William Faulkner’s Resignation

Posted on August 20, 2017 by Kyle Kimberlin

William Faulkner is my favorite writer. I fell in love with his work in college, where in 1986 I took a graduate level course in the themes of generation in his novels. I was a senior – an undergrad – but the professor was cool and let me in.

So being such a fan, I was pleased to see a link on Twitter to the letter quoted below.

After college, Faulkner worked as a postmaster for 3 years. He despised the job and basically didn’t do it much. He spent his days writing, drinking, playing bridge, showing up late, leaving early, and occasionally losing or throwing away the mail. Can you imagine a brain that size trapped in such a place?

Eventually, Faulkner’s indifference caught up with him and he resigned. I knew the story but I’d never seen the resignation. And when I started to read it tonight, the screen went black and there was an evil pop-up, demanding I disable my ad blocker. Newp. I think not. I found the letter elsewhere and offer it here for you.

I think my reaction is in the spirit of Faulkner’s own.

[October, 1924]

As long as I live under the capitalistic system, I expect to have my life influenced by the demands of moneyed people. But I will be damned if I propose to be at the beck and call of every itinerant scoundrel who has two cents to invest in a postage stamp.

This, sir, is my resignation.

(Signed)

Space Poop

Posted on August 20, 2017 by Kyle Kimberlin

What?

Writer Chuck Wendig has a funny and insightful post on his Terrible Minds blog, about the essential nature of writing as resource management. It’s not as dull as it sounds. Check it out.

something small

Posted on August 9, 2017 by Kyle Kimberlin

Things are falling down on me
heavy things I could not see
When I finally came around
something small would pin me down.

– Phish

The Introverts’ Manifesto – Note 1

Posted on July 21, 2017 by Kyle Kimberlin

If we are going to survive these enervating days, we need to come to an understanding. We must give each other space to Be. We should stop demanding the use of each other’s minds to further our own questionable, possibly misbegotten, ends.

American culture in 2017 is scripted for television, in the worst possible sense. Viewer discretion is not only advised, it may be crucial to our hopes for sanity. Covfefe the Clown thinks he’s holding court in the Big Top, the Center Ring, but in reality we all have lives that are much more important to us, far closer, more pressing and urgent, day to day. 45 is just a sideshow barker surrounded by flying monkeys, screaching “Welcome to the Grand Illusion. Come on in and see what’s happening. Pay the price, get your tickets to the Show!”

Don’t fall for it. Your mind was made for better things. You have a truth to express and it’s entirely possible it exists in no other mind in the world. I mean you won’t find it in opinions, in the results of other people’s thinking. No one else can think what you can think. Find the freedom to think it.

Proposed First Rule of the Creative Life

Whenever someone is creating something where there was nothing before, don’t interrupt.
Sub part A: Transpersonal expressions count, whether you believe it or not.
Sub part B: Making Nothing out of anything should be assessed with strictest scrutiny.

Metaphors be with you.

…

Listen to Styx, The Grand Illusion:

https://goo.gl/U34LmZ

Words

Posted on July 21, 2017 by Kyle Kimberlin

All my life I’ve looked at words as though I were seeing them for the first time.

– Ernest Hemingway

A Concentration

Posted on July 9, 2017 by Kyle Kimberlin

Poetry is above all a concentration of the power of language, which is the power of our ultimate relationship to everything in the universe.

– Adrienne Rich

Unspeakable

Posted on July 5, 2017 by Kyle Kimberlin

Poetry is the art of saying the unsayable, that which can only be said in a kind of music, which can be said in no other way.

I have always felt, very strongly, that all art should be allowed to speak for itself. Maybe that’s most essentially true of poetry.

Res ipsa loquitur.

Our lives are a mystery to us. So much happens at the level of shadow and heartbeat, of spirit, breath and reflection.

If you ask a poet, “what does it mean?” you’re asking for the unspeakable to be spoken, for a song without music, for a kind of life demeaned and stripped of art. If it could be said the way you want it explained, it wouldn’t be poetry in the first place. You’re asking him to take that work out of its context and put it in yours.

Read it again. Read it at sunrise or in the bathtub. Read it while rain pounds on the house. Read it with one eye open or with a mouth full of feathers and wine. Read it over and over until it gets through to you. Or give up. Move on and try again when you’re older. When you can hear the clock more clearly ticking, maybe it’s time.

