Reading Response 2: Week of 1/31/11

Word of Mouth
Amy Gerstler
"Modern Madonnas"


This was perhaps the flattest reaction I've had to any of the poems read for class thus far. I believe I understand what her general theme was and where she was coming from, but I'm not sure if it's the delivery or the interlocking of tragedy + crime + pop culture + kitchen sink, but it was a chore to read through it. Somewhat like Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start the Fire" without the peppy music to keep the redundant and straightforward nature of the piece from becoming redundant. I felt detached enough just reading the poem itself, but then I read the brief bio, which states: "Gerstler's postmodern prayer "Modern Madonnas" is a haunting litany of contemporary suffering." Maybe I am completely disconnected from the suffering of someone somewhere in the world, but I really don't see the "contemporary suffering" in computer-engineered tax evasion, or how it complements or enhances the "haunting" litany of said suffering to list the Gallup Poll, talk radio and glib interviewers alongside diabetic blindness, drive-by shootings, radiation sickness and chemically induced birth defects. If she's being sarcastic or ranting about how the world in general has gone to pot, okay, I was willing to take it that way, like a play on Billy Joel's anthem. But the bio turned that on its head, and some of the things she listed aren't inherently wrong to begin with, like genetic mutation, which has been a constant force in evolution since the dawn of time. (Maybe she chose her word poorly and meant genetic engineering?) I'm not sure how power lunches and after-hours clubs are something to be sad about, either. Likewise soundtracks.

Anyway, I just feel unimpressed and at a loss. I hope someone can give me a fresh perspective on it. :/

Reading Response 1: Week of 1/31/11

Word of Mouth
Naomi Shihab Nye
"My Friend's Divorce"


How I wish I could wrap this up in the perfect Japanese translation and give to my best friend. It was so simple and bare, deceptively so, that for a second, I forgot the title of the poem and began to drift away from it. But it hadn't rambled off course as I believed it had, but, instead, brought the expression of the subject matter full circle to something extraordinarily resonant. It somehow straddles hopefulness with 20-20 hindsight, which I think is a remarkable feat. It's by far one of my favorite poems thus far in Word of Mouth.

Random Freewrite 2: Week of 1/31/11

This was prompted by the line in the freewrite we read last week: “only trolleys promised ghouls.” I can’t seem to get it to express exactly what I was seeing in my head when I read that line, so I keep going back to it and working at it. The freewrite exercise last week might help me if I just set aside what I’ve written here and try it from a fresh perspective. I might try that at some point in the future and give this one another go.

Silent run the ghouls,

somewhat discombobulatedly.

They discard the wilting peel

of twice-stretched earth,

and sift through firefly sieves

butter-melting soft,

to brush the common frame

and catch the patterned hull

of the lacquered scuffle box.

Garbled growling engine on,

coaxed by papers weighing coin.

Sunlight without scorn flicks on

if rather disjointedly.

Forward, then. They jostle on,

and stretch and stretch

resplendently

from gangling gnarls of fading whine

to lucid joyous shifts of wail.

Now through winding coffin lanes

where air weavers rush to and fro

and perchance too late to slow

making circus eyes and circus mouth

to see the ghouls up close.

Moon makes more soup than sun;

wails more kin than whine.

Silent run the ghouls,

surreptitiously.

Now in ones, then twos,

and so forth, on and on,

one might say duplicitously,

for want of company.

Random Freewrite 1: Week of 1/31/11

This was what I wrote in class in response to the stream-of-consciousness prompt. I chose the word "blind." Sorry it's so long and hard to read. I wasn't sure how to break it up, so I just left it as I wrote it, in prose form.

