april 13
1. haircut
2.write & send
3.bring in motorcycle
4.gym
5.clean room, laundry

i'm going to make this quick because i'm already getting anxious about the list. I've always liked that photo of lewis payne. for a man about to be executed for participating in the assassination of president lincoln, i can't imagine what would be going through his head at the time the photo was taken, but what a haunting expression.

been reading 'the sun also rises' hemingway; listening to La Roux, XX, you say party, we say die!
been watching: nothing (except gossip girl with R.)

-Lewis Payne 1865

April 6

Maybe I'll make some coffee. Will return.

Now I'm going to read Lorca's essay Play and Theory of the Duende. Will return.

I'm glad I read that. Thanks, R., for the recommendation.

Essentially, Lorca divides the impetus of the artist into three catagories: (muse) intellect, (angel) grace and (duende) spirit; or mind, body and heart. You create art in sync with muse and angel. To them you yeild, you obey. But the duende, the heart (Lorca prefers 'blood') is a demon you battle, something that wounds you. The benefits you reap are sown from that wound which never heals.
Death is a necessary component of duende. It haunts man; supplies the fabric for his song / performance. Duende allows the artist to get behind the conventional trappings we prescribe death, which only serve to distance us from the poignancy of loss and mystery. The artist mourns, not with odes, but with ones own proximity to death. The artist dances with sorrow. Lorca says that spoken word, dance and song are the best forms of the duende, because they demand the body move with it. Spirit requires immediacy and the human form. It demands honesty and courage of the artist. A performance cannot be learned or duplicated; it is drawn from within, from the blood.
The bullfighter, in his dance with the bull and with death, is also an artist capable of expressing duende.

cool beans.

This poem, which Lorca uses as an example of duende, I found especially pretty:

In the garden
I will die.
In the roses
they will kill me.
I was going, mother,
to pick roses,
to find death
in the garden
I was going, mother
to cut roses,
to find death
amoung the roses.
In the garden
I will die,
in the roses
they will kill me.

-16th c. from Cancionero musical del palacio

I also liked this quote from the essay:
"And just as Germany has, with few exceptions, muse, and Italy shall always have angel, so in all ages Spain is moved by the duende, for it is a country of ancient music and dance where the duende squeezes the lemons of death - a country of death, open to death."

Being Italian I ought to take offense at that, but I'll be the first to admit I'm a whore for aesthetics and the graceful form. Maybe my vampire novel is just another way of gussying up the big D in order to distance myself from it. 'Fuck Death' is my slogan de jour, after all.

I think I might add to my reading list:
Ernest Hemingway. Death in the Afternoon, The Dangerous Summer, and For Whom the Bells Toll.

Hookay. Now to get back to my own writing.

april 5, 2010
an hour every morning. and a list.
1. start blog
2. work on book for respectable length of time
3. finish lorca essays
4. do dishes, put away laundry, groceries & make respectable dinner
5. go to gym
6. book hotel
7. call J.
8. write a reading list for the month
9. work on poem for R.'s project

I feel especially stupid today, but I'm hoping to shake it. I can't be nearly as stupid as I feel or someone would have pointed it out to me by now. Some of my friends are quite smart. I'm sure they wouldn't have anything to do with me if I were as imbecilic as I felt. (God, I would have spelled 'imbecilic' wrong if it were not for spellcheck. That's not good.) I've developed some bad daily routines that are too embarrassing to mention here but I'm resolved to get back on track, the blog being a way to gauge my progress, like the way I used to keep a record of my weight on the fridge. It's easier to stick to goals when people are watching. And you are watching, aren't you, people?

I feel like I'm losing my ability to introspect. It's too easy to escape, and I'm not miserable enough to wallow. It's dangerous being comfortable, and it's dangerously easy to be comfortable. I'm not quite sure how to rectify this. How does one push oneself to the edge without actually endangering life itself? Because I can't very well rent motorcycles in foreign countries every day of the year.

If I were another person, I would never read this blog. Maybe I'll keep this about actual events until I have something worthy of introspection.

Today is Monday and it's raining and I've hauled my ass out of bed at 8am and now I'm going to prepare some oatmeal and then I'm going to write my vampire novel even though it's complete shite. I'm listening to Bon Iver which I didn't like at all a year ago, but it now suits me just fine. I've always thought the state of one's living space reflects one's state of your mind. My fridge is bare, my clean laundry is all over the floor and the bathroom has gone dropped to some new level of biohazard. At least the laundry is clean; I haven't hit rock bottom yet.

Maybe I'll just move onto that book list:
For April:
Origin of Species

Not much of a list, I'll admit. I'll add onto it later.

Signing out. See you tomorrow.

It's Monday. You can warm your hands to the color of leaves in the park across the street. I wonder again at the simultaneous feelings of awe and melancholy I experience seeing them. Mono no aware, the Japanese call it - our sensitivity to ephemera. Autumn is my favorite season but I find it damn distracting. I never know where my emotions are coming from. I'm living inside out.

Finished two books. Claudia Dey's Stunt and Stieg Larsson's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. I think I'll continue Dawkin's On the Origin of Species, in addition to Jeremy Dodds' Crabwise to the Hounds. I'm going to take a break from genre fiction for a while.

I ought to be writing my novel right now.
I wish my motorbike was functioning.
I need to go home and do the dishes.
I have to buy socks to replace the ones I lost in Italy.
I must choose what to wear for Halloween.

I'm not sure why I'm writing this blog. Just so you know.