Charles Reznikoff

This guy is my jam:

Of Course We Must Die

Of course we must die
How else will the World be rid of
The old telephone numbers
We cannot forget
The numbers it would be foolish
Utterly useless
To call


16

The fingers of your thoughts
are moulding your face ceaselessly.
The wavelets of your thoughts
are washing your face
beautiful.

In Which I Understand Trail Mix

I’ve been having a pretty existential week and a half, and needless to say I’ve been thinking about myself a lot. This is normal in my life. I've been thinking about what my life is doing.

I’m at work today, and because I forgot my chips and salsa, I had to buy from the break room vending machine. Naturally, I am seriously pissed off at forgetting my lunch/only meal for the day at home. I figured I would buy a hot pocket and that’d be that. However, the vending machine was ALSO out of hot pockets. What an exasperating week of ups and downs! I probably thought. Actually, I probably thought, “Well, good, now I don’t have to eat a hot pocket.” But you catch my drift. So I decided on a healthy alternative: trail mix. Tropical trail mix. I’ve always loved nuts. I’ve always loved dried fruit. However, one thing that has plagued my eating of all things assorted and mixed is my preferential treatment. Everything in my life has this sort of strange value system. If I eat a package of Skittles, I eat all of the oranges first, then the grapes, then the yellows, then the greens, then the reds. If I eat chex mix, my hand naturally searches for those delicious little rye chips. A box of chocolates will soon be a box of chocolates sans all caramel and pecan clusters. I just don’t do well, normally, with closing my eyes, closing my fist, and sticking a big handful of god knows what into my mouth. I like the taste of the orange skittle; not the taste of the orange skittle plus grape. Grape-orange? Incomprehensible.

Needless to say, I don’t mix too much. Sometimes, time tested traditions work: Cherry-Coke, Diet-Coke and rootbeer, bread and A1, smashed up starbursts. You know, the staples. The things that I know work.

But there’s something wrong with this world view, food and life included. It’s safe. It’s comfortable. It’s bad. It’s picky. It’s limited. I opened that package of tropical trail mix, knowing that I liked the banana chips and the cashews. I had no clue what those red cubes were, or those fragmented nuts. It all looked pretty gross, you know? Then I did something bold. I just dumped a handful in my mouth. Straight up and in. What ensued was a gooey, peanut-buttery orgy, directly in my tastebuds. Did it taste better than I could imagine? No. But it was new and good and now I know that if I ever want trail mix, I can just dump it into my mouth. Because it’s not about what you like in the mix; it’s about what’s in the mix.

You know where I’m going with this. It’s like life. I can’t be picky, or choosy. I can’t be selective. I’ve got to say yes yes yes yes to anything and everything. Do I want to go on a roadtrip for 100 dollars this summer? Yes. Do I want to continue to work at my job? Yes. Do I want to go home and visit and enjoy and love my family? Yes. Do I want to karaoke on the fourth of july? Yes. Do I want to make a movie? Yes. Do I want to pay rent, pay taxes, deal with my family not understanding my choices, finish my paper, and worry about my car breaking down? Yes.

Life is tropical trail mix y’all. Because it’s not just about picking out the pleasing banana chips or cashews. It’s about shoving the whole thing in your mouth and seeing how it tastes (that’s definitely what she said). It’s about understanding that if there’s something that doesn’t taste right in the mix, it’s ok. It only makes the sweet thangs taste sweeter.

Deep thoughts about trail mix man.

das Unzerstörbare.

The only thing that can make me feel ANY consolation about failing two out of the three classes that I'm taking in my major this semester: Larry Peer telling me that "Sometimes men of genius make mistakes." And while he's telling me it doesn't matter that I've failed, he's got his mirrored sunglasses on. He's in his office, sitting at his desk. With mirrored sunglasses on.

If that guy ever needed a kidney transplant or a lung or something, I'd be first in line to cough it up.

German is a tough language. It is tough for a lot of reasons, including the reason that it's German. This is why I hate only knowing like 20 words of vocabulary in a few languages because I can kind of sketch my way through a passage and I'm like, "I understand!" and then I'm like, "WHAT IS THIS DEMONIC LANGUAGE AND HOW DO PEOPLE SPEAK IT?"

That being said, Kafka in German is waaaay better than Kafka in translation. The end.

My eyes are weary, and every face I see simply falls into familiarity. I need sleep I think! OK!

