Carr/Carr's reading
On the whole, I liked 100 Notes on Violence more than I thought I would. Generally, I'm not fond of experimental work (have I ranted about Harvey's
I have a soft spot for narratives. I also like puzzles. If the pieces you give don't assemble a puzzle, regardless of the end picture, I won't like it. I respect the effort of genuinely experimental writers/writing, but it seems a lot of it is forced just because that's popular. I'm broken-record-ing.
Anyway, back to Carr: based on the title (and the fact that there are 100 poems), I expected each to be more clearly about violence. I mean, you can make the argument that there is the meta-textual violence of the caesura/the violent ends of some poems (where they resolve into white), but the title of the collection gains so much more weight. Without that title, sure, you pick up on the notes of violence throughout, but the clarity of the situation varies. There are sketchy situations; there are dark situations; there are biblical situations. Do they all immediately yell violence? No, but on the whole, I do like the nuanced way that violence was dealt with. This seems contradictory. Gah.
Clarity attempt #2: I like the idea of wrestling with the senseless, and I think Carr does a good job of it without embodying a moralistic tone of right/wrongness--just facts as is.
My like, though, really skyrocketed after hearing her read. The poems just felt surprisingly more human after. There is definite musicality not readily seen/heard on page in the poems, and if you experiment with sound...well, that puts you back in my good graces, fast, as I'm an aural person.
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Change My Life Book
J.L. King - On The Down Low: A Journey Into the Lives of "Straight" Black Men Who Sleep With Men
Rationale: As semi-mentioned in previous entries, I'm trying to get more in touch with my culture. I don't know. It's weird. I've had, admittedly, an atypical, to mainstream America at least, Black life, especially growing up in the inner city. People still flip when I say I'm from Detroit and don't mean a suburb. The first sport I started playing, at 4, was soccer--I grew up playing hockey and baseball, too. I went to a Montessori school until fifth grade, which was very diverse, comparatively, for a Detroit school in the early 90s. When I went to middle school, it became more homogeneous, and I got the whole "you talk white, etc" shenanigans. I over compensated--I started rapping and using "nigga" any time I could.
Flash forward to now. I'm interested in learning more about my culture. Part of it is I have this weird quest for knowledge; another part is I feel like I "owe" it, a bit--I'm supposed to. Anyway, I originally wanted to get Gates' The Signifying Monkey, but the Barnes and Noble in Plainfield has a...small Af. Am lit section (I'll post a picture). This book, alphabetically, was next down the line, and the concept interests me for a number of reasons, mainly, how much the idea of masculinity plays a role in the black community. You can be all sorts of bad...as soon as you even hint at homosexual behavior, you're all sorts of put out. The book is billed as a personal narrative supported by research both in terms of studies and interviews, and I'm interested to see some of those facts/figures confirm my own thoughts/feelings about the situations, or enhance/broaden my views. It just seems so...bad, especially in today's society, to try to have rigid categories for anything, but I feel that this attachment to old (and often, outdated) categories/concepts is part of the reason we (so weird to use that), as black people, seem to have hit our ceiling in terms of thinking what is possible.
Anyway, most black non-fiction (theory? praxis?) books out now seem to be about where we are "at" in terms of America, and I think the tolerance aspect (beyond the upward mobility, education, etc) is important. If you really don't welcome diverse voices, how can you really know if you reached your full potential? I feel like I'm proselytizing and making things more complicated than they should be...or confusing.
I'll try to short-and-sweet™ this too: I chose the book because I feel DL behavior is a bigger issue than people want to admit, especially in the black community. Simply ignoring the "other" seems to be doing more harm than good for us, especially considering the frequency of HIV/AIDS in our community. I still feel I've butchered this a lot--forgive me, gentle reader.
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Procured (STOLE! but not really; bought, but from a different class) From Old Notebooks. As with Carr, I'm surprisingly digging it so far. Even when some weightier issues are dealt with briefly, the conversational/aphorism style still makes it accessible. The appearance of pop culture and familiar tropes/situations doesn't hurt the cause, either. I also like (what appears to be) the author's hints throughout on how to read the book--are these to be true (e.g., the impetus of the project)? I don't think it matters, as if this is a fake narrative, it still feels pretty real to me.
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Poem of the World
Sewing, crocheting, or knitting? I'm stuck. I did locate a JoAnn's a few miles from me that I will go to--the soonest classes are in March. I'm just stuck on what I want to do. I would prefer sewing--I took home ec in eight grade and enjoyed the sewing portion. Even before that, one long car trips to visit fam in S. Carolina, I would get those little cross-stitch "make a picture" things...I would never finish it, but I liked doing them. I like working with my hands, but I like "softer" work...like needlework. I was considering woodworking, but that's just not me. I'm a Project Runway junkie, and I've slowly beginning to get somewhat into fashion. I think I have a definite aesthetic in regards to style (which I don't employ now, because I'm vain and waiting to get an LL Cool J body before sinking money into a new wardrobe), and I think it would be cool to supplement clothes with literally hand-stitched, TLCed clothes. Plus, it could turn into a money saver in long road, especially if I got good at it--I already have a bad-ass label name in mind.
Anyway, the class choice will depend a lot on scheduling here. There is a new baby. I have to be cognizant of that. Plus, the classes are during the week, so it really narrows it down to days I don't have to go to the city for work. Maybe I'll flip a coin or draw straws.
So. This is done for now. It still feels very loose and ramble-y. Am I even typing this now or is this an overly-lucid dream? Sleep: where are you?
<3 Glenn
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After my whole rant on the state of commercial hip-hop/cats not saying much or doing much with their lines anymore...I post this. How much of a sucker am I for obnoxious hooks and lyrics????? Seriously, every new song seems to be about a) strippers, b) making a sex tape, or c) both. I mean, you still have the "classics" or drug (selling and doing) and money (and what money can get: ice, cars, cribs), but man. I guess this rant will inform other songs I'll put here too, now. I'm shaking my head at myself.
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