Lunacy

Jim! Where the fava beans at?!

In near unanimous aplomb, which I'm sure was celebrated over dozens of bottles of Opici, Congress voted today (398-1) to strike out the pesky word "lunatic" from US Code.

According to Senator Kent Conrad, one of the bill's staunch supporters, "Federal law should reflect the 21st Century understanding of mental illness and disease, and that the continued use of this pejorative term has no place in the US code."


The only one to vote against it and recently shunned non-believer Texas congressman Louie Gohmert believes that the effort taken to sit around, discuss, and vote on this issue was a total waste of time when bigger issues, say the end-of-the-year fiscal cliff, was sitting on the table. Unfortunately, the bottles of Opici were rested on it, so no one noticed.     

Surprise the Gamer Girl in Your Life

Make sure they're not all Bidoofs.

If you have a lovely lady who's into video games, here's a great way to get some brownie points. Say she plays lots of Pokemon. Grab her game and load it up. Go out and capture three random poke-monsters and rename them: "I," "Love," "You." Next time she loads that bad boy and opens up her menu and finds that—well, say hello to Pantsless Town (Pop. 2).

Little surprises like this can make any relationship shine. Shitty days happen because random unexpected things befall us. But consider how easy it is to turn an ordinary day into a sweet one. This is one way to guarantee a healthy and happy relationship.

She'll slay that spider with "Pudding Lips."

And you can do this with any game where you have the option to input names. Skyrim for example: name a badass axe after her pet name (if you prescribe to such harrowing cuteness, of course).


Go forth and make every day brighter. 

Year End Book Count

This year was a good one in regard to the varieties of books I read, but I certainly didn't read enough. The "A Song of Ice and Fire" series certainly takes most of the blame since I refused to whip through those quickly. In any case, I am glad I managed to get this many in and I'm looking forward to beating this record next year. (It's a good thing I'll be done with graduate school in May.)

Things Fall Apart - Chinua Achebe
The Hound of the Baskervilles - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
The Dark Knight Returns - Frank Miller
Clash of Kings - George R.R. Martin
Storm of Swords - George R.R. Martin
Feast for Crows - George R.R. Martin
Atonement - Ian McEwan
Invisible Monsters - Chuck Palahniuk
Haroun and the Sea of Stories - Salman Rushdie
The Dragon Can’t Dance - Earl Lovelace
Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
In The Heart of the Country - J.M. Coatzee
Breakfast of Champions - Kurt Vonnegut
Blackbirds - Chuck Wendig
American Gods - Neil Gaiman

Collective Page Count: 5,483 (and some of that text is tiny!)
Most Enjoyable: Storm of Swords (for those who know, it's obvious)
Surprise Gem: Haroun and the Sea of Stories (zippy and entertaining read)

How many books did everyone else read and what kinds? Suggestions are welcome. 

Comparative Poetry Drafts

Working on poetry is tough. It's often thankless work that most people read and end up scratching their heads over. It elicits responses like "It's nice" or "Sound's pretty," which amount to little more than nothing. I don't expect a Freudian dissection of the work and there is no right answer, but from now on, non-readers of poetry, make your best efforts to focus on a specific—if only one—facet of a poem that will give the artist the satisfaction of a valuable comment toward improvement.

Below are two drafts of a poem I wrote for my seminar in poetry. The first is what I handed in to be workshopped, and with the help of my peers' excellent critiques, I revised it to the poem below the first for submission into my end-of-semester portfolio. Compare and contrast and let me know what you all think of the changes.

Raconteur

Setting craftsman, you crosshatch revelation

quilts for been-theres and wistful savants.      

Pages pop with organic glow, an ebony clarity

pixelated dreamers take into their wisdom chambers.

You serve tonics marked joy, grief, and misery

mixed specially by your sensitivity for savory scribbles made

into sensory salves. Under honeycombed membranes,

a deceptively voluminous body lies waiting

for the jolt to spring forth from comatose layers.

The void's cloaked edges flake, and strips bow back and collapse

to reveal that brilliant, fanfare-confident  

Ah Ha!

My Sweet Muse

She comes without warning,

never at my behest,

to baptize my blotched mind

in sensory salves marked:

joy, grief, love, and rage.

Honeycombed brain chambers ooze

through to fingers and secrete

savory scribbles

in ebony purity

toward that rich, darling

Aha! moment.   

 
    

Manscaping

Boyhood's wild masculine fantasies of conquering

"cannots" and "will nots" have lightning-lava tumbled

away from once carefree realities. I am tall,

but no pirate-viking-superhero-rock god.

I now lift pencils, furnish my home in Bed Bath & Beyond

knick knacks, and daintily sip white wine—

the capital paradigm repossessed my throne.

But last I checked during my morning's piss

I am a man, and like the towering Atlas,

a globe of testosterone rests on my shoulders.

My face is a cityscape for seizing back boyhood's

precocious demands to crash through the ceiling

of Aristotelian world views. Hair is the infinite ladder;

the war horn to scare away the ravens of Nevermore.

A Handlebar Mustache morphs lesser men into bare

knuckle brawling contenders; Friendly Mutton Chops

set one on equal footing with General Ambrose Burnside.

Circle beards, Soul Patches, Zappas and Anchors, all facial fluff

fortifies a man against melding among the "cannots" and "will nots"

of baby face persuasion. Release the envy of inner boyhood

because Charles Darwin understood what made the fittest.

(A poem for men who feel like their boyhood dreams of grandeur are gone. Repossess your throne!)

Cleopatra

A coy glance and come-hither wink lured

me to her spider trap. She sashayed around Bourbon Street

Blues Company with fine, rounded convex hips

to the beat of lulling sweet heat; sax and drums,

the theme to her crow-black bob and beguiling amygdaliform

eyes spelled my doom, but I slithered over

to her with no modesty or fluffy talk, armed

to the marrow with Bayou boast. She charmed me

with milk-moon complexion and a sloshing tray of test tube

trickery. I'll gift you a shot from my mouth: only five dollars.

Unlike Marc Antony before me, I meant to wholly conquer

this woman and her sweet fig lips; I refused to take bait

till she answered my crafted questions and fell mercy to my

scorpion venom, cruel little spider that she was.

Her favorite film: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

Her favorite book: Norwegian Wood.

Satisfied, I knelt before her petite figure and took two shots,

and she reciprocated with a short, spirited conversation

over Jim Carrey's dramatics and Murakami's dismay.

Deluded by New Orleans' elysian whiskey patter I fell

prey to ancient desire and asked for her number.

She beckoned me to follow her through the throng

listening to sax and drums, her victorious arm held high,

balancing the tray. She never looked back and acknowledged me

as I pushed through those that parted for her. And I was fooled,

I knew all along yet troubled to continue chasing her like a puppy

desperate for love from its master. I rolled back out into the street

picking at my threadbare cunning and got lost

in her web that clung to my overcast mind and asp-poisoned blue wood.

(A poem about an interesting experience over the summer in New Orleans. To all those planning on going, be warned.)