Detroit, MI

Detroit, Michigan, desolate and alone at the turn of the clock, the metallic sting of hunger on the tongues of the American mouth.

Detroit, lost and turned feral, your roving bands stagger through snowy streets while frothing about the mouth, falling only to catch themselves seconds before defeat to gravity.

Anderson Cooper, tiny eyes of pearl: “Falling stocks, falling dollar, falling prices, falling security, rising misery.” But Detroit, you’ve been hungry all along.

Detroit, there’s a die-in in your coach terminal; bodies strewn across your benches, garbage lying on the floors – only the janitors seem happy, because they aren’t charged with the garbage on your streets.

Detroit, it’s quaint, the way your country speaks of money: “your future”, “another bloodbath on the stock market” – we were never as safe as our illusions.

Detroit, you are a soft-footed ghost that wanders your own halls. You are cold, and you are unbearable; why isn’t there a single vegetarian dish in your vending machines? When I am with you, I am made heavy and restless as the change lining my pockets.

Detroit, you know Ginsberg was never America, not even New York-alabaster, but some strange and holy thing like a single bloody heirloom perched upon a frosted vine. Burroughs was America, crazy in Tangier. Kerouac traded hands obsessive as a dollar bill, till they broke him to make change, using his rolled body to snort cocaine off unclean counter-tops in all night coffee joints.

Detroit, I am bored and pondering mythology inside an empty bus your security guard let us sleep inside because it’s warmer than the bus terminal – I see people pace inside there, reflections on the window.

Detroit, it’s important that I get to Chicago. No one knows if this bus is going to Chicago. It’s 6am and we’ve looked lost to each other for an hour, faces neon signs that say “Chicago?” but nobody dares speak the word “Chicago” because in here, Detroit, your legacy has made us cower at ourselves.

Cafe poem

This girl with red hair
sat across from me
and asked if she could
read the poem my
notebook opened to:

“Cool,” she said
“I write emo poems;
not cool poems.”

“I’m sure there’s a
place for them
somewhere.”
Then I smiled.

“You don’t have
any drugs, do you?”

“No.” I said.

“Any at all?”

“Sorry,” I said
and watched her
walk away.

Learn to Capitalism properly (with examples!)

From AP:

NEW YORK – A Wal-Mart worker was killed Friday when “out-of-control” shoppers desperate for bargains broke down the doors at a 5 a.m. sale. Other workers were trampled as they tried to rescue the man, and customers shouted angrily and kept shopping when store officials said they were closing because of the death, police and witnesses said.

At least four other people, including a woman who was eight months pregnant, were taken to hospitals for observation or minor injuries, and the store in Valley Stream on Long Island closed for several hours before reopening.

Shoppers stepped over the man on the ground and streamed into the store. When told to leave, they complained that they had been in line since Thursday morning.

Nassau police said about 2,000 people were gathered outside the store doors at the mall about 20 miles east of Manhattan. The impatient crowd knocked the man, identified by police as Jdimytai Damour of Queens, to the ground as he opened the doors, leaving a metal portion of the frame crumpled like an accordion.

“This crowd was out of control,” said Nassau police spokesman Lt. Michael Fleming. He described the scene as “utter chaos.”

Dozens of store employees trying to fight their way out to help Damour were also getting trampled by the crowd, Fleming said.

Items on sale at the store included a Samsung 50-inch Plasma HDTV for $798, a Bissel Compact Upright Vacuum for $28, a Samsung 10.2 megapixel digital camera for $69 and DVDs such as “The Incredible Hulk” for $9.

Damour, 34, was taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead about 6 a.m., police said. The exact cause of death has not been determined.

HOLY FUCK, DID YOU SEE HOW CHEAP THAT TV WAS?!

Three Thoughts

Here are three thoughts I had today (and yesterday). Not very relevant, but they were things that stuck out at me.

–Today was the first day I noticed that all the leaves had finally gone from the trees (bar a few hangers-on). That seemed important, somehow.

