Quick Blog of Pride

Hey gang,

I just wanted to share my little modification made to my computer. We all know the Windows dreamesque start-up riff. Well, I changed my start-up riff to Maya Angelou saying, "Telling lies, phenomenally."

It's a modified wav file from her reading of "Phenomenal Women." (Ughh) Kris, you know how it should sound...it's freakin' hillarious. I love it.

Oh, and Erik, those lyrics are also hillarious. And some how I found out how to make them deeper than they actually are meant to be.

Well, gotta go.

Later,

Chris

hey chris don't know if the moment has passed or not, but ya, you should check out corgans readings. hell songwriters are poets first, i think the pumkins had some good lyrics, I really got into them in the past. I remember a song called 'for martha' that was good, and always 'they only come out at night'.

my friend here in fargoerry was given a cassette tape today of a band called "Old Skull" a punk group from wisconsin back in the late eighties, comprised of 9 year olds! its absolute shit let me tell you, but the lyrics are hillarious. with songs like "kill a dead eagle"

gonna kill a dead eagle
they killed a dead eagle
how do you kill a dead eagle
just kill it
how do you kill a dead eagle
just go like this
we're gonna kill a dead eagle
pollution! the dead eagles dying
the eagles already dead
you can't kill a dead eagle
just like you can't kill the devil
with abomb
dead eagle DIE! o o o
how can you kill a dead eagle

I figure as english majors we should be able to find some ridiculously deep meaning behind these words, but why try?

anyways, talk t'all later

erik

hey guys, sounds like much is happenin for you guys! great to hear.

Chris i have some disturbing news... a couple weeks ago a couple of friends and i drove out to northern california and went backpacking in the redwoods, we stayed both on the way there and on the way back at .....get this....beaverton....our buddy lives there man we probably pulled into your driveway to turn around when we were lost heh...anyways, knew you lived in oregon, knew you lived in the portland suburbi's, just forgot it was beaverton... anyways the trip was excellent, despite my failed attempts to locate four leaf clovers or hallucinegenic (sp?) mushrooms. move to colorado on nov 13th hang out till then.
Kris, theres a big wu show at playmakers on halloween they kick ass you should go. heh sarah, i hope all goes well in iowa glad to hear you're getting along there.

I am here...

Hey all,

I am here, in Beaverton, and I now have a warehouse job at Rite Aid. I am guarateed overtime, but the downfall is I work from 6:15am till whenever. Plus, it is only a "temp" position, even though I will be working there for a long time. The only way I can get hired full-time is to work the graveyard for awhile when the "oppurtunity" presents itself. Oh, and I still work at Target.

There is hope. I recieved a letter from the Statesman Journal about the Editorial Ass't/Paginator position regarding their reviewing of my resume, so at least I know someone is looking at the darn thing!

I could go onandonandonandon. Plus, I also tried to put a poem on here, but BLOGGER will not allow the proper spacing for it's form. Oh well, if you'd like to read it just email me at frigginhugeair@yahoo.com

Later,

Chris

Chris, Erik?

...Chris?

...Erik?

Do the two of you still exist?

iastate.edu

Thanks for the information Sarah. I really appreciate it. I don't know what I'm going to do post-graduation. I say post- in reference to "the long run" rather than immediately following graduation. Pending I'm not rather into active duty (heh) or come across some other commitment, I'm going to enlist in the Peace Corps and don't know what I'm going to do following that. I like to be able to have some idea, so I'm looking around for options now. (Yes, three years in the making, I guess.)

I will take the GRE in the Spring. I've already decided that. I also want to take the LSAT, but only to see how I do. Law is not something that I want to get into, I'd probably end up a politician if that were the case. I already am too much of a leftist to ever make it into office, so that's a negatory.

What was your senior project? I don't remember hearing about it.

Did Kevin and Betsey meet in Iowa? I don’t know anything about their history.

I remember reading something about iastate lately, but I don't remember what it was. Hmm. I'm kind of disappointed when my memory fails me like this. I guess it probably has something to do with the hygeine.

Yes, that was a joke. And, yes, it makes no sense.

Something for everyone (lengthy post)

Hey kids. I'm putting arguably (at least in my own terms) my best poem and its latest revision at the bottom of this. I welcome comments. The initial draft was written sometime around October '03 in Buenos Aires Argentina. This latest draft was reconstituted tonight during innings 6 - 9 of the Twins/Yanks game. A 2-0 victory for the twins--a good thing.