There is no need for you to leave the house. Stay at your table and listen. Don't even listen, just wait. Don't even wait, be completely quiet and alone. The world will offer itself to you to be unmasked; it can't do otherwise; in raptures it will writhe before you.
-Franz Kafka, Blue Octavo Notebooks, pg. 54

I seek action, delight, fireworks, destruction, rebirth, water sliding along shorelines, washed away footprints, the total combination of everything and nothing at once. It is for this reason that I travel.

The disparity between my desires and actions and Kafka's simple advice is non-existent. We all move in body, a physical action that is wholly unavoidable. But be quiet in your mind. Rest. Sit at your mind table. Consider the tabletop. Examine the forks, the newspaper, the burn mark from the votive candle. Sit quietly, silently, alone in your mind and you'll find the world opening in front of you like a firework in slow motion. A burning lily. A blazing orgasm of reverse attenuation.

The One In Which I Think About My Summer

It's tough when you just want to tell your parents that you've prayed about something and know what you should do. When you just want to say, "This feels right." and that's all the explanation needed.

Oh well. I'm a grown-ass man and I'll do what needs to be done, because this summer needs to happen like this.

Update to all:

859: April-May
801: June-July
859: July-August

Write it down on your calenders.

Like Tim Rutili said:

hands fit together like medicine
butterfly itch on a bottle rocket tail everything is bleeding
shake the glass out of your hair
spell your name in broken teeth

dream for me dreamless

CLICK THE PICTURE. DOWNLOAD THE MUSIC

Dey Know It's Summertime

1. Maybe So, Maybe No - Mayer Hawthorn
2. Thousand Crazy Nights - Music Go Music
3. Cut Your Hair - Pavement
4. Dey Know It's Summertime - Shalonda
5. Mariniere - Mama Rosin
6. Futures & Folly - Blitzen Trapper
7. Kid - Brazos
8. Phantom Limb - The Shins
9. Dull Life - The Yeah Yeah Yeahs
10. The Girl - Dr. Dog
11. I Wanna Hold Your Hand - Bluegrass Beatles
12. Exhibit C - Jay Electronica
13. How I Got Over - The Roots
14. They Don't Want - Electric Wire Hustle
15. Just Like Heaven - Dinosaur Jr.
16. Let My Burden Be - Golden Shoulders
17. Pool Hall Richard - The Faces
18. Supernatural Superserious - R.E.M.
19. Baby C'mon - Stephen Malkmus
20. The Letter - The Veils
21. The Ills - Mayer Hawthorn
22. Lord Have Mercy - Young Buck
23. Ring Ring - Sleigh Bells
24. Big Thirsty - Big Thirsty


LISTEN TO THE JAMZ HAPPY SUMMER 2010

POST OVERLOAD

This is the lifeblood of my soul currently. This is what's keeping me going, sleeping in the library, water my mouth, water my stomach, drink up, drink the water, I'll drown in my sleep at this rate, I'll read all of these books, I'll have this music so loud, can you hear it?

I hope you can.

Important.

R.E.M.- 7 Chinese Bros.

I like this song because it's back when Michael Stipe was all shy and weird and had a big huge afro. And because the title makes me think he's calling chinese people bros. Which reminds me. I'm reading a Kenneth Rexroth translation of Chinese poetry called 100 Chinese Poems. It's pretty good. I wish writing papers for my Comp. Lit. classes was as easy as talking about R.E.M. and Kenneth Rexroth.

The end.

On The Act of Turning 20:

I'm now a "20-something". I'm looking forward to owning real estate and graduating with a PhD. I'm now the demographic that gets mass-marketed Volkswagens, Ipads, fair trade coffee, wedding rings, duplexes, food blogs, Chris Martin, raybans, and Crown Royal. I have a dog and I live in SoHo. I despise the Metro. I have all the google reader hook-ups.

It's tiring being a "20-something". I have to think about my actions all the time. I have to think about my online image. I have to think about the "big stuff in life". I have to want so many things that I see on etsy and television and in Dwell. I have to get used to sleeping in a queen, alone. I have to calm my White Guilt. I have to calm my Red Guilt. I have to remember my roots, whilst simultaneously disowning them. I have to craft new roots. I have to wonder about my "career". I have to consider buying a Prius. I have to watch all of my friends on facebook get older and more desperate and more married and more and more of their pictures are of them just at bars and I have to wonder if they look at my facebook and wonder what's wrong with me. Am I being considerate enough to my grandparents on facebook?

I have to worry about my spontaneity. I have to worry about if I'm appealing to as many people as possible. I have to worry about if I can cope with inevitable failure. I have to worry about how much I worry about worrying.

PSYCHE. All I have to do is listen to R.E.M. and have a blast!