Cellular Telephones

Here's maybe the second best thing about Cellular Telephones:

If you want to talk to yourself, but there are other people around, you can pretend to get a call, and then you just have to do a little fake intro conversation and go into whatever it is you want to say. No one will be the wiser, unless you're a really poor actor, and it's obvious that no one actually called you, and then you'll look even weirder because you're not only talking to yourself, but you're pretending to talk to someone else, and even waiting for them to say stuff.

Here's maybe the third best thing about Cellular Telephones:

Rural electrification: seedbed of the unforseen.

Called life, she is a pomegranate pecked clean by birds and entirely become a part of their flying

This is something I liked:

"All the world exists because God keeps asking, 'Do you love me?', and God keeps answering, 'I love you.'"

Sunrises vs. Sunsets

So I thought of one other story about bad poetry that I thought I'd include in a separate post:

My high school had a yearly "knowledge bowl" competition, which I entered all three years that I was there. My first year, this was as a sophomore, I was on a team with Ross W. Warren (the W. stands for William - he wasn't too fond of that name and probably wouldn't want me to include it here) and Catherine Green and Sherry Cope. There was a rule that each team had to have two guys and two girls, which was instituted after my older brother's all-male team blew the competition (much of it co-ed) out of the water. The way they explained the new rule when it was announced was that it was intended to "give the girls a chance," so my sister refused to ever participate while she was there, even though Johnny Frandsen (?) practically begged her to join his team. Anyway, Ross and I were by no means sexist (though Ross might have been a little sexist at that point - I can't say for sure) but we weren't around when they made their outrageous statements justifying the co-ed teams, so we didn't feel like a boycott was necessary. Our problem was that we didn't have many female friends, so Ross basically walked up to a group of girls who were in some of our classes, and asked if there were two who wanted to join our team, and Catherine and Sherry volunteered. That's only sort of my memory - I think I've mostly invented it, but I have no other memory of how the team was assembled.

On the first day of Knowledge Bowl competition, I went to meet my team outside of the auditorium about 15 minutes before our first round was supposed to start, as we'd arranged. However, no one was there. I waited a while, wondering why nobody was showing up, until a minute or two before we were supposed to be competing, the three of them showed up together. Apparently, someone had reported to the principal that Ross had made the girls on our team sign a contract saying that they'd never answer any questions or participate in any way - just sit there to fulfill gender requirements. This was in no way true (though it wouldn't have been entirely unbelievable from Ross), so the principal, after Catherine and Sherry assured him that they'd never signed any such contract or made any agreement like that in any way, decided not to disqualify us. We went on to win that first round handily. The girls didn't say much, but I think eventually both of them answered multiple questions. A lot of that related to their being less aggressive in buzzing in to answer than Ross and I were. But after buzzing in, we'd have a few seconds to discuss things if we wanted, and even if they hadn't buzzed and didn't give the answer, they would give their opinions in these situations.

Later, while we were waiting for another round, we were sitting in the auditorium watching two other teams compete. We also happened to be sitting right behind the team against which we were about to compete. We would, as a team, whisper answers to questions as this round progressed. Mr. Mike Olsen was reading questions, and he got to one which he began by giving a category - "The category for this next question is: Bad Poetry." So I immediately whispered, "Charge of the Light Brigade." Ross laughed, and Mr. Olsen read the question - "What poem contains the following line: Into the valley of death rode the six hundred?" My jaw dropped and I turned and looked at Ross, who was also in shock, because I'd been right. When neither of the teams competing at the time got it, Mr. Olsen read the answer, and immediately all four members of the team in front of us turned around and stared at me with these kind of "What kind of a sicko are you?" looks - apparently they could hear our whispering. I just kind of smiled back with a "You've got no idea" smile, which must have been enough to intimidate them because we beat them pretty easily as well.

