So.

I haven’t updated in awhile. Just like everyone else I suppose I’m settling back into life after break, getting immediately stressed by my colloquium and internship and life in general, etc etc. I had a horrendous week but that just means I’ll have to take that much time this week to relax and recuperate.

Right now I’m reading Henry Miller’s “Tropic of Cancer.” I think I was compelled mostly because the book was banned and has a reputation for being dirty and obscene before, but despite the fact that I’ve never seen the word cunt written so many times before I'm far more struck my his metaphors (although naturally the levels of shock value have drastically changed since the 1930s…). I believe I read somewhere that his writing was an influence for the Beats, sort of a steam-of-consciousness prototype, so while all of this epic prose is coming straight from his observations it’s sometimes easy to forget that he’s there, that the words are filtered through him, so intimate and poignant are his descriptions of the depraved people he takes company with.

In other words, I’m loving it, although in reading it I’m realizing that for some reason I’ve never felt a pull towards Paris. I’m not sure why not, with its reputation for brooding artists and poetic atmosphere, but I’m starting to think that it’s better this way, since I’d rather have it cemented in time as a bohemian and destitute world for Miller and George Orwell to have inhabited.  

I’m also not sure why I love reading about depraved people so much, but I’ve found myself kind of in a funk as of late and what made me feel better, nonsensically, was some Bukowski poetry. What is it about that man- he’s a misogynist, for starters, and a raging, angry alcoholic, but he can write some mean poetry. Case in point:

Alone With Everybody

the flesh covers the bone

and they put a mind

in there and

sometimes a soul,

and the women break

vases against the walls

and the men drink too

much

and nobody finds the

one

but keep

looking

crawling in and out

of beds.

flesh covers

the bone and the

flesh searches

for more than

flesh.

there's no chance

at all:

we are all trapped

by a singular

fate.

nobody ever finds

the one.

the city dumps fill

the junkyards fill

the madhouses fill

the hospitals fill

the graveyards fill

nothing else

fills.

I have the feeling my worldview is a bit melancholic. Also, if you haven’t seen the documentary “Born Into This,” you should.

Also:

Tom Selleck, a waterfall, and a sandwich. The internet is a weird place.