i've been north, i've been east, to the california beach

hi jared,

ah creeley, reminds me of reading group, sad. i love pieces, too. i had that dingy yellow copy from the library with strings on the binding and the big ugly bubbly 70s font that i liked and you had a love-hate thing with. to amp the nostalgia up even more, it makes me feel wistful that i had to return that particular semi-nasty copy to the library. (also reminds me of how you bought my creeley library books for a dollar.)

i'm really not sure how to deal with this blog format - i tried to write another couple of posts and kept dropping them. as you can see i know that i don't want to capitalize, but i don't really know what i want to write. just you, me, and catherine are basically reading this, right?

i will say that what i am reading might interest you. coming back from the mission on our way to larry's house, tony and i stopped at pegasus books just randomly, because our bags were heavy, it was a bookstore, and it was lit like an oasis. i found a copy of that book you mentioned 'all that is solid melts into air' - it's exactly perfect, it's really explaining to me exactly why i'm so fascinated by the 19th century and why my poem keeps becoming a bizarre hybrid of chromosomes and telepathy with the mood equivalent of hoop skirts and other belle epoque froofery. the writer points out that in the 19th century people blended the acceleration of modernity with personal experience of pre-modern material and emotional conditions. i feel like that's related to what i was telling you about how i'm interested in somehow this incredible understanding of modernity or a modern mentality in someone like jarry who was living in times that from this vantage point seem like pure sun-washed linen nostalgia....of course i know there was upheaval but i'm so used to thinking of the world wars as the turning point.....anyway, i'm rambling. but the book talks about how the 19th c. modernists actually had a broader, more crazy and more capacious understanding of modernity that we've closed off in the 20th century. that's it, all the stuff i'm interested in: the birth of nostalgia (an awareness of a bridge between times), presentiment, the mood associated with promise and change and choice and, oddly, renunciation (henry james!!)........the book is just right, thanks for telling me about it.

it may actually make me feel optimistic, especially in conjunction with _my life_, which is the other thing i'm reading. at one point she makes reference to the 'peace of adventure' - i feel like she has such a wonderful temperament - she knows how to use her skepticism without sounding poisoned.

is 'measuring d.' optimistic in the end? could we have a round table forum on optimism? are we allowed to be optimistic if he-who-is-not-to-be-named (the scottish play) wins the election?

i keep checking slate for election stuff - my brother has a new article - thank you very much we're cheap trick goodnight. (a real time audio inclusion)

i trail out........hi catherine!