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The blog is a digital space for exploration about being a better person. It is concerned with my journey with bipolar disorder. New posts every Tuesday.

Selected Collages 2019

12/29/2019

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My high school art teacher was the only person that ever gave me a C & you know what, I deserved it, me over there trying to fake my way into a realistic conch shell. Ten years later, I finally found a more democratic visual art medium, thanks to the Surrealists & the New York School poets: the collage. The cutting & pasting happened on-&-off, but this year, greeted by my grandparents' lifetime collection of magazines, maps, & catalogs, a series of late-night energy bursts, & a heated garage, I've been doing the whole montage thing again. Here are my sixteen favorite collages I mustered up this year.
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MORE RECS MORE RECS: These Fifty-Two Changed My Life This Year

12/22/2019

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Good gracious, aren’t end-of-the-year lists annoying? I repeat this sentiment I have heard elsewhere, both feeling it & rejecting it, at least for this purpose. I must insist on giving props to the makers--of things, of art, of moments--that, to not be hyperbolic at all, changed my life this year, or at least, prevented a negative change as I dealt with 2019’s collection of transitions--accepting myself as someone with a major psychological disorder, leaving Austin / moving back home to Indiana, & learning how to be a homemaker. The people I respected most in my formative years modeled an enthusiasm for stokedness, be it my dad psyched for another hunting season with his buddies, or my favorite literary folks blogging away about what they were reading, or the just-a-tad-bit older dudes in this area playing their rowdy songs & singing along to their friends’ bands with unabashed joy. 

This list, though certainly incomplete & flawed, showcases a balance between the comfort of home & last-spark of time in the big city. I am feeling thankful for “my spots” in Austin that provided me good tunes (& other arts), good booze (& other things to toss down my gullet), & good times (& other variations of moments); as I told a friend today, Austin really was an amazing place to finish out my 20’s. But back here now, I am thankful for the local businesses & makers & their persistence, staying open & keeping on with the small town vibes, how the history of this place continues to pulse & expand. I cannot help but laugh at the people who think of this place as “the middle of nowhere.” 

