030: GLYNDON, MINNESOTA (by way of ENDERLIN, ND and PARTS EAST AND WEST)
AN EMAIL IN SEVERAL PARTS WITH SOME UPDATES ABOUT WORK AND SUCH
First, THA NEWS.
I spent the larger part of this past couple weeks working on layout for CONFESSIONS FROM A DRAINAGE DITCH. I'm learning the "fun" process of translating Word documents into Kindle, and for the first time in my life I learned that Word has a Style associate with Body Text, and that that Style is different from Normal, and that Word's Styles work a lot like CSS. So after about a week of fucking around with infuriating and seemingly unexplainable formatting changes, I learned what the hell I was doing and finally sat down and formatted it correctly over this past weekend. So next I'm going to be sending it to a first reader or two and getting some feedback and, with any luck, I'll be getting it into the publishing pipeline soon.
That's been front-burner work, so THE FAILURE EXPERIMENT is back-burner simmering/percolating. I've been poking at it here and there, but no major progress has been made yet. I think the next thing I'm going to be doing there, in all honesty, is research. Which, I recognize, sounds ridiculous. Research? For poetry?? It's more common than you might think! The thing that most people don't realize is that most poetry isn't a series of lightning strikes and bang, a whole book. Like, inspiration is rad and all, but you can't filter stuff without taking in stuff. And considering this stinkin' book has a very specific slant, I have to immerse myself in a very specific Mood.
Beyond that, I'm in an okayish not-quite routine. By which I mean I get up at a reasonable hour, I actually eat breakfast, I play with the dog, I check on the garden or do whatever else needs to be done outside, and I keep on top of my housework and writing as I can. It's been ungodly hot for several weeks at this point and I'm getting really tired of not being able to go outside from like 11am til sundown. Let's hope that doesn't bode anything for the capital-F Future.
Second, INTERLUDE.
First, THA NEWS.
I spent the larger part of this past couple weeks working on layout for CONFESSIONS FROM A DRAINAGE DITCH. I'm learning the "fun" process of translating Word documents into Kindle, and for the first time in my life I learned that Word has a Style associate with Body Text, and that that Style is different from Normal, and that Word's Styles work a lot like CSS. So after about a week of fucking around with infuriating and seemingly unexplainable formatting changes, I learned what the hell I was doing and finally sat down and formatted it correctly over this past weekend. So next I'm going to be sending it to a first reader or two and getting some feedback and, with any luck, I'll be getting it into the publishing pipeline soon.
That's been front-burner work, so THE FAILURE EXPERIMENT is back-burner simmering/percolating. I've been poking at it here and there, but no major progress has been made yet. I think the next thing I'm going to be doing there, in all honesty, is research. Which, I recognize, sounds ridiculous. Research? For poetry?? It's more common than you might think! The thing that most people don't realize is that most poetry isn't a series of lightning strikes and bang, a whole book. Like, inspiration is rad and all, but you can't filter stuff without taking in stuff. And considering this stinkin' book has a very specific slant, I have to immerse myself in a very specific Mood.
Beyond that, I'm in an okayish not-quite routine. By which I mean I get up at a reasonable hour, I actually eat breakfast, I play with the dog, I check on the garden or do whatever else needs to be done outside, and I keep on top of my housework and writing as I can. It's been ungodly hot for several weeks at this point and I'm getting really tired of not being able to go outside from like 11am til sundown. Let's hope that doesn't bode anything for the capital-F Future.
Second, INTERLUDE.
That was the first time I ran away. I made it to the oak tree in our front yard. Four hours gone and to my mom's credit she didn't come looking for me. ~ Brian Wood, Local*
Third, CONSUMPTION.
- Currently listening to friend of the program t3xtur3, aka Glaswegian hip-hop MC, poet, journalist, and podcaster Bram E. Gieben, and his newest EP Old Boy. He's got two new producers working with him, Supermann On Da Beat and eyesluvsu, with each doing three tracks. The thing that really catches me on these tracks is how much melodic work is present on them. A lot of Bram's work prior to this (largely with ASTHMATIC ASTRONAUT, who is still present at the mixing desk) is how flexible the flow had been, where here the bars are tight and play more with delivery than rhythm. "Dead Bodies" in particular has a full range of delivery, from whispers to distorted screaming. But I really have to say... I'm just astonished to hear Bram sing... even if it's only a few bars here and there. There's a lot of expansion in the work here, which is something I love to see from a guy who has already been regarded as at the top of his game more than a couple times over the years. And considering he's one of the people that's one of my longest influences and inspirations... I'm loving it.