==========

Blind was curtains. Shuttered open shut. Blind made paper curtains open shut. Sliding open shut. Slanting blunt. River islands light and dust. Blind made islands light and dust. Blind kept light and blind kept dust. Curtains blind and curtains shut. Blind bit light and opened shut. Blind kept shut. Blind was bitten. Eaten full. Earth basket weaving full. Earth weaving baskets full. Earth was basket, dust and shut. Earth was basket full. Basket flood. Blind as mud. Blind was mud. Blind had ears. Ears in mud. Blind was years in mud. Blind kept years, years burning fears. Blind had years of burning fears. Blind was bat. Batter bats. Blind had bitter batter bats. Blind kept bats. Blind was bat and open fat. Blind was bat held fatted bat. Blind kept bats in fat. Blind kept bats in vats of fat. Open fat. Blinded bat. Blinded open fatted bat. Blind in vats of battered fat. Blind was rung. Blind was dung. Blind was blood and blood red hung. River red. Blind was blood river red. Blind was floods of river bled. Blind kept bloods in rivers red. Blind was first. Blind was more than born but first. Blind kept first. Kept first the worst. Blind as hearse. Hearse kept first. Fist and worse. Fisted fit. Blind kept blood in fists that fit. Blind kept most in hearse. Blind went boom. Scatter boom. Blind was booming worse than soon. Boomed in hearse. Boomed first and worst. Blind kept booming first and worse. Blind is blooming hearse and first. Blind kept blind in fast and first. Blind has wings. Scatter wings. Fast and first and scattered wings. Fatter wings. Blind is batter casting wings. Blind has legs. Carton legs. Cast and mast and fatter legs. Scatter legs. Blind is legs of rivers red. Blind is minds that scatter red. River red. Livers bled. Blind is found in givers fled. Scattered lead. Scatter minded legs. Blind has mind and wing and leg. Winded leg. Blended red. Blind was rivers bending red. Spatter fled. Blind was Hiroshima booming red. Blind booms red. Blind is blind was battered red. Curtains red. Blind was hearses curtained red. Blind was born of hearse and red. Blind was scattered born and bred. Blind was scattered born to red. Blind was first and fast to red. Blind was broken open first. Blind was born of broken first. Blind held first in burst and worst. Blind was woken first. Woken up and broken first. Woken red and scattered most. Hearse in time of mind the worst. Hearse came first. Not first but worst. Blind begat the worst. Blind was born of conquest first. Not conquest first but bred conflict worst. Blind was Persia, Gaul and worse. Blind held time and place the most. Blind scattered east west south and north. Blind was blind was blind the most. Blind was blind to mind the first. Blind likes blind the most. Scattered mirrors most. Mirrors first and most. Mirrors blind and burst the most. Scattered worse. Carries and spatters most. Blind kept the worst and bred the first. Blind kept blinding most. Blind was never worse than first. Blind came first and lasted most. Blind lasts first and worst. Blind held on the most. Blind slept the worst. Blind sleeps well in first and most in worst. Blind held blind in scatter bursts. Blind made blind of blinded worst. Blind made blinding blinders worse. Blind made blinders first and worst. Blind was blind at birth and blind of birth. Blind was born of blind and worse. Born of hearse the most. Rivers bled the most. Born to first. Beggared first and fast and most. Blind kept beggars blind and worse. Blind was beaten booming beggar hearse. Blind kept blind in bays of blood red hearse. Mind in hearse. Blind kept mind in hearse for most. Blind made minds of hearse the worst. Booming beaten hearse. Mind of rust. Bleeding river rust. Dust of dust of earth. Rusted earth in river hearse. River bled in hearse. Mind of red and mind of hearse. Blinded legs and bended worst. Blind was kept to blind the most. Blind was blinders on in most. Blinders blinding most. Blind was honey chasing first. Blinded blinders honey chasing first. Worse and first. Blind was rich and beggared most. Blind did first to beggar worst. Blind was rich of hearse and rust. Blind was dust of earth and rust. Blind was rust in mud and worse. Blind was battered bats of river rust. Blind kept rivers rusted most. Blind was rivers bleeding rust. Blind kept first. Blind was beggars moving dust. Moving dust to moving dust. Moving rusted crusted earth. Moving rivers bleeding earth. Moving rivers swept the worse. Moving blinded bleeding rust. Moving rivers made of dust. Made of rusted earth for dust. Made in scattered bleeding dust. Blind is scattered bleeding dust. Blind is ash and blind is dust. Beggars often cursed. Beggars cursing blinders most. Blind is binding blind the most. Blinding binders cursing most. Beggars cursing crusted earth. Blind keeps beggars moving dust. Blind as hearse. Blind is broken open first. Broken scattered rusted earth. Blind keeps earth. Blind comes most often first. Blind is first and last and worst. Blind is hearse. Blind is curtains, shutting in. Blind is curtains, shutting end. Blind is dust in paper curtains open shut. Blind is shut.