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  1. Country Squire by Tyler Childers -- Yup, he has officially joined the “too-big-to-see-live” category (i.e. I’m too poor / too old for these big arena shows / festivals), but I always got this stellar latest album & the earlier Childers’ records to plop on the turntable, lay on the floor with the gal & the dogs, & sip a glass of moonshine.
  2. Sarah Shook & The Disarmers -- After two up-close-&-personal shows in Austin, I am considering this big-spirited yet humble, rowdy yet community-driven honky tonk band for my Mount Rushmore of live bands.
  3. Waking the Tiger by Peter A. Levine -- One of the best barter bits I got in exchange for my recent poetry collection (thanks, Mark!), this book, even at over twenty years old, spells out fresh & articulate ways to consider mental health in biological terms. 
  4. Good Without God by Greg Epstein -- Another good recommendation from another good friend (thanks, Andy!), this book balances the “angry atheist” influence in my life, reminding me to chill out & focus first & foremonst on being a good person. 
  5. Waking Up by Sam Harris  -- I was just explaining to someone how I am a spiritual person, though I consider myself an atheist; as I have moved back to a Bible-heavy place, it has been helpful to have Sam Harris’s scientific understanding of spirituality as a foundation long missing.
  6. Purple Mountains by Purple Mountains -- Certainly my most listened to album since plopping into Hoosier territory, this David Berman record is truly both one of the saddest & one of the tightest pop-rock albums I am ever heard, the former pushing to the forefront following his tragic death.
  7. Undress by The Felice Brothers -- What would Dylan be like if he were of my generation? Probably like Ian Felice. On our friend’s last night in Austin (we miss you, Caroline!), we folded together a little group of friends to see this crew on tour for this latest record, this band now thrice seen & confidently put on my Mount Rushmore of live bands.
  8. Chronic by D.A. Powell -- One of those happy stumbles in a used bookstore, a book-one-doesn’t-own by one-of-my-favorite-poets, a couple weeks ago in State College, PA, this collection big-permissions the sensitive-hick feelings that too often get stomped into the mud.
  9. Diurne & Fossils in the Marking by Kristin George Bagdanov -- At the start of 2019, there were zero KGB poetry collections & now there are two (don’t let anyone tell you Diurne is not a full, complete book). Thanks, goodness!
  10. The Ghost Soldiers by James Tate -- Another one of the stumbled-upons, this collection just asks to be read out-loud, preferably from the living room into the kitchen where a loved one is washing the dishes from the dinner you cooked, but, of course, ate together.
  11. Krista Hoose / Randy Martin Thursday night residency at St. Rd. 28 Pub -- That itch still exists in me, spoiled during Austin-time, to regularly check out live music, to sit in a pub with a beer, & to mingle with the makers. Out here in elsewhere, that opportunity takes a bit more work than before, but hey, I am so thankful these two country-singing buddies play their good tunes right here on a weekly basis. 
  12. Pax Verum -- Just down the road is another small town called Lapel. This craft brewery sits there, another close option for a scratch on an itch created in Austin: great beer sprinkled with the best vibes right where it was made.
  13. Creeping Pink at White Rabbit Cabaret -- One of the first leaving-town adventures once returned, I was blown away (again, not hyperbole) by my childhood friend Landon Caldwell & his latest experiment, a multi-act set of songs, featuring his fuzz-laced pop songs, a captivating ensemble of players, & even some modern dance. If I remember correctly, we got our first guitars around the same time; luckily, he actually learned to play his.
  14. Elwood Disc Golf Enthusiasts -- I never could get committed to a disc golf club in Austin -- too many options, a different vibe, that nagging feeling of “it’s just not the same.” So thankful to be back among the EDGE crew, the most committed group of disc golfers I have ever seen keeping up, expanding, & shredding the funnest course around.
  15. Friendly’s -- When I was a whippersnapper, my dad had Fridays off & I would play hooky from preschool with him & zip on over to this diner for some breakfast. Now, Diana & I do the same when we have got that weekend morning feeling & just wanna do some chit-chatting with a waitress & each other over a reliable breakfast platter.
  16. Leroy’s Place -- In our town, you can tell the relative age of a person by what they call this place, having cycled through a half-dozen monikers in my lifetime -- Seal's, Hanch’s, Roby’s, etc. Now, it is Leroy’s, owned by one of the hardest work gals in town & the place to get a Dumas Walker burger. 