–I realised yesterday morning that I feel good when I wear my red beret and my red scarf at the same time. Maybe matching two red items of knitwear is bound to create a small explosion of confidence, but I’m attached to the two items and realised that I don’t wear them together as often as I should. The beret I have had for some time now, and the scarf brings back fond memories of Birmingham. I bought it a while ago, while walking down the Soho Road in Handsworth and passing all its shops with outside stands; the owner of one, a Sikh man, came out and encouraged me to buy something, showing me racks and boxes of knitted bags and scarves, according to him all knitted by his wife. Every one was a different colour, some with many colours interwoven, but I chose one of the simplest – a long, bright red one. As I recall, it cost only £2, but I’m reminded of Birmingham every time I wear it.

–When I was in town today I saw a man who looked like Picasso, only seeming somewhat less elegant. He also seemed shorter to me, but when I looked online on my arrival home I discovered that Picasso was only 5′4″! Fancy that. Perhaps Picasso lives on as a vagrant in Kent.

Chicago apartment

For the millionth time
Matt explains to me
the one that he’s been
looking for: “Everything
will line up, one day.
I just need to believe
the one that can
complete me exists.”

I’m staring at a spot
on the floor, four
feet in front of me.
“I suppose you can’t
be sensibly erotic,”
I muse out loud
and take a pull from
good Wisconsin beer.

Sleigh-ride

I let myself out of his house when Fitzgerald started nodding off from the Oxycontin he’d taken earlier. About halfway home, I realized how apprehensive I was.  My mind was being pulled around by someone else. I was like a small, runny-nosed child in a snowsuit tripping along the sidewalk to keep up with the incredulous pace set by the mitten fastened around his forearm, the disembodied voice yelling Hurry, hurry! We’re going to miss the bus!

And I thought, Why am I doing this?  What exactly am I rushing around for?

“The future,” answered a fat-bottomed snow man from a nearby lawn.

“The what?” I asked.

“The future,” the snow man repeated.

“The what?” I asked again, and winked.

The snow man winked back.

It’s one-thirty AM on a Thursday morning.  These moments boil down to me and the rabbit tracks in the fresh layer of snow.  If home is my end-result, how does it matter which way I get there?  I put my brain inside my legs, and became aware of how every muscle and joint twists and turns, the shocking weight of gravity.  The motivation for my next step was that my last step worked.  If Newton and Descartes were wrong, the universe and human reality do not proceed as clockwork, than we’re foolish indeed if we do not participate with awe in each second’s procession of tiny miracles.

When I walked slowly with my mind about my body, the shadows of the trees appeared to be creeping toward me.  The thin fingers of traffic light reflections caressed Victoria Street’s wet pavement, and the whole scene shivered.  Crisp sleigh lines cut through the snow, carrying more reality about them than the make-believe ones across the map.

About a block from my apartment, the opening simile came into my head, so I chose to write this down when I got in instead of an email to the red head that’s been shy of contact lately.

If you’re reading this:
Give me a call sometime. My days and nights are mostly full of magic, as you have observed, but I might be able to make a slot for tea between Buddha and the other eiganvalues.

A few short films from Osamu Tezuka

Osamu Tezuka is the accredited “Father of Anime and Manga.” I’ve always sort of known who he was through my childhood obsession with “Astro Boy”, but I never imagined that I would recognized him as a brilliant and experimental artist. How he saw things had clairvoyance, and he possessed the skills to mirror something unsettling, wild and profound with his simple drawings. While looking through Casablanca books I came across a couple beautiful volumes of his retelling of the Buddha’s life, volumes 1, 5, and 6. I bought them all, and I was so moved by the end of volume 1 that I ended up ordering all of the others to complete my set. Moving on from “Buddha”, I’m reading his masterwork “Phoenix”.

Whatever is the established styles in anime and manga today are because of Tezuka, but Tezuka they are not. I have problems getting into the medium. There have been a few stories that have struck me as inspired uses of the animation and comic-book style, like: “Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade”, “Samurai X”, “Metropolis” (another Tezuka original, but animated years after his death), “Cowboy Bebop”, “Akira” and everything by Hayao Miyazaki, but mostly I find formulaic soap-operas that rely heavily on deus ex machina to resolve a convoluted plot-line. After getting over my initial interest with anime and manga back in sixth grade when it was foreign and exciting, I’ve failed to have my interest really captured by much, even though people hurt to show me these things.