First, Sarah:

I'm interesting about Ames. Is there a linguistics (Masters of Doctoral) program there? What are the entrance rules? Do I need to take a test--GRE or whatever it is? Did you take one of these tests. How'd you do? What was it like? What else did you have to do for admittance? Did you go there? Why did you choose to go there? What is your "formal" degree that you're aiming for upon finishing up there? I guess I don't know and have never known these, so if you could, in your next post, write a little about this, it would be of great help to either aspiring-junkie or aspiring-Dr. Smetana. (I say junkie- in a self-respecting sense, by no means would I make myself a drugjunkie, perhaps a literature and silliness junkie.) I need to know what the turf is like, I guess.

Next, glad to hear that you're safe and sound and drunk back in Fargo, Erik. (Well, not for long, I guess.) Reminds me of a poem of Kerouac called "Safe in Heaven, dead" - Chris, I think I forced you to read that at one point. After I finish writing this, I'm going to find it, so that I can reacquaint myself with it. I should remember it, but sadly all I remember is that there was a pun about the title, some critic wrote of Kerouac that he was "safe in Heaven, drunk." Ha.

Obviously that critic meant drunk, in the sense of satiated, not in our physical terms of inebriation.

Finally, the part that Chris has been waiting for throughout my longwindedness: Kris's attempts (I think they're good) at sonnet-writing. You know. It's just about the iambs, and it's not too bad once you get the knack of it. I do have four quasi-sonnets after all. By no means are they Shakespearean or Miltonian, but for my first forays, I must say, I don't think they're bad.

- - - - -

"One (For Joleen)" - In the Second draft, I renamed it the first line, as Dickinson does.

I see myself a day removed from you
and knowing this, I cannot help but think
of all the things that I should do to link
our lives while time remains and I can brew

within my head the loves unshared, unmade,
in time's brisk march forever on and on.
If we could wait until the rays of dawn
would break for love to bloom and grow and fade.

It would a pittance be to know that life
could end without the melding of our hearts
without the gentle touch that lies in starts
beneath the camouflage of man and wife--

And it would be for me so trite to read
soliloquies apart from in your stead.

- - - - -

"Stead" is to be read with a long "e" there, though it's not technically correct to pronounce it like that. I prefer it like that for the reading. If you want to get technical, I guess you could say it was a slant rhyme, but I tried to avoid such methods in writing this one.

Here it is, with the hour I spent on it tonight. It's sharper, but it's not the quite the same.

- - - - -

I see myself a day removed from you.
Now minutes matter more than distance does.
For knowing that what is could be what was
May make me understand what I must do.

Within my head stir loves unshared, I lay;
As time relentless marches on and on
If we could stay until the rays of dawn
Would break, then love would grant another day.

It would a pity by to know this time
Could end without the melding of our hearts,
Without the tenderness that lies in starts
Beneath the camouflage of dusky rhyme.

For me so trite 'twould be in having read
Soliloquies while I am in your stead.

- - - - -

"Stead" here is pronounced as it should be, [stEd], linguistically.

Comments on either of these would be appreciated. Take shots if you must, but please either post them on here or send them via e-mail (krsmetana@hotmail.com) if you have something to say and don't want to say it for others to read. The major difference in my mind is that in #2, there is more focus on time, I made an effort to use time words - "day, minutes, is/was, time relentless, rays of dawn (evoking a NEW day), starts, dusky."

Hmm. Well, I'm spent. Long post, like I said.

Good ol' Webster

Hey check out some of the post 9/11 additions to the post 9/11 edition of Webster's Dictionary.

Good to hear you are back in the lower portion. When you're sober and at a computer you should detail the Alaskan life for us southern folk.

Kris, you of all people should know that I understand your grief when it comes to, well frankly, shitty poetry. I am sure you're stuff is far greater than anything posted on such a website that shall not be named here. Typing of which, you promised you'd expunge :-) Anyways, I have never taken a swing at sonnets, so let us read. I am overtly excited to read them...wooohoooo!

Well, time to go apply at moving companies.

Later,

Chris

by the way, am back in the good old lower 48. go to california tomorrow, but will be back in fargo around the middle of oct until the middle of nov.

am drunk now.

talk later

e

yes kris, yes it does. but you must score 100 percent on all your surveys.

Sonnets

I was going through some stuff from Argentina tonight looking for a poem that I wrote for a girl. I remember it being much better than it was when I read it. I'll post it (and its three other sonnet friends) sometime within the next week.

I really do need to revise the one for the girl. I can't believe how bad it is and how good I thought it was. Ha ha ha. Good, old nostalgia ruining my good writing again.

In related news, for Taggart's class we were to listen to Larry Woiwode (poet laureate of ND) speak today. He basically filled our hearts with gloom, saying that we must write at least four hours a day to make it as writers, and then only the best will make it. Jerk. (Joke for Erik: I wonder if Relay counts for "four hours" of writing a day.)