  17. Taylor’s Dairy Store -- If you’re going to ask your ice-cream-obsessed partner to move to the middle of elsewhere, there better be a good ice-cream shop nearby, preferably one owned by a former mayor. 
  18. Habanero -- Before this, my wife has only lived in California & Texas, & she let out a big ol’ THANK GOD when we discovered that the new Mexican restaurant in town does not suck. Actually, we went there tonight (12/21) for date night, & yup, it still does not suck.
  19. “Times Like These” by Hayes Carll -- If you’re a country fan telling Hayes Carll et. al. to keep their politics out of their music, yet you let out many hellyeahs to Toby Keith’s boot-in-your-assing, then you need to shut up & sit down. “In times like these / everyone could use a hand” -- a contemporary country song truly born of empathy & realism.
  20. “1922” by Phil Cook -- I react to this song how those yahoos on the infomercials are touched by “Lord I Lift Your Name On High” & I am not ashamed of that one bit.
  21. 90’s Country -- About every six months, I just need a sunny day with the windows down, blaring Shania, Alan Jackson, Travis Tritt, Jo Dee, etc., my arm out the window doing that up & down riding the waves thing.
  22. Courtney Barnett -- Chuck Klosterman claims we don’t have any rock stars left in this generation like we had in previous. He must not be looking rightly at Courtney Barnett. Everything she’s done in the last few years is upward trajectory rock-star badass level, including the release of probably her best song to date, the amazing video for that single, & her revival of MTV Unplugged this year.
  23. “1000s of Years” by The Oysters -- Easily one of my top-five drum songs to play, both real drums in the garage & air drums in the shower. 
  24. Paper Tiger by Bill Burr -- These days, it is hard to be both honest & truthful at the same time  it seems. In this new special, Bill Burr points out that we are all crazy / fucked, himself included, & through the yelling, the cringe-worthy moments, & the hard pills, that is somehow endearing & relieving to hear.
  25. Bill Simmons -- The Sports Guy has kept me company through more bad days, work shifts, projects, & long drives than anyone in the history of the world, probably. Another role model of enthusiasm & the purveyor of the “Mount Rushmore” way of thinking.
  26. Queer Eye -- When I was a teen, I would watch Extreme Home Make-Over (or whatever it is called) with my mom & just cry my eyes out. Whatever bit of that boy still exists in this chubby hick man gets to come out & weep during these episodes.
  27. WellRED Comedy -- Trae Crowder & crew proved to me that I can be both liberal & a country feller, both artistic & a little rough-around-the-edges, a chafing that has felt impossible at many points in my life. If you’re feeling similarly, check out their new album or dive into an episode of their podcast.
  28. Ross Gay on On Being -- Every once in awhile I fear that poetry is a sham, is useless, is a waste of my time, then something like this episode comes along to flick me in the eye socket & I see a little more clearly.
  29. Maurice Manning on Contemplify--If not for MM's story of moving back to his family farm, I do not know if I would ever had the guts to do something similar. 
  30. David Shields on WTF -- I find it inspiring that DS is so unapologetic about his weirdness, his collaging of other’s words, & his bizarre way of filtering the world through that language.
  31. After Life -- Ricky Gervais is trying to demonstrate how to be dark & honest without being brutal or melodramatic, presenting here a portrait of loss that I am sure to find useful again in future times of grief.
  32. The Collected Schizophrenias by Esmé Weijun Wang -- Like when Ray Romano’s character, Hank, on Parenthood reads the book about Asperger's & shouts, “That’s me,” I read this collection of essays & said, “Oh my goodness, there is so much of my own dysfunction in these pages.” 
  33. Enlightenment Now by Steven Pinker -- Though I disagree with the “the numbers say everything!” (the NBA has proved to me the value in the “eye test”), I found the optimism behind Pinker’s latest collection of graphs & charts necessarily hopeful amongst times that can be quite defeating; my neck still hurts from nodding in agreement with the subtitle, “The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, & Progress,” through all 576 pages (thanks, Elwood Public Library!).
  34. Dunce by Mary Ruefle -- MR makes a mountain out of a moleskin, these poems that exude the importance of paying attention & giving space for reflection, rippling far beyond the words that contain them.
  35. Solar Perplexus by Dean Young -- At this point, I can’t even begin to read a Dean Young poem with fresh eyes & an objective heart. I am just all in for his brand of disjunction, the discomfort, & disobedience.
