Sauce fresh from the pan

In an open mood so here's a poem I wrote YESTERDAY - the italics should be tabed out one; nevertheless, put this in your pipe and smoke it. Now breathe deep.




New Righteousness (I Will Break Down)


I’m a winner, not afraid to lose,
loser,
unafraid to win –

Try 'n'

I dig
truth, the sky’s
blanket
all my desires; run

give my body

the best of them, know
too much
my own good. So I jest!

due process, don’t block

winding my way
back down
love
slows its roll:

my heart’s egress – laughter

I’m some kind
spectacular music,
in full effect, city’s
purple burning twilight,
can take ya
very far. . . Not

keep us alive.

designed
to make everybody
else
feel good about themselves.




-Jonas Kyle-Sidell

Podcast, yeah

Got my podcast, One Room Shack, going - two episodes, nothing special, but hopefully it's fun. I'm enjoying it. . . Here's the link: http://lesterattheoneroomshack.wordpress.com

Science vs. Writing, if I Were a Painter

An interesting thought inspired from discussion in Steve's fiction class tonight which I neglected to say out loud in class, so I'll express myself here: we were comparing arts, which is always a subject I love - something I do on a daily basis, as it seems always to give me some kind of perspective on writing, a larger context perhaps in which to see mysef as an artist.

What I was thinking in my mind during class - and then couldn't find an opening, I suppose, to divulge the thought - was how one would never go so far as to call a painter or a sculptor a scientist, you know? And we were talking, in class, about how writing is so fucking steeped in tradition and that often its merit is determined by an adherence to such. Anyways, so my dad is a scientist, so the comparison is fresh kindle in my mind - but the fact is it is less of a stretch to say a writer is a scientist, even though a writer is as much of an impressionist as a painter or sculptor.

Science and writing are both largely upheld, these days, in universities; writers and scientists both recieve grants for their work (scientists more often, though), publish in journals; and if you look at a poetry professor and a science professor my guess is they might look remarkably alike. All goofy and shit.

What I think this fact concedes is that writing, in my opinion, in its modern day parallel to science, is considered less of an action than it should be. This is sad. Though I think there are similarities in processing of science and writing, I'm more moved to be the equivalent of a painter or sculptor. Someone working, and where innovation is not just seen as a risk or artistic endeavor, but a necessity, simply a reaction to survive and keep going.

"Women and Country," and dirt

Is the name of Jacob Dylan's new album. He's got Neko Case - with her soaring voice! - as a background singer. She doesn't out do him (though I'm pretty sure she could). It's a fantastic album, spry and if you took a level to it, plum. It's frame is flush up against the world. No but for real, there's nothing like some tough music - really worked over so that seeds (mine) can consummate new beginnings, and old ones, reach strong into the parable of sky.

Things are happening

Having so much fun making these podcasts I can barely leave my house in the morning. Also, last week I reached my goal of 40,000 words on my "novel" - which is really a weird mix of poetry, memoir, and fiction, but it plays like fiction - and goddammit, if anybody asks, I can say I wrote a novel, which was really the whole point, just to be able to say that. Congragulate me. Thanks. Peace.

Dashed

Isn't it interesting when we dash our preconceptions of each other? For better or worse is irrelevant - I think either way, it's empowering. In other words, if you thought someone was strong or raw, this was your first take on them, then you realize later after talking to them more in a less organized setting, that their chains run just as long and thick as yours. Suddenly you feel less envious - but it could work the other way too, if you pitied someone, thought you had it on them, you were freer, less inhibited, in greater control of yourself (perhaps a key contradiction right there), only to find out that that person lives in a way that is surprisingly cool, they navigate their element with much more fluidity then you had first proposed. Perhaps their freedom, now, detracts from your own the same way the previous person gave you a little back, made you feel lucky. I think it's something we're all doing all the time, measuring ourselves against each other, and to deny ourselves indulgence in those preconceptions - calling them what they are - is when we get in trouble, and discriminations form, racism bubbles out of a false pretense of truth. When another person outsizes your assessment of them, whatever that assessment was and however it makes you feel now (all of our different levels of insecurity and appeals against them), it's humbling, and to quote a Brett Dennen song "the failure keeps us humble, and leads us closer to peace."

Website User Review: Roommate Approved

My website is pretty simple but I did redo it this week: fixed the two broken links by saving them as copies in Photoshop, made the text a bolder yellow, and spread two of the pages out, adding a black background, so even at my old PC computer here at home it looks alright. I then showed it to my roommate Norman, who was mildly impressed as to the technical aspects, but immensely impressed at the cool factor. After all, he's a dental student. He liked the black and white background against the sun-lit words, and the all around simplicity of the approach - being that he was looking at the desk which is the background and to his left is the coffee table which appears to the lower left as a link to my blog. He still found the yellow words hard to read at times, but I think it kind of plays with the mystique of poetry, don't you? Isn't poetry always teetering on the verges of our attention?