Mere Anarchy

Mere Anarchy

Guilty parties.
ryan shaun wendy simon

Critical evidence.
andre breton
james dickey
kafka
theodore roethke
wb yeats
sylvia
ts eliot
irvine welsh
chuck palahniuk
dostoevsky

Forensic reports.
edward gorey
man ray
simon boses

Admissions of guilt.
deadcandance
cohen
nick cave
natalie merchant
rammstein
iggy pop

Crime scenes
aurora picture show
diverseworks
theater LaB houston
voices breaking boundaries

Damning testimony.
surrealism
roller derby
exploding dog
levity
girlsarepretty

It is true that the simple things are the best. When an event has been stripped of all artifice down to a simple liquid grace its enough to make you stop. Watching a woman dress when she doesn't know you are there is one of those things. The slotted light of the afternoon sun through the blinds slides over her body. The fickle gown of light and shadow snakes around her waist, cups the underside of her breast, fills the hollow of her collarbone, blows across the low dunes of her sholders. She bends at the waist and and I know the joy of Actaeon. I hold my breath and listen for my dogs. posted by James @ 3:48 PM	Samstag, Januar 18, 2003
The front page of the Austin American-Statesman: Five teens charged in a taped assult. With their video cameras rolling, five teenages beat, kicked, and laughed at a special education student as he waited at a bus stop. This makes me sad beyond words. There was no motive. The kid was sixteen. Three of his attackers were eighteen. This type of random, purposeless brutality makes me physically ill. I don't understand, and I'm not sure I want to. "Fuck Jesus. Jesus had it easy- one day on the cross, and the weekend in hell. We have to live here." -25th Hour posted by James @ 1:15 PM	Donnerstag, Januar 16, 2003
I have a lot of time so I am going to share this with you. I have a close relationship with my parents, my daughter, and my brothers. We are all very, very different. My current reason for thinking this way is generations. I know that it is simple to say that experiences shape you, but its simple. Its simple and its true, its simply true. I think about the things that shaped my life, those few moments when I stood still and the world moved. The challenger explosion. My younger brother and I wanted to be astronauts. The movies were in love with space. Space was something pure and beautiful. It was the last place that you could explore. There was no poverty, no war, it was immense, and perfect. I wanted to float weightless. I wanted to rocket past the stars, have dinner with aliens, come home a hero, "the papers want to know whose shirt you wear". When the challenger exploded,something happened deep inside me. Space broke. I did not know to be afraid until I saw what I could not believe. We started killing ourselves. I don't know why. The matter is too close to me for me to really understand it. I assumed that my childhood was like my parents was, and like my child's would be. I could not have been more wrong. I know when it happened. I was eleven and I was standing in the hayloft of our barn. I looked out over the summer afternoon, the geese in the pond, my brother leading a calf to pasture, a neighbor raising a cloud of dust with his tractor in the distance, and I wanted to jump. I hurt so bad and I just wanted the hurting to stop. Even though I was very devoted to Catholicism, I knew I wouldn't go to hell. It just didn't seem fair, and God was fair. I didn't jump because it would make my mom sad and because I probably would just end up hurt, then life would go from bad to worse. It really picked up in high school. Lots of perscription overdoes, and wrist slitting. A few hung themselves and died terrible choking deaths, some shot themselves, or parked in the garage. This early twilight killed any hope in me that I would make it out of childhood's forest unhurt, if at all. There is more but I don't want to write about it anymore. posted by James @ 11:41 AM
For college freshmen I had to develop clever leatures and ask discussion oriented questions. The hardest part of the job was prodding and pushing the students to ask their own questions and discover their own answers. Working with first graders is like a circus on speed. Everything must be high action and non-stop energy. If there is any lull in the activity they will spoontaniously get up dance, jump an the tables, take all the coats out of the closet and roll around on them. They always want to hold your hand or hug. If you raise your voice, or they fall down, they cry. They will tell you anything. "Sir I almost had a brother but he's gone." Gone? "My momma went to the doctor last night and he had no heartbeat. So he's gone." Okayb honey lets fold and paste your triangle. Middle school is hell. I remember being here and hating it as a student. The girls are catty, the boys tougher than the most jaded thug. "Mr. he's writing in the book." "No I'm not." There is a brief scuffle between the two boys. The snitch wins and brings it to the front of the class. He has creatively added a dialog bubble to Sam Houston in which he confesses with alarming honesty- "I like to eat and suc dick." The guilty party is standing there at the front with me and the narc. The class is rapt. You spelled suck wrong. While the class roars, I lean in close. If I see you doing that again, I'm sending you to the principal. Go back to your seat, sit down, be quiet and do your work. I am a cop. I watch for contaband notes. I make sure they at least pretend to work. I rule by threat and intimidation. "Sir some one jacked my pen." Are you sure you didn't drop it? A note passes in my clear view. Bring that here? "What?" The note. "I don't have a note." I saw her pass it to you. She brings me the note. "Its in Spanish." I can read Spanish. The class is dead silent. I don't open the note, but I leave it on my desk. I know have some leverage, at least with them. I just threatened another one. The are all lazy, liars, and schemers. I don't have to work as hard as I did for the first graders, but it is more taxing. posted by James @ 10:50 AM
I went to sleep last night at 5pm. I fell asleep during Saving Private Ryan, the scotch was gone and so was I. I woke up at two am, finished a warm 40 of O.E. and finished my story. I began working on another one. At four am, I watched an episode of Sienfeld I have seen two many times (Hey Kramer nice rooster. What's his name? Little Jerry Seinfeld? Does he bounce checks too?) I realized that I can't make myself fall asleep. I wondered if buying beer at four am (assuming it could be done) is more desparate than buying it at 4pm. Up at six, out the door by seven. And now I am subsitute teaching Texas history to a handful of middle school students. posted by James @ 9:10 AM