We went on to make it to the finals that year, and were competing against two teams of seniors. Justin Thorpe and Matt Edwards were on one of the teams, PJ Bingham, that cocky son-of-a-gun, was on the other. There were other people, but I personally knew Justin, Matt beat out my sister for Valedictorian, and PJ was a cocky son-of-a-gun, so I remember them. The whole school came to watch the finals in an assembly, but those competing got out of class a few minutes early to do... whatever, so I left class at the appointed hour only to find PJ Bingham exiting the classroom next to mine. We had no choice but to walk to the auditorium together, and he took advantage of that opportunity to do some trash talking. He said something about how it was pretty good for a team of sophomores to make it to the finals, but everybody knew this was going to come down to a competition between the two teams of seniors. I nodded politely and smiled, and said he was probably right, but I'd have two more years to keep trying to win.

So the competition began, and after maybe half an hour, all the prepared questions had been given. The score stood at 21 for the Thorpe/Edwards team, 21 for my team, and -1 for the PJ Bingham (that cocky son-of-a-gun) team. In the match, there were several music questions for which they would play a clip of a (classical) piece of music and we had to identify either the name of the song or the composer. There were also similar art questions for which they'd project a painting onto a screen and we had to name the title or the artist. Justin Thorpe got at least 9 out of 10 music questions, and I got about the same percentage of art questions, which had helped to keep our scores pretty even throughout the match. I only remember PJ Bingham answering one question, and that was one when I thought I'd been the only person to buzz in and gave the answer - Deleware - when he'd actually beat me to the buzzing but couldn't think of the answer until I said it. Justin Thorpe got one art question - and I shook my head in protest because he said The Screamer instead of The Scream for the title of that Munch painting. Mr. Mike Olsen hesitated when he said that, but decided to give it to him.

So when we got to the end in a tie, they were trying to decide how to break it. I thought they should take away the point from that close but incorrect answer and call us the winners, but instead they decided they had a lot more clips of music on their CD that they hadn't used yet, so they'd give us five more music questions for the tie breaker. Ross guessed "Carmen" for an operatic piece - I, though I didn't recognize the opera, thought we should go with Verdi for the composer just because it seemed like Verdi wrote 5 out of 6 operas. It wasn't Carmen. It was by Verdi. And we lost.

Sunrises v. Sunsets

Sunsets are a lot more attractive that sunrises. I don't understand why, but there are always, or generally, much better colors at sunset. Some people may claim that this has to do with physics, but I would argue it's just a matter of character. But I've decided I like sunrises more than sunsets, overall. Sunsets are just a little too fleeting, if you know what I mean. Sunrises are still attractive, but they seem a little more down to earth, a little more substantive, a little more encouraging. I was on the staff of the literary magazine for my high school in 2003, and mostly helped to judge the poetry and short story competitions. Let me tell you, a lot of junk gets written in high schools. The sad part is that the people who write it must feel like it's good. Anyway, I wrote two poems for the literary magazine. One because each member of the staff was asked to submit one, and one to submit to the poetry competition under a fake name. See, other staff members went around to all the English classes to announce the contest, and by the time they came to my class, they'd invented a rule that poems couldn't be about suicide. So I wrote a poem which I titled "Suicide" and submitted it under the name of Hester Nesbit. It had essentially nothing to do with death, other than that it began and ended with the line "I have no fear of death." I also submitted a story as Hester Nesbit to the short story contest, it was intentionally terrible but written in a way that the other members of the staff might think it was good. I wanted to see what they'd do with it. Unfortunately, there was only one other kid there when we judged the short stories, and he said he really liked it, but Mr. Filmore, our adviser, pointed out that it didn't have any kind of a plot in any way. And the kid said, Oh, I guess that's true. Mr. Filmore asked me what I thought about it, and I said I liked one sentence (I did) but the rest was pretty terrible (it was). Which was the end of that story. "Suicide" didn't win any prizes either, though it probably should have. It wasn't that great, but really, when 9 out of 10 poems are:

I hate the world.
Everyone else sucks.
You're all losers and
can go to hell for all
I care because you are
stupid and don't understand
me. My boyfriend said he
cared but then he was
with that slut the next
night so I just said
f*** you and flipped him
off.

