i have been invited to a nondualism conference.  the other night i was at the east bay open circle, which is also, as i understand, devoted to non dual teaching.  what does non dual mean?  i am not sure.  nevertheless wind right now is blowing bushes around outside.  ty wiggington in disbelief stood at home plate for a few seconds.  bud selig just said he is going to take over the dodgers franchise due to mismanagement.  this is major news, of concern to us all.  barack obama is somewhere around here today, i know because monica is going to go see him.  i told her to tell him we are all proud of him. it isn't his fault things are so screwed up.  but how screwed up are things actually?  which "things" are we talking about? the bushes seem to be doing fine.  the east bay open circle is pleasantly closed, as all circles are and must be.  in the non dual teaching i guess things are both bad and good.  or beyond bad and good. 

taigen sent a post (forwarded it from someone else) about the travesty of barry bonds being found guilty of obstruction of justice.  too bad barry is such a testy guy.  you can only get away with being testy if you are very very smart - smarter than barry. as smart as christopher hitchens. the point i am trying to make here is.....  

well when norman was writing this it was much better.  but now that i have to do it i can't think of anything to say.  "major league baseball has taken control of the los angeles dodgers."  an authority from above is needed in all things.  then things won't be so screwed up. someone can step in and insure that things will go as planned, as needed.  according to some standard or criterion - and to suit someone.  does this mean someone else will not be suited?  would be wearing instead i suppose jeans. there are so many sorts of jeans it will be difficult to choose.  no one wears an indefinite sort of jeans they are all wearing very specific jeans. relaxed fit, classic fit, stressed, unstressed, etc.  in this case luckily norman is in control and will assure that this writing operates under the stress of some quality control which presses down onto it, causing the random letters which otherwise might make no sense at all to be pressed into understandable words and even sentences which have a complete.  not that that wouldn't.  or that if you had another preference you could.  preference could not that would.  or wouldn't complete sentences press understandable words.  (as dogen would put it).

April 14, 2011

this is the post-facebook blog.  the other blog was excerpts from my personal journal in which i am writing about big important things. for the ages. this blog is quick original thoughts. like facebook - here is what i am doing, here is what i am thinking, here is what i am eating for breakfast.  much more real and raw - isn't that what's wanted?

what is the current status of the blog?  state of the art.  maybe charles bernstein knows.  what is going on online, anyway, people tweeting and so on?  what are we talking about?  who are we talking to?  what is our purpose?  what are you, my dear reader, interested in reading?  what are you looking for as you read this?

who's talking, who's listening?  the convention, that this is zoketsu norman fischer writing his sincere thoughts and feelings, is a fine convention but a dubious reality.  how do you know that the person who generally employs that name is actually writing this?  it would be excellent to hire a writer to write the purported norman fischer’s thoughts into the world wide web.  that writer could either get the thoughts from norman fischer directly or make them up himself or herself.  I am sure celebrities and important people employ such writers.  maybe i (which “i”?) am doing should be doing or will in future be doing this.

it seems blogs must be provocative.  one must say outrageous things or candid revealing things, arresting things, in order to be recognized and read. this is a style. being a person in a time and place – a style.  what style shall we employ? 

is this provocative enough?  can he still be a good religious person if he is being provocative (or if the person writing under this name is provocative – but isn’t this what we are paying him for?)

is it really necessary to use sensible comprehensible words?  why not write, as i often write on the iphone, with keys difficult to strike properly, things like “whsicha,]  wisa sma,a][=osnbp]=       a;onpoiqup    [q9-s b7y0[d7-d7.

typos dopn’t cpount on blogs!  they only indicate sincerity and rawness of expression.

the plane is landing.....

just got charles bernstein's "attack of the difficult poems" in the mail the other day.  terrific book.  charles is always so funny and so astute about the poetry wars, who is up, who is down, and who is controlling the game.  in fact, as he says, no one is paying any attention to poetry - at least to the poetry charles and i would value.  a nod is given in the press and in the public to something called "poetry" and i guess it actually is poetry of some kind but mostly limited to sincere and personal statements of grief, beauty, query, etc.  a little vignette or a moment of epiphany. 

of course there's nothing wrong with this!  but more interesting to me is a poetry that problematizes everything - the poet, the poem, the language itself.  because if you are actually looking closely it becomes clear that all these things really are problems and what's a poem to do if not look closely? anyway, this is my theory.  actually it's not a theory.  i just can't help it.  i have never minded that no one is paying attention to the poems i write.  a few are and that's all right.  but charles is a professional culture warrior (and worrier) so he pays attention to that and fights for his (our) place in the sun, so to speak, and complains about it, makes fun of those who seem not to have a clue about what he and the rest of us are up to.  of course it's more than merely about him/us.  it's also an argument for another world, a more human and humane world, with more honesty and humor, more love, less self-centeredness.  moving away from what he has for years called "official verse culture" to that.  great interview with the astute marjorie perloff.  between the two of them in this interview i think pretty much everything in the literary/cultural world is covered and known. also hilarious.

meantime, i am knee-deep into the makor or passover intensive and just spent the afternoon reading exodus which makes me wonder about many things.  tomorrow i am off to mexico where the government and the drug lords are still locked in combat and people are being killed at an alarming rate,  yesterday people were protesting in the streets.  the mexican psyche is in tatters over this tragedy.