  36. Leon Tyner’s Antique Horse Blanket -- I finally convinced my dear Diana, guitar / lead vocals, to play some songs with me, drums / loud whining. We have six songs done. We are calling it Leon Tyner’s Antique Horse Blanket, a band name I would rather explain in person. This is literally the most fun I have ever had artistically collaborating with another human.
  37. Hick Poetics anthology -- Once a year, I gotta pick this thing off the shelf to remind myself of the power of the rural yawp; this year it was when the leaves cluttered the gutters here on the edge of the torn-apart bean field.
  38. Wendell L. Willkie's legacy -- With the hateful fluff in charge of the Republican party now, it is helpful to remind oneself of the party’s politics roughly 80 year ago, Willkie’s desire to unite the world. With the local support for said hateful fluff, it is important to reconnect ourselves with the local legend of such vision.
  39. Glass Festival -- It is certainly too early to tell, but 2019’s Elwood Glass Festival made a strong case for this chapter’s Mount Rushmore of Elwood memories, even though no one stole the G & the L off the marquee as is tradition.
  40. The Gate of Horn by L.S. Asekoff -- A long poem on the shelf for many years (thanks, Diana!), one day post-move, I pulled it down & the top of my head was taken off, as Dickinson promised poetry could, & in dropped a reminder of the joy of giving a random book a try.
  41. Mowing -- Every ten days, March to October, you will find me with a big smile on my face, my shirt off, & a beer in hand, heading up & down our little patch of green on our little tractor of John Deere green. 
  42. Antigonik by Anne Carson, as produced by SVT -- Noted as a Top 10 Play of 2019 by both The Austin Chronicle & The Austin American Statesman, this was Diana Lynn Small’s last hurrah as an Austin theater artist (director / artistic director of SVT), & thus my last hurrah as the husband-of-a-Austin-theater-artist, which included joys such as dumpster diving for plastic bottles with the set designer, taking a friend to his first play, & hearing a Charlie Parr song included in the play (good job, Toby!). 
  43. Johnson’s Backyard Garden -- There are not a lot of good jobs suitable for high functioning people with one monumental flaw, such as a psychological disorder. I found the second-shift packing crew to be one of them, a space where I could be close to nature, work independently, & dissociate into the night, if necessary.
  44. 6 Nimmt! -- I still don’t know what the title means & I still don’t care. This ends 2019 as my favorite large (4+) game (thanks, Billy!).
  45. Letter Tycoon -- Like a mash-up of Monopoly & Scrabble, but way more fun that either, this beautifully designed game ends 2019 as my go-to small-group (<4) game (thanks, Diana!).
  46. Euchre -- Thank goodness I am back in the land of (the good kind of) trumps & (cards, not trees) bowers & (non-sexually-oriented) tricks. I have even weaseled my way into a monthly card club that primarily consists of 50+ year-old women.
  47. The New One by Mike Birbiglia -- Somehow both adds sympathy for my friends / family with small children & reenforces my decision to not have children. Previously, he proclaimed Thank God For Jokes. Here, I proclaim Thank Goodness for Story-Telling.
  48. Pacers Games -- Oh wow to be back in Pacers country! Sticking to watching one game a week & even have gotten to attend two games already this young season (thanks, Zach!), & boy, let me tell you, this feels good.
  49. Diana Lynn Small’s sermon, accompanied by Paige Tautz & music by Henna Chou, on the Austin Central Library’s rooftop -- Again, I am biased--this sermon was written for me--but the way each of these artists brought their boom & it combined to be this big, strange, beautiful thing totally shifted the way I value performance.
  50. Collaging -- Ma, I finally found a visual art medium I do not suck at! The dogs & the wife are tucked into bed, the lights are shut-off, & I am out in the garage hunkered over the fold-out table, cutting weird words & half-bodies & full elephants from the magazines my grandfather left behind, gluing them to whatever I can get my hands on--an old stump, an empty picture frame, fliers for a dry-cleaning shop that closed before I was born.
  51. Charlie Parr -- Charlie Parr does not seem to chase the glitter. He wants the sawdust, the tire tracks, the skinned knuckles. That is beautiful, especially perched over elsewhere.
  52. Grandpa’s stuff -- I am flushed with gratitude & awe, climbing through my grandpa’s nine decades of living. It has been an amazing experience bringing this childhood paradise back to life, & I promise I am just getting started.
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oh, go stare at a bush: a Manifesto for living a value-driven life in 2020