- Started reading Alan Moore's Jerusalem. It's a 1200-page behemoth, and I'm currently on page 7. I've been putting this off since the day I bought it, because it's fucking intimidating, but the man is literally a genius, and everyone tells me it's incredible. I'll get through it eventually. It only took me the better part of a year to finish It, and Sai King sure doesn't have the Alan Moore Brain.
- The annual Watch Great British Baking Show At The Farm week has started. We haven't hit anything yet that is, like, a must-eat, and we're about halfway through the season. (This being Season 10, so last summer's British season.) This has probably been the first season where I have been sad when every contestant has left, and I'm going to try really hard to avoid spoilers this year. (Last year I got spoiled on, like, episode 3 because I was looking for a recipe.) Hopefully something appropriately light comes up. Every year someone does some kind of sticky-toffee pudding and every year I lament that the partner can't have dates. And then I try to find some replacement for dates but there's just something very particular about date flavoring I just can't replace and sticky-toffee pudding gets shelved for another year. So hopefully a tasty fruit or pie or something comes up soon that we can actually eat. And then you can read about our baking exploits!
Fourth, HUSTLE.
Normally, I'd be trying to tell you to get my book here, but I have some plans happening there, too, and can't in good conscience suggest that.
If you're liking this whole project and want to support directly, here is my Patreon. There are lots of little benefits you can get there, from access to a subscriber-only Discord to poems written to your specifications to subcriber-only limited-edition chapbooks.
Finally, THE OUTRO.
Yesterday (as I write this) was Father's Day. It's my first without mine. I won't elaborate much there on the complicated feelings I have (they're actually fairly uncomplicated), but I will say that I did finally go out to the cemetery and verify that he is, indeed, in the ground. I also saw the graves of numerous other relatives I haven't visited in many years. I've basically decided that rather than calling myself "Northern European" when it comes to my ancestry, I'm just going with "vaguely North Sea-ish", which is somehow more accurate.
In any case, I've also been spending a lot of time on my mom's piece of land and feeling a lot of guilt about how far into disrepair it has fallen. Not guilt toward my parents--I don't really feel bad for them--but for the piece of land itself, and how poorly the trees and grasses have been kept up, and the various buildings, and the various bits of equipment and whatnot. I feel guilty for not having kept up with *that*. Because there's a lot out there that's useful or salvageable, but it has fallen to such a state of disrepair that it's almost as bad as when my parents initially bought the land and I (well, largely I) was the one that mostly cleared it and tamed it back to the point that it was a livable, quote-unquote "exploitable" (by which I mean "improvable") piece of land.
I have no idea what will ever come of it. I never really wanted to live out there to begin with, but I had no choice when I was 16. But there's a certain amount of nostalgia, guilt, and grief that goes with having put so much work into that property only to see it fall so far. There's still a lot of feelings that go into my work out there, helping clean up as it is, figuring out how to divvy up my dad's various belongings and figuring out what my mom's gonna do out there.
All this is to say that Future You might have much different reasons for doing or wanting things that Present You. Long-term planning isn't something I was ever taught, and certainly something I ever got even help with. But it's never too late for you to form your own values, your own morals, or your own ethics.
Supposedly Socrates once said "The unexamined life is not worth living." You can start examining whenever you want. Sometimes we won't like the things we find, but sometimes we'll inexplicably love them, and we'll never know til we go looking.
*Brian Wood is a shitbag, and LOCAL is the only book of his that I actually recommend.
