I’ve been informed that tomorrow night is the Academy Awards. Now, I have plans for the evening, and I don’t watch awards shows. It’s just not my thing. It’s cool if you like ‘em. Enjoy. Who am I to criticize? Which reminds me of something I read:

A critic is someone who goes out on the battlefield after the battle is over and kills all the wounded.

Enjoy the show!

by Robert Frost

It is right in there

Betwixt and between

The orchard bare

And the orchard green,

When the boughs are right

In a flowery burst

Of pink and white,

That we fear the worst.

For there’s not a clime

But at any cost

Will take that time

For a night of frost.

——————————————————————————–

… I remember

your face, like fog in a morning orchard;

so gentle and still and forming in my mind

until the trees begin to ring.

A soft hymn of stones

may answer from the shrouded hills,

but we will be asleep by then.

from Hymn of Stones

12/11/98

A poignant interview with poet Susan Atefat-Peckham, who died recently – much too young. She speaks of the middle east and her poetry.

Well, it’s finally here. I ordered a complete book of the poems of Robert Frost and it arrived yesterday. As I drove up the street, I saw the postman trotting back to his little truck, having left my new book on the porch. It’s nice and thick, over 400 pages of poems. It ought to be for 16 bucks I guess.

I’m sure you’re wondering why I would bother to bring it up. Well, it’s just that I’m really into poetry. Have been for many years. I’ve been writing it for 24 years, since right after high school. I just thought I’d mention it, in case you’re looking for a blog about Howard Stern or something. I got a little carried away on that, but I really couldn’t care less.

I despise Howard Stern. The guy is such a vacuum of social value that for years I’ve hated the fact that he’s out there, on the air, even though I’m ignoring him. I am so glad he’s taking a blow to his career from Clear Channel. Maybe he’ll get out of “entertainment” and realize there’s a dream job out there for him: washing windshields of cars stuck in traffic, and trying to get people to cough up a buck.

I can’t tell you how glad I was to learn that Clear Channel fired that lowlife miscreant Bubba the Love Sponge. I remember the day in February 2000 when he castrated and butchered a live pig, on the air. Bubba and I exchanged a few e-mails over that one. Wish I knew where those e-mails are now. I’d show you a clear picture of the shallow end of the gene pool. The sponge is just some flotsam, stuck in the filter and collecting scum.

To be fair to DJs and Clear Channel, not all their people suck. Here in Santa Barbara, we have a good rock station, KTYD. It’s been around since 1973, so they had their act together before Clear Channel got involved. But the Early Show is cool, if you’re ever listening in SB in the morning, 6-10. The DJ, Matt McAllister, actually seems to care about the community, kids, and pets. … the deeper end of the pool.

I was watching my favorite TV show, The West Wing, tonight. The press secretary, CJ Craig, is meeting with a reporter from the NY Times and wants some information from him, but it’s against his policy to provide it in advance of publication. The reporter obviously accidentally drops the information on the floor. They both know he did it deliberately. He asks for an interview with the president, which CJ agrees to. OK, enough set up…

What caught my attention was that he dropped a floppy disk. It might have been a Zip disk, but I think it was a floppy, a plain old 3.5 MS-DOS preformatted floppy disk. Man, those were the days.

I know, floppies aren’t cool anymore. I’ve got a burner for CD-R and CD-RW, and I use that most of the time. But my desktop and laptop (“Old Sparky”) aren’t networked. There’s no wi-fi in my condo. So if I get home with the laptop and I haven’t e-mailed my writing to myself, or put it on FTP, I use a floppy. I darn sure don’t want to disconnect the cable and hook it to Sparky if I don’t have to.

So I like floppy disks. They’re small and funky and they make you prioritize – you have to think about what’s worth copying and what’s not. ‘Cause you only have 1.4mb to work with. That’s it. Choose, or sit there moving stuff over and over. Yep, back in my day we had these little plastic things with little plastic tabs to keep you from hosing something good. Floppies and moon pies, RC Cola and Grandpa’s cassette tapes of the Dead. [Sigh.]

* * *

About Sparky: One time at work, a buddy of mine came by the cube with a voltmeter. I don’t know why, but he was running it past the computers to see how much they were leaking. My laptop lit that thing up like a Christmas tree. It’s discharging enough ambient juice to cook soup. Hence, Sparky.

A court in Columbia is expected to rule today on posthumously restoring the military honor of the grandfather of Gabriel García Márquez. [news]

Follow this link to find three beautiful poems by Cesar Vallejo, a beautiful poet.

my death goes away, my cradle leaves,

and, surrounded by people, alone, cut loose,

my human resemblance turns around

and dispatches its shadows one by one.

* * *

I remember we made ourselves cry,

brother, from so much laughing.

I took my dog Tasha to the vet today for a followup. I’ve posted the outcome on her blog.

not with a bang but a gurgle.

A Diary of those working with the Amar Foundation which is bringing humanitarian aid to the people of the South Eastern Iranian town of Bam.

“It was a brilliant spring morning, the day before Easter and the sun still low beyond the house and filtered through the trees. I squinted my eyes and the light through the branches broke into star points, novas, flashes. From there you couldn’t see that the garden was gone, it’s grapestake fence torn down a few years back and hauled off by the Mexican workers. It was a lot of wood, and they piled it behind the barn. I plowed the garden under myself, and planted grass to let the lawn drift away from the house as far as the edge of the apple trees.

Tuber roses bloomed in the brick planter at the edge of the patio. Yellow streaked with faded red. It stood there to remind me of Easter. Yellow and red, so beautiful, I almost stopped to pray. No wonder the sky was clear, the jays dropping from the power lines behind the house to the lawn where Dad had thrown out seeds. In all the years I remember, it never rained in Cortina on Easter. Not even a sunshower, hardly a cloud. I went on past the roses, and into the house by the screen porch door, careful not to let the spring slam it shut.”

© by Kyle Kimberlin, 2004: novel in process