12/15/2019

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Looking out at the juniper bush coughing through winter, my mind burps an old bit of Kenneth Koch’s poetry, a tangle of sentiments I would like stamped to my new year--“I have a knocking woodpecker in my heart and I think I have three souls / One for love one for poetry and one for acting out my insane self.” People I trust most on these sorts of matters, from psychologists to neuroscientists, ring variously the proclamation that people click first & foremost as biological creatures--synapses firing, free-will limited, reactionary. This guy here, my reality verges often on surreality, “the actual functioning of thought,” as Breton said; my default churns with the “neglected associations” that Breton sought to reclaim. Instead my necessary grounding comes through a somewhat-forced recognition of biological processes & ethical dilemmas, along with a hard-working lean on logical responses & artistic expression. 

In life, often, I cannot react, trust my initial impulses, or live in the real world by “normal” standards, contained as I am in my own bubble of dissociation, paranoia, & polyvocality, & when I do drift out, it takes an enormous amount of energy, leaving me susceptible to further cycles of instability. That said, I am learning to live with these struggles through symptom management & shifted lifestyle / life goals, controlling the severity of my disorder through grounding techniques, open accountability from loved ones, & various acts of creation / expression (poems, collages, drum, etc.), instead of repression & conforming as I once did, lost inside myself inside myself inside myself, the swirl. This approach stands on the back of my new golden rule--setting myself & others up to be their best selves--centering the context in which I live. 

Already, I have found a softer landing spot back here. Oddly enough, some of the negative effects of the disorder--my inability to hold a career-oriented job, the uncontrollable combo of anxiety & mood swings, the harm I caused in the Austin & larger poetry scenes--have guided me back to my hometown, to my family, to this land where I can be my wild self in a safer, more supportive context. Here, I feel permissioned to dig deep into the Midwestern life I think is most sustainable, to become holistically healthy as a person with a psychological disorder, & ultimately, to be my best self, now & in the future.

I know I am blessed for what others have gifted me--the land / house of my grandparents, the financial / emotional support of my wife, the “be happy” mantra of my parents, & the purpose granted by this community. This is the situation in which I find myself in. We live in the house where my mother finished off her teenage years, the house where my grandmother died, the house where my grandfather fell, leading to his transition to the assisted living community, the house which is situated on the biggest patch of what is left of our family farmland, the house & land I will inherit whenever the patriarch passes. We live in my hometown, thousands of miles away from my wife’s hometown & her birth family, only a mile from my parents & my longest-lasting loved ones. Unable to work a traditional job, I have been spending my days taking care of the house / property, writing poems / making collages, & developing several Future Barn future projects for next year.

Depending on your perspective, what manners of empathy & open-mindedness you have been dealt, what values have been plopped into your path, you might judge this scenario one of two ways: 1) I am an overly-sensitive bum mooching off my family, piddling around in the barn, & wasting my time with art no one cares about or 2) I am someone burdened with a psychological disorder & gifted with grand enthusiasm, burning curiosity, & a desire to contribute to the well-being of my surroundings through a system of exchange built on my values. The former is my default setting, cemented in the ethics of unwavering hardwork & the begrudged traditional framework of my youth; the latter is how, jetting into 2020, I am learning to reframe work, being proud in what I can muster for those I love very much. 

My wife often reminds me that what is “normal,” “popular,” or “traditional” is not what is always vital for us. “It’s not about usefulness, it’s about autonomy,” is how Cal Newport put in his book, Digital Minimalism, when outlining his idea of utilizing technology in ways that represent & enact one’s values. This approach was what was first appealing about Pete Buttiegieg’s presidential campaign, oddly enough a characteristic that led to Trump’s rise in popularity in 2016; Buttigieg did not lead out with policies or credentials, he led with his values -- honesty, integrity, loyalty, etc. -- with the aim to build his actions around those foundations. It is how I attempt to approach my teaching, focused on modeling the values I aim to instill in my students, ye olde “practice what you preach.”