Junkyard Quotes: Week of 1/31/11

Everything is from Soundgarden today. I was going back through interviews and other articles, looking for some insight on the creative frame of mind, and a few of their quotes jumped out at me for various reasons. I love how no-nonsense they are, but more than that, I love how all four of them open themselves up freely to the creative process and let the music go where it will without trying to “structure” the music or lyrics to match any particular standard.

1) RIP Magazine (1996):

"To me, music should be escapism. It should be confrontational sometimes, to a degree. And if it's done correctly, it can be really powerful. More than being politically or socially aware, it should serve as something that doesn't have to be touched by outside problems, something that's immune to what we perceive as normal humanity. If I started writing songs based on what I saw around me, in the social or political arena exclusively, then I'd start feeling like a puppet, as if whatever happens tomorrow is going to dictate what I write the next day. And I don't want to live like that. I don't want music to mean that to me. I want something else, where tomorrow I'm going to create something that never existed anywhere, and the next day somebody is going to hear it. To me, that's a lot more exciting."

-Chris Cornell

"We approach it more like the song helps the sound. The song helps everything else. The song makes it."

-Ben Shepherd

2) The Guitar Magazine (1996):

"One of my favourite solos with the band is on Slaves and Bulldozers. When our A&R guy came in we played it to him, and he was like, 'This is finished? Huh? C'mon guys.' I just said, 'You don't get it, do you? That's it, finished!' To me it's great - it seems free, it's real kinetic, it gives the song this great jarring feel. Like Suicide is another one I like, but I play that note-for-note every time, the same patterns. Slaves and Bulldozers live is when I'm real free. I just approach the fretboard with a 'what do I do now?' attitude. Sometimes it's great, sometimes it doesn't work. That's what music is like."

-Kim Thayil

3) PULSE (1994):

"People said to me after Temple of the Dog, 'I didn't know you could sing like that. And I had a hard time explaining that, actually, Soundgarden records are much harder to sing. And the reason it seems like it's better is because, rather than being up against the wall all the time like usual, I'm being mellow and flying under the radar, so the points when [my voice] shoots up will seem more aggressive."

-Chris Cornell

4) Rolling Stone (1992):

"That's what happens in a society when music is exposed and hyped one song at a time. Whatever song they grab the ball and run with is the song they're gonna remember you for. There are a few songs that sound like Soundgarden in a nutshell. I don't think ‘Outshined’ is one of them, but that's the one all the kids cheer for. You might play a sing that you feel is the best thing you've done in a while, and it kind of falls on deaf ears; then you play that song half-heartedly, and they love it. It can be depressing if you let it."

–Chris Cornell

5) RIP Magazine (1994):

RIP: That line in "Black Hole Sun," "No one sings like you anymore," who is that directed at?

Kim Thayil: Is it about John Lennon?

Chris Cornell: I ate some cottage cheese that turned, and I wrote those lyrics. I don't know; it's just sort of a surreal dreamscape, a weird, play-with-the-title kind of song.

RIP: Do you free-associate when you write, or do you sit down with a beginning, middle and end in mind?

Chris Cornell: I used to sit down with a cup of coffee, with usually the title in mind. When I start lyrics, that's what I always do; I start with a title.

6) SPIN (1996):

"You just have to allow yourself to go in different directions. There are songs similar to 'Black Hole Sun' that I wrote years ago, but it seemed like they didn't quite fit our perception of the band. Once sort of define what the band is, then you have to move on from there or you're finished, done."

-Chris Cornell

Classmate Response: Week of 1/31/11

David Mathis: “Seagulls”


I simply loved the quiet loneliness of this piece. You didn’t burden it with too much detail. It was stark, like a black and white photograph, and just like black and white photography, it left me wanting to learn more about its subjects. The brilliance of it was that, even as I yearned for you to fill in the “colors” (so to speak), the very starkness of it allowed me to feel them freely. You didn’t force the direction of my mind, in other words, although the time and place and emotions of the piece were impeccably delivered. I was left feeling quite wistful for the narrator’s sake. My favorite line was: “It’s a silent observer now, no longer showing mighty ships the way and I wonder if it parallels my life with no direction.” That parallel was strikingly evocative, and I immediately understood how it felt to be in your narrator’s shoes. Just beautifully done. If I had any constructive criticism, it would be to trust the beauty of the quiet mood you’ve created and not to worry too much about adjectives or exposition. You have a wonderful ear for storytelling, and I can’t wait to get into our prose section to read more!