Monday: Pantera Shirt in Cafe Ost

I had no idea that hours from this moment, random Pantera fans would  throw me the devil horns
from their car waiting for a light on the Bowery. Very rejuvenating!

I don't why I have this expression.

Me, breaking, in Cafe Ost.

Writing is slippery. I can't think about what I'm doing too much. I can barely blog about it.

I ingested an Americano AND an iced coffee. Super decadent writing day.

Also, I recorded in my notebook the names of lit mags that had been encouraging in the past.

I ended this session by reading a few of Frank O'Hara's Lunch Poems, some of them written in the neighborhood where I wrote today, where I always write.

I'm not writing about New York, though. I never write about New York.

the artist is present, or, present for president's day

from marina abramovic's rhythm 10

the artist is present slideshow

what am i doing for president's day weekend (besides being a widow while c. is in ny seeing, among other people, julie, eva and ingrid?)

jeez, i had "forgotten" it was a long weekend.  and do you know why?  because i utterly despise the long weekend, usually floundering about in the limbo of not working but not really playing either.   that is, if i'm not in a full-blown existential spiral. 

i just can't handle days off, people.  does anyone share in my existential terror of not knowing what to do?

in honor of this, i'll write briefly about something that's been a theme in the blog and in my life this week.  first, we've discussed all this hocus-pocus about "being present", "staying on the mat", and living "day by day." & don't get me wrong, i'm fully into that stuff, but not without a bit of self-consciousness about the amount of privilege and luxury one must have in one's life to need to be concerned about these questions of choice that are so frequent in my life.  and the attendant dissatisfaction that seems to come with too much choice (that's a whole 'nother blog post).  and, you know, "being present" has become a buzzphrase of the educated middle class.  it makes me feel all bougie to even discuss it.

still, it's the educated middle class that seems to have the biggest problem with, shall we say, "presence" (and does presence mean the same thing as something like soul, or spirit?  methinks yes.)

there was another bisecting theme for me this week, and that was marina abramovic, who recently had the smashing success of a show "the artist is present" at the moma where she sat for eight hours a day, no movement, no potty or food or drink breaks, across the table from various strangers and was just there.  present. 

julie was present, too, at some of the performances, and i think it was j. who got me interested in abramaovic.  anyway, i've been writing poems about her, and i just finished a group of five today (i mean, finished the revisions on them--i've been working on them for a few weeks) and realized that maybe abramovic interests me so much because a lot of her work is about presence.  her performance is very extreme, painful, dangerous and some might say masochistic.  she claims she does it to be in the moment.  she used to forbid re-performances of her pieces because they were all about the moment for her, though she's changed her mind about that.

i guess i don't have a point except to wonder how many other people have my same aversion to holidays (especially the ones where you don't have a prescribed set of rituals to perfrom) or what y'all think about this whole notion of presence.

and p.s. i'm linking my early post on larry rivers' "washington crossing the delaware"--very different from the american classic hanging in the met (image in julie's post from today)--in honor of the prezes.

my short list goes like this (not at all fun like julie's)

1) work on grant app.
2) revise poems from mss.
3) fold laundry
4) do something kids want to do that i hate, like ice skating
5) finish season 2 of sons of anarchy

legwear:  bare--i'm already in bed in my nightie!

inspiration:  marina a.

looking forward: to yoga and donut run tomorrow morning.

o'hara-rivers-pepin

last night my children did an imitation of me, saying, "i've never been so tired in my entire life." they claim i say it almost every day. and they might be right, and it might be true. i'm tired a lot. isn't everyone? then, this morning, they asked me which 30 Rock character i thought i most resembled.

me: "ummm--jenna maroney?"
lula: "yeah, that's what i was thinking, too."
me: "i was kind of kidding."

but then i realized i am at least a bit like jenna maroney. a sobering thought to have on your way to work.

when i arrived at work, i started in on making omlettes and teaching frank o'hara, two things i love, and two things that are hard to do. making an omlette is hard to do. teaching frank o'hara is hard to do.



the meaningful thing today is a realization that the kids in my life are keeping me honest right now. and a question: have i wanted to be in academia because there is more of a glossy sheen over the whole thing, that it carries with it more social status, and a kind of meaning that i want to ascribe to my life whether or not it is authentically there? that perhaps the more direct, hands-on work required of me in raising children and teaching in a public school is a little more, shall we say, vocational and practical, and therefore it is a little harder to scam myself into thinking that i'm important and essential (this is where jenna m. comes in--ever the delusional narcissist)???? and this is all forcing me to do what we call in both yoga and therapy ego work. i think this is the main work i'll be doing over the coming years.

this is a small sample of ego work: do i need to do this pose because it's good for me? do i want to do it so my yogi/other yogis think i'm cool and strong, even though it might hurt me? do i know i shouldn't do it, and i'm gonna do it anyway?

that probably came out sounding like woozy bullshit. but i really mean it. i might be able to articulate it better on another day when i'm not feeling more tired than i ever have felt before in my entire life.

anyway, i'm teaching ekphrasis right now, and this frank o'hara/larry rivers intersection inspires me.

(the rivers painting washington crossing the delaware is posted above, with a stanza from o'hara's poem on seeing larry rivers' washington crossing the delaware at the museum of modern art is posted below)

To be more revolutionary than a nun
is our desire, to be secular and intimate
as, when sighting a redcoat, you smile
and pull the trigger. Anxieties
and animosities, flaming and feeding

on theoretical considerations and
the jealous spiritualities of the abstract
the robot? they're smoke, billows above
the physical event. They have burned up.
See how free we are! as a nation of persons.

hope it inspires you.

hope you like it.

hope you write an ekphrasis today.

hope you click on this link and watch jacques making an omlette, and then make your own for dinner. i promise you it's beautiful and delicious. (and also check out my students making omlettes today. they were so pro.)

tights: charcoal/black leopoard with a small hole forming on the big toe after only two wearings.