My new year’s resolution is to lead a value-driven life as this version of myself here. So, in honor of my blessed situation, my hope to be of service to my community, & the determination to be my best self in this best situation, here is a list of values, each accompanied by a more drawn-out plan of action for 2020. I hope to define myself & my actions in the new year through choices centered around community, a balance of reason & expression, & mindfulness, & here are ways I intend to turn those seeds into stalks:

Future Barn is the umbrella I am holding over much of my planned work in 2020--the physical space of my barn for gatherings, projects, & creative time, the blog space for explorations around art, culture, & mental health in central Indiana, the Dispatches From Elsewhere podcast for highlighting the great folks & great happenings here, & the Your Buddy, T-GOB service project for engaging a reciprocal system of helping. Future Barn will be staunchly this-community-oriented, operating as a model for curiosity & enthusiasm, a system for mutual-accountability, & a projection of contemporary hick life.  

Instead of evening the scales, I want to explore the possibilities of what a good intertwined life of both wild artistic pursuit & ragged intellectual engagement can look like. I seek to better understand how the input (whatever it is I put in my ears, eyes, mouth, etc.) affects the output (whatever my hands, mouth, body, etc., unleashes) & vice-versa. What kinds of solitude encourage me to be the best social creature? What social events call for recharging with solitude? What can I read / look at to enhance the verve of my writing / collaging? How much am I creating compared to how much I am absorbing? When do I talk & when do I listen, how do I respond? When is it time to support versus when is it time to oppose? These questions must continue to be asked.

No place are these questions more relevant right now than in my relationship to technology. A couple months ago, I read this fantastic book Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport, a manifesto for linking one’s actions around technology with one’s values for living a good life. He lays out many research-based & psychological arguments for a mindful approach to technology use that fit very keenly with my goals for 2020. Playing off his suggestion for creating a philosophy of technology use, I scribbled this list:
  • Daily walks -- Each morning I will walk the yard or across the field, depending on weather, with the dogs &/or my wife, with no technology use, except (if alone) to listen to a podcast. 
  • Social Media -- I will use Facebook & Instagram solely for connecting with my local community & keeping in touch with my distant loved ones, through posting Future Barn content, commenting on relevant posts, & providing support for friends & family through encouragement & information-giving, to exceed no fifteen minutes in the morning & the evening. I will access Pinterest during the daytime only, to collect & consult recipes, how-to guides, & project plans. None of these social media apps will be accessed after 10 pm. 
  • Spotify -- Both music & podcasts should be played only during at-home time, such as while cooking, collaging, doing the dishes, cleaning, or working in the yard / garage, or while driving or at the gym, either when solo or as background noise, when others are present. An episode-to-album balance should be maintained as much as possible.
  • Texting / Calling -- All calling / texting should be done during solo, non-project time, either during the day or in the evenings between 9 pm - 11 pm. At least, one phone call or text exchange should be made daily with someone who is not nearby, either geographically or socially.
  • Other Apps -- All other apps on my phone are for autonomous utility only, such as the Fender Guitar Tuner for my cigar box guitar, Maps for driving directions, & my banking app for weekly budgeting. 
  • Television -- During the week, non-multi-tasking television time should be limited to one episode during lunch (when solo time) & no more than one hour during multi-tasking, such as chores, per day. This does not include Pacers game! Weekends can be more flexible for television.
  • Physical over Digital -- As much as possible, I will choose the physical over the digital, including (but not limited to) records over Spotify, notebooks over Notes app, printed calendar over digital calendar, etc.
  • No Tech Time -- Besides the walks with the dogs for podcasts, be it solo or with others, all walks, disc golf rounds, basketball sessions, & time in bed should be technology-free, including texting, calling, listening, or surfing the interwebs.