Sorry for the language, but that's a direct quote. Or close enough to a direct quote to justify the language, though I did at least edit that one bit. (I really do try to be sensitive.) "Suicide" just got thrown out with these type of poems by every one else on the staff, and I couldn't say much because I didn't want Hester Nesbit to win the $20 Barnes and Noble gift certificate.

But back to sunrises - the poem I submitted under my own name was in part about a sunrise, and I titled it WINTERS COMING in all caps like that. The idea was that, given that the opening lines talked about snow, you'd initially think of the title as a possessive - Winter's coming - but then you'd realize that there wasn't an apostrophe, so maybe a direct reading, with coming serving as an adjective modifying multiple winters, could be intended. Which was about half of the poem's merit - leading thoughts from a single winter to many, from present to future. I'd reproduce the poem here, but I'd rather not. Really, I don't like it much. But get this - whoever typed up this poem for the literary magazine decided to "edit" it and corrected my title, so that in its published form, it's titled "Winter's Coming." They also changed the damns in Hester's story to darns. This only made it even worse, and it should never have been published, but they only had three or four stories submitted, so they printed them all.

The saddest thing I've ever seen in my life was an article in the Spanish Fork Press about a local woman who'd won a poetry competition. This was all fine, but when I went on to read the article, it turned out it was an online poetry contest that she'd entered, and within just a couple days she got an email announcing that she'd won and they wanted to publish her poem! She could even purchase a leather bound, archival quality volume with gold-colored edging featuring her poem with the other winners! And she could purchase multiple copies to give to her friends and relatives so that they could recognize her achievement! And she could buy a trophy for her 1st place poem! They article featured a photo of her being (mock)presented this trophy by her son or someone. She probably also bought several copies of the book. They printed her award-winning poem, and it looked about like the kind of poem that most often wins poetry contests - really really bad, but acting like it was good. I've never claimed to be a good poet (which is probably a lie), but I've got a pretty good eye for really bad poems, and this one was among the worst. I was heart-broken to imagine her celebrating her victory and contacting the local paper to have them write a story about it. But I'm sure she's still very proud of her poem and her achievement, and has never regretted spending potentially hundreds of dollars on archival quality volumes of poetry and trophies, so there's maybe no reason to be sad at all.

This is all on my mind in part because, as Chandler pointed out, most of the poets we're likely to find in Argentina will be pretty mediocre at best. But I think the purpose isn't to find good poetry or bad poetry or to make any kind of judgment of poetry - but in sharing poetry as a way to meet random interesting people. And moving away from poetry as art to poetry as human.

These are the things I can't tell you:

I

What I can’t tell you,
I can hide in what I can.

II

For example, I can say:
I wish that I lived in the
sea – black, wet, dark,
wet and floating under
white foam and black
waves. I can write: I

wish white foam would
carry my dead form to
wet sand, dark and
floating around and over
your bare feet. I can

dream that the sun
would dry me to black
and brittle meaning, that
memory and deceit would
evaporate beside white
foam. A divulging pyre.

III

If I were a crab, I would
run the wrong way, not
toward the water at all,
but toward the camera.

IV

The last time I went to the beach,
it was a cold and windy day.

I wasn’t dressed to swim, or even
to wade in salt water. Instead

I was dressed to walk along the beach
and look at the colors of plants

made from plastic – ironic colors
designed to contrast with the grey sky.

I was dressed to discover a dead sea lion
on the beach. To see it from a distance,

but not to get too close.

Polenta

The purpose of this blog is to tell of polenta and its many wonders. Actually, I've no intention of doing anything of the kind. Instead, I have half a mind to write about Victory. What would be more interesting, however, is a discussion of the Curtiss Candy Company, and the Baby Ruth Candy Bar. Maybe you've heard it explained before that the Baby Ruth candy bar isn't named after Babe Ruth (which seems the obvious explanation for the name) but was instead named after Ruth Cleveland, the daughter of President Grover Cleveland who was born between his two terms as president. But apparently, this was all just a lie made up by the Curtiss Candy Company when they first made the Baby Ruth so that they couldn't be sued. This is all explained here. What is also fascinating is the merger history of Nabisco.