Life Update

So not much of the "exciting" variety has been happening the last couple of weeks. Mostly studying and Netflix and half-price sushi. But here are just a couple of things because I haven't posted in forever.

The guys played possibly their best show at one of the most awesome Open Ranges yet. 

I went to see my mom's beautiful new pedestrian bridge open up to get the students to the stadium, which was pretty awesome.

\

I explored the tailgating labyrinth with all of these people (AKA, basically every frat boy and sorority girl at UNT). 

And I got to watch the nationally televised football game from the (incredibly nice) President's box, even though I only stayed for about 90 seconds of the action playing. 

 

And finally, I got to watch George Watsky perform his famous spoken-word poetry on his tour, which was seriously incredible. I was also impressed by the spoken-word talent here at UNT. Such a cool art form.  

Watching Watsky, it really hit me what kinds of things my generation is doing for culture. Thirty years ago, a twenty-two-year-old kid like George Watsky (who's an Emerson College grad, by the way) wouldn't get the chance to travel around for a living, performing original poetry for college students and getting paid for doing it. But because of the Internet, because of the sheer power of YouTube, this kid--and many others like him--are exposed to millions and millions of people, opening up a whole mine of new audiences with an inexhaustible hunger for new art, new words, new opinions and perspectives. Maybe one in a thousand people like spoken word poetry. Maybe that's not enough to give it a location-specific home. But today, location is irrelevant. Our networks connect us instantly with everyone in America--in the whole world--who share our tastes, which gives small-time artists a chance they never would have had in any other time. 

I just think that's so cool. 

It's All About the Blackbird.

Here is possibly the coolest poem ever, by Wallace Stevens, America's mid-century Insurance Executive/poet. I could spend hours discussing this piece, and did today, in my English class.

I promise the poems will stop soon--we're moving on to our drama unit next week. But really, what did you expect?

Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird

                    I 

Among twenty snowy mountains,
The only moving thing
Was the eye of the blackbird.

                   II 

I was of three minds,
Like a tree
In which there are three blackbirds.

                  III 

The blackbird whirled in the autumn winds.
It was a small part of the pantomime.

                  IV

A man and a woman
Are one.
A man and a woman and a blackbird
Are one.

                    V 

I do not know which to prefer,
The beauty of inflections
Or the beauty of innuendoes,
The blackbird whistling
Or just after.

                    VI

Icicles filled the long window
With barbaric glass.
The shadow of the blackbird
Crossed it, to and fro.
The mood
Traced in the shadow
An indecipherable cause.

                    VII 

O thin men of Haddam,
Why do you imagine golden birds?
Do you not see how the blackbird
Walks around the feet
Of the women about you?

                    VIII 

I know noble accents
And lucid, inescapable rhythms;
But I know, too,
That the blackbird is involved
In what I know.

                    IX 

When the blackbird flew out of sight,
It marked the edge
Of one of many circles.

                    X 

At the sight of blackbirds
Flying in a green light,
Even the bawds of euphony
Would cry out sharply.

                    XI 

He rode over Connecticut
In a glass coach.
Once, a fear pierced him,
In that he mistook
The shadow of his equipage
For blackbirds.

                    XII 

The river is moving.
The blackbird must be flying.

                    XIII 

It was evening all afternoon.
It was snowing
And it was going to snow.
The blackbird sat
In the cedar-limbs.

Wallace Stevens

Because I just wrote my first college essay...

A poem! Which I wrote my essay on! Just for you! (No, you don't want to hear what I had to say about it.)

Tell all the truth but tell it slant -
Success in Circuit lies
Too bright for our infirm Delight
The Truth's superb surprise
As Lightning to the Children eased
With explanation kind
The Truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind - 

                                               Emily Dickinson

And here's another one that I really liked. Just because. (ShutupI'manEnglishmajor) 

                Echo

Come to me in the silence of the night;
  Come in the speaking silence of a dream;
Come with soft rounded cheeks and eyes as bright
  As sunlight on a stream;
    Come back in tears,
O memory, hope, love of finished years.

Oh dream how sweet, too sweet, too bitter sweet,
  Whose wakening should have been in Paradise,
Where souls brimful of love abide and meet;
  Where thirsting longing eyes
     Watch the slow door
That opening, letting in, lets out no more. 

Yet come to me in dreams, that I may live
  My very life again tho' cold in death:
Come back to me in dreams, that I may give
  Pulse for pulse, breath for breath:
     Speak low, lean low,
As long ago, my love, how long ago. 

Christina Rossetti