Similar to the necessary review of how I interact with technology, I find it important, especially being back in the Midwest & in need of a twenty-pound weight-loss, to take a closer look at my relationship with food. Lately, I cannot think of food without thinking of Mark Manson’s declaration in Everything Is Fucked: a Book About Hope: “And it’s not because we don’t know better; it’s because we don’t feel better” (34). In the hopes that the opportunities of rural life, the calm of stay-at-home-ness, & the pressures of financial limitations once again will increase my overall wellness, I will lean on my knowledge more. If that fails, here are seven guidelines for the new year:
  • At home, I will follow a vegetarian diet, except when provided deer meat by my dad or friends & during special occasions.
  • In order to curb my fast food addiction (admitting is the first step, right?), I will only eat fast food on Saturdays before grocery shopping, with the intent to scale that back to once a month by the end of the year. 
  • I will begin to respect my body more for what it is -- some strange mix of consciousness (which needs rest), machine (which needs proper maintenance), & animal (which needs to roam & release).
  • I will meal plan weekly on Thursdays & meal prep on Sundays.
  • I will cook dinner for Diana & I four nights per week & for others as well one night a week, at least.
  • I will not drink from January 1st to March 9th, following which I will return to my drinking plan, amended to be four days of zero drinks & three days of 1-2 drinks.
  • I will drink at least six glasses of water a day, not to include more than two sparkling water.

I also move into 2020 with a more articulate understanding of my spiritual, political, & philosophical beliefs, & more importantly, my interactions with others’ beliefs, progressing beyond the angry atheist-liberal-humanist stage, beyond the black-&-white “but who is wrong & who is right” phase. Instead of always leading with arguments for the non-existence of god or litanies about the problems with the right, I am leaning more towards what Greg Epstein called for in his book Good Without God, leading an ethical, loving, co-existent life. 

In my one-day-I’m-gonna-live-a-van phase, I owned a book called Making Things & Doing Stuff. There was an article about living a more radical, which turns out to be a sneaky synonym for mindful, lifestyle, & I remember a sentence like, “Stop supporting places that are trying to kill you and that treat your friends like crap.” It comes down to choices--where, as well as what, I choose to spend my time, money, & attention on. These feelings refocused are also flags of me accepting my situation, what is in store for my future; I am lowering my standards, finding contentment, comfort, & joy in maintaining a good property for my wife, my dogs, & our other critter / plant / human pals in which to thrive, in creating art with & for my immediate folks, & repackaging my insane self as someone more sustainable & good. ​
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MORE RECS MORE RECS: SOLAR PERPLEXUS BY DEAN YOUNG & DUNCE BY MARY RUEFLe

12/8/2019

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Today I woke with that feeling hovering over the skin, like maybe I’m living someone else’s life, which rather than depress or disrupt, rather injects an needy empath like me with a grave, kinetic urgency for each & every moment. Top of the list of small-but-distracting agitators today is the fact that I can’t find the envelope this spirit I inhabit has been stuffing with an assortment of poems & collages, along with a letter, this body I find myself inside had been itching to send Dean Young--this brain’s favorite poet & a former self’s grad school mentor. If I learned one thing from Dean (though the mountain of quotes & anecdotes I lug say much more knowledge I’ve surely acquired), it is that poems are not modes of communication (“poems are not a horn you blow your shit through,” I once remember him saying in class); if I have learned one thing from my vast times living in the middle of elsewhere, it is that letters certainly are. 

Now comes flooding a memory of a letter Mary Ruefle sent to an old pal of mine, another influential poet I’ll leave unnamed though whose moments & verse are stitched here inevitably; she dusted the page with perfume & a small drawing, if memory concocts properly. “All poems are a form of hope” is what Dean Young declares in his latest. For me, the hope is in the future possibilities that the poem represents. The poet lives, has lived! Another poem will be written! I’m about to see something I’ve never seen, yay! That’s what the best poets insist in us, I think, even if they are in fact dead or a thousand miles away (real or perceived); luckily for us, like these new volumes & like the vigorous poems within, MR & DY are anything but dead!

Once I saw MR open a reading by demonstrating how to fold a fitted sheet. Once DY let me come over to his house so he could sign a copy of his book for my parents. It’s not what is communicated, what meaning might get made, etc. It’s about the grand possibility of the raddest gift of human consciousness--language.