Tezuka’s command over his stories is what sets him apart from the rest. With a immaculate way of interweaving subplots into the main story that further character and create and resolve tension with power and subtlety, he carefully guides you into a place where you can see the world with his astounding moral compass. Effortlessly you’re are moved through natural humour, romance, drama, and profound concepts in an excellent and entirely accessible way.

From the 1960’s until his death in 1989, he played with animation. These are, frankly, trip-ass. Like “Oh my god, I’m still on acid does this shit ever end?!”. “Jumping” is really the highlight of these three, and it won several awards. The other two are mostly experimental, and very interesting to see some of the things that are being done. The longest of these is almost seven minutes. Enjoy.

Memory

Jumping

Broken Down Film

Thoughts on Divinity

i felt something like it i think.
i was on the porch earlier sitting on my feet
and i was on this table i love… i dunno, you probably don’t remember it
it was in my living room and now it’s on my porch because i can sit on it.
large and square.
and it’s not solid so…
the air comes from all around when you’re sitting on it.
i thought i’d just float away.
but it’s sturdy and safe.
i think that’s divinity.
not knowing where i’d go, but being safe going
and i could hear the wind before it’d come, then i’d feel it around and under me.
the sun was finally almost gone too.
but it leaves this golden glow
and desert trees are the best at holding that
all the tiny needles and little leaves light up like fire
everything glows, then it’s gone.

I’m a fall fucking fair

the farris wheel fire breathing cotton candy candle jack catching the curious in the twirliwhirl of the fiddlecrow I am here but I should go nothing’s here I should know
i made it
create it
flipped and spade it
royally fair-trade it
it’s my blade to shave it
something’s happening
my stain is spreading
drinking sky cumulous with my key-cracker delight bleeeeeding across the night

reports are coming in from around the country
a vaudevillain cod-fish in the clouds lapping up the creole of the sky
I am everywhere where did i go
flashbomb fantasy raining from down to fancy sea
sad sucker scalliwags scared to see me
wheee hee hee heeee

Betty says:
i’m tied to a lot of things.
i’m in a good mood.
Michel says:
So am I
I want to siiing bluuuuuuuues
Betty says:
i want to start a fire.
and sit around it
Michel says:
I want to learn to play bluegrass
Betty says:
i like twang.
Michel says:
I want to learn how to play Russian instruments with unique pitch
I want to learn how to play the trumpet and wail like Miles Davis
I want to learn how to bang on a Shaman’s drums
and ride the spirit northward
I want to be the hoooo of a conch shell
I want to march around like a vaudevillain circus event
the vaudvillianeous of them all, in a frock coat with two lobsters and feather head-dress
Betty says:
what are you doing tonight?
Michel says:
then I’d dance around the fire, jumping on one foot at a time like an ostrich
Maybe making some music with Sam and Ali (Capwn)
Betty says:
i just got this urge to disappear.
Michel says:
I have this urge to be magic on the breath of the wind
around and through the ravines between cactus needles
hoooow do you mean disapppeeeeaaaar?
POOF?
or fa     d      e        a              w                   a                             y
fade away like a blue sun in a deep space delta
unobserved by our telescopes and loves
becoming something else
supernova stellar star
Forgive the oddity, I may have broke the bottle that regularly contains my spirit
we can’t let it fly about all the time, m’dear
it’s disconcerting for the concert goers who expect to see “Art”
low men with loooooooooooooooooooooooooooong faces
Gone. Away. Disappeared.
Like that.

Slam poetry

Just a few days ago I got back from the Canadian Festival of Spoken Word, a.k.a. the National Poetry Slam. This was the first year Montreal sent a team, joining 10 other teams: Vancouver, Victoria, Calgary, Winnipeg, Toronto, Up From the Roots (Toronto 2), Ottawa, Lanark County, Southern Ontario (Peterborough, Guelph, London), and Halifax. Met lots of amazing spoken word poets, Dwayne Morgan, Shane Koyczan, Regie Cabico (of nuyorican fame), and more.

Slam poetry gets a lot of criticism for it’s “competitiveness.” It’s seen as sport-like, the way audience members are selected as judges who rate poetry performances Olympic-style. And sometimes people do get caught up in the points and the competition, but really the points are a gimmick, a clever trick.