His art is eccentricity, his aim
How not to hit the mark he seems to aim at,

His passion how to avoid the obvious,
His technique how to vary the avoidance.

– Robert Francis

http://poemhunter.blogspot.com/2007/05/pitcher.html

Adagio Before Dinner

Posted on July 2, 2017 by Kyle Kimberlin

Sunday, late afternoon and early summer.
Cooking smells rise from the four directions
of time, past, future, now, and forever.
The small dog dozes in shadow, as do I.

The songbirds and a ring neck dove
in the jacaranda join the breeze
and the windchimes for a long quartet.
Adagio for a sabbath of forgotten prayers.

I don’t remember you very well anymore,
and that’s no fault of mine. I remained.
There are days when I am still, listening,
and I can hear the planet turn and sigh.

J. Kyle Kimberlin
7.02.2017

Creative Commons Licensed

Have nothing

Posted on July 1, 2017 by Kyle Kimberlin

“Have nothing in your homes that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.”
-William Morris.

There are many things around me that claim their beauty from a still, small place on the arc of memory.

Happy Bloomsday

Posted on June 16, 2017 by Kyle Kimberlin

“Open your eyes now. I will. One moment. Has all vanished since? If I open and am for ever in the black adiaphane. Basta! I will see if I can see.
See now. There all the time without you: and ever shall be, world without end.”
― James Joyce, Ulysses

Commander in Cheese

Posted on May 27, 2017 by Kyle Kimberlin

…on the obedience we all give to Trump.

Imagine this: One night you’re watching TV and Trump appears in a breaking news address, live from the Oval Office, with the portrait of Jackson behind him. He’s gripping his diamond encrusted golden iPhone and live-tweeting as he says, “I’m the president now and trust me I’m the best president there ever was, really fantastic, and I command all of you to think about me every day, a lot every day, and it will be some really great thinking because it’s about me.”

Would you do as you’re told? Well, some people would. But the majority of Americans would flip the bird at their TV, say something to the effect of kiss my ass you ignorant and perfidious bastard, and spend the rest of the evening thinking about Trump anyway.

What? Yep.

What if El Cheeto Bandito could make you think about him for hours every day, and every evening before you go to bed, without ever saying that’s what he wants? No demands or commands or pleas, just continuous, unflinching, attention. How much and how often do you think about Trump? You’re thinking about him right now, and you think about him a lot. So do I.

“But wait, no,” you say, “we have to keep watching him, we have to keep an eye on him because he’s fucking up the whole country and pounding democracy flatter than hammered shit and he must be vigilant or he’ll get away with it.”

Prove it. Prove that our constant vigilance is making an actual difference. There are 340-some-odd million Americans. How many have to be learning about the latest Babyhands Atrocities at any given moment?

“But I don’t worry about him because I like him or support or agree,” you insist. “I think about him because I hate him! I haaaaaate him soooo muuuch! And I haaate every treasonous sumbitch who voted for him and I hope they pop like a big bag of Orville Redenbachers on the stoves of hell foreeeeever.” Cool. I’m with you on that. But all that hatred hurts Vile Lord Damput exactly how?

Here’s the ironic part. Our obsession with Trump, our addiction to the continuous effluvium of his stupidities, and our hatred of him and his supporters and everything they represent really does do a lot of damage. To us.

Der Hair Fuhrer is not worthy of a passing thought, let alone our constant contemplation. But we are giving Darth Donald vast tracts of our time, our sense of peace and contentment, our full attention, and ultimately our lives. And we’re giving all that up for free. He is sucking the happiness out of our homes and families, the focus out of our work, and the light out of our days, and we’re letting him do it. The stress is shredding our nervous systems and robbing us of sleep.

Enough. I say enough. It’s time to evict The Landlord from the vacation rentals between our ears for non payment, commission of waste, and intentional infliction of emotional distress.

Let’s cut back, way back. Let’s learn to pace ourselves because impeachment is going to be a long and muddy road. Maybe check the news every few days to see if the Republic still stands, OK. But otherwise find our way back to the things we love and Beings who love us and get on with our lives. There is no better way to beat the Trumps of the world than to show them they don’t matter, they don’t dominate, and we will not follow them into the darkness.