In these two new books -- Solar Perplexus by Dean Young & Dunce by Mary Ruefle -- I found what I have come to expect from these personal Mt. Rushmore poets. DY is pushing the limits of contemporary poetic disjunctive & dysfunctional utterance through odes, occasional, & litany-laced poems, while MR is dancing in brevity & the anecdote as modes for reflective revelation. We find MR in continued conversation with the contemplatives, the Japanese poets. We find DY channeling the huge spirits of the lost bodies (Tomaz Salamun, James Tate, John Ashbery). Even in this check-marked expectation, there is a reverberating baffling quality of where those modes & meanderings lead.

Once DY wrote a poem called “Mary Ruefle Poem,” which she published in one of her books, & MR, likewise, wrote “Dean Young Poem,” which he plopped inside his own volume. In a recent interview at Neon Pajamas, MR recollected very simply this collaboration, “It was a lot of fun to do. It was like trying to channel him. I don't really remember. I loved the project, I love that we did it.” No extravagance, no nostalgia, no fabricating. The poems in her new book hark a similar herald, gluing plain memories & crisp language to the page. She reminds us in the power & difficulty of brevity. 

DY, likewise, spins some smaller webs, among his normal page-and-a-halfers, but anywhichaway, these poems enact what DY has been preaching for years. Take this ending paragraph from a short 2005 essay in Poetry Magazine: “Poetry’s primary & perhaps only obligation is, through the manipulation of its materials, to express and discover forms of liberty, thereby maintaining the spirit through constantly renewed meanings. Its greatest task is not to solidify groups, is not to broadcast, but to foster a necessary privacy in which the imagination can flourish. Then we may have something to say to each other.” This chunk of his, fairly enough, could be its own review for each & every DY book.

I will be honest with you--I did not even know these two heroes had a new collection out till my buddy Brendan sent me a screenshot of a DY poem after he carried it home from a bookstore. “How embarrassing,” I thought / felt. But of course, these two might would say it is better this way. I do not attend poetry readings anymore. I live nearly two hours from the closest bookstore with a reasonable poetry selection. I have not spoken to a poet in person in months! Instead I have been clapping through the clutter of my grandpa’s nine decades, setting up this Future Barn for hopefully a few more. I have been walking the dogs across the family field. I have been reading & writing, hallucinating & cutting out, inventing & drowning in lots of words, both my own & others. Still, the joy these two poets have once again brought me is paramount to my continuing, obvious in my grinning. I couldn’t quit poetry if I tried, as it stitches together my hide.


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Collected lyrics: assess desires & Make Time

12/1/2019

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After years of chit-chatting about it, my wife, Diana Lynn Small, & I have begun writing some songs together, combining her angelic voice w/ my weird words, her strumming with my shitty drumming. We're calling the project, Leon Tyner's Antique Horse Blanket; so far, we're six songs in. Each song varies, but typically, it plops out like this: Diana records herself strumming a new tune & singing "dummy lyrics", then I "translate" her sounds into words, before we finally sit down & jam it out together. From time to time, I'll post some of those lyrics here:

ASSESS DESIRES & MAKE TIME 
 
Keep your chin up / you’re electric 
Keep your chin up / you’re electric 
Tune the mattress carry us tonight 
 
In the mornings / you wake angry 
In the mornings / you wake angry
Surely we’ll use your lava pies tonight 
 
Mornings are an ancient hole 
But you can get out my boy 
& when you do reach my heart 
We get so high
 
When you’re drooling / you’re an angel 
When you’re drooling / you’re an angel 
Fuel yourself for fragrant heat tonight 
 
Learning / on the mattress 
We’re learning / on the mattress 
Pulling for making good time tonight 
 
We’ve always been the worst 
At taking chance for whispers 
& I was hoping to lay down  
On the fire 
 
Keep your chin up / you’re electric 
Keep your chin up / you’re electric 
Tune the mattress carry us tonight

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