I think of slam poetry as resistance art. It’s a resistance to oppression, resistance to old ways of thinking, but most importantly, a resistance to apathy. Leonard Cohen’s got this great essay on how to do spoken word, against the passionate actor-like poet wailing Howl-esque on stage, because nothing any North American poet has to say can compare to the tragedies going on around the world. I don’t think it’s quite fair because that man has a voice that can make you tremble even in its monotone, but also, images of war, genocide, famine, yadayadayada don’t make us feel anything today. A performance does, however, and it can make us re-evaluate the images and messages that daily bombard us.

But the real resistance to apathy isn’t in anything the poets are saying, it’s in the cheap, gimmicky format. It’s in the audience engagement. Marc Smith hated poetry readings, because nobody ever listened, so he invented slam poetry to “hand poetry back to the people.” The sport-like appearance of it makes the audience care. When the scores are too low the audience boos or yells out “higher,” they scream and holler and shout out to the poet on stage, and when you flub your line a chorus of snapping fingers hold a beat till you get it together again. Slam poetry doesn’t like spectators (it is not a spectacle). It requires participants (it is a situation, it is play, it is participating in art whether you create it or not).

Slam poetry is making poetry popular. The old idea is that only poets buy books of poetry. But people will come in off the street, having seen a poster or something, and come to a poetry slam. People who never write anything, or who only think about it, or who will after coming to one of these events. It’s a form of entertainment, and this is the danger to its future. When the points take over, when it becomes part of the bourgeois spectacle, that’s when slam poetry will become dead and useless. There’s a danger that its poets will degenerate into one of 2 camps: preachers and entertainers, which seems to be the 2 major trends.

Slam poetry is a new format based on an old oral tradition along the lines of Greek rhapsodes, Provencal troubadours, modern spoken word artists and MCs. Like all artistic formats, it requires constant innovation and renovation. Rather than preaching and entertaining, slam poetry should move toward further integration of its audience. There is a basic and cheap way of doing that, getting up on stage and demanding that your audience shouts out words you give them or claps a beat you provide. But there was one thing the Vancouver slam team did — 3 of them did a team piece, a “choose your own adventure” poem. There were 2 junctions in the poem where the poets provided the audience with an option. We could choose, “revolution” or “evolution,” and what we chose determined the poem we heard. With 2 options at 2 points, it was 4 different poems and we decided which one we heard.

The form has to confront and challenge its audience as well as entertain, so that it continues to grow in popularity, but doesn’t degrade into the imbecilic spectacles of sport and entertainment we’re used to.

To end off, here’s a poem. It doesn’t provide any of the innovation or challenges I’ve just called for. It’s just a favourite piece of mine, and likely will be until I start meeting some of my own standards.

Salvia divinorinum

To the moon-landinin’, Mars-probinin’, dancin’ on the rings of Saturin types with their astro-travelin’,

I’ve been outside the space-time continuum

into the vacu-um where God splintered itself into angels and sended ‘em to live on Earth,

and it was too much so I went in reverse

but I had to find myself first as my self-images burst,

hurting my brain, mind shrieking in pain, I was gone beyond insane

and gained some perspective.

I am defined by other people and places.

My consciousness cannot look at itself

so it uses the world as a mirror.

As I’m a seer it sears itself on me

so I define an identity,

and there is no inner me,

only a mosaic of places and beings

imprinted and reflected as a personality

which is made by behavioural mimicry.

Imagine my state of mind when I figured that out.

It’s how I interpret a mental black-out

followed by a feverish bout of hallucinations.

I now have to turn down the stars to look at my feet

’cause my thoughts on Earth are incomplete.

See, it is not time to contemplate constellations

because for all the space stations, mechanical creations or histories of nations,

until we’ve figured out earthly plants and psychic maps

our knowledge will lapse and we’ll never make contact

with the people of Mars or citizens of the stars.

They exist on frequencies other than space-time

and leave us signs in rocks that re-direct sunshine,

and before we can make it to Saturn’s blocks

we’ll have to use the sun for clocks and words for glocks and anarchists for cops.