselves. There must be sacrifices made in the struggle
    to destroy America. Our advances may be likened to
    a Yellow Wave that will o'erwhelm our foes by its mass--
    we, the the droplets that comprise that mass, each by each
    of no significance but in their totalitarian totality,
    a tsunami. Our deaths in such a cause are to be envied.
    Thursday, April 10th, 2008
    9:24 am
    Hymns to Hymnself
    1.

    He had his haiku too, as who does not.
    Where there are compounds there will be
    molecules, thence atoms and apothegems. Eagles
    will appear high overhead
    screaming unheard in the ecstasy of sex
    and Walt, down here, will hear
    and make an annotation. That is how
    poetry operates--now,
    in his day, and in old Edo.


    2.

    He hated to be talked of when he was
    out of the room, fearing to miss
    some wild encomium he might agree with
    and add to the great mass of his blurbs.
    That was just part of being
    All-Encompassing. He was,
    in Himself, the Compleate Lover,
    male and female, rough and tender,
    dark and light; as such, a star,
    a little jealous of those who might think
    to be his co-stars. Look up at the night sky
    (he did, all the time). Do you see co-stars there?
[ << Previous 20 ]
About LiveJournal.com