- Currently listening to friend of the program t3xtur3, aka Glaswegian hip-hop MC, poet, journalist, and podcaster Bram E. Gieben, and his newest EP Old Boy. He's got two new producers working with him, Supermann On Da Beat and eyesluvsu, with each doing three tracks. The thing that really catches me on these tracks is how much melodic work is present on them. A lot of Bram's work prior to this (largely with ASTHMATIC ASTRONAUT, who is still present at the mixing desk) is how flexible the flow had been, where here the bars are tight and play more with delivery than rhythm. "Dead Bodies" in particular has a full range of delivery, from whispers to distorted screaming. But I really have to say... I'm just astonished to hear Bram sing... even if it's only a few bars here and there. There's a lot of expansion in the work here, which is something I love to see from a guy who has already been regarded as at the top of his game more than a couple times over the years. And considering he's one of the people that's one of my longest influences and inspirations... I'm loving it.
- Started reading Alan Moore's Jerusalem. It's a 1200-page behemoth, and I'm currently on page 7. I've been putting this off since the day I bought it, because it's fucking intimidating, but the man is literally a genius, and everyone tells me it's incredible. I'll get through it eventually. It only took me the better part of a year to finish It, and Sai King sure doesn't have the Alan Moore Brain.
- The annual Watch Great British Baking Show At The Farm week has started. We haven't hit anything yet that is, like, a must-eat, and we're about halfway through the season. (This being Season 10, so last summer's British season.) This has probably been the first season where I have been sad when every contestant has left, and I'm going to try really hard to avoid spoilers this year. (Last year I got spoiled on, like, episode 3 because I was looking for a recipe.) Hopefully something appropriately light comes up. Every year someone does some kind of sticky-toffee pudding and every year I lament that the partner can't have dates. And then I try to find some replacement for dates but there's just something very particular about date flavoring I just can't replace and sticky-toffee pudding gets shelved for another year. So hopefully a tasty fruit or pie or something comes up soon that we can actually eat. And then you can read about our baking exploits!
Fourth, HUSTLE.
Normally, I'd be trying to tell you to get my book here, but I have some plans happening there, too, and can't in good conscience suggest that.
If you're liking this whole project and want to support directly, here is my Patreon. There are lots of little benefits you can get there, from access to a subscriber-only Discord to poems written to your specifications to subcriber-only limited-edition chapbooks.
Finally, THE OUTRO.
Yesterday (as I write this) was Father's Day. It's my first without mine. I won't elaborate much there on the complicated feelings I have (they're actually fairly uncomplicated), but I will say that I did finally go out to the cemetery and verify that he is, indeed, in the ground. I also saw the graves of numerous other relatives I haven't visited in many years. I've basically decided that rather than calling myself "Northern European" when it comes to my ancestry, I'm just going with "vaguely North Sea-ish", which is somehow more accurate.
In any case, I've also been spending a lot of time on my mom's piece of land and feeling a lot of guilt about how far into disrepair it has fallen. Not guilt toward my parents--I don't really feel bad for them--but for the piece of land itself, and how poorly the trees and grasses have been kept up, and the various buildings, and the various bits of equipment and whatnot. I feel guilty for not having kept up with *that*. Because there's a lot out there that's useful or salvageable, but it has fallen to such a state of disrepair that it's almost as bad as when my parents initially bought the land and I (well, largely I) was the one that mostly cleared it and tamed it back to the point that it was a livable, quote-unquote "exploitable" (by which I mean "improvable") piece of land.
I have no idea what will ever come of it. I never really wanted to live out there to begin with, but I had no choice when I was 16. But there's a certain amount of nostalgia, guilt, and grief that goes with having put so much work into that property only to see it fall so far. There's still a lot of feelings that go into my work out there, helping clean up as it is, figuring out how to divvy up my dad's various belongings and figuring out what my mom's gonna do out there.
All this is to say that Future You might have much different reasons for doing or wanting things that Present You. Long-term planning isn't something I was ever taught, and certainly something I ever got even help with. But it's never too late for you to form your own values, your own morals, or your own ethics.
Supposedly Socrates once said "The unexamined life is not worth living." You can start examining whenever you want. Sometimes we won't like the things we find, but sometimes we'll inexplicably love them, and we'll never know til we go looking.
*Brian Wood is a shitbag, and LOCAL is the only book of his that I actually recommend.
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